BECOMING THE ULTIMATE HUMAN WEAPON: With KRAV MAGA and STRENGTH TRAINING

Krav Maga is NOT a sport. Jujitsu, Judo, Boxing, MuayThai, Taekwondo, Wreslting are sports. 
Krav Maga is a TRUE fighting and defence form. In the simplest of words, KRAV MAGA is applied MMA for self defence and practical combat. 
Unlike combat sports like MMA, KRAV MAGA is a method of self-defense designed for real-life situations. There are no tournaments in Krav Maga - because it is based upon the idea of “finding solutions” when one’s security is threatened. 

There are NO rules but SURVIVAL. It was developed by Israeli veteran Imi Lictenfield by mixing various martial art forms and retaining only what’s best in a practical war/fight scenario to fight against the Nazis. You do have the Mcmap that’s used by the US marines – but Krav Maga is much simpler, deadly and applicable in real life scenarios and not just in war. Which is why even today it is the the technique of choice for defence and secret service forces across the world – including the SAS, the Mossad and the Israeli army.

If self defence was your concern, I’d advice a strong base of Krav maga first – before moving on to learning any other martial art that would require years of training and mastery before you could practically apply what you learn in a fight.
Eventually adding in a good grappling sport like BJJ and a good striking sport like muaythai (or mma itself) is extremely efficient at improving your skills. 

What makes Krav Maga efficient for self defence is that it directly focusses on what is most practical, instinctual and most likely to happen. It trains an individual directly to problem solve the most likely encounters - spiralling all the way up from from basic situational awareness and de-escalation all the way up to to engaging, subduing and escaping. 

Krav Maga’s basic principle in essence is Survival. And its basic technique is what can be termed as BURSTING – where you simultaneously defend, inflict as much damage as possible within as small a span of time as possible and GET OUT OF THE SITUATION.

It requires using every part of your body and great presence of mind within a split second – and that’s perfect because a true fight in the street or actual combat rarely last beyond the first 15 seconds.  It includes open palm strikes, clawing, punching, kicking, pushing and pulling, biting and the use of readily available weapons or objects that can be used as weapons. Though by principle the rule in krav maga is to never let a fight get to the ground, it also prepares you for fighting on the ground and basic grapples and escape tactics.

One of the most effective and tiresome drills used in Krav Maga is that of escaping from a hostile mob – where you are surrounded by people trying to block you, hit you and even use weapons on you while you try to escape out of the mob.The use of bursting and continuously adaptive training makes true Krav Maga very demanding physically. Which is also why after a certain point you need to learn pure grappling and striking skills to get more efficient and therefore expend less energy against bigger and stronger opponents. The necessity of strength and explosive, channelled aggression is why strength training for krav maga can be tricky. 

You have to take into account that power, agility and other fitness functionalities are developed best during training itself by extending periods of training. What you need to focus on training separately is what you cant get from just training in Krav Maga but is essential for it – ie: Strength. However, you can adopt an effective strength training schedule into your Krav Maga program to improve your performance drastically.

No matter how well trained you are, using the strength training protocol given below will add sheer brute force to all your moves – making you that much more an effective fighting machine.

STRENGTH TRAINING FOR KRAV MAGA:

The major lifts - SQUATS and all its variations, DEADLIFT and all 3 variations of the Bench press are a must for Optimal Strength Training. 

If you train Krav Maga 3 days a Week, You must Strength Train 3 days a week.
On the days you practice krav maga you must do your flexibility drills.
The Strength Training regimen is as follows:

Day 1: Krav Maga

Day 2: Upper Body
Day 3: Krav Maga

Day 4: Lower Body

Day 5: Krav Maga

Day 6: Plyometrics and Explosive drills.

Day 7: ABSOLUTE REST

NOTE: though it may be tempting, NEVER overlook your rest. Take absolute rest as your body only truly grows and repairs when it is resting. The OFF DAY has as much significance as the training days. So see to it that it is genuinely a rest day & not just a rest day from Krav Maga practice & Weight Training.
Avoid all strenuous activity or sports on that day. 

But keep your nutrition on par at all days – without fail. No matter what the sport or skill set you want to progress in, if it involves strength & explosiveness, then the Nutrition protocol to be followed is Body Building Nutrition. Even if gaining muscle is not the objective, you still will need Body building nutrition to combat the degenerative catabolic effects of strenuous KravMaga practice. The body will not repair & adequately heal itself from Krav Maga practice if adequate amounts of first class proteins are not provided as per Body-Building Nutrition.

PS: Selection of Exercises in Weight Training, Plyometrics & Agility Drills plus teaching Bio-Mechanically Correct Form & Technique on each of them is the job of a qualified certified Personal Trainer. So be sure to join a gym that has the K11 Trained Logo on its media communications. 

Written by Pushkaraj S Shirke in Consultation with Kaizzad Capadia

Director of Your Fitness Club
Co-Founder and Director, K11 Fitness Academy