tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24484414430194677602024-03-13T14:45:23.841-04:00Karate ConditioningA blog about training in a traditional karate system using modern methods: High intensity interval training, kettlebells, dynamic stretching, intermittent fasting, paleolithic eating, and not wearing shoes.Joe Bernehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184260843542299066noreply@blogger.comBlogger207125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2448441443019467760.post-24040405190997893092021-01-30T10:56:00.001-05:002021-01-30T10:56:13.537-05:00Are High&Low and other Asian high school fighting films Martial Arts Movies?<p> I've been watching High&Low on Netflix. I highly recommend the films - they're highly stylized but the action is surprisingly diverse and exciting. Parkour, kickboxing, some MMA, and the plots and acting are much better than you'd think (but not good, don't get me wrong). Also lovely music and great, great Japanese street fashion, if you care (I am not fashionable but I enjoy a good outfit on screen).</p><p>I've also read a number of gangbanger manga and manhua. I don't know if there's a better name for the genre - stories about kids in rough high schools who belong to gangs and settle things with their firsts (and feet). Some have really good stories and characters, some are funny - it's a range.</p><p>What's interesting to me is that the stuntmen and stunt coordinators for these films are clearly martial artists and informed by martial arts. The characters throw good boxing combinations, kicks with solid technique, etc. The fights look like fights from a streetfight in an MMA movie - it's not just two guys standing at melee range and throwing haymakers until one falls down (though that might happen occasionally, it's rare).</p><p>Since the actors are using martial arts, and those martial arts are a key to the plot, why would I say these are NOT martial arts movies?</p><p>To me, a <b>martial art is a system of movements that have martial intent</b>. The system can be loose - I don't mean to say a martial art must have a single response to any particular attack - but it has to have moves (punches, kicks, throws, joint locks) that make sense as a response to an attack (someone else punching, kicking, etc.). There has to be a 'right' way to do things. You can have different jabs in your boxing system, but there are also movements of the arm that don't count as jabs. And this system has to be taught, it has to be teachable and trainable. Otherwise it's not an art.</p><p>In a 'real' martial arts movie the <i>characters </i>have to be martial artists. There has to at least be the implication that they <b>trained</b> - that they were taught a system, and are implementing a system, in combat. It's fine if they are using a system that they changed themselves, but it has to be a system, not just "being really naturally good at fighting." And I'm fine with films where the training isn't explored on camera. Some films have training montages, and some do not, but in true martial arts films it is at least implied that the characters are heavily trained.</p><p>In the gangbanger manhua and films there is very little implication of training. There are no or very few montages. The best fighters are just naturally better fighters - they're inhumanly athletic, but you never see them train or practice fighting (again, with rare exceptions). There is some sense that the morally just characters are also better at fighting, or at least the ones who are more emotionally committed. But again, no training, no system, at least in the majority of cases.</p><p>In High & Low the Amamiya brothers are shown being trained as kids, but EVERY OTHER character get tough just by fighting a lot. In their down time they're just smoking and hanging out with friends, not practicing their jumping kicks or doing pushups. I think there is one other scene where a character is doing pullups when approached.</p><p>This doesn't make the movies bad. They just aren't promoting martial arts virtues - the commitment to discipline, to training, to self improvement. Those aren't messages in these movies. The tough are tough by birth, and the weak are... weak. If anything, these films use martial arts movements to give a sort of anti-martial arts message. </p><p>If <b>I</b> were able to make a high school fighting movie I'd love for a group of friends to get their asses kicked early, find a down on his luck instructor (probably someone's older brother) to teach them, train ridiculously hard using makeshift implements, then go out in a triumphant battle. That would be a martial arts movie. An even truer martial arts movie would have the friends decide they didn't want to be involved in streetfighting at all, and go off to college or something at the end, secure that they <i>could</i> fight if they had to. But High&Low isn't any of that.</p><p>Just to be perfectly clear, this isn't a criticism. High&Low isn't billed as a martial arts movie, it's not pretending to be one. Just food for thought.</p><p><br /></p>Joe Bernehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184260843542299066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2448441443019467760.post-36320159982113201882020-09-16T07:30:00.002-04:002020-09-16T07:30:29.476-04:00Read My Novel: Wistful Ascending - it's like Dragonball Z, written for grownups<p> I wrote a novel. It's a science fiction about people with special powers that also know how to hook off the jab. Sort of Dragonball Z, but written for grownups.</p><p>If that sort of thing interests you, please check it out!</p><p>Click <a href="https://read.amazon.com/kp/embed?asin=B08HLBHV4D&preview=newtab&linkCode=kpe&ref_=cm_sw_r_kb_dp_zpvyFbNKGKX02">here </a>for a free sample of Wistful Ascending! If you read and like the book please leave an Amazon review!</p><p><br /></p>Joe Bernehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184260843542299066noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2448441443019467760.post-41397799233789552522020-06-13T22:16:00.001-04:002020-06-13T22:16:21.336-04:00OMAD: When to eat?I'm a huge proponent of OMAD (One Meal A Day) eating, which is a type of intermittent fasting. Basically, for people who need to reduce caloric intake, I find that restricting the time you eat is a much easier way to manage that reduction than just trying to have smaller meals. Going from 3 meals a day to 1 or 2 large meals is easier than just eating 3 smaller meals for many people.<br />
<br />
Suppose you are interested in this style of eating, and you want to know when you should eat. Have a big breakfast and then stop? Splurge on lunch? Big dinner?<br />
<br />
I've been seeing a few posts recently relaying scientific evidence that frontloading (having calories earlier in the day) is healthier.<br />
<br />
I'm not going to argue one way or another, and I'm not going to analyze the evidence. Maybe it is! Maybe if you are going to eat one big meal every day, you should try to have it earlier in the day rather than later.<br />
<br />
The problem, as I see it, is that in Western society dinner is the social meal (lunch to a lesser extent, but mostly dinner). Dinner is when we go out for dates, when we celebrate special occasions, it's the meal for weddings, and so on and so forth.<br />
<br />
From a purely physiological perspective it might be healthier to have your one big daily meal earlier, but you also have to ask yourself, what is easier to maintain? What plan will give you the best quality of life?<br />
<br />
In my experience, if I'm available to eat dinner, I miss out on very few social occasions and I inconvenience other people very little. I might be healthier if I ate a big breakfast or lunch and skipped dinner, but I'd miss family time and socializing time, and that's not worth it to me.<br />
<br />
Just pointing out that there are things the medical research doesn't well account for.<br />
<br />Joe Bernehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184260843542299066noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2448441443019467760.post-89276418796340211042020-05-18T10:44:00.000-04:002020-05-18T10:44:20.317-04:00PIT: Pulse Interval TrainingThis is the training protocol I've been using lately. I know, the name needs some work - feel free to make suggestions.<br />
I'm going to explain the WHY of this methodology at the end of this post, so if you don't care about theory you can just skip it.<br />
<br />
<h3>
What is Pulse Interval Training?</h3>
PIT is a a step up and down from High Intensity Interval Training. The intervals are meant to be very short and as explosive as possible, and the rest period is long enough that you never get local fatigue.<br />
<br />
Here's an overview:<br />
1. Warmup, ballistic stretching, etc. Take as long as you like (you can, if you want, do the warmup with the same parameters as the PIT sets, just go easy - do the kicks at 1/2 or 3/4 speed, do the punches lightly, etc. Or do a 'regular' warmup. Just make sure to get nice and loose.)<br />
2. Set a timer.<br />
3. Every 30s do a "set" of exercise.Do not do the same exercise over and over - mix it up. For a default, pick 12 movements (there can be repeats) and cycle through, so you repeat your giant set every 6 minutes.<br />
4. Repeat for 20-60 minutes. Breathe through your nose the entire time. If you can't catch your breath with nasal breathing alone, take a set or two off or truncate your work sets. If you lose explosiveness (your punches and kicks slow down) stop your workout.<br />
5. Cool down. Do your static stretching here, if you want to do any.<br />
<br />
<h4>
What do the 'sets' look like?</h4>
Each set of exercise - each pulse - needs to be done at absolute maximum intensity. If it's a set of punches or kicks, each technique must be done as if it's the only technique you're throwing that day, in front of your instructor, or your one chance to take out an opponent who is about to kill you. I don't really care what imagery you use, but it shouldn't be an effort you could repeat easily.<br />
If you want a visual of what I'm talking about, get a martial arts class (not beginners), and ask them to throw a hundred punches. Watch the level of effort in each punch. Than, another day, ask them to demo three punches. Watch the difference in speed, power, and snap.<br />
A pulse should last less than 10 seconds (this is not a hard and fast rule, but most of your sets should be under 10s. If you find your sets creeping up into the 15-20s range, do something harder).<br />
<h4>
What are some examples of a good pulse set?</h4>
5 kettlebell swings - use a forced negative (swing the ketltebell hard enough that it would go very high, but when it reaches chin level, push down hard on the kettlebell to stop its upward momentum and force it down faster than gravity alone). Don't use the heaviest kettlebell you can manage, go for snap and power.<br />
4-6 kicks. I'll get into a fighting stance and throw a lead leg kick, a back leg kick, then switch stances and repeat. I'll do the same kick. Front, round, knee, side. I will do spinning kicks, again a total of 4. If you have a heavy bag, hit it.<br />
4-8 punch combinations. I often do these with a 1 lb dumbell (do NOT use a very heavy dumbbell, it reduces the transferability of the exercise to regular punches). Make them snappy. If you have a heavy bag, hit it.<br />
Stance work. I'll step forward in front stance 2-4 steps.<br />
Any 2-4 counts from any kata. Be reasonable - counts that include long slow portions are not suitable for this.<br />
Pushups done FAST. I'll do 5-10 pushups.<br />
<h4>
What should the sequence of pulses look like?</h4>
The goal in sequencing exercise is to avoid local fatigue. In other words, you do NOT want the same muscles worked over and over again, at least not as the primary movers (yes, your core will be engaged in almost every set, but you're not focusing on it in every set).<br />
I alternate punch sequences and kick sequences. And yes, the punch sequence does involve the lower body, but it's not heavily fatiguing on the lower body.<br />
<h4>
What should my rest look like?</h4>
Between sets you should move around but at VERY low intensity. In other words, walk slowly around your workout area; do NOT lie down but do not force your pace. Continue to breath nasally.<br />
<br />
<h3>
What is the purpose of PIT?</h3>
HIIT is lovely, but it is highly lactic. If you watch someone performing that kind of training their movements quickly become slow and relatively unexplosive.<br />
As martial artists, our goal should be to be as fast an explosive as possible. By doing a small number of repetitions with plenty of rest you can keep the quality high and train those physical qualities<br />
By sticking to nasal breathing we are doing our best to maintain in a zone of intensity where we're primarily working the aerobic system. There are many good reasons for that which I won't address in this post. Short answer is that once you're past your anaerobic threshold motor learning and speed development go down.<br />
You don't NEED a timer to do a few techniques, rest, then do some more. I'm sure many people could self regulate their intensity (by staying on the edge of how hard they can work using nasal breathing). However, using a timer makes it easier to gauge progress over time and makes it harder to accidentally drop too low in intensity.<br />
<br />
Give PIT training a try and see if you don't see quick progress in your martial arts skills.Joe Bernehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184260843542299066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2448441443019467760.post-38496664500391125982020-03-14T19:21:00.002-04:002020-03-14T19:21:59.481-04:00Karate and Clovid-19I haven't posted much in a while; been working on some things where I don't have them figured out enough to write them out. Hopefully I'll have a bunch to write at some point soon.<br />
<br />
In the meantime, about this Clovid-19 thing.<br />
<br />
Here are a couple of things to remember that are specific to karate practitioners (washing hands, social distancing, and other advice is great, but applies to everybody):<br />
<br />
To protect yourself:<br />
1. Don't attend martial arts classes. Sorry!<br />
2. Very intense, exhausting exercise depresses your immune system. Long term, you'll probably be healthier if you work very hard some of the time, but in the short term, you'll have reduced immunity. So, don't exercise very hard, or only do so if you're in a semi-quarantine situation. Don't worry, this will blow over eventually and you can get back to your 'wish I were dead' style workouts.<br />
<br />
To protect others:<br />
1. Don't attend martial arts classes. Sorry! You might be infected right now, even if you're asymptomatic. You won't spread the disease if you aren't breathing on anybody.<br />
2. Feel free to watch/make/share videos, train remotely, read books, and work out on your own to maintain your martial arts practice.<br />
<br />
Here's the thing: Clovid-19 is not end of civilization bad, but it could be very, very bad. If you want details, you shouldn't be reading my blog, read something written by medical professionals.<br />
<br />
<br />
Here's my workout plan for those of you at home:<br />
<b><br /></b>
<b>The Official Karate Conditioning Pandemic Training Program</b><br />
<b><br /></b>
First, warm up. Do some dynamic stretching, mobility work, up to but not past the point where you have a light sweat going.<br />
Set some kind of timer.<br />
Every 30 seconds do a 'set.'<br />
Each set must:<br />
1. Be performed without opening your mouth (breathe through your nose only, for the set and the rest period).<br />
2. Last between 5 and 15 seconds so you have some rest before the next set.<br />
3. Consist of a few basics or exercises. For examples (each set would be only 1 of these choices):<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>5 Kettlebell swings.</li>
<li>12 blocks - 3 each upper, outside middle, inside middle, lower, performed at full speed/intensity.</li>
<li>4-6 kicks - say, lead leg front kick/bag leg front kick; switch stance; repeat.</li>
<li>5-15 pushups with variety - knuckles, fingertips, etc.</li>
<li>2-4 lunges, bodyweight only.</li>
<li>Punching combination with very light (1 lb) dumbells. Jab, straight, hook, uppercut; switch, repeat is a good example.</li>
<li>Any 2-4 movements out of your kata (any kata, any counts). Do them full speed and full intensity.</li>
</ul>
<br />
4. Make the 'sets' harder or easier depending on your fitness level. If you feel like you're barely working, make them harder (do 6 kicks instead of 4, more pushups, etc). If you feel like you're having a hard time breathing and need to open your mouth, do easier sets (3 pushups, 2 punches, etc.).<br />
5. Go for as little as 10 minutes to as much as an hour.<br />
<br />
Breathing through your nose will prevent you from working at a high enough intensity to compromise your immunity. You'll also prevent fatigue and thus improve your skill development.<br />
<br />
Osu! Stay safe!Joe Bernehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184260843542299066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2448441443019467760.post-53440607477321683942019-09-27T12:35:00.001-04:002019-09-27T12:35:51.432-04:00On Fandom: Little Men in SumoI think a lot about the philosophy or psychology of fandom in fight sport - as in, I think about questions like which fighters should we be fans of, and why we follow certain fighters.<br />
<br />
Sumo is a very interesting combat sport for many reasons, but one big oddity is that it doesn't have weight classes. There is simply sumo, and if you're not very big, then you don't get to compete against other little guys, you have to find a way to compete with much larger opponents if you want to be a professional rikishi.<br />
<br />
Also, unlike some other sports, mass is a HUGE advantage in sumo, to the point where it's one of the few sports where being obese is almost a requirement for success. The top ranks are dominated by very, very large men, and a big part of the sport is eating and living in a way to support huge bodies.<br />
<br />
Yet there are usually a couple of much smaller (smaller being relative here - they're all still over 200 lb) guys in the upper division. They manage to compete by utilizing their assets - usually incredible agility and balance - and using moves that other rikishi can't keep up with. It's not a great strategy - if it were, there would be lots of guys doing it - but some competitors manage to pull it off for a while.<br />
<br />
If you want current examples of competitive little guys, the best is Enho, but recently we saw Ura doing quite well (he's hurt, but if he gets healthy again he's a must-watch), and Ishiura can be great fun though not consistently. Kotoeko is worth a look as well.<br />
