Old school training methods.

[kanik]

Hey all. I am interested in how many of you use the old ways of training, and what exactly you do. by old ways I mean how people trained in the days before we have all this fancy equipment we have today. Such as all the awesome stuff you can do in the forrest, conditioning exercises without medicine balls and other things like that, etc. etc. So yeah, I am interested in what you all do, have done, have heard of, or whatever. Also if you have done, will do, or are doing any of these types of things. Share your thoughts.

[Ghost]

Hey all. I am interested in how many of you use the old ways of training, and what exactly you do. by old ways I mean how people trained in the days before we have all this fancy equipment we have today. Such as all the awesome stuff you can do in the forrest, conditioning exercises without medicine balls and other things like that, etc. etc. So yeah, I am interested in what you all do, have done, have heard of, or whatever. Also if you have done, will do, or are doing any of these types of things. Share your thoughts.

why are you interested in them?

the old ways that work are still used today, the ones that dont arent.
The new ways are better. Thats why martial artists are better today than they were years back.

[kanik]

why are you interested in them?

the old ways that work are still used today, the ones that dont arent.
The new ways are better. Thats why martial artists are better today than they were years back.

I am interested in them because people DONT use them very often, and if they do then I dont see it. I use certain things but i want to increase my knowledge. Of course the stuff that works will be in use and the crap that doesnt wouldnt be, but thats what I am asking about. The things I can use. I dont beleive martial artists were better today than years back. Nor were the ones from years back better today. You cant really stereo-type these things. Its to broad a subject.

[Ghost]

I am interested in them because people DONT use them very often, and if they do then I dont see it. I use certain things but i want to increase my knowledge. Of course the stuff that works will be in use and the crap that doesnt wouldnt be, but thats what I am asking about. The things I can use. I dont beleive martial artists were better today than years back. Nor were the ones from years back better today. You cant really stereo-type these things. Its to broad a subject.

but you just agreed that by natural selection the better techniques and training methods have survived. therefore the average trainee is training using better methods and therefore should be better trained.

The same is true in sport,50 years ago runners werent running as fast as they are now, i dont beleive martial arts is any different.
But sure search out your old techniques if you like.
Id personally spend more time trying to research the latest proven methods.

[kanik]

but you just agreed that by natural selection the better techniques and training methods have survived. therefore the average trainee is training using better methods and therefore should be better trained.

The same is true in sport,50 years ago runners werent running as fast as they are now, i dont beleive martial arts is any different.
But sure search out your old techniques if you like.
Id personally spend more time trying to research the latest proven methods.

Yeah it does make sence, but also due to some of the ways of today a lot of things are discarded and forgot even though they may be important. The latest "proven" methods of today are usually just going to the gym and then going to your martial arts class, at least thats what I see everyone out there around me doing. If you dont think the old ways of training are effective or hardcore just look at burmese boxing and burmese boxers, they use the simple hardcore ways of training not commonly seen and they are definately good strong fighters.

[kanik]

Oh and I also want to test out these things for myself but first I want some information from people who may have allready done so, what I do NOT want though is somone telling me to drop it, because I find it agitating when people, instead of just answering the question, start going on about how I should stop asking it. I asked for experiances and ideas.

[Shoot]

Ahh, yes. The good old days before the invention of the dumbbell. Good old "natural" exercises. You know, the good old days when the athleltically built were essentially born that way and the rest looked like hell. THe good old days when people lifted awkward things like sand bags and drank unpasteurized whole milk; the good old days when the average frenchman weighed 110 lbs on a diet of bread, wine and tobacco (not too different today); the good old days when men could run a mile in like 7 minutes; etc..

Dude, go to the gym and get in shape using modern, effective equipment. Doing chin ups off of a tree branch and walking around with rocks in your shorts ain't gonna cut it.

[Ghost]

Yeah it does make sence, but also due to some of the ways of today a lot of things are discarded and forgot even though they may be important. The latest "proven" methods of today are usually just going to the gym and then going to your martial arts class, at least thats what I see everyone out there around me doing. If you dont think the old ways of training are effective or hardcore just look at burmese boxing and burmese boxers, they use the simple hardcore ways of training not commonly seen and they are definately good strong fighters.

i have seen burmese boxers fighting in real life and they are not on par with thai boxers and anyway they may have good cardio but thats about it.

Going to the gym as you put it makes it sound fairly mundane and almost like a dimwitted activity.

anyway some reading for you, the article goes for a while explaining things in fair detail. thats what "going to the gym" is about.

Athletic Muscle-Building

Athletes need muscle like a car needs an engine. Without muscle there's no movement possible. Since athletes require strength, power, and speed in their movements, they also need the type of engine that has a lot of horsepower!

The size of a muscle determines its strength and power potential. I say "potential" because without the proper neural adaptations a big muscle won't be a super strong muscle. Similarly, a super efficient nervous system without the proper engine (muscle mass) won't be very powerful either.

So athletes do need to increase their muscle mass, but they must do so in a functional or rational manner: the size gains must come with an increase in physical performance that leads to an improvement on the field of play. To accomplish this, we must stimulate hypertrophy via means that also lead to improvements in physical capacities required by the athlete's sport of choice.

The athlete needs:

1. To focus on stimulating his high-threshold motor units (HTMUs)/fast-twitch fibers.

2. To select methods that will increase strength and efficiency in all types of muscle actions (concentric, isometric, and eccentric).

