Olympics are practically in the bag!

[Greenthink]

I have just heard that our Olympic Judo team trains an astonishing 2 whole hours a night five days a week.And that they are even encouraged to come in and lift weights in the morning. And on top of that they can even come in on Saturday morning and work out!

How long can they expect to keep up this grueling pace? They are practically guaranteed Gold Medals as no other Judo teams can be expected to work out a whole two hours a day. This must be the secret tactics to keep us from being humiliated once again by not even placing in the medal catagories!

[IPON]

HA-HA great sarcasm Kevin. Normal Judo clasesses are 2 hours....no wonder the US is having problems. I thought they had to train5-6 hours a day.

[Greenthink]

Yeah I just got a call yesterday from Colorado Springs and the training center was closed! My old judo coach was going to stop in but they were closed down for the day. Imagine the Olympics are maybe six months away ! They should be training twice a day three hours in the morning and three hours in the evening. They should be studying tapes of their opponents. And have a trainer breathing down their necks during every waking hour. If they aren't lifting ,stretching ,sleeping or eating they should be practicing. I wonder who the coaches are? I heard they have four differant coaches so lots of chiefs and not enough indians.

[judoguy6]

Are You Kidding?

I have just heard that our Olympic Judo team trains an astonishing 2 whole hours a night five days a week.And that they are even encouraged to come in and lift weights in the morning. And on top of that they can even come in on Saturday morning and work out!

How long can they expect to keep up this grueling pace? They are practically guaranteed Gold Medals as no other Judo teams can be expected to work out a whole two hours a day. This must be the secret tactics to keep us from being humiliated once again by not even placing in the medal catagories!

You must be kidding! Are you saying that training 2 hours for an Olympic team is a lot? If they're not doing AT LEAST 2 hours a day, they can't hope to have any chance of finishing with medals.

Here's a routine:

Race on a bicycle 5 miles to the dojo
Run 2 miles to the gym
Do a 2 hour weight workout including cleans, bench, squats & deadlifts
Run 2 miles back to the gym
Ride 5 miles back home

That's the morning.

In the afternoon, go back to the dojo for a 2-1/2 hour judo workout.

Do that 6 days a week.


Here's another one:

Get up at 5:30 am for a workout in the park doing stairs (with your partner on your back), pullups, sprints, pushups, etc.
At 7 am, head back home for breakfast.
At 10 am, go for a 3-hour judo workout with world champs.
At 6 pm, have another technique session for 2 hours.

All of this in 100 degree weather. Total water loss for the day, 20 lbs of sweat.

Do that 6 days a week for 3 months.


Got lots more but I think you get the idea.

If you want to win medals in the Olympics, you better be ready to pour it on.

There's a fine line between being really committed and determined and being just a little bit crazy!

[Toudiyama[NL]]

Which amateur can train 5-6 hours a day?, most can't because they still have to earn a living
There is no money to be made out of a title either, ou do not see much judo champs endorsing something, they do not get the big contracts with Pepsico or Coke

Now if these guys would get grant( spelling don't mean $1000) to live on then maybe they could,
In my country, the sportfederation gives small grants, slightly more than minimum wage, and the use of a leasecar for the people who qualify
Otherwise it's just how nice your boss is if you can spend more time on training ( one of our topjudoka of the club had such a nice boss, paid him in full for working 50-75 % of the time)

Does the US judo assoc give grants to people who qualify or do they have to make it on their own?

Also I think most guys make more training hours in their own dojo and the centralized training is extra

[IPON]

Toudiyama[N] My understanding was that people try to get sponsorship so they can train, maybe take a sabatical from their jobs.

[Toudiyama[NL]]

who will be sponsoring a judoka?
Even the assocs themself have problems getting a good sponsor
It's easier for a runner or something like it to get a sponsor than a judoka or a TKDka
How much airtime do you expect for Judo as compared to the runningdisciplines? because this determines if you get a sponsor and how much money they will give

It all comes back to money
I think the Nat Judo team would gladly train much more if they could afford to do so


If I take another olympic sport, soccer, then you can see that there is a huge differenc between soccer that is on the telly the rest of the time and between the Olympics, different players all together, different level all together

I would say try to help your national team by finding sponsors for them

[IPON]

I agree, except if they are all in Colarado training they must have some sponsorship. Usually, sponsorship is from major companies. I don't know how it is obtained. Ultamitely, you are right you get what you pay for.

But if 2 hours is a normal class should not training be at least 4 hours + 8 hour work day=12 hours.

[Toudiyama[NL]]

normal training here is 1 hour but that's beside the point
Shure they need to put a lot of time in it, but appart from China, N-Korea and France most judoka are in the same position anyway

France has a special system for sport which is probably the best system in the world for amateur sports
A lot of money is put into it by the government
Trainers of juvenile groups are actually government employed

In my country not a lot is done for topsport, so they all have to do it themself
It's freaking amazing that this small country dispite that still manages to do well in certain sports

[IPON]

Most of the japanese styles (at least the "old school" ) especially judo and Jujitsu I see as 2hr. at least in NY I can't speak for all of the USA. Definately not arguing I just noticed this more traditional dojos

Question: Do you see the training in the other countries as similar 2-3 hrs a day. Becuase if that is the case then the US can't blame the training for the losses, just curious.

