Hey, I happened to see this while browsing. I'm a martial arts enthusiast myself (14 years of Shorin-ryu Karate), and my master's dayjob is being a personal trainer so he's taught a lot of general fitness stuff as well as the traditional training. I always like finding someone online who's a fellow practitioner, and I certainly don't wanna shit all over this stuff you clearly put a lot of time and effort into, but there are some things I thought I should address. But think of it more as just wanting to point some things out and open a discussion, rather than trying to start an argument or anything.
First thing is first. DON’T do “leg days” or “arm days” or “core days”. Ever.
Always do a full body work out. That means biceps, triceps, core, both the quads and the hamstrings of the legs (squats is a good way to do it), etc.
This is highly subjective even if the focus is on martial arts performance rather than body building or a sport. From the rest of the article it seems like you follow an "every day" plan with weekends as the recovery period, which is actually something I'm doing right now too, but here's the thing about that: In order to do a full body workout almost every single day, you're either risking an injury from overtraining, or you're not achieving maximum results depending on various factors. I'm sure you're aware that muscles become stronger by being damaged and then repairing themselves, and it's when you overdo the damage that injuries occur. However, by not doing
enough damage--not pushing them hard enough--you're also slowing potential growth. Sometimes this is fine--slow and steady as they say--but it's important for a person to be aware of this.
If someone who has never worked out in their life starts doing some Saitama-esque every day plan--100 situps, 100 pushups, 100 squats, 10 km run, no matter rain or shine--they are going to quickly burn out and become discouraged, or they are going to tear something, or they are going to have a serious body imbalance from only hitting generalized muscle groups as opposed to more "body part focused" routines that hit the key muscle groups more efficiently.
On the other hand, if a person says to themselves "Okay, my
entire body has to get a workout," that can take a long time for a session because you have different stretches for each limb, different exercises for legs and arms and core and back and chest and shoulders and glutes, maybe you're practicing different techniques too, and so on. The longer that list goes on, the less time you have for each individual thing because not everyone has the free time to do an hour or two hour long workout session, especially not every. Single. Day. There's also the matter of conserving energy--I can't go all out on these pushups cause I also have all these squats and all these situps to do. In this case, the full body workout becomes detrimental in the opposite way from before, because you're not doing enough to force the muscles to become stronger. After the first few weeks, it becomes less of an actual progressive workout and more of a warm up, and past that point you either have to dedicate MORE hours so you can do more things, or you have to realize that's not practical for some work schedules and instead split your days up and focus on individual muscle groups.
In my personal experience, a full body workout is better when it's more like full body practice--I'm not doing pushups and situps, but I'm running through each and every one of my techniques and forms and drills--because even though those things can be quite the aerobic workout, they're much lower in intensity (unless you're intentionally blasting the effort balls to the wall, but then your form and body alignment suffer). A full body routine is also better suiting to
maintaining conditioning than getting into it in the first place--If the gym is closed for the holidays or vacation time, or if the dojo is closed for an undetermined amount of time, then you can do some simple body-weight resistance stuff to keep yourself from getting rusty.
An individual's workout needs, daily schedule, nutrition, and so on will all play a factor in what routines are most efficient for them. To state an absolute like "don't ever do this, ever" can give people the wrong idea, and neither physical fitness or martial arts are things you wanna start on the wrong foot with due to the risk of injury or the formation of bad habits.
DIET
You've gone into this a little bit already with calorie counting and such, but again this area is very subjective not just because different people have different nutritional needs, but because different kinds of workouts also require it. You mention protein intake, but from your own description you don't actually seem to take in a lot of it, and for people who are trying to grow in strength rather than slim down on weight, there's a much higher need for it. On the opposite side, someone who needs to increase their cardiovascular endurance may need more carbohydrates in order to have the long-burning fuel, as opposed to the fast-burning fuel of natural fats.
There are lots of math formulas and charts and such all over the internet for different diet plans, but the most important thing to remember is to burn more than you take in. A person should consult a proper nutritionist, doctor, or personal trainer to get the best fitting diet for them, but honestly almost anything works as long as you're
consistent with it.
Debilitating Health. A lot of people who want to work out will tell themselves they can’t due to health reasons. And sometimes yes, they have a point. But there’s always something you can do. If a 140 pound, scrawny, asthmatic nerd with a missing disk in his back and mild scoliosis can gain 20 pounds of muscle, you can do something. Hell, my work out stretched my lungs out and made me deal with my asthma better. Plus exercise helps you with your mental health. It releases Endorphins.
