Fitness & Strength

FAST Five Elemental Element Energies Diagram
Fitness and strength training (FAST) is important for a variety of reasons, ranging from general health and fitness to fitness for a specific purpose. Weight-loss and general health and fitness have their own requirements focused more on aerobic endurance training in order to burn fat and at higher training intensity levels, carbohydrates. These work during training sessions only, but some strength work is still required, partly to create a metabolic process that is still burning away fat long after the training session has finished. 

Other requirements are sports/activity-specific. Long-distance running is focused on systemic endurance and tries to minimize body mass in order to lighten the load that needs to be carried by the legs. Marathon runners generally have a higher percentage of slow-twitch fibers compared to Sprinters and weight lifters who have a large percentage of fast-twitch fibers. Body Building is the polar extreme where we are trying to increase our body mass (hypertrophy), but with muscle rather than fat. This is also slightly different in objective to Body Sculpting in which we are developing an ideal body shape and outline rather than muscle mass. Power Lifting is focused on the extremes of weight resistance training in their efforts to develop maximal strength (neural development) for a specific exercise or feat of strength. Sprinting requires great leg power, but the body needs to be kept balanced for both body control as well as aesthetic reasons. No matter what we do, to some degree or other, the strength component is the adaptation that provides the foundations for all of them.

Besides these purely athletic sports and activities, most people practice fitness for, or, as part of their sporting activity. For example, Squash is extremely demanding on the legs and High-Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) fitness, tennis on general fitness and mobility, football on general endurance and power sprinting.  Parkour and Breaking also have their own specific requirements or focus areas, such as plyometric training for the legs, strong core and shoulder muscles and good flexibility to hold the poses and control the body tricks. Martial Arts, in theory, require something of everything and therefore must usually focus on Full Body Workouts to support their activities. However, not all martial arts are the same and there can be quite considerable disparities between the individual arts and schools. Lii-Kan Jitsu has much in common with Parkour perhaps, hence the heightened need for plyometric training, basic power and muscular endurance combined with flexibility and speed. 

The tables below provide links to some free but essential information about training exercises, programmes, theory and safety issues to help you train in the right way to avoid potential injuries and wasted time.

Reference Websites


KenHub

Anatomy Zone
Unfortunately, unless you are a dedicated athlete with nothing else to do 25 hours a day - 8 days a week, there is rarely time to do everything according to the theory books. Unless your sport is very narrow and specific in its focus we must learn to compromise and optimize. Martial Arts, by their very nature, are the most extraordinarily complex activity in terms of knowledge, techniques, skills, conditioning, and application that have no equal in the sporting world. Just about every other sport ever invented can be considered a supporting activity for developing specific skills. It is also interesting to note that whilst the principles are the same, strength training techniques require the opposite emphasis in technique compared to most martial arts which require Ballistic Impact Power.

To save time and improve training efficiency we must divide our time wisely and try to incorporate the fitness, mobility, agility and strength training into our sporting workouts as much as possible, without sacrificing the skills development and application/conditioning aspects that are all important. A core set of universal exercises can be adapted and kept interesting and developed via a variety of methods, in particular, 'scaling' through, for example, loading, intensity, types of resistance and technique. In this way, we minimize time wastage through constant new learning, as the learning and technique development compounds within the same foundational exercise. All else is basically entertainment to prevent ourselves from getting stale and losing interest, but, that's what most of us (pure fitness enthusiasts excluded) practice the sports for.

PT Myths
Many bog-standard PT drones, and especially those specialising in endurance athletics, argue that flexibility and suppleness is not a major requirement. They even advocate minimising flexibility to keep muscles and tendons tighter and more tense for quicker reactions and agility, claiming that the extra flexibility makes us (joints) more unstable.  
Seriously, have you ever seen an unstable gymnast?
One semi-pro footballer I know was taught the same thing by his coach. In a match soon afterward, he ripped his groin whilst trying to make a quick turn and never played again. Fitness and Strength training is obviously a major contributor to overall performance, speed, and mobility. However, speed, quick reactions & agility (adaptability) do require suppleness and belong, not to tight & inflexible fitness conditioning, but primarily to the technique & skill SeTs of the sport.
These half-baked PT claims are absolute PUGWASH! 

This means that aside from some core FAST exercises, the program must use style specific, dynamic and compound exercises as much as possible in order to support and augment the normal skills training and activities. Even the core exercises must be relevant and ideally based on actual need lest they de-train the skills and techniques required. Our FAST program must include not only pure weight resistance Training (WRT) but, a variety of resistance training types and methods, some of which are unique to martial arts and Lii-Kan Jitsu in particular. Conversely, some traditional martial arts training can also be used for general fitness, health & weight-loss purposes, making it context-based for far greater interest and motivation without actually having to practice the sport/art/activity in itself. 

To this end, we (Lii-Kan Jitsu) have our own trademark concepts and training programmes. This kind of training program requires a great deal of sport-specific expertise to optimize the FAST programme that other/normal Personal Trainers cannot provide. Only fools and horses think that knowledge of general weight training exercises is enough to achieve the required results, a problem that further extends to the subtleties of breathing techniques and beyond. Inappropriate exercises and programs can actually hinder and disrupt the physical abilities and attributes need to support martial skills. Fortunately, at Lii-Kan Jitsu our instructors are well versed in both areas of expertise so you can get the best of both worlds.
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