<br />
Many sumo fans (including me) root hard for those little guys for two reasons, I think. First, we like seeing people overcome tremendous odds to achieve success. We generally like rooting for underdogs. Second, the little guys are almost always putting on exciting matches. They can't just lean on and grind out opponents (because it's physically impossible for them), so they have to try all kinds of exciting, crazy moves to win. And they do.<br />
<br />
If you want to watch sumo, the best way has been through <a href="https://www.youtube.com/user/Kintamayama" target="_blank">Kintamayama</a>'s channel, but he's phasing out his posts, so try <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzZ8v5JF3IyxLWOCGKpcP0g" target="_blank">Natto Sumo</a>. If anything, Natto Sumo's coverage has advantages, because he puts up lots of graphics showing information about the recent history of each rikishi (so you can easily see who is on a slide, how long they've been competing, etc.).<br />
<br />
Keep your sadness hedge alive, though. The likelihood of an Enho or an Ishiura ever dominating the sport is very, very small. If you want to root for a winner, you'll have to learn to appreciate some of the bigger guys as well. If you want suggestions, I can't get enough Takakeisho or Hokutofuji (though Takakeisho was injured at the end of the last basho, and we have yet to know if he'll ever be the same again).<br />
<br />Joe Bernehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184260843542299066noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2448441443019467760.post-61538892688486449682019-09-06T12:55:00.000-04:002019-09-06T12:55:06.615-04:00Handstand Training for Martial ArtsDon't do handstand training for martial arts.<br />
<br />
There, I saved you tons of time and energy!<br />
<br />
I regularly see advice given to martial artists along the lines of, "you should train in gymnastics," "you should do Olympic lifting," "you should jog several miles a day," and so on. Not all of these are bad ideas, but it's important to understand something about exactly how much these practices will help your martial arts.<br />
<br />
A handstand is a highly unlikely position for you to be in while doing martial arts. I have never seen anybody hold a handstand in a fight of any kind - free sparring, UFC, kickboxing, or boxing. Which doesn't mean it could never happen, but it's so unlikely that it's not worth training for. Strength is position specific (as well as speed specific) and there's nothing in karate that's very much like holding a handstand.<br />
<br />
Handstand training will not carry over well to your karate, so any time and energy you spend on handstand training is unlikely to improve your karate. And since time and energy are finite resources, it will possibly detract from your karate (by keeping you from doing more karate practice).<br />
<br />
Please notice that I'm not saying you shouldn't train handstands. I'm saying you shouldn't train handstands <b><i>for martial arts</i></b>. BUT you may WANT to do handstand training. Maybe you think doing handstands is cool. Maybe you're bored with martial arts and want to spend some training time on non-martial arts activities to give yourself a mental break. Maybe some person you're attracted to thinks people who can do handstands are super hot.<br />
<br />
These are all great reasons to do handstand training. There's nothing wrong with mastering a skill (assuming it isn't inherently dangerous, which handstands aren't).<br />
<br />
Handstand training will develop your overhead pressing strength, which is good and useful. But it would be more efficient (unless you can already do handstands) to just do some dumbbell or kettlebell overhead pressing than to take up a handstand training routine <i>if that's your only goal</i>.<br />
<br />
Whenever you add supplemental training to your martial arts practice, you should be clear on WHY you're doing it, so you can figure out whether or not it's a good idea. If you are doing curls at the end of your workout because you want bigger arms, great. If you're doing it to improve your punching power... that's not going to work. If you like to run triathlons, great. If you think training for them will make you tireless in sparring, that's not going to work (unless your aerobic base is really bad).<br />
<br />
Knowing WHY you're doing any of the parts of your workout will ultimately make you better at reaching your goals, whatever those goals are.<br />
<br />
Osu.<br />
<br />Joe Bernehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184260843542299066noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2448441443019467760.post-15039936628307672982019-08-04T11:45:00.000-04:002019-08-04T11:45:47.030-04:00Instagram Fitness: Photoshop, Synthol, Steroids, and PeakingI recently got an Instagram account (If you have any desire to follow me, you can, but it's mostly pictures of food and my vacations... just search for Joe Berne). There's a lot of interesting content available, including a ton of fitness pictures - lots of very muscular, lean fitness models showing off their abs, arms, etc. It's all free and easy to find, and it's very easy to get inundated with pictures of very, very fit looking people, all kind of in your face on a daily basis.<br />
<br />
To be absolutely clear, I'm not saying there's anything inherently wrong with any of this. I'm simply saying that there is a very specific danger to exposing yourself to this content.<br />
<br />
Some people can look at these sort of pictures and have no negative impact. But many people can find these pictures discouraging - especially those of us trying to lose weight or gain muscle or otherwise improve our appearance. It can be easy to fall in to a trap of looking at a fitness model, then looking in the mirror, and feeling like your goals are unattainable, and that it isn't even worth trying.<br />
<br />
Now plenty of people avoid this thought process entirely, and get nothing but extra motivation from so-called motivational pictures. And that's great! If you're that sort of person, fantastic.<br />
<br />
But if you find yourself getting discouraged by these images, there are a few things to keep in mind.<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>Very few of those models actually look like that year round. They're posting pictures from a photo shoot for which they have 'peaked,' they have extra makeup and stuff on, they have great lighting, etc.</li>
<li>Many of those models have advantages over you that have nothing to do with hard work or dedication. For example, they all have great genetics.</li>
<li>Many use performance enhancing drugs.</li>
<li>Many have had cosmetic surgery. </li>
<li>Many don't have 'regular' lives that interfere with training (kids, full time sedentary jobs, etc.). </li>
<li>That's not to disparage their accomplishments, just to say that comparing yourself to them is a little bit like a race car driver entering his Honda Civic in the Indy 500 and feeling crushed at not being able to qualify.</li>
</ol>
<div>
If you feel demotivated by these images, stop looking at them. There are more-realistic Instagram accounts - look for something with people who post excerpts from their workouts on a near-daily basis (both so you're not seeing a peaking picture and so you get a feel for the way even these people have good and bad days). Or stay away altogether.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
There is no one-size-fits-all answer to how to stay motivated. There is no good or bad here. Figure out what works for you, and stick to it! </div>
<br />
<br />Joe Bernehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184260843542299066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2448441443019467760.post-91532268043438253902019-08-04T11:10:00.000-04:002019-08-04T11:10:03.930-04:00If Sartre studied karate: An existentialist analysis of the ShodanA significantly large percentage of martial arts students quit shortly after earning their black belt (including me - I took a 12 year 'break' almost immediately after earning my shodan).<br />
<br />
There are potentially many reasons for this, but I think one is a basic misunderstanding of what it means to be a black belt, one that can be nicely contextualized through an existential analysis.<br />
<br />
Existentialism is a branch of philosophy that focused on a number of things, only some of which I'll be concerned with in this post. A significant issue that existentialists in general talked about was freedom and reification (reification is just a fancy way of saying you think of yourself as an object). I'm going to explain and simplify, because that is the part of high level philosophy that I was good at.<br />
<br />
People tend to think of themselves the way they think of objects, as having fixed qualities. People think things like, "I am a good person," or "I am a bad person," "I am lazy," "I am hardworking," statement either positive or negative that paint a picture of us as fixed objects with fixed qualities that persist through time.<br />
<br />
The central understanding of the existentialist philosophers was that these statements are all incorrect. Humans, unlike, for example, chairs, are free. Every moment of your conscious life, you can choose to be lazy, but even if you think things like "I am lazy," you can also choose, at any moment, to do some unlazy things. The same is true of almost any claim one makes - a person can think, "I am a good person," but at any moment, even after years of having that thought, choose to do something bad. That is existential freedom (which is not necessarily a good or comfortable thing - in fact, it is kind of nauseating).<br />
<br />
When people imagine earning a black belt, they conflate two senses of the idea of becoming something new. They understand, on some level, that passing a test earns one a title which is acknowledged by a community of people. For example, because in 2011 I was given a belt with three stripes on it by the leaders of my style, a large group of people will now call me 'senpai' whereas before they didn't have to. They let me line up in a certain place, bow to me in a certain way, and so on, acknowledging my rank.<br />
<br />
The second sense of black belt, though, is where the problem happens. People imagine that they will <b>be something different </b>once they have passed that test. They imagine that they will become something new - closer to some ideal of what they think a martial arts student IS. More dedicated. More disciplined, perhaps.<br />
<br />
The truth (the uncomfortable truth) is that you can NEVER BE more disciplined or harder working or more dedicated. Those are not traits that you own or possess, the way you own or possess your eye color or your height. Instead, those are traits that only describe choices that you make, that you have to make freshly every day, every hour, as you live your life.<br />
<br />
No matter how long you've trained you are, fundamentally, free to skip your next workout. You can never BECOME something that necessarily trains. By the same logic, though, no matter how long you've <i>skipped </i>training, you are also always free to go to the next class, to do the next workout, to <i>resume </i>your training.<br />
<br />
Every single day you have to choose what you want to be. You can never become that thing (because you can never become any<b>thing</b>) - <i>you are not a thing</i>. This is what existentialism is teaching us.<br />
<br />
Once you've earned your black belt, you will be the same you that you've always been, freely choosing from hour to hour how you'll live your life. Choosing to train the next day will be no harder or easier than it had been before.<br />
<br />
If you want to BE a different sort of person as a black belt, you will have to continually and freely choose to live a different life than you lived before. If you want to make a kind of hokey slogan, you can say that you can't BE a black belt, but you can always choose to make black belt choices.<br />
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Earning any advanced rank is meaningful - it's an acknowledgement of the choices you've made in the past, and of the skill you've developed. But it doesn't change the fundamental truth that to live a certain life, you have to continually choose it, every day. You have to re-become a black belt every day.<br />
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You might think that once you've got a darker belt around your waist that you'll be a different person - feel differently, have a different character, automatically make the right choices (to go to class, eat right, stretch every day, whatever) where before you used to sometimes falter. Sadly, it's not true (it can never be true). You're not like a chair, which can be painted to have a new color. You're a human, free to make all the choices, and to suffer the consequences of those choices.<br />
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The good news (if there is any), is that no matter how unmotivated, lazy, or whatever other negative traits you've expressed in the past, you're free to stop making those sorts of choices. I didn't say it was easy, but it is possible. So if you haven't been living a black belt sort of life, you can start to. Right now. That's freedom.<br />
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Osu (but as you read this, please think of me as saying Osu in a French accent, with a beret on my head and a cigarette dangling out of my mouth, to get the proper effect).<br />
<br />Joe Bernehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184260843542299066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2448441443019467760.post-90686111303597110562019-06-21T14:17:00.003-04:002019-06-21T14:17:41.997-04:00Are you too old (fat, out of shape, handicapped, untalented) for karate?I actively read a large number of martial arts related forums, mostly because I have a social media problem and not because there's a ton of value in their contents (though I do find some gems). I frequently see questions that look like this:<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;">
"I'm (old or fat or out of shape or handicapped in some way). Is it worth starting karate (or some other martial art)?"</div>
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Now my strong suspicion is that this isn't a real question - the person knows that it's okay to start karate, no matter how old or fat they are, but they want some encouragement and positive feedback. And that's fine, I have no problem with people using social media to get some metaphorical massaging from strangers.<br />
<br />
But the real answer is twofold:<br />
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1. <b>Of course it is. </b>Literally no matter who you are (maybe other than an actual quadriplegic), you can train in martial arts - and if you do, you'll soon be much, much better than you are now!<br />
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2. <b>Probably not. </b>No matter how hard you train, you'll never be as skilled as a truly gifted athlete who has been training since youth. You literally will never catch up to them and be as skilled as they are!<br />
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Which one is the real answer? Both. <b><i>Because the question is ambiguous</i></b>.<br />
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If you are only willing to start martial arts training if you have a reasonable chance of being one of the best in the world at it, then yes, you're probably too fat, too old, too out of shape, and too un-talented to start.<br />
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<b><i>BUT </i></b>if you want to study martial arts because you're interested in the myriad benefits of martial arts training (better physical health and fitness, improved self confidence, better mental health, improved capacity for self defense) then, unless you're a quadriplegic (sorry to quadriplegics), you can absolutely gain those things.<br />
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If you want to be better at martial arts than other martial artists who have been training since childhood, your chances are slim. If you want to be better than the general population, your chance is almost 100%.<br />
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The 'trick' to being happy with your training is recognizing what you want, and to whom you should compare yourself, and realizing what your expectations should be.<br />
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I will never be able to win a UFC match. I would absolutely win a MMA fight against 90% of my peers (meaning, men of my size in my age category) - because most of my peer have absolutely no training. Compared to my peers <b><i>who train in martial arts </i></b>I am probably below average (I've taken long breaks from training). Maybe I'm average? I'm not really sure.<br />
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BUT I guarantee that I'm much, much better at martial arts, and more fit, and healthier, than an <b>alternate version of myself who didn't train at all.</b><br />
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So the real secret to success in martial arts is in carefully choosing how you evaluate your success! If you only think you're 'good' if you're holding a UFC belt (or have won an Olympic medal or an international tournament) then you'll most likely never be happy. If you are happy knowing you're better than you would have been without training, then you're guaranteed to benefit from training.<br />
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Osu.<br />
<br />Joe Bernehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184260843542299066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2448441443019467760.post-85215594277439856182019-06-21T13:51:00.001-04:002019-06-21T13:51:32.000-04:00Bollywood Martial Arts filmsI love Bollywood movies.<br />
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I barely remember how I got hooked - I'm pretty sure I started with Krrish, which I watched because it's a superhero flick and I was curious (quick review: it's fine, not great). Then Netflix offered up Baahubali, which is an amazing 2 part movie that everyone should see (though it's a Tollywood movie, meaning it was shot in Tamil and Telugu, not really Bollywood). From there somehow I got addicted to standard Bollywood movies, especially those from a golden age from 1997-2012, and especially romantic comedies. Ironically, my wife is South Asian, and I've introduced her to these films (if you didn't know, I'm an American Jew of Eastern European descent and I have no real connection to South Asian culture other than a love of spicy food and the fact that I recently married into a South Asian family).<br />
