No Time? No Equipment? No Problem.

I constantly hear from people who claim they can’t train because they have no time, or no equipment.  Well, I’m here to tell you that’s a bunch of crap.

First off, no time.  Really?  I’ve written about this before, but it could probably stand to be revisited almost daily.  Everybody thinks they are sooooo busy.  And I agree, most people are.  However, I don’t believe that anybody is too busy to squeeze in a little exercise.  Think what happens if you don’t. . . you start falling apart and taking years off your life.  You can’t spare a few minutes every day to increase your martial arts performance and your quality of life?  I think it’s time to check your priorities.

Now you don’t have any equipment either?  Ever heard of a pushup?  Bodyweight exercises can be performed anywhere, and most of them with no equipment.  In fact, I do the majority of my sessions with only bodyweight exercises.  I love the way I can work my entire body in minimal time and feel great afterwards.

Here’s how you put it together.  If you really have “no time”, just look for opportunities for movement throughout the day.  If you have an extra 30 seconds (and I know you do) then drop down and do some pushups, or squats, or hold a plank.  Just pick a few exercises and cycle through them throughout the day.  You won’t get hot and sweaty if you’re at work, and they’ll give you a great boost of energy.  In fact, you might feel so good after doing exercise during your day that you find some extra time and energy to do more when you get home.

I know it doesn’t seem like a few pushups, etc can do much, but if you add them up over the course of the day/week/month you’ll be doing quite a bit. 

So, if you don’t have a lot of time, try making just a little time as you go about your daily routine.  It doesn’t matter if you don’t do a ton of reps, just start making it a habit and you can always add to it later. 

Remember, even a few seconds is an opportunity for you to do some movement.  You might get a few weird looks, but that’s half the fun.  Maybe you can introduce somebody to your particular art when they start asking you what on earth you’re doing.

Go exercise and enjoy.

Train Hard.  Train Smart.

-Chris

You Need to Eat!

So get this.  I was poking around online and ran across an article talking about dieting and how to cut calories, deal with hunger, etc.

One of the questions was what to do when you feel hungry after a workout.  The article went on to explain how you should eat something pre-workout (good advice) and that should help to stave off any hunger post-workout.  After all, you don’t want to put more calories in your body after you just worked so hard to burn them up.

Are you kidding me?!

Eating a post-workout meal or shake is the best thing you can do for yourself.  Think about it, you just beat the crap out of your body with an intense workout.  So what does your body want to do?  Heal.  Recover.  If you don’t eat, how do you suppose you’re body is going to get all of those nutrients to heal?  Post-workout is prime time for eating…your body is screaming “FEED ME!!”

So what do I eat then?

Glad you asked.  It’s not all that complicated.  Just make sure you have something that has a good balance of protein, carbs, and fat.  Notice I said BALANCED, you don’t need tons of protein.

You can mix up a salad with beans and nuts on it.  You can try a spinach shake (frozen spinach, frozen banana, protein powder, etc).  I also suggest a post-workout recovery shake (make sure you get a good one).  I like the one’s from Advocare.  www.advocare.com/07033424

Here’s the moral of the story – Be careful where you get your advice.

Train Hard.  Train Smart.

-Chris

But I just don’t have time.

What a load of BS.  Sorry, but I call ‘em as I see ‘em.

The biggest excuse of all time for not training is the lack of time.  Notice I said EXCUSE, not REASON.

I know you’re busy, we all are.  For example, I work 60+ hours per week, have two children under the age of three and all the same headaches as everybody else.  Yet I still FIND time to train everyday.  I’m not trying to toot my own horn, I’m just saying that it’s possible to be extremely busy and still train-if you want it bad enough.  Take a look at your priorities.

You don’t need a 1 hour block of time to train.  You don’t even need a 1/2 hour block.  Actually, I am working on a book right now that will show you how to get in incredible shape in less than 10 minutes at a time.

Start looking for little window of time where you can squeeze some exercise in.  Maybe you could get up a few minutes earlier in the morning.  What about while you watch your favorite TV shows?  Busy playing with the kids?  Have them join in, or use them as weights (I do this and my kids love it).  You don’t have to do a lot, just do something, but make it challenging.  Remember, you don’t have to do a lot if you keep the intensity ramped up.

So there you have it.  Start MAKING time to train, even if it’s only a little bit.  After all, if you’re an active martial artist already, then your strength/conditioning/fat loss training is all supplementary anyway, so you don’t need a ton of it.

Train Hard.  Train Smart.

-Chris

Why do you train?

Do you ever lose focus in your training?  Of course not.  You’re a martial artist right?

I know it’s easy to get caught up in your training and forget what purpose your training serves.  You know the routine: train your basics, run through your katas, maybe do a few push-ups and sit-ups, stretch out and call it a day.

But what did you really accomplish?  Are you improving?  It’s easy to slip into this rut and think we’re really training well, but truth be told, we’re just mindlessly doing what we think we’re supposed to do and thinking it’s good enough.

It’s important to have some goals, something to focus on.  So here’s my challenge to you – develop a roadmap to help reach your goals.  If you don’t have any specific goals yet, it’s time to develop some.  It’s the same as working your way up the ranks, you know what you need to do in order to advance, so that’s what you train.

