Exercise of the Week: Fireman Pushup

Description:

I know I should (and eventually will) put up a video, but bear with me for now.

1. Start in a plank position (facedown, forearms flat on the floor, body rigid, like a pushup position only your whole forearm - from hand to elbow - 0touching the ground).
2. Lift your right arm and place your hand on the ground underneath your shoulder.
3. Push up, letting your left arm straighten so you end up in a pushup top position.
4. Supporting yourself with your left arm, pick up your right hand.
5. Lower yourself onto your right forearm.
6. Lower your left arm so you return to the start position.
7. Repeat, switching left and right.

The entire movement takes longer than a regular pushup - maybe as long as 2-3 regular pushups.  Keep your body rigid the entire time.  For a little extra arm work when you do step 3 keep your left arm off the floor - basically, you're doing the top half of a one arm pushup.

Benefits:

I love this exercise.  First, it's a nice arm exercise - as I wrote above, if you do it right you're doing the top half of a one arm pushup with every rep.  Keep your shoulders and neck packed and you're doing a lot for coordinating your posture, and stabilizing the shoulder.

But the real benefit of this movement is the kind of core training you're getting.  This is like a plank - you are training your core to hold your body stiff, but you're not just stopping your body from collapsing in the middle (resisting spinal extension) but also stopping your body from twisting (also known as anti-rotation).  As soon as you pick up one of your hands - step 2 - your right shoulder wants to twist towards the ground.  The only thing keeping your body straight is your core!

The other beautiful thing is that your weight is constantly shifting from one arm to the other.  It's much more dynamic than, for example, just holding a pushup position on one hand.  Every time you shift your weight from one supporting hand to the other your core musculature has to respond, dynamically.  Which is exactly what you want your core to be good at doing - quickly adjusting to a changing load of forces.  After all, when you throw a punch, you don't push with that arm overseveral minutes - you shift from no rotational forces to heavy rotational forces back to none in a very short time.  If you want your core to support punching it has to be good at resisting rotation quickly, and then turning back off when the punch is finished.

Your weight shifts back and forth (left to right) multiple times with each rep.  All in all, a very taxing workout for your core!

If you need to, feel free to wear a weight vest while you do it or put your feet up on a Swiss ball or something to add some challenge.  You could also keep your hands/ forearms on a Swiss ball but I don't think you could use a TRX for it.

Just please don't do 100 reps with each arm!  As always, when strength training, harder is better than longer.

Osu!

Posture Principles: Packing for Power

I just might have an unnatural fondness for alliteration.  I'm also a nerd for posture.  I think that proper posture is one of the underappreciated aspects of athleticism and of good martial arts technique.

Packing is a term used to refer to the appropriate alignment of a bodypart.  People might use it to refer to other things, but I've only seen the term used in two places:  the shoulders and the neck.  To my knowledge, the term "packing the neck" is very recent, and I only heard of it a few days ago from Brett Contreras' blog (which is one of my current favorites).  These terms come from the field of strength training, not martial arts, but I believe they are applicable.

What are they?

Packing the shoulder means drawing the shoulderblades backwards and together and down, towards the ground (if you're standing).  Pavel Tsatsouline says you should feel as if you're sticking your shoulderblade into your back pocket.  If you want a really nice feel for what this does to your shoulder, both in improving stability and power, do an overhead press with your shoulder packed, then try it with your shoulder hiked up near your ear.  You should feel a big difference in strength.

Note that this is quite different from the shoulder position used by boxers, who lift their shoulders when punching (on purpose) to protect the jawline.  I feel that a packed shoulder offers better transfer of power (from the hips), better handspeed, and better safety for the shoulder joint.

Packing the neck involves positioning the head properly.  You tuck your chin slightly, as if looking downwards, but pull your head backwards, to the rear.  Imagine you're trying to give yourself an exaggerated double chin.  You tuck the chin but pull up on the top of the head, elongating the spine.  For a pretty good idea of what I'm talking about look at pictures of Mas Oyama punching things, such as this one I pulled from this wonderful gallery:

You'll see a slightly similar position used in Muay Thai - chin tucked, head down, but they lower the head too much, hunching the shoulders and causing a power leak at the upper back.  They do it for protection - keeping the chin tucked into your chest makes you harder to knock out, which is the same reasoning that boxers use for elevating the shoulder.