3. To improve the three main force production factors: muscular, reflexive, and elastic.

Let's take a closer look at each:


1) Focus on stimulating high-threshold motor units (HTMUs)/fast-twitch fibers

Success in strength and power dominated events (powerlifting, Olympic lifting, gymnastics, sprints, throws, football, etc.) and in individual actions requiring a high degree of either strength and/or power (sprinting, jumping, changes of direction, throwing, hitting, etc.) is highly correlated with the fiber distribution within the involved muscles — high proportions of fast-twitch fibers being correlated with a higher power and strength production.......


source

http://www.t-nation.com/readArticle.do?id=1494202&cr=

[kanik]

Allrighty shoot, I dont think patronizing me was necessary. Thanks for the reading ghost, I aint saying that going to the gym is crap. Me personnally I do go to the gym, cant you guys understand that I want to increase my knowledge? I dont want to have this thread turned into crap by people who just say "listen caveman wanna-be get a life and join a gym". Ok, so lemme just narrow down my question. I want exercises that can be done without a gym, and not basic bodyweight workouts as I allready do my fill of those. I want some exercises that dont require much of anything that you wouldnt be able to just find. Ones that I can do without a gym, that arent just basic bodyweight exercises. Allrighty? sound simple enough?

[Ghost]

Allrighty shoot, I dont think patronizing me was necessary. Thanks for the reading ghost, I aint saying that going to the gym is crap. Me personnally I do go to the gym, cant you guys understand that I want to increase my knowledge? I dont want to have this thread turned into crap by people who just say "listen caveman wanna-be get a life and join a gym". Ok, so lemme just narrow down my question. I want exercises that can be done without a gym, and not basic bodyweight workouts as I allready do my fill of those. I want some exercises that dont require much of anything that you wouldnt be able to just find. Ones that I can do without a gym, that arent just basic bodyweight exercises. Allrighty? sound simple enough?

ok then, lol heres one for you:
if you have a car or your friend has one, get some unused road. engine off get your mate in the driving seat. he has a timer, time 3 mins. push the car as far as you can in 3 mins then take a break and recover, repeat 4 or 5 times.
each time trying to push the car as far as possible, after the 3 mins stop the car and wait a set amount of time, 1-2 mins or so. at the end mark where you got to in terms of distance. each time try and beat it.
It uses all of the muscles in your body at the same time and is one hell of a cardio work out. one of my favourite workouts in fact. will get you fit in no time and the strength it builds is functional.
bring your sick bag though.

[kanik]

Haha! Finnally somthing of use came from this thread! Oh joy of joys! My friend actually did somthing similar. Its a good idea. One thing that I am doing with a friend of mine is breaking up this really really big dirt mound by using any martial arts techniques, the dirts not to hard that it will cause us any permanant damage, but its not to soft that it wont do anything either, just after a lil while of doing it our hands and feet are a lot more durable, the skin wont split on my knuckles now, and it doesnt hurt to punch some more harder objects either. Plus its just fun when you punch it and a huge chunk breaks off and goes flying.

[mike valentine]

Kanik,

So you want to go old school,try some of these:
1: get a thick rope,1-1/2 to 2 inches,tie it to a branch in a tree and climb up it hand over hand,repeat.
2:box jumps
3:depth jumps
4:ab wheel roll-outs
5:get a wheel-barrow,fill it with bricks or other heavy stuff and sprint it up an incline for reps.
6:get a sledge hammer and an old truck tyre,go to town.
7:if your in the gym dispense with the Bodybuilding type workouts and focus on full body movements eg. snatches,swings,power-cleans,power-pulls,dead-lifts,squats,clean and jerks.
8:sled dragging
9:rock/dumb-bell throwing i.e: get a rock/DB that is reasonably heavy shot-putt it as far as you can,run to it and repeat.
10:farmers walks
11:despite what "Shoot" says,CHIN-UPS/PULL-UPS are a must,no machine can match them, read this article on t-nation by Charles Poliquin "Back to basics,no more geek back training" Fri April 14 2000,just do an author search.
12:sandbag training.
13:kettlebell training (my favourite)
14:and as Ghost said,car pushing,heaps of fun....
15:burpees
16:hill sprints
17:cross-over push-ups,plyometric push-ups
18:skipping
19:hindu-squats and pistols
etc

Kanik,the question really is what are your goals?If you want to be an explosive strong athlete you must train like those that are eg.weight-lifters,gymnists,sprinters etc you can use the methods above to help attain this,if you are after a Bodybuilders physique then go to your gym,use all those modern machines and techniques and train like the rest of the sheep,that's entirely up to you.I've done both and nothing matches the functional strength you gain from doing it "old School".

Hope this helps.

Mike V

[kanik]

Hoi! Awesome! phew i could've sworn this thread had allready died. Yay! Anywho yeah thanks Mike, those are some awesome ideas, I aint new to this kind of training but I am alone in it so naturally I only come up with things that I can think of by myself, thats why the internet is such an awesome tool. My goals are just to increase my overall capability when it comes to martial arts, to increase anything and everything when it comes to my abilities. I mainly use hand strikes and elbows over kicks, kicks over grappling, yet i know how to and want to improve all of them. Hence the reason why I want to improve my general knowledge when it comes to working out so that I can make my own mind up and choose which exercises out of all of them will help me acheive my immeditate goals. But yes Mike V. that was a lot of help. Thanks man!

[Ghost]

pretty much all of what is listed is whats still used in modern strength training bar a couple.

i thought you wanted old forgotten stuff?

[kanik]

pretty much all of what is listed is whats still used in modern strength training bar a couple.

i thought you wanted old forgotten stuff?

I dont care if its old and forgotten or if its remembered and still used today, I want everything and anything that could've been used without a gym, or without shop bought equipment. Thats what I mean by old-school, the stuff people used back in the day (what day am I talking about? pfft dont ask me...) even IF they still use it today.