Uechi-Ryu.com

Dana said:

"On the hanging arm thing-
60 seconds of flex arm hang = 1 pull up does not make sense. Please enlighten me. That seems like comparing apples and oranges."

I agree with Dana on this. The flexed arm hang is really difficult. The Marines award the same top score of 100 to a female that can hang 70 seconds that a male is required to do 20 pullups to achieve. By that standard a 60 second arm hang is worth more than one pullup.

But, back to the camp test, this is not the Marines and this is a test Bill is trying to implement. I still say stick with the pullups for everyone. If someone cannot do any let them move on and make up points elsewhere, not end the test. Females that can do pullups will get the points.

If the weather is hot I think the mile run is going to be the event most have difficulty with. Especially after the squats! A lot of folks will end up walking all or part of the way. Expect mile times of 12 minutes or more for some. Expect dropouts due to cramping. barfing etc.

At the high school MCJROTC I run a lot of physical training classes for the high school cadets. Some are jocks and some are really fat and in bad shape. But, you only get a zero if you do not try. If you do not try then you are asked to leave the program.

The females I observe have a tough time with the arm hang but all can do it for a while. The only female out of the many I observed who could do the full 70 seconds was also the second rated shotput and discuss thrower in the region. Not a real big girl, but very solid.

Other observations on training to the Marine standards...
Most of my time is spent at the Ofiicers Basic School. These are young men and women in their early 20s for the most part and are fresh out of OCS or the Naval Academy.

The best overall performers in the physical sense are large males. They may not have the best PFT scores but hold up well to six months of humping etc. Everyone carries the same load in the field for hikes or exercises. A 200 pound male with a 50 pound load of gear does not experience the same effect that a 100 pound female does. Running the three mile endurance couse with that load is where size differences show up.

From what I am told, the females are plagued by hip injuries and more soft tissue injuries than the males. Face it, God made us different. However, to be a Marine you must be equal to the task.

Also, these ladies cover a wide spectrum of builds. Some are petit and some are broad shouldered and just pain large. However, they all are well toned. This is pure sexist, but one of the pleasures of an early morning workout in the rain and/or sweat was the 'wet tee shirt' effect on the ladies. It was worth the effort just for the view. And then there were the partner exercizes....

Back to basics...

At boot camp my observation is that the opposite is true of the drill instructors. They are not large men for the most part. In fact, they were on the small side (with huge arms though). Apparently over the long haul the big men do not hold up as well. I have yet to meet a DI as large as me - 6'1" 200+. So, for the short term big is better. For the long term svelte is better.

Whew, you got me going there.

Anyway, I say do the 'Bill' test this year to get a benchmark. My only exception to Bill's rule is to let everyone continue even with a zero in some event. If the test passes muster, next year people will be prepared and thier personal results will soar! GEM will have to make a 'Soaring Eagle Flame Dragon' patch for the 2006 camp!

Rich

_________________
Member of the world's premier gun club, the USMC!

Got it!

Yikes!!!

That's the real deal. Thumb TIP and index finger TIP. Only Nakahodo Sensei can do something like that (at sixty-three, mind you).

I'll pass him...

- Bill

Clarifications are definitely in order.

First... What I want - if possible - is for everyone to perform the same test. Yes, it is possible that some folks won't be able to do a single pull-up. Yes, it is possible that some folks won't even be able to do a single standard (from the feet) push-up.

Yes, a zero score can be brought into the whole combined-score scenario. For example...

Person A = 0 pull-ups
Person B = 2 pull-ups
Person C = 4 pull-ups

Mean = 2.0
Standard Deviation = 2.0
(You can check this out in a standard Excel spreadsheet)

Z-Scores: (Raw Score - Mean)/StdDev

Person A = (0-2)/2 = -1
Person B = (2-2)/2 = 0
Person C = (4-2)/2 = 1

So the Z-scores tell us that Person A (with no pull-ups) scored a standard deviation unit below the average, and Person C (with 4 pull-ups) scored a standard deviation unit above the average. Person B represents the average performance.

