If you don't follow MMA you might want to skip this post.
I'm writing this just as news of Alistair Overeem's failed Testosterone: Epitestosterone test are coming to light. As of right now his B sample hasn't been tested, nothing's been confirmed - as far as I know this is a huge mistake (not that I think it is).
Having said that, I've already read a few comments (some posted by professional reporters) that indicate that the authors don't understand this test or what it means. I thought I'd explain.
We're all probably familiar with testosterone, a sex hormone produced in naturally higher levels in males than in females. Testosterone positively influences muscle hypertophy (how big your muscles can be), recovery (how fast you can recover from a tough workout), mood, health, and a bunch of other things. People's levels vary naturally - men almost always have higher levels than women, levels tend to peak in early twenties or so then decline gradually, and levels can be affected by your genes, stress levels, sleep, nutrition, various legal herbs, and even looking at naked women (seriously). How much those things can influence T levels is relative - if you're at a 400, watching a bunch of porn and getting a good night's sleep might get you up to 500, but it won't get you to 1200.
Incidentally, one way to permanently decrease your T levels is repeated head trauma. Think about that in terms of fightsports for a moment. And one of the most serious consequences (in my opinion) of depressed T is increased risk for depression (along with heart disease)... think about that the next time a former fighter commits suicide.
So we can all imagine that if you're going to compete in almost any sport that involves strength and/or power, higher T levels, at least up to a point, are going to be beneficial. They'll allow you to train harder, recover faster, hold more muscle in the face of high stress, and generally be, all else being equal, a better athlete. How do you get higher levels of T? Sleep, nutrition, porn - they'll all help a little bit, but the most effective way is to add testosterone to your system - inject it, use a cream, whatever.
Of course, that's against the rules. Mostly. There's an exception - Testosterone Replacement Therapy (TRT).
You see, if a normal joe (like me) has low T levels - that is, significantly lower than those of an average male of our age (roughly mid-600's are average) - we can go to our doctor and get a nice legal prescription for injectable T or a T cream. Boom, levels go back up, but, depending on how much we take, our levels may not be very high - they may still be on the low side - just higher than they were. If your T level is 200 and you use a cream or injections to get up to 500 your T level is still lower than the average guy on the street.
Now to compete in MMA there are all kinds of hoops you have to jump through - just because something is legal doesn't mean it's okay with the athletic commission (see Nick Diaz, marijuana). They'll accept a fighter on TRT if they go to certain doctors, file specific forms, tell them ahead of time, etc. - like I said, there are hoops to jump through, but the use of TRT isn't banned outright. In theory, they would test you to make sure you weren't on a high enough dose of TRT to give you a competitive advantage. Basically, if I can show them that I'm using TRT to bring my 200 up to an 800 (still well within the range of "normal"), I'd be okay, but if I bring my 200 up to a 2000 I wouldn't be allowed into the cage.
There ARE tests that check your overall T levels - blood tests, not urine as far as I know - but that's not what Overeem failed.
You see, along with T, your body makes another hormone called Epitestosterone (E) that isn't very interesting - it doesn't do too much that we're aware of, and doesn't seem to help with athletic performance. About the only reason we do care about E is that humans tend to make about as much of it as they do of T - in other words, for pretty much everybody, whatever your T levels are, your E levels will be almost exactly the same. Have a lot of T (say, you're a teenager watching porn)? You'll have a lot of E. Have a low T? Low E. The ratio stays at around 1:1. But what if you inject a bunch of extra T? Well, the ratio gets out of whack, because it's the stuff your body makes that comes out in a 1:1 ratio - when you inject extra T there's no feedback loop that has your body ramp up its production of E.
Overeem's reported T:E ratio was 14:1. If that's true it ONLY means that he had a lot of artificial T swimming around in his system. As far as I know he doesn't have a TRT exemption - that information may be available - but we don't actually know if his T levels were really high OR if his natural T level was ridiculously low an he used supplemental T to get his overall levels to a high-normal range. I'm not saying that is the case - I'm just saying that we don't know if his T levels were very high, offering him some competitive advantage - only that he was injecting (or smearing through cream) extra T.
Now if Overeem hadn't applied for a TRT exemption and was still applying/ injecting extra T then it doesn't matter if his overall levels were higher than normal or not - he broke the rules, he'll be punished for it.