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So if I criticize Indian movies, I'm coming from a place of love. My favorite actor is Shah Rukh Khan; my favorite actress is Kajol; I love Bollywood and watch Indian movies all the time. I'm not a hater on Indian movies.<br />
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But most Bollywood action movies have terrible martial arts.<br />
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[Small caveat: I'm not really in a position to comment on Indian cinema <i>as a whole</i>. India produces a ridiculous number of movies each year, and other than 50 words in Hindi I don't speak any South Asian languages. So I'm really only commenting on the Indian movies that are available in the US, on Netflix or Amazon Prime, with English subtitles. If you're reading this and can speak to other Indian movies with great martial arts, please comment on this post!]<br />
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I mean this in two ways. If you watch a standard Indian action movie, like the Dhoom or Race series, when and if there are unarmed combat scenes, they're pretty mediocre compared to similar Hollywood movies. The Bourne series, for example, has much better fight scenes.<br />
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Also, there are relatively few Indian movies with a real martial arts focus (or, as I mentioned above, they aren't getting subtitled and/or aren't available for streaming here).<br />
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The closest thing India has to a martial arts focused actor is <b>Tiger Shroff</b> (son of famous actor Jackie Shroff). Tiger (not his real name) seems to have some legit martial arts background in tae kwon do. He has 3 films you can watch in the US, in English (all have been on Netflix):<br />
1. <b>Heropanti</b> - very entertaining - I found Tiger super charming is this one. B- for the martial arts (not bad, but nothing super innovative or exciting. This is no Ong Bak).<br />
2. <b>A Flying Jatt</b> - superhero movie, also quite fun, maybe C+ as a martial arts film, but B- as a movie.<br />
3. <b>Baaghi</b> - straight up martial arts standard movie plot and style. B+ as a martial arts movie, but nowhere near in the can't-miss level of something like Ong Bak or The Raid.<br />
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Other Indian martial arts films that you can find on Netflix or Amazon Prime:<br />
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<b>Waarrior Savitri</b>: retelling of a famous Indian fable in the modern day, using martial arts. Not a terrible movie, but not a good martial arts movie. Maybe C- as a martial arts film.<br />
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<b>Kung Fu Yoga</b>: Might be Jackie Chan's worst movie. Avoid at all costs.<br />
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<b>Mard Ko Dard Nahi Hota</b>: This is the gem. On Netflix now, this is both a pretty entertaining movie (nice plot, funny moments, good acting, everything you'd want in a good movie, B+ as a general film) it also has some excellent martial arts. Ironically, the best moves are probably done by the female costar, who has some really lovely scenes using a scar as a weapon.<br />
Watch this one! B+ (maybe even an <b>A-</b>) as a martial arts film!!!<br />
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Generally speaking, martial arts haven't penetrated India's entertainment industry the way they have in, say, Thailand.<br />
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If you haven't watched any Bollywood and are looking for a primer, that's something I might do at some point. Watch Kal Ho Na Ho - if you don't love that film, give up (also, what is wrong with you???)<br />
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Please comment if you think I've missed anything!<br />
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Osu.<br />
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<br />Joe Bernehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184260843542299066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2448441443019467760.post-25242390939110970522019-06-19T12:11:00.004-04:002019-06-19T12:11:54.646-04:00Karate for Fat Bastards[Please note that I'm using the term "Fat Bastards" in the most affectionate tone possible. And also note that I count myself as absolutely a member of that group!]<br />
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What's a Fat Bastard? For the sake of this post, I'm talking about <b><i>anybody who is thickly built</i></b>. Stocky, big boned, actually fat, or even lean but with a lot of muscle. Anybody who couldn't be called lanky. And I don't mean to exclude women, but the term 'Fat Bitch" doesn't have the same playful connotation (at least in American English), so I'm going to avoid it.<br />
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Why am I writing about thickly built people? Because in many ways <i>karate is designed to favor the lanky</i>, the scrawny, the width challenged individual. <b>Karate is easier for skinny people</b>.<br />
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Now you're probably thinking, "Surely this is overstating things, Joe?" No, it's not. It starts even before the class begins, as soon as you put on a gi. Why do we wear a jacket that wraps a double layer around our midsection? Who looks good in this? Only skinny people. If you are already wide through the torso, a gi just makes you look fatter and blockier. If you're very skinny, it gives some substance.<br />
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Second: point fighting. Point fighting is combat designed to strip away all the advantages of solidity and mass. In a full contact fight, solidly built people have some advantages - being able to absorb bigger impacts without falling, generally being able to hit harder. Point fighting is made to take away those advantages and make frail, skinny people look more effective than they are. Don't agree? Find someone your height but 25 kg heavier and similarly skilled to you. Stand toe to toe and trade full contact left hooks to the body with them. Then do 2 rounds of point fighting. See who 'wins' each phase.<br />
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Third: jumping techniques. I promise you the first person who decided to try a spinning jumping kick did not weigh over 100 kg. How good you are at getting into the air has a lot to do with different kinds of strength, but weighing more is always going to make it harder.<br />
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What should the thickly build karateka do? Well, if you're carrying a lot of extra fat, you should probably try to get rid of some of it, for health reasons (remember, having extra fat isn't particularly healthy, but neither are some of the methods people use to lose fat, so be sensible. If you can safely remove some fat, great, but don't starve to death or shoot your stress levels through the roof to get skinnier). At some point, though, many of us will have realize that even with reasonable efforts in that direction we're still thickly built; either big boned or heavily muscled or carrying stubborn fat or some combination of those.<br />
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My first instinct is to tell the thickly built karateka to sort of focus on the aspects of karate that work well for the thick and focus less on those that don't. For example, focus on clean technique, rooted stances, fighting from up close and with greater contact. Worry less about anything with jumping and spinning. Work to break lots of boards in a stack, and not to break a board flipped up into the air with some kind of jumping technique. Get really strong. Make sure you are training a style that does some contact!<br />
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But the more I thought about it the less I liked this answer.<br />
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The truth is this: If you're thick, you're at a disadvantage developing those kinds of skills (jumping, spinning, speed-based stuff). You'll probably never be truly elite in those areas. But if you <b>really love</b> that stuff, you can also definitely get much, much better at them than you are now.<br />
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So <b>if you love</b> that type of karate, you have a decision to make: either focus on those skills <b>knowing</b> that you'll never be quite as good at them as people who are better suited to them (and also work hard) <b>OR</b> shift your attention to the type of karate that your body is 'designed' for.<br />
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And really, neither answer is wrong.<br />
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I personally know that I would find focusing on skills that don't suit my body too demoralizing - <b>for me</b>. I personally couldn't sustain that kind of martial arts practice over a lifetime. I, instead, focus on being able to hit the heavy bag as hard as possible, and focus on strategies in kumite that get my opponents closer to me. I'll never be truly elite at anything in martial arts, but I can be pretty good at those sort of things.<br />
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But if I loved the jumping stuff enough, I'm sure I could work on it and get much better at it than I am now, even if I could never be great.<br />
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And the more I think about this, the more I feel it's true for other types of limitations.<br />
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If your'e genetically suited for endurance rather than speed, you'll never be a great sprinter. So if you're trying to compete in the Olympics, you'd better train for marathons and not the 100m. But if you're just a recreational runner who loves sprints, and you can handle the idea of working on sprints your whole life without ever becoming really great at sprinting, then go for it! But go for it with open eyes.<br />
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<b>Find a way to train that YOU will love, then do it.</b> There is no right or wrong beyond that.<br />
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<br />Joe Bernehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184260843542299066noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2448441443019467760.post-51279513947684394142019-01-04T18:30:00.001-05:002019-01-04T18:30:23.386-05:00What to Watch Jan 2019I've posted about this before, but it bears repeating: if you love martial arts you might love martial arts based entertainment. For many, watching martial arts movies and tv shows, realist or not, can be highly motivational and fun.<br />
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I know many experienced martial artists have little to no patience for highly unrealistic martial arts based entertainment - I'm not one of them. I can appreciate a crazy ridiculous movie or cartoon as much as a hyper realistic fight scene (maybe more).<br />
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Most of what I watch on TV is not martial arts or action - most of what I personally watch is Bollywood movies (no, I'm not Indian, and no, my South Asian wife is not into Bollywood, I came by this addiction all on my own). I'm not going to go on and on about why I love Bollywood here, but to be honest Bollywood movies rarely have well executed fight scenes, so from a martial arts perspective I wouldn't recommend them, even the action oriented films. (If you are interested in Bollywood, by all means go on Netflix and search for Shah Rukh Khan, the greatest actor who has ever lived, and watch anything of his - start with Happy New Year. If you have Amazon Prime, watch Kal Ho Naa Ho, then Khabi Khushi Khabie Gham, then DM me for more recommendations once you've stopped crying).<br />
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I'm going to put in here a few very short reviews about things I've been watching that are martial arts based. <b>Everything </b>I put in is<b> on Netflix in the US</b> (sorry, I'm not sure what Netflix has if you're in another country, and I'm not sure how to check - if anybody feels like adding recommendations from other country's options in the comments please feel free).<br />
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<b>Iron Fist (</b>TV show, Marvel universe, 2 seasons)<br />
This was bad in every way. The fight scenes were pretty bad - though season 2 had a couple of well done scenes. See if you can find the Misty Knight/ Colleen Wing fight scenes on Netflix or google their locations in the series. Don't just watch it straight through, unless you're a masochist.<br />
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<b>Daredevil</b> (TV show, Marvel universe, 3 seasons)<br />
Seasons 1 and 3 were outstanding and season 2 was very good (ironically, season 2 had more ninjas, yet wasn't as good as the others). Great acting, stellar storylines, and fantastic fight scenes - but these were not action packed. It's not one of those things where there's 5 minutes of fighting, 1 minute of dialogue, then 5 minutes of fighting, so if you're looking for sort of mindless action, this isn't for you (watch the Raid, below).<br />
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<b>The Night Comes For Us</b> (Movie, Iko Uwais)<br />
Outstanding in every way. All action, all the way through. I love Iko Uwais movies - He's a great performer, first of all, but I find the films he's in (and this might have nothing to do with him) fun because they're less gut wrenching (usually) then Tony Jaa films. With a Tony Jaa film I feel like I'm always sitting through an hour of an elephant being tortured before the action starts. I'm very sensitive, I hate that stuff. With Iko's movies you're usually invested in the characters right away without having to watch the 'bad' guys do a whole lot of terrible things so you feel better when the revenge happens.<br />
Iko's moves are silat based and look fantastic. He's NOT the main character in this movie, but it's amazing anyway. NOTE: kind of gory, lots of blood and shattered bones. Not good for kids.<br />
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<b>The Raid: Redemption</b> (Movie, Iko Uwais)<br />
Amazing. Watch it. Also gory and maybe not for kids. All action all the way through.<br />
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<b>The Final Master </b>(Movie, Chinese)<br />
Really, really good film. Great story, actual character development, fantastic fight scenes (all wing chun-ish). Absolutely watch it.<br />
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<b>Rise of the Legend </b>(Movie, Chinese)<br />
Really good action film. Watch it.<br />
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<b>Beyond Skyline </b>(Movie, sci-fi, costars Iko Uwais)<br />
Meh. Miss it. It's fine for a B level sci fi film, but not actually good, and the fight scenes alone aren't worth the rest of the film.<br />
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<b>Baaghi </b>(Movie, Tiger Schroff, Bollywood)<br />
The only Bollywood title on this list. Greatest Indian martial arts movie ever made. Not bad, but not great. Action scenes are reminiscent of Jean Claude Van Dam films - Tiger Schroff is pretty athletic - but not up to 2018 international standards. Of course, it has the best music and dancing of any movie on this list. Another good Tiger Schroff is Heropanti - very, very amusing (and no, it has nothing to do with panties).<br />
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<b>Broken Sword Hero</b> (Movie, Buakaw, Thai)<br />
Not terrible, I guess? I have a soft spot for Buakaw, who is an amazing and entertaining kickboxer in real life (not an actor). Above average action, decent story, acting is fine. Watch if you have time.<br />
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<b>Sword of Destiny</b> (Movie, Chinese, sequel to Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon)<br />
Not terrible, but it's no Crouching Tiger. It's fine. Miss if you're busy.<br />
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<b>The Last Dragon</b> (Movie, American)<br />
I can't objectively evaluate this movie. It's a cult favorite of mine, and as such holds a very, very special place in my soul. Watch it, because even if it's not a great film, it's a cultural milestone.<br />
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<b>Mugamoodi</b> (Movie, Tamil)<br />
Weird super hero (but relatively realistic)/romance thing going on. Tamil films are very similar to Bollywood (but not the same) in tone, and this is no exception, so don't be surprised by the dance numbers and casual racism. Still, pretty decent action scenes and storyline (but not good).<br />
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<b>Man of Tai Chi</b> (Movie, Keanu Reeves!)<br />
Super talented tai chi student fights in tournaments to prove the efficacy of his art, getting ever more brutal and advanced as he goes, until he's in kill or be killed fights with crazy Keanu Reeves. Absolutely worth watching.<br />
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There are more. I'm making my way through Monkey Twins right now, so far... it's fine, but not good.<br />
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Osu!<br />
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<br />Joe Bernehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184260843542299066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2448441443019467760.post-15298443957298552162018-10-03T15:57:00.000-04:002018-10-03T15:57:50.297-04:00Fasting: 5 questions answeredI posted recently <a href="https://karateconditioning.blogspot.com/2018/05/intermittent-fasting-for-karate.html" target="_blank">about intermittent fasting for karate</a> practitioners. If you don't want to read it, I'll summarize: I believe fasting (going for periods from 16 hours and up without eating anything, though probably no more than 72 hours at a time) is a great way to control bodyfat, insulin sensitivity, and might provide some other intriguing health benefits with very few risks. It might also improve sports performance (by facilitating fat adaption) and muscle mass and strength (which is counterintuitive).<br />
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I'm on a few fasting related message boards and a few things come up repeatedly as people ask about IF. Here's a summary of answers:<br />
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<b>1. Can I fast if I'm diabetic?</b><br />
MAYBE but NOT UNSUPERVISED. I can't stress this enough.<br />
