In Part I of this series I discussed one of the major types of periodization, periodizing by physical attribute. Basically, this means rotating your training to focus on one major physical quality at a time - building muscle, getting stronger, getting faster, or gaining endurance. You do this by designing workouts that focus on one of those qualities, and either rotating the workouts one after the other or focus on just one type of workout for a block of time - from 3-8 weeks - then switching to another "type."
Periodizing Intensity: This is a very different idea than periodizing attributes (though they can work together). To periodize intensity means to vary how hard you're working at whatever you're doing. Remember, any type of workout - strength, speed, hypertrophy, or energy system - can be very hard, or very taxing, on your body, or comparatively less taxing. People just can't charge full speed ahead week in and week out forever without crashing and burning. To prevent this we build planned de-loads or rests into our training.
There are a few different ways to handle this, and I'll go over the most common.
When do we periodize intensity?
This is a great question. There are roughly two ways to handle this. The first is to do planned deloading periods. That means that you, or your coach, or whoever, figures out ahead of time that you're going to go full blast for, say, 8 weeks, then do a 1 week deload. (There's nothing special about 8 weeks, it's just an example number - fill in your own block of time). This is especially handy when you're working towards a competition or a meet. I've written before (read this and this) that you should prepare for a promotion or a competition by resting in the days immediately preceding the "event."
The downside to this style is that if you're just training - if you're not heading towards any specific goal date, like a contest, but just trying to generally improve - you still need rest occasionally but it's really hard to say with confidence, "oh, I'll work this hard, and I'll definitely need a rest after 6 weeks - not 5 or 7, but definitely 6." If you try that, and you don't have a team of physiologists planning things out for you, you run a real risk of going too long without a break or getting rest you don't need.
So what's the alternative? Many people advocate resting or de-loading when you physically need it. That sounds kind of obvious - rest when you need to rest! But how do you know when you need to rest (as opposed to just being lazy)?
If you've been training for a long time you might be a very good judge of your body's status - you might be able to accurately "feel" whether you're ready for a hard training session or need to back off. That's great! But if you want a more scientific measurement, or if you don't have that level of physical awareness yet, you can go with a couple of other choices.
One common method is to measure your waking heart rate. Get a heart rate monitor or use the finger + stopwatch method and measure your heart rate when you first wake up - ideally before you get out of bed. After a few days you should get a pretty good idea of what's normal for you. If one day you're feeling tired and your waking heart rate is higher than normal, that's the day to rest.
A better (probably) method is to measure heart rate variability. If you're worn out your heart rate variability (how much it goes up and down in response to normal getting up and moving around type of activity) will decrease, and that's the time to rest and recover (high heart rate variability = good). I know of no easy way to measure this without some kind of sophisticated equipment - please post to comments if you do!
If you're kind of in the middle, body-awareness wise, and aren't sure if you're being lazy or genuinely need rest, I like to go to the gym and do the warmup before re-evaluating. If I warm up and still feel like crap I'll de-load. If I'm just not in the mood and don't really need the rest I'll usually find that I'm good to go once I finish my warmup.
How do we periodize intensity? So you've decided that it's time for a de-load. There are roughly two ways to back off on intensity. The first, and probably simplest, is to rest. And by rest I just mean skip workouts or reduce their frequency - take a few days or a week off.
There are two downsides to resting this way. The first is that you lose momentum. I don't know about you, but I find it easier to get to the gym or dojo if I'm going regularly - once I take some time off I find it hard to get back. If that doesn't apply to you, that's great, you can judge that for yourself. The second downside is that you might recover faster doing something than doing nothing. That means you're probably better off with what they call active recovery.
Active recovery means some version of doing relatively easy workouts. You can do the same workout you're resting from, and back off on the weight used (back off a lot, not just 5-10 lbs) but do the same style of workout. If you were working on speed, do some relaxed speed work - don't go all-out. Run hard, but don't sprint, and don't do a lot of volume. If you were working on strength, drop the weight and just "go through the motions." It can be hard to restrain yourself, especially if you're feeling okay and are doing a planned de-load before a competition, but do it anyway!
The trick with active recovery is to move enough to get blood pumping through the muscles - delivering nutrients and clearing away waste products - without doing any additional damage. In other words, don't make new inroads into your recovery system! That means no brand new exercises, lots of full range of motion movement, and nothing so vigorous that you feel like throwing up after the set.
How do we put it all together? I'm going to give you the cheapest possible answer: wait for my next post. I'll describe a periodization schedule that's manageable for the amateur martial artist!
One tough thing about periodization is that in the traditional martial arts we tend to have a go-hard-all-the-time mentality. It feels like wimping out to take time off. Additionally, it's really hard to take it easy in the dojo, in a class. When your instructor tells you to do 25 pushups, few of us have the gumption to say, "actually, I'm only going to do 10 because this is a de-load week for me." I don't have an easy answer to this problem, other than to say that if you need a de-load, cut back on classes if you can (this would be a great time to volunteer to teach, which is usually less physically demanding), and really cut back on your outside-the-dojo training.
If you're teaching classes you might consider the idea of scheduling de-loads into your class structure. Have an easy set of classes every few weeks where you cut back on the conditioning type stuff. That may or may not meet the needs of your students. You don't have to waste the week - focus on skill work, really focus on technical details, etc.
Remember, it's not laziness, it's strategy! You can periodize on purpose or you can be forced into it through injuries and illness. There's nothing heroic about working yourself into the ground.
Osu!
Showing posts with label bodybuilding. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bodybuilding. Show all posts
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Periodization Made Simple: Part I: Periodizing physical qualities
We all know people who train consistently - maybe too consistently - by doing the same thing in the gym every workout, time after time. They might take a break for a holiday or vacation or because of injury, but they generally repeat the same type of workout - the same exercises (generally), similar rep schemes, similar number of sets, and similar tempo, month in and month out. If they're smart they'll constantly strive to add weight, or reps, to their workout, or switch up the exercises once in a while. You can certainly make progress with this style of training, but it's usually slow and boring and often leads to staleness and/or injury.
High level athletes realized a long time ago that if they wanted to peak for an event - say, the Olympics, or even a season of their sport - they couldn't train the same way all the time. They'd do general conditioning for part of the year, then more specific training, and finally sport specific training for the last couple of months leading up to their event. It didn't take long for them to realize that over the long term they'd make better gains by "mixing up" their training this way than if they did similar types of training every week over the year.
Periodization is a term that means changing aspects of your workout in a planned way in order to maximize long term progress. Reading the literature on periodization can be kind of daunting to a beginner - articles about periodization are often filled with technical vocabulary that you really don't have to know in order to use the principles.
So I'll make it simple. I'm not going to define a million different terms for you (partially because I can't remember the difference between conjugate and concurrent periodization), just cover the basic concepts so you can use periodization to improve your training (and you should!).
There are 2 general kinds of periodization: Periodizing physical qualities and periodizing intensity.
You can periodize your training to focus on different attributes or periodize your intensity. Or you can (and should) do both! I'll address the first type here (for no particular reason), and the second type in the next post.
Periodizing Attributes: What this means is that you emphasize different physical attributes in different training sessions. For example, you might do hypertrophy (hypertrophy means muscle growth) workouts (8-12 reps per set, 3-5 sets per exercise, moderate or slow rep pace, moderate rest between sets, extra calories after the workout), speed/ power workouts (plyometrics, very fast movements, ballistic exercises like kettlebell swings or olympic lifts, sprints, 3-5 reps per set, 2-3 sets per movement, lots of rest between sets), strength workouts (4-6 reps per set, lots of weight, moderate rep speed, 3-6 sets per movement, lots of rest between sets), and conditioning workouts (energy system training) (circuit training with moderate weights, little to no rest between sets, lots of sets). None of these workouts are easier or harder, by nature, than the others, they just each target a different type of adaptation.
You could work these into your program in various ways. You could do 3-8 weeks of one type of workout (say, a session of hypertrophy), followed by another "block" of 3-8 weeks focusing on another (say, strength workouts). The potential downside is that you could lose too much in one area while focusing on another - you might lose all the speed you gained during your speed "block" during the other blocks, since you might go 16-24 weeks without training for a particular quality.
You could try to avoid that by mixing and matching in various ways. For example, you could do a little bit of hypertrophy, a little speed work, and a lot of strength work for 8 weeks, then a little hypertrophy, a little strength, and a lot of speed work for the next set of 8 weeks, and so forth. Think of it as having two minors and a major in each block - you'd do enough in each minor area to maintain your ability and you'd make progress in the major area.
Yet another style of periodization (you can see why there's so much terminology around this subject - each method of periodizing has its own name and associated jargon) would be to alternate workouts over the week but focus on each quality equally. For example, suppose you work out three times per week. Do one session of hypertrophy work, one session of speed/power work, and one session of strength work. That way you make consistent progress in all areas.
Which system is best? I think a lot depends on what you're training for. If you're an Olympic athlete who has to "peak" at a certain time of year you need a very different system than regular people - and you probably have a professional coach to help you plan that all out. If you're just like me - someone who wants to keep improving, but has no specific targets - then I'd say try the last system. This is also a situation where we're splitting hairs - a professional athlete, who is in a situation where a 2% improvement could mean the difference between winning and losing, has to be much more meticulous in their choices than a weekend warrior. For us amateurs a simpler system that is easier to comply with is probably more useful than something that could serve as a Ph.D. thesis in exercise physiology.
The "attributes" in question can also vary. Bodybuilders alternate periods of time when they "bulk up" (add bodyweight - usually a combination of fat and muscle), then "lean out" (lose bodyweight, again usually a combination of fat and muscle, but they're hoping to gain more muscle than fat, then lose more fat than muscle, and come out ahead). And you can focus on different attributes for different areas of your body - you could combine strength for the lower body with speed in the upper, and vice versa.
I'll give my recommendations on how to periodize your training - assuming you're a karateka with an actual life - with specific examples and a training plan - after I cover periodizing intensity.
Osu!
High level athletes realized a long time ago that if they wanted to peak for an event - say, the Olympics, or even a season of their sport - they couldn't train the same way all the time. They'd do general conditioning for part of the year, then more specific training, and finally sport specific training for the last couple of months leading up to their event. It didn't take long for them to realize that over the long term they'd make better gains by "mixing up" their training this way than if they did similar types of training every week over the year.
Periodization is a term that means changing aspects of your workout in a planned way in order to maximize long term progress. Reading the literature on periodization can be kind of daunting to a beginner - articles about periodization are often filled with technical vocabulary that you really don't have to know in order to use the principles.
So I'll make it simple. I'm not going to define a million different terms for you (partially because I can't remember the difference between conjugate and concurrent periodization), just cover the basic concepts so you can use periodization to improve your training (and you should!).
There are 2 general kinds of periodization: Periodizing physical qualities and periodizing intensity.
You can periodize your training to focus on different attributes or periodize your intensity. Or you can (and should) do both! I'll address the first type here (for no particular reason), and the second type in the next post.
Periodizing Attributes: What this means is that you emphasize different physical attributes in different training sessions. For example, you might do hypertrophy (hypertrophy means muscle growth) workouts (8-12 reps per set, 3-5 sets per exercise, moderate or slow rep pace, moderate rest between sets, extra calories after the workout), speed/ power workouts (plyometrics, very fast movements, ballistic exercises like kettlebell swings or olympic lifts, sprints, 3-5 reps per set, 2-3 sets per movement, lots of rest between sets), strength workouts (4-6 reps per set, lots of weight, moderate rep speed, 3-6 sets per movement, lots of rest between sets), and conditioning workouts (energy system training) (circuit training with moderate weights, little to no rest between sets, lots of sets). None of these workouts are easier or harder, by nature, than the others, they just each target a different type of adaptation.