Please note that I'm not arguing in favor of the current regulations (or against them), I only think we should be clear on what the various test results actually mean. I'm a little sympathetic to the view that the athletes should be allowed to drug up however much they want to - we're not seriously worried about their health, are we? If we cared about the long term health of athletes they'd all be in headgear, if combat sports were even legal. Forget football. Or marathon running. High level sports is not good for people!
One last note - if you're an amateur athlete buying illegal drugs to improve your performance then you're an idiot. Overeem makes hundreds of thousands of dollars to risk his health - if you're an accountant who trains in martial arts for fun, to risk your health at 60 for your hobby is just dumb. When you buy steroids from some guy at your gym you don't know what's in them, the purity level, etc. Now if you have low (or low-ish) T levels and you want to get TRT from your doctor, that's another story (the pharmacy will sell you real T, no rat poison in it). I don't claim to be an expert on Hormone Replacement Therapy, but I suspect that artificically replacing your T levels back to where they were when you were in your mid-20's will have only positive side effects for most people (but I'm NOT positive about this).
So, stay away from illegal drugs, but consider legal ones. Osu!
Thursday, April 5, 2012
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Podcasts to Listen to and Fiction to Read
First of all, a deep apology for not posting lately. Between training for my new job, a heavy travel schedule, and trying to get enough sleep I just haven't had time. I've done hardly any formal karate training in almost two months either!
A couple of new things to keep your eyes (or ears) on:
If you follow kickboxing (and if you don't, you should) there are 2 podcasts coming out that you should be listening to. The first is Warman's Kickfighting Show, and despite the slightly World of Warcraft sounding title it's very sober, intelligent discussion of kick-sports (kickboxing and Muay Thai). The second is the podcast associated with the lovely LiverKick site. Search the site for podcasts and you'll see their own listed. It's very good coverage of the sport.
Another absolutely wonderful site if you're at all interested in fighting sports is Fights Gone By. It's supposed to be coverage of classic fights, and it has wonderful links to classic fights in boxing, kickboxing, and MMA, but what makes it really special is the in-depth analysis of the fighting techniques used. It's the kind of site where you'll see a Mirko Cro Cop head kick, but unlike other places, it comes with exhaustive analysis of all the things Cro Cop does to make that head kick land.
Now any coverage of fighting sports is going to have some, but not perfect, relevance to unregulated combat. If you're into self defense you can't use kickboxing or boxing techniques as they are used in the ring exactly - gloves and tape and rules change the game. But a lot of the ideas do cross over to some extent, and if you enjoy fight sports for their own sake you'll enjoy them much more if you better understand what's going on. As wonderful as a big knockout it, it's much more enjoyable when you can see how the fighter set it up, got his opponent's defenses down, etc.
If you're interested reading more about conditioning and strength training while I'm not posting anything new hit my blogroll - especially Brett Contreras' site - I consistently find his posts entertaining and educational. If you're willing to buy some products (there's stuff on the site worth checking out for free too) definitely consider 8 Weeks Out, he has a ton of really good material that's changing the way the strength world is looking at endurance training.
I've mentioned before that I have a weakness for martial arts related fiction. I love material ranging from books that center on martial arts using characters to movies with MA themes to American and Asian comics (manga and manhua) that center on MA sports or MA using characters. Loving martial arts and liking MA fiction go together like liking science and liking science fiction - lots of science lovers and scientists love sci fi, lots of them hate it. A lot depends on how critical you are - how good you are at suspending disbelief when you read/ watch the stuff. If a character dodging bullets really annoys you (because it is so unrealistic) you're not going to love Dragonball. You might like Hajime no Ippo, though - that's a fairly realistic series about a Japanese boxer - no bullet dodging, no energy beams, just opponents with strong jabs or who fight left handed (both of which, you know, actually happen).
I'm not going to recommend any movies here - well, I lied, watch both Black Belt and High Kick Girl, I loved both, and anything starring Tony Jaa. Other people do a much more comprehensive job of reviewing/ recommending MA movies online (try Kung Fu Cinema for reviews, news, etc.).
