The marriage of martial arts and fitness comes from the natural evolution of both activities. Traditionally, martial arts instructors, while being masters of self-defence, have had little knowledge of muscular anatomy or information about effective techniques for developing physical fitness. Martial artists have been plagued by injuries due to unsafe stretching practices, insufficient warm-up, biomechanically unsound movements, etc. Martial arts training has been hindered as well, by the mythical notion that martial arts training and fitness training are two separate entities to be developed at different times, using different workouts.

As martial arts instructors learn more about basic exercise physiology, biomechanics, and principles of safe training for strength, flexibility and cardiovascular endurance, their systems of teaching become much more effective and contain a "whole body" approach to developing their students. By using the principles of modern exercise science, instructors can reduce the risk of injury to their students, increase their speed, strength, flexibility and endurance, as well as providing more efficient workouts which combine improving physical capabilities while fine-tuning techniques.

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