You could work these into your program in various ways. You could do 3-8 weeks of one type of workout (say, a session of hypertrophy), followed by another "block" of 3-8 weeks focusing on another (say, strength workouts). The potential downside is that you could lose too much in one area while focusing on another - you might lose all the speed you gained during your speed "block" during the other blocks, since you might go 16-24 weeks without training for a particular quality.
You could try to avoid that by mixing and matching in various ways. For example, you could do a little bit of hypertrophy, a little speed work, and a lot of strength work for 8 weeks, then a little hypertrophy, a little strength, and a lot of speed work for the next set of 8 weeks, and so forth. Think of it as having two minors and a major in each block - you'd do enough in each minor area to maintain your ability and you'd make progress in the major area.
Yet another style of periodization (you can see why there's so much terminology around this subject - each method of periodizing has its own name and associated jargon) would be to alternate workouts over the week but focus on each quality equally. For example, suppose you work out three times per week. Do one session of hypertrophy work, one session of speed/power work, and one session of strength work. That way you make consistent progress in all areas.
Which system is best? I think a lot depends on what you're training for. If you're an Olympic athlete who has to "peak" at a certain time of year you need a very different system than regular people - and you probably have a professional coach to help you plan that all out. If you're just like me - someone who wants to keep improving, but has no specific targets - then I'd say try the last system. This is also a situation where we're splitting hairs - a professional athlete, who is in a situation where a 2% improvement could mean the difference between winning and losing, has to be much more meticulous in their choices than a weekend warrior. For us amateurs a simpler system that is easier to comply with is probably more useful than something that could serve as a Ph.D. thesis in exercise physiology.
The "attributes" in question can also vary. Bodybuilders alternate periods of time when they "bulk up" (add bodyweight - usually a combination of fat and muscle), then "lean out" (lose bodyweight, again usually a combination of fat and muscle, but they're hoping to gain more muscle than fat, then lose more fat than muscle, and come out ahead). And you can focus on different attributes for different areas of your body - you could combine strength for the lower body with speed in the upper, and vice versa.
I'll give my recommendations on how to periodize your training - assuming you're a karateka with an actual life - with specific examples and a training plan - after I cover periodizing intensity.
Osu!
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
What's the deal with Strength Curves and Nautilus machines anyway?
I'm starting a new job in a couple of days and moving to Brooklyn right after Thanksgiving. I'll try to keep up the blogging, but I can't really make any promises because I'm going to be super busy! In the meantime, here's a short article on strength curves:
I just watched a promotional lecture about an exercise machine that's being made available for home use in a little while, the ARX Fit Omni. I'm not endorsing the machine or suggesting you buy it - I don't even know how much it costs - but I thought it was based on some interesting principles, like the Nautilus system developed by Arthur Jones, and I figured it was worth some discussion.
The ARX and Nautilus equipment are based on making the most efficient use of the strength curve. If talk of curves and math give you anxiety attacks, relax, I'll make this relatively simple!
The strength curve just means that in any particular movement you're going to be able to exert more force in certain parts of the movement than in others - because of the way your body is designed, the direction of gravity relative to the direction of the motion, and whether you're lowering or raising the weight.
This is easier to understand with an example. Take the barbell curl. You pick up a barbell in your hands, with your arms hanging straight down, the the bar is against the tops of your thighs, your body pretty much straight. Keeping your body still and your elbows in the same spot you lift the bar up to your chest, then lower it. All that's happening is that your elbows bend.
Okay, now what's the deal with a strength curve? Look at that movement. Will that movement feel equally hard at every point along the path? No, it won't. At the bottom of the move you're almost swinging the bar forwards - you're not really fighting gravity. At the top, the same thing happens. It's the middle - when your elbows are bent at a right angle - where the movement is the hardest. The other thing is that you're always stronger eccentrically than concentrically. In other words, you can safely lower more weight than you can lift.
What's the big deal, you ask? Well, the big deal is that if you do barbell curls you're never going to maximally stress yourself at all points along the movement going up and down. If you use enough weight to make the first few inches difficult, you'll never get the bar past the midpoint. If you use enough weight to make the lowering really stressful you'll never be able to lift the bar. In effect, you're wasting a large part of the motion, and you're never going to maximize your strength anywhere but in the part of the path where the resistance is actually right for you.
Traditionally you would get around this by performing multiple exercises that each stressed you in a different spot or a different part of the range. You might do incline curls to work the lower part of the move. You might do negatives - where someone helps you lift the bar, then you lower it on your own, to work the eccentric portion of the movement more optimally.
Ideally, we'd like to have a magic bar. Imagine a bar that was heavier at the bottom, then got lighter - not too much lighter, just lighter enough that you could curl it through the midpoint - then got heavier towards the top. then it would get a lot heavier as you lowered it, again being not as heavy through the midpoint but heaviest towards the bottom, while lowering it. And the magic bar would know by exactly what amount it should get lighter or heavier for each individual user.
That's what Arthur Jones tried to do with his Nautilus machines. He used a cam - a funny shaped axle, basically - that would change the radius from the axle to the chain depending on where in the movement you were. The details aren't important, but instead of a machine where it took X pounds of force to move the bar, it would take more than X to move it through some angles and less than X to move it through others, more or less matching the places where you were naturally stronger or weaker.
There were (and are) problems with Nautilus equipment. If you had longer or shorter limbs than average the strength curve might still not match your own. And it didn't automatically get heavier for the lowering portion - though they were often made so it was really easy to do negatives on your own.
The ARX Fit Omni has a machine that varies the resistance on a belt depending on instructions given to it by a computer. I don't know how it matches your strength curve - if it "learns" how much force you can exert or uses mathematical modelling - I'm not suggesting that it does or does not work. It does seem very interesting. It promises an exercise that would maximally stress you through every degree of a range of motion - not be really hard at some sticking point and relatively easy elsewhere.
If it works the workouts it induces would be very efficient and promise good hypertrophy and strength building in a very short period of time. I have a feeling it's going to be too expensive for most of us to have around the house, but that's just a guess. If you get to play around with one let me know how it works!
Osu.
I just watched a promotional lecture about an exercise machine that's being made available for home use in a little while, the ARX Fit Omni. I'm not endorsing the machine or suggesting you buy it - I don't even know how much it costs - but I thought it was based on some interesting principles, like the Nautilus system developed by Arthur Jones, and I figured it was worth some discussion.
The ARX and Nautilus equipment are based on making the most efficient use of the strength curve. If talk of curves and math give you anxiety attacks, relax, I'll make this relatively simple!
The strength curve just means that in any particular movement you're going to be able to exert more force in certain parts of the movement than in others - because of the way your body is designed, the direction of gravity relative to the direction of the motion, and whether you're lowering or raising the weight.
This is easier to understand with an example. Take the barbell curl. You pick up a barbell in your hands, with your arms hanging straight down, the the bar is against the tops of your thighs, your body pretty much straight. Keeping your body still and your elbows in the same spot you lift the bar up to your chest, then lower it. All that's happening is that your elbows bend.
Okay, now what's the deal with a strength curve? Look at that movement. Will that movement feel equally hard at every point along the path? No, it won't. At the bottom of the move you're almost swinging the bar forwards - you're not really fighting gravity. At the top, the same thing happens. It's the middle - when your elbows are bent at a right angle - where the movement is the hardest. The other thing is that you're always stronger eccentrically than concentrically. In other words, you can safely lower more weight than you can lift.
What's the big deal, you ask? Well, the big deal is that if you do barbell curls you're never going to maximally stress yourself at all points along the movement going up and down. If you use enough weight to make the first few inches difficult, you'll never get the bar past the midpoint. If you use enough weight to make the lowering really stressful you'll never be able to lift the bar. In effect, you're wasting a large part of the motion, and you're never going to maximize your strength anywhere but in the part of the path where the resistance is actually right for you.
Traditionally you would get around this by performing multiple exercises that each stressed you in a different spot or a different part of the range. You might do incline curls to work the lower part of the move. You might do negatives - where someone helps you lift the bar, then you lower it on your own, to work the eccentric portion of the movement more optimally.
Ideally, we'd like to have a magic bar. Imagine a bar that was heavier at the bottom, then got lighter - not too much lighter, just lighter enough that you could curl it through the midpoint - then got heavier towards the top. then it would get a lot heavier as you lowered it, again being not as heavy through the midpoint but heaviest towards the bottom, while lowering it. And the magic bar would know by exactly what amount it should get lighter or heavier for each individual user.
That's what Arthur Jones tried to do with his Nautilus machines. He used a cam - a funny shaped axle, basically - that would change the radius from the axle to the chain depending on where in the movement you were. The details aren't important, but instead of a machine where it took X pounds of force to move the bar, it would take more than X to move it through some angles and less than X to move it through others, more or less matching the places where you were naturally stronger or weaker.
There were (and are) problems with Nautilus equipment. If you had longer or shorter limbs than average the strength curve might still not match your own. And it didn't automatically get heavier for the lowering portion - though they were often made so it was really easy to do negatives on your own.
The ARX Fit Omni has a machine that varies the resistance on a belt depending on instructions given to it by a computer. I don't know how it matches your strength curve - if it "learns" how much force you can exert or uses mathematical modelling - I'm not suggesting that it does or does not work. It does seem very interesting. It promises an exercise that would maximally stress you through every degree of a range of motion - not be really hard at some sticking point and relatively easy elsewhere.
If it works the workouts it induces would be very efficient and promise good hypertrophy and strength building in a very short period of time. I have a feeling it's going to be too expensive for most of us to have around the house, but that's just a guess. If you get to play around with one let me know how it works!
Osu.
Monday, October 10, 2011
An Open Letter to Chubby People
If you are chubby, or fat, (and you are if you're a guy above 15% body fat or a woman above 23% body fat or you have a muffin top or no visible muscle definition) and are someone I care about (and I care about everybody unless you work for Al Qaeda, Fox News, or the FDA) then this letter is for you:
There was a picture and associated story going around my Facebook friends a few days ago that prompted this letter. It was about some gym that had a sign up encouraging people to lose weight by saying, "do you want to be a mermaid or a whale this summer?" In the story one of the gym members went on about how it's better to be a whale because they have friends, are real, get to have sex, etc. It's a cute story, and I understand, I think, where it comes from - it's the same root idea that has people telling plump teenage girls that it's okay to be plump - because you don't want them starving themselves or doing self-destructive things because of low self esteem.
A lot of my female friends "liked" and shared the post, and there were a lot of "that's the spirit!" comments attached to it. And I, being a contrarian, couldn't get into the spirit of it.
You see, I DON'T want fat people to feel bad about themselves. But I DO want them to feel motivated to change. If someone is told over and over again that it's okay to be fat, that it's normal, or average, or not their fault, or even in some way BETTER than being thin, then why would they put in the effort and will to lean out and stay away from the delicious foods that got them that way?
I have a daughter. I hope she always feels great about who she is. I also hope she wakes up one day and decides to start exercising and eating better, because if she doesn't then she'll end up on a pizza and chocolate diet as an adult and never leave the couch - that's her tendency (which I can recognize because she gets it from me). I was motivated to change by a deep sense of insecurity - I felt bad about the way I looked my entire life. Is it possible to work to make those changes if you don't feel bad about it? I'm not really sure... I hope she can be motivated to put down the pizza and get onto a treadmill, or into a weight room, without any shred of negative feelings... but I'm not sure that's really possible.
I think that there has to be a middle ground. Self hatred is never good or productive. Being too self-satisfied is probably also bad for people. Chubby people shouldn't hate themselves, but they shouldn't be too happy with their body fat either.
So if you know any fat people, don't torture them or tease them or pick on them or work to make them feel bad. But don't keep telling them that they're perfect just the way they are either. Find a middle ground - find a way to tell them that you love them so much that you want them to be healthier. Show them that you value them so much that you don't feel the need to eat pizza and ice cream when you're together in order to have a good time, that you want them feeling so good physically that they can share more stuff with you, like hikes or long sparring sessions on the beach... or whatever.
