Newbie Training Question

[georgie]

i was just wondering if my routine sounded ok to you guys out there. im doing weights 3 to 4 days a weeks , practising my martial arts skills & cardio on the days im not lifting and stretching everyday for at least 15 to 20 min. is this too much or not enough? thnx for the input!!!!

[Ryo]

Looks good.

[CrossTrainer]

This can be very good or it can be a disaster, it's all different from person to person. If you recover fastly from work-out, good for you!! What's your weight training regimen like for instance? If it's all-out, heavy-duty training for strength gain, 4 days a week would be too much for most people, especially if you train intensively in cardio the days between. If it's more a strength-endurance workout or if you do a split program with moderate intensity, 3 to 4 days a week might just be the way to go!

A daily stretching regimen is great - make sure you work joint at mobility together with your stretches, regardless of whether you have joints problems or not. If you like lifting weights and gets good progress from it, you want to ensure that your joint health won't slow down your progress in the future. Spine decompression is also vital after heavy deadlifts and especially squats - but it's also boring, and hard to think of for most people - especially for those who are already fit and never had serious health problems in any way.

Make up your own system to see if you are improving or not - personally I responded well to training like you do for a while, but then I got overtrained. The first 6 weeks or so I made good gains however, but I was stubborn and sticked with the program after I got overtrained. What I should've done was to notice that my gains was slowing down and to keep track of my post work-out aching, cause it probably was up with 60% after a few weeks. When you locate that an over-training pattern is evolving, cut back on the weights and take a cardio day off, to slowly build up to the same regimen again. This worked pretty good for me in periods of intensive training.

Just my 2 cents.

[georgie]

thanx for the help guys. ive been liftin for 17 years consistently and my approach is always been less is better. i recover pretty quick between and always doing push/pull workouts. for instance ill do chest/biceps one day, shoulders/back another and finally legs/triceps. my routine works out to training each body part 3 times every 2 weeks. it works pretty good. i have one heavy day a month per body part and mostly doin high reps with heavy weight(doesnt sound right lol). i can do 225 for 25 on my bench and have always been strong as a kid as well. i have lots of strength but i dont want to lose too much of it. i have discovered martial arts and have a developed a keen interest in it. im not sure i want to compete in tournaments yet but i love to spar. studying wado kai karate for about 3 months now and like it however some of these self-defense moves most karate dojos use are very very outdated and i know they dont work. for example we did defending against a wrist grab. i dont know about you guys but ive never seen a man come up and grab another man violently by the wrist. it doent work that way in the street. itll be a punch, haymaker or kick youll see instead. anyway thanx again guys . appreciate it.

[Memnoch1207]

Personally, I think you are over doing it!
Here's my suggestion...

Take a couple (maybe 10) years off, sit around on the couch, watch Oprah and eat Bon-Bons.
Realistically, the time you spend training and working out, etc... Should be in proportion to the number of times you find it necessary to defend yourself in a physical altercation. If you train every other day, then the training is only beneficial if you are in a streetfight every other day as well...

Me? I train 1 day every 13 years, because I have found that that is about as often as I even come close to encountering a streetfight.

I could train everyday against a "Shark Attack", but considering I live in the midwest, all of my training is just in vain.

If you want to know how effective you will be in a streetfight...go start one and find out.

[CrossTrainer]

Hi Georgie - with you lifting consistently for 17 years, I guess it should be me asking you questions! I'm sorry if my advice sounded generic to you, as your subject line said "newbie training question" I had no idea you were such an experienced lifter.

In my experience, traditional karate clubs(at least where I live) spend too little time on heavy bag work, mittwork and other training where you can safely use your striking and kicking technique with full or near-full force. Perhaps taking up boxing, or even muay thai, would be a nice supplement to your karate training? A good boxer or kickboxer's coach is familiar with weight training and not judgmental of its value like many traditionalist karatekas are - so if you find a club, the instructor would most likely be experienced in designing weight training routines for explosive power and combat-specific strength.

If your interest is in combat/self-defence, Krav Maga combatives would be nice to check out. I myself love the traditional arts but I find that the "reality" training supplements it well - it simply covers to different needs in my training.

As I'm sure you have experienced from your life of lifting, a man needs to test out different approaches and regimes before he finds what really suits him and gives him the progress he wants. It's the same with martial arts - go ahead and test out different arts, don't be afraid to drop out - when you find something you like, go for it. Too many people just sticks with the first art they try out, because they wouldn't feel like an "accomplisher" otherwise.

Memnoch: haha.

[georgie]

WELL SAID!!! i really want to supplement my karate with some logical and highly usable form of streetfighting/self defense but im limited to whats around me . just kempo(shorinji). im reading some material on jeet kune do. all Bruce Lee material( art of expressing the human body and Bruce Lee's fighting methods 2) both great books with lots of useful info on sound fighting lessons. thanx for the great info!

[CrossTrainer]

Good to hear that some of what I blurp out with can come to use for some
Check it all out and see what suits you. If you live in a western country, there is most likely a boxing gym close to where you live even if there is a shortage of martial arts gyms. Boxing teaches you timing, distancing and especially explosiveness far better than most traditional arts do - and the conditioning programs used by boxers are most often 100% results-oriented. OK, I have heard it before: The boxers hook is dangerous to do bare-handed - - boxing doesn't prepare you for kicks or shoots - - blah, blah blah. So what? Every art has it shortcomings, and boxing has some decent strengths to match up weaknesses like that. No one said it was a complete system, but it's a great supplement to anyone training for either self-defense or fitness. So even if you can't find a place to train Krav Maga, JKD or thaiboxing club(those seems to be the better options for your situation/what you want), you might as well cross-train in boxing. The western martial arts are just as martial as any other, and like I said a boxer's coach is a great inspiration to your training regimen, he will have some thougts on everything; weights training, cardio, mobility drills and so on. The difference between a boxers coach and most martial arts instructors is that the boxers coach MAKE BOXERS(or martial artists), the martial arts instructor teach boxing (or martial arts).

Stay persistent in your search for excellence - good luck in your training! Next time I have a weight lifting question I'll go to you

[georgie]

i wish i had a boxing club here but i dont . small town unfortunately. but i agree boxing is a huge part of mma as well. most UFC and pride fighters have some boxing training. ask any time and ill gladly return the favor.