FitOrDie

That's the difference between heavy lifting sessions at the gym and sport.

I wonder about that story, honestly... Maybe it was dead on his you-know-what, I don't know, but it doesn't take THAT much pressure to pop an arm, let alone make someone tap. Your junk should be okay, though maybe temorarily hurt.

The ninja guy dancing around like he did as the voice over occurred also made it hard to take seriously. But then, it's hard to take any "dim mak" talk seriously.

It's not just about all that. Mike Tyson punches very differently and wore protective gloves when he fights. To deliver the force to stop the heart with that technique, it needs to be done a very specific way. Same thing with the kicks. Punching "differently" or not, it does not matter. Force is force, an impact is an impact, and plenty of other types of fighters don't use gloves, not that it makes much of a difference in this case. So this skinny little ninja guy can apply a force that, frankly isn't all that impressive, (ignore the wows of the testers, please), to someone's sternum. Woopty doo, I say. When I see someone drop dead from a relatively light blow to the chest, I'll believe it.

All sorts of pushups use your abs and hip flexors because you hold yourself in a plank position with those muscles. Also, diamond pushups are terrible on your shoulders, I recommend against them.

A rectangle and a rhombus are two different definitions of a shape. They are not the same thing. But sometimes, in the case of a square, they are the same thing.

Aha... Hard data... So I'm to understand that this guy doing his little hammer fist punch can hit a chest SO hard that it will stop someone's heart? And what of the century or more of boxers in the world. You're telling me this guy can hit harder than a giant man like Tyson, or any skilled boxer for that matter, and that Tyson never once delivered a shot to someone's chest? You're telling me that Bas Rutten can't kick harder than this guy doing his hammer fist, or that Bas has never kicked someone in the chest? The stuff about the nerves was interesting, I wish they would have talked about that more, it sounds a little more feasible. I'll believe the death strike when I see it kill someone. Until then, I'd say a sledge hammer stroke is the best way to achieve a one hit, one kill.

I do them occasionally, but never really fell in love with them. The perfect push-up is a huge waste of money, I say... you can get a great push-up with this thing called the floor. If no floors are available, the ground will do. Save your 30 bucks.

Natural foods, just check the labels. Some pre-prepared meats have a lot of sodium in them, so get regular meats. As far as sugar goes, if you eat the paleo-foods (meats, vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, no sugar) you will be fine. You can even throw in a little (emphasize that word) bread or something. Don't be afraid of the sugar that's in fruit, fructose is a natural form of it, and it's good for you, unless you eat a ton, which is hard to do. Think about it this way- if you can't eat it raw, and it's not meat, you probably don't want to eat it. If it isn't real food, found in nature, or at least found in ancient people's diets (any kind of packaged snack, for example), you almost surely don't want to eat it.

Ideally, the elbow rests right on top of your hip bone.

I notice that you point out things that COULD happen when you do this or that... Well sure, I suppose they could, but if you are in search of a perfect technique that will leave you invulnerable to everything except that which you are defending against, which you are rendering harmless anyway... well, sorry, force-fields haven't been invented yet. Keep in mind though, most everyone who attacks someone with a knife has tunnel vision: stab and cut the person's body. They don't think, hey, slash the hands, or hey, use my empty hand to punch and my feet to kick and my head to head butt... they just think about their knife. Instances like this are fast and chaotic, analyzation is not present, instinct is. Speaking of which, Tallgeese is right, your hands will almost certainly go up instinctively anyway, so why work against it? Hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, at least, wired that response into your brain and nervous system. Must be there for a reason. I'd rather be cut on the arm than stabbed in the torso.

That's exactly how I used to think, until I realized that a carjacker, once they get the car, may yet kill someone, even if its not me. That's why- if possible, I'll still stop them. But I won't try as hard.

I think the very premise is faulty, as others have said. To answer the question, any form of engaging violence can be considered martial arts. (That means any offensive or defensive technique outside of running away.) Some techniques will be more technical than others. However, trying to "label" these things is trying to make catergories out of far too infinite a spectrum of human movement and interaction, with the standards and rules of said categorization varying from individual to individual. This is why I dislike the term martial arts, and prefer the word "fighting."

Oh, of course. What I mean is that fitness is the foundation on which the rest is built. You can still build some fitness and martial arts skill on beer and poptarts, but a bad foundation can only hold so much on top of it. To put it another way, if you sacrifice martial arts skill, your fitness will be unaffected, because it is higher up the chain. Buuuuut, if you sacrifice fitness, your martial arts performance will also suffer. If you sacrifice nutrition, both others will suffer.

Yes, instead of blocking with fists, just use your forarms. With any luck you can maybe get them to punch your elbow, which really hurts the knuckles... Still, like Mr. Miyagi said, best block: no be there! I like the quick duck and shooting in for a take down, changing levels, if you're one on one. People on the street generally will fall right into it, can't stop it, and will get mounted and take a pounding with relative ease. Usually I duck as I'm covering with my forarms, loosely, just in case.