If your'e on diabetes medications you can't just suddenly decide to skip meals or entire days of meals without changing your meds. Diabetes medications are designed to reduce blood sugar. The dose you're on should be well calibrated to your current body and diet. If you suddenly change your diet, those meds might not work anymore. You can't expect your blood sugar to end up in a good place if you suddenly stop eating any more than you'd expect it to stay low if you suddenly started eating a sheet cake with every meal.<br />
The real danger is that if you started eating an entire sheet cake with every meal your sugar would go UP, and that's less acutely dangerous (i.e. having very high blood sugar this very minute won't kill you this very minute, even if it's doing long term damage). Having very low blood sugar actually can make you pass out or die.<br />
So fasting might be a great and healthy thing to do if you're diabetic, BUT you have to carefully monitor your blood glucose and adjust your medications to match as you do it. DO NOT try this alone.<br />
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<b>2. Will consuming <food x=""> break the fast?</food></b><br />
I see this question constantly - "I like to have a hard boiled egg in the morning, does that break the fast?" "Will coffee with cream break the fast?" And so on.<br />
The answer to this is a little layered.<br />
First of all, it isn't completely proven that fasting provides benefits beyond the caloric restriction that comes with it. It's not conclusive that a 20/4 eating plan that gives you 2000 kCal/day is better in any way than a spread out plan where you consume the exact same quantity of food over the whole day.<br />
But I strongly suspect that the 20/4 is better. If you disagree, then you shouldn't care about breaking the fast because you don't think the fast is doing anything useful.<br />
We still don't know exactly what it is about fasting that provides these additional benefits. So we can't say with real certainty what 'breaks the fast' because we don't know exactly what 'the fast' means from a physiological perspective.<br />
<b>Water </b>probably doesn't 'break the fast' because nobody really thinks that dehydration has anything to do with the benefits of fasting. So plain water <i>definitely doesn't</i> break the fast.<br />
<b>Non-caloric, no-taste nutrients</b> <i>probably don't</i> break the fast. I mean things like caffeine pills, vitamins and minerals, and electrolytes. I have never seen an idea for 'how fasts work' that would be broken by taking some electrolytes or Vitamin D, for example.<br />
<b>Small or large amounts of dietary fat by itself</b> <i>almost definitely doesn't </i>break the fast. So you can add cream to your black coffee. Why am I so sure of this? Because while fasting your body can dump tons of fat into your blood, from your own bodyfat, anytime. And it does. If having fat in your blood 'broke the fast' nobody would ever be able to fast, at least not while alive.<br />
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<b>Non-caloric non-sweetener flavorings</b> <i>probably don't </i>break the fast. Think flavored water type beverages that aren't sweet, or black coffee, or unsweetened tea. These things might impact insulin, which might 'break' the fast's benefits, but I doubt it. Future science might prove this wrong.</div>
<b>Non-caloric sweeteners</b> are a really <i>tough call</i>. They might increase insulin, which might 'break the fast' in terms of halting the benefits of fasting. But if you take them regularly, that effect might go away, and in real terms it's terribly unclear how much insulin you'd need to release to have an important physiological effect. So... I'm not sure. If you are absolutely committed to fasting, play it safe and skip the diet sodas. If you just can't manage without them... I sympathize, but I honestly can't tell you how bad it is (and nobody else can, either).<br />
<b>Protein or carbohydrates in small amounts </b>either don't break the fast or only set it back a little. What do I mean by 'small amount?' Imagine eating a single peanut. It's possible that could knock you out of a fasting state, but for how long? A few minutes?<br />
The problem comes when people extend this logic to encompass larger portions of protein and carbohydrate foods. What if you ate a peanut every 2 minutes all day long? I bet that would negate the fast. Or the hard boiled egg I mentioned above (that was taken from a real question on a fasting support forum). Nobody can really answer how detrimental a single egg can be - does it negate an hours worth of fasting? Half an hour? Two hours? Nobody knows.<br />
<b>Foods with lots of protein and/or carbohydrates </b>will definitely break the fast. That's literally what breakfast is.<br />
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<b>3. I'm having <social occasion="" of="" some="" sort="">. Is it okay to skip my fast or break it early?</social></b><br />
Good grief, yes.<br />
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<b>4. What about fasting and detoxification?</b><br />
OMG please stop with the detox.<br />
"Detox" as it's used in popular diet talk is meaningless. If anybody talks about a 'detox diet,' ask them to specify what toxins are being removed from your body and by what biological process.<br />
If they answer (they won't), post it to comments and we can look into whether skipping a few meals can interfere with that process.<br />
Any kind of caloric restriction can reduce inflammation, which can help with a whole host of chronic conditions. That doesn't mean you're 'removing toxins from your body.'<br />
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<b>5. Can I exercise while fasting?</b><br />
Yes, you can do any exercise while fasting that you could do while fed. Your performance will probably suffer, though, especially if you're combining fasting with a low carbohydrate approach (which is popular but not what I personally recommend). You will, in my experience, find that the more you exercise while fasted the easier it gets. Either way, it's not dangerous or harmful to try.<br />
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I'm not a fasting evangelist. I'm not an anything-evangelist. My goal is never to tell you the absolute best way to do anything, because I am never certain that I know the best way to do anything. I do try to honestly give you the best advice I can, distilled from the best advice popularly available today, based on the best scientific evidence and reasoning that we have available. New studies could turn up tomorrow that force us to rethink some of these ideas, and when I find out about them, I'll post it here.<br />
Osu.<br />
<br />Joe Bernehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184260843542299066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2448441443019467760.post-20987394555945695672018-09-14T10:41:00.000-04:002018-09-14T10:41:46.663-04:00Go Half In: train like you kinda-sorta mean it! This post is all about do what I say, not what I do.<br />
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I was listening to a podcast interview with a chiropractor (sorry, forgot his name, but it's not super relevant to this post) who is a fan of Tony Robbins (the self help 'guru,' and I don't mean that to be disparaging). He met Tony in an elevator before a seminar and asked what he could do to get the most out of it, and Tony said (I'm paraphrasing) he needed to go "all in." Basically, completely immerse himself in the content for the duration - do every exercise, take every suggestion, fully commit to the program for those three days without reservations.<br />
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We probably all understand this notion in terms of martial arts training. Going all in with your training means taking every class, stretching and practicing on your off days, eating sensibly, getting enough sleep, maybe doing extra conditioning or strength training sessions on your own time. And if you aren't the person who does that, I'm sure you know people who do - the most gung ho, most enthusiastic practitioners. Usually, they're young enough not to have outside responsibilities, or beginners. But some people maintain that level of training for longer.<br />
<br />
For people who aren't always "all in," they often go all in for certain periods of time. Think of the months leading up to a big tournament or black belt promotion. Fear and the desire to perform often lead us to work extra hard in those times. In the 3 months before my shodan test I think I trained 12-14 hours a week.<br />
<br />
The thing is, <b>karate is a lifetime discipline, but most people can't go all in for a lifetime</b>.<br />
<br />
Maybe right now you're thinking of counterexamples - people who train maniacally for their entire lives. That's fantastic for them. If someone has a lifestyle that lets them do that, and is able to maintain that level of enthusiasm, that's great. For them. But for most of us regular people with jobs, relationships, kids, fluctuating health and injury status, and fluctuating life circumstances, going all in all the time is just not possible.<br />
<br />
And here's the thing: we celebrate the people who train extra hard, never miss a class, are in great shape all the time, never fall off the wagon. (We <i>should </i>celebrate that, I'm not against it).<br />
<br />
What's the problem with that? Where's the issue?<br />
<br />
The problem, as I see it, is when we think that "all in" is the only way to train (or the only way to progress), and that's simply not true.<br />
<br />
I figured out my personal definition of "all in." When I train 5+ hours a week spread out over at least 4 workouts (that combines actual classes with supplementary workouts) I feel like I'm really going all in. I've done more, that's not an upper limit, but that's the time commitment that makes me feel like I'm really dedicated to training.<br />
<br />
Over and over again, in my own life, when I've found myself unable to get those 5+ hours a week in, for whatever reason, I get extremely discouraged. <b>I feel like a hypocrite wearing a black belt to class. I feel that I don't deserve respect that is given to me by others in the training hall. I feel as though I've betrayed my art, my teachers, and my style </b>(Seido Karate).<br />
<br />
And it's very, very hard for me to get over those feelings - to the point where I <b>stop training altogether</b>. If I can't go "all in," then I go "all out." Meaning I stop training, or at least stop going to classes.<br />
<br />
While I started training 30 years ago, I've only trained consistently for 10-12 years out of that time (not 10-12 years straight; I mean spread out over many stretches with breaks in between). I'm only a third degree black belt.<br />
<br />
And I guarantee this - if every time I couldn't fully commit to training, I had, instead of stopping altogether, put in 1-2 hours a week of training, I would be a much, much stronger karateka than I am now.<br />
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I'm not saying I'd be as good as another person who trained "all in" for 30 years. I'm simply saying that if I had put in 1-2 hours a week for those approximately 18 years when I didn't train, I would have accumulated another thousand hours of training time. And I'm sure my training would have been more efficient - once you learn a kata, if you do it every week or two you never forget it, while trust me after you take two years off you have to relearn it almost from scratch.<br />
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Summary: <b>Don't be afraid of backing off from training; be afraid of not training! </b>You don't have to attend every class, train every day, or be the hardest worker around in order to make progress and improve your karate. Don't feel bad for taking it easy <i>when you have to</i>. "All in" training is great, but "half in" is much, much better than "all out." And if you have stretches of time where things are a little easier, where your kids are a little older and not as needy, when your job is going okay, your marriage is okay, and you have a little extra time and energy, train all in! Enjoy it.<br />
<br />Joe Bernehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184260843542299066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2448441443019467760.post-55113813333226089932018-07-07T11:07:00.001-04:002018-07-07T11:07:21.366-04:00Keto and Karate: A Good Fit?Ketogenic Diets are very popular right now, for reasons I'm not entirely clear about. I've played with ketogenic diets on and off for the past 10+ years, and read a lot of the literature around them, so I figured it was time to talk a little about how useful they are for karateka.<br />
<br />
<b>What is Ketosis?</b><br />
It's easier to start with a brief overview of 'normal' (I really mean typical) metabolism.<br />
Your body needs <i>energy </i>all the time, in every living cell. Most of that energy comes from <i>glucose</i> or from <i>fat</i>. Your body stores both - there is glucose stored in the form of <i>glycogen </i>in your muscles and liver, and fat stored all over the place. When you need energy somewhere it gets glucose and/or fat from the blood and uses it for energy. When the glucose or fat in the blood get too low, more is moved from storage into the blood.<br />
The glucose mostly comes from food (carbohydrates), but your body can make some glucose from proteins and fats (through a process called <i>gluconeogenesis</i>).<br />
Some types of cells are better at using fat, others are better at using glucose. To some extent you can improve your body's ability to use either fat or glucose by eating and training in a certain way, but there are limits (you can never get your brain to run on fat).<br />
If your cells aren't able to get enough glucose (this can happen either because you've run low on glucose OR because it can't get into the cells, as in with a Type I diabetic), your body will start making ketones out of fat. Ketones are just another molecule that your cells can use for energy. Some cells that are bad at using fat directly (like neurons) can use ketones, so you can stay alive even when glucose is in short supply. 'Normally' you make very few or no ketones.<br />
<b><i>Nutritional Ketosis</i></b> is what happens when you restrict your carbohydrate intake (don't eat any) and protein intake for a while (specifics aren't important here, but 'a while' means days or weeks, not minutes or hours). At first, your body will just use stored glucose (glycogen) to fulfill its needs, but if that glycogen gets used faster than it's replenished, eventually it runs out (or at least runs very low). Then you start making ketones really quickly, to fulfill your energy needs.<br />
Diabetics can get into ketosis while their insulin and blood sugars are both high. This is a different state and can be very dangerous. Diabetic Ketoacidosis and Nutritional Ketosis are not the same thing.<br />
To be even more clear: <b>on a 'normal' or typical diet</b>, you will have <b>very small amounts of ketones</b> in your blood. If you eat certain foods (Medium Chain Triglycerides, as found in coconut oil) OR deplete your body's stores of carbohydrates enough, your body will start making lots of them.<br />
<br />
<b>What's are the benefits of being in ketosis?</b><br />
There's a lot to unpack here - as with fasting, a lot of the science is mixed.<br />
<b><i>Health/Body Composition Benefits:</i></b><br />
Being on a<b> ketogenic diet</b> (nutritional ketosis - very low carb, not high protein, high fat diets) might <b>facilitate bodyfat loss</b>. This is contentious - there are lots of reputable people who think that ketogenic diets are great for weight loss and others who disagree. I'm not going to take a stand - do the research yourself. I personally suspect that ketogenic diets are better for fat loss but hard to sustain compared to some other successful eating plans.<br />
Having high levels of ketones in your bloodstream might have other benefits. Because ketones can provide cells with energy but get into the cells in a way that's different from glucose, they might help feed cells that are insulin resistant. This is especially interesting with the brain. There is pretty strong evidence that having ketones in the blood can help the brain resist traumatic injury and help the brain recover from injuries. Some also believe that high levels of ketones can prevent symptoms of Alzheimer's and dementia (I'm not going to say this is definitely true; I will say that I suspect the idea has a lot of merit).<br />
There are a lot of other claims made about ketogenic diets, more than I have space to discuss here. Dig around if you're interested.<br />
<b><i>Performance Benefits:</i></b><br />
This is another controversial area.<br />
Your body can use ketones for energy. Your body can also make an effectively infinite amount of them. Suppose you want to run 100 miles. Your body can't store anywhere near enough glycogen to fuel that sort of effort - you'd need to eat carbohydrates along the way, and lots of them, to make it that far. But almost everyone has more than enough energy stored as fat to run 100 miles (it's not even close). So, in theory, if you could get all your energy for the run from ketones, you wouldn't have to slam down carbohydrate gels or eat along the way.<br />
However, <b>power is limited on ketones</b>. You can generate energy forever (practically) using ketones, but you can't generate it very quickly. Yes, you can run 100 miles on ketones, but you won't run any of those miles at anywhere close to your maximum speed.<br />
Having <b>ketones and glucose in your system at the same time</b> hasn't been well studied to my knowledge. It should provide performance benefits without any disadvantages, but it's not easy to get into that state.<br />
<br />
<b>So should karateka be on a ketogenic diet?</b><br />
Short answer: <b>no</b>.<br />
To actually get into ketosis you have to be on a very low carbohydrate diet until your body's stored glucose is very, very low. In other words, you can't have anywhere close to full glycogen levels. If you have lots of glycogen, you won't be in ketosis.<br />
And there is <b>abundant evidence that your body won't be able to generate high levels of power without lots of glycogen </b>around. This makes sense - if you look at the energy systems, the glycolitic system runs on glucose. If you have no glucose around, and really deplete ATP levels, you'll crash, and the energy systems that can use fat or ketones to regenerate ATP from ADP won't be able to keep up with demand. So your body limits power output to prevent a crash.<br />
So if you're in nutritional ketosis, your punches will lack snap, your speed will be limited - basically, you'll be a<b> slower, less explosive</b> version of yourself.<br />
