Tuesday, 05 August 2008

• Time for a Taekwondo Entry

  I've just acheived my dissertator status on my road to a Ph.D.  This basically means I'm permanently finished with classes and I get a slight raise.  To me, this means I can finally restart my training.  I more or less grew up in the dojang, earned my 3rd degree blackbelt when I was 17 (11 years ago this summer), and have only been capable of mustering sporadic training in this long interim.  Now I can finally start the systematic training I've always wanted to accomplish.

  First off, I've noticed a particular irrational fear of heavy strength training in the martial art world.  The fear is that you'll become bulky and slow in a manner that is counterproductive to martial art training.  Unless we're talking about the body type of a linebacker or pure bodybuilder, I find this fear unwarrented.  I believe that building solid strength through heavy weight training is critical to becoming a stronger martial artist.  It should make someone both faster and more powerful.  I offer three arguments:

  1. Consider the body types of Olympic sprinters versus marathon runners.  It is the sprinters who are quite largely built while the marathon runners are rail thin.  Fights last from a few seconds to a few minutes, not a few hours.  As martial artists we want to be like the fast sprinters who must generate a large amount of power (energy spent per unit time).  This means combining heavy strength training with keeping body fat as low as reasonably possible, maintaining flexibility, and serious plyometric training.
  2. Muscle fiber can be distinguished into two groups: the fast-twitch fiber and slow twitch fiber.  Fast-twitch fiber controls fast anaerobic motion, while the slow-twitch fiber uses more oxygen and responsible for endurance.  The distinction is most evident in chicken meat.  Chickens (unclipped) can fly for brief periods of time so they need strong breast muscles to generate high power for these brief periods.  The white meat is the fast-twitch fiber.  Chickens also stand around all day long on their hind legs.  Their legs are not generating a lot of power at any given time, but must endure walking around and standing all day.  The thighs and legs are the slow-twitch fiber.  This meat is darker because of the oxygen-carrying blood flow.  Heavy weight training produces fast-twitch muscle fiber.  Plyometric training then hones this fast-twitch fiber.
  3. Most people think of weight lifting is terms of strengthening muscles.  More importantly, however, heavy weight training also strengthen ligaments, tendons, and bone density.  I say these are more important because if you are missing any one of these three, the muscle they are connected to is completely useless no matter how strong it is.  This is why weight training is critically important to injury prevention and, thus, critical to taekwondo training.

  I don't have a decent taekwondo group available to train with so I'm taking this as an opportunity to restart my training in a manner that may seem unconventional.  In the end, however, I'll be a far stronger martial artist for it.  for the first 2-3 years of my new training regimen, I'm actually not going to be doing any sort of technical training (that is, techniques, classes, etc.).  Instead, I've designed a conditioning plan specifically for taekwondo training.  The human body takes time to acclimate to new training, and there are many areas of fitness important to being a strong martial artist.  So my plan gradually will build me up to the world-class level (I hope) and avoid serious injury or overtraining.  It has the following five phases:

  1. Strength training only, for reasons discussed above.
  2. Hold strength training steady for two days per week to maintain, perform endurance lifting the other four days.
  3. Continue holding strength training even two days per week, do the same for endurance training two days per week, and on the last two training days start with distance running.  Once I've built that up, begin with sets of 2-minute sprints, followed by the long run.
  4. Begin specialized training:  The previous phases will be performed in the mornings.  Now I need to start with training twice a day.  Continuing the training of the previous phases, perform my plyometric training regimen during the evenings of my strength training days.
  5. On the evenings of my endurance-lifting days, perform my slow kick training regimen.

  After all this, I'll be ready for serious technical taekwondo training at the world class level.

  I'm presently nearing completion of phase 1, although I've had a setback this month due to a minor shoulder injury from doing weighted-dips (dips with an extra 75 lbs. in a backpack).  Nevertheless, I look forward to starting phase 2 in about 2-3 months.  I've gained about 15lbs. in phase 1 so far; which is yet another reason I wanted it to be first since bodyweight affects the others.

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