For books I'm a fan of Steve Perry (not the one you're thinking of) - he's a real life silat practitioner and his books have very strong MA themes. His blog has links on the side to e-book versions of all his stuff. Start with The Man Who Never Missed. It's sci fi, and maybe it's not great literature, but they're fun reads and feature lots of MA action. Another guy who used to write a LOT about MA is Eric Lustbader. I grew up on his books - he broke out with The Ninja - and wrote a ton of bestsellers about MA in modern times. It's pretty much all trash, but entertaining trash. He's moved away from the MA themes in the last 15 years or so, so if that's what you like, start with his older work.
On the American comic side I'm mostly a reader of Marvel comics (nothing against other companies). The best MA comics are from the past - if you can read (or torrent) a set of Master of Kung Fu comics from the late 70's that title was surprisingly good. I liked the Iron Fist comic that was published just a few years ago - very strong MA themes - but most of the time Iron Fist is just another superhero who happens to use MA, there aren't really much in the way of MA plotlines in his stories.
If you really want to hit the motherload of MA themes comics, you have to go to Asian sourced stuff. There's a lot of material, and it really runs the gamut in terms of realism (from bullied teenagers taking up MA as an after school hobby to planet destroying aliens kung fu fighting) and seriousness (from very serious, like Holyland, all the way to ridiculous).
The cool thing about reading manga or manhua (manga are Japanese, manhua are Korean, and the manhua are usually read left to right, the Japanese stuff right to left) is that you can read/ sample all the good titles for free. Many are unavailable in English (in any legal/ official form, no matter what you're willing to pay), so there's a dedicated online community of scanlators (scan + translate = scanlate) who scan the comics, put in English words, and release the results for free. You can bittorrent the results, or, more easily, there are online readers where each page is a web page. Click on the page and it takes you to the next page.
The legality of these sites is sort of questionable. If you're morally opposed to using them, I understand, but bear in mind that many of these series are otherwise unavailable to English speakers. If I read Holyland on Mangafox.com, I'm not taking money away from the author - I literally can't buy that title in any store in a format I can use.
I'd rather not link to these sites. Go to google and put in "read [titleX] online" and you'll find a half dozen sites that show it.
If you want something realistic (no superpowers) try Holyland, All Rounder Meguru, Shamo (Shamo is really, really, dark and not suitable for children), and Hajime no Ippo. There are also a bunch of manga based loosely on historical samurai/ ninja stuff, and some are very realistic (some not so much).
If you're okay with some level of "super" abilities there are more options. For historical/ fantasy stuff (not set in a world like ours) Naruto's the best, Hunter x Hunter, Gamaran, Basilisk, and Samurai Deeper Kyo. For stuff in a modern setting try The Breaker, Baki (3 different series, same character), Tough (2 series), Karate Shoukoushi Kohinata Minoru, Tower of God, the God of High School (much better than it sounds).
I'm sure I'm leaving out some good stuff. Feel free to post additional recommendations to comments. If I have time I'll try to post more thorough reviews of some of these titles in the future.
A couple of new things to keep your eyes (or ears) on:
If you follow kickboxing (and if you don't, you should) there are 2 podcasts coming out that you should be listening to. The first is Warman's Kickfighting Show, and despite the slightly World of Warcraft sounding title it's very sober, intelligent discussion of kick-sports (kickboxing and Muay Thai). The second is the podcast associated with the lovely LiverKick site. Search the site for podcasts and you'll see their own listed. It's very good coverage of the sport.
Another absolutely wonderful site if you're at all interested in fighting sports is Fights Gone By. It's supposed to be coverage of classic fights, and it has wonderful links to classic fights in boxing, kickboxing, and MMA, but what makes it really special is the in-depth analysis of the fighting techniques used. It's the kind of site where you'll see a Mirko Cro Cop head kick, but unlike other places, it comes with exhaustive analysis of all the things Cro Cop does to make that head kick land.
Now any coverage of fighting sports is going to have some, but not perfect, relevance to unregulated combat. If you're into self defense you can't use kickboxing or boxing techniques as they are used in the ring exactly - gloves and tape and rules change the game. But a lot of the ideas do cross over to some extent, and if you enjoy fight sports for their own sake you'll enjoy them much more if you better understand what's going on. As wonderful as a big knockout it, it's much more enjoyable when you can see how the fighter set it up, got his opponent's defenses down, etc.
