Should it be a workout?

[sanjuro_ronin]

Should ( not CAN) MA training be a workout?

Now, on the surface it seems like a no brainer, but MA is abour minimal effort with maximum efficiency.
That means that we should be doing a task ( throwing for example) with as minimal effort as possible.
As such, should it be a workout? should we be huffing and puffing and covered in sweat?
A friend of mine is a high ranking Judoka, former olympian and he told me that he gets very little workout from judo training and as such he supplements with cardio and ST.
When I asked why he doesn't just put more into judo he replied that the whole point is to do MORE WITH LESS, so to put for the least amount of effort possible to accomplish the task.
Certainly one must get to a high level of experience for this.
Notice how high level fighters put so "little effort" into what they do, their relaxed show of force and power?
Now, certainly coming into a fight things change and intensity gets uped but that is just for the weeks leading into a match.
I recall doing randori with some high level judokas and BJJ and no matter who they played with, they were so relaxed, never breathing hard, barely sweating, putting truly minimal effort into their work.


Thoughts?

[Iron_Eagle_76]

For me the intesity of the workout is as important as the technique itself. If I throw a jab ten times on the bag, I don't feel satisfied. If I throw 200 jabs on the bag, drenched with exhaustion after a three minute round, than I feel like I did something. I personally feel good repetition is the most important training tool.

[Pork Chop]

actually i've been thinking about this a lot

was watching fedor do some bag work on one of those pre-fight docus
i was amazed that he wasn't grinding away on the bag, he was picking his shots very carefully and going for picture perfect single shots at 100%

then a few weeks later i saw a high-ranked pro boxer do something similar
at the time, I kept wondering to myself "why does his bagwork look like cr@p!?"
but looking back he was perfecting his execution, not just throwing to tire himself out.

had a boxing coach tell me once "if you throw every shot hard, none of them will be".
thought he was trying to get me to calm down, coz at the time i was big on machine gunning combos ramon dekkers style.

starting to wonder if there's something to that.

if you're not relaxed throwing punches, the power doesn't come out & you get tired much quicker.

one of the arguments i heard for long distance slow (lds) cardio as opposed to high intensity intervals (hiit) is that lds is better at teaching your body how to still get the job done without expending too much energy and how to rest while still moving (active recovery).

as far as case study to disprove the opposite; the mma gym i was at, all the bagwork in the boxing class was strictly burn outs. Nobody in that entire program developed proper punching form if they didn't already have it.

i guess you want your body to be able to perform when it's still fatigued, but you don't want your fighting style to get you there any sooner than necessary.

[Hebrew Hammer]

Should ( not CAN) MA training be a workout?

Now, on the surface it seems like a no brainer, but MA is abour minimal effort with maximum efficiency.

Thoughts?

Who said that? Doesn't Kung Fu mean hard work? Physical fitness and stamina are probably two of the most critical elements, in my opinion, of increasing your chances of surviving or winning any fight. It is pure fantasy to think minimal effort WILL provide Maximum Efficiency...or I'd never get off the couch! LOL.

[David Jamieson]

the workout is part of cultivation of strength and endurance which are components held to be more important than mere technique.

without the proper foundation, all the technique in the world is rendered moot.

so, when you are building your kungfu, you bet you should be building your strength and endurance.

the whole complete package of kungfu training is not always going to cause you to sweat profusely and have sore muscles. Heck, there's the meditation component which really shouldn't induce that at all!

but... no work = no kungfu ergo YES training should incorporate the workout.

[sanjuro_ronin]

I think that Pork Chop understood what I was trying to get at.
Its not about NOT doing "hard work" and slacking off, far from it.
It takes serious work and dedication to get your MA to the level of "effortless perfection".
Which should be the goal of ever MA.
But if all you ever try to do is power or speed your way through someone you will only be that good.

The human body has limits and those limits are reached rather quickly when we train consistently, so what happens when we reach those limits of speed, endurance and power?

You wanna deliver strikes with full speed and full force, that is the point and no matter in what shape you are, just like running the 100, you will burnout faster the faster and more power you put into it, but the point is, you don't see 100 meter runners doing that EVERY time they run, they do it relaxed and again with minimal effort as they can.

The human body always tries to find the way to do something with the less effort possible, there is a reason for that.

Its about doing JUST ENOUGH as opposed to "overkilling".

Fedor is a great example of this.

[Iron_Eagle_76]

Fedor is a great example of this.