You know, thinking about my own question in another way, I have come to agree with the people answering. It came when I realized (by someone else telling me and me agreeing) that the foundation of everything is nutrition. If you eat like crap, you will be crap. On top of that, I realize, is fitness. You need the nutrition to be fit first. And THEN, and ONLY THEN, can you excel at your sport. In this case, your "sport" is martial arts, however sporting it may or may not be. So, my conclustion is that fitness must come before martial arts skill, because without fitness, it doesn't matter at all. Unless, I guess, you have a gun.

I'm a little lost... All of that has nothing to do with my (borrowed) definition of fitness, or the optimizing thereof. Yes, we all have genetic limits, some more than others, but it does not mean we should not strive for more. As far as measurability is concerned, measuring fitness as already defined is possible. At the very least it is highly estimatable. What you need to do is take several challenges (crossfit has benchmark workouts for just the occasion) and measure your performance. Take the crossfit total or powerlifting total (deadlift, squat, and bench/shoulder press respectively), and add them up for your strength. Or take your max clean and jerk for your power. Those two give you a good idea of how how good you are in the 10sec or less, big strength categories. Then take a workout like Fran or Grace, and measure your time there. Each should be, in the end, a 4-10 min effort. Or measure your performance on 10 sets of sprints with adequate rest. Then take a halfour effort, whatever it is, measure your output, same thing. Then take a 90min effort like cycling or jogging or whatever, see how well you do. You can measure all these time-ranges of efforts with many modalities, you can average them, and you can plot them on a graph if you really like. Me, I like to just keep a record of everything and check for improvement across the board. This is quantifiable! As for the rest... what about my base needs to be broadened?

First, I maintain that my definition: work capacity over broad time and modal domains, is fitness, completely. What you speak of is not fitness so much as skill. Sport specific fitness isn't a type of fitness, it is a type of specialization. Take a baseball player who has the strength, power, and coordination to hit a home run a third of the time he's up to bat. Very talented, some aspects of fitness, but if he's also a little tubby, and can't even run to first base (his top speed is "jog"), would you call him fit? Partially, I'll concede that. Partially fit, but not truly fit. Now take a guy with the same strength and power, and better endurance, than that baseball player, who always strikes out. He does not strike out for lack of fitness, only talent/skill. You need some or all aspects of fitness in order to execute certain athletic skills well... but you always will also need the skill to do it. To define "strong" is difficult, because the English language is inadequate. There are many types of strength, and people can have one without the other. Absolute strength, speed strength, endurance strength, power, more I'm probably forgetting... And it's hard to say when is strong enough. To generalize, I say, as strong as you can get without sacrificing other capacities. Let's take a very fit, fictional example. (Yes, I am making up the numbers, but if you found an example like mine in real life, I'd bet good money that my numbers wouldn't be far off). Let's say that his max deadlift is 500#, his max clean and jerk is 300#, he can run 3 miles in less than 20 min, he can do Grace (30 135# clean and jerks) in 3 min, and Angie (100 pull-ups, 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, and 100 squats, in that order) in 12 min. This is clearly a very fit person. Now if he were to decide that he wants to be stronger, and get his max deadlift to 700#, what might happen? Suppose he does so, but then he can only run 3 miles in 45 min, he can only do Grace in 10 min, and Angie in 28. Maybe even still his clean and jerk went up to 350#. Is he more fit? I would say no, because he sacrificed great performances for fair at best, sub-novice levels in most categories, all for one thing- the ten second or less category absolute strength and power. He can now lift big heavy weights, but that's all he has. If he were a powerlifter or olympic lifter-a specialist- it would be worth it. For those seeking fitness, martial artists perhaps, it would not. I emphasize weightlifting so much in my posts for two reasons: first, because without strength, in all its forms, you cannot consider yourself fit; and second, because it was earlier stated that there were better modalities for obtaining more and more complete fitness. I point out that weights are probably the most diverse and all-encompassing single tool, even more than your own body weight, when obtaining fitness. Traditional cardio can only build cardio endurance, less efficiently. Sure, things like sprints will build strength as well as metabolic endurance, better than jogging; but it will not build strength nearly as much as weights, and weights can build incredible metabolic endurance, rivaling the sprinters and conquering outright the results of joggers. Nothing quite jacks your heart rate like the barbell thrusters I mentioned, believe me. Of course I believe in various types of running, but if I had to make a choice between my tennis shoes and my weight set, I'd take the weight set. I wouldn't consider it "the" primary modality of obtaining fitness, but it is certainly "a" primary modality. Probably the most singly useful modality, if done right. Now, as far as improving aerobic capacity, sure, long distance stuff like jogging, cycling, etc. will work. But at the cost of everything else- it eats muscle, for one. However- and it doesn't have to be weights (although I have weight workouts that will make your lungs burn like you wouldn't believe)- training at unsustainable levels will increase aerobic AND anaerobic capacities. It has been observed time and again that the aerobic capacity of sprinters closely matches that of marathon runners. Their V02 max ratings are close if not the same. Technically, I'm doing aerobics as I type this response right now. My primary fuel is oxygen, and I can sustain this rate of activity for hours and hours. But consider this: a weight workout such as Grace, above, or this one: "5 barbell thrusters, 7 hang power cleans, 10 sumo deadlift high pulls (google it), as many rounds as possible in 20 min," will leave you so out of breath that you have to lie down to recover enough to talk in less than 5 min. I don't even want to think about "fight gone bad." Just because oxygen isn't the primary fuel doesn't mean that you don't need a whole lot of it. Your cardio-respiratory system is most definitely improved upon. Now consider jogging at your highest sustainable for an hour or more, and how out of breath are you? Aerobic capacity is definitely challenged, despite it being anaerobic activity, in certain types of 20 min weight workout and I personally have found that such workouts have dramatically increased my ability to keep up with my cycling-fanatic wife.