These scores then could be averaged in with the scores on other categories to get a total score.
I won't disagree with what you feel or what you are doing, Dana. But I will tell you that - if this is true - this represents an inefficiency in how you are doing the exercise.

Climbers learn this VERY quickly. You learn to use only the muscles you need to use to hold on to the wall, or move from point A to point B. Otherwise you tire extremely quickly and drop.

Like Sanchin (which you do better than most humans alive, Dana), practice makes perfect. You need to tense only what you want to tense, and relax everything else. Yes, there is a coordination element involved if you want to maximize your score. I don't dispute that.

Biceps bend the arm at the elbow; triceps extend the arm at the elbow. In exercises that do purely extension (positive or negative), you use triceps. In exercises that do purely flexion (positive or negative), you use biceps. This is just the basic principle in how a muscle works. They pull; they do not push.

In athletic movements, you often tend to use both because the muscles are behaving dynamically against each other to bring the arm through the desired path.

I think you do, Dana, at least for one time. Otherwise you wouldn't even have the ability to do the flexed-arm hang. That exercise requires that you start with biceps and lats fully flexed, and maximize the time you can keep them flexed. Your time is up when the arm and shoulder joints are fully extended.

There are reasons not to ask women to do pull-ups. But I don't think this is a reason.

Furthermore, karateka have very strong dynamic stretch reflexes in their biceps. It's what keeps them from hyperextending the elbows in a Sanchin thrust. Remember back when you first started karate, and got "karate elbow?" That's before you developed that reflex. Trust me - it's alive and well in you now, unless your elbow has a pre-existing injury.

No.

Be careful, Rich. Now you're getting into an apples-to-oranges comparison.

It is a fact of biology that men have more testosterone than women. It is a fact of biology that testosterone dramatically increases upper-body strength.

The Marines have created separate standards for females and males. The females have a max score that the USMC feels is the max that a female can reasonably be expected to achieve. The males have a max score that the USMC feels a male can reasonably be expected to achieve.

I'm trying to do what that other test you took is trying to achieve, Rich. I'm trying to find one test that everyone can take. And I'm expecting that Uechi women are a little more fit (or even better) than "average" women.

The max score charts Rich gives illustrate the problem. This test was designed for max production in a minute. But the max expected for a USMC woman for flexed-arm hang is a 70 second hang. Meanwhile, the male is grunting out those 20 pull-ups on a different time scale. And fatigue is a factor here.

If a woman can do a flexed-arm hang for 60 seconds and feels that's worth more than 1 pull-up, well then by golly why shouldn't she just knock off two pull-ups and be done with it? Two and done, and rest for the next event. Seems like a deal to me!

The point here is that the woman (or a few males) have a choice. They can get a greater-than-zero count score on pull-ups by doing a flexed-arm hang for part or all of a minute. If they can do a pull-up, they should do the pull-up and be done with it. That's pretty simple.

The only reason to do differently is the big step from one pull-up to two. If the overlap really is somewhere between 1 and 2 pull-ups, then we can get greater precision of measurement by synching the tests up. But it will never be a perfect synchronization, since positive and negative use of a muscle group require different talents. It's complicated.

I'd prefer to keep this really simple. Simple would be one event. Compromise means a choice, but it introduces complexity. Even if women ONLY can do flex-arm hangs and men ONLY can do pull-ups, now we have something that probably should be done on two different time scales (by Rich's own data). It gets messy.

More data from real people taking the test would help.


Yes, you are good at getting at all the gory details.

Here's the deal, Dana. I believe George wanted to give out patches to people who could achive some kind of standard. He envisioned something that I thought was unworkable, because it involved punching and kicking air which we all know can be done at various levels of effort. I chose instead to use standard fitness assessment tests which should be highly correlated with the ability to do myriad athletic activities - including martial arts. George envisioned winning this distinction with some kind of threshold performance.

I was trying to make a gross stab at what a minimal performance would be. But we're all making very, very gross stabs at it without having data on how people actually would perform with the various events in the context of the total test.