Hopefully you'll do a better job of explaining this than I have!
Osu.
Dear Friend (or whatever you are to me - family member, senpai, acquaintance, random blog reader) who happens to be overfat:
I hope you are able to love yourself despite your weight and/or body composition.
I hope you value yourself for the wonderful person you are, and for the unique and awesome contributions you make to the world that have nothing to do with your physique.
I hope you feel lovable, and sexy, at least to the extent that you want to be.
I hope you never confuse your value as a person with the number of boxes in your sixpack.
I hope that you never look at a model or athlete and feel bad that you don't look more like them.
I hope that you never avoid situations - like wearing a bathing suit in public or talking to someone you're interested in or dancing at a party- because you're ashamed of how you look.
I hope that you never starve yourself to look better for a special event like a wedding or a reunion.
I hope you never have surgery, take medication, make yourself throw up, or go on a liquid diet to lose "weight" and shed unwanted pounds.
I hope you're never ashamed of the joy you take from eating.
I hope you never blame yourself for the weight you've put on over the years.
I hope you never feel bad about who you are.
I hope you never suffer any ill health effects from the excess fat you're carrying around.
I hope you're happy, and that you remain happy for the rest of your life whether or not you lose any weight.BUT...I also hope you learn to eat in a way that makes you leaner and healthier.
I also hope you figure out what makes you eat too much and gain the strength to stay away from it.
I also hope you find a better source for dietary information than Dr. Oz or Oprah.
I also hope you develop a healthier attitude towards both food and exercise.
I also hope you maintain the belief that even if your body fat isn't your fault it is still under your control.
I also hope you learn to celebrate wonderful events without indulging in empty calories.
I also hope you find the joy in being thin and fit and having a six pack.
I also hope you see that while being lean and healthy doesn't make you a better human being, it does improve your energy, your sense of well being, and probably your longevity and basic human capacity (ability to move furniture, carry luggage, stuff like that).
I also hope that you develop advanced fitness goals and work every day to achieve them, such as doing chinups, running a marathon, or kicking a certain somebody's ass in the dojo.
Sincerely and Osu,
Joe
There was a picture and associated story going around my Facebook friends a few days ago that prompted this letter. It was about some gym that had a sign up encouraging people to lose weight by saying, "do you want to be a mermaid or a whale this summer?" In the story one of the gym members went on about how it's better to be a whale because they have friends, are real, get to have sex, etc. It's a cute story, and I understand, I think, where it comes from - it's the same root idea that has people telling plump teenage girls that it's okay to be plump - because you don't want them starving themselves or doing self-destructive things because of low self esteem.
A lot of my female friends "liked" and shared the post, and there were a lot of "that's the spirit!" comments attached to it. And I, being a contrarian, couldn't get into the spirit of it.
You see, I DON'T want fat people to feel bad about themselves. But I DO want them to feel motivated to change. If someone is told over and over again that it's okay to be fat, that it's normal, or average, or not their fault, or even in some way BETTER than being thin, then why would they put in the effort and will to lean out and stay away from the delicious foods that got them that way?
I have a daughter. I hope she always feels great about who she is. I also hope she wakes up one day and decides to start exercising and eating better, because if she doesn't then she'll end up on a pizza and chocolate diet as an adult and never leave the couch - that's her tendency (which I can recognize because she gets it from me). I was motivated to change by a deep sense of insecurity - I felt bad about the way I looked my entire life. Is it possible to work to make those changes if you don't feel bad about it? I'm not really sure... I hope she can be motivated to put down the pizza and get onto a treadmill, or into a weight room, without any shred of negative feelings... but I'm not sure that's really possible.
I think that there has to be a middle ground. Self hatred is never good or productive. Being too self-satisfied is probably also bad for people. Chubby people shouldn't hate themselves, but they shouldn't be too happy with their body fat either.
So if you know any fat people, don't torture them or tease them or pick on them or work to make them feel bad. But don't keep telling them that they're perfect just the way they are either. Find a middle ground - find a way to tell them that you love them so much that you want them to be healthier. Show them that you value them so much that you don't feel the need to eat pizza and ice cream when you're together in order to have a good time, that you want them feeling so good physically that they can share more stuff with you, like hikes or long sparring sessions on the beach... or whatever.
Hopefully you'll do a better job of explaining this than I have!
Osu.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
Karate as Physical Culture
[Side note: you may have noticed that I've added ads to the blog. Through the ads it is possible I will make some money out of this. I seriously doubt it will ever amount to much, but I kind of feel that if there's even a tiny amount of cash flow coming in (and I made a penny on the first day!) I'll be more likely to post regularly. If any of you dislike the ads or feel I should pull them, let me know and I'll reconsider. If you want to support my blogging activities clicking through on the ads will generate cash for me. Now on to the post...]
The sport/ lifestyle/ practice of bodybuilding has acquired a tarnished reputation in the last few decades, as it has become increasingly associated with unhealthy practices (extreme dieting, drug abuse) and a lack of functionality (professional athletes who look strong but can't climb a flight of stairs). Interestingly, bodybuilding has its roots in something called physical culture, which had a very different philosophy.
The physical culture movement, which started in the 19th century, was a system of exercise, nutrition, and lifestyle that was designed to address three major areas of life - health/ longevity (I'll group these together in the interest of simplicity), performance, and appearance. There were lots of physical culturists, many with competing theories about methods of advancing their goals (some of which were pretty weird, but a surprising number of these theories have been borne out by science in the last 100 years).
The promise of physical culture was appealing - exercise and eat right and you could be healthier, be able to do cool stuff (like gymnastics movements or lift heavy objects), and look good. Strongmen (popular in circuses and the like at that time) were walking, breathing proponents of physical culture, and people all around the world wound up in gyms working out on all kinds of equipment to experience physical culture for themselves. They would train in ways that would seem familiar to a modern gymgoer, but they'd also practice skills like gymnastics.
Early contests among physical culturists were interesting. Physique shows (where you were judged based on how you looked) were often paired with weightlifting competitions. The guys who trained at Muscle Beach might have been after big biceps, but they also practiced tumbling, gymnastics, and other "functional" sport movements. The earliest "bodybuilders" were accomplished athletes - to them, the idea of looking strong without being strong was anathema. You can see the remnants of this culture lasting all the way into the 70's - top bodybuilders of that time often put on shows of strength (think of Franco Columbu blowing up and bursting a hot water bottle) when they weren't onstage in their posing trunks. That idea is pretty much gone - you're never going to see a guy walk off an Olympia stage and into a World's Strongest Man competition anymore.
Not surprisingly, the athletic endeavors most popular with this crowd were feats of strength (formal weightlifting, picking up oddly shaped objects, etc. - the kind of stuff you'd see in modern strongman competition), gymnastics, and tumbling. These activities fit in with both the health aspect of physical culture (being muscular and lean are both good for health!) and the appearance. If you can do a freestanding handstand pushup you're probably going to look pretty good!
The negative things that are associated with modern bodybuilding are only possible because of the way bodybuilding has separated appearance from performance. If competitors were expected to be able to do heavy snatches, tumble onstage, or perform competitive feats of strength, they'd be a lot more careful about their drug use, would have less-cartoonish physiques, and stay a lot healthier at contest time (because when you're as badly depleted as these guys get for contests you can't do any kind of physical competition).
What I find appealing about the term physical culture are the aims embraced by the movement - looking good was important but not the only goal. I am saddened that the term isn't in common use today. People who want to look good, be healthy, AND be strong don't have an easy term to describe their interest - "bodybuilding" may have meant those things once, forty years ago, but it doesn't anymore.
Now, long term readers know that I have little to no interest in self defense - if I trained in karate to better be able to defend myself it would be a huge waste of time, given the likelihood that I'll ever be in a position to have to do that. I mean, it would be like spending hours a day studying music in case I find myself trapped in a life or death version of American Idol. I train karate because: a) I love it, irrationally; and b) it's my preferred method of physical culture.
Now, before the angry e-mails start, I'm fully aware that karate was not historically part of physical culture - I'm not claiming that 19th century Okinawan karateka trained to better their health or to improve the appearance of their physiques (maybe some did, to some extent, but I'm not arguing that point). My point is twofold:
The sport/ lifestyle/ practice of bodybuilding has acquired a tarnished reputation in the last few decades, as it has become increasingly associated with unhealthy practices (extreme dieting, drug abuse) and a lack of functionality (professional athletes who look strong but can't climb a flight of stairs). Interestingly, bodybuilding has its roots in something called physical culture, which had a very different philosophy.
The physical culture movement, which started in the 19th century, was a system of exercise, nutrition, and lifestyle that was designed to address three major areas of life - health/ longevity (I'll group these together in the interest of simplicity), performance, and appearance. There were lots of physical culturists, many with competing theories about methods of advancing their goals (some of which were pretty weird, but a surprising number of these theories have been borne out by science in the last 100 years).
The promise of physical culture was appealing - exercise and eat right and you could be healthier, be able to do cool stuff (like gymnastics movements or lift heavy objects), and look good. Strongmen (popular in circuses and the like at that time) were walking, breathing proponents of physical culture, and people all around the world wound up in gyms working out on all kinds of equipment to experience physical culture for themselves. They would train in ways that would seem familiar to a modern gymgoer, but they'd also practice skills like gymnastics.
Early contests among physical culturists were interesting. Physique shows (where you were judged based on how you looked) were often paired with weightlifting competitions. The guys who trained at Muscle Beach might have been after big biceps, but they also practiced tumbling, gymnastics, and other "functional" sport movements. The earliest "bodybuilders" were accomplished athletes - to them, the idea of looking strong without being strong was anathema. You can see the remnants of this culture lasting all the way into the 70's - top bodybuilders of that time often put on shows of strength (think of Franco Columbu blowing up and bursting a hot water bottle) when they weren't onstage in their posing trunks. That idea is pretty much gone - you're never going to see a guy walk off an Olympia stage and into a World's Strongest Man competition anymore.
Not surprisingly, the athletic endeavors most popular with this crowd were feats of strength (formal weightlifting, picking up oddly shaped objects, etc. - the kind of stuff you'd see in modern strongman competition), gymnastics, and tumbling. These activities fit in with both the health aspect of physical culture (being muscular and lean are both good for health!) and the appearance. If you can do a freestanding handstand pushup you're probably going to look pretty good!
The negative things that are associated with modern bodybuilding are only possible because of the way bodybuilding has separated appearance from performance. If competitors were expected to be able to do heavy snatches, tumble onstage, or perform competitive feats of strength, they'd be a lot more careful about their drug use, would have less-cartoonish physiques, and stay a lot healthier at contest time (because when you're as badly depleted as these guys get for contests you can't do any kind of physical competition).
What I find appealing about the term physical culture are the aims embraced by the movement - looking good was important but not the only goal. I am saddened that the term isn't in common use today. People who want to look good, be healthy, AND be strong don't have an easy term to describe their interest - "bodybuilding" may have meant those things once, forty years ago, but it doesn't anymore.
Now, long term readers know that I have little to no interest in self defense - if I trained in karate to better be able to defend myself it would be a huge waste of time, given the likelihood that I'll ever be in a position to have to do that. I mean, it would be like spending hours a day studying music in case I find myself trapped in a life or death version of American Idol. I train karate because: a) I love it, irrationally; and b) it's my preferred method of physical culture.
Now, before the angry e-mails start, I'm fully aware that karate was not historically part of physical culture - I'm not claiming that 19th century Okinawan karateka trained to better their health or to improve the appearance of their physiques (maybe some did, to some extent, but I'm not arguing that point). My point is twofold:
- Karate practice is well suited to acting as a method of physical culture. By training all aspects of fitness - strength, flexibility, reaction time, endurance, coordination, and balance, karate is possibly the most complete form of training that exists;
- Karate practice can (and should) be marketed as a method of physical culture as well as a method of self defense, if for no other reason than that the number of people who want to look good, be healthy, and do cool stuff is much larger than the number who are seriously concerned about defending themselves from unarmed attackers.
