Running, Karate and Peak Performance

[AnonymousOne]

I have put this here because I love Karate and this is of course a Karate area.

 

Running, Karate and Peak Performance

 

The purpose of this article is to outlay some of things I have personally done, observed and advised over the last 41 years in Karate.

 

My main purpose is to encourage, guide and hopefully inspire the younger generation to set high goals and shine in Karate. It’s designed for the adamantly serious student who ardently desires to achieve their goals. I don’t mean mildly desire, but I mean that grit your teeth kind of “I WANT THAT GOAL!” attitude.

 

Assuming you have thoroughly analysed and planned out your goal and set a strict training programme and that you have a good set of running shoes (don’t be a tightwad, get some good ones) and consulted your doctor before embarking on what I am going to outlay, then we will proceed.

 

First up, the best way to start your training is to understand what you are doing. A running programme, properly designed and followed will build your strength, aerobic and anaerobic fitness, endurance, speed, co-ordination, power and most importantly your mental discipline. The benefits to the Karate-ka from running, are quite profound.

 

I train in a very hard school and two hours of training in the evening, is extremely exhausting for most students, but you are bigger than that aren’t you? Of course you are, you are a Karate-ka!

 

So, after every lesson you do with your Sensei, go home, don’t hesitate, put your running shoes on, do some light warm ups and hit the road jack!

 

Start off by having an even pace. Let your breathing be only slightly laboured. In the beginning look for longer distance to build aerobic capacity. Make sure you time exactly the how long you run and accurately record the distance. This is important to measure development. Go as far as you can go and make sure you have a good workout and cool down properly. Go home, have a hot bath and afterwards do some light stretching. This helps get the lactate acid out of your muscles that may cause soreness.

 

Keep this regiment up daily. Yes daily, don’t be slack! If your dojo is not open that day simply increase the distance. I recommend you start running on grassed areas and on the flat.

 

After each dojo lesson never fail to go running afterwards. Now a word of advice, if you are training properly, when you go to the dojo you should be finding yourself totally worn out during the lessons because your running is biting you. But don’t worry about it, just keep going, because not too far in the future you are going to stand out in the dojo if you follow what I say. I have been personally so exhausted in lessons, I have started to get delusional Haha. I mean when the teacher said turn left, I turned right. When he said face the front, I face the back. But I wasn’t worried.

 

Initially build up to five miles per day, every day. If you can already do that then you are ready for a more advanced stage. When you are running, you are not running, you are karate training!

 

Once you have built yourself up to a solid and honest five miles per day after each dojo lesson you should be finding yourself with a lot more energy, endurance and capability than other students. But this is just the beginning.

 

Ok then. Assuming you are able to meet the above criteria you are ready to get brutal on yourself.

 

The next stage is hill training. Your goal is to find the highest hill or mountain road that is within five miles of where you live. If there isn’t one, then drive to one in a car as I used to do. Or find a multi-story building about 10 floors or more that has stairs and run up them.

 

Work out a route that is five miles long. Guess what? Yes that’s right this route is now your new road after karate training. When I first did this back in the 1970’s it took me six months to get over the hill I chose because it was so steep, but that damn hill was not got to beat me!! And I eventually conquered it!

 

So off you go night after night battling those roads and hills, the rain, the hail, the thunder, the cold, the wind and also the heat. If possible find a route that has up and down hills on the way to your major hill. Never let an exception occur of not going. If you cannot run, then go and walk the whole damn thing just for the mental discipline. And I am not asking you to do anything I have not done.

 

Once you are able to do that route non-stop, as you go up the hills lift up onto your toes as you run. This requires a great deal of work on your calf muscles. Keep doing this because it’s very hard and exhausting.

 

Pacing

 

As you run, pick out markers on the road. Perhaps electricity poles or road markers of some kind. The idea is to pick regular spaces and as you are running and pick up the pace for 100 – 500 metres and then return to your previous pace. Be careful not to slip into anaerobic loading. Keep it within aerobic work but simply pick up your pace. Alternatively you can simply do it by stop watch.