At the end of the day, the raw scores are the raw scores are the raw scores. We can easily keep track of those. I do believe that distinctions (ranks, titles, etc.) should require minimum performance levels, and we don't give them out just because someone shows up. Certainly we don't survive brutal fights on the street just because we paid our karate school tuition and "walked through" all the choreography on our belt tests. But I do believe we can operate martial arts dojos and fitness assessments - and have fun - without worrying about who gets what level of distinction.

I can only properly assess what a level of performance is after getting data. I can easily retroactively give someone a certain level of distinction, providing we keep the testing standards the same over time. In the mean time, I frankly think we should give some kind of award to everyone who can do a bare minimum on all the categories on the very first time we run it. Why? Because YOU WERE THE FIRST and you had the cahones/ovaries to get out there and show us/yourself what you can do. That counts for something, and those are not just empty words. We have a saying in research. Knowing someone else was able to do something is half the battle in being able to do it yourself. First time is ALWAYS harder.

Everyone has the opportunity to benchmark THEMSELVES at THEIR OWN fitness level, and then see if they can do any better next time around. And if that's all we are able to achieve with this, we have accomplished a lot.

- Bill

OK, I decided to try this test out this weekend. The good news - it didn't cripple me (i.e., no back spasms). The bad news - after 7 months of PT I'm still not back in shape; which suprised me a little, since I'm now at the dojo 3-4 times/week and doing PT 3-4 times/week with little pain.

Although I was disappointed with the results, I'm not ashamed to post them:

VITAL STATS
--------------
AGE: 32
HEIGHT: 6' 3" (75")
WEIGHT: 250 lbs.
BUILD: LARGE (Waist 35", outseam 34")


RESULTS (in order performed)
-------------------------------
PULL-UPS: 3/minute (sad but true; the one muscle group I've been neglecting the past year).

PUSH-UPS: 26/minute (elbows rubbing sides, hands just outside shoulders and pointing forward)

SIT-UPS: 40/minute (feet hooked under couch, arms crossed on chest, knees bent, butt did not leave floor, range of motion from back flat on floor to elbows touching knees)

SQUATS: 35/minute (feet shoulder width apart, feet always flat on floor, back as straight as humanly possible, BURNS LIKE HELL!)

RUN: I died after 1/4mile in 2m+10s. Too fast (8-9minute mile... too much for me). At this point I stopped for minute, reset the stop watch, and went for a 1 mile walk

WALK: 1 mile in 15min (right on the nose relative to PT; I set the tread mill to 4MPH and go for 30 to 60 minutes)

BROAD JUMP: attempt #1 - 5' 6" (66")
attempt #2 - 6' 8" (80")
attempt #3 - 6' 9" (81")

Interestingly enough you peak in the broad jump fairly fast. I did make several more attempts after this and all ended up in the 79" to 81" range. Note that I did the broad jump last since I didn't have any help available and this would have given me a huge break between reps and the run/walk.

I'll have to give it a try next weekend. For the running portion are we allowed to mix running and walking or should we just stick to one. Obviously mixing them would improve a walker's time or hurt a runner's time. Should we try to keep this data separate?


cheers,

chewy

Excellent, chewy. Given your build, your results are not unexpected.


I'm all for any way you get from the starting line to the finish line - providing you receive no help. It's no different than doing a marathon or a triathalon. Walking makes your time worse, after all. It's all self-correcting on the scoring part.

What's really cool here is that the test made you see your weaknesses, right? And it makes you want to go work on them, right?

- Bill

I'm definitely motivated to get back to some bicept building and endurance training. I think the best news for me in this whole thing is that I did not once feel like I had to stop due to back pain (of course it remains to be seen if I will be able to get out of bed tomorrow morning ). Just 3-4 months ago I:

- could not go to the dojo more than twice a week
- could not do push ups without doing them from my knees
- could not do leg lifts at all
- could not run
- could not lift or carry more than 40 lbs.
- could not throw a strong front kick without accute pain

I'm still well short of my fitness level of 1 year ago (just before my first trip to the hospital), but things are coming along nicely.