Some people think you can become 'fat adapted' and avoid this fate. Not true. Yes, if you exercise a lot while glycogen levels are low you can get better at using fat (or ketones) for energy, you'll never magically be able to generate peak power off of ketones.<br />
This isn't even really controversial. Without glycogen your body is like a racecar without its highest gears. You can work hard, and for a long time, but you lose that top end speed. No amount of practice or training will completely change that.<br />
<br />
<b>HOWEVER:</b><br />
I want to provide 2 caveats:<br />
<br />
<ol>
<li>For you, it's possible that the health benefits of a ketogenic diet are more important than your karate performance. This is something you'll have to figure out for yourself. As a corollary to this, you might find benefits to being in a ketogenic diet in a periodized way - say, 1 month a year, or a couple of weeks at a time, every so often. That's fine, just be aware that your karate will suffer during those times.</li>
<li>The reduction in power output ISN'T CAUSED BY THE KETONES BUT BY THE LACK OF GLYCOGEN. So what, you ask? It is quite possible that you could get the benefits of nutritional ketosis without the downsides - by <b>eating ketones</b>. There are supplements out there that are just pills full of ketones. In other words, <i>instead of getting high levels of ketones in your blood by depleting carbohydrates until your body 'thinks' it's starving, just consume ketones and let them get absorbed</i>. This approach is relatively new - the supplements are expensive - and may or may not work. If it does, you'd potentially have a little extra endurance when you work out. Also, more interestingly, you might have some protection against head trauma. Another approach is to eat a lot of MCT (medium chain triglycerides) either in coconut oil or in a dedicated supplement. Your body turns MCT into ketones almost directly, so if you can consume enough of it you can get elevated ketones in your blood without depleting glycogen.</li>
</ol>
<div>
If I were, say, a professional fighter, I would absolutely load up on ketone supplements before hard sparring sessions or fights. We have very little reason to think it could make anything worse (performance or health) and some reasonably strong reasons that it could protect our brains. The downside is that the supplements are expensive. If you have money to burn, go ahead and try them! But nutritional ketosis is not conducive to martial arts training at any level, so I don't recommend it.</div>
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<br />Joe Bernehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184260843542299066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2448441443019467760.post-41533658746461789692018-06-18T10:39:00.001-04:002018-06-18T15:41:47.339-04:00Find your Ideal Weight for Karate (or life)There's a simple formula for finding your ideal weight:<br />
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1. Measure your height in cm.<br />
2. Measure your weight in kg.<br />
3. Take measurements of the circumference of your neck, wrists, and ankles.<br />
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The next couple of steps take a little bit longer:<br />
4. Gain or lose weight as needed until you are happy with the way you look, the way you feel, and your general health.<br />
5. Weigh yourself again.<br />
6. That's your ideal weight!!!<br />
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This question goes around fitness circles every so often - 'what should I weigh?' It's an interesting, but silly question.<br />
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Why is it silly? Because it presupposes some perfect weight that a person should reach independent of... everything else.<br />
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Imagine you are very healthy, very pleased with your appearance (the right amount of fat and muscle that makes you think you look good, whatever that is). Suppose also that you are happy with your physical performance - you can jump the way you want, move smoothly the way you want, you don't get excessively tired, etc.<br />
Now imagine that someone says, "oh, sorry, you should way 10kg more. Or 10 kg less. You're not at your ideal weight."<br />
What would you do? Starve yourself to lose weight - keep in mind that you'd be moving AWAY from an appearance that you like. Or overeat to bulk up - again, moving away from your ideal?<br />
<br />
I think people ask this question most often when they're UNHAPPY with their appearance, health, and/or performance, and want a target to shoot for. They weigh, say, 200 lbs, and want to be able to say something like, "if I can only get to 150 lbs, that would be ideal, so I have exactly 50 lbs to lose."<br />
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I can see the appeal in having a target, but it's not really useful. Imagine some expert determines that your ideal weight is 160 lbs. Then you diet and exercise (in a healthy way) and get to 160, and you are still kind of too fat (by your own standards). Let's assume you're not anorexic; maybe you have lighter bones than the 'expert' anticipated. Or your doctor does bloodwork and testing and says you still have too high a bodyfat percentage. What do you do, stop losing weight because you're already at 'ideal'? Of course not. And the opposite is also true - suppose that expert says your ideal is 160, and you hit 170 but you're ripped and feeling great and your doctor says you're in awesome shape. Do you keep trying to lose more weight?<br />
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I bet almost everybody already knows if they need to gain, lose, or maintain their weight (I'm assuming you're a regular person, not an actor, model, physique competitor, or competitor in a weight class sport - those guys all have unique considerations and might need expert advice regarding their weight). If you need to lose weight, try to lose weight (as long as you can do it in a healthy way). Reassess every so often (weekly at most). If you're prone to body dismorphia (like anorexia), be super careful to get some objective measures (like bodyfat analysis or the advice of a trusted friend) along the way. Once you are where you want to be, you're good! The same goes for those of you who might need to gain weight.<br />
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Don't fall into a paralysis by analysis trap of spending time and energy defining a target while you aren't working to get there.<br />
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<br />Joe Bernehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184260843542299066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2448441443019467760.post-68616436792966938392018-05-09T10:08:00.001-04:002018-05-09T10:08:11.344-04:00Intermittent Fasting for KarateIntermittent fasting (IF) is an eating strategy that's been around for a long time, but has been more prominent in the news the last few months for some reason. I'm a fan (the blog description even lists IF as one of its cornerstones), so I thought I'd discuss it for anyone who is curious.<br />
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<b>What is Intermittent Fasting?</b><br />
This is sort of tricky, because almost everyone practices a kind of IF. Most people go at least 8-10 hours a day without food - while they're sleeping. I know there are some people who get up in the middle of the night to grab some kind of snack, but they're in a minority.<br />
So for an eating plan to 'count' as IF the fasts should be longer than 8-10 hours. Here's a pretty good start:<br />
<b>IF is a plan whereby one deliberately and on a regular basis goes without calorie containing food </b>(so water is fine) <b>for stretches of time that are at least 12 hours</b> (NOTE: for most IF strategies the fasts are at least 16 hours long, so consider 12 the very shortest fast that might barely count as a fast) but NOT longer than 36 hours.<br />
The MOST COMMON strategies I've seen are:<br />
1. Restricted feeding window - Eat every day, but only for a period of time between 4 and 8 hours. So maybe every day eat normally between noon and 8 PM, then fast until noon the next day - this is a 16 hour fast, and an 8 hour eating window, sometimes called 16:8. You can shorten the feeding window, to get a 18:6 or 20:4 or whatever.<br />
2. Every other day eating - one or more days per week, don't eat or eat MUCH LESS food than normal. So if your fast day is Monday, you'd eat normally on Sunday, stop at night, on Monday consume either NO calories at all or many fewer calories than normal - perhaps 20-40% of your 'normal' daily food intake. Obviously, you couldn't do this more than three days a week (or alternate 3 and 4), but most plans like this seem to average around 2 'fast' days per week.<br />
<br />
<b>What is IF good for?</b><br />
This is the question.<br />
In my opinion, you have to look at IF, and at the evidence supporting it, in 3 ways:<br />
1. IF (probably) <i>helps you create and maintain a caloric deficit</i>, and caloric deficits have benefits;<br />
2. IF may have health/performance <i>benefits even compared to a diet with the same calories</i> that are more spread throughout the day;<br />
3. IF has lifestyle advantages that are completely separate from 1 and 2.<br />
<br />
The reason I split these up is that the evidence in support of each point is different, and people comparing IF to other eating plans often get these confused. I'll address each one.<br />
<br />
<b>#1: IF helps you create and maintain a caloric deficit</b><br />
Not everyone <i>wants </i>a caloric deficit (the <a href="https://leangains.com/" target="_blank">leangains</a> guys will use IF to build muscle), and this is NOT the only reason to do IF, but a huge selling point for IF is that it makes it much <b>easier </b>to eat fewer calories, and to sustain that lower caloric intake for a long period of time.<br />
Suppose someone eats 4 times a day, about 500 calories per meal (that's like, a small sandwich and a Diet Coke), for 2000 total calories a day (much more likely is a 350 calorie breakfast, a 450 calorie lunch, 2 snacks for 100 calories each, and a 1000 calorie dinner, or something like that, but I'm trying to keep my math simpler). Suppose that person wants to create a 500 calorie deficit, because they're trying to lose bodyfat or increase insulin sensitivity or for some other health/appearance goal.<br />
That person COULD shrink all their meals by 125 calories each. Eat 3/4 of a sandwich instead of a whole sandwich. OR that person could just skip one of the 4 meals, and eat 'regular' meals the rest of the time.<br />
This probably isn't universally true, but for many (possibly most) people it is much easier to skip a meal every day than to eat the same number of smaller, less satisfying meals. Think about how people overeat - most people eat a large dessert or something at the end a meal, we are less likely to just go have a huge dessert in the middle of the afternoon. Eating triggers more eating for many of us, especially those of us who are overweight (those of us who need that caloric deficit the most).<br />
Now there is definitely an adaption period to IF - if you're used to eating all day, then going all morning or an entire day without food is not easy. But in my experience it takes <b>at most 2 weeks</b> to adjust, and most often less than that. Your body 'learns' to go without food. Obviously, 36 hour fasts are a little more challenging than adopting a 16:8 eating window, but almost everyone I've known who has tried it has been surprised at how easy it is, and how much easier it is than eating the same number of meals but with smaller portions.<br />
<i style="font-weight: bold;">Now, what's the point of having a caloric deficit? </i>That's primarily (though not entirely) about body composition. Meaning, in order to lose bodyfat, you pretty much have to cut calories. There are also probably benefits for everybody to be in a caloric deficit at least some of the time, to improve insulin sensitivity and increase autophagy, but that's less clear (in other words, I'm <i>really sure </i>that if you have too much bodyfat, you should be in a caloric deficit, and I <i>suspect</i> that periodic caloric deficits are good for everybody, but I'm less confident in the latter).<br />
<br />
<b>#2: IF may have health/performance/longevity benefits even compared to an isocaloric diet</b><br />
There is a ton of research on the health impact of caloric deficits, but IF proponents often claim that IF has benefits separate from the caloric deficit. In other words, an eating plan where someone eats 1800 calories a day in a 4 hour window (maybe 2 large meals) will have a different outcome than someone who eats the same number of calories spread out through the day (3 small meals and a couple of snacks, covering 12-16 hours of the day).<br />
I'm going to sum up the research on this. Basically, there are a few reasons why we think regularly going without food for long-ish periods of time does things to your body that don't happen when you trickle in a constant supply of food, even if the total amount is the same.<br />
<b>A: Longevity</b> - there is some evidence that IF makes small animals live longer. This may or may not cross over to humans. I find the evidence compelling but not certain.<br />
<b>B: Insulin Sensitivity</b> - IF may improve insulin sensitivity. I have heard diabetes researchers (actual MD's working in clinics, not the trainer at the gym) who claim IF does wonders for patients with type II Diabetes. If you're overweight you probably have poor insulin sensitivity, so this would be a good thing. I find the evidence here more compelling but still not absolutely conclusive.<br />
<b>C: Preserving Lean Tissue</b> - IF, counter-intuitively, seems to make it easier to hold onto your muscle mass. This is a good thing. When you lose 'weight,' you really want to lose bodyfat while NOT losing muscle. IF may help with that. The evidence here is moderately convincing.<br />
<b>D: Autophagy and cancer prevention</b> - When you don't eat for a while, your body starts 'looking' for places to get nutrients. One of those ways is to ramp up the cleanup processes that normally happen, clearing damaged proteins out of cells, looking to recycle nutrients. This is probably a good thing. Some research suggests that periods of fasting can help prevent cancer by putting your body in a position to kill cancerous cells very early in their formation. Evidence? More than none, but don't skip your chemo just because you didn't have breakfast.<br />
<br />
<b>#3: Lifestyle benefits of IF</b><br />
Once you get used to IF, the benefits to everyday life are pretty large, especially when compared to an isocaloric (same total food in take) but more spread out plan.<br />
<b>A: Time</b> - Eating fewer meals means saving time - less time preparing, less time eating. Cooking a 1000 calorie meal does not take much longer than cooking a 700 calorie meal, so removing a meal or two from your day is a big savings.<br />
<b>B: Social</b> - On IF it is MUCH easier to eat out and socialize than on a 'regular' calorie-restricted diet. For better or worse, a lot of modern social life revolves around eating. It is VERY hard to be on a regular diet and go to a restaurant or a family function without either cheating or having a miserable time staying away from all the food. On IF, as long as you schedule social events during your eating window (which is usually pretty easy), you can often eat pretty much everything you want and still stay on track. For example, last night I knew I was going out to my favorite restaurant, so I ate only a light snack, about 320 calories, at 3PM and really pigged out on Korean food at 7. If I'd had a 'normal' breakfast and lunch I would have had to really restrain myself at dinner to stay in a deficit for the day. If your style of IF means fasting 2 full days a week, just pick days when you aren't out with friends.<br />
<b>C: Building resilience to fasts</b> - IF builds up your ability to skip meals (because you're doing it every day). Suppose you're traveling and can't find a place you like for lunch. Just... don't eat lunch! If you're used to getting 3 or 4 squares a day, skipping lunch can be daunting, but for an experienced IFer it's no problem. And traveling is MUCH easier if you know you don't have to find places to eat all day long. It is very liberating to not worry about getting all your meals in.<br />
<br />
<b>But can I train while fasting?</b><br />
Short answer: yes, especially once you get used to it (that is, workouts while fasted might be tough for you for a couple of weeks, but you'll adapt quickly).<br />
If you're doing longer fasts, followed by longer workouts, you might have a hard time. So don't plan any 36 hour fasts that lead up to, for example, a belt promotion, or a weekend of camp where you're training 6 hours a day. Skip the fasts during times right before exceptionally long training sessions. But I've often followed 20 hour fasts with 2 hour martial arts classes, including sparring, and seen very little downside.<br />
<br />
<b>Summary:</b><br />
IF definitely <i>frees up some of your time </i>and makes travel easier.<br />
IF is a really, <i>really good way for many people to <b>help manage a caloric deficit </b></i>(in other words, if you're trying to cut calories, IF is a good way to make that easier to maintain).<br />
IF is <i>very likely a good way to improve insulin sensitivity</i>. So if you're pre-diabetic, have a history of diabetes, or are Type II Diabetic (in which case talk to your doctor before making any dietary changes), IF is probably going to help.<br />
IF might improve your immune system, might increase your lifespan, and might help prevent cancer.<br />
IF might help you increase or preserve muscle mass, especially when in a caloric deficit.<br />
<br />
If you need to/want to lose bodyfat IF is probably a really good choice. If not, it might be a good choice for the other reasons, but I can't say that with as much confidence.<br />
Last point: if you're pregnant or still growing or breastfeeding, don't fast. If you have a metabolic disorder (like diabetes), talk to your doctor first. Otherwise, remember that if you're not used to fasting, you'll probably feel like crap when you first try it, but the adaption is really fast. As in, you'll be okay within a week or two.<br />
<br />
Osu.<br />
<br />
<br />Joe Bernehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184260843542299066noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2448441443019467760.post-75053915544336354482018-03-27T10:06:00.004-04:002018-03-27T10:06:44.043-04:00Agility Ladders and Speed for Martial ArtsEvery martial artist wants to be fast; the faster you are, the better you're going to be at hitting the other person while not getting hit yourself. The questions are, what is speed, and how do you train for it? Martial arts speed is not the same thing as speed for a marathoner or for a 100 m sprinter.<br />
