Martial Arts

[Andrew]

Using weights seems to be discouraged in my branch because it interferes with relaxation training. You tense when you should be relaxed. Your mind can handle the difference, but does your body understand?

I understand there is a lot of debate, but it unfortunately comes to these practitioners inexperience having never been muscular, and their judgements of muscular people that are untrained and tense along with superstition about how muscles work. To put it bluntly from experience, education and the numbers on force calculation machines weights or resistance exercise do not interfere with relaxation training. It comes down to brain and neural development... muscle memory, that's where speed comes from. If this logic were universally true the fastest 100m sprinters in the world would not lift weights or do plyometrics. They do. Having big muscles does not cause tension, lack of training causes tension, muscular or no. I find it very unfortunate that the traditional instructors simply do not know what they are talking about when they discourage resistance exercise (weights or plyos) as they do not know these elements are separate. Having gone through that type of training, and being instructed to chain punch regularly, my speed and power went down with it. I could go into the detail on a neuromuscular level from an anatomy & physiology point of view as well but I don't have a ton of time. I just strongly urge you and everyone else to separate training and exercise. Combining them just turns into bad training, developing incorrect technique and the wrong muscle composition. Sparring-the kind with gloves and headgear is some of the worst training possible unless you're training for UFC (in which case it's almost perfect).

Pay attention to the way you are training your martial art and the way you are growing/re-composing your muscles to benefit you in that martial art - Are you training your muscles for power, strength, or stamina? Doing chain punch exercises is similar to speed bag training (stamina training- oxidizing muscles, pumping out lactic acid, making them last), do you want to fight a multi round boxing match or do you want to end your fight and save your life? If your answer is ending the fight, as a martial artist does, then strength and power are the best aid and therefore weights or plyometrics. Doing low-resistance exercise develops the muscles to cope with low resistance and those chain punches will have no power behind them. Powerlifting and Marathon Running are not compatible and have two opposite muscle compositions. For martial arts, you are saving your life, you want power. For UFC/Sparring/Sport it's a balance depending on sport. Train your body to react for a martial art, or train it for a sport, but you can't do both. Don't let any instructor tell you weights will slow you down. I was told that for many years, it simply isn't true. If it was, no 100m sprinters or ANY ATHLETE from any other sport relying on EXPLOSIVENESS and ACCURACY IN TECHNIQUE would have champions that all lifted weights & engaged in plyometrics.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plyometrics