 

You can be running at one steady pace and then increase your pace for say 3 minutes and then return. The idea here is to gradually build up your pace to longer and longer periods, with the view of eventually doing your whole route at that pace.

 

Keep records of your increases, times and measurements for accurate assessment and growth. Steadily build your pace up until your route is done at a much faster pace.

 

So there you are running up hills, putting added stress on your calf muscles at a much faster pace. Within 6 months to a year of doing this daily and especially since you have done this straight after dojo lessons, you should find yourself full of endurance and stamina.

 

Now you are ready for the next phase.

 

Training Others Will Call Insanity

 

First rule here is to not be influenced by the negative influences of other people. To hell with what people think, you are training!

 

Get yourself a hitch hikers back pack, a strong one. Throw into it a 20-30kg (40-60lbs or so) weight and when you go running guess what?

 

That’s right, same route, same routine of hill work and pacing and run the whole damn thing every night with that weight. Gradually build up that weight to as heavy as possible.! Try it and see how hard it is!

 

Do that for a year or so. After that your fitness level should be starting to look pretty dynamic!

 

Anaerobic Development

 

After your daily run, pick out a grassed area and do sprinting. Start off gradually. You have just ran 5 miles or so and will be very warmed up.

 

Do 4 sprints with 2 minutes rest in between of 800 metres. If you cannot do 800 pick a distance less than that and work on it to build it up to around 800 metres.

 

Gradually build up the repetitions to 8 or 10.

 

This will really chew into your body. By the way, take the weight off before you sprint. Or if you are as mental as I am, leave it on.

 

Gradually build up the distance you sprint and speed. In addition to that start sprinting backwards! Yes backwards!

 

Its awkward for your body and may throw you a little and yes you will look damn silly doing it but it trains a whole different group of muscles and is excellent for developing your ability to retreat fast.

 

Agility Training

 

You have seen the army guys training running and jumping through old tires? Do it. Old tires are easy to get. In the back of my properly (live on 5 acres) you will see all sorts of weird things!! Haha For training of course!

 

If possible get some old logs, the bigger in diameter the better and line them up end on end on the ground. As you run along side them, suddenly jump up over them onto the other side and then as soon as your feet hit the ground, jump over to the other side. Simply run and jump from one side to the other as you move forward. This sounds easy but its not. It develops springiness in your legs and helps develop your ability to suddenly move sidewards.

 

Do this after your running and sprinting training.

 

But you are saying “Oh man, I have to do daily running, then up hills, then with weights, then sprinting, then agility exercises?”

 

Yes that’s right. If you want to develop yourself to the fullest potential you must pay the price. More on this later.

 

Another way to develop agility is while you are running is to suddenly stop, do 5 squat jumps or burbees and then return to running. Of course you can mix this in with your jumping over logs routine.

 

Ardent Strain

 

Before I went up to Japan in 1982 I wanted to prepare myself for the arduous road ahead. I had heard how tough the Japanese instructors were and wanted to prepare myself as best as possible. I went and worked up in the mines in North West Australia. My sister and her in-laws were living and working in a mine and I got a job. I arrived in October 1980 which is the begining of Spring. Apart from work, I dedicated myself totally to Karate training.

 

Apart from my daily Karate sessions, I ran of course. As the summer wore on the heat started to really set in. We had many days when it was 52C , that’s 125.6 F. That’s hot!

 

I often worked nightshift and got to bed at 6.30am. So when I awoke it was around 2pm, the hottest part of the day. In this blazing heat I used to catch a lift out to the Gypsum Mine, on the road train trucks from the main town and run back. The distance was 12 miles exactly and had many steep hills. So there I was at the hottest part of the day running. The locals, my relatives and my work friends said I was crazy, but they used more colourful words. I must admit it was incredibly hot, but the harder it was, the greater I felt challenged. I was 23 then. These conditions put an enormous amount of stress on my mind and body but I figured it would be easier to face than my eventual lessons in Japan, so I didn’t hesitate.

