Gym routines

[DWx]

Thanks that does help a lot.

I know what I want out of it. At the moment my main priority is to increase my endurance, to be able to go more rounds without tiring as quickly and to be able to short bursts (i.e. engaging when sparring). So I'm guessing I want to work towards being able to reach a certain level of activity and sustain it for a period of time. Like work myself up to a certain intensity on some of the cardio equipment (I'm thinking treadmill, elliptical trainer and bike?) and be able to keep going.

I'm also used to a reasonably high level of fitness as my TKD instructor back home is a bit of a fitness nut. I'm now at uni and the club here doesn't train anywhere near the same intensity so I feel I'm losing my previous levels (I also go visit my old club when back at home and I know for definite I can't keep up anymore!). There's also the "lose weight" goal but I reckon that'll slowly come as a by-product of eating better and increasing activity levels.

[JohnC]

Sounds like you're in the same boat I am. Endurance is a product of muscle ability to function and cardio ability to feed the muscle so it can function (a fancy way of saying strength and wind ). These work together but usually you need to train them separately and then pull them back together. Short burst (anaerobic) activity relies almost entirely on muscle ability (and glycogen (energy) stores within the muscle). Endurance (aerobic) activity brings much more cardio to bear in fueling the muscle for long periods.

To level set, I'd suggest that you get on the elliptical and pick a resistance level you can comfortably maintain for 20 - 30 minutes at 60 RPM. Don't strain, this is just to set a base level. Then, at that resistance level and tracking results, increase RPMs by 5 rpm a step at 5 minute intervals until you can't make 5 minutes (i.e. your heart rate is consistently over your max rate. To be strict you should do a 5 minute run, rest and then do another 5 minutes to avoid the cumulative effect). If you can maintain pace for 5 mins up to around 80 RPM then your cardio is probably fine for MA (although you should begin your training doing something active for as long as a class period. For example, boxers are told to do 5 miles of road work. Why 5? Well a pro fight is 15 - 3 minute rounds with 1 minute rest. That is 45 minutes of fighting with 15 minutes of rest = 1 hour. 5 - 12 minute miles (fast jog / slow run) takes 60 minutes (i.e. 1 hour) ) In my opinion every martial artist, at whatever level of performance they happen to be at, should at least be able to maintain activity for an entire class. But that's just me )

Next, start at your base resistance and maintaining 60 RPM track and increase the resistance in 5 minute chunks until you can't make 5 minutes (i.e. heart rate > max). This will let you know how you're muscular endurance is working. At the end if you're at the max resistance of the machine then your endurance is probably fine.

Fighting takes high anaerobic capacity, quick recovery times (a function of aerobic capacity) and pacing. These items are significantly affected by stress. To test this, do intervals by starting at your base resistance and, after warm up, start a two minute timer, kick the resistance to around your top level and pick the pace up a bit. Then, watch your heart to see how fast it climbs to your max. Then back down pace and resistance as necessary to maintain your max for the 2 minute run. After two minutes stop and time how fast your heart rate falls to 80% of max. This is your recovery rate. For example, for me it takes 3 minutes for me to recover from a 2 minute burst (hence the five minute intervals I used in my example). Your's will probably be different but the above is to level set. You can customize as necessary. For fighting you want to maximize your ability to hit max heart rate and then maintain that rate of activity for 90 seconds to 2 minutes (this is what "all out" means from a training perspective. As a comment, because the vast majority of folks never try this experiment, they really have no idea physically what all out means and so rarely actually go all out). And minimize how long it takes you to recover. (How one trains for this is fairly complex and not something I can tell you in a post.)

If you find that you can do the above relatively well, then your burn out may be a function of stress rather than physical ability. In this condition, you need to identify the stressors and deal with them.

Hope this helps.

[bushido_man96]

John:

You have offered a lot of good information. Thank you for sharing it.

When you mention the Training Log thread, I figure that my entries are probably some of them that you are alluding to, as I don't tend to make a lot gains in the weight room when it comes to strength training, and I am just beginning to get into some cardio work.

My question for you is, what do you recommend I look at to bring my strength gains up more? I know that I haven't made signficant gains, and I would like to. I don't have a lot of time to spend in the gym, but I want to make my time worth while. Tallgeese speaks highly of crossfit, but I haven't looked into it yet.

I am interested in both stength and muscular endurance. As for the cardio, at this point I am just trying to do sustained periods of training. Running sucks for me, but I do like the bike.

Suggestions are always appreciated.

[DWx]

Thanks John. Thats great help. Will try it out when I have my first session.

[JohnC]

B96,

A few comments:

First, strength training is to increase STRENGTH. nothing else. One problem is folks want to expect resistance training to do all sorts of other things and it won't / shouldn't.

Second, to increase strength one must trigger the body's adaptation response or growth won't occur. This means you have to work above 80% of max (roughly pushing a weight in the 3 - 8 reps range, where the last rep is failure). Once the adaptation trigger is pulled, it's pulled. No scientific testing has shown that multiple sets accomplish much except reduce the intensity you're willing to put into the first set (which means you probably won't work hard enough (i.e. > 80%) in any set to throw the adaptation trigger and you won't make very many gains). This is why circuit training was developed.

Third, the secret to training is intensity. One must work with intensity to get results. Intensity is a combination of frequency, duration and required effort. These factors can be manipulated so that even if you aren't working at a high on one (e.g. some days you got it and some days you don't), you can manipulate the others so that you can get a workout. Additionally it helps generate new ways of working so that things don't get boring. As mentioned above, if you work with intensity, your head has to be in the workout. If you've got distractors normally, then odds are you're not working hard enough. Good news is this means workouts don't have to be long nor every day (in fact needed recovery time dictates 2 to 3 times per week is best). Bad news is, this is hard and physically demanding.