In modern life, for most people, karate as physical culture makes much more sense than karate as self defense. It's easier to justify the hours spend training, it's easier to answer challenges ("does that even work in the street?" becomes a less-relevant question if you're training primarily for health, appearance, and performance), and it seems less anachronistic. Perhaps not everyone can appreciate that a solidly performed Seienchin kata is just as cool as a backflip, a muscle up, or a handstand, but I think a lot of people can.
I'm not advocating that anybody change their karate training - don't stop doing self defense, don't stop thinking about self defense - I just think we should spend a little time thinking about our karate as a method of physical culture. When we wonder about the expense of training, or choose a school to go in, or make decisions about how exactly we tailor our practices, our choices should be informed by the philosophy of physical culture.
I train karate for many of the same reasons guys at Muscle Beach in the 50's practiced gymnastics - and, I would argue, for the same reason Crossfit adherents practice jumping rope or doing handstands.
And if we happen to learn how to fight along the way, that's a lovely added bonus.
Osu!
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Catching, then Boarding, the Wagon
There are various reasons we fall off the wagon - injuries and illnesses, lapses in motivation, personal and work situations that interfere with our diet or training, travel, holidays... I'm sure I missed something. In each case your long term success depends on one thing: getting back on the wagon.
How you go about doing that depends somewhat on why you were off track and how out of shape you are. Here are a few tips:
1. Ease back into training. This is super important. There is something about the body that causes your fallloff in work capacity to happen much slower than your ability to resist the stress of training. What I mean is, after a layoff you might find that you can do 90% of what you used to do in a workout, but the delayed onset muscle soreness (DOMS) will be much more severe.
This is a bad thing for several reasons. DOMS will keep you out of the dojo or gym for a few days, slowing your attempt to get back in shape. It's also demoralizing for some people. Also, and more seriously, if you make yourself sore enough your muscles will adapt by building up non-contractile tissue inside the muscles - like scar tissue or connective tissue - to increase their resilience. The last thing you want, as a martial artist, is more dead weight on your body. A little soreness is okay; really bad soreness will have long term detrimental effects on your body.
Do less than you think you can do for a few workouts as you get back into shape after your layoff. Keep quite a bit "in the tank" - stopping well short of complete exhaustion - until you're back in fighting shape.
2. Ease back into your diet. If you've managed to eat clean during your layoff, that's great. If you haven't, though, trying to go back to a 100% clean diet might be too big of a change. Ease your way back into eating clean the same way you did it the first time - though feel free to accelerate the timetable.
For example, suppose you were pretty close to eating clean Paleo. Suppose you backslide by drinking diet soda, eating milk chocolate, then eating ice cream. Maybe during your "fall" from the wagon you ate a lot of chocolate, soda, and ice cream. When you try to get back, give up the ice cream first. Then, a few days later, the chocolate (or at least cut back a lot). Then the soda. Trying to do all 3 at once is too much for most people (though if you can handle it, by all means do so, there are no physiological reasons to stick with the Diet Coke if you don't have to).
3. Pursue different goals. If you're coming off an injury and can't train with the intensity you'd want, try going after a different goal. For example, I've been eating more calories to support hard training and strength gain leading up to my promotion last week. I wanted to have the highest quality workouts I could, and I wasn't actively trying to lean out (I didn't get very fat or anything, but I also didn't get any leaner). Now, with promotion done and my shoulder messed up, I can't do hard karate workouts even if I want to. So now is the time to cut calories, increase my sub-maximal intensity training (more casual walks, fewer snatches), do more mobility work, and lean out in preparation for my next round of intense training.
You could also take this time to do a dedicated cycle of strength training, do some longer duration endurance training (not too much, maybe a couple of weeks worth), and focus on mobility work and stretching.
4. Focus on what you can do, not on what you can't. It's easy to dwell on what your body can't do. Doing so won't, however, make you any better. So... if your arm hurts? Work your legs. Back hurts? Work on mobility. Everything hurts? Do visualization training, study your terminology, watch instructional videos. Almost any injury leaves you with modalities you can train safely - it's up to you to figure them out and work them.
5. Be patient. After a 12 year break people told me everything would "come back to me" right away. It didn't. It took a long, long time for me to re-learn what I'd once known and get to be even a shadow of the martial artist I'd been at 23 (and I wasn't very good at 23, either). But it is possible - I'm still not very good, but I'm better than I was at 23 - it just takes a while. Be in it for the long haul. If you train intelligently, eat right, and drive carefully (slow down at intersections - trust me!) you can be healthy and make progress for a long, long time.
6. Forgive yourself. Berating yourself for sliding off your training or eating schedule is counterproductive. I'm not trying to get all touchy feely with you, but while it's good to try to figure out what led you to backslide there's no point beating yourself up over it. Brush off the dust and get back on the horse.
The ultimate cure for a long layoff is ending the layoff. Motivate yourself (watch some movies, read some books, attend a tournament, whatever) and get back in there!
Osu!
Friday, June 17, 2011
Summary: Blog so far
I've recently noticed (I know, I'm a little slow) a huge surge of traffic coming from Dan Djurdjevic's awesome blog (thank you very much!) Welcome - the kind of people who read Dan's work are exactly my target audience. For you new readers, and anybody else new to my blog, I thought I'd write up a summary of the key points I've been trying to convey.
KC Philosophy:
I began training in the late 80's. I took a 12 year break and when I got back into training in 2006 I found that a few things had changed. I was in worse shape (not as strong, not as flexible, with less endurance, less resistant to injury) at 35 than I had been at 21 - and I had never been what you'd call an athlete. I had less time and energy for training - a family and a full time job can really interfere with two hour training sessions. But, (and this turned out to be my saving grace), I was connected to a huge body of information about training that I hadn't had access to before, all thanks to the internet (thank you Al Gore!).
I've spent a considerable amount of time over the past 5 years reading and looking at books, magazines, blogs, websites, videos, and DVD's about diet and training - not just about martial arts training, but about training for athletes in all sports, and every minute of it was devoted to figuring out how that information could make me better at karate. I learned a lot - I learned how to become and stay more flexible throughout the day, how to get faster and stronger, how to improve my health, how to dramatically improve my endurance, how to practice my skills, all without having to train more than a few hours a week.
It didn't take me too long to realize that not everybody knows all this stuff. Plenty of wonderful karate instructors spend their time learning and teaching technique instead of poring over the latest research on VO2 Max. Which is fine - I don't mean to criticize anybody's teaching. I thought I had learned some things that could help other people - people like me, older people or people who aren't very athletic or don't have fifteen hours a week to train - become better at karate. Not by showing them or teaching them karate, but by helping them train better so their karate can be better.
Nothing, or almost nothing, in this blog is original. I stole every last idea from sources from Pavel Tsatsouline to Mike Boyle to Bret Contreras. I've discovered no secrets, no ideas that you couldn't figure out yourself if you want to spend the hundreds of hours of reading to learn it all. But if you don't have time for that, you can read my blog and hopefully get a few useful tips that will make your karate training more productive and more efficient.
Here's a summary of the key points I try to convey:
1. Flexibility Training:
You should do two types of stretching: static stretching and dynamic stretching. Static stretching means moving a muscle into a stretched position and holding it. Think of things like sitting on the floor and leaning over a locked leg to stretch the hamstrings, or wedge your legs apart to stretch your adductors. Dynamic stretching involves moving a muscle fairly quickly into and out of a stretched range of motion. Think mae keage, or swinging your leg up and back, or up to the side and back.
Do your dynamic stretching daily, preferably early on. Do ONLY dynamic stretching before a workout unless you have an injury. I like 2 sets of 10 leg swings to the front and sides per leg. Do 3 sets if you're very tight or sore.
If you do any static stretching - which will gradually lengthen the muscle tissue - do it when you're cold (not right after a workout). You can do it as often as you'd like, but you'll probably need at least 3 times per week to get any results. And don't do it before a workout!
If you need better range of motion, say in your adductors so you can round/side kick higher, you have to build strength in the target muscle (the one that's holding you back) when it's stretched. If your adductors are tight, get close to a split (as close as you can) adn draw your legs together - either pulling into the ground or actually pulling them together, sliding so you end up standing. You can do various other exercises as well, but the point is to build strength in the stretched position - that's how you get the muscle to relax when it's being stretched so it doesn't restrict your movement.
2. Skill Training:
When you try to get better at a skill (say, punching or kicking) you are making a neurological adaption - your nervous system is changing. This process doesn't work the way, say, building muscle does. Your nervous system learns new things best by practicing them well; and practicing them often.
That has several ramifications. You want to practice your techniques as often as you can - every day or more would be best. You want to practice most often while fresh. At the end of a workout, if you're tired and drained, your technique will be relatively sloppy. That is the wrong time to practice karate. Instead, practice karate when you're fresh - even performing just a few minutes of drills several times a day - and save your endurance work for when you're tired.
That also means your workouts should start with a warmup, then dynamic stretching, then skill practice, then strength training, then endurance training - don't put the strength/ endurance stuff before the skill stuff or your technique will suffer.
3. Strength Training:
If you're doing a routine you got from your typical personal trainer or the pages of a fitness/ bodybuilding magazine you're probably training wrong. Karateka need explosive strength, not big muscles (although you will gain some size as you get stronger).
4. Endurance:
Presumably you want more endurance so you won't gas out during sparring or intense kata practice. Some people train for that by doing lots of LSD (long slow distance) - jogging, hopping on a bike or treadmill for long bouts of steady state "cardio" work. Unfortunately, you'll get at best mediocre results from that type of training.
The name of the game is High Intensity Interval Training. You need to work at a level of intensity so high that it really stresses your cardiovascular system. Instead of jogging, sprint. Instead of biking, do burpees. That means you won't be able to keep it up for long - that's fine. Just rest for a little while and repeat. Over and over. I don't know the best work/ rest time ratio - working 20 s, resting 10s, repeating is popular, I also like 15/15 - but the principle is to make the work very, very hard and not to do anything during the rest. As you get in better shape don't extend the work intervals - don't make them longer - make them harder instead.
One other point: you may be tempted to kill two birds with one stone and do your conditioning by working martial arts techniques until you're exhuasted. For example, doing 500 side kicks. Don't do that. Why not? Becasue if you're pushing your endurance close to its limit you're going to end up doing a lot of sloppy kicks - practicing bad technique. You only want to practice kicks when you're fresh, then once you're getting tired, hammer away at your cardio with a non-skill movement like running or burpees or something else where you don't care about your skill.
5. Diet:
I'm a big advocate of a roughly Paleo diet. Put simple: Avoid all grains (especially wheat, corn, soy); avoid legumes (beans); eat no seed and vegetable oils (corn oil, vegetable oil, canola oil, etc.); restrict any artificial and processed foods; limit dairy; and limit fruit and nut consumption. Eat animals that are fed on the same principles - so eat only grassfed beef, pastured chicken, etc. What can you eat other than meat? Vegetables, fruit, root veggies (sweet potatoes, yams), some nuts and fruit, some dairy (preferably raw, preferably from grass fed cows). Yes, you'll be eating a lot of fat. Yes, it's okay. No, it won't make you fat. It might heal your gut and cure your arthritis, though. This diet, which improves insulin resistance and lowers inflammation, will improve recovery, enhance your endurance, help you drop any excess fat, and make you healthier.
There are a lot of resources on the ins and outs of paleo eating both on this blog and in other places. This diet has made huge differences in my personal health and fitness. Many paleo bloggers lean towards the low carb end of the spectrum - I don't. I find that my karate goes better if I eat plenty of carbs. I just get my carbs from sources other than wheat, corn, and soy. Meaning I eat plenty of sweet potatoes and rice but no bread. Try it for 30 days and see how you feel!