<br />
I was listening to two podcast interviews about speed training and realized that part of the problem is people thinking the wrong way about speed - <b>seeing one attribute and thinking that it means the person is fast, when in fact it doesn't</b>.<br />
<br />
The first interview was with Mike Boyle on the Strength Coach Podcast (which I love). I can't remember which episode, but he was talking about training hockey players, and how he introduced a test where he timed how fast they could skate across the rink. What was interesting was that his results didn't match what the coaches thought of their own players. There were players who seemed slow but actually got across the ice quickly, and players who seemed fast but weren't actually getting across the ice fast.<br />
<br />
What was the difference? The players who were t<b>hought to be fast but weren't tended to have fast, quick movements with their feet</b>. Their feet were moving around a lot, but that wasn't necessarily translating into higher velocities in the rink.<br />
<br />
Think about hockey - you want players who can get from one side of the rink to the other quickly - move their bodies along the ice quickly - not just move their skates fast. But fast moving skates makes someone <i>look</i> fast, so that's what the coaches were thinking about. Until someone came along with a stopwatch and <b>actually timed how long it took to get from blue line to blue line </b>(or something like that, I'm not a hockey guy).<br />
<br />
The second enlightening interview, this one on the Just Fly Performance Podcast but I can't find the episode, was with a track coach talking about how useless agility ladders were for speed training.<br />
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Agility ladders are a common tool for speed development. They look like a ladder made of ropes or thin chains, laid out on the ground, and people either run through them or do little drills - hopping side to side, trying to get their feet to move faster and faster through the squares set up by the ladder.<br />
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The coach (again, sorry I forgot his name) found that <b>players who did a lot of agility ladder work didn't actually get faster at moving their bodies, just their feet</b>. In fact, the ones who did the most on the agility ladder got slower. What do I mean? They got good at having their feet dance around, left to right, in intricate patterns, but <b>worse at actually accelerating their center of mass</b>.<br />
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Watch some video of agility ladder training. In a LOT of the drills, the trainees are moving their feet really quickly, back and forth, often changing direction really quickly. Now watch the video again, and pay attention to the center of their body - somewhere around the sternum. Is that part moving fast, or are the feet just dancing around?<br />
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Having quick feet isn't a bad thing, but it's not that valuable to a martial artist (or a football player, or a soccer player, or really almost any kind of athlete). What you WANT is to be able to quickly accelerate and decelerate your center of mass - get your body moving fast, then stopping, then moving back the other way. If your feet are all over the place but your chest stays relatively still, your'e not going to be able to escape an attack or get yourself into position to counterattack. Imagine someone coming at you with, say, a front kick to the solar plexus. What's important there - having fast feet or getting your torso out of the way?<br />
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But, being able to fly around an agility ladder LOOKS impressive. It looks fast. And that's the problem.<br />
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I do not want to recommend a complete speed training program at this point - I have some ideas, but nothing definitive. I'm pretty sure that something like kettlebell swings and some work with minibands will do a lot more for your combat speed than running through an agility ladder routine.<br />
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If you are thinking about an exercise, and wondering if it will help speed, here's a quick list of things to think about:<br />
1. Does the drill involve moving your body (the center of your torso)? It should!<br />
2. Does the drill involve more than two steps in any direction? It shouldn't! Fighting speed is how fast you can take one or two steps, no more.<br />
3. Are you doing the drill at maximum speed and force, or does it last so long that you pace yourself? Speed drills should be done fast an explosively. If you're pacing yourself to get through it, it's not going to make you faster (though it might be improving your endurance).<br />
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In short, agility ladders might be good for a warmup or a supplement to speed training, but they shouldn't be your primary tool. To get faster, get better at putting larger amounts of force into the ground, quickly.<br />
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Osu!<br />
<br />Joe Bernehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184260843542299066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2448441443019467760.post-35617568396116351582018-03-14T08:59:00.001-04:002018-03-14T08:59:44.571-04:006 things you're probably (maybe) doing wrong in your trainingI've had a lot of posts lately going over some details about training. Details are important, and a big part of why I write this blog is to organize my thoughts about some cutting edge ideas. Lately, almost all I've been talking about is aerobic development, largely because that's where I'm learning the most new stuff over the past year or so.<br />
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But not every reader of this blog has read every post, and the biggest take home points I'd like to make are probably buried a year or more back in the archives.<br />
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I don't mean to insult anybody - it's possible that you, dear reader, are training according to principles much better than mine, in which case this blog post is going to be worthless. But I have seen a lot of martial artists make some or all of these mistakes. So here are my big take home points:<br />
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1. <b>Your strength training is too easy</b>. Trying to get stronger? Build more muscle? (These are not the same thing, but they're related). If you're counting on pushups and deep stances to do it, that's probably not going to be effective for long. <i>To get stronger you must do an exercise that is loaded in such a way that you couldn't do more than 10 or 12 reps or 30-40 seconds worth of that exercise</i>. If 10 pushups is a real struggle for you, then great, doing sets of 8-10 pushups will be strength training. If you can do 25 pushups, then no number of pushups will get you stronger effectively. You have to either modify the pushup (take an arm away, change hand position, elevate your feet) or change the load (wear a weight vest, have a friend sit on your back) to make it a strength training exercise. Holding a deep horse stance for several minutes sure is hard, but it's not going to make you significantly stronger than doing it for 30 seconds.<br />
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2. <b>Your practice techniques too hard and for too long too often</b>. We train to kick and punch. What better way to get better at kicking and punching for a long time (i.e. improve our endurance) than to punch and kick until we're exhausted, right? Except that's probably not a good idea. Sure, doing one of those super hard challenge workouts where you're falling over at the end once in a while is probably a good thing, but <i>you should be as fresh as possible for almost every repetition of your basic techniques during practice</i>. Why? Because when you're tired you're slow and sloppy. Practicing while tired means practicing slow, sloppy techniques. And your nervous system adapts to what it practices. So MOST of your repetitions should be done fast, hard, and crisp. If you need to do improve your endurance, add a few sets of burpees or sprints to the end of your practice, when you're tired. After all, your goal isn't to be good at burpees, it's to be good at karate techniques.<br />
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3. <b>You don't think enough about recovery</b>. Do you even own a foam roller? Do you get massages? Do you measure your protein intake? Do you plan rest days and deloads into your practice? It's probably okay to stretch and so some light skills practice almost all the time, but your harder work can't be done every day. If you do your hard workouts every day, either you'll be doing them hard enough, and you'll break down and get hurt, or you are not actually working as hard as you think.<br />
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4. <b>Too much static stretching.</b> Don't do static stretching (getting into, and holding, a stretched position) for long periods (holding for 20 or 30 seconds or more) before training. Static stretching may be beneficial, or at least not detrimental (the research is mixed) if you do it AFTER training, but do NOT do it before training. You'll just make your muscles less powerful and impair your practice. Warm up carefully, stretching dynamically, and only do your long static stretches at the end of your workout (24 or more hours before you plan to work out again).<br />
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5. <b>You eat like crap.</b> Yes, nutrition matters. And it's confusing - paleo, low carb, keto, vegan, vegetarian, mediterranean... there are lots of diet plans out there. Not sure what to do? Let's make it simple. <i>A. Eat less (ideally no) simple sugar</i>. I'm NOT saying eat no carbohydrates, just little or no simple sugar (look for sucrose or high fructose corn syrup in the ingredients). Soda and sweets are the biggest offenders. <i>B. Eat no hydrogenated vegetable oil.</i> Trans fats are bad. <i>C. Use little or no seed oils. </i>Don't cook with corn oil, vegetable oil, or canola oil. Use olive oil, coconut oil, macadamia nut oil, walnut oil, or butter. <i>D. Eat way more vegetables and fruit. E. If you're fat, eat a little less every day. If you're too skinny, eat a little more every day. </i><br />
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6. <b>You train your core muscles the wrong way.</b> Your core - the set of muscles that work together to either move or prevent movement of the spine - are super important. Lots of martial artists train their core by moving it, doing things like crunches (flexing the spine), back extensions (extending the spine), or windshield wipers (rotating the spine). This is probably wrong, and you should either never or rarely do these kinds of exercises. The thing is, you don't really want your spine moving much when you perform techniques. You don't want to rotate your spine to generate punching power - you really want your spine to NOT rotate when your hips twist, so the power from your legs can be transmitted through your arms. How do you train your core to keep your spine in place? Train it to! Think planks (hold the spine steady while gravity is working to try to extend it - anti-extension) instead of crunches (flexing the spine). Think one arm planks (gravity is trying to rotate the spine, your core has to work to keep it straight, so it's anti-rotation) instead of windshield wipers (rotating the spine to move your legs while your shoulders stay in place). Your back will thank you for it, and so will your performance.<br />
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I tried to make this post as generic as possible. We don't have all the answers to every detail around training. Think about #3 above - what exactly is the best way to enhance recovery? Should you ice sore muscles? Well, the science around that has gone back and forth, and I can't give a definitive answer right now, but I bet almost all of us could benefit from a little more quality sleep and a massage now and again. What's the optimal diet for performance? Again, it's unclear - but I know it's not centered on Corn Flakes and McDonald's.<br />
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This is the kind of advice that every strength coach in high level training for things like football or soccer would take for granted, and it's also the kind of advice every martial artists should be incorporating.Joe Bernehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184260843542299066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2448441443019467760.post-29010992891704739112018-02-15T22:29:00.002-05:002018-02-15T22:29:44.324-05:00Moral and Spiritual Implications of Hard TrainingI was listening to <a href="http://thinkingmartial.blogspot.com/2017/02/episode-lv-pt-1-2-and-3-battle-of-five.html" target="_blank">this podcast</a> the other day, an interview with Jonathan Bluestein.<br />
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[Sidenote: Bluestein is really worth paying attention to - I really enjoyed <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Research-Martial-Jonathan-Bluestein-Shifu/dp/1499122519" target="_blank">his book</a>. He writes mostly about internal martial arts, and I disagree with at least 40% of what he says, but most of it is well argued and thought provoking.]<br />
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In the podcast Bluestein makes an assertion about how <b>training in the internal martial arts</b> - such as tai chi - <b>makes people morally better</b>. He did that thing that drives me nuts, making an interesting claim about internal martial arts and supporting it with nonsense (I think it was something about tense muscles having a negative influence on character, which is pretty unsupported and kind of ridiculous), but he got me thinking.<br />
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<i>My first reaction was to dismiss this idea</i>. But this notion - that the slow internal arts lead to moral superiority - is very tightly ingrained in our culture. Think about our stereotypes - who is more likely to start a fight, a kickboxing instructor or a tai chi instructor? I don't mean that hard martial artists are actually more violent or of lesser character, only that our stereotypes align with that view. I've also heard from many practitioners some version of "I felt like a better person when I gave up external, hard training for softer, internal arts." Could there be some nugget of truth to this story?<br />
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<b>I have an hypothesis about this topic.</b><br />
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First, if you don't remember what the sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems are, do some reading, you can look at my blog post about this topic <a href="https://karateconditioning.blogspot.com/2016/05/the-parasympathetic-life-combined.html" target="_blank">here</a>. Short review: these are two parts of your autonomic (involuntary) nervous system; the sympathetic is activated with fight or flight - stress, adrenaline, getting you ready to run from or kill a predator. The parasympathetic system is opposite -it's kicked in when you're relaxed, happy, digesting a huge meal or something.<br />
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The thing is, when your<b> sympathetic system is strongly engaged, your body is preparing for violence or extreme physical activity</b>. Generally speaking, that means you're going to have a higher heart rate, higher levels of stress hormones, and be jumpier. It also means that, at least for many people, you're going to be <b>quicker to anger</b>, quicker to violence, and <b>more likely to snap at others or overreact</b> to stimuli. Your body is primed for combat. Different people will get dramatically different degrees of this behavior, but for any given person, they are most likely to be irritable or violent when highly sympathetic.<br />
[Don't believe me? Do something that scares the crap out of your spouse (jump out at them or set off an airhorn), then do something that really annoys them. Then, a week later, repeat that experiment, but feed them a huge meal instead of scaring them, then do the same annoying thing. Let me know how it works out for you.]<br />
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When the <b>parasympathetic </b>system is engaged, your personality gets pushed in the opposite direction. You're <b>more relaxed, less prone to a quick reaction</b>, and less violently emotional.<br />
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I'm not saying that this completely determines behavior. I'm pretty sure that a parasympathetic Mike Tyson is still quicker to anger than a highly stressed sympathetic Dalai Lama. But for any given person, they get pushed one way or the other depending on which system is most active.<br />
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Now imagine someone who does a stereotypical external art - karate or kickboxing or something like that. They engage in hard, spirited training on a regular basis. They get deeply anaerobic, doing very intense activity, flooding their body with signals that say, "we need every last bit of reserves here, we're doing some very difficult things." And remember, your body doesn't really know the difference between a hard sparring session and an actual fight.<br />
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That training style - high intensity, all the time - is constantly activating the sympathetic nervous system. That's the system that gets us through hard workouts. And some people are really naturally good at coming down from that state, and getting into deep relaxation quickly afterwards. But most people won't. They'll just have an overactive, overstimulated sympathetic nervous system all the time.<br />
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And what do you think happens when such a person runs into a confrontation or a challenging situation? We know that some hard training karateka have very tranquil demeanors, but <b>someone who does a lot of hard training is going to be less likely to be calm and tranquil, and more likely to be emotional and tense</b>, because their body is <b>flooded with stress hormones and neurotransmitters </b>that were designed to help us fight off bears.<br />