If you're interested reading more about conditioning and strength training while I'm not posting anything new hit my blogroll - especially Brett Contreras' site - I consistently find his posts entertaining and educational. If you're willing to buy some products (there's stuff on the site worth checking out for free too) definitely consider 8 Weeks Out, he has a ton of really good material that's changing the way the strength world is looking at endurance training.
I've mentioned before that I have a weakness for martial arts related fiction. I love material ranging from books that center on martial arts using characters to movies with MA themes to American and Asian comics (manga and manhua) that center on MA sports or MA using characters. Loving martial arts and liking MA fiction go together like liking science and liking science fiction - lots of science lovers and scientists love sci fi, lots of them hate it. A lot depends on how critical you are - how good you are at suspending disbelief when you read/ watch the stuff. If a character dodging bullets really annoys you (because it is so unrealistic) you're not going to love Dragonball. You might like Hajime no Ippo, though - that's a fairly realistic series about a Japanese boxer - no bullet dodging, no energy beams, just opponents with strong jabs or who fight left handed (both of which, you know, actually happen).
I'm not going to recommend any movies here - well, I lied, watch both Black Belt and High Kick Girl, I loved both, and anything starring Tony Jaa. Other people do a much more comprehensive job of reviewing/ recommending MA movies online (try Kung Fu Cinema for reviews, news, etc.).
For books I'm a fan of Steve Perry (not the one you're thinking of) - he's a real life silat practitioner and his books have very strong MA themes. His blog has links on the side to e-book versions of all his stuff. Start with The Man Who Never Missed. It's sci fi, and maybe it's not great literature, but they're fun reads and feature lots of MA action. Another guy who used to write a LOT about MA is Eric Lustbader. I grew up on his books - he broke out with The Ninja - and wrote a ton of bestsellers about MA in modern times. It's pretty much all trash, but entertaining trash. He's moved away from the MA themes in the last 15 years or so, so if that's what you like, start with his older work.
On the American comic side I'm mostly a reader of Marvel comics (nothing against other companies). The best MA comics are from the past - if you can read (or torrent) a set of Master of Kung Fu comics from the late 70's that title was surprisingly good. I liked the Iron Fist comic that was published just a few years ago - very strong MA themes - but most of the time Iron Fist is just another superhero who happens to use MA, there aren't really much in the way of MA plotlines in his stories.
If you really want to hit the motherload of MA themes comics, you have to go to Asian sourced stuff. There's a lot of material, and it really runs the gamut in terms of realism (from bullied teenagers taking up MA as an after school hobby to planet destroying aliens kung fu fighting) and seriousness (from very serious, like Holyland, all the way to ridiculous).
The cool thing about reading manga or manhua (manga are Japanese, manhua are Korean, and the manhua are usually read left to right, the Japanese stuff right to left) is that you can read/ sample all the good titles for free. Many are unavailable in English (in any legal/ official form, no matter what you're willing to pay), so there's a dedicated online community of scanlators (scan + translate = scanlate) who scan the comics, put in English words, and release the results for free. You can bittorrent the results, or, more easily, there are online readers where each page is a web page. Click on the page and it takes you to the next page.
The legality of these sites is sort of questionable. If you're morally opposed to using them, I understand, but bear in mind that many of these series are otherwise unavailable to English speakers. If I read Holyland on Mangafox.com, I'm not taking money away from the author - I literally can't buy that title in any store in a format I can use.
I'd rather not link to these sites. Go to google and put in "read [titleX] online" and you'll find a half dozen sites that show it.
If you want something realistic (no superpowers) try Holyland, All Rounder Meguru, Shamo (Shamo is really, really, dark and not suitable for children), and Hajime no Ippo. There are also a bunch of manga based loosely on historical samurai/ ninja stuff, and some are very realistic (some not so much).
If you're okay with some level of "super" abilities there are more options. For historical/ fantasy stuff (not set in a world like ours) Naruto's the best, Hunter x Hunter, Gamaran, Basilisk, and Samurai Deeper Kyo. For stuff in a modern setting try The Breaker, Baki (3 different series, same character), Tough (2 series), Karate Shoukoushi Kohinata Minoru, Tower of God, the God of High School (much better than it sounds).
I'm sure I'm leaving out some good stuff. Feel free to post additional recommendations to comments. If I have time I'll try to post more thorough reviews of some of these titles in the future.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Who, me? Stressed?
