Ueshirokarate

They have value far beyond that in my opinion. There is much that can be done with them if you are creative and I believe they are totally underutilized.

I love those drills. So much can be done with them.

This ^^^^^^. Heck, I don't even work my arms in isolation.

Do you have access to a makiwara? http://www.mikeoliveri.com/2008/06/17/building-a-makiwara/ http://physicalarts.com/knowledge/training-and-technique/397-makiwara-how-to-build-and-use

Get a small spiral bound notebook and just jot down what you lift after you lift it. Here is a great website for 5/3/1: http://www.strstd.com/

Any good knowledgeable trainer should/would customize a program for him. Crossfit really has nothing to do with that. Crossfit is crossfit, just as Bodybuilding is Bodybuilding and in my opinion, neither is a fit for the OP, as his primary focus is martial arts. There are literally thousands upon thousands of different exercises he can do and so many people out there jump from exercise to exercise and really just spin their wheels. I have suggested to him several times to pick up Olympic style lifts, as those would develop both strength and explosiveness that would be so helpful in the martial arts. The second choice to me would be a more traditional strength training regimen with compound lifts. Both of these tools exist outside of Crossfit. He is already involved with several types of martial arts training, so why add even more volume to his regimen with a Crossfit routine, especially when doing so will most likely take away from his hypertrophy? Most of the certification training I have is for Crossfit type exercises specific to martial arts. I train with sand bags, a TRX and other things common to Crossfit gyms. However, I am older and at 215lbs I already have a pretty solid base of muscle mass. Hence, my goals are completely different than those of a 16 year old. In my opinion, his best bet is to start with a basic lifting program and nutrition plan to build muscle mass. He can worry about other things later. He has several golden years ahead of him to grow muscle mass and he shouldn't let those pass by. Right now he should keep it simple and progressive (something like starting strength.)

Steroids are completely unnecessary and just plain bad for you. One of the biggest misses when it comes to putting on muscle is diet. Someone must lift hard progressively, but they also need to eat sufficient calories (and consume enough macros such as protein) to put on muscle. We also need to consider that some of us have higher metabolisms or metabolic needs based upon activity levels. If you have trouble putting on muscle, chowing down hard gainer supplements (crap IMHO) is not a game plan. But I would say that if you can't put on muscle as a teenager, something is wrong with what you are doing. Most likely it is diet or training program. Keep in mind, even during the teenage years muscle takes much longer to put on than we think it will or should. Just like martial arts skills, these things happen very gradually over long periods of time and only with the right training and consistent (over years) effort can they be achieved.

There is nothing wrong with crossfit. However, we are talking about a teenager who is already heavily training in martial arts. Martial arts training accomplishes much of what people take up crossfit for and it isn't the muscle building aspects of crossfit we are talking about. The way I see it, there is no reason to take away from his golden muscle building years to double up on training that does not add to and may actually hinder his muscle building progress. The muscles and nervous system can only take so much and he only has so many hours in a day to train. IMHO, it is smartest for him to focus on martial arts training and heavy weight training for hypertrophy. When he has packed on some muscle in a few years, he can always shift focus to other aspects of conditioning if he needs to. My guess is that if he puts his all into the weight training and martial arts, his conditioning will probably be fine.

I don't think crossfit is appropriate for him at his age. He has a limited few years to fully take advantage of his natural steriods and should be looking to get as muscular as he possibly can. Hard weight training will do this for him and anything too much in excess will hinder this. Brock Lesnar didn't get to be Brock Lesnar by doing Crossfit. Crossfit type exercises are fine, but not in this situation.

It may not seem like it now, but you have a lot of training time ahead of you and you can't train everything at once. You need to periodize your efforts and your training for the next few years should center on hypertrophy. You are at a special time in your life and should take full advantage of it, as your body is undergoing rapid change/growth and you have a tsunami of hormones flooding your body. This is the best time in your life to lift heavy and pack on as much muscle as you can, so don't hold back on the eating, but do hold back on the endurance training. You'll be working on "endurance" as you train in other arts. You don't want to overdo it, as that will hinder your muscle building efforts. Besides, sprinting is far more conducive to fighting than long distance running anyway.

All excellent points and suggestions!!! Solid post. These are all things I did. I also did speed and agility drills.

Good point Evil Dave. Endurance should not be a primary focus of a martial artist. Question is, who would you rather fight? http://i340.photobucket.com/albums/o347/nylistens/sprinter-vs-long-distance-runner.jpg Keep the SAID principle in mind when designing a training routine.

Congrats. Try to get a training partner to work with out of class. You can drill anything you want together. Classes will always be more broad-based than you would like, as they should be.