 

Often I would wait until the hottest part of the day and go running over sand dunes. This was really hard because your feet sink deep into the loose sand and it’s hard to pull your legs out. I also mounted a makiwara out in the desert 6 miles away. I used to run over the sand dunes to the makiwara, then workout with it and then run back.

 

I found running in this heat truly soul searching. It was one of the hardest things I have ever done and turned out to be harder than my Japanese teachers. I totally recommend you find the hardest possible conditions to train in and commit to challenging your mind and body.

 

This system of running has kept me in good stead and allowed me to get to the peak of my physical fitness which I have maintained ever since. So much so that my sons non martial arts friends call me the “Dangerous Old Bastard”. Haha Respectively of course.

 

Goals

 

It all comes down to goals! What do you really want? What inspires you? How far do you want to go in Karate? What are you prepared to pay in return of the goal achievement?

 

If you are a normal healthy person, with a dedicated commitment, you will be amased at what you can achieve. Don’t listen to others. Set your goals, write them down, plan out a strategy of action to achieve them and you will, but you must commit.

 

You must pay the price for it! The way is long and the road is hard, but the benefits are truly profound.

 

As a young man I had one simple goal. I simply wanted to be able to get to the peak of what I was able to do. I didn’t want to compare myself to others, I purely wanted to get to my peak in fitness, skills and abilities. I was in an internal battle. Of course there were some external things that motivated me and I used them, but the main motivating factor for me was getting to my best. I figured that if I was at my peak I would be a long way ahead of others I wanted to be ahead of. And this certainly proved true.

 

I was fortunate in one sense. My father gave me the trait of never giving in. My father would often stay up all hours of the night fixing something he simply didn’t need to fix. He just wanted it fixed. I am talking about the likes of old radios, TV’s, lawn mowers or what ever. He simple stayed up and never gave in because he didn’t like being beaten. That clock or radio was not going to win the day and he kept at it until he triumphed. It was something I was bought up with and pre-programmed with as a very small child.

 

However that attitude did cause one problem. The self discipline I have has one negative aspect, I have the ability to over do it. Think of the hardest Karate lesson you have ever had. Well, I have the ability to make myself to that and more. Even to the point that I have trained myself so hard, I have had to stay in bed for days because I was so exhausted.

 

This gets to my next point. One must learn to understand your own body and learn very exactingly where your peak training levels are. You have to learn what the right amount is. Too much is no good, and too little is no good. Only by accurately watching yourself carefully, will you eventually gain knowledge of when to stop or carrying on. This is very important.

 

If you want to be at your absolute best, you must constantly stop at your proper training point. Never fool yourself!!

 

This is one down fall of dojo’s. You only can work at the pace of the class. You will build yourself up where you can do 1,000 of one technique easily but the teacher only ever makes the class do 100. Under those circumstances, you are in no way approaching proper training levels. You are under training and probably degenerating. This is why I firmly believe that after Shodan or Nidan level, that you train once a week at the dojo under your teacher and then the rest of the weak stick to your own arduous training routine.

 

The reason is also this. Imagine the worlds greatest marathon runner. They run between 100-160 miles, yes miles per week. It’s usually a solo routine. Imagine training for an Olympic game and being made to train with someone who is half as slow as you and can only run 40 miles per week. What will soon happen to your fine conditioning? Down the toilet it goes. You must constantly work at your optimum level.

 

Some instructors would be horrified at my suggestions here, but I am not talking about beginners and kyu grades. I am talking about a student that has gone well past shodan, and has a deep desire to improve, has the self discipline to commit and an exacting training programme worked out.

 

You gotta have goals!! I initially went into Karate as a very small boy to improve my health and to learn to defend myself. When I got well past the point where I would never be defeated by any street thug, I thought “Now what?”. So I turned my goals inward rather than outward. I wanted to defeat myself. I wanted to see how far I could go.

