Page 127 - Safe Wrestling

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Combat-Sport-Specific Preventive

Warm-Up Programmes: IPPON,
IPW, and MASS-12

Rok Vatovec, Marina Dobnik, and Matej Plevnik
© 2026 Rok Vatovec, Marina Dobnik, and Matej Plevnik
https://doi.org/10.26493/978-961-293-570-2.9

Introduction
While general injury-prevention principles and warm-up frameworks
provide a useful starting point, combat sports require discipline-specific
solutions that reflect the dominant injury mechanisms, movement de-
mands, and practical training constraints of each discipline (Krabben et
al., 2019). In recent years, structured preventive warm-up programmes
have emerged for both grappling and striking combat sports; however,
the level of supporting evidence differs substantially across protocols,
ranging from empirically evaluated coach-led interventions to evidence-
informed proposals that still require prospective validation (Bacon & Wil-
son, 2024; Bell et al., 2024; von Gerhardt et al., 2023).
A key practical requirement for any preventive programme is feasibil-
ity. In most combat-sport environments, warm-up delivery is coach-led,
time-limited, and implemented within group training sessions. Conse-
quently, adherence, ease of organisation, and clarity of exercise instruc-
tion strongly influence the real-world effectiveness of preventive inter-
ventions (Lucander et al., 2025). Early evaluations in combat-sport con-
texts suggest that structured preventive protocols can be both acceptable
and practical for athletes and coaches; however, successful implemen-
tation depends largely on whether the programme integrates smoothly
into the routine flow of training and whether progression principles and
coaching cues are sufficiently simple and intuitive to apply consistently
(von Gerhardt et al., 2020; von Gerhardt et al., 2023).
The purpose of this contribution is therefore to describe and com-

Plevnik, M., & Dobnik, M. (2026). Safe wrestling.
University of Primorska Press.