Why pack?

There are, broadly speaking, two reasons I think the shoulders and neck should be packed when practicing martial arts (I'm not necessarily suggesting you should walk around with your neck packed at all times - this isn't that kind of posture - but you should do so when sparring or practicing fighting techniques). 

First, having a packed neck and shoulder put your body in the strongest, most injury- resistant position.  A packed shoulder is more stable (better supported) and less likely to incur injury or dislocate.  A packed neck puts your cervical spine in a good position for resisting forces, making neck injury less likely.  It also literally puts your chin and jawline in a better protected position, possibly preventing a knockout.  Think of what typically happens when someone kiais - how often does the chin lift and jutt out?  Now think about doing that while someone is trying to punch you in the face.  Not a good idea.

Second, a packed shoulder and neck are more powerful.  You will transmit power better through packed joints than through loose joints.  Don't believe me?  This is a simple experiment - punch a heavy bag with your chin up and your shoulder hiked up, then with both packed.  Or do some kind of pressing movement, with weight, and see how strong you are with and without packing.  I think you'll see my point.

Another interesting experiment is to do your pushups, pullups, or any other upper body exertions, with your shoulders and neck packed and unpacked.  I was shocked at how much easier packing my neck made my chinups and pullups.

To assist with packing, you might need to work on the strength of various muscle groups.  If your lats are weak and your traps strong you might have trouble maintaining packed shoulders.  If your neck extensors are weak you'll have trouble keeping your neck packed.  Do pulldowns, chinups, or dip holds (get into a dip position and hold it with arms straight for a period of time) to get better at shoulder packing.  For the neck I'll take a rubber band, loop it around my head, and press back against it for reps. 

Take home:  Try keeping your neck and shoulders "packed" whenever you practice techniques or perform strength movements.  Make that posture automatic enough so that when you hit things during sparring you maintain a packed alignment.  You'll be stronger and healthier!

Move with Intent

I've been posting haphazardly lately, for which I apologize.  I started a new job and did some traveling, which has left me with less time for blogging than I'd like!  On the plus side the job has been a nice change (not that I disliked my old job).

I now sit in a cubicle for eight hours at a time and on some days I literally never have to leave my chair for work reasons.  When I do have to get up, it's to walk 50 feet (or less) to a meeting and get into another chair to sit still for another hour.

We all know the hazards of spending too much of your day sitting.  What to do?  In my old position I had my own office - I could close the door and do whatever short exercise routine I wanted to do, which is often what happened.  I'd knock out pushups, stretches, and even do parts of kata during my workday.  Now it's a lot less convenient to get any activity.

I haven't found a way to get a balanced routine, but I have been climbing stairs.  My cubicle is in the basement of a tall 5-story building (the 5th floor is the roof, but the stairs go that high).  Every hour or 90 minutes I get up, run up the stairs, taking them two at a time, then come back down.  It's like a cigarette break without the smoking.  It wakes me up a little and I'm hoping it causes enough of a catecholamine release to increase my body's use of fat while at rest (I'm not well versed enough on the literature to know if it's enough exercise to actually work that way).  I even put it on my to-do list in Outlook - every morning I add 5 tasks, called Stairs 1 - Stairs 5.  Every time I do a set I check off one of the tasks.

You don't have to climb stairs, but many of us have buildings where we have a place we can go to take a brisk walk, knock out some pushups, do a handful of jump squats, or something else.

There are a few things you can do to enhance this practice:

Do your activity with intensity - go fast, get your heart rate up.  You'll get a slight conditioning benefit, and a little is better than nothing.

