Fuel Exponential Combat Arts Growth: The Power of SMART Goals

Combat Arts Strength and Conditioning: Achieve Peak Performance is built on a great conditioning program: a sweet science of sufficient stimulus, enough rest, proper programming, periodization, and a plan with defined physical fitness goals. Basically, periodization means systematically planning athletic or physical training so that you reach your best possible performance by a certain time, for example, an important competition.

In periodization, different aspects of the training program will be cycled through during a specific period in order to be in optimum physical condition for that competition. Improving your conditioning is about more than just training as much as you can, as hard as you can. If it were that easy, we wouldn’t see professional athletes ‘gas-out.’

Before the fun and work can begin, a baseline needs to be established, then a plan made on where we want to take our training. This will give us a measure to compare against and track progress, and keep us accountable.

How S.M.A.R.T. Goals Elevate Your Combat Arts Performance

The S.M.A.R.T framework, respected across domains from MMA to Karate, provides a strategic approach to achieving your desired outcomes. This compelling acronym encapsulates Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound targets that direct your path to success.

In this context, Specific goals eliminate ambiguity, Measurable objectives enable progress tracking, Achievable aims foster continual growth, Relevant goals ensure focus on the larger objectives, and Time-bound targets maintain sustained momentum.

For example, a coach preparing a fighter for a 12-week camp might set a goal like “Stop at least 8 of every 10 takedown attempts in live wrestling rounds by fight week.” It is specific, measurable, relevant to the fight, and has a deadline.

Your Roadmap to Success: Key Considerations

When setting smart goals for combat arts strength and conditioning, several key considerations should be taken into account. Firstly, it is crucial to assess the individual's current physical condition, including their strength, endurance, and flexibility, in order to establish a baseline and identify areas for improvement. Secondly, workout recovery time must be factored in to ensure adequate rest and prevent overtraining, which could lead to injury or performance decline. 

Realistic goals should be set, considering the individual's abilities and the time frame available for training. Finally, creating an action plan and establishing a routine that incorporates structured workouts, rest days, and proper nutrition is essential for consistent progress and long-term success in combat arts strength and conditioning. 

Critically Assess Fitness Levels

There are several ways to establish a baseline for a desired level of martial and aerobic fitness. Here are a few examples:

Track Resting Heart Rate Upon Waking

A normal adult Resting Heart Rate (RHR) is between 60 and 100 beats per minute (BPM). Training can drive an athlete’s RHR below 60 BPM, and well-trained endurance athletes often sit somewhere around 40 to 60 BPM. There is no official “elite” RHR category, and a low heart rate can also come from medication or heart rhythm problems, so a low RHR together with dizziness, fainting, or breathlessness should be checked by a doctor. Establishing your baseline RHR lets you track how it responds to your training load. You can measure your RHR with a heart rate monitor or by taking your pulse.

Place your index and middle fingers lightly on the inside of your wrist, just below the base of your thumb. This is the radial pulse, a safe and reliable place to feel your heartbeat; avoid pressing firmly on the side of your neck, which can slow the heart in some people. Once the pulse is located, watch a clock, phone, or timer and count the beats for 30 seconds, then multiply by 2 (or count for a full 60 seconds). For example, 30 beats in 30 seconds means your heart rate is 60 beats per minute.

Timing a 1.5 Mile Run

Another way to assess your aerobic fitness is to record your 1.5-mile (2.4-kilometer) run time. This field test is closely related to the 12-minute run test Dr. Ken Cooper developed in 1968. Like it, the 1.5-mile run estimates your aerobic fitness rather than measuring it directly; the true gold standard is a laboratory graded exercise test with gas analysis. It is still a simple, effective way of tracking progress. Because it is a maximal effort, don’t make it your first test if you are sedentary or a beginner, have a heart condition, high blood pressure, or other health concerns, take heart-rate-altering medication, or are returning from injury or illness: get medical clearance, start with a timed walk or easy walk-jog, and build up gradually. The times below are rough targets, not validated norms, so use them as a loose guide.

Rough guide: 1.5-mile run times

Track Your Recovery

Design a Program That Will Achieve Results

Tracking is important, as it allows seeing where strides are being made. The rubber hits the road on how hard you train. Execute and train accordingly in order to see performance increase over time. Formulate an appropriate plan to keep progressing steadily, achieving desired outcomes, not over-training, stalling, or under-training.

Consider Your Goals

For instance, create a plan that includes muscle-building strength work, HIIT (alternating intense bursts with easier recovery periods), stretching, and a set amount of low- to moderate-intensity aerobic activity each week, such as easy jogging, cycling, or drilling at a conversational pace. Count hard martial arts practice separately from that easy aerobic work.

Dislike the idea of any extra ‘cardio’ that isn’t done on a tatami? That is fine, too. Find extra ways to get in your sessions using your desired art. For example, speed drilling, hitting the heavy bag, shadow boxing on the beach. The possibilities are numerous and only limited by imagination.

These plan examples illustrate just how easy it can be to incorporate several required elements into one solid, very workable plan that minimizes chances of burnout, over or under-training, while leaving room for mixing it up. The beauty of this becomes clear when winter or summer come and you want indoors or outdoors more, friends and family visit, or boredom sets in.

These examples show how simple it can be to achieve max results with plenty of effort, sure, but with massive variety, and no tedium. Simply understand what each type of exercise does to the body, muscles focused upon, time required to maximum effect, and they become like pieces on a chess board and you’re always checkmating. 

