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Book Summary: Functional Combat Conditioning Exercises for Fitness and Combat Sports by Matt Furey

Combat Conditioning was the first book to introduce me to bodyweight exercises for functional strength and endurance. I was the kind of kid in high school sports who was the proverbial “talentless clown.” What I mean by this is that I was very strong, but the natural talent escaped me. I always swore that there are people who are much more talented, but I would never be out of work. Growing up in the exercise craze from the Arnold Schwarzenegger movie “Pumping Iron” led me to lift weights with all my friends. Now when you’re young and you just lift weights to see how strong you are, bad things end up happening. When I had a physical exam before the start of the college football season, the doctor looked at me and politely said, “Hey, idiot, have you ever heard of stretching?” Needless to say, the search began looking for a better way to exercise and gain functional strength. Attorney’s note: I hate them, but they are important. With any exercise routine, check with your doctor to make sure you can perform these routines.

Why is this important to me?

This book will help you gain knowledge of bodyweight exercises that will help you in three areas: strength, endurance, and flexibility. If these three things are not important to you, save yourself 5 minutes and turn off the video. Otherwise, continue with me.

Have you ever seen any of the following: great MMA fighters, cirque du soleil, or a gymnastics competition? All of these phenomenal athletes have functional strength. This means that they can do things with their bodies that 90 percent of the population cannot. The good news is that 90 percent can do these things by changing their exercise routines. Another book you should refer to is Convict Conditioning. This focused more on the strength of the muscles, joints, and tendons. The benefit of that is that you can maintain that strength well into your seventies.

Don’t get me wrong, any type of exercise is better than none. If you’re not doing anything and you start lifting weights, keep doing it. But if you want an inexpensive way to exercise with compound results, this book is for you. A big problem with lifting weights itself is that it uses muscle isolation. This means that if you curl, you isolate the movement of the biceps muscle. This does nothing to create functional strength for your tendons or joints. The human body was designed to work together, so why not shorten your work out and do compound exercises to maximize your results? If you did a simple pull up, you still work your biceps, but you also engage your back, forearms, shoulders, and core along with building functional strength.

Matt describes his Holy Grail of exercise that coined the Royal Court. I will explain each exercise.

The Indian squat is an excellent exercise. When you start out, you can do a half squat like with your arms in front of you parallel to the ground, but as you progress and strength build in your knees, you’ll want to do a full squat with the back of your thighs touching the back of your legs. calves.

Strong legs are good for the body. When you work your legs, you engage your entire body and burn calories all day, even after exercise. Your legs are made up of the largest muscles in your body and it shows the next day when they are sore.

When doing Indian squats, work your way up to three sets of 100. Doing the actual cut in 3 sets cycles is a great exercise that doesn’t take long. If you are traveling then this is a perfect routine because it doesn’t take long.

The Hindu push-up is different than a normal push-up. Start with your feet slightly wider than shoulder width and your butt in the air. Push in a bowing motion (similar to downward facing dog in Yoga). Try to work up to 3 sets of 50 reps. If you’ve never done this before and can only do a couple, don’t be discouraged. Like everything new, it takes practice to develop it.

This exercise will help you with strength, back flexibility, and endurance. Enjoy!

The rear axle gets a lot of bad press. People think that it is harmful to the back and neck. Like anything else, do what is most comfortable for you.

You can join three shapes. Think of this as an exercise and NOT a stretch. You will feel your body warm up when doing this exercise.

You can start with a training ball if you can’t do the neck bridge. Then as you go you can move to the neck bridge (on the head) and then to the gymnastic bridge (with the arms and without the head).

Keep in mind that if you’ve never done them before, they will seem difficult at first. Don’t be frustrated. Before starting to bridge, I had terrible neck and back pain. Imagine because I was just lifting heavy weights with squats and bench presses. Anyway, when I started doing the bridge, all the pain was gone.

The back and neck stretch feels great and the results will speak for themselves. Note: DO NOT force this exercise. Take your time and do it.

Combat Conditioning is a great book to introduce you to bodyweight exercises for functional strength, endurance, and flexibility. I was watching a discovery show where they were making a martial arts video game. They showed a man doing a unique exercise.

There were telephone polls on the ground at different heights in two rows. He jumped from one to the other and landed on one leg. I would jump to the other and do a full one leg squat with the other leg fully extended in a kicking position. This is a true test of functional strength and flexibility. Oh by the way, this man was 75 years old. Results that last a lifetime are something I am always striving for.

I hope this short summary has been helpful to you. The key to any new idea is to incorporate it into your daily routine until it becomes a habit. Habits are formed in just 21 days. One thing you can take out of this book is the royal court. Try it as part of your exercise routine for a month and record your progress. I think you will be pleasantly surprised by the results.