WCK strength, conditioning and nutrition

[chusauli]

Hi!

What methods do you employ for strength and conditioning and nutrition? Most people use the forms, drills, Jong, weapons for overall health and they're fine for overall fitness. But what other drills do you do for yourself to improve your performance, shape and health? Also, dim sum is a great treat, and having late night dinners might be the norm after a work out - but may not the best of health for you... perhaps you are gaining unwanted pounds and need to move into a functional, wiry, athletic state. Perhaps your blood pressure, blood sugar and cholesterol are up...maybe you're battling diabetes, or have cancer in your family, or even have injuries...

As a licensed practitioner, I do specialize in giving patients health advice, and I would like to see WCK people benefit to be optimal athletes.

For example, I suggest patients take a minimum 10,000 steps a day, do 10 pushups, squats and crunches for every hour they're awake, and may put them on a detox diet with suppplements to overall help their health. Also avoid sugars and junk food snacks, and the pounds start shedding.

For my athletes, we do KB lifts, boot camp training, and all sorts of exercises to supplement WCK - but of course, WCK needs no supplement - the pole and knives can be good weight training in themselves, and Chi Sao can be good dynamic weight training...

We are more apt to run into health issues than ever use WCK for fighting - but if we use WCK as a vehicle to help people stay healthy and fight disease, we all win. I'd like to hear from you! We can have this as a great discussion for all WCK people, no lineage issues here.

best regards,

[Gurokevin]

This is what I use for nutrition. I am 5'7" and 180lbs. But only 5% body fat, thanks to this system.

http://precisionnutrition.com/cmd.php?pageid=471927

[k gledhill]

i eat pasta and hit the heavy bag

[Ultimatewingchun]

Good first post, Robert.

I too endorse lots of walking on a daily basis, pushups, situps, proper diet, etc.

But I want to add a few significant things to the list.

1) Stretching

2) Trampoline

3) Proper amounts of sleep.

Stretching (and certain yoga postures are a must in my book) is very important toward one's overall health and prevention of injuries - as the spine, back, leg muscles, neck, joints and blood/oxygen flow need lots of free mobility in order for the body to stay healthy.

Trampoline cardio workouts (I like to do it to music) are excellent for building cardio-vascular endurance. And the trampoline is one of the least stressful forms of cardio workout for one's knees.

Can't say enough about getting at least 6.5 -7 hours of sleep each night. As the body needs this rest to reinvigorate itself and lack of sleep weakens the immune system - making one more prone to illness.

[chusauli]

Kevin,

Pasta might be fine for you, but for people with diabetes, not exactly the best thing to do. Also carbs like pasta, rice, bread, tortillas, potatoes can be detrimental to one's health if done to excess.

What do you do on the heavy bag? i.e. how long, what routine? You train by time, rounds, etc? How heavy is the bag?

Best regards,

[chusauli]

Victor,

Many thanks for your input!

What yoga postures do you consider a must? Do you hold them for six breaths or more? What is the mind set when you do these?

Trampoline is great - how long do you do it for and at what pace? I agree it is great for the knees as a low impact exercise. Do you do rounds or time? Or do you for sets with reps?

I personally walk 5 miles a day as a goal and often do more. I suggest everyone get a pedometer, especially if they have a desk job...

Sleep is very important - the body has to shut down for repairs. Immunity is impaired and overloaded with a lack of sleep. 8 hours is great!

Another great way to rest is taking a nap or meditating, yoga, or Qigong. They are all geat for allowing the body reset. Biofeedback is also a good means as is guided meditation/hypotherapy.

Exercise is one of the best ways to get rid of toxins in the body, as is sauna, massage, stretching, hot tub, steam room, or anything that induces sweat. Of course herbs and foods also induce sweating. Its very important as people are exposed to toxins in the environemt and through foods. I always advocate eating organic.

Very enjoyable chatting so far!

Many thanks for everyone's input!

[Lugoman]

I hate to sound like one of those "advocates" for the latest fitness fads, but I've been hitting the kettlbells 4 times a week and I'm feeling great.

After a set of 30-40 single arm swings I can literally feel my heart beating against my sternum. I think it's improving my stance strength as well and the springiness of my arms and it really seems to drive home the concept of the body moving as a unit because you won't be very successful swing a 35-45 lbs iron ball around with mere arm strength.

I also skip rope for 10 mins a day and I'm thinking about continuing running, but since we have snow and ice on the ground now I am always leery of slipping and tearing something.

As for nutrition, I feel that the Abs diet is about the best balanced eating plan I've found, for me anyone. There I go, sounding like a sales pitch for another fad.

[chusauli]

Lugoman,

Having trained under Mark Cheng, RKC (who trains directly under Pavel) and Valery Fedorenko in KettleBells, I am an advocate as well. They are great! Snatches, Clean and press, Long Cycle, Turkish getups, 1/4 getups, and swings are indispensible to the WCK practitioner, that's why Alan Orr, Dave McKinnon, and many of my other students and grandstudents have been using this training method. They are just great for endurance, strength and core muscle, in addition to being a skill that emphasizes full body movement. But one can't just pick them up and do them - they have to be trained in good form, preferably with a coach, lest the KB's prove to be deadly and injurious to the practitioner. I also highly suggest using EDT training methods.

BTW, Mark Cheng's Four Play and Trifecta are on Youtube and certainly great exercises. They are great circuit training methods.

Jump rope is also great for cardio and mixing it with pushups and crunches, and you have one of the best training methods out there.