Listen To Your Body

Some people train like demons at first, going 6 or even 7 days that first week or two, until suddenly just walking across the room gets painful. This is common in folks coming right off the couch who want instant results, and it is a recipe for injury, not progress. Sudden jumps in hard training can even cause serious muscle breakdown (rhabdomyolysis): severe muscle pain or weakness, or dark urine, after unaccustomed hard exercise needs prompt medical care. Start with fewer sessions and build up gradually.

Plan a regimen that fits your schedule and time constraints. Take sufficient rest days. Don’t ignore your body’s warning signs, and don’t live by the “no pain, no gain” mentality, as this all too often results in injury, burnout, and fatigue. And that means time off the mats.

Put It Into Action

The most perfectly designed conditioning plan means nothing if it isn’t carried out. Good intentions don’t turn into gains unless they are put into action. The best plan won’t work if it doesn’t realistically account for timing, availability, possible conflicts or shifts needed, and then consistent action. When it comes down to being successful, it’s all about movement and commitment. Not just once, not for a week, or a month. This is a lifestyle, baby! You get there, and you stay there.

Develop A Routine

It’s much easier to feel committed and succeed with goals when massive action makes you win the morning. Winning the morning makes you win the day. Win days consistently, and see amazing achievements.

Track And Monitor

Success is intrinsically motivating. Success can manifest in many ways. It can be proof of fat loss as clothes fit looser, or dropping numbers on the scale, faster, easier sprints, quicker recovery, powerful sparring. Don’t miss out on this amazing confidence booster-- track changes and improvements.

Assess critically. Make notes, track times, and weigh in regularly. See the fruits of your labor and your improvements. Make tweaks and changes to your routines until they work as well as envisioned.

How to Establish SMART Goal Setting

SMART stands for Specific, Measurable, Achievable (or Attainable), Relevant, and Time-bound. The framework is usually traced to George Doran’s 1981 management article, and it translates directly to advancing as a martial artist: it’s about setting goals and achieving them.

S.M.A.R.T. goal setting guidelines will help ensure that goals become a reality.

Define Your Objectives: The goal has to be clear and resonate with you, otherwise it fails before even starting. A good practice is to use the 3 W’s to guide goal setting. What do I want to accomplish? Which resources or limits are potentially involved? Why is this important? When there is a good enough why, the ‘how’ can be endured.

An example of a specific goal in MMA could be: “Land my rear roundhouse kick cleanly on the target pad 8 out of 10 times by the end of this 8-week training block.”

Need more guidance on combat arts strength and conditioning program design? Consider reading our cornerstone article, “Combat Arts Strength and Conditioning: Achieve Peak Performance.”

Quantify Your Goals: Track your progress toward your goals. Establish a baseline to test from, then stay accountable by committing to re-testing at set intervals, such as every 4 to 6 weeks. For example, re-time a 1.5-mile run each block, once you are ready for a hard running effort.

Experienced coaches across boxing and MMA recognize the crucial role of measurable goals. For instance, “Hold a 60-second dead hang by the end of next month” or “Escape side control in 3 of 5 positional sparring rounds by the end of this 6-week block” gives you a measurable target with a deadline.

Keep It Real: If one is afraid of heights, best not to decide skydiving is a goal. However, becoming a black-belt is attainable—at almost any age—once again, depending on overall conditioning. Setting lofty goals is a great idea. Set goals that push and challenge, but make them attainable, too. Best not to set up for failure. Fighting in the octagon when retired and overweight is not the best plan, for instance, but getting a black belt and becoming an excellent sparring partner is attainable.

Setting goals that balance ambition with realism is essential in combat arts. Achievable goals help foster continuous improvement and avoid burnout.

Align with Broader Objectives: If the goal is to become a Brazilian jiu jitsu black belt, it wouldn’t make much sense to spend half the time practicing Capoeira or Muay Thai. Similarly, if the goal is to get explosively strong when wrestling, maybe don’t choose running, but rather, a well formulated weight lifting program would achieve optimal results.

All goals should be relevant to your broader objectives in combat arts. If you are a karateka aiming to improve your kata, you might set a goal to “Perform Heian Shodan for my instructor with no more than two corrections at my grading in three months.”

Set Deadlines: Stay accountable and keep moving toward your goals by putting a time frame on them. This keeps motivation high and encourages you to do what is necessary. This may look like making weight for an upcoming fight, planning on earning a blue belt within two years, or committing to classes 4 times a week all next month. Put a time frame on your goals, write them down, then complete them before the due date. Doing this can greatly increase your chances of success.

Many successful coaches promote setting time-bound targets to maintain motivation and training focus. Whether it’s improving your boxing jab speed or enhancing your BJJ grip strength, defining a time frame boosts your commitment.

Avoiding Obstacles: Common Pitfalls in Combat Arts Goal Setting

Certain common pitfalls in goal setting can be easily avoided. Experienced coaches caution against setting vague goals and advocate for specificity. Similarly, it’s critical to keep goals achievable and measurable, or risk demotivation and training stagnation.

Embrace the S.M.A.R.T Way: Start Your Goal Setting Journey Today

Adopting S.M.A.R.T goals in your Combat Arts strength and conditioning regimen paves the way for success. Being specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound in your goal setting can unlock unprecedented potential in Boxing, Karate, Wrestling, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ), and Mixed Martial Arts (MMA).

Take the first step towards Combat Arts mastery today. Incorporate S.M.A.R.T goals into your strength and conditioning training, and witness the transformational power of intelligent goal setting. As the saying goes, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." Let that step be the setting of your S.M.A.R.T goals today, shaping a brighter future in Combat Arts tomorrow!