That's an interesting point. The reality is that 99% of the people out there would get in such better shape walking into a dojo than a gym. At a gym you need to know what to do and push yourself. Of course you could also hire a personal trainer, but that is a pretty expensive proposition to most. You join a good dojo and you pretty much get personal attention all the time, both instructor and peer motivation to push you past your limits. You become part of a community and this helps you stick with it. Martial arts training is so much more conducive to getting fit for these reasons. We could probably use a PR firm and a Madison Avenue ad agency to get the word out. Somehow the "fitness" industry has and we have a much better story, as self-defense is also learned along the way.

It would be great if we could all figure out how to be millionaires doing what we love.

I left the system I train in as a San Kyu. I knew enough to train on my own, but greatly regret not being able to train in a dojo. With my own training, I was able to get faster and stronger, as well as improve my kata. But there is much you will miss out on. All I can say, is that if you have a good base in your art just get creative. You will already know some things you can do and some areas that need improvement.

Any of you guys heard of that "small dojo big profits" thing? Just wondering, as it seems to be pretty expensive. There is nothing wrong with making money or even getting rich in the ma business if you can, although it seems to be the rare exception and not the rule.

I think it is a very tough business from what I have seen and heard. Even the BJJ school in my neighborhood is struggling right now and they are a huge brand name. I think the biggest part of the problem is that a MA school is patronized by a select few in general and is a retail space that will generally be underutilized most of the day, given the hours of class. It is probably best to team up with personal trainers, yoga teachers, etc so that the space can be used when ma instruction is not going on.

How can anyone consider anything else when there is a very high quality Matsubayashi school in the area. http://www.matsubayashi-ryu.com.au/

At your age, you should be trying to but as much muscle on your body as you can, by do whole body lifts. You are in the unique position to have the added benefit of very helpful hormones. Your endurance training is your martial arts training. If I were you, I wouldn't be wasting my time with high reps and circuits.

The only thing I want to add here is this; I just think you need to play within the rules of your system. If those who are above you have no problem with you bringing in outside techniques, the by all means do so. If those above you want to only teach the official curriculum than you should respect that. If it is you or your own school/system then do as you wish IMHO.

This is purely my point of view. Obviously some will disagree. With 18 katas (20 in our schools), 7 pre-arranged drills and all the other stuff that goes along with this, Matsubayashi has more curriculum within it than most can effectively learn and drill. I think in all Matsubayashi schools, some things are neglected just due to the fact that there is so much to learn and drill. From my view, if you start adding things from outside you are diluting your system. I am not opposed to learning other techniques and adopting them for yourself. However, a student I am teaching in a school in our system has signed up to learn our system. They didn't join an MMA, Judo or BJJ school. Learning how to apply our system's techniques fall within the scope of learning our system, whereas adapting techniques from outside does not. If it isn't my own developed style with my name on the certificates, I am not going to bring in my techniques (no matter how effective or where learned), unless it is to understand the system I am teaching's techniques better. If I were the head of the system, I would get pretty angry at someone trying to teach something outside of our system, as this will change the system and while it may be an improvement in some cases it won't be for the better. Also studying outside techniques outside the scope of inside techniques takes time away from the study of your style. Make sense?

I think we all agree with the notion of training a grappling style. Heck, the founder of Matsubayashi was ranked in Judo. That said, many students are challenged to just dedicate enough time to learn one type of martial arts. This is why I think sharing our experiences and knowledge is invaluable to such students. Your suggestion of an unwilling uke is spot on. As an instructor, this should be you. Of course as the instructor, you need to be doubly skilled and not only be an unwilling uke but one that uses control. You should know exactly what level your students are at and only push them slightly beyond what they can handle.

From my experience, if you train true karate there is a technique to counter every grappling attack. In my opinion, this is why kata is so darn important. It has within it, every technique you would ever need. The challenge in my view is to remove the mickey mouse bunkai and figure out exactly how these techniques apply or don't apply to a given attack. The intent of the thread really wasn't about my training, I think I have a decent foundation in grappling between my judo and bjj experiences. Once again, my primary concern is teaching with the scope of the style of the school in which you teach. I believe that if it isn't your own style and you are under the direction of others, it is not ok to bring techniques in from outside the style. However, it is being a true martial artist to study other styles and how to apply the techniques in your system to counter potential opponents.

I am not arguing against this idea. It is exactly why I studied judo and why I now take BJJ. The thread was more about taking techniques from kata and then applying them to defend against a grappler. As instructors, it is unrealistic to expect all your students to also study grappling styles. Most people don't have the time to do more than one MA. However, it does make sense as an instructor to teach your students how to defend against such attacks applying techniques from your style and drill them, don't you agree?