Request: Types of Gym Workouts for this TKD practitioner

[DrewTheTKDStudent1992]

Hey guys,

I want to do some more gym workouts for my Taekwondo training with these goals:
*Improving jumping height
*Improve kicking speed and technique
*Improve posture
*Increase agility
*Increase flexibility

I also want to do weightlifting to increase my muscle mass and upper body strength.

Which types of gym workouts should I do to approach these goals? Which kind of approach should I take doing them? Like different weights per set?

 

[jobo]

Hey guys,

I want to do some more gym workouts for my Taekwondo training with these goals:
*Improving jumping height
*Improve kicking speed and technique
*Improve posture
*Increase agility
*Increase flexibility

I also want to do weightlifting to increase my muscle mass and upper body strength.

Which types of gym workouts should I do to approach these goals? Which kind of approach should I take doing them? Like different weights per set?

well really the same as any other sports man, all the * are really skills that you need to practise as a skill, for instance a lot of jumping increases you ability to jump a lot, jumping high need you to work on jumping high not lots and lots.

posture is skill, training your body to hold the desired posture naturally and addressing any imbalances that are causing you poor posture which then gets you in to the weight training , so you want to be training skill be practising skills, but only to the point that your skill decreases, 10 hard fast kick are much better than 200 slow gentle kicks

you want to work on your strength, so low reps high intensity , you want to work on your strength endurance, medium reps medium intensity ( which is also the best for muscle growth)and you want to work on your endurance high reps low intensity.

you can do that at the same time by focusing on a different eliment each time or go to the gym, or probably more efficiently by focusing on one eliment at a time for say two months before changing to something else.

I'd start by doing a session where you are doing skill training your skillsand then following that up at the next visit with medium intensity mediium reps weights training for a couple of months and see where that gets you

 

[MetalBoar]

Hey guys,
...
I also want to do weightlifting to increase my muscle mass and upper body strength.

Which types of gym workouts should I do to approach these goals? Which kind of approach should I take doing them? Like different weights per set?

I agree with Jobo's post enough that I'm not going to bother to comment any further on that.

The one thing I do want to point out is that jumping height and kicking speed will be (greatly?) improved by strengthening your legs, so don't limit your weight lifting to the upper body. In general I expect you'd get more overall benefit from a really good lower body weight lifting routine than from one focused exclusively on the upper body. Regardless, in my opinion you shouldn't skip any major muscle group in your strength training.

 

[jobo]

I agree with Jobo's post enough that I'm not going to bother to comment any further on that.

The one thing I do want to point out is that jumping height and kicking speed will be (greatly?) improved by strengthening your legs, so don't limit your weight lifting to the upper body. In general I expect you'd get more overall benefit from a really good lower body weight lifting routine than from one focused exclusively on the upper body. Regardless, in my opinion you shouldn't skip any major muscle group in your strength training.

agreed, it's so common that it's a cliche that people forget leg day, but it's even more so that they do quad exercises , whilst forgetting hamstring and calves, need those calves if your going to jump high

 

[skribs]

Hey guys,

I want to do some more gym workouts for my Taekwondo training with these goals:
*Improving jumping height
*Improve kicking speed and technique
*Improve posture
*Increase agility
*Increase flexibility

I also want to do weightlifting to increase my muscle mass and upper body strength.

Which types of gym workouts should I do to approach these goals? Which kind of approach should I take doing them? Like different weights per set?

• Jumping height - combination of leg strength and technique. For most Taekwondo applications, you want to focus on calves. Quads will also be important.
• Kicking speed and technique - both come from practicing the technique slowly. Once you build the proper form, it will be a lot faster when you speed it up. After that, it's more likely that you need to practice kicking faster than build muscle, but muscle will help.
• Improve posture - do poomsae/forms.
• Increase agility - start with the basic techniques and then the footwork. Once you understand the footwork, then you can work on it. Agility will come as much from your stance and your technique as it will from your strength. Compared with earlier, with agility you want more upper leg strength
• Increase flexibility - stretch before and after practice. You can also take yoga or something like that between classes, and stretch at home every day.
• Muscle Mass and Upper Body Strength - not really a TKD question. Specifically for TKD, I'd focus on core > legs > arms in terms of which areas of your body you work out. And that's because proper practice should give your legs plenty of exercise anyway.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

*Improve kicking speed and technique

This training is for foot sweep. It can be trained for front kick too.

