your current thinking on conditioning

Bill Glasheen · Post by **Bill Glasheen** » Thu May 21, 2009 4:25 pm

hoshin

Nice post!

I have a few things to add that may help your thinking evolve.

First... There is a BIG difference between bodybuilding and weight training. I happen to know a lot about the differences amongst the various venues (bodybuilding, power lifting, weight training, Olympic weight competition, plyometric training) because I've been an athlete all my life while my wife was a former competitive bodybuilder. Plus... a person who coached the two of us was a former world heavyweight powerlifting champion, and subsequently an NCAA sport strength coach at UVa.

The problem with the literature out there (books and magazines) is that it's almost all about bodybuilding. Meanwhile, we do not do bodybuilding. Getting bigger is serendipity. Mostly our training should be about improving strength, power, and coordination.

Second... Most bodybuilding and much of weight training in the past was about improving muscles and muscular responses. Modern (and some very old traditional) training is about developing your NEUROmuscular responses. For example doing an Olympic clean-and-jerk requires tremendous development of the dynamic stretch reflexes throughout your body. No basketball player can dunk a basketball without that development. Seen how Michael Jordan looks? Not like Arnold. Lean and mean, yes. Massive? Nope...

Same is true for most good fighters. They are lean and mean, but they'd lose in a bodybuilding competition.

Third... Static contraction is all fine and good. But modern open-chain training methods don't isolate just the major muscle groups as Arnold suggests. In fact they ironically took a step BACKWARDS and started looking to the old methods (like Olympic lifts) for strength AND power development as well as learning how to use and develop the whole body.

On the independence thing...

I say yes and no. I like to think of the yin/yang symbol or the pangainoon metaphor to describe what we want. We want our muscles to communicate with each other, but we don't want any inappropriate "cross talk." Virtually all movements we do are quite complex, and require both independent AND synchronized qualities. So yes, I want the shoulder muscles to relax more while I pull the acromioclavicular joint down very strongly when I thrust. But sort of... There are many muscles (the various deltoids, rotator cuff, etc.) involved in a thrust, and the pattern of contraction is complex while the large muscles (lats) are making the shoulder stable. Plus... Getting the core into it requires another level and layer of understanding.

So yes to minimizing the cross talk. But we still have to get all the pieces and parts working together - as if we were the conductor and our body was the orchestra.

Pangainoon is indeed a nice metaphor for this. Some of this, and some of that. Never all of one thing.

- Bill

Dana Sheets · Post by **Dana Sheets** » Thu May 21, 2009 5:03 pm

When I say, "karate training methods are mostly in support of doing more karate without any other real end game or specific goal" that's pretty much what I mean, though I added a word to maybe be a little clearer. In my opinion and experience the main point of karate is to train karate and the conditioning is to help in the training of karate. Karate is almost a closed or isolated system (to borrow and abuse some terms from systems theory).

The true goal of nearly every martial system, no matter if it is from an earlier era or today, is to live longer and live well. Sometimes a system is geared toward individual achievement of that goal and other times a system is geared toward the group or society achieving the goal.

Whether you're living longer because you took out the person who was trying to hurt you or because, through training, you've kept your mind and body in good shape, in the final analysis you achieved the same goal.

Taika once described karate as self-preservation instead of self-defense; and, I agree with his assessment.

Whether you do conditioning, fundamentals, kata, pre-arranged sparring, free-sparring, scenario training, fighting, or meditation--I would hope it is always in the spirit of living long and living well.

Shana Moore · Post by **Shana Moore** » Thu May 21, 2009 5:11 pm

Thank you for a great thought! A toast to living longer and better!

hoshin · Post by **hoshin** » Thu May 21, 2009 5:34 pm

in reply to Bills post,
i agree there is a difference between wieght training and body building , Arnold admits this himself and says to be a true world class body builder you need to cross train in all the different types.

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I like to think of the yin/yang symbol or the pangainoon metaphor to describe what we want
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this is exactly were i was going. thats why i used sanchin for the example. its no so much flexing only one particular head of a muscle. but if a round kick is coming at your head and your arm is in the way, you want to be able to flex and stiffen your arm but be relaxed enough to throw the other hand in his face.
this bring me to somthing i forgot , structure integrity. if you get hit you dont want to crumble or lose your structure. like bending over, having your knee colapse, or wose like in the round kick to the head example, your arm is there but it colapses and you end up punching yourself in the face ,,then kicked!!!

most people without training will contract the entire body, like using a backhoe to plant a flower. this leads to the argument i hear so much that conditioning only teaches you to stand still and get hit. i say you only stand there and get hit if thats what you think conditioning is, which it is not.

