The Importance of Training Progression & Frequency

Article by Idai Makaya

This article was written for the April 2007 edition of Martial Arts Illustrated Magazine.

Most martial artists are aware of the need for some sort of specific conditioning to enable the body to perform as required. Obviously, there are many approaches to martial arts conditioning, based on the individual athlete’s goals and ability levels. This article will focus on the overall concept of martial arts conditioning and will end with a specific example of a cardiovascular conditioning program. The main emphasis of this article will be on the importance of progression in all training.

Conditioning is a term used to describe specific training activities designed to enable the body to perform optimally in a martial art. It logically follows that there will be various types of ‘conditioning’ activities required for the complete development of a martial artist.

The main conditioning activities the majority of martial artists need to focus on serve to build strength, stamina/endurance, technique, flexibility and physical durability of specific striking surfaces on the body. But conditioning activities should also be entered into with the aim of preventing injury.

There are many reasons why we take up martial arts training but research has found that the most common reason is actually to get fitter. Personal well-being is a major consideration for every martial arts practitioner and whatever training and conditioning activities are engaged in must not have short-term or long-term negative health implications.

Health considerations are paramount in martial arts - there are many activities that may appeal to martial artists who are eager to improve their conditioning, but not all such activities are healthy. A common misconception among many of us is that a sudden progression to intense bouts of gruelling training, which leaves the student in a debilitated condition, is the ideal method for improving performance and building mental strength. The idea of pushing oneself to incredible levels of discomfort, well beyond anything the body will have experienced previously, is commonplace in martial arts circles as a ‘short cut’ to high performance.

Many martial artists are convinced they are simply not training hard enough to become as good as they want to be. But an equally important consideration should be whether they are training smart enough.

The human body is designed in such a way that it strives to maintain balance - it tries to stay the same. For this reason, it will only develop relatively slowly, regardless of how hard one tries to push it. Many people who engage in athletic or physical pursuits will have found this particularly frustrating at some stage in their progress. If you ignore the resistance of your body to change and try to push well beyond the limits of your current ability, the system being stressed will simply give way, or grind to a halt with time.

 Bearing this in mind, it makes perfect sense to only ever increase training and conditioning efforts by relatively small increments over relatively lengthy periods of time. This is the basis of the concept of Progression.

It is natural for people who take up martial arts training to have a particular personal vision in mind. Once we have embraced this new vision of ourselves we tend to want to attain it as quickly as possible. That is why we often come across cases of beginners trying to follow a world champion’s training program from the onset - or trying to build up to world class training levels in an impossibly short period of time. This mindset tends to encourage overly enthusiastic training frequencies as well - with too little time set aside for rest.

This leads to another important rule of conditioning, the ‘Frequency’ or ‘Consecutive Days’ Rule. Many people won’t like this rule, but if adhered to it will lead to the fastest and safest progression possible in your training. Simply put, the Consecutive Days Rule states that one must not carry out the same type of conditioning drill on any two consecutive days.

 The reason for this Frequency restriction is that the body wears out every time it is trained. It has a set rate at which it can rebuild muscles, tendons, ligaments or cartilage and this rate is generally consistent among all people for any given training intensity.

What are the consequences of violating the Consecutive Days Rule? There are 3 common outcomes which invariably follow when the Rule is consistently ignored:

1. Overtraining (General fatigue, lack of desire, physical and structural weakness and training plateaux).
2. Overuse Injury (Injuries caused by gradual worsening of microscopic soft tissue tears)
3. Permanent long-term injury (Arthritis and bad joints due to excessive internal tissue scarring as well as long-term erosion of cartilage, ligaments and tendons at the same site)

Think about what you want to achieve in your training. Is it worth any or all of the above consequences? The answer is always ‘no.’

Now that we’ve established the reasons for conditioning our bodies and looked at the importance of logical Progression and the Consecutive Days Rule, let’s look at the various conditioning methods available to martial artists.

Common methods which are highly effective for conditioning are:

• Walking/Running up stairs (cardiovascular/strength)
• Pad work (cardiovascular/technical)
• Kicking or punching at controlled speed - with no target - paying close attention to technique, whilst not fully locking out the limbs (technical)
• Sparring sessions (cardiovascular/technical)
• Bag work (cardiovascular/technical)
• Circuit training (strength/endurance)
• General Weight training (strength)
• Rowing machines (cardiovascular)
• Various Running drills (cardiovascular/endurance)

Drills which should only be used in moderation by martial artists, or even avoided whenever possible, involve large amounts of the following:

• Cycling (tends to greatly tighten hamstring muscles and limit flexibility)
• Jumping drills (high impact on knees, feet and Achilles tendons)
• Kicking/punching very fast into open air without a pad or bag for a target (weakens elbow and knee joints)

Now it’s time to outline a specific example of a martial arts cardiovascular conditioning plan. We will look at a Sprinting workout as our example, paying close attention to progression and frequency aspects of the routine. Running, especially Sprint training, is an extremely effective workout for martial artists wishing to improve stamina. This is especially useful for fighters who compete but is also good for every martial artist who wants to get into top condition.

