scohen.mma

Hey all, my favorite kind if workouts are Plyometrics. But there's only so many routines I can come up with and I feel like my body adapts to them pretty fast. How do any of the other martial artists out there deal with this? I thought maybe I could write up as many as I can, do one for a few weeks before moving into the next one and then keep rotating through. Any thoughts? Thanks in advance!

I find the soundtrack from the last samurai to be really relaxing and even motivating to do kata.

I've read lots if articles about GSP and why he do this. I personally can't blame him and for all those fans judging him for this, I'd love to see then in his position! I wrestled for a few years and before a match, there's always that kind of anxiety. I just have to deal with that anxiety for 3 months and then not worry about it for the rest of the year. Doing that for a living, year round, with so many fans expecting him to win and so many other guys wanting him to lose? The amount of time he has to put into training, studying his opponent and watching his every move to make sure he's prepared for the fight? It's insane! Unfortunately, I really am up in the air with how he did against Hendricks. Maybe it's because I just have a hard time imagining that he could flat out lose. Either way, I'd still love to see him return.

I'd love to see that! I'm a big fan of GSP!

I saw it, and I can only agree that the fight scenes were fun. Just too flashy and not very realistic. But for anyone that has an interest in ninjas or assassins, I'm sure they'd enjoy it.

I would agree with anyone who mentioned The Last Samurai. My old Sensei, Tony Aloe, teaches Kaze No ryu Bugei Ogawa Ha and is the president of the International Bugei Society. He's an amazing teacher and has such a great understanding for martial arts in all aspects. From what I've seen, he also has a huge interest in the Samurai. After a class I had with him one night, that movie was mentioned and Sensei Aloe immediately spoke greatly of how accurate the movie was. I'm not very knowledgeable in the Samurai, but I trust Sensei Aloe entirely.

I don't think there's any certification that one needs to teach Karate. To my understanding, back in the day, belts weren't given to show experience. One theory is that a Karateka is given one white belt, and over time it gets darker and that shows experience. I'd think of it this way: if you think your sons Sensei is teaching good and he is learning, then is it really necessary to switch schools? The quality if the teaching is more important than all the "certifications" one might need. That's just my opinion though. Good luck!

I'm not even a Shodan yet, so I'm not sure how valid my opinion is, if at all. But I feel that it's important to keep martial arts, traditional martial arts in particular, alive. With that said, as years go on, things will change, maybe not on purpose or because of how the individual works. So I think that it's okay if some things change over time, but the ultimate goal should be to keep our martial arts alive.

All bodyweight exercises for strength training. Lots of running and lots of kata to finish off my workout! It always feels great.

100% agree with Sensei8. That's all the advice you need! Just fit that into a schedule that works for you and train hard!

Most definitely not just for girls! I joined the Marine Corps and my recruiter has us do some kind of circuit training every other PT. Also, most of the mma fighters in UFC do circuit training to condition their body for the intensity of a fight. Look up any kind of fighters "training montage" or something like that and you'll probably see them running from exercise to exercise at some point whether it's weights or bodyweight.

There's a guy on youtube called kwonkicker. He has lots of videos that help with stretching, and kicking better overall. I got some great tips from him back when I was competing.

Hey man, I'm really sorry to hear about that. I had something similar happen to me, although it was out of pure stupidity. I used to be a gym junkie and was obsessed with getting big. To be specific, I wanted big traps. So on days I worked my back, I'd do the big compounds for each part and then I'd finish with 2-3 different trap exercises. Long story short, I had over developed traps that were too big for the rest of my body. It didn't look monstrous, but it felt awesome. Anyway, if I did any intense exercise something would happen and I couldn't move my whole upper body. Then I couldn't lift heavy anymore without that happening. Anyway, I tried a chiropractor and it only helped for a few hours after. Then I tried physical therapy, and now I can workout again. I don't lift weights, just body weight stuff and lots of cardio. The bodyweight exercises I feel help to naturally strengthen your muscle groups. I don't feel dead the next day, but I do feel satisfied. I'd recommend resting and doing NOTHING for a whole month. Then try out a few different physical therapy places. Some aren't as good as others. Then stay in shape with just bodyweight exercises. That all worked out perfectly for me, and my neck was in so much pain and I had such a limited range of motion at all times - if I was having a good day! I hope this helped, sorry for typing so much. Good luck!

I've heard before that when running a kids Karate class, you need to make it very active and let them get a lot of their energy out. That makes sense to me, so I was wondering if anyone had any methods of doing so that they like specifically? Also, how do you go about teaching them Kata? I've noticed that lots of kids have a hard time staying still and focusing on one thing for a certain amount of time. I figured it would be wise to just do kata towards the end of the class after they've gotten rid of most of their energy. Anyway, this post is purely out of curiosity. Thank you in advance!

