It is very important that the workouts you are completing as part of your fitness and conditioning are oriented towards judo. Judo fights last 5 minutes and you have to be fit enough to be able to fight hard for 5 minutes, have 5 minutes off and then fight again. Therefore your training should be something very similar to this.

Here are 6 circuits designed specifically for Judo. These circuits will dramatically increase your cardiovascular fitness quickly.

metabolic circuits

Metabolic circuitry is designed to wreck you metabolically. This simply means that we get a particular muscle group and a minute of work on it. When the muscle is about to fail, we switch to a different part of the body and repeat.

I prefer to do metabolic exercises for 7 to 10 minutes.

metabolic circuit 1:

1 minute bodyweight squats

1 minute push ups

1 minute jumping

1 minute pull ups

1 minute tours

1 Minute Paddle Push Ups (Hindu Push Ups)

1 minute splash

Rest five minutes and repeat another 2 rounds.

metabolic circuit 2:

I min chin ups

1 minute squat jumps

1 minute jumping

1 minute country walk (walking holding dumbbells)

Rest five minutes and repeat another 2 rounds.

Metabolic circuit day 3:

15 deadlifts

15 push ups

And then Repeat 14, 13, 12, etc., until you reach 1 repetition.

Circuit 4: Tabata Intervals

A Japanese sports scientist, Izumi Tabata, studied and devised the Tabata interval training system.

It’s a pretty simple training session:

5 minute warm up

20 seconds of a particular exercise at 100% effort (as hard as you can)

10 seconds left

repeat 8 times

2-5 minute cool down

You can do Tabata intervals with:

Burpees, Sprints, Sumo Deadlift high pulls or Skipping (if you’re a good skipper).

run circuits

There are times when you can’t go to the gym or you only have a jump rope and a pair of shoes. If this is the case, these next two workouts are fantastic.

run circuit 1

jumping 200 times

200 meter sprint

Repeat for 20 minutes

run circuit 2

This exercise is great if you have nothing more than a pair of running shoes and nothing else.

Run 1500 meters (or if you don’t know how much you run run for 6 minutes)

5 minute break

Repeat for 2 more rounds

Run 1000 meters (4 min 30)

Run 500 (2 minutes)

Repeat 2 more rounds

If you add these workouts as part of your cardio training, you’ll feel the benefits on the judo mat.