 

[Deleted member 39746]

Box Squats work for jumping, or, i may have forgotten the word for it, the explosive exercises you can do, like burpess etc.

i dont really know of a sure fire way to increase jump height but do explosive exercises. (again forgot the fancy word, begins with a p) Box squats are apparently better as they take away some of the stress of jumping down from something or mitigate some stresses involved in it.

As for posture, doing forms or generic stretching exercises should help or sparring. (especially if someone comes around and slaps you on your head if you lean)


I think for weight lifting for martial arts i have seen somone or people say squats, deadlifts and i think bench presses. As the main focus anyway, or at least compound exercises.


But you can pretty much get most of what you need to improve in a particular style/sport by going to classes in it/doing it more. The only trend i think is in TMA is slightly neglecting strength exercises. I don't know enough about the subject to say what you can actually do on a "rest" day from what exercises you have done in the workout.

 

[Earl Weiss]

I disagree with some of the above advice. Jumping height and Speed come from "Fast Twitch" fibers in the muscles. These are targeted by plyometric training. You can Google it. TAKE CARE not to over do it since it is high impact training. Best to use some sort of resilient landing surface an good shoes.

 

[jobo]

I disagree with some of the above advice. Jumping height and Speed come from "Fast Twitch" fibers in the muscles. These are targeted by plyometric training. You can Google it. TAKE CARE not to over do it since it is high impact training. Best to use some sort of resilient landing surface an good shoes.

?? jumping high is plyo training as is or can be any weight / resistance training exercisI, if you load the muscle on the eccentric and then explode on the concentric, which is really what you should be doing with any strength/ power lifting

 

[MetalBoar]

I disagree with some of the above advice. Jumping height and Speed come from "Fast Twitch" fibers in the muscles. These are targeted by plyometric training. You can Google it. TAKE CARE not to over do it since it is high impact training. Best to use some sort of resilient landing surface an good shoes.

I do agree that you need to work hard enough to deeply inroad type II muscle fibers if you want to increase explosive strength but there's plenty of research to indicate you can do this through strength training alone. Plyometric training also targets fast twitch fibers and it is effective for that purpose but plyometrics aren't required to develop explosive strength. Any form of resistance training where you achieve a deep inroad in a short period of time will strongly recruit type II fibers. Lifting heavy, regardless of speed of motion*, will get you great results in a shorter time with greater safety in my opinion. This can get confused in the scientific literature because some poorly conducted studies don't account for skill acquisition well, if it all.

As I stated above, I believe that if you want to be good at jumping high the most efficient way to get there is a combination of practicing the skill in the manner in which you wish to actually perform it and high intensity resistance training. If you're practicing high jumping kicks explosively to develop greater skill at high jumping kicks I don't see any reason to add more non-specific plyometric activity. I think you'll be better served by a good weight lifting program or possibly simply more rest depending on how much kicking you're doing.

* - For most weight bearing exercise movements, if you can move the weight quickly it isn't heavy enough for the purpose of this discussion in my opinion. To get the best results I would recommend using a weight that is heavy enough that it can only be lifted slowly if you maintain proper form. Obviously if you're using free weights you will need a competent spotter for safety for a number of these kinds of lifts.

 

[Earl Weiss]

?? jumping high is plyo training as is or can be any weight / resistance training exercisI, if you load the muscle on the eccentric and then explode on the concentric, which is really what you should be doing with any strength/ power lifting

Therein lies the important missing element from earlier posts >>>> if you load the muscle on the eccentric and then explode on the concentric<<<<

 

[Earl Weiss]

...................... Plyometric training also targets fast twitch fibers and it is effective for that purpose .................................................... I don't see any reason to add more non-specific plyometric activity. .............................

I did not imply the plyometrics would be "non specific" as with any exercise it should be tailored to the desired goal.