First of all, I apologize to anyone who subscribes in a reader and got this post without content - I was trying out a new keyboard and published by accident. I didn't even realize it until this morning.
If you're a new reader who heard my interview on The Applied Karate Podcast, then welcome! I recommend searching the archives for anything you found of interest, or posting questions to the comments. I'll happily respond to any questions people have (though I won't always know the answers, obviously). If you're a reader of this blog and not a listener of the Applied Karate Podcast, I recommend you check it out.
I've had a hectic few months. I started a new career (software developer) and moved (to Brooklyn, New York), but with my kids still back in Maryland I've been doing a lot of travelling back and forth. My training has suffered badly and my blogging has suffered even more!
A couple of quick notes: in times of stress (especially time stress) many of us turn to comfort foods that we know aren't good for us, often saying things like, "a little candy may not be good for me long term, but it will give me the energy to get through this very stressful day, and that's what I need right now." I can't claim to be immune to this impulse by any stretch, but it's worth avoiding. If you're really just having a very tough day that's one thing, but if your life is very busy and you need to get things done day in and day out you'll have a lot more energy and strength overall if you keep to a stricter diet. By stricter I mean "cleaner" - plenty of high quality meat and veggies, no grains, plenty of clean starches (white rice, sweet potatoes) - I DO NOT mean low calorie. High stress periods of life are not necessarily the times when you want to try to cut a lot of weight (sometimes they are, but adding stressors to yourself can be counterproductive when you're already under duress).
I have some more thoughts about stressful periods of life:
If you're a new reader who heard my interview on The Applied Karate Podcast, then welcome! I recommend searching the archives for anything you found of interest, or posting questions to the comments. I'll happily respond to any questions people have (though I won't always know the answers, obviously). If you're a reader of this blog and not a listener of the Applied Karate Podcast, I recommend you check it out.
I've had a hectic few months. I started a new career (software developer) and moved (to Brooklyn, New York), but with my kids still back in Maryland I've been doing a lot of travelling back and forth. My training has suffered badly and my blogging has suffered even more!
A couple of quick notes: in times of stress (especially time stress) many of us turn to comfort foods that we know aren't good for us, often saying things like, "a little candy may not be good for me long term, but it will give me the energy to get through this very stressful day, and that's what I need right now." I can't claim to be immune to this impulse by any stretch, but it's worth avoiding. If you're really just having a very tough day that's one thing, but if your life is very busy and you need to get things done day in and day out you'll have a lot more energy and strength overall if you keep to a stricter diet. By stricter I mean "cleaner" - plenty of high quality meat and veggies, no grains, plenty of clean starches (white rice, sweet potatoes) - I DO NOT mean low calorie. High stress periods of life are not necessarily the times when you want to try to cut a lot of weight (sometimes they are, but adding stressors to yourself can be counterproductive when you're already under duress).
I have some more thoughts about stressful periods of life:
- If you think you don't have time to train you're wrong. Many of us get sort of trapped into the idea of "a workout" as a big block of time for exercise. You might not have an hour to set aside for exercise, but very few of us have jobs where we really can't get up every hour or so and knock out some exercise. Put a chinup bar in a doorway and do a couple of chinups every time you go through it. Stand up from your desk and throw a few punches. If you work in a cubicle, kiai loudly, it will make everybody appreciate your efforts. Brush your teeth in kiba dachi. Practice your posture - pack your neck and shoulders, and tighten your abs, while standing around - you can do this on the train ride to work, waiting for a meeting, wherever. I can't promise the same results as if you added in dedicated workouts but it will help.
- Try not to skimp on sleep. It's tempting to "make" extra time by cutting short on sleep - look, if you have to, then you have to, but the value of quality sleep for health is very large. Your long term health will suffer. Those hours you gain aren't free.
- If you need downtime, then take it. People can't do grueling work all day, day after day, without a break - they lose efficiency. The trick is to take a real break, do something that makes you happy, don't feel guilty about it, and don't think of it as "wasting" time. If you love videogames, play them - but don't just play computer solitaire because you're too wiped out to get your work done and kill hours doing something you don't actually enjoy.
The more you say, "screw it, I'm having a tough time, I don't have the energy to eat right or train" the harder it's going to be for you to get back on track when things lighten up. Don't get down on yourself for taking it a little easier, but don't cut yourself too much slack either.