Thanks for putting this together Bill.


cheers,

chewy

"Be careful, Rich. Now you're getting into an apples-to-oranges comparison."

No, no. I am all in favor of keeping the test the same for everyone. I was just agreeing with Dana that one pullup does not compare well to a 60 second arm hang.

The Air force had allowed bike rides and/or long walks in lieu of the run. There was some humor generated by the alternate standards. I believe that the AF recently tightened up on that and use an 'ergo bike' of some type to measure cardio output for those who have a mediacl problem that prevents them them running.

Rich

_________________
Member of the world's premier gun club, the USMC!

BTW - take another look at that picture. Nakahodo Sensei is also on the tips of his big toes.

_________________
Did you show compassion today?

Dana

Yep. As I said, he's the real deal.

You should try doing push-ups on the sokusen some time. It feels ridiculous at first, but you can get used to it pretty quickly (if you have a half-decent sokusen). Doing them at that angle (ankle flexed 90 degrees) conditions you for doing roundhouse sokusens. Because of that one exercise, I now do roundhouse sokusens a lot easier than I do front kick sokusens.

I never forget first seeing Nakahodo Sensei circa 1984 on Thompson's Island. I had never seen someone with forearms like that before. But there were two other talents of his I noted even more distinctly. His karate form had precision like I had never seen before. And then... He couldn't speak a lick of English. But there were long lines of people waiting for him to check their kata. Nakahodo Sensei would watch you do your form. Then he would imitate your mistakes with such precision that it would make us all laugh. He needed no English; he communicated perfectly well with movement.

chewy

Glad to hear you are on the mend. That is fantastic!

We can chat about backs when you get to camp.

- Bill

Bill - we're talking about outside the obvious uses for sokusen and how to train it over on my forum. Mind dropping by?

http://forums.uechi-ryu.com/viewtopic.p ... 250#121250

Thanks,
Dana

_________________
Did you show compassion today?

Just a heads up...

I'm trying to work the logistics of this out for camp. As I see it, it may be difficult to rush people from one station to the next with fixed time intervals in-between that would particularly be true if we have a lot of people going through this event.

That being the case, it may be prudent to allow "adequate rest" in-between stations. This way variable time intervals in-between stations won't make that much difference. And we can run batches of people through events such as the mile run.

I'll keep you folks posted.

Bring your athletic shoes!!!

- Bill

wait....I'm getting a telepathic message from Tony....ah...yes...

What do mean athletic shoes? If they're Uechi-ka shouldn't they be running the mile on their sokusens????!!!

Tee hee.

BWAAAA HAaa haaaa!

_________________
Did you show compassion today?

"Bring your athletic shoes!!!"

Athletic shoes? This was meant to be run in "boots and utes" (utes = utilities = cammies). The heavy boots will add a minute to your run time.

The CO always wears a flak jacket to show off, and he still out runs 99% of the youngsters.

Bill: You may remember me wearing a flak jacket in karate class on occasion to acclimate to the extra weight.... about 12 to 15 pounds depending on the version being worn. With the ballistic plates add 10 more pounds.

As the flak jackets are not easily tossed into the wash after a sweaty workout they tend to acquire quite an aroma.

Unless you are truly fit and acclimated to extra weight and heat do not try this at home or by yourself.

Rich

_________________
Member of the world's premier gun club, the USMC!

Glad to see you got my Aether-Mail Dana... thats just what I was thinkin'!

Gentlemen and Lady's
When I first proposed the "Red Sun" test, it was simple. Run, use heavy bag to punch, kick, sit ups, push ups, etc. all within a 30 minute time limit. A minimum had to established, say 500 or so punches and kicks, each arm and leg. It was not meant to be a competition to see who was the best for that day. It was meant to be a "badge of honor" for all those who completed the test against themselves. It sounds now like its gotten over compicated...computerized. Anyway, at least something is started for those fit and not overweight.
D. Berndt