 

[jobo]

Therein lies the important missing element from earlier posts >>>> if you load the muscle on the eccentric and then explode on the concentric<<<<

buts that's what you do with heavy weights, it matters not if you move the weight " quickly" just that you "explode" and lift it as quickly as you can, that recruits fast twitch fibres in abundance, which is what we are discussing. clearly a weight can be to heavy for the purpose,I if you can only lift it an inch at a time

as has been said several times, jumping high is a skill, that's more about timing / inter muscle co ordination than leg strength, but leg strength is a good starting point, you need to go and practise jumping as well and that's ( nearly) always a pylo exercise

 

[DrewTheTKDStudent1992]

i dont really know of a sure fire way to increase jump height but do explosive exercises. (again forgot the fancy word, begins with a p)

Plyometrics

 

[DrewTheTKDStudent1992]

agreed, it's so common that it's a cliche that people forget leg day, but it's even more so that they do quad exercises , whilst forgetting hamstring and calves, need those calves if your going to jump high

Yeah, skip leg day is bad. Therefore, I won’t. Having the upper to lower body ratio not scale well isn’t good.

 

[jobo]

Yeah, skip leg day is bad. Therefore, I won’t. Having the upper to lower body ratio not scale well isn’t good.

a good amount of what people think of as lower body activities, have a significant amount of upper body strength involved in the power generation, running jumping and kicking particularly. so there are plenty of sports particularly ma people who have the balance completely wrong the other way, great big legs and t Rex arms

 

[Earl Weiss]

buts that's what you do with heavy weights, it matters not if you move the weight " quickly"

Suffice it to say this is contrary to lot of accurate literature out there concerning plyometrics.

 

[jobo]

Suffice it to say this is contrary to lot of accurate literature out there concerning plyometrics.

you've edited that to change my meaning, somewhat, but never mind

the term pylo is its self inaccurate, its variously used by varies people to apply to all sorts of different exercises, if you have a particularly strict definition then perhaps you should share it. if not it's any exercise that loads/ stretches on the eccentric and fires the concentric in theshortest ipossible time. if you have 300 lbs on a squat bar, the shortest time is longer than if your doing it as a body weight squat, that doesn't stop it being pylo

if you've decided its only applicable if people take off, then find me a definition for that?

the most common pylo exercise is fast running, yet it's seldom you find people referring to that as pylometrics, though it most clearly is. if you can do pylo push ups you can do pylo bench press or many other weighted exercises, ( though they are considered bad form in body building circles as it easier to lift the weight with the preloaded muscle), which will be a lot more useful for the ultimate goal of developing power, which is work devided by time, in very simplistic terms,if you tripe the work( load,, )but only double the time, your more powerful

 

[MetalBoar]

Suffice it to say this is contrary to lot of accurate literature out there concerning plyometrics.

So, I know a lot of people are being jerks and essentially saying "Prove it!" when they ask for sources, but that is not my intent. I would be really fascinated to see any well conducted studies that demonstrate that high speed, visibly explosive movement is necessary for the training of type II muscle fibers. To be clear, I absolutely agree that typical plyometric exercises like the jump squat will improve explosive strength for most people, I just find it counter to my own research, experience and logic to say that weight lifting, particularly high intensity, short duration weight lifting, won't also effectively accomplish the same goal.

Jumping height and Speed come from "Fast Twitch" fibers in the muscles. These are targeted by plyometric training. Jumping height and Speed come from "Fast Twitch" fibers in the muscles. These are targeted by plyometric training.

Or are you stating something else here? My understanding of what you're saying here is that plyometric training is the only way to access and train type II muscle fibers, or at least that plyometrics will train them and weight lifting will not. Am I missing something or am I correct in my interpretation?

Thanks!

 

[Earl Weiss]

My understanding of what you're saying here is that plyometric training is the only way to access and train type II muscle fibers, or at least that plyometrics will train them and weight lifting will not. Am I missing something or am I correct in my interpretation?

Thanks!

I am saying that conventional wisdom states plyometrics is one of if not the most efficient way to train the fast twitch muscle fibers. when I first learned bout it in the early 1980's I had gotten a paper translated from some eastern European training manuals. Basically it required explosive movement. For example. Stand on a 2 foot high bench jump to floor and immediately upon landing, with no pause as soon as your legs stopped bending to absorb the impact continue upward and jump back on the bench. Since that time I have come across lots of stuff people called plyometric that did not fit that methodology. So, to engage in an exercise of making a search for this definition to have others find other examples to debate which is the better definition is not a worthwhile endeavor. I will leave it to whomever is interested in doing that to pursue it.