Generally, how often and how long should you train per week?

[kehcorpz]

I have looked into different places in my area which offer different things and what I didn't like is
that they usually offer 2 training sessions per week and each of them takes 1-1,5 hours. this really isn't very much especially when you really want to improve quickly.

at another place you only train ONCE per week for 3 hours straight.

what do you think about this? does this even make sense or is it a waste of time? i mean I'm not
getting into anything knowing that this is some half-assed stuff where I needed 5 years to get to a point
where I can use it.

i wish I knew somebody personally who knows some kind of MA or SD system and who could basically
train me 10 hours daily. imagine how MUCH quicker you would progress if you trained 10 hours daily
for weeks compared to 3 ridiculous hours per week!

after a few weeks you'd have made more progress than you'd make in 2 years training 3 hours per week.

and alone at home you can't really train anything can you? i mean it's not like they show you something
in class and then you can spend hours at home on your own perfectioning it right? this really sucks.

 

[WaterGal]

If you have enough money, I'm sure you can hire a personal trainer or two who will train you for 10 hours a day. No martial arts school is going to have a schedule like that, though.

Plus, keep in mind.... there's a limit to the amount your body and mind can handle, especially at first. Working out for more than a couple of hours is grueling.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Students at my class can train 5 days a week up to a total of 10 hours a week of class time. Each training session is no less than 1 hour. The maximum training time is 2 hours. I take 2 days off for healing and recovery purposes.

In your scenario 2 training sessions per week would be better than one 3 hour training session per week. 2 training sessions means that you have 2 chances to see your instructor during the week. On the days where there is no class you'll need to be dedicate time and dig down deep so that you can train your techniques at home. The "dig down deep" refers to it's not easy to train martial arts by yourself because it doesn't always feel like you are making a gain. People who lift weights by themselves get the reward of feeling pumped up muscles. People who train martial arts by themselves just sweat a lot and get tired. Martial Arts training is more of a development process than an instant reward. A lot of times I don't know if my training is paying off until I spar or until I can do a kung fu form without being out of breath. Other than that it's just drill, drill, drill. My conditioning days just make me feel beat up and I don't see the results until after I heal.

10 hours daily isn't realistic. The only thing you'll accomplish is that you'll lose weight and you'll tear your body down and eventually put yourself at a higher risk for injuries. You'll probably end up getting sick and symptoms of exhaustion will begin to make training difficult and unproductive.

Training is exactly like the instructor shows you something in class and then you spend hours at home on your own perfecting it.

 

[Flying Crane]

Class time is for instruction. You need to practice outside of class, to get good at it. How much you do is up to you. it's not the teacher's responsibility to make sure you work hard. That is your responsibility.

 

[Bill Mattocks]

Class time is for instruction. You need to practice outside of class, to get good at it. How much you do is up to you. it's not the teacher's responsibility to make sure you work hard. That is your responsibility.

Bingo.

 

[JowGaWolf]

If you have enough money, I'm sure you can hire a personal trainer or two who will train you for 10 hours a day. No martial arts school is going to have a schedule like that, though.

Plus, keep in mind.... there's a limit to the amount your body and mind can handle, especially at first. Working out for more than a couple of hours is grueling.

I'm think the OP doesn't understand how demanding martial arts training can be. Depending on what is on the training schedule 1 hour is more than enough and after that it's just the body running on empty

 

[Dylan9d]

Training 2 times a week in a class is usually more then enough. Just take the stuff that you learn home and practice at home. My students train 2x a week 1,5 hour each session, besides the class i expect them to practice at home.

Any system takes commitment and it is normal that you invest a certain amount of time in it to get good at it. Im not sure you mentioned your age to us but if you are young what is 5 years?

edit: just saw that you are 29, so what's 5 years ? or even 10 years? Im 37 and Im still looking for a new system that I want to train and that can teach me something, this usually mean that I will be starting from scratch but I really dont mind.

Which systems did you find in your area?

