Advice and Tips pleeeease!!

[Charlie_Shodan]

Hi, Not sure if this topic belongs here, don't know where to put it so i'll post it here!

I'm going for my 2nd Dan grade in December and I was wondering if anyone had any tips or advice on how to gain more energy??? I am a fit, healthy, slim girl but when I train hard i always get the shakes in my legs!

The grading is about 4-5 hours long and I really dont want to worry about feeling like Jelly!

Thanks 4 your time in reading this

Charlotte

[bushido_man96]

Beginning a running program may help you out.

[AikiGuy]

I think weight training for the muscle that usually fatigues will help a lot. For most people it's the quadriceps. If this is the case, assuming you have healthy knees and other joints, do some leg extensions or squats with a moderate amount of weight that you can do for 15 or 20 reps.

[Daisho]

I agree with bushido, running, or any other high cardio training will increase your endurance, as it extends the amount of time your heart can function at a higher rate before fatigue overcomes the working muscles.

weight training will increase your power, but considering the anaerobic nature of lifting, i don't think it'll benefit you much in performance endurance. Larger muscles will have more capacity to deal with the build-up of lactic acids inside them, which would benefit the expenditure of themuscle, but it will also burn through their glycogen reserves more quickly.

i just posted a thread about a similar issue, but mine is about the long-term, week to week energy levels.

If i were looking to boost hard for a class, I'd increase my calorie intake, supplement with a multi-B-vitamin (just to be sure), and get my body into a cycle of high protein day-to-day, and carbing up the dinner prior to each dojo visit. And most of all i'd be increasing my daily cardio workouts.

[bushido_man96]

weight training will increase your power, but considering the anaerobic nature of lifting, i don't think it'll benefit you much in performance endurance. Larger muscles will have more capacity to deal with the build-up of lactic acids inside them, which would benefit the expenditure of themuscle, but it will also burn through their glycogen reserves more quickly.

This may be the case, but you can do both lifting and cardio, and get even more benefits.

[Daisho]

i agree bushido. my weekly regiment is 3 days of power-lifting, and 3 days of martial arts per week, along with 5 days of cardio post lifting on gym days, pre-training on dojo nights.

Combinations of lifting and cardio is a powerful tool for preparing the body for activity. If I were looking to increase strength and endurance at the same time, i'd adjust my training back to a high intensity interval program ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-intensity_interval_training ).

However if the question was just to increase my endurance, i'd target my lungs and heart more than my individual skeletal muscles. I'd go for 100% cardio, then start blending over toward a H.I.I.T. program.

[bushido_man96]

i agree bushido. my weekly regiment is 3 days of power-lifting, and 3 days of martial arts per week, along with 5 days of cardio post lifting on gym days, pre-training on dojo nights.

Combinations of lifting and cardio is a powerful tool for preparing the body for activity. If I were looking to increase strength and endurance at the same time, i'd adjust my training back to a high intensity interval program ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-intensity_interval_training ).

However if the question was just to increase my endurance, i'd target my lungs and heart more than my individual skeletal muscles. I'd go for 100% cardio, then start blending over toward a H.I.I.T. program.

Ah, I see your point. Thanks for elaborating. It sounds like you have quite the workout schedule. Very nice.

[AikiGuy]

weight training will increase your power, but considering the anaerobic nature of lifting, i don't think it'll benefit you much in performance endurance.

This is not true. All the exercises you and others have suggested will help. But you are excluding weight training as if it will not help at all. The original poster did not mention strain in her lungs or heart. She stated she gets the shakes in her legs. This indicates an anaerobic issue which can be remedied with more leg endurance. When you exert a muscle to a point nearing anaerobic failure, the "shakes" is a common result. If this were a purely aerobic issue, one would be out of breath before any considerable level of muscle fatigue or failure occured. The common level of sustained aerobic alone activity may not isolate the area in question enough to remedy the leg shakes. The one thing I will agree with is that H.I.I.T. may help. This works only because it is not purely aerobic. It is a modified form of aerobics that is both aerobic and anaerobic exercise. Due to the speed required, the faster intervals are explosive movements similar to weight training. That's why track sprinters have can develop stronger legs without ever lifting weights. However this is still a combination exercise. While very good as a total body workout, it divides the focus of the workout. Weight training would focus 100% of a workout session into strengthening the legs.

Of course we still do not know if the poster wants such a focused workout. But if so, then weight training is a valid option.

[Daisho]

aikiguy, come to think of it, i do only get the shakes when engaged in anaerobic excersize like the last few reps of just about any set (especially the dreaded squats...noooooooo!!!!)

i assumed it to be an aerboic issue based upon my own training situations, where my strength and muscle endurance is never pushed to the limit in the dojo, and yet sometimes my body will weaken due to weeks where i weaken on my cardio.

I never meant to imply weight training doesn't have any benefit to a martial artist, as i've said before, i'm an avid gym-rat. I see hernia's, and muscle tears and pulls from soo many fellow students because their physical strength is a bit lacking. Technique will overcome strength quite often, but we've all engaged in a practice where we flubb a throw or what not, and if we don't have the raw power to compensate for our slip in technique, serious injury can occur.

i hope this thread is as beneficial to the OP, as it has been to me