Now what about your fitness?  Come up with a few specific goals that will boost your martial arts performance and focus on those.  Do you need to improve your conditioning for sparring, or your strength for grappling?  Maybe your balance isn’t quite up to par, or you need some more flexibility.

Pick one or two things to focus on, and concentrate on those for one month.  After your month is up, keep working on those skills, but rotate them to the back burner and bring another one or two areas into the forefront.  Each month, focus on new weaknesses to shore up.  After a few months, you should start noticing some real improvements in your skills.

Remember, training with no goal in mind is hardly doing you any good.  If you aren’t improving, you’re moving backwards.

Train Smart.  Train Hard.

-Chris

Order in the Court

Okay, not the court, but the training hall, at least.

No, I’m not talking about discipline or ranks, but rather sequencing your training sessions.

You can walk into many, maybe even most, martial arts schools and witness them doing training sessions that are more likely to hurt the practitioner than help them.

Here’s how the typical class goes:

Stretch 5-15 min.

 Line Drills/Bag and Pad Work  15-30 min.

Step Sparring/Self-defense/Kata, Patterns 15-30 min.

End of class.

This may not be exactly how sessions go, but you get the idea.  What’s wrong with that, you may ask?  Well, a few things could be modified to help it along:

1. NEVER stretch at the beginning of a session.  Your muscles don’t like to be stretched when they’re “cold”.  Doing so can actually cause tears in the muscle fibers that need to heal before you can stretch again.  Also, stretching puts you in a relaxed state – the last thing you want before a hard training session.  A better way is to warm up before a session by starting with joint rotations and progressing to more sport-specific exercises (leg swings, etc.) as to go.
2. After the warm-up, start with your most skill-sensitive movements first (new techniques, difficult techniques, self-defense, kata, etc.)  If you practise these skills while fatigued, your body will remember that way and perform sloppily even while you are fresh. 
3. End with a cool-down and then a stretch.  There are many types of stretching, but I recommend some yoga-like movements.  This will help to release tension and relax you as well as speed recovery.

If your sessions resemble my original example, I’m not picking on you, just trying to help.  Many martial artists are reluctant to make changes because of the respect for their instructors and how they were taught.  I understand this, however, it is your responsibility to get the best training possible, and if you are an instructor, to give the best.

Train Smart.  Train Hard.

-Chris

 

 

A Sad State

As I look around at my fellow martial artists and martial arts professionals, I can’t help but to be sometimes disappointed, even frustrated.

Why?

Well a lot of reasons, but mostly because of our overall fitness levels.  Look around you and tell me how many martial artists are ready to rock for 5, even 3 rounds.  Not many.  Most are somewhat overweight or at least not very strong or conditioned. 

Have we forgotten what the martial arts are all about?  Now I’m all for the mental and emotional benefits as much as the next guy, but we talk about the physical benefits and yet we are out of shape.  Obviously there are martial artists who are in great shape, but that’s not the majority.

I think we focus too much on technique and theory, and nut enough on execution.  If we get winded after ten seconds, how are we ever going to survive a confrontation, or even a sparring match?  That’s an enormous amount of stress on the body, and most are just not equipped to deal with that.

We, as martial artists, and especially us as instructors, need to take a good look in the mirror and ask if we are really setting the example we should be.  Remember, we should be a “walking, talking correction.”  That is, we should practice what we preach.

So get off your duff, stop making excuses, and live up to your potential so you can help others live up to theirs.

Train hard.  Train smart.

-Chris

The Best Way to Train

I get questions all the time about what is the best way to train for martial arts. I always give the same answer, “Well, that depends…”.

Helpful, I know.

It depends on a lot of things – how much time you have, what equipment you have (if any), what your goals are (strength, endurance, size, etc.), what type of training you already do, and on and on and on.

I think part of the problem is that most people don’t really know what they need or want. I also think part of the problem is that once people figure out what they need (or think they need) they often get a bunch of bogus information from people who don’t know anything. These people may be well-intentioned, but that doesn’t make them well-informed.

So, what’s a person to do?

First off, you need to figure out what you need, I mean REALLY NEED.  Take a good, hard look at where you are now, and where you want to be.  Figure out if you need more skill work, or more endurance work, more strength, or more flexibility.  To some degree, you will be able to work all areas, but you need to pick one or two to concentrate on.

Now you know what you need to work on, how are you going to do it? 

Take stock of the time, space and equipment you have, or can get.  Now you can start figuring out how to design your program.

Just a note here, don’t get too locked in to one type of training.  Some insist on kettlebells, others on bodyweight, still others on Olympic lifting.  Any of these methods can give you great results, but you’ll get even better results by combining or rotating them in your program. 

Also, don’t forget the fun factor.  It’s important that you are doing something you enjoy (that’s why we train in martial arts after all), so pick something that is fun and vary your methods periodically.  This will keep you from getting too burned out, physically or mentally.

Another important thing to keep in mind is this is SUPPLEMENTAL training.  Don’t let your fitness training detract from your martial art.  Your fitness training is intended to ENHANCE your martial arts training.

If at all possible, find a training partner.  This shouldn’t be too tough since you probably have lots of people in your classes to choose from.  Generally speaking, if you have a partner, you will get better results.  You will be accountable to another person and have somebody else there to push you harder.  If you don’t have a training partner, don’t sweat it, just be sure to push yourself that much harder.

That’s all for now.

Train hard.

-Chris