Findings from Olympic Taekwondo
By Idai Makaya
Martial Arts Illustrated Feb 2009
In view of the fact that the Olympics took place recently in China, over the next few months the focus of some of my next conditioning articles will shift to the Olympic martial arts (or combat sports) - namely Taekwondo, Judo, Boxing and Wrestling. The aim will be to draw your attention to certain key conditioning goals and practices affecting the Olympic arts which will also be of significance - or of benefit - to most martial artists.
Most people I have spoken to hold the Olympic combat sports in high esteem. Many wise teachers have said that a true martial artist is a life-long student who strives to see the good aspects of everything around them and to draw on the positives of all human endeavors in order to better him/herself. For this reason I hope you will find the information and advice in this article useful and applicable to your own training goals and aspirations.
Taekwondo taining requires good flexibility…
This month the sport in focus will be Olympic (WTF) Taekwondo. As many of you will be aware Taekwondo is, in its pure form, a traditional kickboxing martial art with a high emphasis on big kicks and punches. However, for the most part, the Olympic version of Taekwondo is largely a sport (although I must emphasize I truly believe it is also a fully-fledged martial art). I am a longtime student of Traditional (ITF) Taekwondo, which is somewhat different to the Olympic version and more closely resembles Karate, but I respect what the Olympians are doing and believe the world of martial arts should rightly be about variety of interpretation.
High kicks rely on good dynamic and static flexibility.
Taekwondo is said to have originated in Korea about 1500 (yes, 1500!) years ago. I am told it was a form of defence used by Korean peasants to dismount their attackers who normally rode on horseback - which possibly explains the emphasis on jumping kicks and very high kicks of different types. It first entered the Olympics as a demonstration sport in 1988 (at the Seoul Olympics) and became a fully-fledged Olympic sport at the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. Olympic Taekwondo is a full-contact sport in which points are scored by punches and kicks (deemed to be of sufficient force to displace the opponents body armor) although punches can only score if delivered to a specified (marked) area of the opponent’s body armor. Bouts are won by maximum points scored, or by knockout.
I will begin by highlighting the findings of a scientific study on Olympic Taekwondo athletes which highlighted certain physical strengths and tactical tendencies related to successful competitors. I will then look at the general implications of these findings in relation to competitive kickboxers (as well as all other martial artists who kick and punch as part of their repertoire). Finally, the overall conditioning aims for athletes in these sports (as well as some of the other factors to consider when striving for excellence in related disciplines) will be covered.
The study was carried out by the Martial Edge Team, in conjunction with the Journal for Sports Science and Medicine and was led by a researcher called Mohzen Kazemi and a team of co-researchers. It aimed to identify the characteristics of the medal winners and to compare them with the rest of the competitors who didn’t win medals. The data for this study was collected directly from the Official Site of the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games and includes the results of 102 competitors (54 male, 48 female).
For simplicity I will not bore you unnecessarily with the scientific jargon and study protocols used but will instead focus on the overall investigative aims and findings. I will relate these findings to general martial arts training and style-selection and provide conditioning advice for athletes aiming to improve on specific aspects of their training (which can be related to the goals of the Olympic athletes studied).
ITF Taekwondo is heavily reliant on upper body conditioning, according to studies.
The main findings were as follows:
The study looked at a number of standard variables among the high performers and in common with similar studies carried out on ITF Taekwondo Black Belts, basketball players, rowers, rock climbers, ten-pin bowlers, volleyball players and swimmers it found that there is certainly a specific body-type which appears to suit Taekwondo fighters because the fighters who succeed in Olympic Taekwondo seem to have very similar physical traits. This probably echoes what has been said by a number of coaches and laypeople over the years (and was indeed said to me when I was looking at choosing a new martial art). Your current body is often a good determinant of which martial art will suit you best if you haven’t taken up any particular form of training - or if you do many martial arts. Note the use of the term “current” – some aspects of your body can be changed by how you condition it.
As I mentioned previously, early in my career I was told not to train in Olympic (WTF) Taekwondo and do the traditional (ITF) version instead - because my physical stature was such that my strengths would probably lie in being explosive and using power and technique. My coach thought Olympic (WTF) Taekwondo relied too heavily on speed and evasion, which suited lighter builds with longer limbs. So I took that advice. This study has validated my coach’s advice because it references a similar study from 1998 which showed that competition performance in traditional (ITF) Taekwondo Black Belts was directly attributable to maximum power output and upper limb reaction time. Those variables were investigated in this Olympic (WTF) Taekwondo study and found not to apply.
Indeed, the ideal Olympic Taekwondo body-type identified in this study was one with a low body fat level, slim build and long limbs (described physiologically as having a low body mass index or “BMI”). BMI is a comparison of a person’s weight and height measurements – the higher your weight is in comparison to your height, the higher your BMI is.
