Which Road is Best? Please Discuss...

[mickey]

Greetings:

Is it best to have a foundation in strength training before studying a style, where you refine that strength?

or

Is it best to study the style and then further develop one's abilities with strength training?

or

Do both concurrently?

or

Allow strength and skill to evolve naturally with consistent practice?


mickey

[sanjuro_ronin]

There is general strength training and specific strength training.

General strength training should be done apart from MA training while specific strength training ( example would be specialized grip work for tiger style kung fu) should be done while doing the style.

Ideally you would like to be strong and healthy enough BEFORE BUT that isn't a must.

There is much to be said about developing strength training in conjunction with MA training.

Of course this isn't an either/or thing so it ends up being what is best for the individual, just like it was done traditionally.

[mickey]

Greetings,

I have found that people who have a foundation in strength training tended to fare better when going into martial disciplines. They are not wiped out by the exercise component of the style and their strength tends to help them fare better when sparring: they are ready to give and take.

mickey

[Jimbo]

It can also depend on what age you start. I was first exposed to MA training as a young kid, and few young kids, even ones who are serious about MA, will have an extensive strength training background. When we did strengthening exercises in class, I thought they were just something to suffer through before or after the 'good stuff' like bag work and sparring. I got really serious about strength training at 15 when I got the wind completely knocked out of me by a kick during a sparring match. Then I became obsessed with it, especially core strengthening, for many years.

Even back when I was into pumping iron regularly, though, I became stronger and more solid and defined, but never developed the 'fitness magazine' look. Probably don't have the genetics for it. The rest were body weight exercises. Yes, strength training makes a big difference, but you also need aerobic and anaerobic conditioning to go with it. I've seen some muscle guys gas out pretty quickly during sparring if they lack stamina.

Ideally, though, I think that SR summed it up just right.

[mickey]

Greetings,

Thank you for your responses. Though sanjuro ronin answered the correct, I was looking for biases and justifications for them.

My own approach to fitness was through skipping rope, stretching and body weight exercise. Weight training was very light and was done to increase speed. I did not know much about strength training because I went to the wrong people for advice: pencil necks. I got the "weight training is bad for the heart" and the "untrained muscle turns to fat" indoctrinations. Yet, when one of my sisters would whip herself into incredible shape with a 25 pound dumbbell, still, I did not know how she did it: that is pencil neck brainwashing for you. I found myself perpetually overtrained and sore. I am very lucky to be alive. With the knowledge that I have today. I would have seriously developed my strength with weight training.

While I did enjoy skipping rope, it never gave me the carry over that I read about: 10 minutes jumping rope equals 30 minutes of jogging.

mickey

[Frost]

I'm sure the while 10min skipping equates to 30mins jogging rubbish came about via a quote from Bruce lee, it has no scientific validity. The heart and the lungs are dumb muscles they don't care how you train them they respond to the stimulus the training places on them, that can ne jogging, sprints, be circuits, skipping etc doesn't matter its heart rate reached and time under load that's important not the exercise,

As for strength first id say in the old days people who took up martial arts would be fit and strong from a lifetime of manual labour, these days most aren't so it pays to build a base either before or at the start of your training

[Jimbo]

I also never understood the "10 minutes of skipping rope is equal to 30 minutes of jogging." I used to skip rope for up to 20 minutes or more, and by itself it never equalled alternating days of distance and hill running with days emphasizing wind sprints. Doing both running and skipping was better, but it's still different from 'fighting endurance'.

I was probably lucky, because my Kenpo teacher in the 70s emphasized a lot on strength training and conditioning. His background also included wrestling and boxing, so that certainly was a factor.

Edit to add:
Frost is correct in that in the past, most MAists were already strong from daily labor. My dad grew up on a farm, and when he took up Judo in his youth, he already had that freaky farmer's strength. He did blue-collar labor all his life. He never touched a weight set, but had muscles almost the rest of his life, until his health problems later. He was one of those whose life of labor would have made weight training unnecessary for him.