The human body works to produce movement, and these movements are controlled by the Central Nervous System. The body makes every attempt to move in the most effective and efficient way, so as not to waste energy, and therefore uses muscles in concert to generate skilled movements.

Combat Sports (and life in general for that matter) demands that the body moves freely through space, not within the confines of a machine or some restricted range of motion. Most traditional hypertrophy (increase and growth of muscle cells) and strength training favour the sagittal (forward) plane in a training environment. All combat practitioners need to be effective in multi-directional movement to be effective in their sport, and Animal Flow can help with that and more.

Panda’s Animal Flow for Fighters Coaching Sessions focuses on the primary movement patterns that mixed martial artists need to integrate as part of their tool sets. At the heart of Animal Flow are the principles of whole‐body full range of motion training which requires simultaneous strength, control, fluidity and movement ‐ all creating heightened body awareness – and these will prove crucial for the Combat Fighter’s physical preparation.

Take MMA for example –  we know that success often comes from a high level of expertise and skill within multiple combat arts, and to this end any competitor needs to spend time training sport specifc or technique focused sessions, especially leading up to a fight. As a consequence strength and conditioning sessions might receive less dedicated training time. 

So Panda looks at creating sessions that maximise  the efficiency of any training week,  and create specific Animal Flow lessons that fit in beautifully as an ancillary practice, which addresses all the key bio-motor abilities and is not too time consuming (typically 45 mins – 60 mins max).

In addition to serving as great training exercises, they also provide brilliant dynamic correspondence into combat sports.

For example, she looks at increasing hip opening with Crab, Ape and Scorpion to help with roundhouse kicks, Travelling Forms to create high tension to help the joints ability to ‘stiffen’ when needed, for example when punching, and some high levels of isometric tension in switches between Beast & Crab – these help increase a fighter’s ability to exert and withstand force. 

In her sessions, expect to learn a number of isometric moves that will help improve grappling and holds, quadruple movements and rotational activations (core) that will help you to resist take downs, tempo and energy redirection to help improve your speed to strength when repeatedly kicking… 

Through stretching, switches and transitions, drills, and building new mobility flows each week, this ancillary training will soon become your secret weapon to helping improve your combat skills.