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All martial arts have a system to condition their students. I have seen several schools and without exception all had a serious and tough fitness training system. But, when you are a driven athlete, you probably would like to do more than 2 times a week training in the dojo. Then, when you ask the teacher what you can do yourself at home, the answer often is: go running, do push-ups and sit-ups.

What I mis in all (martial arts) schools and systems is a martial arts related fitness training system. An ideal system that will provide precisely that (special)fitness training a martial artist need.

The first question you might ask of course is, what is condition, how is it measured and, more importantly, how can you improve it. The next question is, what kind of condition do you need as a fighting athlete.

When we talk about fitness, we are talking about a broad concept. There are several distinct species. Each sport requires a different kind of physical condition of the practitioners. Compare these two different athletes: a marathon runner and a K1 fighter. A marathon runner runs 2 hours non-stop, a K1 fighter fights 3 times 3 minutes and has a break of one minute between every round. Despite these differences, still those two athletes are pretty done after their performance. Can you say that the one has a better condition than the other? Can you say that one is more exhausting than the other?

The answer is 2 times no. The one is not (by definition) more exhausting than the other and one athlete is not necessarily in a better condition than others. It is just a "different kind of" condition. It is another kind of effort. Both athletes are well trained, that's for sure, yet there are these differences.
A short explanation:

A short explanation:

Fitness or endurance is determined by the lung capacity, the capacity of the blood to carry oxygen, the ability of the heart to pump the blood to the muscles and the ability to remove waste substances from the muscles. Proper training ensures improvement on all, and any sport will be able to achieve this.

To explain the difference of condition between the two athletes of the example, we should talk about the muscle-building of the athletes or rather their difference. The major difference lies in the muscle building and the need of the correct balance between the different types of fibers.

Within a muscle there are roughly 2 types of fibers. The "Slow Twitch" and "Fast Twitch”. fibers which retract fast and powerful for a short period of time, and fibers that retract slow and less powerful but for a longer period of time. For convenience we call them "fast" and "slow" fibers.

The first group gives its energy within a short period of time, the other species can spread its energy over a longer period of time. Both groups are important but which group is dominant depends on the type of training you do. When you do a lot of running like the marathon runner, you train the "slow" fibers. A Runner needs muscles which can be pushed a long time without having a break, so the "slow fibers" needs to be dominant. A K1 fighter, however, needs more "fast" muscles and therefore he will focus his training on the "fast fibers".

In your body there's always a little battle for position. Muscle fibers which are often used, take the place of muscle fibers that are not used. In other words, if you do a lot of running, you train more slow fibers. But with a lot of short but significant effort, the "fast" fibers will be trained.

Physical training should correspond to the needs of the athlete. A fighter has the need for both muscle fibers. Because a fight often lasts short, but is very exhausting, a fighting athlete needs good stamina, endurance, speed and explosivity. Until recently, there was no universal system for the fighting athlete what could cover all that.

Until now, because now there is the ISF Training System. The ISF Training System is the ideal system, developed for the martial artist, useable for everyone who wants to work on a better physical condition.