Exton Kettlebells

Using Kettlebells to Inform our Martial Arts Training

Kettlebells and Martial Arts:

How the Russian Kettlebell Challenge (RKC™)

Synergizes with Martial Arts Training

By Brian Petty, RKC, USA Boxing Coach

The RKC™ “system of strength” is the perfect conditioning tool for anyone training in a hard-style martial art.  If the goal of your fighting technique is to use muscle and bone to apply directed force to your opponent’s vital areas than RKC™-style training not only complements but enhances your practice.  The RKC™ is a system that consists of principles which underlie all training, techniques through which these principles are illustrated and expressed, and applications in the real world.  By carefully following RKC™ principles of strength training when you are conditioning you will actually learn to better understand your own art and your own body.  Whether your primary focus is on striking or grappling, traditional or eclectic styles, combat or competition, kettlebells teach you how to develop what I call strength for the fight.

The goal of a fighting style should be to prepare you for the demands of actual combat and the purpose of any associated conditioning should be the same.  Strength for the fight means being able to produce the force necessary to move, strike, clinch, grapple, move your opponent (or several), resist being taken down, and so forth.  RKC™ instructors emphasize the same qualities good fighting instructors do: STRENGTH is primary; endurance is only being able to produce strength or maintain tension for a protracted period of time and flexibility is only being able to being strong through a bigger range of motion; what is really required in a fight is the ability to alternate between repeated near-maximal explosive efforts and intermittent static holds while tolerating a great deal of lactic acid, profound full-body discomfort, and pain, all the while maintaining the ability to move correctly and safely. 

In fact, the RKC™ is taught very much like a martial art, and deeply understanding it will enhance your practice as a martial artist.  The RKC™ emphasizes technique and an internal focus—learning how to control your body and your movement.  We say we focus on software first.  Principles of movement learned with ‘bells inform your subsequent martial arts training, irrespective of the conditioning effect.  For example, kettlebell training begins with attention to rooting, or the connection of the feet to the ground, and the awareness that force is produced by pressing against it.  We then focus on moving from the hips using the powerful muscles of the thighs, butt, and back.  This power is preserved by kinetic linkage, or tightening the muscles around the joints and other weak links in the body.  Power is enhanced by cycling tension and relaxation and power breathing.  The same verbal cues that improve your kettlebell snatch will improve your punches and kicks because the underlying neural mechanisms are the same.  Regardless of our discipline we drive our feet against the ground, move from our hips, explode then relax to develop speed, and tighten on impact while breathing forcefully.

If you jog, lift weights, or stretch, you will wonder how it is improving your fighting ability.  If you train with kettlebells, you will KNOW.  I can write and you can read—but the magic is in the metal.  If you don’t learn at Dragon Gym then learn from an RKC™ somewhere, and find out what I mean TODAY.

ALL MIXED MARTIAL ARTS CLASSES AND MOST TRADITIONAL MARTIAL ARTS CLASSES AT DRAGON GYM NOW USE RUSSIAN KETTLEBELLS AS THE FOUNDATION OF CONDITIONING.

Navigate the pages above for useful training information on Boxing, MMA, and Traditional Martial Arts.

©2009 by Brian Petty