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Originally Posted by alert50 I’m trying to design an 8 week cycle with the intention of taking up a martial art..So I need to focus on strength, strength endurance, cardio and flexibiliy. |
As RAB points out above, you also want to work on power, it should be a focus area. Also as RAB points out, the fastest way to martial arts prowess is to "just do martial arts" ... I always try to talk people out of the philosophy of "I'm going to do work in the gym for X months so I can join a martial art", you'll be well ahead of the game if you just join the martial art now, no matter how out of shape you feel. That said, I'm going to assume you have good reasons for putting it off -- you're not ready mentally, too busy at work, whatever.
I agree with a lot of the substance of what RAB says, but disagree strongly on one central point -- a beginner, which is what you are, should absolutely not be periodizing. Beginners progress most rapidly developing all attributes at once, IMO, provided they are at least far enough along to have a basic working proficiency (which someone who can backsquat their weight has).
I would have a few philosophy changes in what you're doing, alert:
- "Everything works for 6 weeks, nothing works for 12" is a saying in S&C work. That is, if you keep doing the same thing over and over, you'll eventually start plateau'ing. As your progress slows on a particular exercise, cycle it out and cycle a replacement in. Don't get to enamored of building "perfect routine" -- a perfect routine changes. It sounds like you have backup exercises ready so you probably know this already.
- In martial arts, whenever your strength endurance is being stressed, usually so is your cardio. Good for your workout to simulate these conditions, rather than to isolate strength endurance work from cardio work. Routines like Ross's Magic 50 (5 rounds of: 5 dumbell snatches each arm, 5 dumbell swings each arm, 10 burpees, rest 1 minute between rounds) will get your muscles wailing while your heart is trying to thump out of your chest and your lungs are screaming for air. Sprints, hill sprints, and the like have their place too. My main advice here is: strength endurance goes well with cardio, just like the two are stressed together in martial arts. Many of your routines should stress these together.
- You should be working on both max strength and power. You can structure this by doing some power work up-front before your strength work, or by having separate days (max strength one workout, power the next), or by doing them together using a static-dynamic complex. Whatever you choose, you'll find power work will pay you back in spades, assuming you've already built a reasonable base of strength (and it sounds like you have).
By far the best book I've ever read on designing a strength and conditioning program for a combat athlete is Ross's Infinite Intensity. If you don't want to spend money right now, check his free articles for some fantastic information (make sure you check the Sample Workouts section):
RossTraining - Articles. Infinite Intensity is available there, and has sample strength, power, and various styles of cardio routines, all built into a sample 50-day program. The 50-day program is a very illuminating example of how a world-class trainer puts routines together, I think it would help.