Shana ,
yes i think partner training is vital. workng by yourself is a good start and good for some upkeep, but for most of the drills i like, you cant do them by yourself, although i did come up with this big tree limb i could hold and swing in an arch to repilcate a round kick to my thighs,, lol.

as far as real life fighting and conditioning, the old saying is "the one you didnt see is the one that knocked you out". so this will always be true, however conditioning works the bones remember so even with no contraction you are still better off then those who dont condition. i personally reached a point in my training were if i was doing arm pounding with a beginer i would not contract the mucles at all because they could continue longer that way with out pain, but it didnt bother me any. they could hit has hard as they wanted.

to answer your queston on backround. i am not a medical professional. i have been training for a little over 25 years now but for me it was an obssesion. from around 13 to 40 this is all i did, i mean really ALL I DID. i was at the dojo 5 or 6 days a week for 5 hours a day. but what makes a difference is when someone takes responsibilty for there own learning, i have a library of around 300+ books on martial arts, and anything that is realated, like military strategy, college medical books, philosphy, ect
to increase your knowlege 10 fold you have to seek to learn.

Shana Moore · Post by **Shana Moore** » Thu May 21, 2009 5:59 pm

hoshin wrote:to increase your knowlege 10 fold you have to seek to learn.

I couldn't have said it better, and you definately show a wealth of knowledge! As I said, I just like to know my source, so I know how much salt to add for seasoning.

I believe everyone has something worthwhile to offer, and I don't believe a degree is required or guarantees knowledge. So, I welcome all (respectful) thoughts and opinons, and leave it to the individual to sort out what is wheat/chaff for them. Doesn't mean I don't go and look up some of what interests me, at a later date!

Thank you for your time and your answers, both are appreciated! Definately a lot of good material for thought in this thread!

jorvik · Post by **jorvik** » Thu May 21, 2009 7:03 pm

Quote
"but what makes a difference is when someone takes responsibilty for there own learning, i have a library of around 300+ books on martial arts, and anything that is realated, like military strategy, college medical books, philosphy, ect
to increase your knowlege 10 fold you have to seek to learn."

I totally agree with that, after a time you must start to train on your own.
I realised this many years ago, you cannot expect to develop any real skills until you do this. It's like an actor rehearsing

Also knowledge of martial arts is very difficult to obtain because it exists on many levels.even when you speak about conditioning, I have changed my opinion many times about what I believed was true, then false , then true again

...sometimes I feel that I have learned nothing

Shana Moore · Post by **Shana Moore** » Thu May 21, 2009 8:04 pm

jorvik wrote: Also knowledge of martial arts is very difficult to obtain because it exists on many levels.even when you speak about conditioning, I have changed my opinion many times about what I believed was true, then false , then true again ...sometimes I feel that I have learned nothing

Ray,
It is said that a wise man is one who knows how very much he doesn't know. I, personally, do not believe that changing your mind.....over time (we are not speaking hourly here

)....is a sign of a weak mind. I see it as the sign of a mind that is willing to continually re-evalutate the facts available and flexible enough to adapt. That is a GOOD thing! Learning is not an end destination, it is a continual journey (with social stops along the way for freinds, family, and good times).

You are always the one responsible for your own training. This means choosing your sources for information, choosing your training times/schedule, and choosing your training partners.

We each choose our own paths and walk them the best we can.

jorvik · Post by **jorvik** » Thu May 21, 2009 8:41 pm

Thanks Shana

An Aikido teacher once said to me that there was no strength that he coudn't avoid..or put another way.......either avoid the train or become one with the tracks

This is one of the things that I think about Conditioning.it's not something that I reject,but it is something that I question..........in Gung Fu.......they always say that the best kung fu is learned from a small weak woman

.......suppose you had no strength and no conditioning?...what would you have

....I try to look for that................I am a middle aged man, I have a bad hip

....I am not sorry for that. to quote " it is ,what it is "...but as I grow older I look for easier solutions to problems......with karate ( IMHO) ...it changes over time ( only if you put enough time in though

).........and you realise and re appraise all the time

What can I say apart from that but ..smile and enjoy the journey , and watch the changing scenerio

hoshin · Post by **hoshin** » Thu May 21, 2009 11:24 pm

it is written that the budda said "take nothing second hand, if you want to know the truth you must seek it out for yourself"

all statements must and should be debated, but show respect.

if someone says "i think..." it should be on the table for debate, someone else might say " well i dont know, have you ever thought about this"
your answer maybe "well no i havnt. i will have to look into that"

this is a great way to grow and learn.