In the group class settings of most martial arts schools, a big factor for this is also embarassment. Nobody wants to be the only guy in class sweating like a pig and struggling to keep up while everyone else does the splits and backflips with zero effort (don't take this literally, if any martial arts school
requires its students to do the splits or backflips it's either a showboat class or a McDojo). But what people need to realize is that no martial arts instructor worth a spit is going to throw you into the black belt class on your first day. And most of the time, people in these classes are decent folk--martial arts tends to foster good character--and even if they do make fun of you, all you have to do is realize that they're trash and their opinion doesn't matter.
Bottom line,
doing the thing will get you in shape so you can do the thing better. For those of you who hesitate, remember that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. It may be slow, it may be hard, it may be little tiny baby steps. But just keep taking them, trust in the instructor to do his job (which is making YOU into a better martial artist) and put one foot in front of the other.
Fists. (For you guys working on a martial arts regime) Small tip I learned on Wikihow a few years a go. If you’re looking to do martial arts, even softer/less powerful ones like Tai Chi or Wing Chun (which I’m currently learning), when you’re bored, start punching your fists together. It’ll give you good calluses in your hands. Despite fists being our main weapons, in the end they are nothing but small bones with a ton of nerve endings. You need to toughen them up.
If there is a pole or punching bag around, lightly strike them with your shin, knees, elbows, etc.
Christ Almighty, not for the beginners! And not without way more specific instructions! Any type of body-hardening training--Iron Palm, Iron Shirt, Hojo Undo--should absolutely NOT be attempted until the student is at least 16 years old, has been training long enough to get the proper form of each technique down, and has developed enough strength and flexibility to feel confident putting pressure on their joints and limbs. Before a person is 16, their skeletons are not fully developed and certainly aren't finished growing. Damage to the smaller bones--like the carpals and toes--or to the joints can have seriously debilitating, life long after effects for them! Without proper form and fitness, the chances for injury skyrocket, especially if you get some young hotshot who wants to punch the fucking Makiwara/Muk Yan Jong at 100% the first time he tries it without having his knuckles or wrist properly aligned.
This type of training should NEVER be attempted without the supervision of a properly trained and certified instructor until the student themselves has done it for long enough that leaving behind bloodstains isn't something they'd freak out about anymore.
When I first started using the makiwara--ours is a 6x6 post in a base made from an old tire, some wooden slats, and some concrete, with the post wrapped with old fire hoses--I didn't even punch it. I just kinda ground my knuckles against it and practiced tightening my fist and putting pressure on it, while slowly extending my arms to make sure my technique was correct. I had just turned 16, and from then to when I was about 18 I had to take it in very careful increments. You build up from very, VERY little power very slowly--Not even 10% at the start, maybe not even 5 depending on how "tough" you are, and trust me it's always a little less than you think it is for you big macho sorts. I wasn't able to punch it at even 80% power until I had passed my first black belt test, shortly before I graduated high school. You have to do it at least tens of times with each hand every time you practice, too, until it's taken the skin off your knuckles at least a couple of times, but then you also have to properly treat it and give it time to heal to avoid infections and worsening any injuries. I know a guy who has a knuckle permanently jammed a few inches below where it's supposed to be because he didn't fucking listen to the instructor telling him to stop punching.
When it comes to the types of hardening exercises that are done on the limbs, like the shins and forearms, once again you have to take it EXTREMELY slow and carefully, because most of the time these are partnered exercises and you don't want to hurt your fellow student. You also have to be sure to massage the limbs properly afterwards to keep them from bruising, forming clots, and so forth.
The way these things work is three fold: The bones experience tiny breaks called microfractures, and when they heal they're like a cracked concrete slab that has new concrete poured directly into the crack and then smoothed over. They will get stronger over time, but not immediately. Second, the body becomes used to the pain--the nerves become desensitized and the brain stops sending out such strong signals because it learns that this part of the body is being used more often, so it has to become more trauma-resistant. And third (these aren't chronological by the way) the skin on the affected area becomes leathery and calloused due to a build up of scar tissue. Scar tissues, however, is pretty much entirely inflexible and cannot be stretched again in order to re-learn any lost flexibility. You must be extremely careful that this tissue only builds up on the striking surfaces, and not within the muscles, joints, or digits.
Done correctly, body hardening is great for people who aren't worried about looking pretty or being especially dextrous with their fingers or limbs, and for people who want to make martial arts a profession. You can punch a solid brick wall and not feel a thing, or use your toes like a needle for precision kicks to the pressure points in an opponent's groin, knees, thighs, etc.
Done incorrectly and without proper supervision, body hardening can cause arthritis, repeated breaks or fractures, permanent scarring, loss of feeling in the limbs, and all sorts of other bad stuff. This is NOT the type of training any beginner should attempt under any circumstances.