Let's face it, this isn't going to be a ballbreaker of a workout.  You're not going to use every iota of your concentration to make it up the stairs.  So instead pay very careful attention to your form and posture.  For example:

• Keep your chin tucked and your head back (so the crown of your head is pulled up towards the ceiling).
• Keep your shoulderblades tucked back towards your rear end by tightening your lats.
• Maintain a slight anterior pelvic tilt the entire time.
• Focus on tightening the glutes with each step and not driving with quads alone.
• Tighten your core - abs, pelvic floor muscles, etc., and keep them taut through the climb.

The idea is to train yourself to maintain good posture.  Then, when you're doing challenging exercise or martial arts exercises, keeping good posture will be somewhat automatic.  There are only so many things you can focus on consciously at any one time -  the more you can shift into the subconscious the better.

You'll get a lot more out of climbing or walking with purpose, with solid posture and activated muscles, than out of just trudging around out of some impulse to just move without considering the quality of movement.

Ose

Sparring Your Kohai

I've been posting a bit more sporadically lately, for which I apologize, but my new job is taking a little more time than I'd like - it's always annoying when work and family gets in the way of the important things, like blogging and karate training!

We sparred in class today and I had some thoughts to share.

In my dojo we are often in the position of spending a significant amount of time sparring with lower ranking students, children, and/ or people with injuries that prevent them from sparring effectively.  It's somewhat disappointing - I always find it more fun to spar people who are at least as good as I am, if not better (not that I'm a very good fighter, just that I'm not usually challenged by a green belt or an 11 year old).  There is a tendency to either "tune out" and go through the motions or go into full teaching mode - correcting your partner's mistakes while not really focusing on what you're doing.

There's nothing wrong with "teaching mode" in my opinion, but there are things you can do to benefit from sparring sessions even if you're sparring people who do not really challenge your abilities.

• Practice your control.  I think your kohai will benefit from getting hit fairly solidly at least some of the time, but in general you want to be very judicious in the amount of force you apply.   
• Focus on your posture.  Keep your chin tucked, the crown of the head back and high, your pelvis slightly rotated anteriorly, your lats tensed, core tight, and your shoulderblades tucked down and back.  Maintain this posture though the free movement of sparring - you probably won't be able to concentrate on these cues while sparring people who are good enough to send you into "survival mode," if you know what I mean.
• Be more precise in your footwork.  When evading, focus on moving just enough to avoid getting hit and no further.  When attacking, work very hard to put yourself into the precise distance where your techniques can do the most damage (too close and you won't get full speed; too far and you'll miss or overextend yourself to hit your opponent).  
• Practice your weaker techniques.  If you're a great kicker, try to use your hands more.  If you tend to block attacks, work to evade them instead.  You're not going to get beaten up, so use skills with which you are less comfortable.
• Conserve energy.  Focus on eliminating the extra movement, bobbles, and other leakages in your energy structure.  Try to win your matches without draining yourself.
• Attack with more precision.  If you do point sparring in your dojo (which we do, sort of) while wearing equipment (pads) you might be in the habit of striking in a general area - punching the body, kicking the torso, etc.  Instead, really focus on landing your strikes on very specific points - every shot should hit a pressure point or weak spot.  A punch to the solar plexus or a hook to the liver are NOT the same as a punch to the upper chest or a hook to the ribs.  You don't have to use a lot of power - you're not trying to kill your kohai - but really make sure you are landing your shots in a way that would be effective if you were to load them up.
• Clear your mind.  Really focus on having an empty mind, not anticipating your opponent's moves but reacting to them.

I wouldn't say you can do all of these things at once - I know I can't.  I can only focus on a handful of cues at once.  But every time you're partnered up with someone with weaker skills you have a chance to improve on and polish your own.  Take advantage of it instead of just whining that you've missed a chance to fight someone really good.