KC Philosophy:
I began training in the late 80's. I took a 12 year break and when I got back into training in 2006 I found that a few things had changed. I was in worse shape (not as strong, not as flexible, with less endurance, less resistant to injury) at 35 than I had been at 21 - and I had never been what you'd call an athlete. I had less time and energy for training - a family and a full time job can really interfere with two hour training sessions. But, (and this turned out to be my saving grace), I was connected to a huge body of information about training that I hadn't had access to before, all thanks to the internet (thank you Al Gore!).
I've spent a considerable amount of time over the past 5 years reading and looking at books, magazines, blogs, websites, videos, and DVD's about diet and training - not just about martial arts training, but about training for athletes in all sports, and every minute of it was devoted to figuring out how that information could make me better at karate. I learned a lot - I learned how to become and stay more flexible throughout the day, how to get faster and stronger, how to improve my health, how to dramatically improve my endurance, how to practice my skills, all without having to train more than a few hours a week.
It didn't take me too long to realize that not everybody knows all this stuff. Plenty of wonderful karate instructors spend their time learning and teaching technique instead of poring over the latest research on VO2 Max. Which is fine - I don't mean to criticize anybody's teaching. I thought I had learned some things that could help other people - people like me, older people or people who aren't very athletic or don't have fifteen hours a week to train - become better at karate. Not by showing them or teaching them karate, but by helping them train better so their karate can be better.
Nothing, or almost nothing, in this blog is original. I stole every last idea from sources from Pavel Tsatsouline to Mike Boyle to Bret Contreras. I've discovered no secrets, no ideas that you couldn't figure out yourself if you want to spend the hundreds of hours of reading to learn it all. But if you don't have time for that, you can read my blog and hopefully get a few useful tips that will make your karate training more productive and more efficient.
Here's a summary of the key points I try to convey:
1. Flexibility Training:
You should do two types of stretching: static stretching and dynamic stretching. Static stretching means moving a muscle into a stretched position and holding it. Think of things like sitting on the floor and leaning over a locked leg to stretch the hamstrings, or wedge your legs apart to stretch your adductors. Dynamic stretching involves moving a muscle fairly quickly into and out of a stretched range of motion. Think mae keage, or swinging your leg up and back, or up to the side and back.
Do your dynamic stretching daily, preferably early on. Do ONLY dynamic stretching before a workout unless you have an injury. I like 2 sets of 10 leg swings to the front and sides per leg. Do 3 sets if you're very tight or sore.
If you do any static stretching - which will gradually lengthen the muscle tissue - do it when you're cold (not right after a workout). You can do it as often as you'd like, but you'll probably need at least 3 times per week to get any results. And don't do it before a workout!
If you need better range of motion, say in your adductors so you can round/side kick higher, you have to build strength in the target muscle (the one that's holding you back) when it's stretched. If your adductors are tight, get close to a split (as close as you can) adn draw your legs together - either pulling into the ground or actually pulling them together, sliding so you end up standing. You can do various other exercises as well, but the point is to build strength in the stretched position - that's how you get the muscle to relax when it's being stretched so it doesn't restrict your movement.
2. Skill Training:
When you try to get better at a skill (say, punching or kicking) you are making a neurological adaption - your nervous system is changing. This process doesn't work the way, say, building muscle does. Your nervous system learns new things best by practicing them well; and practicing them often.
That has several ramifications. You want to practice your techniques as often as you can - every day or more would be best. You want to practice most often while fresh. At the end of a workout, if you're tired and drained, your technique will be relatively sloppy. That is the wrong time to practice karate. Instead, practice karate when you're fresh - even performing just a few minutes of drills several times a day - and save your endurance work for when you're tired.
That also means your workouts should start with a warmup, then dynamic stretching, then skill practice, then strength training, then endurance training - don't put the strength/ endurance stuff before the skill stuff or your technique will suffer.
3. Strength Training:
If you're doing a routine you got from your typical personal trainer or the pages of a fitness/ bodybuilding magazine you're probably training wrong. Karateka need explosive strength, not big muscles (although you will gain some size as you get stronger).
- Focus on workouts shorter than 45 minutes in length.
- Do exercises with enough weight/ difficulty that you can only complete 5 or fewer repetitions at a time (for example, don't do regular pushups if you can do more than 5 of them; work on one-arm pushups instead).
- Focus on movements instead of muscles - hip extension (kettlebell swings, deadlifts), knee dominant squatting (one legged squats), an upper body push (pushups, presses) and pull (pullups, body rows) and core (next bullet).
- For your core do mostly exercises where you stabilize your core against a resistance - for example, a plank instead of a situp. Do a ton of anti-rotation - holding your core stable while some force tries to twist your body - think one armed plank, medicine ball throw, etc.
4. Endurance:
Presumably you want more endurance so you won't gas out during sparring or intense kata practice. Some people train for that by doing lots of LSD (long slow distance) - jogging, hopping on a bike or treadmill for long bouts of steady state "cardio" work. Unfortunately, you'll get at best mediocre results from that type of training.
The name of the game is High Intensity Interval Training. You need to work at a level of intensity so high that it really stresses your cardiovascular system. Instead of jogging, sprint. Instead of biking, do burpees. That means you won't be able to keep it up for long - that's fine. Just rest for a little while and repeat. Over and over. I don't know the best work/ rest time ratio - working 20 s, resting 10s, repeating is popular, I also like 15/15 - but the principle is to make the work very, very hard and not to do anything during the rest. As you get in better shape don't extend the work intervals - don't make them longer - make them harder instead.
One other point: you may be tempted to kill two birds with one stone and do your conditioning by working martial arts techniques until you're exhuasted. For example, doing 500 side kicks. Don't do that. Why not? Becasue if you're pushing your endurance close to its limit you're going to end up doing a lot of sloppy kicks - practicing bad technique. You only want to practice kicks when you're fresh, then once you're getting tired, hammer away at your cardio with a non-skill movement like running or burpees or something else where you don't care about your skill.
5. Diet:
I'm a big advocate of a roughly Paleo diet. Put simple: Avoid all grains (especially wheat, corn, soy); avoid legumes (beans); eat no seed and vegetable oils (corn oil, vegetable oil, canola oil, etc.); restrict any artificial and processed foods; limit dairy; and limit fruit and nut consumption. Eat animals that are fed on the same principles - so eat only grassfed beef, pastured chicken, etc. What can you eat other than meat? Vegetables, fruit, root veggies (sweet potatoes, yams), some nuts and fruit, some dairy (preferably raw, preferably from grass fed cows). Yes, you'll be eating a lot of fat. Yes, it's okay. No, it won't make you fat. It might heal your gut and cure your arthritis, though. This diet, which improves insulin resistance and lowers inflammation, will improve recovery, enhance your endurance, help you drop any excess fat, and make you healthier.
There are a lot of resources on the ins and outs of paleo eating both on this blog and in other places. This diet has made huge differences in my personal health and fitness. Many paleo bloggers lean towards the low carb end of the spectrum - I don't. I find that my karate goes better if I eat plenty of carbs. I just get my carbs from sources other than wheat, corn, and soy. Meaning I eat plenty of sweet potatoes and rice but no bread. Try it for 30 days and see how you feel!
That's a brief summary of the key points to improving your karate practice that I've discovered over the past 5 years. I have posts up about all of this which cover each in more detail - if you're interested in more explanation of anything here please post questions to comments.
Thanks!
Thursday, May 19, 2011
You are NOT a Pap Smear: The Fallacy of "Normal"
It's not normal to eat just once a day.
It is normal to eat a diet based on grains, with bread or cereal at every meal.
It's not normal to exercise five or six times a week, getting your heart rate over 180 each time and soaking through your shirt with sweat.
It is normal to have a few beers with your buddies every weekend.
It's not normal to spend your "free" time poring over nutrition and strength and conditioning books, videos, and blogs.
It is normal to gradually gain body fat as you age.
It's not normal to eat only grass fed beef, wild caught fish, and fresh fruits and vegetables.
It is normal to get most of your exercise by chasing your kids or playing some sports on the weekend.
It's not normal to turn down birthday cake at parties, beer at sporting events, and bread at nice restaurants.
It is normal to gradually lose muscle mass as you age.
It's not normal to have a cabinet full of powder, pills, and bottles of fish oil you chow through every day.
It is normal to build up a repertoire of drugs to control your blood cholesterol levels, pressure, and sugar levels as you age.
It's not normal to be 40 and able to knock out one arm pushups, one leg squats, handstand pushups, and dead hang chinups at any time.
The word "normal," like many words, is polysemous (has multiple meanings). Normal can mean typical or average - when we say people "normally" lose muscle as they age, nobody is claiming that it is preferable or ideal to lose muscle, they just mean that it happens to most people. But in other contexts "normal" can
mean adhering to some norm - some standard of correctness. Like the result of a Pap smear. An abnormal Pap smear isn't a good thing. An abnormality on a CT scan of your brain doesn't make anybody happy - it's not a sign that you're super smart, it means you might have a tumor or a brain injury. In those cases "normal" confers judgment on its object - to be normal is good; to be abnormal is bad.
A significant problem is that because we think with words, when those words are ambiguous or have multiple meanings our thoughts can become confused. If we don't keep in mind that the different senses of the word "normal' are unrelated we can get caught up in various fallacies. We can start to think that since eating bread is normal (in the sense that it is typical, or that most people do it) that it is good (in the sense that a normal Pap smear is good) or acceptable.
I'm not just talking about uneducated people - the medical profession commits this fallacy all the time. Ask most physicians about what you should do if you are over 40 and your hormone levels are significantly lower than they were when you were a teenager. Most will say that your condition is normal - meaning that it is typical of an aging American - therefore they will not treat it. The same way they wouldn't treat a "normal" Pap smear result - there's nothing to treat. The problem is that while dropping hormone levels IS typical, it IS NOT good or healthy. There IS something to treat there - an illness that happens to be shared by the majority of the population is still an illness.
Imagine a 19 year old college athlete went to the doctor and complained that they weren't as athletic, lean, explosive, or able to recover as quickly as they "used" to. Contrast that with a 45 year old with the exact same litany of complaints. How do you think their treatment would differ? I bet the 19 year old would be offered a battery of tests and treatments. The 45 year old would be told to rest more and take up some less strenuous sports.
It's NOT normal to eschew sugar and grains; to train hard while aging; to seek mastery of a physical discipline while still working a job and supporting a family; to train for extreme performance; to expect the health of a teenager as you pass 30 or 40 or 50. It's not normal in the sense of being typical or average. But it's not abnormal either, not in the sense of an abnormal Pap smear.
Be un-normal. Embrace it. Strive to achieve physical goals that leave others shaking their heads; live a lifestyle that makes people think you're a freak.
And if you doubt yourself - if the thoughts that being abnormal is bad start to creep into your head - go down to the nearest mall, sit near the food court, and take half an hour to watch "normal people" waddle around the tables. Listen to them wheeze and huff and snort. Then ask yourself if you really want to be normal after all.
It is normal to eat a diet based on grains, with bread or cereal at every meal.
It's not normal to exercise five or six times a week, getting your heart rate over 180 each time and soaking through your shirt with sweat.
It is normal to have a few beers with your buddies every weekend.
It's not normal to spend your "free" time poring over nutrition and strength and conditioning books, videos, and blogs.
It is normal to gradually gain body fat as you age.
It's not normal to eat only grass fed beef, wild caught fish, and fresh fruits and vegetables.
It is normal to get most of your exercise by chasing your kids or playing some sports on the weekend.
It's not normal to turn down birthday cake at parties, beer at sporting events, and bread at nice restaurants.
It is normal to gradually lose muscle mass as you age.
It's not normal to have a cabinet full of powder, pills, and bottles of fish oil you chow through every day.
