Combat Conditioning: Functional Exercises for Fitness and Combat Sports

The author

Matt Furey is an American wrestler, Shuai-chiao kung fu world champion and fitness entrepreneur who studied under Olympic coaches Dan Gable and Bruce Baumgartner. He is as well known for pioneering aggressive direct-mail marketing of fitness products as for the training itself.

The book

Combat Conditioning systematizes bodyweight training around three foundational exercises — the Hindu squat, the Hindu pushup and the back bridge — then adds dozens more movements and several structured programs. The whole system is designed to be done without equipment, drawing on wrestling and traditional Asian martial-arts conditioning.

How it has aged

It looks prescient. Published as the fitness mainstream still equated strength with weights and machines, it helped legitimize calisthenics for a general audience, and much of what it teaches is now standard. The infomercial tone dates it; the exercises don't.

For more context

Furey's Combat Abs narrows the same approach to the core, and the broader modern calisthenics movement carries the ideas forward.

Sources

• Matt Furey: Combat Conditioning
• Goodreads
• Isometric Training review