To begin with, if you have not been running regularly, build up to jogging comfortably for 20 minutes - without any focus on pace. As a general guide, martial artists should be conservative with their running to avoid unnecessary injury which would affect other aspects of martial arts training. Build up by adding 5 minutes to the time spent running, on a fortnightly basis. Never forget the Consecutive Days Rule and aim to run 2 or 3 times a week.

Don’t rush it, go by feel instead. If this progression plan is too fast for you, don’t continue to increase running time just to stay on plan. Monitor how you feel the day after each run, especially first thing in the morning. If you feel any foot or leg injuries coming on, stop going for runs until they have subsided, or just don’t increase running time until they fade. Initially, when you first start running, it is normal to feel muscle aches in the days after a run, but this should stop within two weeks of regular running. Muscle aches are dull pains and feel different to the sharp, shooting pains caused by injuries. Also monitor how running affects your martial arts training by ensuring that certain movements haven’t suddenly become uncharacteristically uncomfortable. If they have, it may be a sign you are moving too fast with your running build-up.

Only when you can comfortably run continuously for 20 minutes should you consider sprint training. Sprinting will not benefit you if you are unable to run continuously for 20 minutes and will only lead to injury. So build up your fitness gradually by just doing steady paced running.

Once you are able to do 20 minute runs comfortably, start your sprint training as follows;

1. Warm up by running for ten minutes at an easy pace.
2. Do some dynamic stretching (leg raises performed like slow axe kicks) to limber up – use sets of ten leg raises for each leg until fully loose.
3. Do ten minutes of 100 metre sprinting at about 60% of your maximum intensity (jog back slowly to the starting line, don’t walk). This will still amount to a total continuous running time of 20 minutes but the session intensity will have drastically increased due to adding the sprints. If you can’t jog back to the start you are sprinting too hard.
4. At the end of each running session stretches can be performed to help relax all the muscles and lengthen the hamstrings. This reduces injury incidence considerably and maintains or improves flexibility.
5. Don’t increase sprint speed or intensity at this stage. Do this drill unchanged for a whole month to condition the legs to the sprinting.
6. Once the legs have been conditioned by sticking to the 20 minute drill for at least a month, you can safely continue your progression. In the 20 minutes allocated to the total workout you may not have been able to complete 10 sprints. If this is the case, start adding one extra 100 metre sprint to the workout every week - until you are doing a workout of ten 100 metre sprints at 60% intensity/pace.
7. Once you have reached a full workout of 10 repeats of the 100m sprint, move focus towards increasing the intensity of the last 5 sprints by going all-out for the final 20 metres (not the full 100 metres) in each of the last 5 sprints. Always do the first 5 sprints at 60% of your maximum. This will help keep injury at bay.

This routine should serve you well for a long time. But, like all routines, it may get boring - or stale - then you’ll want to vary it. This can be done by switching to 100 metre hill runs up a slope, or moving to 200 metre sprints, but keeping the total workout duration the same as when you were doing 100 metre sprints.

Remember to stick to the self-preservation principles outlined earlier and also to use some scheduling logic. Sprint training is demanding - it cannot be done before a martial arts training session on the same day. Nor can it be done before a leg training session if you use weights in the gym. However, it can be followed by an upper body strength training session if you have the time and the motivation.

Sprinting is a great method for conditioning but it doesn’t suit everybody. If you are very heavy, have a history of knee injuries or are bow-legged, sprinting may have more potential to cause you joint problems. However, you should not let that possibility put you off giving it a try - use this conservative method of progression and stick to rational training frequencies. Just be careful and if you find that sprinting doesn’t suit you, find a different method of conditioning to use instead.

For the average recreational martial artist, it is best to do different types of training on different days - time permitting. For example, sprints can be done on Mondays and Thursdays, Karate sessions on Tuesdays and Fridays and strength training/circuits on Wednesdays and Saturdays. This is just an example for illustration purposes; we all have different goals and timetables so we must personalise our schedules. But always pay attention to the important principles of conditioning outlined above.

In future articles I will look at other types of conditioning drills and how to design training sessions that will help strengthen and improve the martial artist while still ensuring future health and longevity in the sport. Happy training till then!

Idai Makaya can be contacted by clicking here - if you want more specific advice on any of the issues raised in this article.