increasing overall fitness

[Anando]

Hello,

 

it appears that some of you may give me some advice on how to arrange a training schedule to attain a better physical potential. At the moment I am doing Karate - Do twice a week, which -in my eyes- isn't really demanding. What would you recommend to do in order to improve strength, power, and endurance ? How would you combine weight training, running and Ma training ?

[Bretty101]

IMO training at the club twice a week is about right. But i would supplement this with:

 

Stretching, 2x30minutes a week.

 

Press-ups and sit ups, 2x25minutes a week.

 

Ankle weights /kicking drills, 2x30minutes a week.

 

and maybe 2x3-5mile jogs a week.

 

I'll pick 2 of the above exercises and do them on the evenings i'm not at the club.

 

Bretty

[Red J]

The one thing that has helped me the most is running 2 or 3 times a week. I try to do 3-5 miles each time. My cardio improved drastically in a short time.

[TheDevilAside]

If you have a swimming pool near by, swimming is an excellent way of increasing over all fitness in just about every area you can think of.

[White Warlock]

Agree with TDA. Swimming is excellent and virtually no impact. After a pretty nasty injury, I brought myself back into shape with swimming and exercising in the pool (water resistance). Also, there's some good equipment out there for increasing resistance in the water. Talk to some water aerobics instructors at your local gym or college.

 

Last, you can practice 'most' martial arts 'in' the water... alone or with a partner. Partner workouts in the water really do help to build up your skills, forcing you to rely on technique, rather than brute strength. Even katas benefit from the added resistance.

[Fish]

One thing I've noticed in the dojo I attend is that most people, even the higher grades, have quite good "explosive" fitness - i.e. strength/ speed, but lack stamina. Long distance running, cycling and swimming are good for this (I'm also a budding triathlete - wishful thinking!) Running is the most likely to lead to injuries to your joints, ligaments etc, and also shortens your muscles. (One reason I started karate was to try to reverse this and increase my flexibility). If you have the chance, try cycling to work each day - a good way to increase overall fitness using time you'd have to spend travelling anyway. If you do run, cross country is quite good as the surface is softer and being uneven is quite good for balance and a certain amount of flexibility. I agree with the previous post - swimming is a good, low impact way of getting all round conditioning, but going up and down a pool is not the most interesting way of doing it!

[Terriator]

I Agree with all the possibilities mentioned above, especially the one about swimming since that really gets you into shape.

 

Another great way to improve your shape is to jump rope. I skipping about 10 min a day and that really pays off

[WhiteBelt]

I had to take some time off of training, but here's how my training was a few months ago:

 

2 - 3 sessions of MA

 

2 sessions practicing MA alone (heavy bag, kata, technique, whatever)

 

4 sessions of weight training

 

1 day for jogging

 

But now I would do less jogging, and add in some skipping every few days. Although the proportions depend on what phase of my training I want to be in.

[Rich_2k3]

Working out in the pool sounds like a great idea, but ppl would think I was some sort of weirdo when they some performing spinning hook kicks and katas

[Ironberg]

Try to buy a good heavy bag. It doesn't matter whether it is standing or swinging they both teach you different but good things. I personally think that for the martial artist, bagwork is more worth your time than running, because your stamina is getting challenged at the same time that you are working of technique, combos, and timing.