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Suppose that same person, instead of karate, had taken up tai chi. The training sessions for tai chi involve a lot of standing or moving very slowly and focusing on easy breathing. The workouts aren't intense (physically) or anaerobic - your body doesn't get the signal "start releasing energy, because we're doing something very demanding" the way it would with hard physical training. In fact, while it's not the same as tai chi, yoga (another discipline made up of slow, easy movements) has been shown to activate the parasympathetic nervous system. Slow, deliberate moving is probably even better for activating the parasympathetic system than resting on a couch.<br />
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Who's going to be more likely to snap at their kids or curse and yell at someone cutting them off in traffic? We can see this with people all the time - <b>stress makes us worse people</b> (some people under terrible stress are still wonderful people, but not as good or easygoing as they would have been without it). And <b>hard workouts are a stress</b> just as much as divorce or problems at work or obnoxious kids.<br />
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This is why, in my opinion, <b>hard training people often take up meditation or internal martial arts later in life and talk about that practice in such glowing terms</b>. It makes them feel better. After an hour of karate, doing a half hour of seated meditation or tai chi or yoga will activate the parasympathetic system, and if yours hasn't been active, that can be a blissfully enjoyable experience (try it!)<br />
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<b>The mistake</b> is in thinking that the softer, easier practice is a<b> good replacement</b> for hard training. You simply don't get the adaptations from slow easy movement that you can get from striving to be as forceful and explosive as possible. I don't have data on it, but I seriously doubt that tai chi is going to do as much for bone density or jumping ability as Crossfit or kyokushin karate training.<br />
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So what are our choices? Train hard and resign ourselves to being snappy, angry people? <b>Absolutely not</b>.<br />
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The thing we need to do, especially if we train hard, is to recognize that the hard training is pushing us into a place where we shouldn't stay. <b>We don't want to be sympathetic all the time</b>. It's not good for our bodies or our character.<br />
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You need to <b>plan</b>, as part of your hard training, <b>activities that de-activate that sympathetic system</b> and bring you back to a middle ground. You need to plan activites that activate the parasympathetic system, maybe the day after your hardest training sessions.<br />
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Have a 2 hour sparring day? <b>Don't just sit around the next day - actively compensate for it with some yoga, some tai chi</b>, a gentle walk in nature, a massage, or significant seated meditation (and sorry, I doubt 3 minutes at the end of class is going to do the trick).<br />
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This will not only make you an easier person to live with, which is its own reward, but will improve your health and help you recover physically for the next hard session of training.<br />
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[Another side note: I don't mean to denigrate tai chi as a combat art, or say that its only purpose is to relax people after hard training. I only mean that I think the reason so many people feel spiritually connected to tai chi is because the physical qualities of its practice - the slowness, breathing, and mental concentration - are all likely to activate the parasympathetic system, which most of us need more of.]<br />
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Conclusion: Train hard, but relax hard too. Osu!<br />
<br />Joe Bernehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184260843542299066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2448441443019467760.post-63484368791661825572018-02-03T10:44:00.002-05:002018-02-03T10:44:59.604-05:00What you should be listening toI'm a big fan of podcasts - I listen to several a day, often playing while I'm either working or working out. I mostly listen to podcasts related to martial arts or to training, and I wanted to share some of my favorites.<br />
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<b>Traditional Martial Arts</b><br />
My all time favorite podcast for traditional martial arts is The Applied Karate Show, but Des hasn't posted a new episode in years, so I've had to branch out!<br />
<a href="http://www.whistlekickmartialartsradio.com/" target="_blank"><br /></a>
<a href="http://www.whistlekickmartialartsradio.com/" target="_blank">Whistlekick Martial Arts Radio</a> is a really nice podcast, hosted by the owner of a sparring equipment company of the same name (I will one day buy stuff from him and review it, but haven't yet). The show is quite good, but it's greatest strengths are consistency and volume. Jeremy puts out two episodes a week, meaning there's a lot to listen to, but not every guest is stellar. I do find that later episodes are consistently higher in quality, as you might expect. Episodes formats are a short audio blog from Jeremy on some topic (they're fine) alternated with interviews with various martial artists, some of which are really well done. It focuses more on stories than on technique or training specifics.<br />
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<a href="http://thinkingmartial.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Martial Thoughts</a> is put out more sporadically but still regularly. Early episodes were more round table discussions, but the host settled into an interview/news format that works really well. This show has a greater variety of guests - not just practicing/competing martial arts instructors, but also people who research traditional European swordfighting, a guy who hand crafts wooden swords, and other interesting people around the martial arts world.<br />
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Both of these shows are hosted by men I identify with strongly - they both seem like people I'd be friends with. Both shows made really good additions to my listening.<br />
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<b>Sport Martial Arts</b><br />
Two podcasts focus on analysis of striking in MMA - <a href="http://fightsgoneby.libsyn.com/" target="_blank">Fights Gone By</a> and <a href="http://heavyhands.libsyn.com/" target="_blank">Heavy Hands</a>. Fights Gone By is Jack Slack's show, with every episode consisting of Jack, by himself, breaking down fights, making predictions about upcoming events, and generally being amazing. Jack Slack was the pioneer of striking analysis for MMA. If you like to fight in any way (any kind of free sparring, not just MMA), Jack's work is invaluable.<br />
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Heavy Hands might be even better than Fights Gone By. That show has two hosts, Connor and Patrick, who break down fights, but even more valuably cover generalizations and trends. For example, they spend a lot of time talking about types of fighters and their tendencies (outfighters, pressure fighters, etc.) in a way that has really helped me both in my training and in how I apreciate and understand fights I watch.<br />
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The dropoff in MMA podcasting after these two is sharp. Lots of other shows cover news, personalities, and so forth, but these two are head and shoulders above the rest for technical analysis.<br />
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<b>General Training</b><br />
I've been listening to the <a href="http://fitcast.network/" target="_blank">FitCast</a> for around a decade, and the show has only gotten better with age. However, the focus of most shows is on the business side of fitness, coaching, and so forth - not as much on things like physiology, exercise selection, sets and reps, and that stuff. I highly recommend this show if you're a trainer or a coach or running a business, not so much if you're just looking to get in shape yourself.<br />
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For high end training info I've been really enjoying <a href="https://www.just-fly-sports.com/category/podcast/" target="_blank">Just Fly</a>, which is aimed mostly at track and field athletes but has really good information that can be adapted for anyone trying to be more athletic.<br />
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I should probably look into some more of this type of show to get more training information. I will, once I've caught up on the martial arts stuff (I'm about a year behind!)<br />
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<b>General Nutrition and Health</b><br />
I've gotten less and less value from general health and nutrition podcasts over the last couple of years. There was a time when a lot of what I heard was really interesting, but the message has gotten more and more repetitive (which isn't really a bad thing). I'm not going to pretend I live a perfectly healthy life, but I have a pretty good understanding of what's involved in it, and taking in more podcasts telling me to sleep more, eat whole foods, de-stress, and hang out with friends isn't going to help me do it.<br />
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I get a nice mixed bag of more cutting edge nutrition and training information from <a href="https://sigmanutrition.com/podcasts/" target="_blank">Sigma Nutrition</a> Radio. If you're going to listen to just one health/nutrition show, make that it.<br />
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I still listen to <a href="http://robbwolf.com/podcast/" target="_blank">Rob Wolf</a> and <a href="https://chriskresser.com/podcasts/" target="_blank">Chris Kresser</a>, but it's more out of habit than out of the hope that I'll learn anything new.<br />
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<b>How to Listen</b><br />
I'm an Android guy, and the app I use is <a href="http://podcastrepublic.net/" target="_blank">Podcast Republic</a>. It's pretty much perfect - makes it easy to get my shows, makes it easy to organize them, and is fairly intuitive to use. It has really nice sound manipulation features (for shows that are too soft or have bad sound quality), and my favorite feature, which is speed manipulation. I listen now to most shows at 1.3 - 1.5 speed. It's not hard to understand most people if you speed up their speech - I think it takes a lot more mental effort to compose a sentence than to comprehend it - so there's a lot of wasted time if you listen to a podcast at real time speed. Try upping the speed.<br />
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Also, DONATE. These shows are all free, but most have ways you can funnel them money, like a Patreon page. Obviously, if you're strapped for cash yourself, don't give Jack Slack money and skip meals. But if you can afford it, try sending them some money, both as a thank you and to motivate the creators to keep putting out quality content (and yes, I do this, I contribute small monthly amounts to almost every show on this list).Joe Bernehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184260843542299066noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2448441443019467760.post-21251223507793147572018-01-29T12:20:00.000-05:002018-01-29T12:20:33.958-05:00Why You Should KiaiThere was some UFC card the other weekend where many female fighters were kiai-ing with every strike, and I saw an unrelated debate on an online forum about the value of the kiai. Most of the commentary kind of missed the point of the kiai, so I thought I'd weigh in.<br />
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<b>What is a kiai?</b><br />
In case not everyone means the same thing when they say 'kiai,' allow me to clarify. A kiai is a quick, loud (more or less as loud as you can make it) shout that is done pretty much at the point of contact for a strike (or block, I guess, though more often a strike). A proper kiai should have no hard consonant sounds in it, though some people kiai with some 's' sounds in it. A super loud 'ha' usually does the trick. The louder the better, and it should not drag on for several seconds (you do see that long drawn out scream in some performance kata, but I believe that is a mistake). And the shout is supposed to come from the belly, not the upper chest (which is necessary if you want to make the loudest sound).<br />
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<b>What are the benefits of a kiai during a match? (short answer: not much)</b><br />
It's a fun little trick to stand close to somebody who isn't ready for it and kiai, to demonstrate the way their body locks up. It would be nice if performing a kiai during a sparring match or a 'real' fight would have the same effect, and maybe it could, but I rather doubt it. When someone is ready for you, facing you, and psychologically prepared for some kind of combat, I highly doubt yelling at them is going to have any significant impact.<br />
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A secondary possible benefit of the kiai during a sport competition is to help convince judges that you have, in fact, scored a point or a significant blow. I have heard this from more experienced competitors, and I'll put it out there as a possible good reason to kiai during point fighting or even contact fighting (in situations where judges sometimes render decisions about the fight outcome).<br />
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<b>What are the (psychological) benefits of a kiai during training?</b><br />
Some people (maybe most?) can feel energized by being in a class full of like minded people shouting loudly as they execute techniques. Some feel this is a display of strong karate spirit.<br />
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I am absolutely on board with anyone who sees this as a benefit. On its own, I don't see that it justifies the importance we place on the kiai in training, but there are other reasons (see below!)<br />
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<b>What are the physical benefits of a kiai during training?</b><br />
Now we get to the bread and butter of this post.<br />
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I don't talk about the 'core' enough, but here's the idea in a nutshell:<br />
1. Your upper body (ribs, shoulders, arms) is connected to your lower body (hips and legs) by your spine.<br />
2. Your spine is not rigid. It can bend and twist in all kinds of directions.<br />
3. When generating power from your lower body, and transmitting it to your upper body, the more your spine twists and bends the less efficient the power transmission. Imagine trying to hammer in a nail with a pool noodle.<br />
4. When transmitting power through your spine, you need the muscles in that region to contract, making the link between your upper and lower body as rigid as possible (it won't be perfectly rigid, that's okay, but you don't want to be floppy either).<br />
5. Those muscles are collectively referred to as the 'core.' The core is a bunch of muscles, some of which you can see (if you're lean enough, like what people call 'abs' and lats) and some of which are 'deep' (meaning closer to the spine).<br />
6. Even if your core muscles are strong, you have to be able to contract the right ones at the right times in the right pattern to get the most stiffness in your core.<br />
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Why am I saying all this now? Because one of the best ways to make sure that those deep core muscles are activated (working) is to make a hard, deep exhalation (blow out), using the diaphragm (so breathing from the belly, more than from the upper chest).<br />
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In fact, in sports performance, lots of strength coaches are making a big deal out of having their athletes exhale forcefully, from their bellies, when they want to perform high force movements.<br />
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Now guess what?<br />
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You can't kiai without making a forceful, deep, diaphragmatic exhalation. The exact kind of exhalation that maximally engages the deep core muscles and stabilizes your core.<br />
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Now of course you <i>can </i>contract those muscles without exhaling, and you can exhale without shouting. But the cue (the instruction) to kiai is an <a href="http://karateconditioning.blogspot.com/2017/04/external-vs-internal-cuing-for-martial.html" target="_blank">external</a> cue, which is generally better than an internal cue (like, "squeeze your abs really hard"). For many people, especially not-great-athletes, shouting comes fairly naturally, while controlling the deep core muscles requires a lot of concentration.<br />
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Another advantage of the kiai is that <i>an instructor can hear it</i>. You can sort of tell if a student has a floppy core when they punch, but it's much easier to hear that someone's kiai is weak. It's a fast diagnostic that can help you figure out quickly if there is something particularly wrong with the way a student is executing a technique.<br />
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In short:<br />
1. A kiai, because it requires a hard exhalation, will force the core to contract, stabilizing the torso and improving power transmission from the lower body;<br />
2. A kiai can be heard, making it easy for an instructor to make sure the student is exhaling at the proper time, with the proper force.<br />
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<b>When you should kiai</b><br />
I wouldn't argue that students should kiai with every repetition of their training, every class. I think it would make your throat hurt and make classes kind of annoying. And I think that our goal should be to learn from the kiai how to use our core, so that we are able to do it without thinking and without shouting. In other words, I think the kiai should be seen as a great training tool for relatively newer students, and something to be used more sparingly with more advanced students.<br />
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But for those who think the kiai is 'just dumb' or 'pointless,' I say that it's a very effective and simple way to teach students how to use their deep core muscles, and that's extremely valuable for instructors.<br />
