How to combine you Martial Arts & Fitness training for maximum results.
Combining martial arts with fitness ...
Martial arts and fitness are closely related in many ways. Fitness is definitely a part of standalone martial arts, however, martial arts is not really a part of standalone fitness. Because mostly any type of continuous repetitive movement can be considered fitness because of the effect on the cardio, muscle and joint movements, and balance,agility, which are oral parts of fitness.
A lot of people want to train in martial arts, but martial arts in and of itself doesn't give them the level of fitness they're looking for, so they have to supplement their fitness training at a fitness gym, or do some other type of fitness, such as jogging, swimming, or weightlifting. The problem for a serious martial artist in that situation is twofold. Number one unless you are independently wealthy, or get mommy and daddy money and don't have to work, doing a full on fitness regimen, and be serious about your martial arts training, that could be pretty close to a part-time job when it comes to the time commitment. A lot of hard-working individuals, just don't have that kind of time. They just don't have the time to spend two or three hours a day, practicing their martial arts and doing their fitness training.
My solution is combining martial arts and fitness together. We do that in our gym and we call it CrossPit. Basically, my favorite fitness system is CrossFit, but I felt most of their workouts are completely standalone, in other words, you didn't really have time to do anything else if you did their workouts. They weren't always too time-consuming, but they were definitely robust enough to practice another activity with a lot of physicality involved. Basically the CrossFit workouts took too much out of a full-time martial artist, so I, with the help of the Crossfit founder, Greg Glassman came up with a fitness program specifically for martial artist, and we called it CrossPit.
My objectives were to have a complete fitness regimen that didn't take too much energy, or time to take away from my martial arts training. Also, I wanted to Fitness movements to resemble martial arts movements, so when I work out, I am also helping develop the skill of that specific martial art movement. I'll give you a good example, doing 20 front kicks is great for developing the skill of a front kick, however, it is exponentially better if I add five squats to every front kick, so that I not only threw 20 front kicks, but I also did them under physical stress, and with the repetitions, so they just did 100 squats, good cardio and great strength building for the leg/kicks. That also helps to develop those front kicks under physical stress, and they are now in my muscle memory, even more than they would be. Basically, I want to exhaust a muscle or an anaerobic system, then I want to simulate a real fighting scenario by putting martial arts movements into the mix. When I'm already exhausted, I feel that is the best way to simulate a real fight, without taking the physical damage, and injuries.
So basically, the fact that I love the way they package fitness at CrossFit, especially with the workout of the day, and as many reps in X amount of time, etc. but I wanted to shorten the time and intensity of some of their workouts, so I thought the best way to get the best of both worlds was to do the best of both worlds....
