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.
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