I just had an idea: multiply everything by three and go for 300 squats.

What about spelling you're, meaning you are, as your, instead? Nyuk nyuk.

I agree. While I make the point that a few weights will go a long way and then some, every now and then, you do have to go for a long jog. And, if you are a boxer, for instance, you have to put your time in practicing skills- sparring, heavy bag, focus pads, etc. If you are planning on climbing a mountain, the same applies- practice for it! Still, it should be known that workouts from the brief but intense Fran to a longer, twenty minute intense workout... will still increase long distance, aerobic capacity. This has been proven by more organizations than I can count. And such workouts will do so with the added benefit of NOT burning muscle. I have found that no matter what, the "traditional" cardio only hurts me when done more than occasionally. But then, I admit, I don't run marathons. All this aside, my original point remains: weights of some sort- barbells, dumbbells, kettlebells, or just sand bags, are a necessary tool in becoming truly fit. You cannot ignore them. Especially for anyone concerned with fighting. Just don't work out like a body builder.

There I disagree. Strength is a part of fitness, and weights can certainly illicit fitness in more than just that way. Google a workout called "fran" and tell me what you think. Please read the entire posting. I repeat "If you want to get fit weight training isn't the best approach. There are other training modalities that will get you 'fit' much quicker and more completely than weight training." I agree strength is part of fitness, etc. But weight training, imo, isn't the best way to 'get fit'. Perhaps then, we should define fitness. Some people think that fitness is jogging, and that marathon runners or triathletes are the most fit people in the world. But those people have no strength or power- they cannot lift, jump, punch, or even sprint hard at all. By the same notion, powerlifters and olympic weighlifters are the "strongest" people in the world, by the standard of completing a heavy lift of some sort, but they have no endurance to speak of. I could go on. I prefer crossfit's standard of fitness: "work capacity over broad time and modal domains." So simple, so brilliant. The ability to generate power (force multiplied by distance over time, F*d/t, or, how fast can you move a given load) in various ways over a ten second period, a minute, ten minutes, an hour... Are you really fit if you can move tremendous loads in just a couple seconds, but nothing worth mentioining over thirty minutes? Or vice versa, running a marathon in record time but not being able to jump more than two inches? To be fit, of course you must be strong, but that is not the end of it. However, without strength, you will never be fit anyway. And weights do not only develop strength, they are useful for conditioning as well. Consider this workout: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IMigc9XICQ. It is called grace, it is 30 clean and jerks for time. You move a load fo 135# from the ground to over your head 30 times, imagine the power output! Moving so much weight so far in so little time. Can match such activity without weights? Consider also Fran: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVBgKB4Gnsw. the barbell thruster seen in this video is the most draining exercise I have ever even heard of, and it is performed 45 times total, as is the pullup. Moving your bodyweight so far 45 times, then 45times again PLUS a 95# barbell all the way overhead... Something like 40,000 foot-pounds of work completed, in around five minutes or less once you really start becoming fit. Some people do it in less than three! You have to be strong to be able to put out so much power, to do so much work in so little time. And no amount of jogging, or running and sprinting of any kind, will enable you to workout so hard, I promise. Further conditioning exercises might include kettlebell swings: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhG4FcJxlvQ&feature=PlayList&p=10148D70C2132831&playnext=1&index=10, or the one armed snatch, seen at the beginning of this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57pv_1j4dH0. All involve weights, and all are superior conditioning movements. Do i say never run? Of course not! But to deny yourself weights, to consider them any less than than the best strength AND metabolic conditioning tool would seem wrong after all I have just shown you. What I believe (and I might be wrong, but I doubt it) you are thinking of is a bodybuilding routine. Exercise machines, bicep curls, all that nonsense. That is no way to get fit at all, but if you do it right, a barbell with some weights, and a pull-up bar, and your own body, are all the equipment you need to become fit at a world class level. And maybe some shoes, I guess.

A diet high in starch is good for no one except sumo wrestlers trying to get fat and humming birds. See my signature.

There I disagree. Strength is a part of fitness, and weights can certainly illicit fitness in more than just that way. Google a workout called "fran" and tell me what you think.

Sounds like another martial arts related internet fantasy to me... X-files style "government agents are perfect super humans" type of thinking, really, ought to be disproven by now. And like others have said, nothing in this world is new (except technology). Human beings only move in certain ways, and they have been fighting since before they were human beings. So, you do the math.