"it takes a village to raise a child"

it is our mind that directs our travels, our path, our result. imagination creates our reality.
why not use our mind to direct our body to be conditioned?
from my perspective it is not unhealthy. it is not abuse of the body.
after all, your body is going to change and form itself for better or worse whether you like it or not. if you sit on the couch all day your body responds.
it would be best if we give it a little direction, make the bones stronger, make the muscles stonger. thats all conditioning is. the difference is how we use the end result. we are martial artists so we do what we do and the conditioning helps along the way.

jorvik · Post by **jorvik** » Fri May 22, 2009 8:02 pm

Quote
"it is written that the budda said "take nothing second hand, if you want to know the truth you must seek it out for yourself"

But do we ?

.............I've met martial arts folks who have never had a fight in their life. Yet those same people will tell you exactly what to do in a fight

....and we take a lot of things in life for granted, we pressume that some people know what they are talking about., very often we just accept that somebody knows what they are talking about because they have a black belt.or better yet if they are Asian looking.....or as I have said before if they taught the military or the police ( that's a great way to sell stuff BTW)..and the stuff is usually exotic krav maga etc...nobody tells you the way that the ira kills for example..a gun pressed to the back of the head in the dead of night, or a car bomb.......who do you think al qaeda learned that one from

there are some things that I know work because I've used them, and others because they have been used on me

...from this I can sort of deduce other things and that may be right or wrong.but the truths are simple...when you fight you must keep on punching, you must keep a guard up and you must keep moving, I have knocked people out with kicks to the head so I guess they work.....I have been knocked out myself by bigger guys.even when I wore protective gear.hence I don't believe that body conditioning works........you can fight through a strike to the groin, but it isn't pleasant .head butts can hurt you but they have never knocked me down...........the worst fear that I have had was when I was punched in the solar plexus and then strangled...........I really thought that was it................now other people may have different experiences than me and I'd love to hear about little weak people beating bigger guys just by standing there and taking a couple of punches

hoshin · Post by **hoshin** » Fri May 22, 2009 11:19 pm

I wore protective gear.hence I don't believe that body conditioning works
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Ray i dont mean to hop on your statement, but did you not read anything that has been posted here?
from this statement it sounds like you are looking at conditioning All wrong.

1..conditioning will not keep you from being knocked out

2.. conditioning will not make you imune to strikes, it still hurts like hell.

3..if you get in hit the eye, groin, neck. ect you are going down and out.

these are not the purpose of doing conditioning. the purpose is to make the bones and muscles stonger and more able to take the abuse sustained in a real fight or in a lesser situation regular everyday class.
all it will do is reduce the amount of serious injury, or daily injury when doing repitions of class activities.
i have found that over time people can take harder hits and it hurts less...LESS ...no one ever said it makes you super human and invincable.
in a real fight it gives you no real advantage!!!!!!!!!!!
however you will sustain less damage on the day after.

hoshin · Post by **hoshin** » Sat May 23, 2009 2:09 am

I'd love to hear about little weak people beating bigger guys just by standing there and taking a couple of punches
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is this the image that outsiders have in there mind when uechi people talk about conditioning?

is this what some uechi people profess... to get students?

Sue G · Post by **Sue G** » Sat May 23, 2009 8:16 am

Strength is important to me. Conditioning makes me feel stronger - I know I can take harder hits in some areas. It adds a layer - not of protection but of toughness.

And I'm not so scared of being hit. Which is part of the mental conditioning, just as important I think. This sets people who do martial arts apart from "normal people"

Also learning about pain, how to cope, continue processing, analysing while being assaulted etc

Haha just re-read that, not normal people at all...

hoshin · Post by **hoshin** » Sat May 23, 2009 2:03 pm

thank you Sue!
you just touched something very important.
learning to deal with pain.
(little story)
when i was young me and freinds were playing baseball. one of my friends had a ground ball coming for him and when he put his glove down to get it the ball popped up and hit him in the nose.
he lost all thought of the game and droped his glove and was so worried about his nose. he kept checking it for blood, holding it, nursing it. all the while the rest of the team was screaming to throw the ball and forget your nose.

this story always comes back to me because many people will do the same thing in a fight. with one or two hits they focus to much on the pain or what just happened and forget to fight and protect themselves from sustaining more pain and damage.

i think conditioning is a good way to start to deal with these issuses. i tend to think these are more emotional issues then pain issues. so the amount of pain does not have to be that much. just enough for he person to begin a new way of thinking and looking at the problem

MikeK · Post by **MikeK** » Sat May 23, 2009 5:54 pm

Something seems to be missing here, at least to me. I really get the feeling that few who practice conditioning actually understand why they do it. Everyone has a personal reason (most good), and I've seen in the dojo reasons, but so far I haven't seen mentioned a good practical reason. Here are a couple of open ended questions...

Ask yourself, why do I really condition the body parts that I do?

Ask yourself, how do I really use this conditioning pro-actively against someone with experience who wants to hurt me?

Once you answer, turn those answers on their heads.

your current thinking on conditioning

GREAT to hear from you Dana!