 

I have been labelled a fanatic. I have been called eccentric etc. But I don’t care. I have worked on and achieved my goals and I am constantly expanding them to explore new horizons. I have been given a wife that is incredibly supportive. She will drive me out to lonely locations and sit and read a book while I go and do my training. I have a son who is a first rate Karate-ka in his own right and he helps me train also. Gather people around you who will help you and are positive about you achieving your goals. Stay away from the “neggies” and gather around yourself motivated people. Find someone in your dojo who has the same or similar goals and work out together. Share ideas, work out a training schedule together and have a healthy competition between you and them.

 

I had a dear friend I used to train with and we were constantly trying to out do each other. In fact he was so competitive he gave up a good paying job to run behind a rubbish truck to get added training!. He was always so incensed that I had much longer legs and could sprint better than him. Haha Sadly, for strange religious beliefs, he gave up training long ago.

 

We as humans are capable of such incredible things. Karate has never enjoyed a better time. We have more knowledge now. We have scientific analysis and medical understandings that they never had in the past. We can fine tune our training so much better now. Humans are constantly breaking barriers. We run faster, and longer than ever. We jump higher and longer than ever. We perform at sporting levels that was beyond our imagination 20 years ago. New records are being broken all the time. Why?

 

Because humans have the innate ability to measure the past and desire better for the future! What once was thought impossible is now a long past achievement.

 

Believe in yourself, believe in your art, set the goals, commit to the work programme and let your dreams soar as high as the stars!

 

You can do it, I believe in you!

Edited March 4, 2005 by AnonymousOne

[vertigo]

Wow. Very nice post, AnonymousOne. I'd have to agree with you, running definitely can't hurt your karate. I started running about a month ago with some friends, and while it's tough, it also feels good, over time, getting stronger and faster, and increasing that distance

[Chirath]

ASDF

Edited April 6, 2009 by Chirath

[koryu]

Great article!! You have given me a lot to think about. After reading this, I'm going to have to re-evaluate and make a few changes in my daily training routine. I run quite often, but not how you describe it. I truely appreciate the wisdom you have passed on to me in this article.

[P.A.L]

thank you very much for this good article, i'll read it again later and may have some questions for you.

[Red J]

Thanks for the read. I also run, though not to the extent that you do. It is important to work outside the dojo. I enjoyed the points made regarding shodan/nidan and above. I am currently re-evaluating my training regimen and your experiences have given me food for thought.

[AnonymousOne]

Great article!! You have given me a lot to think about. After reading this, I'm going to have to re-evaluate and make a few changes in my daily training routine. I run quite often, but not how you describe it. I truely appreciate the wisdom you have passed on to me in this article.

 

Thank you so much. If I can help others, then I too have achieved a goal!

[AnonymousOne]

Great post AnonymousOne! Shouldn't this be in the article section of the forum.

 

P.S Your right about how you shouldn't care what other people think of your training. I use to ran but quit because everyone always looked at me when I ran. I think i'll start doing it again

 

When you worry about what others think, then you are handing control of your emotions to others to play with. Is that what you want?

 

On that basis, who is in control of your emotions and life? You or them?

 

I too, years ago, when I was young and quite shy, always worried about what others thought and this definately limited me.

 

Then I woke up one day and realised what was really happening. A light bulb went on and I realised that my path in life was only determined by what I thought and what I thought was the only thing that matters.

 

We live in a negative world. Many people do not want you to have what they cannot have, so they discourage you.

 

They are negative. Set your own goals and be only justified to yourself!

 

When you need advice, get it from a positive person that is actually able to help you with your goals. Ignore and dont even tell negative people what you are seeking to achieve. They will derail you every time

[JimmyNewton]

you are a madman, but i like it.

in this paragraph, i had a question:

Another way to develop agility is while you are running is to suddenly stop, do 5 squat jumps or burbees and then return to running. Of course you can mix this in with your jumping over logs routine.

what is a burbee?

[pineapple]

My boxing trainer used to tell me that if a person could do just one thing to prepare for a fight, it would be to run.

He always said that a well conditioned fighter can beat a more skillful opponent who is not conditioned.