Fourth, one should train motion not muscle and should generally train full range of motion. For example, the push / pull motions at chest level are done via bench press (push) and row (pull). The push / pull motions above the head are done by military press (push) and lat pulldown (pull). This insures that one keeps all the muscles used in the motion in balance. One of the common reasons for injury is that folks don't do strict motion because they get to push more weight and stroke their egos. However this leads to an imbalance between the big driver muscles and the little stablizer muscles, which leads to injury. Injury means you can't train and thus lose all gains. Which obviously is a bad idea . Listen to your body. If things aren't going right, STOP. As mentioned above, there's always another day.

Fifth, as mentioned above strength gains occur during recovery not exercise. That is, during exercise you tear the muscle down and it responds by growing bigger / stronger to handle the new workload during recovery. Thus you need to insure proper recovery times. I recommend 48 - 72 hours between sessions. Similarly, one shouldn't do the same set of exercises month after month because the body never gets to FULLY recover. So, you should do a training run for around 6 - 9 weeks ( I do 9 - 12 because I'm old ) and then switch to some other emphasis so the body can consolidate the gains. You'll lose some of the gains but will start the next run at a higher level and make more gains each time. For example, I started leg press at roughly my body weight (190 lbs at the time). 18 months (roughly 5 cycles) later I reached my personal best of 4 times body weight (roughly 760 lbs) 1 set 6 reps.

Sixth, as with all this, training is driven by objectives. You say you want to get stronger. Why? What functional ability does getting stronger add? Point is, you need to be much more detailed in the objectives to be able to generate a work out plan. In general, martial artists need to have dense hard muscles (like gymnasts) rather than big, showy ones (e.g. body builders). Thus, power lifter training (relatively high weight, low reps, no sets) is more appropriate than body builder training (relatively low weight, high reps, multiple sets).

Last, you don't know me and I may be simply spouting pap, so try this experiment. Pick a motion that you believe needs to be strengthened (for example bench press). Set aside 8 weeks (16 to 20 sessions). Do good quality full range presses (including proper breathing and using good core) and find a weight that you can do 5 - 6 reps at as base line (let's say 150 lbs). Do one set per session and really push that set so that the last rep ends in failure (i.e. you can't quite complete the rep or you know that you certainly won't make another one). Rest for 3 days (72 hours) and do it again (i.e. 2 sessions per week roughly). Any time you can do 7 - 8 reps kick the weight up so that you're back in the 4 - 5 range (this should be happening roughly every 2 - 3 sessions). Expectation is that in 8 weeks you should increase your strength 25 - 50 % ( i.e. at end you should be pushing between 185 - 225 lbs in this example). If you find I'm right then expand the concepts to other exercises. If I'm wrong write this off as being another would be hot shot. Let me know what happens

Hope this helps.

[JohnC]

As an addendum, if the above experiment establishes my bona fides then we'll talk about endurance, cardio, etc.

[bushido_man96]

Thank you John. I think I shall give it a try.

If I am reading you right, then I should just do one set of bench press, 4-5 reps, the last to failure, correct?

Then I should do the same with my back exercises, triceps, etc?

One last question: do you ever recommend training in multiple sets, for any reason at all?

[JohnC]

Not quite. You should keep weight in the 3 - 8 reps bandwidth. Start with a weight that you can do 5 - 6 reps. When you get into the 7 - 8 reps area then increase the weight into the 3 - 4 reps area and repeat the cycle. The reason for the ranges is that weight increases are dictated by the available equipment increments. Yes, the last one should be to failure. Idea is to do one set that you really push, as you know there's only one set. Make sure you do rigorous form with good support. The idea is to do serious training NOT just push weight. Stay with weights that you can control throughout the exercise, not just in the middle. Additionally, don't explode the weight, do a clean rep (usually taking 2 - 3 seconds per rep). Force yourself to really WORK the weight.

Yes, you should use the concepts for all your strength training exercises. Usually easiest for most folks is to do circuit training, if you have access to the machinery. Start with big muscle exercises (e.g. bench press) and then move to small muscle exercises (e.g. bicep curls). Again train motion not muscle, so if you do a pushing motion exercise make sure you also do a pulling motion exercise. Sometimes you have to get creative on this due to lack of appropriate equipment at your gym. Using free weights is fine. However, they introduce stabilization issues not found in the machinery. Thus, if you're going to use free weights, start with lower weights and be very strict until you're sure you have the dynamics solid. The issue here is that you're working close to maximums so a mistake probably will result in injury (which is one of the reasons why personal trainers rarely go down this path). Pay attention to business.

In general, no I don't recommend multiple sets for strength training (other objectives (e.g. rehabilitation) are different). Caveat is I don't use weight training to try and affect other objectives (e.g. "get in shape", cardio), using other types of training modalities instead.

Hope this helps. Please feel free to PM me if you want more depth and/or to let me know how you're doing.

[bushido_man96]

Thanks for the tips, John. I'll give those methods a try. We have several machines at our gym, so I have options. I'll give it a go.

[FitOrDie]

check out crossfit.com for a great core program. take some time to read the faq's and look over the exercises. Then try it for a week or so, it's the only way to get a feel for it.

Routine is the enemy! Check out that website or you will almost certainly forever be less fit than you could be.