Shanghai Personal Training Article #3: Martial Arts Training
March 31, 2009
Martial arts training is significantly more diverse than typical sports training. And unless you train to fight in a cage, the scope of your training needs to encompass countless possibilities including being attacked by larger and stronger opponents, fighting multiple attackers, defending yourself from armed attackers, or protecting another individual from an attack.
The possibilities in all of these scenarios are infinitely complex and unpredictable, and so necessitate a comprehensive fitness cross training program, as well as technical fighting skills that not only include the fundamentals of anatomy and human weaknesses but also psychological factors. They need to be precise enough to accomplish the task at hand, and broad enough so as to be adaptable to unique and new situations. This is no simple task.
After a nice training session in Kali stick fighting yesterday I noticed a common distinction in the thinking of beginners versus advanced students in the martial arts. Common questions from beginners focus on matters of ‘practicality’. This is a puzzling topic, because how does one define practical? What situation are we training for? Will practicing trapping hands or rope defense techniques be practical in a cage match? No. Will they however be practical in an armed or dangerous street conflict against one or more opponents? Perhaps so.
The beginner comes to their training with numerous preconceived notions of self defense. Typically these notions revolve around a one on one street fight with fans and friends standing around and cheering, or an uber villain cornering you in the back alley in the wrong part of town. Rarely do they encompass things like protecting a friend, controlling an opponent without seriously harming them (in the case of a drunk friend or if you’d be liable for their death or maiming as in police work), fighting 2 or more opponents at once, fighting in tight locations like a subway, hallway, bathroom, or plain cabin, or defending yourself while seated, downed, handcuffed, or injured.
The advanced student, by contrast, knows that defining ‘practicality’ is a hindrance to progress, not a benefit. They see new techniques and technical details in terms of their principle function, and not in terms of their execution. The difference here is that once a technique is truly mastered, it provides the practitioner with countless solutions to countless problems, and not merely one solution to one situation. Proper striking and grappling training teaches fundamentals of body mechanics and movement, as well as vital and weak anatomical parts on ones opponents. This allows the student to apply their own reason and understanding to a problem without having to function as a robot with set responses to set conditions.
That said, there are other factors relevant to ones training that aren’t encompassed in technical training alone. Our bodies not only need to have the fine motor skills and neuro muscular connections required for speed and precision, we also need power and endurance to meet a myriad of potential situations. In most cases physical conditioning is more basic and essential than technique training, as a healthy athlete stands a much better chance of delivering and even absorbing a powerful strike without sustaining personal injury than a technical trainee in poor physical shape. Combining fitness with martial knowledge is what creates a truly powerful martial artist. So let’s analyze these two components in more detail.
Fitness training for martial arts requires a diversity that doesn’t exist in most sports, for reasons mentioned above. Martial artists have no defined environment of performance or rules governing action in any way. So the best preparation for such an undefined reality must be focused on maximizing power in motion…in general, and not the specific technical aspects of self defense alone. In keeping with the 80-20 rule, I believe that for most beginning to intermediate martial arts trainees, 80 percent of the fitness and physical conditioning they need will come from training 5 compound weightlifting lifts, and a combination of sprinting and endurance running known as interval training.
5 basic lifts are all it takes to acquire all around brute strength that also translates into functional martial power. The big push, or bench press, uses the pecs and triceps. The big pull, row or pull-ups, strengthens the lats and biceps. The shoulder press works the shoulder muscles. The dead lift is for all around body strength, concentrating on the quads, hamstrings, lower, mid, and upper back. And finally, the squat, which works all the muscles of the upper legs, and the calves to a lesser degree. These five lifts, if done 2 days a week in sets of 4 or 5, or 3 days a week in a circuit manner for 3 sets will develop lean muscle mass and functional strength.