By the way, the same logic can be extended to easier/ deloading workouts in any context.  Say you're a runner who is used to running 10, 6-minute miles in a training session (which is hard for you) or someone who does 10 one handed pushups per hand in every training set.  Suppose that you have a planned de-load - a workout, or a period of time, where you are deliberately backing off on the intensity and workload in your workouts (which you should definitely do periodically).  Suppose you decide to run 5, 7-minute miles or do just 5 pushups per hand.  Instead of just coasting through the workout - which you could do, since they're well within your abilities - really focus on your technique.  Make sure every step lands perfectly and is perfectly symmetrical (right leg and left leg moving the same way).  Make sure every pushup is done with a tight core and your shoulders perfectly level and tightly packed.  Really focus on doing everything right - you're not going to be distracted by the need to push through a lot of pain and/or fatigue.

Every rep of every workout is an opportunity to grow as an athlete and as an artist.  Value doesn't only come from the hardest reps or the ones where you are most fatigued.  Practice and drills are only wasted if you do them in a half-assed way.

Osu.

More on "Whipping" techniques

I am growing more and more convinced that the "whipping" model of punching technique I wrote about earlier this month is a dead end.  Read this blog post and watch the videos to see a very clear description of whipping technique.  I'm pretty sure it's a bad idea (no disrespect to anybody intended).

Briefly, in a whipping punch you rotate the hips first, relax the torso, and let a "waveform" pass through the relaxed torso, relaxed shoulder, and into the fist.  This may or may not be what some refer to as "staged activation."  It feels very powerful, and if you scout around on YouTube you can find some advanced karateka utilizing the technique.  Look for the hips to pre-load (pull back before launching the technique, then start the technique by rotating before the hand moves) and look for the shoulders and hips to move separately (even if only by a small amount) and, most telling, look for the hip to be stopped or even pulling back when impact is made.

Look at this from a fairly simplistic physics viewpoint - is there any conceivable mechanism by which having your hip pulling back at the point of impact could actually make your strike harder?  Remember, you're trying to hit your opponent.  When you snap a wet towel the "pullback" doesn't make the tip of the towel hit someone harder - it makes the noise louder because a greater force is put into the towel.  That's very satisfying, but it's not going to make for good technique.

Why does this "whipping" motion feel so powerful (because, in my opinion, it really does, which is part of why people fall for it)?  Well, think about where the feeling of strong technique comes from, especially when you strike air.  You're not feeling the impact of your fist - it's not even hitting anything.  If you hit a bag or striking pad, you still don't feel the impact - the person holding the pad might, but if you feel the impact it's only in the nerves in your fist, not from the rest of your body.  The sensations you get in your shoulder, core, hips, etc. are feedback from receptors in your own muscles, tendons, and ligaments that are reporting to your brain about forces generated in those areas.

When you "whip" a technique - when you pull the hip back while the technique is at full speed - and especially when you relax your core - you're going to get a tremendous amount of force through your body.  Basically, you're adding the momentum of the hip pulling back to the momentum of the fist traveling forward and stopping all that momentum in a very short time. That's going to require a lot of force!

Imagine Superman has to stop an out of control train by pulling on a chain or rope that's tied to the back of the train.  In one instance he braces himself, standing still, and when the slack in the chain is gone he'll feel a huge jolt and stop the train.  Now imagine that Superman decides to stop the train by running in the opposite direction very fast.  He grabs the chain and runs or flies in the opposite direction.  Once the slack is gone he'll feel another tremendous jolt as he stops the train.  Which "jolt" will feel more powerful to Superman?  I'm sure the one where he's traveling backward - he'll have to stop the train and himself.  Does that mean the train was going any faster?  No, of course not.

By pulling your hip back, or stopping it before the "impact" (before you stop the punch), you increase the subjective feeling of force because you're making your body pull harder to stop the punch.  You're making a bigger "jerk" travel through your body.  Does that mean your fist was traveling faster or harder (or in any way which would cause more damage to your opponent)?  No.  In fact, it was probably moving slower towards the opponent - because the hip wasn't driving it forwards anymore.

If your hip is stopping at the same time as your fist, roughly, the "jerk" you feel might be less even if the punch is stronger (going forward at a greater speed).  You're not snapping the towel - you're not adding the momentum of a backwards moving hip to the momentum of your punch moving forwards.  You'll feel less force at the impact and deliver more force to your target.

