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Have been taking quite a lot of inside photos at some karate gradings and competitions. Have a D200 with a SB800 flash with a 17-55 and a 80-200 2.8 under fluro light that isn't too bad. Have been using the flash to good light effect but as I can't go past 1/250 some of the photos haven't been very sharp (eg Fast kicks). Is bumping the iso and running with no flash the only way to imrove and run a higher shutter speed in order to freeze the big kicks or is there a better way to do things? Would love some advice from more experienced members.

If you don't mind dark backgrounds, you can try closing the aperture down to f8 or less, that will force the flash to be the main light source which will result in frozen motion regardless of the slow shutter speed. Of course this will only be usefull when shooting a single person, not so good for a whole group of karate kids.

Thanks Phillip appreciate the advice! Will give it a go next time.

The D200 and SB-800 support Auto-FP mode which will allow you to use a much higher shutter speed. This mode throws away a lot of the power of the SB-800 to achieve the higher shutter speed. You may need to increase your ISO to compensate. To enable Auto-FP change to maximum flash sync speed to "1/250s (Auto FP)" in the D200's custom settings. Hope this helps.

Thank you.

The other suggestions I think are really helpful, the only other thing you could try (albeit the most expensive option!) is to consider a prime lens of some sort which will allow you more shutterspeed again. Indoors 2.8 especially for action is not always going to be enough. For the moment though, sounds like the flash is limiting your shutterspeed, so switch to high speed synch and see how things go from there.