It is normal to build up a repertoire of drugs to control your blood cholesterol levels, pressure, and sugar levels as you age.
It's not normal to be 40 and able to knock out one arm pushups, one leg squats, handstand pushups, and dead hang chinups at any time.
The word "normal," like many words, is polysemous (has multiple meanings). Normal can mean typical or average - when we say people "normally" lose muscle as they age, nobody is claiming that it is preferable or ideal to lose muscle, they just mean that it happens to most people. But in other contexts "normal" can
mean adhering to some norm - some standard of correctness. Like the result of a Pap smear. An abnormal Pap smear isn't a good thing. An abnormality on a CT scan of your brain doesn't make anybody happy - it's not a sign that you're super smart, it means you might have a tumor or a brain injury. In those cases "normal" confers judgment on its object - to be normal is good; to be abnormal is bad.
A significant problem is that because we think with words, when those words are ambiguous or have multiple meanings our thoughts can become confused. If we don't keep in mind that the different senses of the word "normal' are unrelated we can get caught up in various fallacies. We can start to think that since eating bread is normal (in the sense that it is typical, or that most people do it) that it is good (in the sense that a normal Pap smear is good) or acceptable.
I'm not just talking about uneducated people - the medical profession commits this fallacy all the time. Ask most physicians about what you should do if you are over 40 and your hormone levels are significantly lower than they were when you were a teenager. Most will say that your condition is normal - meaning that it is typical of an aging American - therefore they will not treat it. The same way they wouldn't treat a "normal" Pap smear result - there's nothing to treat. The problem is that while dropping hormone levels IS typical, it IS NOT good or healthy. There IS something to treat there - an illness that happens to be shared by the majority of the population is still an illness.
Imagine a 19 year old college athlete went to the doctor and complained that they weren't as athletic, lean, explosive, or able to recover as quickly as they "used" to. Contrast that with a 45 year old with the exact same litany of complaints. How do you think their treatment would differ? I bet the 19 year old would be offered a battery of tests and treatments. The 45 year old would be told to rest more and take up some less strenuous sports.
It's NOT normal to eschew sugar and grains; to train hard while aging; to seek mastery of a physical discipline while still working a job and supporting a family; to train for extreme performance; to expect the health of a teenager as you pass 30 or 40 or 50. It's not normal in the sense of being typical or average. But it's not abnormal either, not in the sense of an abnormal Pap smear.
Be un-normal. Embrace it. Strive to achieve physical goals that leave others shaking their heads; live a lifestyle that makes people think you're a freak.
And if you doubt yourself - if the thoughts that being abnormal is bad start to creep into your head - go down to the nearest mall, sit near the food court, and take half an hour to watch "normal people" waddle around the tables. Listen to them wheeze and huff and snort. Then ask yourself if you really want to be normal after all.
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Intermediate Strength Routine for Karateka
As I've written before, you should change your strength routine every 6-8 weeks to encourage consistent progress. Most people can't just pound away using the same exercises, poundages, and rep schemes and get consistently stronger.
I decided to prioritize my weakest movement, the pullup (or chinup). I have never had a good connection, or feeling, in my lats. I can rarely get a pump in my lats, and when I do pulling exercises I rarely feel a strong contraction in those muscles. The problem is that along with the glutes the lats are the most important muscles in the body, and I believe correct use of the lats is a key to developing good striking power with the hands.
To improve my lats I knew I needed to do lots of good reps, preferably done without generating a lot of fatigue. That's the best way to improve the nervous system's ability to fire a muscle or movement pattern. Ideally I'd grease the groove - do a couple of reps at a time, many times a day. Unfortunately, I work in an office where doing chinups is sort of frowned upon. So I needed a workout that would let me do lots of sets.
As before, I decided to keep my workout in a circuit style. I just prefer to rest from one exercise by doing another one. As long as the loads (weights I use) aren't high enough to really tax my conditioning I feel this is the most effective use of my time.
To choose a pulling movement I had to pick between pullups (palms facing away) and chinups (palms facing towards you). Chinups are easier - because the movement is biomechanically stronger for the biceps - and I can't do very many of either exercise. So chinups were the answer (remember, I need to do lots of reps to get the effect I want). I could have done band assisted pullups or something, but I didn't want the hassle of setting up extra equipment in my bedroom.
Here's what I came up with:
10 sets of chinups (I did 1 rep each set the first time, while this past Tuesday I'd increased it to 2 reps each set).
After each set of chins I did either pistols with each leg (I started with 2 reps per leg per set and got up to 4 with the last workout) or 8 or so swings. I alternated so I wound up doing 6 sets of pistols with each leg and 4 sets of swings (I did pistols after the 5th and 6th sets of chins). I cheat on the pistols - I hold a pair of 5 lb. dumbells while I do them to maintain my balance.
After each of the first 5 sets of legs I did a set of one arm pushups with each arm. The first workout I alternated 2 reps with 1 rep. This past Tuesday I did 3/ 2/ 3/ 2/ 3, for a total of 13 reps with each arm. I do these with my legs spread fairly wide (which makes it easier), touching my chest to the floor with every rep.
After the 6-10th sets I did handstand pushups with my feet on a dresser, using pushup bars to get more depth. I manage 5 reps each set.
The whole thing - 10 circuits, a total of 41 sets if you count each single limb exercise separately - takes just under 20 minutes. Once it is done I add a couple of sets of adduction/ abduction - either leg raises with an ankle weight or sidestepping with my feet in a band, isometric ground - squeezing out of a deep horse stance for the adduction. This adds and extra 2 minutes or so.
Total time? Maybe 30 minutes if you count the warmup. It's a nice predominantly bodyweight routine. I'd like to build up to sets of 5 on these exercises before I do something to make them harder. To make them harder I'd tighten up the technique - do pullups instead of chins, bring my feet together on the pushups, stop assisting the handstand pushups, and use a heavier kettlebell or a pair of kettlebells for the swings.
The routine isn't core-centric enough for my taste, but I find adding in sets of rollouts or planks mid-way saps my energy for the other moves. I've been doing more core work on my kata days and counting on the one arm pushups to give me a little extra anti-rotation work.
I do this, usually, twice a week. It's a nice workout - doesn't fry my system, leaves me with enough in the tank to practice kata the next day, and I'm definitely getting stronger. Give it a try!
Osu.
I decided to prioritize my weakest movement, the pullup (or chinup). I have never had a good connection, or feeling, in my lats. I can rarely get a pump in my lats, and when I do pulling exercises I rarely feel a strong contraction in those muscles. The problem is that along with the glutes the lats are the most important muscles in the body, and I believe correct use of the lats is a key to developing good striking power with the hands.
To improve my lats I knew I needed to do lots of good reps, preferably done without generating a lot of fatigue. That's the best way to improve the nervous system's ability to fire a muscle or movement pattern. Ideally I'd grease the groove - do a couple of reps at a time, many times a day. Unfortunately, I work in an office where doing chinups is sort of frowned upon. So I needed a workout that would let me do lots of sets.
As before, I decided to keep my workout in a circuit style. I just prefer to rest from one exercise by doing another one. As long as the loads (weights I use) aren't high enough to really tax my conditioning I feel this is the most effective use of my time.
To choose a pulling movement I had to pick between pullups (palms facing away) and chinups (palms facing towards you). Chinups are easier - because the movement is biomechanically stronger for the biceps - and I can't do very many of either exercise. So chinups were the answer (remember, I need to do lots of reps to get the effect I want). I could have done band assisted pullups or something, but I didn't want the hassle of setting up extra equipment in my bedroom.
Here's what I came up with:
10 sets of chinups (I did 1 rep each set the first time, while this past Tuesday I'd increased it to 2 reps each set).
After each set of chins I did either pistols with each leg (I started with 2 reps per leg per set and got up to 4 with the last workout) or 8 or so swings. I alternated so I wound up doing 6 sets of pistols with each leg and 4 sets of swings (I did pistols after the 5th and 6th sets of chins). I cheat on the pistols - I hold a pair of 5 lb. dumbells while I do them to maintain my balance.
After each of the first 5 sets of legs I did a set of one arm pushups with each arm. The first workout I alternated 2 reps with 1 rep. This past Tuesday I did 3/ 2/ 3/ 2/ 3, for a total of 13 reps with each arm. I do these with my legs spread fairly wide (which makes it easier), touching my chest to the floor with every rep.
After the 6-10th sets I did handstand pushups with my feet on a dresser, using pushup bars to get more depth. I manage 5 reps each set.
The whole thing - 10 circuits, a total of 41 sets if you count each single limb exercise separately - takes just under 20 minutes. Once it is done I add a couple of sets of adduction/ abduction - either leg raises with an ankle weight or sidestepping with my feet in a band, isometric ground - squeezing out of a deep horse stance for the adduction. This adds and extra 2 minutes or so.
Total time? Maybe 30 minutes if you count the warmup. It's a nice predominantly bodyweight routine. I'd like to build up to sets of 5 on these exercises before I do something to make them harder. To make them harder I'd tighten up the technique - do pullups instead of chins, bring my feet together on the pushups, stop assisting the handstand pushups, and use a heavier kettlebell or a pair of kettlebells for the swings.
The routine isn't core-centric enough for my taste, but I find adding in sets of rollouts or planks mid-way saps my energy for the other moves. I've been doing more core work on my kata days and counting on the one arm pushups to give me a little extra anti-rotation work.
I do this, usually, twice a week. It's a nice workout - doesn't fry my system, leaves me with enough in the tank to practice kata the next day, and I'm definitely getting stronger. Give it a try!
Osu.
Tuesday, January 4, 2011
Helping Women Get Hotter, One Workout at a Time
That's going to be the new motto for my blog. Or, you know, maybe not. I'll seriously consider it, though.
The other day I wrote out my advice for what men can do in the gym to be more attractive. I stand by what I wrote, but I also promised in that post to do the same thing for my female readers (of which there are at least two)... So here it is.
In case you didn't read the previous post, let me reiterate a few things. A lot of factors go into attractiveness that have nothing to do with physique. A great smile, a good laugh, hygiene, personality, fashion sense, genetics, skin tone, and so on. Some of these are universal (attract nearly all men) and some are very individual (like enjoying the infliction of pain - a big turn on for some, a turn off for others). I'm not even saying that physique is the largest or most important part of attractiveness for any given individual - only that it plays some role (whether you approve of that fact or not) and can be affected positively or negatively by what you do in the gym and at the dinner table.
Let's get to some specifics:
Add some muscle. Yes, I'm talking to you. No, don't look over your shoulder and pretend I'm addressing the woman standing behind you. You need more muscle. I know what you might be thinking - "no, I'm already too bulky, I have too much muscle already." You're wrong. Okay, to be fair, there might be some woman reading this blog who already has an ideal amount of lean muscle mass, but most women who think they have too much muscle on, say, their legs, or their butts, have too little muscle and too much fat in those areas. Sorry, but it's true.
Before you start arguing with me about this, I'm not a guy who worships female bodybuilders and I'm not a closeted homosexual who wants women to look like men. I'm just a guy who has seen what women can look like after engaging in serious strength training - go over to http://www.crossfit.com/ and check out the top performing athletes. They don't look masculine and they don't look like female bodybuilders. They just look hot.
How do you get to look like that? Lift heavy weights - deadlifts, squats, olympic lifts like squats or snatches, pushups, rows, pullups, some core training, swings, whatever. Do exercises that limit you to 5-8 reps before you have to give up. Lift heavy, twice a week, and don't get on a scale. Ever. That's very important - you can't be afraid of gaining or maintaining weight while building muscle. Judge your program based solely on how good you look and how your clothes fit - that's the only criterion you can use! Focus on adding muscle to your shoulders, upper back, butt, and upper leg areas. You don't need to do a lot of work on the arms, neck, traps, or calves - you can, but it shouldn't be your focus. Build up your pecs, too - this will enhance the effects of cleavage, which generally isn't a bad thing!