Yes, you're just waiting on a proper diet for a six pack. You could also try doing some high intensity full body burnouts after each lifting session. Or do less distance running and more sprints. Or both!

I love a majority of things. Following the triathlete stuff though is what keeps me interested in cardio at all! I really only have time for running now because of the Marines, but I'd probably swim and bike a lot more often if I had access to a pool and the time needed to go on a long bike ride. Both of them have little to no impact on your joints, unlike running. But hey, I doubt I'll be able to swim away or bike away when I'm in war, so it's okay. You should try doing a small bike ride just to fatigue your legs a bit, then drop off your bike and immediately go on a run.

So I've always been fascinated by the Samurai. I decently educated on how young they were when they'd start training, what Martial Arts (roughly) they did and I'm well aware of Bushido. I know some of their training methods involved getting in a horse stance while knee deep in snow, standing under a cold waterfall and doing log training. I also heard that they did lots of Sumo training. I'm not saying that I'm gonna try all these, but if I can I probably will try at least some of them. If anyone knows any specifics of their log training, or any other training methods they did, I'd love to know! Thanks in advance.

Preferably Matsubayashi Ryu, but how similar are Isshin-Ryu and Matsubayashi Ryu? I want to continue Matsubayashi but can't, and I just found an Isshin-Ryu dojo near me. Any thoughts are welcome! Thank you.

Hey all, I'd really love to have my own Makiwara! I don't want to buy one because I feel it's just too expensive, and when I was 12 I made my own bow with arrows (it worked horribly). So I'd like to take on the challenge of making a Makiwara for my Karate. If anyone could give me specifics on what I need and a good way to set it up, that's be great. What kind if wood should I use? What kind of rope? As many details as possible would be super appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Hey, I completely agree with the diet advice. It's the number one important part. But exercising helps too! The two methods that I put all my faith into for fat loss is circuit training and hill sprints. For circuit training, 3-5 nonstop rounds of a few different exercises that work your whole body for 10-20 reps each exercise. As for hill sprints, just find a steep hill that isn't too big and sprint up as fast as you can. Your recovery should only be the jog back down. Do that a few times than rest for 2 minutes at the bottom of the hill, and do it again. I hope this helped'

You can do bodyweight workouts for strength, muscular endurance and explosive power. You can accomplish this through circuits or just standard sets/reps. No matter what the exercise is, keep in mind what your goal is. If you want to be explosive, think of performing each rep explosively. You could go through all of your kata and/or Kihon as a warmup and/or cool down for each workout. Just 2-3 times per week outside of your dojo training is enough! Good luck

Plyometrics and Olympic Lifting. For Plyometrics, be explosive with every exercise. For Olympic lifting, just put a focus on the Snatch and Clean Jerk, plus some of their other variations and keep the reps low so you can put on more weight. For the Plyometrics, just design a few different full body circuits. For example: - 20 Clap Ups - 20 Box Jumps - 20 Medicine Ball Slams or Pushups Complete 3 Rounds through for time or mix it up however you'd like. For the Olympic Lifting, which you could use in the same session as your Plyometrics (get your lifting done and finish your workout with a tough Plyometric circuit. Make it look something as simple as this: - DB Snatch (5 sets of 3 reps EXPLOSIVE) - BB Hang Clean (5x5) - Deadlift or Squat Variation (5x5) If your goal is to get powerful or explosive, that's just how you have to train in the gym. Lift lots of weight as explosively as possible. If you wanna make sure you don't add on mass, just take the number of sets you do for lifting, 3x3-5 reps instead of 5. Good luck!

Welcome! My old strength training coach for wrestling, who also trained every sports team in my school, used to halve us do a dynamic stretch/warmup before we do our workout, because it loosens you up and gets you warmed up and ready to move. Then after the workout, we had a cool down stretch where we focused on static stretching (reach and hold type thing) so we could focus on breathing. I felt great and never got injured!

Double post

I think it's okay as long as 1. your Sensei is made aware 2. It's for a good reason. As someone above me said, if your dojo doesn't have enough classes per week to fit your needs, that's fine if you go to another school to get some more training in when you can't. Also, as I said if it's for a good reason, I was in the same boat when I was 16. My dojo does LOTS of Kata practice (every class actually, it's fantastic), and only 1-2 sparring classes per week. I had signed up for a tournament that was a good 2-3 months away. I would be competing in Kata and Kumite. So I signed up for some temporary TKD classes because they have some pretty awesome kicks, and my style of Matsubayashi Ryu doesn't work a lot of kicks at all. So where I felt confident in Kata, I was feeling uneasy about competing in Kumite on my normal schedule. Obviously, my Sensei was made aware and I ended up taking first place in Kata and second place in Kumite.