Conditioning

Upper Body

The upper body is the more important part of the body for judo fighting. Every move starts with a pull using the arms. The lower body, including the hips and legs, come second. Therefore, upper body strength is key to success in judo.

For judo the pulling muscles are far more important than pushing muscles. Pushing muscles only stall the action whereas pulling muscles lead to winning throws, pins and submissions. For pulling strength and stamina, weights are to be preferred. Weights develop grip strength, which is critical to controlling your opponent in judo and in real fighting. Particularly useful weight-training for judo are the following:

• dumbbell swings (including swings, cleans and snatches)
  
• rows
• cleans
• deadlifts 

There is no standard consensus on what the best weight lifting exercises for judo are, but you can't go wrong with cleans, since they exercise the whole body and judo uses the whole body! When using a dumbbell, swinging cleans and other swings are particularly effective for all body pulling power.

Just as boxers spend their solo training time skipping rope and punching speed and heavy bags, so judoka in their spare time develop their strength and endurance lifting weights. There is even technique to be learned from lifting weights involving correct body positioning to handle heavy loads, which resemble your opponent's body.

Interestingly, dumbbells were invented by the Ancient Greeks specifically for wrestlers to train with. Since grappling, wrestling and judo are all about gripping, which weights strengthen, you should think of weights as absolutely ideal solo-training aids.

Lower Body

The best single conditioning exercise after weights is arguably running, or similar exercises like jumping or walking. Running, jumping and walking are athletic activities your body is naturally designed for, so they are the best for all-round fitness. They are also sport-specific since they strengthen your whole body and greatly increase your cardio-vascular stamina and strength, which you need to last through the intensity of your judo matches. They develop an extremely strong stance and posture, amazing dynamic balance, and give you the kind of forward-launching explosive power and the speed you need to win (especially running does so.) They also toughen up and make flexible your whole body through the repetitive shockwaves that are sent throughout your frame by the impact of the steps. There isn't anything quite like running, jumping and walking for all-over body conditioning for any sport, and judo is no exception. One problem with running and jumping, however, is that they may wear down your knees, in which case walking is the safer option of the three.

Lower and Upper Body Combined

Some interesting lower and upper body combined exercises that have been used at Olympic levels of training include things like rowing, sprinting for five minutes holding dumbbells, running on the spot with light dumbbells ("skiing") and uchikomi ('positioning for a throw' repetitions) practice using ropes tied around a pole to represent the judogi. At a more leisurely pace, walking with dumbbells is also known to produce good whole-body effects.

The Kettlebell

The kettlebell is a heavy cannonball (often at least 16 kilograms) with a handle on it, so it looks like a round kettle without a spout. There are myriad exercises with it, which involve moving the whole body in one way or another to swing it up and down, forward and back, side to side or any kind of combination of these. The effect is that the whole body gets strengthened in a connected and cooperative way, rather than the isolated way that dumbells or barbells do. Because of the whole body being used, the heart and lungs become strongly involved, as with any whole-body exercise, and the kettlebell workout thereby becomes an excellent cardio-vascular activity in addition to a muscle building one. Also, because of the various interesting movements that are done with it, timing and focus come into play, making it not only more fun than other weight-lifting, so you can train longer without becoming bored, but thereby more sport-related, since timing and focus are important in sports.

The Stances of Judo

The most fundamental and important parts of Judo are the two stances.  Each is categorized into Basic, Right and Left.  They should be used strategically when fighting. Most importantly, KEEP YOUR BACK STRAIGHT. A bent over posture is very weak!!! You should keep in mind though that the whole point of categorizing these stances is simply to give names to natural postures. The "natural" stance is just an upright, normal standing posture, and YES you are supposed to fight from it, not in a bent-over, crummy, weak posture that will get you thrown all over the mat. You don't ever have to 'practice' these postures. Just be aware of them while you are fighting and practicing moves. Especially, of the two stances, try to keep yourself in the natural posture absolutely as much as possible.

Natural Stance (Shizentai)

This is the attacking posture of Judo.  It is light and fluid, so it enables you to attack and move about quickly and nimbly.

Basic Natural Stance (Shizen Hontai)

Stand comfortably with your feet pointing slightly outward, with the heels about a foot apart. 

Right Natural Stance (Migi Shizentai)

From the basic stance, move your right foot forward, adopting a diagonal stance.

Left Natural Stance (Hidari Shizentai)

From the basic stance, move your left foot forward, adopting a diagonal stance. 

Extended Natural Stances

Widening your natural stances somewhat while keeping them narrower than the defensive stances results in the Extended Natural Stances.  There are the Right Extended Stance (Migi Gamae) and the Left Extended Stance (Hidari Gamae).  These are considered variations on the natural stances, and not as forming a distinct class of stances.

To develop a strong natural stance, which is the most important stance of Judo, do lots of running. 

Defensive Stance (Jigotai)

This is the defending and counterattacking posture of Judo.  It is essentially a dramatic widening of the natural posture to lower your centre of balance and make you very hard to throw.  You must always then think of how to counterattack using your superior, lower, centre of balance and more stable wider stance to throw the opponent to the ground and pin or submit him or her there.  It is THE MOST STABLE TWO-LIMBED STANCE there is for the human frame (notice that Fencing and other martial arts use the same stance), but its drawback is that it is much slower to move from than from the natural stance.  It is harder to initiate attacks from it and it is very vulnerable to throws.  So, it must be adopted only momentarily for defense and counterattack.

Basic Defensive Stance (Jigo Hontai)

Widen the front-facing natural stance to become very wide: about two shoulder widths or more.  The feet should be pointing slightly diagonally outward as in the natural stance.

Right Defensive Stance (Migi Jigotai)

From the basic defensive stance, move your right foot forward or your left foot back, keeping your legs spread wide apart, to adopt the Right Defensive Stance.

Left Defensive Stance (Hidari Jigotai)

From the basic defensive stance, move your left foot forward or your right foot back, keeping your legs spread wide apart, to adopt the Left Defensive Stance.