What To Do If You Don't Have Weights

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If you can't go to the gym, or don't own your own weights then using your own bodyweight to train might be a good option for you.

 

You can build muscle, strength and endurance without the aid of weights.

 

Push-ups are common practise in most martial arts schools and just by placing your hands in different positions you can work muscles you never knew you had.

 

Hindu squats and jumping is good for building strong legs.

 

Most of the excercises are easy to do and take only a few minutes. Be creative and give it a go.

[Kirves]

Yeah. Matt Furey's 'Combat Conditioning' rules!

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i would suggest not getting weights

 

and soley stick to press ups, crunches and pull ups, stretching and focusing on martial art techniques. i feel that when i started to do weights

 

i only benefited with a lack of focus on training, hurting bones, and just depending on weightlifting to acheive my desired body and loosing focus on martial art training

 

consider yourself lucky that you havent started weights yet,

 

but hey that just my dismal view, if you dont like what ive said then pay no attention.

[shanemm]

i was lifting with the football team for about 3 months and it got me into good enough condition for soccer and judo. i stopped cause i don't need anymore mass as much as i need to tone all the muscle i got from lifting. and effective technique is to get a deck of cards and flip one card at a time doing that many sit-ups and push-ups as the card you flip over(face cards are 20) and go through the whole deck.

[focus102]

Canned food or bottled water can act as weights too.

 

Also, if you can juggle, try juggling grapefruits for ten minutes. It's great upper body conditioning.

[SaiFightsMS]

Don't forget to do the pull-ups if you do body weight training. They help balance the upper body strength by working the opposing muscle groups to the push-ups.

[BladeLee]

buy weights!

[granmasterchen]

i used to get 50 lbs bags of sand in burlap bags and carry them on my shoulders while i ran on the back roads and climbed hills, when i was ready to kick and punch i would take a length of rope(that can be tied around your waist and then hang the bag on a tree limb and beat on it. also tie an end to your wrist and use it as a pully when you punch your punch will lift the sand bag, do the same with kicks, it can be loads of fun, also try just taking the rope(soft, not the plastic coated) and wrap it around a tree and use it for punches and blocks too.

[Ironberg]

Now, I'm not one of the people here dissing weights, I think they are good if you use them properly for MA. In other words, use weights to get strong and fast (more reps for some body types), not bulk-up or loose weight, etc.

 

I, however, am a big believer in calisthenics. Often, I'll take a vacation from weights to focus primarily on calisthenics. Two mornings ago, I did 20 frog hops in 3 sets. Frog hops are where you get in a REALLY deep horse-riding stance, jump up as high as you can while turning and landing facing the opposite direction and repeat. If you are not sore after this, do some dipping jumps for a bit until you feel cramps going up-stairs. Not only does this seem to be improving my jumping height, but it also seems to successfully make my legs sore (a very hard thing for me to do these days). I think I've discovered the pushups for the thighs!