Please listen to the Podcast. I'll try to get the final article on periodization up soon, I promise! And I'm thinking about another round of before-and-after photos... though I haven't made much progress this year, sadly.
Osu!
Saturday, November 19, 2011
Periodization Made Simple Part II: Periodizing Intensity
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!
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!
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.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Adding Value to Your Dojo part I: Martial Arts as a Social Activity
There are a lot of ways to think about your martial art - is it a form of physical culture, a means of learning self defense, a cultural/ historical preservation activity, etc. None of these are wrong, and in many ways they aren't exclusive - you can train to get in shape AND to preserve a part of history that you find valuable, for example. The way you think of your art will, however, shape your training in many ways (if you train to preserve a cultural artifact you're less likely to incorporate techniques from other arts, for example), as well as shaping your marketing (sales pitch) and the way you may structure activities around your dojo.
I've already written about how I think we can benefit from regarding our training from a physical culture perspective (and I stand by what I wrote there). I have another perspective to share today.
I tend to do the bulk of my training alone. I go to class when I can, which is often just once a week, but I'll practice kata and kihon or do my conditioning by myself several other times a week (by the way, this is probably a bad idea for any beginner, but I've got many years of supervised training under my belt). There are advantages to this approach. I have less travel time. I can train whenever I want - I'm never late for class! I can focus on the skills I need most and on the exercises that work best for me.
There are also some pretty obvious disadvantages. You can't do partner drills by yourself. It's very difficult to work on many key skills without a partner - you can get clean technique, but how do you develop your timing? It's even harder in grappling arts, I'm sure - how do you even practice throws, holds, and locks without another body to toss around?
I think that many people will also suffer from a motivation gap. I'm not that way personally, but for many people it's easier to show up to a class and train because someone is telling you to train, rather than trying to force yourself to practice alone in an empty room when you could just go have a beer instead and nobody would be any the wiser.
Let's put aside these considerations for now - these points all have to do with the fact that training with other people can be better for your karate. They're valid points, but there is another set of advantages to training with a group that have nothing to do with improving your skill:
The thing is, humans are social animals. We evolved to travel in groups and there are serious biological implications to that fact. There is a substantial body of medical literature showing that human health is enhanced by having strong social connections - friends, family, whatever. We can argue over some of the fine points - do internet friendships count or not (I suspect they do) - but the bottom line is, very clearly, that people are healthier and happier when they have a deep social environment.
You can get friends from a lot of places, but one very interesting social bond is created by shared physical suffering. Anyone who's ever been through a football camp or a hard promotion test can tell you this. In my dojo we often hug or pat each other on the back after tough sparring matches. This is why corporations spend tons of money to take their executives rock climbing or white water rafting and call it "team building." It really does build a sense of togetherness and bonding among people.
The people in your dojo a) share your interests; b) spend time with you regularly; c) share bonding experiences regularly. They're also unlikely to be total douchebags, at least in a good school, because if you have good seniors the douchebags get their asses kicked hard enough that they either straighten up their act or quit before getting very high in rank (usually).
My point? You should be (and probably already are) friends with your senpai and kohai. You should hang out with them outside of class. You should invite them to your Christmas party. You should share birthdays. You should be Facebook friends. You should hang around before or after class and catch up with them.
Furthermore, being friends with your classmates is a key benefit of your training. You might justify watching a football game with your buddies or poker night by saying that you need time with your friends - the same is true, perhaps even more so, about training. If you're thinking about spending money on a martial arts retreat or attending a seminar or having a social function, and you're waffling, don't think of it in terms of just how much karate you'll learn - think of the benefits of that activity as a social occasion. Karate can help fulfill your fundamental human need for interaction!
If you can (this will depend on the culture at your school), organize and participate in social activities outside of class with your peers. Do a martial arts movie night, have parties, go for drinks after class, whatever. And don't resist these activities because they might have limited direct benefit for your karate - that's not the point. The point is to enhance your health and happiness by deepening positive social connections.
If you run a school, encourage your students to socialize outside of class. Get them to do movie nights (or organize them yourself). Be available to grab drinks or snacks after class, at least some of the time. Put up a board in your entrance area for people to advertise get-togethers. You might be teaching self defense, but you're also creating a social network for your students.