To calculate BMI, the following steps are taken:
Measure athlete’s weight in kilograms. Measure athlete’s height in metres. Divide athlete’s weight (in kilograms) by their height (in metres). Divide the answer (to 3. above) by the athlete’s height in metres again.
I suggest you use a calculator if you’re interested in this measurement. BMI is not an accurate reflection of an athlete’s body composition but traditional medical charts have used the measurement for a long time - hence it’s use in this study. 
Although no statistical significance was found regarding height and weight of these Olympic athletes, medalists were generally found to be about 2 inches taller, on average, than non-medalists and the average BMI of an elite Taekwondo athlete was much lower than the average for the general population (implying a build closer to that of a middle-distance runner than to that of a sprinter).
These findings have two implications:
Having a lighter bodyweight than the average person helps with general and leg speed and also may reflect a higher dedication to cardiovascular training. However, the study did put in a caveat – weight loss must be undertaken responsibly and knowledgeably by athletes wishing to gain a bodyweight advantage for weight-categorized competition.
Further success is helped by having longer limbs - which offer a higher probability of scoring points and then quickly withdrawing from counters thrown by shorter-limbed opponents (this factor may also play a role in the observation of the most successful fighting strategies identified by the study and alluded to later in this article).
The implications of this on all kickboxers and puncher/kickers are that you need to assess your body type if planning to take up any new form of training and use this information to help decide how you will train. If you already have committed to a certain form of training and think your body type may not be suitable, it’s not necessary to opt out at this stage. Quitting goes against the grain in martial arts culture, as does looking for excuses. What you may need to do is to re-assess your training and conditioning program, as well as look into how much time you are putting into “smart” training practices. 
Good hand techniques apparently give Taekwondo fighters the competitive edge over kickers.
You will probably need to alter your training strategy and your performance/fighting strategy - not your martial arts style. But don’t react impulsively to such findings - valid though they may be – because everything must be taken in full context. Your body tends to change as a result of your training (hence the importance of martial arts conditioning) so if you are currently fatter than average it doesn’t mean you can’t lose that weight and become more slender as a kick boxer. There are two approaches which an athlete must be aware of in relation to body type (which could explain why athletes in certain sports/events all seem to have similar bodies):
Some people naturally have a body type suitable for particular sports or events and they take well to training and competing in those sports/events (such as tall people playing basketball or volleyball). Some people, through dedication and application, train correctly to improve their abilities in a sport and as a result of following the correct conditioning programs they eventually “re-shape” their bodies to better suit their sport. Hence the similarities in physique seen in Olympic competitors who do the same events.
This is a bit of a “chicken and egg situation.” The key lesson is that we are shaped by how we train as well as by our genetics - both factors play a part. So make informed choices when choosing martial arts disciplines. If you are tall and of light build, that suits kickboxing – but be aware that it also seems to suit Jujitsu/submission fighting very well, which is quite the opposite of kickboxing in both training and technique. 
Fitness factors also play a role in Olympic Taekwondo success and this study alludes to the fact that Croatian Taekwondo champions were assessed and found to have higher general anaerobic (cardiovascular) capacities than more average athletes in the same team (as measured by running on a track or treadmill and oxygen uptake capability). The scientific analysis also explains that the best way to increase cardiovascular capacity and oxygen uptake is to have a low body fat percentage and high lean (muscular) body mass. Taekwondo champions tended to have good muscular and skeletal development with low fat levels. This is good news because it implies that honing your fitness has a bearing on how successful you will eventually be as a performer. If you condition yourself correctly and appropriately it will help to achieve your martial arts goals, regardless of your martial arts style.
Scoring Techniques and Strategy were also analyzed and an interesting trend was brought to light. Male winners used much fewer offensive techniques than male non-winners at the Sydney Games. Non-winners used 63% more offensive techniques than the winners of Taekwondo bouts.
Again, the picture for females was somewhat different in that female winners used more overall techniques than female non-winners, which indicates a difference in approach between men and women in Olympic (WTF) Taekwondo competition.
Women may need to condition themselves differently to men, for Taekwondo excellence.
Analysis of strategy also brought out some very interesting revelations. For instance men (both winners and non-winners), Round-One had the highest scoring percentage (43% and 65% of the total score, respectively). However, for women the pattern was significantly different (with only 19% of the winners’ total scoring in the first round (59% for non-winners) and over half (53%) of the total points scored in the second round alone (for female winners).
This seems to suggest that male fighters need to focus their training more on counterattacks, keeping calm and conserving their energy (pacing themselves), if they are to prevail strategically. On the other hand, for Olympic success women need to ensure they are very fit and have a good variety of techniques to match their work rate. Both groups should probably use the first round to feel out their opponents and establish a rhythm, which calms the nerves and allows an increase in pressure as the bout progresses.
