Common flaws in martial arts classes
Fitness is a big part of training martial arts, and rightfully so. The following very common training methods are supposed to improve your fitness for martial arts, but they are antiquated and should be replaced.
The following training methods are widely used in martial arts classes, yet not very effective. I will discuss them individually and explain why they are flawed and what to do instead.
· Doing hundreds of push-ups and sit-ups
· Concentrating on passive flexibility and ignoring the active components
· Jogging for martial arts
· Using the Tabata-method for bodyweight strength training
Doing hundreds of push-ups and sit-ups
It is very common in martial arts classes to do literally hundreds of push-ups and sit-ups. A friend of mine did 5 sets of 100 sit-ups during his kickboxing warm-ups. Somehow, his abs did not get stronger. Why?
The main purpose of push-ups for martial arts should be to allow you to punch harder and make your upper body stronger.
The main purpose of sit-ups should be to give you a stronger core.
Doing hundreds of repetitions does not accomplish these purposes, because it goes against one of the most important principles in strength training:
SAID — Specific Adaption to Incoming Demands
In order to get stronger, you need to overload your muscles. In other words, the exercise must be difficult.
If you are new to push-ups and you can only do a few, then doing push-ups will overload your muscles and your body will get stronger.
If you can do 5 push-ups with good technique, and you practice multiple sets of 3–4 push-ups, you will get stronger.
As you learn how to do more push-ups or sit-ups, your body no longer works at high capacity in order to execute them. If you can do 30 push-ups and you keep practicing doing more push-ups, you are not asking your body to get stronger, you are asking it for greater endurance. This is the SAID-principle. The Incoming Demand is to do more push-ups, and the Specific Adaptation is increased endurance, not more strength or explosiveness. Post a comment or duckduckgo “muscle fiber types” if you want to know more nerdy stuff (of course we use duckduckgo, because google is evil).
If you wanted to be a fast sprinter, you would practice sprinting — not 5 km-running. Yet doing hundreds of sit-ups corresponds to 5 km-running. It will not make you stronger.
What to do instead
Do a proper strength training routine. I will write an article about suggested methods and update this article with a link.
Use progressive overload and the SAID-principle to get stronger.
Concentrating on passive flexibility and ignoring the active components
Roundhouse kicks look cool, especially if executed to the head. This requires flexibility.
If you are old enough, you probably remember the scene from Bloodsport where Van Damme gets strapped between two trees. When his master comes back, he is doing the full splits. Reality check: Strapping people between two trees and expecting them to become better fighters only works in Hollywood.
Unfortunately, the same mentality is practiced in many of the martial arts schools I have visited. Warm-ups consist of very long flexibility sessions. This makes the black belts look cool, but does very little for your kicking abilities.
A little background: Flexibility has an active and a passive component. Active flexibility is often called mobility, it depends on what you are reading.
I can perform a roundhouse kick at head height, no problem. I can also go fairly low into the splits (for a man my age). But I can only actively lift my leg to approximately hip height and hold it there. The difference between getting my leg to head height and to hip height (besides some strength issues) is the difference between passive and active flexibility.
A helpful analogy is to think about learning a foreign language. You have passive vocabulary, that is, words that you understand when others say them, but that you don’t easily remember. And you have active vocabulary, that is, words that you can say yourself and that you easily remember. Your passive vocabulary will always be bigger than your active vocabulary. That is why it is so much easier to understand others than to make yourself understood, especially for beginners.
Passive flexibility is when someone else lifts your leg for a stretch. Active flexibility (=mobility) is when you lift it yourself. Passive will always be bigger than active, and passive flexibility is a prerequisite for active flexibility. But we martial artists are really after active flexibility. We want to be able to lift that leg and control it.
That is why our training should have a stronger focus on active flexibility (=mobility).
What to do instead
Spend time working on your active flexibility (flexibility with control, aka mobility), preferably during your warm-ups, and passive flexibility, preferably during your cool-downs. Spend more time on active flexibility than on passive flexibility.
For training methods, see this article (coming soon).
Jogging for martial arts
In my first karate club, we used to jog around the dojo for 10 minutes before training. I often wondered, is this helpful?
Jogging has all kinds of benefits for your physical and mental well-being and I recommend you go jogging regularly. However, jogging (running at a medium pace) is not specific to martial arts, so its benefits to martial arts are very limited. When was the last time you ran around at 50% intensity during a sparring exercise? It is not specific (yes, the SAID principle again).
What to do instead
Follow a proper conditioning routine. I will write an article about suggested methods and update this article with a link.
Using the Tabata-method for bodyweight strength training
Here is a training method I first encountered when visiting a Taekwondo club a few years ago. Unfortunately, I have seen it happen several times since at different clubs practicing different martial arts:
20 seconds of sit-ups (or push-ups, or another bodyweight strength exercise), 10 seconds of rest, repeat 8 times for a total of 4 minutes.
Doing 8 rounds of “20 seconds active, 10 seconds rest” is called the Tabata-method, and it was developed to increase the endurance of cyclists on a stationary bike. The secret is to go as hard as you can for 20 seconds.
This method works very well for improving your conditioning, but it doesn’t work for strength exercises. It is a different tool. You use a hammer for nails and a screwdriver for screws. Using the Tabata-method for strength exercises is like using a hammer for screws: it’s the wrong tool.
What to do instead
Use strength training methods for your strength exercises and conditioning methods for your conditioning exercises. I will write an article about suggested methods and update this article with a link.
Thanks for reading this article. Please feel free to comment. Enjoy your training!