[Toudiyama[NL]]

can only speak for dojo in my country, and 1 hour is what you will find at most gyms but then this is done 5X a week and in the weekends they tend to do extra training
Weightlifting and stuff like that is up to themself

Central training isn't daily but will be 2 Hours or more
Strange that in such a small country they can't have a daily central training

don't know how much people generaly train in other coutries though

[judoguy6]

'Amateur' Training

It's true that finding time to train when you don't have enough money is extremely difficult.

I trained for a number of World championships, many international competitions, Pan American Games and Olympic Games. I went to the 1976 Montreal Olympics but I was replaced by politics at the last minute for the 1972 Munich Olympics. I won a Gold medal at the 1975 Mexico Pan American Games.

From 1970 to 1976, I basically trained full-time except for finishing my university degree for two of those years. I had no sponsorships and the most money I ever got was $20 a month from my parents when I trained in Japan for two years and then about $350 a month from the Canadian gov't for the last year-and-a-half before the 1976 Games.

In Japan, I trained twice every day, 5 hours a day, 6 days a week leading up to the 1972 Olympics. There was no National Team training at the time and we were basicaly on our own. When I was going to school, I trained about the same amount of time fitting in workouts before, during and after school time. Again, mostly on my own. I was lucky to be living at home which cut down on expenses.

Heading towards the 1976 Olympics, Canada started centralized training in Montreal (Do you think the fact that Canada was hosting the Olympics had something to do with it?). A core group of about 5-6 guys from across the country moved there to train for the next 2-1/2 years. All in one aprtment with no furniture. Sometimes teams from other countries would visit. At one point, there were 15 judoka in our apartment. We slept on the floors, on old mattresses, wherever we were comfortable. Sometimes we had so little money that we survived on peanut butter and jam sandwiches. Spaghetti was a staple. One day we were so tired of it that we threw against the wall. It didn't stick.

We tried working at part-time jobs but it was too much of an effort. We were training about 25 hours a week regularly and sometimes, it was up to 35 hours! Every day, we went out 100%. If we were injured (or pretended to be injured to get a break). we had to do pushups and situps for 2 hours!

To unwind in the last couple of weeks before the Montreal Olympics, we went up into the mountains, trained in a room above a disco (!) with tatami that moved and with disco music that blared until 2 am! For good measure, the coach made us run UP the ski hills! Luckily, it was summer and there was no snow!

And guess what? We were so physically and mentally exhausted by the time the Olympics rolled around, personally I was glad that I broke my arm just to end it all!

The National Team still trains under the same coach (Nakamura) and has produced such champions as Nicolas Gill. He was a product of all us guys who came before him.

We did all this with very little money but with tons of determination and lots of goals and dreams.

Rainer

Which amateur can train 5-6 hours a day?, most can't because they still have to earn a living
There is no money to be made out of a title either, ou do not see much judo champs endorsing something, they do not get the big contracts with Pepsico or Coke

Now if these guys would get grant( spelling don't mean $1000) to live on then maybe they could,
In my country, the sportfederation gives small grants, slightly more than minimum wage, and the use of a leasecar for the people who qualify
Otherwise it's just how nice your boss is if you can spend more time on training ( one of our topjudoka of the club had such a nice boss, paid him in full for working 50-75 % of the time)

Does the US judo assoc give grants to people who qualify or do they have to make it on their own?

Also I think most guys make more training hours in their own dojo and the centralized training is extra

[Greenthink]

Is it true that Canada has never produced a World Champion?

[judoguy6]

It's true

Amazingly, it's true. We came close with Doug Rogers in the 1964 Tokyo Olympics when he lost a decision to Inokuma of Japan. Nicolas Gill has been very close in the past few years.

In our time within our group in the 70's, we had excellent chances but we were too overtrained most of the time and didn't have enough international experience against the Europeans.

We have had other really great judoka in the 50's and 60's such as Fred Matt and Mike Johnson but again, they didn't compete in enough tournaments. Both of these past fighters had VERY powerful techniques and natural talent which they demonstrated in the few international tournaments that they entered. If they had had the training of today, I am quite sure they could've been world champs.

[Toudiyama[NL]]

'64 was the first Olympics were a non japanese won , Anton Geesink
BEfore that time nobody won from the japanese, even in the years following it was only a few who managed to become a WC or and OC
Then the russians started to put a lot of time in it and they took most of the medals

The commies only did Olympic sports and made it possible for the athletes to do it full time, they didn't have to search for a sponsor and got the best possible coaching in their countries

Kev Most countries haven't produced worldchampions at all, in Holland we occasionally have a champ, like lady's judo Olympic champ Inge de Bruin
But some of these guys might become WC one year and get iliminated in the first round next year

Let's take another sport, soccer, do you expect the US to win the world cup the comming years? I don't

! in every 35 people in my country is doing judo, a lot more have done it when they were younger, I don't think the ratio in the US is anywhere close to 1:35, how many people are member of the US judo assoc.?

Best thing to do would be training with the current Olympic or World Champion and guys of that level
If the best person of the team would rank number 100 then beating him would place you at that level, so they need better trainingspartners
They need Judoguy6 or even better