Watch this video of Tommy Carruthers, a JKD instructor:

It's not the easiest thing to see, but he's snapping the hips through his strikes at the point of impact, not before.  And he's fast.  That's good movement.

In addition, by keeping the torso tight instead of relaxing and twisting to create a waveform you're preventing rotation of the spine.  That's good from a health perspective - making a waveform actually requires relaxing the core and twisting the spine at the same time, which is pretty much what I'd tell someone to do if they were intentionally trying to injure their own back.  The whipping or waveform motion puts extra stress on your body while intentionally making your body less prepared to withstand that force while reducing the impact delivered to the target while slowing down the technique.  I can't see the good in it.

How do we train to strike properly?  Practice punching my moving the fist first, then snapping the hips through at the point where the fist should be making contact with the target (when the arm is about 85% extended, give or take).  Keep the torso very tight (your "core") and lock down the shoulder (tense the lats) at impact.  The timing isn't easy, and it's not as satisfying as using a giant pre-load, whipping the hips around, torquing the torso, then snapping the hips back at contact.  The latter feels wonderful and powerful, but all you're doing is pulling force out of your target and into the connective tissues of your own body.

Osu.

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.

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:)

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 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!

Karate Punch vs. Boxing Punch

This post is about one of those technical things that I realized a little while ago but isn't spoken about a whole lot.  I'm not sure if that's because it's incredibly obvious to everybody but me, or if it's spoken about a lot in areas I haven't looked, or if it's kind of esoteric.  Regardless, I'll post about it.  If this is absurdly obvious to everybody just post in comments how much of your time I've wasted.

Boxers, along with certain martial arts (systema comes to mind), have a very different method for throwing punches than karate does.  Look particularly at the shoulder.  A boxer is trained to raise the shoulder while punching - hunching the shoulder up towards the ear - to protect the jawline while punching.  You can see this taught on instructional DVD's, in books, and you can watch it in action in boxing matches.  The elbow is also lifted (this depends on the punch) - it points to the side or even slightly up (the way your arm turns when you're using a screwdriver to take out a screw - elbow pointed up slightly, shoulder rising) instead of down.

The traditional karate punch, on the other hand, is executed with the shoulder packed down (the lat tensed to keep the shoulder down in its socket), the elbow pointing down or mostly down, not up.  If you want to see this beautifully demonstrated, check out an iconic picture of Mas Oyama punching out a candle flame - his shoulders are pinned down, the chin tucked.  It's the way your arm would rotate to drive in a screw.

Why the difference in mechanics?  I think we can trace it back to the kinetics of a punch according to the two disciplines.  In boxing the image is of a thrown punch - the first/ forearm unit is hurled at the opponent.  At impact the damage is done by the fast moving fist - not by the torso or hips.  The hips twist at the beginning of the punch, to give it more initial velocity, not at the finish, to drive it through the opponent.  The punch is launched.  In karate, on the other hand, the punch is driven through the target.  At impact, the elbow, shoulder, and core tighten dramatically, dirrecting the rotational energy from the torso into (and through) the target.  The fist/forearm complex isn't a launched missile - it's the tip of a spear. 

If you doubt that the karate mechanics make a stronger connection between the fist and the hips, it's easy to test.  Stand up with a partner.  Hold your hand out in a fist like an extended punch.  Have your partner push back against your fist.  First try it with your shoulder up by your ear and your elbow pointed slightly upwards.  Next, repeat, but this time pack the shoulder down and keep your elbow pointed down.  I can guarantee your arm will collapse under much less pressure with the shoulder raised and elbow up.

How did this difference occur historically?  I'm not sure, but part of the motivation behind the karate mechanics is the history of training for punches on a makiwara, instead of a heavy bag.  The makiwara is like a spring - you hit it, and it bends and springs back.  If you hit it hard but don't sustain the pressure after the impact the makiwara will knock you backwards.  A heavy bag, on the other hand, just absorbs impact.  It won't spring back at you (it might swing away and swing back, but people don't hold their fist against the bag long enough for that to knock them on their butts).  If you need that kind of sustained force following your punch you'll never get it with boxing mechanics.  If all you're concerned about is the impact, then that's another story.