If we add to that the most basic of all movements, running, we get much closer to an all around athletic performance level. Running is not only a phenomenal conditioning exercise, working nearly every muscle in the body in some way, its also practical self defense. If you can run, then you have just one more option in a self defense situation. It amazes me that most instructors will teach people for years, countless techniques, and not once encourage them to practice sprinting. If a middle aged woman is attacked on the street, and she isn’t fast or strong enough to run, she has no choice but to fight, and this greatly increases her chances of getting injured or killed. The sprinter in many cases is the greatest of all martial artists. It’s no wonder you find running as basic conditioning in not only the military, but also classical striking systems in China, Korea, Japan, and Thailand. In some cases, running is built in to patterns as in Shaolin Kung Fu.
And the last component, which takes this raw power and turns into a deadly force, is technical martial arts training. A comprehensive training program will include striking (punching, kicking, elbows, knees, head butting, and finger striking) and grappling (including takedowns, sweeps, joint locks, chokes, and proper falling technique). At advanced stages one can add weapons training. It is essential here to have qualified expert instruction. And then to practice techniques tens of thousands of times to develop the neuro efficiency to deliver them with consistency, speed, and power. And finally, the application of these techniques can only be learned through sparring or simulated fighting with aggressive and resisting attackers.
Some people believe in combining these into one training session. But I don’t believe that best suits the needs of a martial artist. There is no need to train our bodies to stand and fight for two hours at a time at moderate intensity levels. There is however a need to be able to move and function at the highest intensity for shorter durations. So low impact technical training can be performed for hours a day as it doesn’t drain our systems to a high degree. But high intensity strength training, speed and power training should always be done at the highest intensity and for short durations, ideally for 30 minutes or less. This allows you to develop strength, power, and speed and build muscle without breaking down muscle to fuel longer endurance sessions.
Shanghai Fitness Training Article #2: How to Lose Weight
March 18, 2009
Judging by the frequency of front page articles in fitness and lifestyle magazines, there is no shortage of people wondering how to lose weight. For most of us, our current body weight was not arrived at dramatically over the past month, but has come to be relatively steady over a longer period of time. This is because we all fall into a particular lifestyle where work, play, and diet are relatively consistent.
This can make weight loss difficult, not because your body is predisposed to carrying extra weight, but because you will actually need to change your lifestyle, and thus breach your comfort levels in terms of diet and exercise in order to make consistent progress. Many people associate weight loss with abstaining from comfort foods and fighting hunger pains. And for those who are accustomed to a sedentary lifestyle, fear of the gym or looking foolish on an elliptical machine may be a governing thought. But weight loss, if approached intelligently doesn’t need to be painful.
In order to better understand how to lose weight, we need to understand why we weigh what we currently weigh. Humans adapt. We grow. We are constantly changing. What causes these changes? Stimulus. If you have been over weight for any length of time, take a look at your lifestyle. Do you have consistency in the types, frequency, and quantity of foods you eat? Do you have late dinners or skip breakfast? Are you eating fast food to get through the meal as quickly as possible and get back to the office?
If you answered yes to any of those questions then its likely your body has adapted to your lifestyle and found a comfortable state of equilibrium. It will require something external, exercise, or internal, diet, to stimulate a change in the way your body stores and burns fat. Your body’s metabolic rate has been programmed to keep you where you are. This can be changed by increasing your metabolism, decreasing your caloric intake and refining your diet, or both. Let’s look at each piece individually.
If our metabolic rate, or the quantity of energy we need to consume to maintain our bodyweight, is constant, then it stands to reason that if we reduce the amount of food calories we consume our bodies will have to find the energy from elsewhere in order to maintain energy needs. Where does this extra energy come from if not from food? You guessed it, fat. Our bodies are forced to use fat for energy resulting in weight loss. The caveat here however is that just as our body adapted to our previous lifestyle, so too will it adapt to our new lower calorie diet, resulting in a lower metabolic rate and a new plateau in the struggle for weight loss.
The mistake that many people make when they reach this plateau is to further reduce their caloric intake, and when they plateau again, they reduce it again, until their metabolic rate is a fraction of what it once was. Now, when they deviate even for a day or two from their low calorie diet their body puts fat on immediately. This is a dangerous dieting cycle that can be avoided through proper dieting methods.
