How much conditioning in a class?

[Jay]

I think it should be a part of your training; whether you have enough time to do it in class is a different matter. An hour's class doesn't really give you time to do it plus teach techniques/strategy and get some free sparring/forms in. If its a longer class its feasible to dedicate some time to it. Even if you don't have much class time I still think you should do it in class once in a while (same with more advanced stretching) even if its just to show students what they need to be working on at home.

Obviously if you're competing you do need your physical fitness but even if you're not into competing I don't really think just drilling forms and sparring is enough if you're serious about developing your body. You're not going to develop the muscular strength and explosiveness by running through your forms a couple of times 2-3 nights a week. You need to load up the muscles and force them to work harder and faster and then go do your forms on top of that.

My instructor is a firm believer in physical conditioning, especially the core, so we do a fair number of situps, push ups, planks etc. as well as running round the field, hill sprints, skipping... as part of our training. In fact conditioning is regarded as one of the 5 facets of our training (part of the TKD training circle). Admittedly we do do a lot of competitions but our training isn't solely geared towards them.

I don't agree with just doing what you're doing for comps either. If that were the case then olympic cyclists would only ever go for bike rides, swimmers would only go swimming - no one would ever hit the gym or cross train.

Thats true if you are a world class athlete. Most people have plenty to improve on during application hence to get better they need to do lots of that. It also depends on what facet of training you are concentrating on. For endurance well the best thing you can do is probably your sport as you body adapts best to something it is exposed to alot. You want lots of stamina sparring, then you need to spar because your body will adapt to that particular interchange of aerobic and anerobic rhythm. Obviously strength training has advantages you can't get from sparring, but I think for the most part for point sparring its not that useful, grappling probably more so.

I don't think its just true for world class athletes. Surely, if anything, martial arts are about turning your body into a weapon (i.e. making you a fighter) and being the best you can be, as cheesy as that sounds. To get your punches faster you need to build up your triceps & biceps as well as core and build up your explosive strength through plyometrics - so that means fast push ups, clapping push ups amongst other things. You wont develop that from just doing normal class stuff: forms and sparring. You can try all you want to get your arm moving faster but you'll see minimal effects compared to if you were supplementing your training with calisthenics and plyometric training. Same with the legs.

For point sparring you definitely need plyometric/explosive strength because its all about speed; who gets the point the fastest.

I 100% agree with you that speed is obviously important for point sparring and any type of sparring for that matter because speed is essentially power. Im just saying that I think most people will be better off dedicating the majority of the time toward the thing they will be doing, I hope I didnt come across as everything else is useless because that wasn't my intention. I also think running through forms and sparring can improve your speed alot, speed has a large neurological component so reaction speed and processing speed is the one you can make a big difference with. Actual movement speed you can't make as big a difference because we are largely limited by our genetics unfortunatly. Also lots of reps such as through forms etc can have a large benefit as they improve your neuromuscular efficiency so you use only the nerves required for the minimal amount of movement, plymetrics can also do this but you have to match them as close to the movements you will be doing.

Oh and as cheesy as it sounds your right you have to try and improve all the time, something I have forgot many a time you get stuck in a routine doing the same things over and over and then you realise oh I should make things harder.

[isshinryu5toforever]

General fitness is a big part of getting better at martial arts. Your aim doesn't have to be to become a world class athlete to do calisthenics and run.

Being a better athlete will make you less prone to injuries and it will allow you to get more out of your martial arts workout. If you're extremely tired by the end of a non-conditioning class, then you're not getting everything you can out of the class. If your general fitness is better it's easier to focus and maintain intensity for the entirety of a class. That is linked to general fitness.

As far as road work, I generally run between 3 and 7 miles a day, 5 days a week.

[Kuma]

I don't think some is a bad idea, as fitness could be one of the reasons why someone takes up a martial art in the first place. Though I'm no instructor by any means, I do enjoy the conditioning drills done with a partner the most as it not only allows you to train differently than you would outside of class but also build camaraderie.

I do admit that I don't like the classes that are almost half conditioning work though. I come to train in fighting, not just get in shape.

[bushido_man96]

As far as road work, I generally run between 3 and 7 miles a day, 5 days a week.

Good heavens, thats beyond me at this point. Something to build up to, I guess. The only problem is that if I spend that much time running, it will cut down on my time with the weights...but that isn't even that consistent at this point, so I guess just getting into better shape would be the better option.

I do admit that I don't like the classes that are almost half conditioning work though. I come to train in fighting, not just get in shape.

I agree here, too. I like to train technique wise and learn Martial Arts in general; that's what I pay for. I pay for my gym membership for the other training.

[isshinryu5toforever]

As far as road work, I generally run between 3 and 7 miles a day, 5 days a week.

Good heavens, thats beyond me at this point. Something to build up to, I guess. The only problem is that if I spend that much time running, it will cut down on my time with the weights...but that isn't even that consistent at this point, so I guess just getting into better shape would be the better option.

Yeah, time is a difficult thing to work with. I feel like I'm running around until night time. I go to work, leave work, run, go to the gym, then go home to cook. I get to relax after that. Any kind of running will be helpful until you build up to longer distances. I started as a sprinter in high school, so the farthest I ran was 2 miles and that was an easy jog. I started concentrating on running about two years ago, and now I'm down to 18 minutes in the 3 mile and around 49 minutes on a 7 mile run. So, it just takes a lot of dedication.

I do admit that I don't like the classes that are almost half conditioning work though. I come to train in fighting, not just get in shape.

I agree here, too. I like to train technique wise and learn Martial Arts in general; that's what I pay for. I pay for my gym membership for the other training.

That makes a lot of sense, but some people are using martial arts as their only means of getting into shape, because paying the dojo/dojang fee is expensive, so they can't pay for a gym membership on top of that.

It also depends on how many days you go and how many days the school is open. At the Kyokushin dojo I went to in Korea, they were open 5 days a week. Most people made it all 5 days. One whole day was set aside for conditioning. That kind of schedule is fine. If you're only going two days a week though, then I can understand wanting to condition on your own time and just do martial arts while you're at the school.

[GeoGiant]

Drilling technique, sparing, cardio, weights... work. Something doesn't fit

[bushido_man96]

Yeah, its work!