Introduction to Martial Arts Exercises
Due to the many non Danish readers of the Shotokan Instructor blog I have chosen to post this article in English.
As martial arts practitioners we know that we have to strengthen our bodies but going to the local fitness centre and start punishing iron will only take us a part of the way because most of the exercises in the fitness machines are static and to develop strength and speed we will gain much more if we do functional or plyometric exercises.
If you like me use 2-3 days a week in the karate dojo (+Handball training, + Mountain-biking :) and you also have to find time to go to the fitness centre, time management will become a THE focus area ..... but there is a cheap and time-efficient solution that you can benefit from .......
First off, the reason I wrote this is simple. I needed a way to work out that was time-efficient, cheap, took up very little space, and needed little or no equipment and that I would not get bored of. After a lot of reading and researching, I found that bodyweight callisthenics, when done right, can make you as strong or stronger than a weightlifter, and the strength is all functional. It costs next to nothing but your own time and effort, and a few small pieces of equipment:
- Push up handles
- Chinning bar with “V” handles
- Some pieces of broom handle or dowel
- Some short pieces of rope or old towels
- A spring/rubber band expander
- A Jump rope
- Running or workout shoes
- Abdominal Wheel
- Some chairs
- A wall
The overall principles are in my workout philosophy are based heavily in the following:
- Keep it simple.
- Hit all the body parts.
- Do functional strength exercises first and foremost, try to keep any purely cosmetic ones to the end (if you need to do them at all, you may not need to)
- Keep it high-rep, and high intensity, with little rest. In general, the calisthenic exercises should be done at a quick pace, back to back, with only a minimum (5-10 seconds) rest between sets or types of exercises. The cardio exercises should be done as shorter more intense exercises, rather than an hour or two of leisurely activity. This produces more growth hormone and also will ensure enough stress to create a training effect.
- One should progress from lower to upper body to abs/back to neck (and forearms if desired), in that order.
- Keep a sense of body awareness. Learn to make your body work as a unit, with all the muscles working together to develop maximum power, strength, agility, and speed. Relax and don’t use any antagonistic tension. This will enable more power and speed to be developed, as you won’t be fighting yourself. (Except for isometric or static exercises, where the idea is to generate maximum tension.)
To get more defined without gaining size, do cardio first then strength.
To gain or maintain muscle while staying lean, do strength then cardio.
Calisthenics are good for strength, even in high reps. Many of the great Hindu wrestlers, who trained on high-rep calisthenics were monstrously huge.
How could this be?
The key to gaining muscular size is not so much in doing low reps or high reps, it’s in how much food and drink eat. If you do high reps and eat excessively, you’ll get huge. If you do high reps and eat moderately and eliminate unhealthy junk food, you’ll lose weight, as long as there is a calorie deficit.
High reps AND low reps will make you stronger. The key is in consistent training. Constantly mix up your training when you work out. Do high-rep calisthenics. Then do some bodyweight calisthenics that are so hard you can barely do one-rep. Things like handstand pushups, one-arm pushups, one-legged squats, etc. Mixing it up adds a training effect and prevents adaptation to the program.
Train smarter, and work harder, and you will get what you want from your body.
Just remember, conditioning will make you a better martial artist or athlete. Many of the exercises here will help any sport, but most were designed for martial arts. Try and see if they can help you.
However, always let the actual practice of your art or sport take precedence over excessive conditioning time. If you are trying to be a fighter, being super fit but not having practiced the techniques of your art will make you lose to someone with less conditioning but who has a lot more skill but knows how to use it.
7 ways to check if your workout is working out
Here are seven reliable and quick signals that tell you how well you’re doing when you work out. This will help you diagnose sooner -- rather than later – whether your program is actually working. If these signs are there, you’re doing something right. Otherwise, change something.
YOU FEEL THE EXERCISES WHERE YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO
You may feel a little discomfort in your joints on the first set of an exercise. But the discomfort should disappear on subsequent sets. After that, you should notice it right in the belly of the muscle. Here are some of the exercises you’re more likely to feel in the wrong places...
EXERCISE FEEL IT IN YOUR... BUT NOT IN YOUR...
Abdominal crunch Midsection Lower back, neck
Wide Grip Pull Ups Upper back Shoulder joints, arms
Leg curl Hamstrings Lower back, gluteals
Leg extension Quadriceps Knees
Squat Thighs, gluteals Knees, lower back
Pushups Upper arms Elbows
YOU’RE PUMPED UP
After some work, the muscles you’re targeting should feel full and hard. This is the “pump”. You see the results of your work, and you look better already. The pump also serves an important physiological purpose. The movements that trap blood in your muscles also generate lactic acid. Lactic acid helps produce growth hormone. Growth hormone is thought to help your muscles grow bigger and your fat cells shrink, since it mobilizes fat for energy. This means more strength and good muscle mass. The more blood that goes to your muscles means more nutrients and energy, which means more growth.
YOU DON’T FEEL HUNGRY
It is bad if you are hungry before your workouts over. That’s a sign your blood-glucose levels are dropping and muscle glycogen is being used at a really rapid rate, and you’re about to use muscle protein for energy.
Catabolizing that is BAD. When you use muscle protein for energy, you’re making your muscles smaller instead of bigger. That leads to overtraining and is counterproductive, and can also compromise your immunity and your overall health.
YOUR BODY FEELS WORKED, BUT NOT DEAD
You’ll know when you’ve hit your muscle just right. Muscle spasms and small tremors may occur in a fatigued muscle, most obviously in the small muscle groups. If your arm shakes a little when you comb your hair after an upper-body workout, that’s a sign you really challenged the muscles without overdoing it. (If you can’t lift the arm, go to a hospital.)
YOU FEEL REALLY GOOD
For the first couple of hours after a great workout, nothing should bother you. You should experience an elevation in mood and a decrease in anxiety. This is attributed to hormones called endorphins. You should also feel more mental energy after a workout.
YOU’RE NEARLY AS STRONG FROM ONE SET TO THE NEXT
This tells you three good things: You’re using the right resistance, you’re resting enough between sets, and your body is properly fuelled. But if your strength drops rapidly, a bunch of stuff is going wrong: You didn’t warm up enough, you’re using too much resistance or the exercise is way too tough for you at that point, or you rush through your exercises too fast.
YOU LOOK FORWARD TO RETURNING TO THE GYM
If you see improvement in this workout, that creates a mindset “Next time will be even better!" Record what you did and the number of times you did it. You may even feel motivated enough to write down what you expect to do in your next one. You’ll be more excited about training, which lays the groundwork for another good, productive workout.
HOW TO TELL WHEN YOUR WORKOUT ISN'T WORKING
You can’t wait to leave the gym. The opposite of an endorphin release is boredom. You feel exercises in places you shouldn't feel them. Joint pain signals an impending injury, and only the dumbest keep going. You feel lousy afterwards. If you go into the locker room with nausea, muscle cramps, cold sweats, or a rapid heartbeat, you know you've pushed yourself too far – or you’re sick and shouldn’t have been working out in the first place. You’re weaker than you were last workout. You should make progress in every workout. If you start to go backward, your body is telling you it’s time to try something new.
So with that all being said, keep it in mind and next post we will start looking at the exercises .....