Many kinds of dietary fads have put negative stigmas on carbohydrates and fats that cause us all to feel guilt when we’re eating something we love to eat. Here’s what they don’t tell you. Carbohydrates are good for you. Fat (certain kinds) is good for you. They should not be avoided, and for some people, fat intake actually needs to increase in order to lose weight. When our bodies get used to a low fat diet, they retain body fat as protection from starvation. When we consume adequate fat, our bodies release excess body fat and use it for energy, assuming our carbohydrate and protein consumption is not excessive.
There is no shortage of information on the internet about which kinds of fat and which kinds of carbohydrates are best for fat loss, so I won’t take the time to detail them here. But I do want to point out that simply not eating things is not going to result in sustainable fat loss. Not eating high glycemic carbohydrates and trans and hydrogenated fats will result in long term weight loss, as well as eating sufficient high quality protein.
Most people don’t realize that fruits and vegetables are not very calorie dense. You can eat them to your hearts content, all day long, and still find yourself losing weight. If your diet is predominantly fruits, vegetables, and meats you really needn’t calorie count. Fat loss is not a simple calculation of calories in versus calories out. A natural diet like this, aside from offering a lower calorie alternative to junk food, causes our bodies to produce muscle building and fat burning hormones that keep our body in a constant fat burning state.
Furthermore, eating smaller meals more frequently can keep your metabolism high and constant (as well as preventing insulin surges which keep your body from releasing fat), so that you’ll burn fat continuously throughout the day, rather than forcing your body to work through large meals and excess calories before it considers your healthy stores of body fat as energy. And for most of us, huge gains can be made if, in conjunction with smaller, more frequent (6 times a day) meals, we eat an early light dinner of the basics, fruits, vegetables, and fish or chicken. Going to bed on a full stomach is one of the worst things you can do.
That said, we should all set one or two days a week aside where we don’t observe our diets and eat freely, even excessively. This is not only good for our mental health; it also keeps our metabolic rate from adjusting downward to meet the average reduction in calories. Ignore those die hard diet plans. The truth is there are very few of us that can stick to them for any length of time. And the more important truth is they rarely result in long term weight loss. We’re surrounded by temptations and why not enjoy life a little? Enjoy your cakes and cookies; just don’t enjoy them more than one or two days a week.
Now that we’ve dealt with diet let’s look at fat loss from the outside in, exercise. Just as reducing our caloric intake will cause us to burn fat for energy, raising our metabolic rate through exercise will force us to burn fat for energy. Just how much exercise is needed to stimulate fat loss? Well that entirely depends on your current activity level. For a sedentary individual, a half an hour a week would be enough at first. For someone struggling to lose each and every pound at the gym, it may require a little more, or different, exercise than they are used to.
The best kinds of exercise for fat loss, contrary to what many believe, are resistance training (weightlifting), and interval training. While an hour of aerobic training will burn more fat in that hour than one hour of weightlifting, our bodies tend to revert back to our previous metabolic rate after aerobic training. A proper weightlifting regimen on the other hand will stimulate a higher metabolic rate that causes you to burn fat for the following 16 hours, not to mention the added energy needed to sustain more lean muscle mass once its been created.
Interval training, which can be done on a rowing machine, a treadmill, an elliptical, or my personal favorite, martial arts or kickboxing pad work drills at your home or local park, is the other highly effective method for fat loss. Interval training is a combination of aerobic and anaerobic training, whereby the trainee alternates between moderate (50-70 % of max intensity) and high (90-100% of max intensity) intensity levels.
So, if using a treadmill, your workout might look like 5 minutes of light jogging, followed by one minute of sprinting, followed by two minutes of moderate jogging, one minute sprinting, etc. The 1 minute sprint, 2 minute jog formula can be considered one set or interval, repeat 3 to 6 times depending on your skill level. But these sessions, like weightlifting sessions should be short, less than 30 minutes for best results (longer than 15 minutes including warmup). These are also the same two components in lean muscle gain.
There is no secret formula for ‘How to Lose Weight’. Try to stick to natural foods (not processed) and get in a few days of moderate to intense exercise each week. Eat right and exercise, and with time you’ll find the body you’ve been looking for.