Accuracy with both the hands and feet is essentil at the top level - even for WTF Taekwondo.
Also of interest was the fact that the winners received more warnings and cautions per match than the non-winners (for both male and female competitors). Could this suggest higher aggression and perhaps more determination to win at all costs?
Statistics from Sydney reveal that the women’s winners scored more points (in total) than the men’s winners and that the points difference between male winners and non-winners was smaller than between female winners and non-winners. The study attempts to explain this by referring to the fact that the global “pool” of male competitors is much larger and deeper than for female competitors – as is the case for many other sports - due to lower overall female participation numbers. This means that the male bouts will generally be expected to be closer than the female ones – a result of the more consistent standards of the athletes.
Lastly, under strategy, was the statistic that Korea, the nation for which Taekwondo is the national sport, was the most successful nation in the Sydney Olympic Taekwondo competition. Apart from having a larger “pool” of fighters to draw upon, their fighters used more defensive (countering) techniques to score than the average for the competition. This infers that strategy is a key part of competition success.
Coordination is important for both offense and defence and is crucial for counter-attacking.
Age was analyzed and winners, on the whole, were younger than the non-winners. This probably points out the heavy reliance on speed for Olympic (WTF) Taekwondo. The speed factor is generally age-related for all sports.
Bodyweight of winning male athletes was slightly higher for their division than the average – except for the unlimited weight category. This information is valuable because it still supports the assertion that low body fat levels probably correlate to harder training, so competitors whose weight was not limited probably determined their weight by body fat levels and muscularity. Remember, winners were generally taller and leaner than non-winners in all weight categories, for both genders - but for the heavyweights winners were not heavier. That suggests they were probably leaner but stronger – an indication of being better conditioned.
As I will continue to allude to with regularity in this article, it would be pertinent to put these findings into the correct context. Do not use the findings as excuses to limit yourself, or to quit, or to keep trying different styles and hoping to find one you are “good” at. Remember, the study was based only on Olympic Taekwondo, in one Olympic Games (Sydney 2000). More comparisons will be required to further validate the trends highlighted but in my view they appear to be accurate and they correlate to my personal experiences. Also, Olympic (WTF) Taekwondo is a sport with very narrow performance options and criteria - much like Olympic boxing. There are not many effective ways to score. This is not the case in “real-world” martial arts and self defence.
If you are not already an Olympic athlete the main learning from this information is that if your options are reduced (by various sporting rules), just a few specific attributes can become extremely important for success. But, in real life, as in real fighting, there are a large number of ways to succeed - because there are fewer limitations and much more lax rules. However, if you want to improve very specific parts of your training and performance (such as fast, multiple kicking) it would help to bear the facts of this study in mind.
Studies clearly show that handspeed is a differentiator for top ITF competitors.
The proof of the difference between “real world” martial arts and sports like Olympic Boxing or Taekwondo is seen when one examines the physical builds of various current fighting champions. Olympians are very similar in body type within each weight category with much fewer variations from “type.” But if you look at pro-boxing, UFC, K-1, etc, you’ll notice that the statures, heights and builds of the champions vary considerably - although “sub-types” do still exist such as the “Tyson-type” physique, or a “Joe Calzaghe build,” and so on. In fact, many of the middleweight champions in boxing and MMA are of the same height as (or taller than) the light-heavyweight or heavyweight champions. They only differ in build/physical stature. In the weight divisions of professional fighting there are huge variations in physique and height among the successful elite competitors – and though a more common physique-type does still seem to exist to a small extent, even in those groups it’s probably mainly as a result of similar training methods rather than just genetic build preferences.
The researchers who put this study together do allude to the fact that success in competition is a combination of physical attributes, talent, skill, technique, determination, strategy and mental preparation - factors they didn’t really examine in the study.
If you consider those 6 factors you’ll probably decide that most of them carry a  more-or-less equal weighting (in relation to success). But the truly inspiring thing is that almost everybody, without exception, can actually do something to improve on at least 4 of those 6 factors. In addition, mental preparedness and strategy – both during training and during competition - probably carry slightly more gravity than any of the other 4 individual factors in the final success equation. And those 2 factors are something we all have equal opportunity to alter.
So over to you now. The power does, indeed, lie in your hands (and possibly in your legs as well!). The scientific evidence is there if you really want to find it. You truly can decide if you are a champion and a winner by your short-term and long-term actions and how you choose to approach the tasks ahead of you. Over the next few months, in my upcoming articles, I will continue to look at the conditioning factors affecting other Olympic combat sports, as well as looking at various other interesting aspects of martial arts conditioning. Happy training until then!
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