Which set of mechanics is better?  That's a question I wrestle with.  Figuring out which leads to harder hits isn't straightforward.  The physics are beyond me - too many variables I can't quite figure out.  Looking for hard hitters doesn't help.  Many of the hardest hitters in sports (Fedor Emelianenko, anyboy?) use boxing mechanics - but that might be a result of glove use or just the fact that most sport fighters study boxing, and they would hit even harder using karate mechanics.  Karate mechanics seem safer for the shoulder joint (which is strongest when packed, instead of raised).  Bruce Lee used karate mechanics for his punching. 

Take home point:  you should at the very least be aware of the fact that there are at least two competing views of how to punch properly.  If you're reading books on technique or studying fighters, you can't always apply their advice to what you're doing.  If you try to punch both ways simultaneously the result won't be pretty.  If you can't decide, go with whatever your style teaches.  I train the karate style - I suspect it's better, but I can't work out enough of the math to be certain.

To do the "karate mechanics" punch, tense the lat so your shoulder stays down - imagine you're trying to keep your shoulderblades (scapulae) in your back pocket.  I like to imagine squeezing the punch out of my armpit.  Your hips don't twist at the start, to launch the punch, they twist during and at the end of the punch, to transmit the kinetic energy of the torso into the target.  If your hips twist at the start then by the time the punch lands your torso isn't moving anymore - which means the energy is lost.

Caveat:  I call the packed shoulder - elbow down - body as one unit - method the "karate method" - I don't mean to say that all karate styles must punch that way or that it's more authentic.  It's simply the method taught in the karate styles I'm familar with.  If your style teaches the other style, I have no problem with that.

An Ode to Anterior Pelvic Tilt

Look at sprinters, lean and mean,
None need belts to hold up their jeans;

Contrast with the sight of a plumber's crack,
Surely an unpleasant view from the back;

I say, tilt your pelvis to the back,
But won't that put the spine out of whack?

Never fear, your spine's meant to curve,
From the side it wiggles and swerves;

Use your glutes, not your quads, they're your biggest muscles,
I tell the truth, this is no hustle!

So tilt your pelvis, stretch those glutes,
You'll quicken your movement, sabaki, and shoots!

First, I apologize for the poem. 

Next:  what is anterior pelvic tilt, you ask?  Okay, stand up.  Put your hands on your hip bones - just below and to the sides of your belly button.  Now kind of arch your lower back a little and try to stick your ass out.  It may help to turn your knees inward (to get the feeling).  That's anterior pelvic tilt.  Next, turn your knees out and tuck your ass under you.  If you're a guy it's the way you'd stand to pee in the woods - imagine you're trying to push your crotch forward ahead of you.  That's posterior pelvic tilt.  When your pelvis is sort of in the middle - tilted neither way - that's neutral. 

Now let's start off by being clear:  too much pelvic tilt in either direction isn't safe.  Extreme tilt puts the spine into a compromised position and I'm not recommending it.  Unfortunately, I can't give you specific parameters.  If you feel discomfort you've probably gone too far.  If you have lower back pain you've definitely gone too far - see a doctor or a physical therapist.

In karate the traditional advice is to adopt some posterior pelvic tilt.  Proper form for most stances includes "tucking" the pelvis under.  The usual explanation is that this straightens the spine or engages the anterior core (the core muscles in the front of your body).  I think this is a mistake. 

Look at some good athletes for a minute.  Sprinters, Olympic weightlifters, even the most athletic fighters in MMA (George St. Pierre and Anderson Silva come to mind) - the guys who are best at moving around the cage.  Now check out their hips (and I promise I mean this is the most non-sexually suggestive way possible).  What do you see?  They all tend towards anterior, not posterior, pelvic tilt.  Their glutes stick out.

As for the spine, your spine is supposed to curve.  This myth that you'll gain health or mechanical efficiency is based on the idea that your discs are flat, but two minutes spent with a model of a skeleton will show you that they're not.  The discs are slightly wedge shaped, which means that for them to maintain optimal alignment the spine has to be curved the right amount.

