The Ultimate Guide to Conditioning: Elite Exercises and Training for NHB Competition and Total Fitness

This is the sixth guide in the "No holds barred fighting series" by Mark Hatmaker. Whether you are a novice or experienced in various physical fitness programs, you will find something of value in this book. This detailed text covers a wide variety of different approaches to combat fitness. The book begins with basic concepts and than moves to other fitness topics such as: the importance of breathing correctly, warm up movements, body weight exercises, exercises for the abdominals, exercises for the legs, both pulling and pushing upper body exercises, neck exercises, dumbbell and kettlebell exercises, flexibility movements and much, much more. In conclusion, this is a book for anyone who is into physical fitness as it relates to combat sports and self-defense. Rating: 4 stars. Joseph J. Truncale (Author: The Monadnock Defensive Tactics System, Use of the Monadnock Straight Baton, PR-24 Baton Advanced Techniques, Season of the Warrior, Never Trust a Politician)

First off I need to comment that, in my opinion, the author has really found his own personal niche writing books for the MMA community. He obviously knows what he is talking about and writes fairly well on the various subjects concerning NHB and MMA competition. The book contains a wide variety of pretty basic exercises utilizing a variety of methods including; bodyweight exercises, barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells, plyometrics, etc. and in doing so, give you a wide variety of exercises to do in order to get you into fighting shape. Now as I already said, a lot of these exercises are pretty basic and kind be found in almost all books concerning that particular subject, but this books stands out in the fact that the author demonstrates a variety of variations to some common exercises that I hadn't seen before. Now that's not to say that they aren't out there in print somewhere, its just that I haven't seen several of them before and I found them quite interesting and pretty fun to do. Although I must admit that a couple of them have the better of me for the moment. The only complaints that I have with this book is that all of the photographs are pretty small, which normally wouldn't have been that big an issue, but some of them are also a bit blurry. My other major complaint was that the descriptions of the exercises were, for the most part, pretty brief and in some cases that was fine, but in other I felt that they should have been longer and more detailed. Here are a couple of other books that you should check out on conditioning that I highly recommend. The Naked Warrior Enter The Kettlebell! Strength Secret of The Soviet Supermen Practical Programming for Strength Training Starting Strength (2nd edition) Shawn Kovacich Martial Artist/Author of the Achieving Kicking Excellence series.

i think these was the best in mma conditioning exercises not only functional but also effective. mark hatmaker books are always the best. im looking forward for a 1 complete NHB manual. all books must be completed and must be complied as one inexpensive manual

"No Holds Barred Fighting: The Ultimate Guide to Conditioning" is one of the best combat-sports primers I've seen. The author presents a variety of excercises, including bodyweight, barbell, dumbell, plyo/agility, and stretching. Hatmaker gives the reader suggestions for sample workouts which vary from begginer, intermediate, advanced, and pro. He covers sports-specific conditioning for grip and neck training, and for sprawling and standing up. Also included is a bodyweight cardio workout, great for those of us who find running tedious. Other topics covered include breath control, when to stretch, and the type of cardio specific to the MMA fight game. As another reviewer stated, the weak points of the text include periodization, which isn't even addressed; nutrition, for which Hatmaker hedges his bets by stating that past champs have eaten a variety of foods and that there's no "magic diet"; and weight cutting, for which he suggests simply fighting close to one's own natural weight. For pure conditioning though, the information contained in this book is worth all my other conditioning books put together. With a straight-forward, easy-to-read style and a variety of useful conditioning information, this book is a plus in any martial artist or fighters library.