I think Fedor is a great example of anything as it relates to martial arts. The guy is truly a world class athelete, humble, and deserving of the title the "Last Emperor".

[Lucas]

i think it depends on your experience. at a certain point, you want to 'get to the point' in your training sessions, leaving a lot of the repetative and conditioning work for solo or non-class time, provided your technique is already good. recieving instruction and being coached i see as different situations as well, of course they overlap many times. if im being coached i want you to yell at me till i puke, drill me till i die. if im recieving instruction i am wanting to learn technique and application, which depending on the material, may also be a rigorous work out, or it may not.

[Oso]

it's easy when you are better than your opponent.
it's not so easy when you are not better than your opponent.
you have to learn what it's like to be in both positions.
so, yes.
and, no.
variably, as applicable.

[uki]

this past week i have been going out before the sun comes up... i do an average of 45-60 minutes of continuous form work in the windy, sub-freezing tempatures with no gloves... i do not sweat, the cold forces me to move with purpose and intention - pure aggression fuels my movement which in turn keeps me warm... this of course is complimented some iron ball juggling, which in turn sets me up for a day of chainsawing down trees, hauling logs, hand splitting the wood, and wheeling it into the basement...

as in all things: the more you do something, the less strenuous it becomes.

[Pork Chop]

... It wasn’t until recently I thought about it and agree with him you should be spent after 1 time through a form. Sorry for the long winded flash back but yes I think your training is a work out no matter form, pad work, other drills and the list goes on.

Not to pick on you, but this is I think where I'm starting to disagree.

It's rather easy to go ballz out in a fight and burn yourself out in 30 seconds, no matter your conditioning. You even see this in world class, professional athletes. Hitting that wall is almost guaranteed if you spend all of your training time with the purpose of reaching that state of exhaustion as quickly as possible.

Like I said, you want to push your limits so you can fight on through exhaustion, but I don't think you want to get there any more quickly than you have to. Teaching your body to do the most with the least amount of energy expended should be the ideal, imho. That's why Bernard Hopkins is still dangerous in the 12th round and would still be dangerous if fights were 15 rounds - no unneeded expenditure of energy.

That doesn't mean you shouldn't do stuff like cross fit or hiit occasionally, outside of your technique training time to improve your stamina and lung capacity - these things are still necessary.

[Mr Punch]

I think Pork is picking his shots and owning the rightness here.

Physical fitness and stamina are probably two of the most critical elements, in my opinion, of increasing your chances of surviving or winning any fight.

Depends on your definition of fitness and stamina, but I would say this is wrong, unless you're fighting rounds (and in which case your fitness is going to govern your recovery more than your outright stamina) or planning on running away a lot (reasonable tactic, won't work in many cases). The are any number of physical aspects that might save your bacon, but speed and strength are going to be bigger than 'stamina' IMO.

It is pure fantasy to think minimal effort WILL provide Maximum Efficiency...or I'd never get off the couch! LOL.

As Sanjuro and Pork said, you've got to WORK at the minimal effort!

[Frost]

endurance and strength are two conerstones of fighting, the question we could ask is should we get this from our MA training, or should we suppliment ourr MA training with S and C work?

At a high level (like the judo guys Sanjo ronin talked about) they can no longer get the stimultion necessary to make changes from their sport training alone so they need to supliment their training.

at a lower level just working out in the MA class will be enough for strength and conditioning if the class pace is high enough. Now anther question all together is should the MA training be about fatuging us and making us vomit, or about teaching us technique, we need to be fresh and alert to learn new skills but we need to be pushed in oder to be able to perform those skills under stressful conditions.

so i think it should be a work out at the right time, but not all the time, what it should be is an enviroment that is optimal for learning and adsorbing new skills, then when necessary stressful enough to make sure those skills can be used in a fight.

[Dragonzbane76]

Now anther question all together is should the MA training be about fatuging us and making us vomit, or about teaching us technique, we need to be fresh and alert to learn new skills but we need to be pushed in oder to be able to perform those skills under stressful conditions.

I think you need both. You need training to make you push the body to the limits and you need training for learning the tech. and advancing the overall picture. apparently if you are puking your not learning as much just conditioning the body to reach further. And if your doing the techniques and breathing and huffing and such then apparently your not in good enough condition to do them so you need more conditioning. So they live off each other IMO.

[uki]

i find after having some beer, that the intensity of my practice becomes well... more intense.