So if we assume that some pelvic tilt is safe, why should we encourage an anterior tilt?  What difference does the tilt it make?  To answer that we need to keep in mind that motion at the hips is governed by a whole bunch of muscles.  The glutes, hamstrings, quads, and a host of other muscles work in concert to move the hip.  Changing the angle of the pelvis will change the relative contribution of these muscles. 

You can feel this happening.  Find a staircase.  Climb the stairs two, three, or four at a time, depending how tall you are.  Try doing a flight or two with your pelvis tucked under into posterior tilt.  Feel where the strain focuses.  Then climb a flight or two with yoru pelves stucking back - anterior tilt.  You should feel the thighs (quads) working a lot more with posterior tilt and the glutes more with anterior tilt.  This is because anterior tilt slightly stretches the glutes, giving them a little extra purchase on the femur. 

Simply put, anterior pelvic tilt results in increased use of the glutes.  Why is that good?  The glutes are bigger, stronger, and safer as the engine of movement than the quads and hamstrings.  When the glutes contract the spine is protected and you move faster.

Want another simple experiment?  Move forward and backward in front leaning stance (zenkutsu dachi).  Take a few steps with each tilt - posterior, then anterior.  Do the movements quickly, like you're really trying to drive into somebody standing in front of you.  See which style gives you more speed.

There is another reason to maintain anterior pelvic tilt.  When kicking to the side and high (as in a roundhouse or side kick to the chest or head) you might, depending on your pelvic structure, limit your range of motion because the knobby thing that sticks out of the top of your femur hitting against the bones of the pelvis (I did NOT major in anatomy).  If you tilt the pelvis forward there is space for the head of the femur to slip behind the bone and you can kick higher.  It's easier to feel this or see it than to read about it.  Try to drop down into a full split with your pelvis tucked, then tilt it back and try again - you'll feel how the bones sit differently in the hips.

Want another experiment?  Get into a fighting stance.  Slightly tilt the pelvis to the anterior.  Move around.  If you don't feel any difference, try some glute activation exercises and do it again.

Another argument in favor of anterior pelvic tilt is this:  it's sexy.  How is that relevant, you ask?  Well, it might be sexy by accident, or it could be that millions of years of evolution drove  us to find sexy those traits that correlate with physical health and athleticism.  Basically, all else being equal, a more athletic mate has a better chance to bear healthy children and keep them safe and provided for.  So we'd be unlikely to find anterior pelvic tilt sexy if it didn't correlate with athletic ability.

To be honest, this is one of those recommendations that falls under the "not sure about and willing to be proven wrong" umbrella (along with intermittent fasting and explosive training, if you're keeping score).  I know it works for me - I can feel the difference in my movement when I maintain a slight anterior tilt. 

Try it out, next time you're sparring or doing forms. 

Osu.

Core Training

Training for "the core" has become a buzzword in the fitness industry, and an oft-maligned buzzword in many circles.  Understanding jsut what core training means might provide a useful boost to your martial arts training.

The term "core" refers roughly to the muscles that connect your ribcage to your pelvis.  There is no single, universally accepted definition, but the core always includes the surface and deep abdominals and lower back muscles, and often includes the lats and serratus, and sometimes the glutes and hip flexors. 

Why train your core?  Fundamentally, the core transfers energy from the lower body to the upper body or vice versa.  Imagine for a moment that you had no core muscles.  What would happen when you turned your hips, say to drive a punch?  Well, the hips would turn, your spine would twist, and your shoulders would stay right where they were.  There would be two problems:  first, your punch would have very little power.  Second, your spine would be in big trouble - spines are meant to twist, but only a little, and not very vigorously.  So bad punch and bad back.

