We are a martial arts school, and in this industry there is definitely debate about the place of fitness within a martial arts class.

Pretty much every martial arts school advertises it, but not all are going to deliver. Of course some that do send everyone home barely breaking a sweat...

Anyways, fitness in our opinion needs to be a part of what we do. Martial arts at its core is health and self-defence. Both of which are greatly impacted by fitness.

Being in good shape lets you train harder, keeps you healthier and greatly reduces the risk of injury. Any sport that doesn't incorporate fitness into training it's athletes is going to have mediocre performance and best, along with a increased injury rate.

Traditionally fitness in the martial arts was pretty simple and crude. Pushups, sit-ups and squats... pretty standard fair for the time period that martial arts really started growing in North America. The trouble is our understanding of fitness training has evolved greatly since then, and while coaches in a lot of other sports generally receive training in fitness aspects as well martial arts has had a "traditional" leaning that left it less receptive to change.

It's not enough that a work out is hard, making a workout hard is easy. It needs to serve a bigger function and get a result.

The truth is the fitness industry has made massive advancements in recent years, and this can be of great benefit to the martial arts.

We've spent a lot of time (and a lot of money) working with and learning from some of the top strength and conditioning coaches in the world to develop our fitness component, and we are very proud of the results it gets for our members :)