As for the ABs Diet, I think it is a great starting area, but my only caution is too many cold shakes are bad for some people. The glycemic food index is invaluable. The exercises are great. The book is worthwhile to any athlete who has lost his 6 pack. Pick 3 to 6 exercises from this book and it will firm up the flab around the gut.

WCK due to the economical nature does not always advocate working hard in a physical sense, and it is good that other training is sought when the body fails to be challenged.

Mark Cheng once said to me, "The era of the fat martial arts teacher is over." I think it is good advice for all of us.

Great post!

[k gledhill]

Kevin,

Pasta might be fine for you, but for people with diabetes, not exactly the best thing to do. Also carbs like pasta, rice, bread, tortillas, potatoes can be detrimental to one's health if done to excess.

What do you do on the heavy bag? i.e. how long, what routine? You train by time, rounds, etc? How heavy is the bag?

Best regards,

pasta is joking

[Ultimatewingchun]

"What yoga postures do you consider a must? Do you hold them for six breaths or more? What is the mind set when you do these?" (Robert)


***I HOLD for at least 8 seconds - sometimes more. I don't know all the particular names, but one of them is the cat stretch. There are about 6 yoga postures that I use all the time - mixed in with some other western style stretches.

My serious head-to-toe stetching workouts last about 20 minutes for a minimum of 3x per week. (Although a few particular stretches are done every day). And 3x times per week (after the first 20 minutes) I go on to include Hindu squats, Hindu pushups, situps, pull ups, chin ups, back/neck bridges, another body weight exercise aimed at the triceps called "the stretcher" (because you look as though you're on a hospital stretcher at a 45 degree angle when you do it) - exercises to strengthen the eye muscles...

chi kung circular breathing exercises (with a visualization of light traveling around my centerlines)...and some raja yoga concentration (pre-meditation) drills...and a few other things along these lines.

...............................................

"Trampoline is great - how long do you do it for and at what pace? I agree it is great for the knees as a low impact exercise. Do you do rounds or time? Or do you for sets with reps?" (Robert)

***I do it for time. 30 minutes non-stop each time, minimum 3x per week.

[Wu Wei Wu]

today, to warm up:

skipping
pushups
shadow boxing

then with weighted vest, circuits of the following:

single leg squats
skipping
bag (BOB) work (2 mins rounds of boxing with additional hand weights and 16oz gloves)
straight punching sets on BOB
shovel kick sets on BOB

workout took just over 70 mins. today was a 'rest' day.

[chusauli]

Wu Wei Wu - great idea for off WCK training days. Vests are great and used since olden days. Hitting the Bob is a lot of fun. You can do Tabata protocols for 20 sec activity and 10 seconds rest, then continue for 8 more "sets". Skipping rope is great and develops light footwork, CV endurance and coordination.

Victor, very interesting approach - you combine internal training and Qi gong into your work - balances things out. Do you do mostly holding stretches as opposed to bouncing type? Matt Furey's work on Combat Conditioning includes Hindu squats, Hindu pushups, situps, pull ups, chin ups, back/neck bridges - I think they are all great body exercises.

What do the rest of you do?

[KPM]

Every morning I spend about 20 minutes doing range of motion exercises for the entire body with emphasis on the spine. These are based upon Scott Sonnon's "Warrior Wellness" and "Intu-Flow" programs (www.rmaxinternational.com) As a MD and DC I can attest to the fact that these exercises go a long ways in preventing and treating chronic neck and back pain. I teach them to my patients.

While in Iraq I didn't have access to clubbells, and so adapted some of the clubbell motions to the dumbbells that I did have access to. The exercises are based on "circular strength" ideas rather than "linear strength" and so tend to be swinging motions rather than your typical weight-lifting motions. I have one of Pavel's Kettlebell programs on my Christmas wish list and look forward to learning the KB exercises.

Like Victor mentioned, I also make use of Hindu Squats and Hindu push ups. I don't mean to sound like a commercial for RMAX, but Scott Sonnon has developed many exercises that are similar to those two traditional Indian exercises. They are part of his "Prasara Yoga." I use many of these as well.

Since I didn't like to run where people could launch mortars at me and I get too bored on the stationary trainers in the gym, I have been spending 20 minute sessions working the heavy bag 3x/wk to try and maintain some cardio conditioning. By keeping the intensity up, I felt like this was equivalent to a going at a moderate pace on the treadmill or elliptical for the same length of time. Now that I'm home I will probably expand on my cardio conditioning.

[reneritchie]

I've been doing Muscle Balance and Function (MBF), as rehab after a continuing series of bad knee and neck injuries, but mostly to counteract 8+ hrs a day behind a desk threatening to devolve me back to proto-simian-like posture.

Once I'm healthy and have achieved some measure of proper human function again, I think I might look up those bell shaped kettles...

[Ultimatewingchun]

"Victor, very interesting approach - you combine internal training and Qi gong into your work - balances things out. Do you do mostly holding stretches as opposed to bouncing type? Matt Furey's work on Combat Conditioning includes Hindu squats, Hindu pushups, situps, pull ups, chin ups, back/neck bridges - I think they are all great body exercises." (Robert)


***Yes, we're on the same page. It's Matt Furey's COMBAT CONDITIONING book that first got me interested in the exercises we're talking about. And then I learned that he got the workout from old time catch wrestling great Karl Gotch (who recently passed away).

And I add just a little bit of bouncing on a few of the stretches - but mostly I'm just holding them.

And yes again, combining internal mental (raja yoga) and internal energy (chi kung) training with physical conditioning and martial training really boosts the whole process to a higher level. I'm convinced of that.