One last point on building muscle: don't take excessive amounts of exogeneous male hormones. Meaning don't take a bunch of steroids to help you get muscley. We can debate the ethics of anabolic steroids some other time, but they have a ton of side effects that make women less attractive, including but not limited to allowing some women to build up unattractive amounts of muscle. That's why some women shy away from the heavy weights - they're afraid of looking like someone who lifts heavy and shoots up a gram of test a week. If you keep away from the needles you won't get massive or ugly from weightlifting.
Get a flat stomach. Lean out enough that your stomach is flat, possibly showing a little definition. You don't want to get too lean - some guys like women ripped and vascular, but that's not the norm. Plus, if you burn off too much subcutaneous fat you'll lose all the good fat - the stuff padding your chest and buttocks - and most men like a little padding in those areas. How does one get a flat stomach? Read the rest of this blog - I have lots of posts on diet. Cut out grains, legumes, and dairy. Cut back on alcohol (sorry). Cut way back on sugar and slightly back on fruit. Eat more meat, more fat, and more tubers. Sleep more. Have less stress. Get off your birth controll pills (yes, they make you fat. Sorry.)
Fix your posture. If you have a rounded upper back (slouching shoulders), fix it! Focus on heavy rowing movements in the gym. Do a ton of thoracic mobility exercises - lie on the floor with a foam roller under your shoulderblades and let your body and head hang to the floor. Do some soft tissue work (massage, foam rolling) on your chest and anterior deltoids (the fronts of your shoulders), then stretch them out a lot. Many women - especially those with larger breasts - get pulled forward by their bodies and get adaptive shortening in the pecs and delts. You need to lengthen those tissues or you won't be able to stand up straight.
If you're a woman with posterior pelvic tilt (your butt flattens out from the back), fix it! Stretch your hip flexors and work your glutes. If you have anterior pelvic tilt (your butt sticks out), well... I don't want you to have any back pain, but a little anterior pelvic tilt is not the worst looking thing in the world.
Move better. You need to do something that involves athletic movement - crossfit, martial arts, dance, even yoga. Moving well is sexy, and it requires three things: strength, mobility, and correct practice. If you spend all day on the couch you'll move like someone who spends all day on the couch. Practive moving with strength and with good posture. Good karateka move very well - few things are sexier!
If this list seems very similar to the list I generated for the male readers, that's because it is. Other than a couple of differences in where you want muscle added (to create a pleasing shape appropriate to your gender) and degree of leanness you want (generally leaner for men, less so but still lean for women), everybody should be chasing the same goals in the gym if their goal is to look better. Women should lift like men. They might generally use lighter weights, but they should use similar intensity - that is, if a given woman can only deadlift 180 lbs. while her husband can deadlift 500 lbs, when he uses 90% of his 1RM so should she - though 90% of her 1RM will only be 162 lbs, while his will be 450. This will not result in women actually looking like men - only people with the hormonal profile of a man can get to look like a man, and women don't get that hormonal profile unless they inject it. So... don't use steroid, ladies!
If this list seems very consistent with my general advice about training for performance, that's because it is. There's a whole evolutionary reason why training to perform athletically also makes you look sexy, but I'm not going to go into it here (it's kind of obvious, I think). So if you just want to get really, really good at karate, you should be glad that becoming more attractive is a very probable side effect of your training.
Remember - being attractive is about a lot more than just your physique, but I don't know squat about most of those other things. I'm the last person on earth to give you fashion advice or tell you how to get a better sense of humor or put on makeup. I do know a little about physical development, however, so give these things a try and see how it works out.
If you're successful, feel free to send me photographic evidence. If I get enough of it I'll do a "friends of Karate Conditioning after photo" blog post or something.
Osu.
The other day I wrote out my advice for what men can do in the gym to be more attractive. I stand by what I wrote, but I also promised in that post to do the same thing for my female readers (of which there are at least two)... So here it is.
In case you didn't read the previous post, let me reiterate a few things. A lot of factors go into attractiveness that have nothing to do with physique. A great smile, a good laugh, hygiene, personality, fashion sense, genetics, skin tone, and so on. Some of these are universal (attract nearly all men) and some are very individual (like enjoying the infliction of pain - a big turn on for some, a turn off for others). I'm not even saying that physique is the largest or most important part of attractiveness for any given individual - only that it plays some role (whether you approve of that fact or not) and can be affected positively or negatively by what you do in the gym and at the dinner table.
Let's get to some specifics:
Add some muscle. Yes, I'm talking to you. No, don't look over your shoulder and pretend I'm addressing the woman standing behind you. You need more muscle. I know what you might be thinking - "no, I'm already too bulky, I have too much muscle already." You're wrong. Okay, to be fair, there might be some woman reading this blog who already has an ideal amount of lean muscle mass, but most women who think they have too much muscle on, say, their legs, or their butts, have too little muscle and too much fat in those areas. Sorry, but it's true.
Before you start arguing with me about this, I'm not a guy who worships female bodybuilders and I'm not a closeted homosexual who wants women to look like men. I'm just a guy who has seen what women can look like after engaging in serious strength training - go over to http://www.crossfit.com/ and check out the top performing athletes. They don't look masculine and they don't look like female bodybuilders. They just look hot.
How do you get to look like that? Lift heavy weights - deadlifts, squats, olympic lifts like squats or snatches, pushups, rows, pullups, some core training, swings, whatever. Do exercises that limit you to 5-8 reps before you have to give up. Lift heavy, twice a week, and don't get on a scale. Ever. That's very important - you can't be afraid of gaining or maintaining weight while building muscle. Judge your program based solely on how good you look and how your clothes fit - that's the only criterion you can use! Focus on adding muscle to your shoulders, upper back, butt, and upper leg areas. You don't need to do a lot of work on the arms, neck, traps, or calves - you can, but it shouldn't be your focus. Build up your pecs, too - this will enhance the effects of cleavage, which generally isn't a bad thing!
One last point on building muscle: don't take excessive amounts of exogeneous male hormones. Meaning don't take a bunch of steroids to help you get muscley. We can debate the ethics of anabolic steroids some other time, but they have a ton of side effects that make women less attractive, including but not limited to allowing some women to build up unattractive amounts of muscle. That's why some women shy away from the heavy weights - they're afraid of looking like someone who lifts heavy and shoots up a gram of test a week. If you keep away from the needles you won't get massive or ugly from weightlifting.
Get a flat stomach. Lean out enough that your stomach is flat, possibly showing a little definition. You don't want to get too lean - some guys like women ripped and vascular, but that's not the norm. Plus, if you burn off too much subcutaneous fat you'll lose all the good fat - the stuff padding your chest and buttocks - and most men like a little padding in those areas. How does one get a flat stomach? Read the rest of this blog - I have lots of posts on diet. Cut out grains, legumes, and dairy. Cut back on alcohol (sorry). Cut way back on sugar and slightly back on fruit. Eat more meat, more fat, and more tubers. Sleep more. Have less stress. Get off your birth controll pills (yes, they make you fat. Sorry.)
Fix your posture. If you have a rounded upper back (slouching shoulders), fix it! Focus on heavy rowing movements in the gym. Do a ton of thoracic mobility exercises - lie on the floor with a foam roller under your shoulderblades and let your body and head hang to the floor. Do some soft tissue work (massage, foam rolling) on your chest and anterior deltoids (the fronts of your shoulders), then stretch them out a lot. Many women - especially those with larger breasts - get pulled forward by their bodies and get adaptive shortening in the pecs and delts. You need to lengthen those tissues or you won't be able to stand up straight.
If you're a woman with posterior pelvic tilt (your butt flattens out from the back), fix it! Stretch your hip flexors and work your glutes. If you have anterior pelvic tilt (your butt sticks out), well... I don't want you to have any back pain, but a little anterior pelvic tilt is not the worst looking thing in the world.
Move better. You need to do something that involves athletic movement - crossfit, martial arts, dance, even yoga. Moving well is sexy, and it requires three things: strength, mobility, and correct practice. If you spend all day on the couch you'll move like someone who spends all day on the couch. Practive moving with strength and with good posture. Good karateka move very well - few things are sexier!
If this list seems very similar to the list I generated for the male readers, that's because it is. Other than a couple of differences in where you want muscle added (to create a pleasing shape appropriate to your gender) and degree of leanness you want (generally leaner for men, less so but still lean for women), everybody should be chasing the same goals in the gym if their goal is to look better. Women should lift like men. They might generally use lighter weights, but they should use similar intensity - that is, if a given woman can only deadlift 180 lbs. while her husband can deadlift 500 lbs, when he uses 90% of his 1RM so should she - though 90% of her 1RM will only be 162 lbs, while his will be 450. This will not result in women actually looking like men - only people with the hormonal profile of a man can get to look like a man, and women don't get that hormonal profile unless they inject it. So... don't use steroid, ladies!
If this list seems very consistent with my general advice about training for performance, that's because it is. There's a whole evolutionary reason why training to perform athletically also makes you look sexy, but I'm not going to go into it here (it's kind of obvious, I think). So if you just want to get really, really good at karate, you should be glad that becoming more attractive is a very probable side effect of your training.
Remember - being attractive is about a lot more than just your physique, but I don't know squat about most of those other things. I'm the last person on earth to give you fashion advice or tell you how to get a better sense of humor or put on makeup. I do know a little about physical development, however, so give these things a try and see how it works out.
If you're successful, feel free to send me photographic evidence. If I get enough of it I'll do a "friends of Karate Conditioning after photo" blog post or something.
Osu.
Monday, January 3, 2011
How to Look Good (or, at least, you know... better)
Maybe you train and eat caring only about performance, but I'll bet you are at least a little (tiny?) bit concerned with how you look. Even if you're so high-minded that you believe you shouldn't value anything as base as your appearance, keep in mind a few facts:
- People like attractive people more. Seriously, they've done studies (government funded!) on this. So attractive people, all else being equal, will have more friends. And a better social net is good for health (more studies showed this too!) Ergo being attractive is good for your health.
- Attractive people get more opportunities for sex. More sex is good for your health... until it isn't. So as long as you're not catching anything, being attractive is once again good for your health.
- Being attractive can help you get a better job (yes, they've done studies on this, too) and open up all sorts of opportunities in life.
- Looking good can help you avoid fights (How? See the first point). Fighting is bad for your health. But it may be good for your martial arts skills, so let's call this one a wash.
Let's assume you're convinced, and right now you're thinking, "okay Joe, I'd like to be more attractive, how do I do that?" Now there's a lot that goes into being attractive - good dental hygiene, good general hygiene, fashion sense, not making annoying noises, laughing only at the appropriate times, seeming sincere when people talk about themselves, plastic surgery, good genes, and plenty of others. There's no point in talking about having good genes - either you do or you don't. If you're not sure, e-mail a picture and I'll let you know.
Now I'm no expert on most of these things (I barely have the fashion sense to stop wearing jeans once they have a hole in the crotch), but I've studied aspects of fitness and how they relate to attractiveness quite a bit and I have a few things to share (feel free to disagree in comments if you think I'm off base with these:)
Now I'm no expert on most of these things (I barely have the fashion sense to stop wearing jeans once they have a hole in the crotch), but I've studied aspects of fitness and how they relate to attractiveness quite a bit and I have a few things to share (feel free to disagree in comments if you think I'm off base with these:)
For Men:
Fix your posture. Poor posture - especially a kyphotic spine (think hunchback) - is unattractive. If you slouch, you need to fix it. Start spending a half hour a day lying on your back, head back on the floor, with a foam roller or rolled up towel under your shoulders. Strengthen your upper back muscles with some kind of row - like an inverted row on a TRX or even a one arm dumbell row. Stretch your chest and anterior shoulders every chance you get. Don't over do the pushing movements - especially the bench press. Then rearrange your workspace so you don't have to slouch to work at your computer. Posterior pelvic tilt is almost as unattractive. Stretch your hip flexors and activate your glutes.
