Like many of the previous myths and misconceptions, this myth depends on the context in which it’s stated. Does your fitness level determine whether or not you can learn self-defense? Absolutely not. Does a low fitness level mean you can’t defend yourself from an attacker? Again, absolutely not. Does your fitness level have an impact on your ability to defend yourself? Absolutely yes!

While I spend considerable amount of time explaining to people that their fitness level should not affect their decision to train in martial arts, it definitely has an impact on your training. It’s important to note that you do not need to have a high fitness level to learn martial arts, nor to defend yourself. Improving your fitness level, however, can dramatically improve both your training and success rate of defending yourself.

As I’ve mentioned in previous blogs, and will undoubtedly mention in future blogs, self-defense and self-protection hold a large umbrella of attributes and scenarios. It’s not as straight forward as two people punching each other. Due to this, nearly everything you do and every attribute about you can influence self-defense and self-protection. I have broken down some elements of self-defense where a higher fitness level can have a positive impact on both your training and outcome of a situation.

Ability to train longer. The first element I want to discuss is how long and how often you can train. Martial arts training can, and usually is, physically demanding. While anyone with any level of fitness can train in martial arts and be successful, many new students I train have to stop and take breaks
throughout class early on in their training. For some, it takes a day or two to recover before going to the next class.

The more time you spend training, the better you become at martial arts and defending yourself. If you have to limit your training to just an hour-long class once or twice a week, this will heavily slow down your ability to reach your martial arts goals.

Years ago, early on in my competition days, my fitness level was pretty mild. I was young and active, but I didn’t work out or eat extremely well. When I trained for tournaments, I would get about fifteen to thirty minutes of sparring in each night before the exhaustion settled in. After a few dismal
performances at tournaments, I adjusted my nutrition and workout regimen. Due to this improved fitness level, I was suddenly sparring for one or two hours each night and only stopping because my sparring partners needed to stop, or I needed to go home to be in bed at a reasonable hour.

This increased training time dramatically improved my outcomes during competitions. Going from not placing or only third or fourth place, to placing first and second place regularly. It’s quite clear, my fitness level had a positive effect on my outcome. With that said, competitions aren’t a self-defense situation. Fitness is heavily more important to competition than a self-defense situation that, on average, lasts about fifteen seconds. My point here is to show the importance of how your fitness level can increase your training time, which in turn, increases your skill level.

Less injuries. From a big injury that takes you out of training for an extended amount of time, to nagging injuries that we push through but limit our training. Nothing negatively effects your training faster and harsher than an injury. I am a proponent of training while moderately injured. It teaches you how to get around limitations. Also, those who look injured are more likely to be a victim of a mugging or physical attack, knowing that they are less likely to fight back effectively.

With that said, that’s more of a silver lining to the unfortunate situation injuries provide. It’s always preferable to avoid injuries. A lack of physical fitness will place a martial artist in a high-risk category for injuries. Muscles aren’t just for looking good or being able to pick up heavy objects. Conditioned muscles help hold proper structure in the body, protect organs, and allow for flexibility. All things that can help avoid injuries.

Along these same lines is recovery. Someone who has a higher level of fitness will recover faster from an injury verses those with a low fitness level.

Escaping. Three angry men wielding weapons approach you. Mind you, you’re the reason they are angry. It’s pretty obvious you’re about to get attacked physically. This isn’t a movie, you’re not Bruce Lee, and “winning” gains you nothing. What do you do? Run, Forest, run!

We, as martial artists, tend to forget that running away is an option. In many life and death situations, it should be the first option. Have you taken the time to learn how to run? How far can you run? Are you certain you can run faster and farther than those chasing you?

An adrenaline dump from the body entering the sympathetic nervous system – fight, flight or freeze – can help you to an extent. While most of us grew up running outside or playing sports, more and more people these days are not. Sitting indoors and playing video games or watching TV is taking over physical activity. If the body does not know how to run, the adrenaline dump is not going to assist in that ability to run. Hence why more and more people are entering the “freeze” portion of the fight, flight or freeze reaction.

Due to this, an effort placed on your physical fitness is a clear necessity for self-defense. I would highly suggest to people to take the time to learn how to run. It is a heavily overlook skill. Many people have muscle imbalances that can lead to very poor running ability as well as potential for injury while training. Even a simple online video can teach you the basics of running to send you down the right path.

Mental state. An important aspect, often overlooked, is one’s mental state. It has been proven that increasing your fitness levels can considerably improve your mental state. From building confidence and disposition to overall functionality of the brain. These mental elevations result in retaining information better from training to boosting one’s outlook and excitement of their training.

The mental state can even have an impact directly on the act of self-defense and overall self-protection. A healthy mental state can lead to better decision making. Instead of going into a shady bar and getting into an argument, maybe you stop into a less shady place and have a positive conversation with a stranger. Having more confidence results in lowering the likelihood of being a victim. High confidence people are the least likely to be taken advantage of.

These are just a few examples of how important a positive mental state can improve your self-defense success rates. There is a reason why many professional fighters work with psychologists to help sort out and improve their mental state. It’s a crucial element to improving self-protection in one’s life.

A safety net for a lack of technique. It is easy to state how proper technique needs no strength to work, but proper technique takes a long time to learn. Not to mention that actual self-defense situations almost never go smoothly. If your technique is perfect and is always perfect, then yes, you don’t need any level of physical fitness training. Unfortunately, that will never be the case. Strength may be a back up plan, but it’s a back up plan that gets used regularly.

I received my first black belt in High School, and the majority of my fellow students were considerably larger and stronger than I was. I was about 125 pounds and five foot ten. My technique was decent enough to handle the lower rank students I sparred against, even if the were larger. However, those closer to my rank were a struggle. I had to be perfect to not get submitted or dropped on my head.

Once I started lifting and improving my strength, I found my success rate going up considerably. Not only did it help cover up any technique that was lacking, it gave me confidence to try new techniques as I knew I could use my strength to escape if it didn’t go well. Due to this, my arsenal of offensive weapons increased as I was able to train more techniques against unwilling opponents with no fear of an injury.

It’s quite clear that improving your physical fitness can improve your self-defense skills. I would like to reiterate what I mentioned at the onset of this blog. Do not let your fitness level deter you from training in martial arts and learning self-defense. In most cases, regularly training in martial arts will considerably improve your fitness level on its own. If you want to see a bump in your training and outcome, however, take the time to create a fitness regimen for yourself. You will definitely see an improvement!