I've only taken classes for Wing Chun and Kyokushin, but I've read and watched videos on numerous other martial arts and I try to practice their forms. I've added some Tae-Kwon-Do, Kick-boxing, and some (I know I am misspelling this) Sai-li fu Kung Fu. Tae-Kwon-Do is fairly similar to most forms of Karate however, so it's not entirely too hard.
But once you take 6 months of Wing Chun, you can easily self train, if you're dedicated.
The best advice I can give you is take a class for half a year, and then go from there on your own. You can explore different forms once you've become acclimated.
Holy shit no, like I said I don't wanna seem like I'm shitting all over your topic and I have to admit this is kind of a pet peeve of mine, but no no no this gives such a WRONG impression of martial arts.
Okay, there are some arts like Aikido where it's almost a given that the master is gonna say "You have to practice this for 10 years before you can even attempt using it in a real fight." And a lot of people, including me, say that's dumb because if you're focused on learning self defense you need to learn stuff that can be immediately useful, sometimes even without a long period of training--for this reason a lot of the self defense stuff I've seen and learned is all based on natural reflexes or extremely simplistic movements.
But do NOT take six months of classes and then try to go it alone, or figure out all the applications by yourself, or anything like that. Also, find whatever style fits you and stick with it for, in my personal opinion, at LEAST five years before you start "branching out." MMA has absolutely ruined the idea of what martial arts are capable of--you don't have to learn all these completely separate, sometimes completely differently focused arts and styles in order to be an effective fighter.
My style of Karate, Shorin-ryu, was officially founded in 1933, but the actual system goes back over 200 years. In those 200 years, especially back when these Okinawan masters were still breaking coconuts, shoving their spear-hands through pig corpses, and had no idea what "padding" was, you think they didn't experiment or fight other practitioners of different styles, or have experiences they weren't prepared for followed by active attempts to prepare their students for such things in the future? I don't need to try and learn Brazilian Jujutsu for grappling, because Karate has its own grappling techniques. I don't need to learn Sambo for throws and joint locks, because Karate has some of its own. I don't need Muay Thai's elbow or knee strikes, or Baguazhang's flowing footwork, because Karate has its own flavor of answers to all of those things.
Does watching and learning from other styles help? Absolutely. Stealing a method of punching from boxing, or a kick from Tae-Kwon-Do, and adding it to my Karate repetoire is something I've certainly done. And sometimes a person just likes to do something a particular way even if everyone around them does it differently. I've almost never seen two instructors teach a kata the same way. But don't do this "super size sample platter" crap where you're just taking a little nibble of everything without ever committing to something. Commitment is the only thing that makes any of the training worth a damn--just like that Bruce Lee quote, only applied to styles instead of techniques. I've had people who were clearly fronting out of their asses tell me "Oh I've done some boxing, and some ninjutsu, and some wushu, and some krav maga" and they can't explain the first thing about the fundamentals, tactics, mindsets, or anything else of fighting because they never got any deeper than the surface level of learning some neat moves and flying kicks and then they were off to find the next shiny thing.
Same thing with "self-training," you've got to commit to learning from a proper instructor, in a proper environment, if you ever wanna really get anywhere. Self Training, in my experience, is for
perfecting what has been learned. The actual learning is done in the dojo, and takes way, waaaaaay longer than six months. I started training when I was 11, and like I mentioned earlier I didn't get my first degree black belt until I was almost out of high school.
A lot of people make the mistake of getting that black belt, too, and then saying "Welp I guess I know it all now." No, hahahaha noooo. I dunno about other styles, but in Karate there are usually ten degrees of black belt. The first one is the equivalent of graduating high school. The second one is like getting an Associate's Degree. And past the third or fourth degree, it's not just about how many dudes you can fight at one time, how many forms you know, how many bricks you can break, or any of that. Past a certain point it becomes about life experience--you have to have taught for so many hours, or raised another student to black belt rank yourself, or sometimes (if you're part of a big structured organization) you even have to take exams and stuff. If you ever see a teenager claiming they're already a fifth degree black belt, either they're full of shit or their school is a McDojo. And I'd go so far as to say most people who
call themselves tenth degree masters aren't legit either--what I've usually seen or heard of happening is that they get to a fairly high rank, and then they decide "I'm gonna start my own style," and they declare themselves the grand master of their self-invented school.
Sorry, I got a little off track in some places and I'm sure I might have said something that could be taken the wrong way. Like I said before, I don't want to argue or debate, just point out some things I felt were lacking and open a discussion if necessary.
Keep up your training, though, and I really like that this topic has encouraged some other people to have an interest in martial arts. Just remember it's not all about gettin' SWOLE or being able to rip a man's heart out of his chest, or being able to do the fanciest move. As Miyamoto Musashi said, to learn the Martial Arts is to learn the Way, and to know the Way is to know all things. Self-improvement--physically, mentally, and spiritually--should be the ultimate goal.