Get a flat stomach. Notice I didn't write six pack. The fact is that you want to be lean enough that with a shirt on your stomach looks flat, so that you don't have enough belly fat to affect your silhouette... I hope that makes sense. Getting lean enough to have a lot of detail etched into your abs is nice, and some find it attractive, but it's not nearly as much of a dealbreaker as you think. Shoot for a firm belly with nothing jiggling and no rolls hanging out. Getting really lean or vascular (showing a lot of veins) is not as cool as you think.
Add muscle to your glutes, upper back, shoulders... and a little on the arms - and that's it! Men tend to think that women like bodybuilder physiques - thick pecs, round quads, etc. There are exceptions, but women tend to like a slightly muscular physique without bulging pecs or balloon like thighs. A thick mid-trap area, thick shoulders, medium sized arms, round and tight (and lean) glutes, a lean but not too muscular chest, and moderate neck size are more attractive to most women (and gay men, if you care) than a really buff physique. Think gymnast or Olympic diver, NOT offseason bodybuilder or football player. Think v-shape, but not the v-shape of a pro bodybuilder with a huge chest and shoulders and a distended stomach, but broad shoulders tapering down to a trim waste and narrow hips. Really big arms make you look like a cartoon. Most women don't want to date a cartoon.
How do we achieve this look? Handstand pushups or kettlebell presses, chinups, rows, some basic core work, and deep squats or swings will do a lot more for your physique than a bodybuilding routine out of Muscle & Fitness.
De-inflame yourself. Think Brad Pitt in Fight Club. Lean, angular, hard looking. You don't want jowls, soft cheeks (soft skin is okay, pudgy cheeks are not), or much flesh that has give to it. Some of that comes from just having too much fat, but I believe (and I'm going on sketchy evidence here, so it might be wrong) that a lot of it comes from inflammation. How do we fight inflammation? Add fish oil, vitamin D3, cut out grains, cut out vegetable oils (bad omega - 6 fats are pro-inflammatory). This will help you lose fat but you'll also lose some inflammation, drop some water weight, and get a sharper physique and face.
Move better. If you move like an old person - because of restrictions (tightness), injuries, soreness, whatever, well, that's unattractive. Work on your soft tissues. Use a foam roller or get some massages. Build up the strength in your core and legs so you have the spare strength to move gracefully. The good news is that the body control you learn from martial arts will help you move better - and sexier - as long as you don't have any interfering movement restrictions. Reducing your systemic inflammation might also help quite a bit - your joints will probably feel better.
Now I have things to say to women too - studying attractive females is a hobby of mine - but I'll address women in a separate post.
Now I have things to say to women too - studying attractive females is a hobby of mine - but I'll address women in a separate post.
Now let's put a caveat out there - certain physical traits make people generally more attractive. You can always find weirdoes outliers who find almost any type of physique attractive. Some women like their men a little softer, some a little leaner, some women prefer bodybuilder types, etc. None of these are hard and fast rules. But in general you're going to be better off with good posture, a flat stomach, muscle added to targeted areas, reduced inflammation, and graceful movement than without them.
I'm not claiming that these things are the most important keys to attractiveness either! It may be that personality or grooming or whatever are usually more important. But nothing you do in the gym is going to make you funnier or smarter, while there are exercises you can do to get a flatter stomach, and a flat stomach certainly isn't going to make you any uglier.
You might also wonder why the hell I'm writing about this. The answer is... I'm not sure. I just felt like sharing. I've seen a lot of people train in ways that make them less attractive, thinking that they will be better off (think about the bench press three times a week guys I'm sure you can find in your gym). I'm certainly no expert on the full gamut of things that make men attractive, but I've studied enough bodybuilding and enough research on attraction over the years to know more about the physique end of things than a lot of people.
If you think I'm wrong in my recommendations by all means post to comments!
I'm not claiming that these things are the most important keys to attractiveness either! It may be that personality or grooming or whatever are usually more important. But nothing you do in the gym is going to make you funnier or smarter, while there are exercises you can do to get a flatter stomach, and a flat stomach certainly isn't going to make you any uglier.
You might also wonder why the hell I'm writing about this. The answer is... I'm not sure. I just felt like sharing. I've seen a lot of people train in ways that make them less attractive, thinking that they will be better off (think about the bench press three times a week guys I'm sure you can find in your gym). I'm certainly no expert on the full gamut of things that make men attractive, but I've studied enough bodybuilding and enough research on attraction over the years to know more about the physique end of things than a lot of people.
If you think I'm wrong in my recommendations by all means post to comments!
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Bodybuilding vs. Functional Training
I was reading a blog post from the always excellent Conditioning Research blog and came upon a link to this very interesting web page. It has a couple of free videos, and I recommend you watch at least the first one, to get a nice background for what I want to talk about.
Bodybuilding, and bodybuilding workouts, get a generally bad rap in the strength community, or at least certain parts of it, and I'd like to weigh in on the subject.
First, understand that I am a semi-serious fan of the sport of bodybuilding. I'm not a huge fan of the physiques of today, but I was really inspired by the physiques of the late 70's and 80's. So I've put a lot of thought into the philosophical issues around bodybuilding.
Bodybuilding is the sport of building a physique that matches a certain aesthetic. In other words, training to look a certain way. The bodybuilders of today train to look a certain way that may appear overly muscular or overly vascular to many onlookers - including me - but that means we don't share the aesthetic, not that it's somehow invalid. The easiest comparison to make is with powerlifters. Powerlifters don't care how they look as long as they can lift heavy objects.
I would argue that any training program that focuses on achieving appearance goals is bodybuilding. Even some of those idiotic slim down - toning type workouts advertised by celebrity trainers fits that bill. The aesthetic they are chasing is very different from that of modern professional bodybuilding, but it's still bodybuilding.
Functional training is training in order to achieve movement goals. A track athlete squatting to improve his sprinting speed is doing functional training, while a 40 year old guy squatting because his girlfriend likes men with big legs is bodybuilding.
Now the two are not completely separate. There is no program on earth that will build size without any increases in strength, especially not for a beginning trainee, and no program that will drastically change movement quality without changing the appearance of your physique. If you are looking to have an "atheltic" type of physique, a track star's program may be the best way to get there. But for the most part any program will address these goals to different degrees. If your primary goal is to look good you should train one way. If your primary goal is to be a kickass martial artist or the best free safety you can be, you should probably train differently. The two programs may share certain elements but they will also differ considerably.
Bodybuilding training gets a bad rap for many reasons, but the biggest one is that, because of the popularity of bodybuilding magazines, many athletes in search of a functional training program follow a bodybuilding program, out of ignorance, and often get poor results. If you're a 16 year old kid looking to get in shape for football, your first source of information is quite likely to be Muscle & Fitness magazine - or at least it was when I was 16 (I'm not sure how things have changed). Muscle & Fitness is, or was, a bodybuilding magazine, and the programs in it are designed to make you look good, not to be more athletic.
To be "against" bodybuilding based on this confusion is wrong-headed. Bodybuilding training isn't bad, it just isn't the same as functional training. It is training towards a different goal. I'm not opposed to this goal at all. A martial artist does, however, need to understand the difference.
Now remember that functional training will affect your appearance. Getting lean, building strength, developing the core, all will make you look good, and certainly better than your sedentary peers. Also remember that there's nothing wrong with adopting elements of a bodybuilding program for the sake of vanity. For example, I do sets of shoulder presses because I like having wide shoulders. Is it functional? I'm sure it is to some extent, but there are probably more efficient ways I could maintain shoulder health and ability. There's also nothing wrong with doing a couple of sets of curls at the end of your workout. But I work out understanding which elements of my program are addressing functional needs and which are for vanity and I emphasize them correspondingly. If you start your program with 12 sets of dumbell presses for chest and end with two sets of hip adduction on a machine you're training for appearance, not performance. If that's your goal, then that's fine with me, but don't think you're going to maximize your potential as a fighter that way.
If I wanted to bodybuild I'd seriously consider a program like the one in the link I started with. I'd probably rather be built like Brad Pitt in Fight Club than like a powerlifter. I'd start by working my hips a lot less and my arms a lot more. But I'm not a bodybuilder, and haven't trained like one in many years. However you choose to train, be aware of how well your program matches your goals and you'll have a better shot at achieving them!
Bodybuilding, and bodybuilding workouts, get a generally bad rap in the strength community, or at least certain parts of it, and I'd like to weigh in on the subject.
First, understand that I am a semi-serious fan of the sport of bodybuilding. I'm not a huge fan of the physiques of today, but I was really inspired by the physiques of the late 70's and 80's. So I've put a lot of thought into the philosophical issues around bodybuilding.
Bodybuilding is the sport of building a physique that matches a certain aesthetic. In other words, training to look a certain way. The bodybuilders of today train to look a certain way that may appear overly muscular or overly vascular to many onlookers - including me - but that means we don't share the aesthetic, not that it's somehow invalid. The easiest comparison to make is with powerlifters. Powerlifters don't care how they look as long as they can lift heavy objects.
I would argue that any training program that focuses on achieving appearance goals is bodybuilding. Even some of those idiotic slim down - toning type workouts advertised by celebrity trainers fits that bill. The aesthetic they are chasing is very different from that of modern professional bodybuilding, but it's still bodybuilding.
Functional training is training in order to achieve movement goals. A track athlete squatting to improve his sprinting speed is doing functional training, while a 40 year old guy squatting because his girlfriend likes men with big legs is bodybuilding.
Now the two are not completely separate. There is no program on earth that will build size without any increases in strength, especially not for a beginning trainee, and no program that will drastically change movement quality without changing the appearance of your physique. If you are looking to have an "atheltic" type of physique, a track star's program may be the best way to get there. But for the most part any program will address these goals to different degrees. If your primary goal is to look good you should train one way. If your primary goal is to be a kickass martial artist or the best free safety you can be, you should probably train differently. The two programs may share certain elements but they will also differ considerably.
Bodybuilding training gets a bad rap for many reasons, but the biggest one is that, because of the popularity of bodybuilding magazines, many athletes in search of a functional training program follow a bodybuilding program, out of ignorance, and often get poor results. If you're a 16 year old kid looking to get in shape for football, your first source of information is quite likely to be Muscle & Fitness magazine - or at least it was when I was 16 (I'm not sure how things have changed). Muscle & Fitness is, or was, a bodybuilding magazine, and the programs in it are designed to make you look good, not to be more athletic.
To be "against" bodybuilding based on this confusion is wrong-headed. Bodybuilding training isn't bad, it just isn't the same as functional training. It is training towards a different goal. I'm not opposed to this goal at all. A martial artist does, however, need to understand the difference.
Now remember that functional training will affect your appearance. Getting lean, building strength, developing the core, all will make you look good, and certainly better than your sedentary peers. Also remember that there's nothing wrong with adopting elements of a bodybuilding program for the sake of vanity. For example, I do sets of shoulder presses because I like having wide shoulders. Is it functional? I'm sure it is to some extent, but there are probably more efficient ways I could maintain shoulder health and ability. There's also nothing wrong with doing a couple of sets of curls at the end of your workout. But I work out understanding which elements of my program are addressing functional needs and which are for vanity and I emphasize them correspondingly. If you start your program with 12 sets of dumbell presses for chest and end with two sets of hip adduction on a machine you're training for appearance, not performance. If that's your goal, then that's fine with me, but don't think you're going to maximize your potential as a fighter that way.
If I wanted to bodybuild I'd seriously consider a program like the one in the link I started with. I'd probably rather be built like Brad Pitt in Fight Club than like a powerlifter. I'd start by working my hips a lot less and my arms a lot more. But I'm not a bodybuilder, and haven't trained like one in many years. However you choose to train, be aware of how well your program matches your goals and you'll have a better shot at achieving them!
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