Now nobody actually has no core muscles - when somebody says they have "no abs" they mean they're too fat to see their abs, not that the muscles are actually missing.  But many people have weak core muscles, and they end up with sloppy technique.  You can see their hips move, but the ribcage isn't totally in sync.  Basically, they're losing energy in their hand techniques because some of the hip drive isn't transferred properly.  Again, bad for the punch, and bad for the back.  Ideally you want your hips and ribcage to move together as if there were iron bars attaching them.  Want a good visual of this?  Watch Enter The Dragon and watch the scenes where Bruce Lee is fighting a bunch of no-name bad guys.  Watch him punch them - every time his hips twitch his whole upper body moves perfectly together.  There's a reason the guy was such a fanatic about ab training, and you can see the value of having super strong abs in his movement.

So how to we train the core?  Let's think about what the core does.  Basically, the core flexes the trunk (brings your chest forward), extends the trunk (brings your chest backwards, like when you arch your back), twists the trunk both ways (like when you throw a cross with either hand), and bends the trunk side to side (I'm sure there's a fancy word for this but I don't know it).  Or, you could say it does all those things for your hips, if your upper body is stationary - so if you hang from a chinup bar or something, the core moves the hips in all those ways.  Now here's a mindbender - since the core flexes the trunk, it also works to prevent extension.  In other words, if some force is pushing your upper body backwards, the core is what allows you to maintain your alignment.  The same is true for rotation.  Imagine throwing a medicine ball with one hand.  the reaction force of that medicine ball pushing into your shoulder tries to twist your trunk away from the throw.  Your core prevents that from happening.

Most people train the core with lots of crunches and leg raises.  That's trunk flexion - crunches flex the trunk, during leg raises the weight of your legs pulls your trunk into extension (your back wants to arch) and your core has to prevent the extension (preventing extension is roughly the same muscles as flexion).  That's not a terrible start, but we can do better.

Here are the bullet points:

• Pick exercises where your core is working to keep your posture neutral, not ones where you are moving the spine.  Planks are better than crunches.  Throwing a medicine ball is better than that exercise where you lie on your back with your arms out and legs sticking straight up and rotate your legs from side to side.  There are two reasons for this:  First, the core muscles work harder when resisting movement than when they initiate movement (sounds weird, but it's true).  Second, rotating or flexing the spine a lot is asking for trouble - as in back injury trouble.
• Work exercises where you resist extension (planks), resist rotation (one armed planks, birddogs, one arm medicine ball throws), resist yaw (side to side movement - like side planks), and resist flexion (deadlifts, swings).  The exercises can absolutely be ones you already to for other reasons.  Swings aren't "core" exercises, but they work the core.  That's fine.  Just make sure to add core dedicated exercises if you aren't incorporating a challenge in your other exercises.
• Progress to movements where you are resisting that motion in unstable ways.  Planks are great.  Try doing them on an underinflated exercise ball (Swiss ball) instead.  Don't settle in - jiggle around the ball so your core is challenged by a rapidly varying force.  Try carrying around a slosh pipe (a 8-10 foot pipe, pvc or something, half filled with water).  You'll get a better contraction and you'll prepare your core to stabilize you in a dynamic environment - like a sparring session.
• Don't settle for doing looong sessions of moderately challenging exercises.  There's no reason to hold a front plank for five minutes.  Once you can hold it for one or two minutes progress to something harder - ab wheel rollouts, swiss ball rollouts, superman planks, something hard.  Treat your core strength like your strength anywhere else in your body.
• Don't think that because the core is so important that you should make core-specific training the bulk of your workout.  Working only the core is as silly as working only the legs in isolation.  You can't actually punch or kick anybody with your core! 
• Don't exhaust your core early in your workout!  The last thing you want to do is really fry your core muscles early in a routine, then throw a bunch of punches or kicks later.  You need your core for all that other stuff!  Do your core last or close to last in your workout.

In my routine I regularly do kettlebell swings, one arm pushups, ab wheel rollouts, and swiss ball plank/rollouts.  These movements are mixed in with my other strength training, done twice a week.  When I do the swiss ball movement I get into a plank position on my elbows on a swiss ball and move my elbows in big circles on the ball, then in a cross pattern.  It's a pretty nice movement.  This list changes regularly.

Osu!