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<br />Joe Bernehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184260843542299066noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2448441443019467760.post-29243551427059266542018-01-12T11:13:00.003-05:002018-01-12T11:13:55.713-05:00Some Motivational TV and CrossfitI'm sure we'd all love to say that we're always 100% committed to training hard, but... that's not always true, at least for everyone.<br />
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Martial arts films and books are often good ways to get re-inspired, and I've talked about some in the past.<br />
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Another type of documentary I've been enjoying lately are related to professional athletes in Crossfit or strength events. These are people who are in amazing shape, and can do amazing things, even if they aren't making newspaper headlines on a regular basis.<br />
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On Netflix in the US, catch Fittest On Earth - there are at least a couple of them out, and each covers one of the Crossfit Games events. These are the highest level Crossfit competitors on earth, and in pretty much every event each athlete does things I can't even imagine doing.<br />
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There's also a documentary called Functional Fitness, which has more coverage of run of the mill Crossfitters (as opposed to the absolute elites). Seeing passionate amateurs doing some impressive things may be more (or less) motivational to you than watching the elites.<br />
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While you're on Netflix, if you want some good martial arts action watch the Daredevil TV show. Great fun. NOT realistic, but it's not supposed to be.<br />
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For some strongman stuff, Eddie Strongman, Born Strong, CT Fletcher, and Generation Iron were all fun (I clearly spend too much time streaming and not enough training).<br />
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None of these films are particularly worthwhile if you're looking to develop a training routine or learn more about fitness, but they're entertaining and motivational.<br />
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Now a word about Crossfit: martial artists often ask whether 'doing Crossfit' will help their martial arts. The short answer is that it might. Not all Crossfit gyms are created equal, and MANY Crossfit gyms (they call them boxes) pay too little attention to scaling workouts. Crossfit in general emphasizes workouts that push you into a very, very fatigued state, and doing high risk explosive movements when you're very tired is a very, very good way to get hurt.<br />
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In other words: doing Olympic lifts until you are ready to throw up is probably not safe. If you're a fantastic athlete you can probably get away with it, but this blog is not for people who are already fantastic athletes.<br />
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So if you want to do Crossfit, be careful that you find a gym that is less gung ho and more about scaling and safety. And no, you don't NEED to do Crossfit to get into very good shape.Joe Bernehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184260843542299066noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2448441443019467760.post-10491177083906751102017-12-27T15:08:00.004-05:002017-12-27T15:08:50.900-05:00Energy Systems: The OverviewEndurance is super important for martial artists for 2 sets of reasons: 1) not getting tired while sparring or performing your kata makes your sparring or kata better; and 2) not getting tired while training to improve your martial arts skills makes your training more effective. Practicing skills while you're fatigued is, simply, not very effective (remember, it's not 'practice makes perfect,' it's 'perfect practice makes perfect.' Practicing sloppy technique just makes you very good at doing sloppy technique.)<br />
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Endurance is also super important for life. I've explained before - if daily tasks cause your heart rate to go really high and leave you gasping for your air, not only is that unseemly, but it means your body is going into a high stress response to handle an everyday thing. That's really, really bad for your health, since you're pushed into a sympathetic state very frequently.<br />
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I used to think I had a strong handle on the kind of training that pretty much anybody should do to improve their endurance. You can scan old posts on this blog to see examples of that. Sadly, I had an overly simplistic view. The real story is more complicated, and training for endurance is harder (and easier, as I'll explain later) than I thought.<br />
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<i>[Note: this post is background information, meant to be a reference. It isn't really about training, it's to set up later posts on training. Also, the information here is not particularly controversial, and has been pulled from many, many sources - this is the consensus right now, and as such I'm presenting it with a very high degree of confidence. Later on I'll get into more theoretical conclusions where my confidence is not as high.]</i><br />
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<b>What is energy?</b><br />
Energy in this context means biological energy, the energy used by all your bodily systems to do pretty much anything. And almost all of your body's chemical reactions, when they need it, get energy by splitting molecules of ATP into ADP and a phosphate (ATP is adenosine triphosphate, meaning it has 3 phosphates - when one gets knocked off it turns into ADP, adenosine diphosphate, an adenosine with 2 phosphates stuck to it, and a loose phosphate, and a bunch of energy.) ATP turning into ADP + P is kind of like burning wood in the sense that it releases energy but it is UNLIKE burning wood because the ADP and P can get stuck back together, giving you another ATP, ready to use, as long as you can get the energy for THAT from somewhere else. So your ATP is more like a rechargeable battery - it can discharge, giving you energy, and then recharge, as long as you have a power source to recharge it with.<br />
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From a martial arts or movement perspective, you can think of it like this: To execute any movement, your nerves carry a signal to the muscles, which contract, which exerts a force on the body. The action of the nerves (carrying the signal) and the muscles (to contract, then relax) depends on ATP - ATP is 'used,' fueling the action, and you end up with ADP + P.<br />
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Also worth noting: your cells use energy all the time, not just when exercising. They need a constant stream of energy (that's why you burn calories even at rest). All that happens when you exercise is that the amount of energy you need goes up, or you could say the rate at which you use energy goes up.<br />
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<b>What are energy systems in general?</b><br />
If you took high school biology you have a general sense of how this works from a big picture perspective - your body takes in energy from food, 'burns' it with the aid of oxygen, and uses that energy to turn that ADP and P back into ATP, where it can be used again (and again and again) to fuel chemical reactions, like muscle contractions.<br />
More specifically, what we call energy systems are the chemical processes that directly regenerate ATP.<br />
Or, you could say that the energy systems are the systems that provide ATP for use by your cells (and by provide, we can mean store a bunch of it, or restore the ATP by combining ADP and P back into usable ATP).<br />
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<b>What are the 3 energy systems?</b><br />
<b>1) Alactic anaerobic system (</b>also called PCr, AtP_CP, ATP_PCr, Creatine Phosphate Energy System, Oxidative Independent Energy System, Short Term Energy System) is the FIRST place your cell 'looks' for ATP. You are ALWAYS using the alactic anaerobic system - ALWAYS. It consists of a bunch of ATP, just sitting around waiting to be used, and some Creatine Phosphate (you can get ATP back from ADP by breaking down Creatine Phosphate super fast, so these two are sort of counted together). It's super fast, but super small - you only store somewhere between 4 and 10 seconds worth of energy in the alactic anaerobic system. And it doesn't depend on anything else - the alactic anaerobic system is just atp and creatine phosphate, to 'work' (i.e. provide energy) it doesn't need oxygen or any other substrates.<br />
So think of your alactic anaerobic energy system as a pool of energy that is always, immediately available, in full. It's the fastest energy system of all, and once it's run down close to empty nothing can replace it as fast as you can use it - that's why if you look at Olympic sprinters, they are ALL slowing down by the time they get past 70 or 80 meters.<br />
If all you had was alactic anaerobic, you wouldn't need to eat or breathe, and you could exert maximal power for maybe 10 seconds, but then you would DIE. That would be bad. So:<br />
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<b><i>The next two energy systems are there ONLY to replenish the Alactic Anaerobic System. They don't really make sense on their own.</i></b><br />
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<b>2) Aerobic energy system </b>(also called oxidative dependent) is the PRIMARY way your body replenishes that ATP as it gets used. The aerobic energy system requires oxygen (that's literally what 'aerobic' means), so how fast it can pump produce energy depends on how fast your body can get oxygen to your cells, as well as a few other factors.<br />
The aerobic system is SLOW. It can only replace a little ATP every second. When you exert yourself, you can pretty easily use up ATP faster than the aerobic system can replenish it (though your aerobic system can get better, and faster, with training).<br />
The aerobic system can go for a LONG time, even at its maximum output. It burns fat and/or glucose, and requires oxygen.<br />
The aerobic system is working ALL the time. Just like you are ALWAYS using ATP from the pool in the alactic anaerobic system, your aerobic system is ALWAYS working to refill that pool. When people say that their workout is not aerobic, or that it is only anaerobic, they are not really correct. The aerobic system is always involved (it may not be by itself, is all).<br />
The aerobic system is relatively 'clean burning.' It can work without involving a lot of stress hormones or negative effects on your body. This is sort of obvious - since it's working all the time, every second of your life, your body can't interpret aerobic activity as a threat or an emergency.<br />
Your aerobic system isn't always fully 'on.' It's working a little bit all the time, but it takes time to 'ramp up' when you put more demands on it. That's one (in my opinion, a big) reason why warming up is important - your aerobic system needs time to get into gear so it can replenish your ATP faster. If you start a workout by immediately going into high intensity work, you'll greatly outstrip your aerobic system's ability to replenish your energy.<br />
With training your aerobic system can become able to produce energy faster, but there are limits.<br />
When you're just sitting around or going for a walk or doing something leisurely, the ATP you burn is replaced as fast as you burn it by your aerobic system (ADP is converted back into ATP as fast as you are turning ATP into ADP). BUT once you start using energy at a faster rate, and your aerobic system can't keep up (because at that moment the aerobic system can't replenish ATP as fast as you're using it), then...<br />
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<b>3) Lactic Acid system </b>(also called anaerobic lactic, Lactate Energy System, Lactic, anaerobic energy system, non-oxidative glycolytic energy system, glycolitic energy system) is normally more or less dormant, but it kicks in when your alactic anaerobic system gets depleted (runs low) and your aerobic system can't keep up with the demand. This typically happens either because it's very early in your workout, and the aerobic system hasn't ramped up yet, or because your workout is hard enough, depleting energy fast enough, that the aerobic system can't keep up.<br />
The lactic acid system is FAST. It can produce energy much faster than the aerobic system, though not as fast as the alactic anaerobic system. It burns glycogen (glucose stored in the muscles). It produces lactic acid, which will build up in your system and make you feel like crap (it's the hydrogen ions, not the lactate, that causes problems when you produce lactic acid). It doesn't require oxygen. It doesn't last very long, but it lasts MUCH LONGER than the alactic anaerobic system.<br />
The lactic acid system is sort of an <b>emergency</b> system, linked to your sympathetic nervous system. When you need it a lot - when you work in such a way that you get a big accumulation of lactic acid - your body thinks "there is something happening, we need more energy than we can comfortably provide, even if only for a little while." In other words, when it is used, there's a lot of associated stress on the body. You can expect elevated cortisol, activation of the sympathetic nervous system, all the other things that happen with fight or flight.<br />
Here's the big thing - the lactic acid system <b>produces lactate</b>. So as it works, lactate is made, and starts to build up in your body. The lactic acid system itself can't get rid of that lactate - only the aerobic system can do that, and it can't do it nearly as fast as the lactic system can produce it. And the <b>more lactate </b>builds up, the <b>worse the lactic system </b>gets at producing energy (it gets inhibited), and the more tired you feel. In other words, the lactic system is self limiting.<br />
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<b>What's the big picture with how these interact?</b><br />
You're always sort of sipping energy from the pool of ATP and creatine phosphate in your alactic anaerobic system. If you start to sip faster (say, by exercising), the pool shrinks, your lactic acid system starts working a little bit, and your aerobic system starts working harder to replenish the pool. If your aerobic system can't keep up, and you take energy out faster than it can be replaced, the lactic acid system works harder, and lactate starts building up in your bloodstream. At that point your aerobic system is desperately working to keep your alactic anaerobic system topped off AND to reset the effects of the lactic acid system.<br />
The harder you work the lactic acid system, without taking the time to completely recover (meaning take some time where you're using up energy slower than the aerobic system can replace it), the worse you're going to feel and the more your performance will suffer (your body starts to say, "whoa, you're using energy way faster than I can replace it, I'd better make those muscles slow down"). It's the lactic system that really causes fatigue.<br />
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<b>Is this meaningful for your whole body or also for individual muscles?</b><br />
Imagine a workout where you're only working one small muscle (or a couple of small muscles). Something like seated cable curls - your biceps and maybe forearms are working very hard, but the rest of you isn't.<br />
In that sort of case the muscle fibers in your biceps are going to use ATP at a high rate, but your body as a whole isn't. The muscle cells in your biceps will start pulling in oxygen so they can replenish that ATP, but your heart and lungs won't register this demand, because your biceps are pretty small, and even if they're pulling oxygen out of your blood as fast as they can, it won't impact your blood oxygen levels nearly as much as if, say, you were sprinting, and two thirds of the muscles in your body were pulling out oxygen.<br />
So in that case you can have a workout that heavily involves the lactic system in one part of your body (the biceps) but NOT in your body overall.<br />
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<b>How does training help?</b><br />
With training, your aerobic and lactic acid systems can become much, much better. You can develop a much higher tolerance for lactate, get much better at quickly removing lactate, and greatly increase how much energy you can get every minute from your aerobic system. Your alactic anaerobic system can be increased a little bit but probably not much.<br />
As to what kinds of training improve which system, that gets more complicated.<br />
I'm going to address training the energy systems at some point in the future, it's too much for this post. But here's the important principle:<br />
<b><i>Developing the aerobic system competes with developing the lactic acid system, and vice versa.</i></b><br />
In other words, if a workout really develops the lactic acid system, it does NOT develop the aerobic system and may impair it a bit. And workouts that develop the aerobic system do NOT develop the lactic acid system.<br />
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<b>What's the take home message for martial arts training?</b><br />
Ideally, you would have a maximally developed lactic system AND aerobic system. But that's not really possible - training for one is different from training the other. So you have to find the right balance. And the types of training that are good for the aerobic system are not the same as the kinds that are good for the lactic system.<br />
The good news is that, if you are kind of stuck in your training, or if you feel that you're working really hard but not making much progress, understanding these systems might help you break through and make progress again.<br />
I will talk more about training the different systems in future posts.<br />
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If you want a more in depth understanding of these issues, read Joel Jamieson's work - <a href="http://www.8weeksout.com/" target="_blank">here</a> or in <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Ultimate-MMA-Conditioning-Joel-Jamieson/dp/B007THMNXY/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1514405264&sr=8-1&keywords=ultimate+mma+conditioning" target="_blank">his book</a> (now out of print, unfortunately).Joe Bernehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06184260843542299066noreply@blogger.com0