aku aku

First I’d like to point out that you can’t just write down a workout and
tell someone “this is the best workout for you”. It might be just what you
need or you might have to make some adjustments based on your experience, recovery ability, goals, personal preferences, available resources, current conditioning level, etc. Anyone who tells you otherwise isn’t telling the whole truth so consider the following more of a starting point. Pavel Tsatsouline once wrote that “The human body is adaptable and while your workout needs to be good it doesn’t have to be perfect.” Don’t worry too much about finding the perfect workout. Define what your goals are, design a workout, and make adjustments as you learn more and get more experience. After about 6 weeks your body gets used to what you are doing and stops adapting so you have to change things anyway. That being said, here are some ideas for you to consider.

From what you’ve written, it looks like you need to focus on building
strength and anaerobic endurance. Since it's unproductive to work on more
than a couple of goals at a time we will focus on these. I like circuit training
because you can use shorter rest periods, which saves time and gives you
some anaerobic conditioning. Try the following 3 days/week.

Pull-ups (weighted if necessary)
Dips (weighted if necessary)
Deadlift
1 hand rows, right then left
Side press, right then left
Squats.

Go right down the list 5 times doing 5 reps of each and rest as short as
possible. It’s a tiring workout so I would be careful about the low back
during the deadlifts, make sure your form stays perfect. If it’s a problem,
you can substitute sumo deadlifts, which are easier on the back, or you can do 1-leg deads or maybe 1-arm deads. Feel free to change the exercises or the order of the exercises. I chose 1 arm rows because it puts less stress on the low back, which is already getting a lot of work from the squats and deadlifts. When you’re done with that you can do some abs, stretching, light shadow boxing, whatever you have time and energy for that you feel needs work. If you feel like you are overtraining, take a day off or reduce the volume until you feel better. If you want to focus more on strength, you can increase the rest periods, increase the weight and maybe even drop down to 3 reps. There are some great ab drills described here:

http://www.t-nation.com/findArticle....icle=body_96ab
Note: When I tried the link, it didn’t work. I tried again later and it worked then. So if it doesn’t work the first time, try it again later.

On alternate days do some heavy bag work. Warm up with some jump rope,
shadow boxing, footwork drills, technique practice, etc. Set a timer for 3
minute rounds and, depending on your conditioning level, do 5-10 rounds on
the heavy bag. At the end of each round you can do some burnouts (for lack
of a better term). When the timer beeps, start round kicking the bag, 5
reps per leg and switch legs without stopping. Start with about 4 sets, 2
sets per leg. If you can do 20 reps in about 10 seconds you're doing pretty
good, try to work up to 8 sets. You can also do different punching combinations in a similar format. Cross, hook, cross, hook, etc. Maybe do 20 seconds of straight blast. Rest for 1 minute before starting the next round. If you want, you can do 1 or 2 minute rounds so you can work harder during the shorter time period.

Another option is to do an abbreviated strength program:

Deadlift, side press
or
Squat, bench press

Do 2 sets of 5, 5 days/week. You can do one set in the morning and one set in the evening. Add 5 pounds/workout until you reach your 5-rep max. Drop the reps down to 3 and add 5 pounds per workout until you reach your 3-rep max, the next day you can test your 1 rep max if you want. Take a day off
and start again with an easy weight. You should have at least 8 workouts per cycle, you can add weight every 2 or 3 workouts if you need to. Do a few easy sets of pull-ups during the day. Maybe 1 set before work, 1 set after work and 1 set later in the evening. If you start getting tired or sore back off a bit until you feel better.

This workout will increase strength, takes almost no time and leaves more time and energy for martial arts specific training. You might do a workout like this if you were competing and you didn’t want to move up a weight class, it won't increase your muscle size because there's not enough volume. For endurance you can work the heavy bag as described above 3-4 days/week and alternate with sprints or something like the Tabata protocol described here:

http://www.cbass.com/FATBURN.HTM

Running and bicycling are commonly used with this but you can use any activity that seems appropriate. I don't think it's critical to follow the numbers exactly, I think as long as you stick with the idea of hard, short work periods and short rest periods you should be fine. It's pretty intense so take some time to ease into it.

If you are doing some grappling and want to increase your strength/endurance you can start with a workout similar to the one I posted earlier

Workout 1: Squats, military press, towel pull-ups – hang a tower over the pull-up bar to hold on to, it’s good for the grip

Workout 2: Deadlifts, bench press, barbell rows

Alternate workouts on a Mon, Wed, Fri schedule. Again, feel free to change the exercises. Do 5 sets of 5 reps with a 3-5 minute rest between sets, you can do one exercise and then the next or do it in a circuit. This is a little shorter than the last one and leaves some energy for some high rep calisthenics like different kinds of pushups, sit-ups, body weight squats, running stairs, etc. This is a good time to practice rolls and breakfalls and different movement drills.

Another option is to alternate strength and endurance workouts on a Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule. The strength workout can be like one of the above and the endurance workout can be something like:

Superset 1:
Dumbbell snatches – left hand
Dumbbell snatches – right hand

Superset 2:
Pull-ups
Dive bomber pushups

Superset 3:
Regular pushups
Body weight squats

Superset 4:
Sit-ups
Lunges

In each superset do a set of the first exercise to rep max and then do the second exercise to rep max for 3-5 sets. Finish the first superset before moving to the next. When I say “rep max” that means repetition maximum which is how many reps you can do in good form, it isn’t muscle failure.

There’s nothing special about the exercises I listed except that they should work most of the muscles in your body. Feel free to substitute with your favorites or what you feel you need to work on.

There is some great information and some body weight workouts here:

http://www.trainforstrength.com/

There are other people who know a lot more about this than I do so I would also recommend looking up the following authors, there are others but these are the ones I’m most familiar with:

Pavel Tsatsouline
Mike Mahler
Steve Maxwell
Steve Cotter
Charles Staley
Fred Hatfield
Scott Sonnon
Bud Jeffries
Jeff Martone
Nate Morrison

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