Want to convince someone to start training? Yes, they'll learn to defend themselves, and yes, they'll get in better shape. But they might also make a whole bunch of new friends, and that has an added value all its own - not just int he obvious ways, but enhancing health and longevity.
If you think you can be fit and healthy and a loner... you're probably wrong. You can get a social life by going out drinking and partying multiple times per week, but you're probably going to last longer if you hang out with your dojo mates instead!
Osu.
I've already written about how I think we can benefit from regarding our training from a physical culture perspective (and I stand by what I wrote there). I have another perspective to share today.
I tend to do the bulk of my training alone. I go to class when I can, which is often just once a week, but I'll practice kata and kihon or do my conditioning by myself several other times a week (by the way, this is probably a bad idea for any beginner, but I've got many years of supervised training under my belt). There are advantages to this approach. I have less travel time. I can train whenever I want - I'm never late for class! I can focus on the skills I need most and on the exercises that work best for me.
There are also some pretty obvious disadvantages. You can't do partner drills by yourself. It's very difficult to work on many key skills without a partner - you can get clean technique, but how do you develop your timing? It's even harder in grappling arts, I'm sure - how do you even practice throws, holds, and locks without another body to toss around?
I think that many people will also suffer from a motivation gap. I'm not that way personally, but for many people it's easier to show up to a class and train because someone is telling you to train, rather than trying to force yourself to practice alone in an empty room when you could just go have a beer instead and nobody would be any the wiser.
Let's put aside these considerations for now - these points all have to do with the fact that training with other people can be better for your karate. They're valid points, but there is another set of advantages to training with a group that have nothing to do with improving your skill:
The thing is, humans are social animals. We evolved to travel in groups and there are serious biological implications to that fact. There is a substantial body of medical literature showing that human health is enhanced by having strong social connections - friends, family, whatever. We can argue over some of the fine points - do internet friendships count or not (I suspect they do) - but the bottom line is, very clearly, that people are healthier and happier when they have a deep social environment.
You can get friends from a lot of places, but one very interesting social bond is created by shared physical suffering. Anyone who's ever been through a football camp or a hard promotion test can tell you this. In my dojo we often hug or pat each other on the back after tough sparring matches. This is why corporations spend tons of money to take their executives rock climbing or white water rafting and call it "team building." It really does build a sense of togetherness and bonding among people.
The people in your dojo a) share your interests; b) spend time with you regularly; c) share bonding experiences regularly. They're also unlikely to be total douchebags, at least in a good school, because if you have good seniors the douchebags get their asses kicked hard enough that they either straighten up their act or quit before getting very high in rank (usually).
My point? You should be (and probably already are) friends with your senpai and kohai. You should hang out with them outside of class. You should invite them to your Christmas party. You should share birthdays. You should be Facebook friends. You should hang around before or after class and catch up with them.
Furthermore, being friends with your classmates is a key benefit of your training. You might justify watching a football game with your buddies or poker night by saying that you need time with your friends - the same is true, perhaps even more so, about training. If you're thinking about spending money on a martial arts retreat or attending a seminar or having a social function, and you're waffling, don't think of it in terms of just how much karate you'll learn - think of the benefits of that activity as a social occasion. Karate can help fulfill your fundamental human need for interaction!
If you can (this will depend on the culture at your school), organize and participate in social activities outside of class with your peers. Do a martial arts movie night, have parties, go for drinks after class, whatever. And don't resist these activities because they might have limited direct benefit for your karate - that's not the point. The point is to enhance your health and happiness by deepening positive social connections.
If you run a school, encourage your students to socialize outside of class. Get them to do movie nights (or organize them yourself). Be available to grab drinks or snacks after class, at least some of the time. Put up a board in your entrance area for people to advertise get-togethers. You might be teaching self defense, but you're also creating a social network for your students.
Want to convince someone to start training? Yes, they'll learn to defend themselves, and yes, they'll get in better shape. But they might also make a whole bunch of new friends, and that has an added value all its own - not just int he obvious ways, but enhancing health and longevity.
If you think you can be fit and healthy and a loner... you're probably wrong. You can get a social life by going out drinking and partying multiple times per week, but you're probably going to last longer if you hang out with your dojo mates instead!
Osu.
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