 

[Gnarlie]

I normally train 3 hours four or five nights a week and 3 more on weekends. It is exhausting, but worthwhile.

Once a year, we have a three day seminar where we train nine to five. Not everyone does the full three days but I do. Even though we are not training full throttle the entire time (due to explanation), when the three days are over, I need a week to recover.

Training at full intensity for more than a few hours daily with no rest days is not realistic.

Sent from my Nexus 6P using Tapatalk

 

[Dylan9d]

@kehcorpz you gotta start somewhere and if you start 2 times a week for a total of 3 hours is more then enough, just take the stuff that you learn duruing class home and practice every day at home problem solved.

 

[drop bear]

More is pretty much better.

 

[Midnight-shadow]

I personally train 4 hours a week with my instructor (1 hour of that is weapons training) and then practice my forms and drills at home inbetween. This does me just fine, and when I start to learn more forms, I will increase my training time outside of class. As others have said, you can train at home just fine, and even if you can't remember the drills or don't have a partner to practice with, you can do body conditioning at the very least. Things you can do at home without any equipment are Push-ups, sit-ups, crunches, leg raises, planks, lunges, squats, etc. All of these can be done without equipment and will help you improve faster.

 

[marques]

i wish I knew somebody personally who knows some kind of MA or SD system and who could basically
train me 10 hours daily. imagine how MUCH quicker you would progress if you trained 10 hours daily
for weeks compared to 3 ridiculous hours per week!

It would not be 10x faster. And you would injury your body, and bungle your brain in the way. After 2-3 hours it is no more MA (at least for a beginner), It is fitness.
What is the point of 10h a day? Why so much effort? What is the point? Know MA? Great...

About 3 'ridiculous' hours a week, is the amount of time you can find over all your life, without overtraining, without deleting the rest of your life. How good can you become in a few years/decades? Just keep going...

I spend time thinking about the training, mainly the situations I didn't have a good, or any, solution. It increases the effectiveness of the always short time we have to train.

Just to put things in a different perspective.

I think 2-3x a week is enough to start. 1*3h may not be so effective, but you save time in travel...

PS: Until recently I was doing 1x2h a week (in club). After a long interval of 0h (in club). And I am still not bad, anyway.

 

[Dirty Dog]

i wish I knew somebody personally who knows some kind of MA or SD system and who could basically
train me 10 hours daily. imagine how MUCH quicker you would progress if you trained 10 hours daily
for weeks compared to 3 ridiculous hours per week!

If you have 10 hours a day to train, I'd suggest getting a job. Then you can pay your rent, buy food, and pay for the "ridiculous" 3 hours a week.

 

[Dinkydoo]

The duration of training, in terms of developing martial skill, is much less important than the quality of training.

The duration is more for fitness and conditioning - an important part of many styles.

3 hours in one session is probably the maximum amount of time that I can train for, whilst still being productive. It depends on what i'm doing though. Sometimes I'm clock watching during a 1 hour Muay Thai session due to the intensity of the training but after a more technical MMA class, I'll usually stick around for boxing and then maybe even a dedicated sparring session afterwards.

3 hours instruction per week along with one hour solo training on your non-class days, equating to around 7 hours a week, is a great start and quite maintainable.

Solo training will be practicing what you learned, especially focusing on the little parts that were pointed out/corrected and some general fitness stuff.

and alone at home you can't really train anything can you? i mean it's not like they show you something
in class and then you can spend hours at home on your own perfectioning it right? this really sucks.

You've not really grasped the idea of training in a martial art, have you?

 

[JR 137]

My former Sensei used to tell us the dojo is for learning, not truly for training. Meaning we learn things in the dojo and are supposed to practice them at home. Yes, you can't spar on your own, but you can do practically everything else.

Get a heavy bag and practice the strikes you learned in class on it. Using the heavy bag in different ways will drastically improve your skills and abilities. Practice your form/mechanics while hitting it slower. Practice your combinations while going slower then gradually picking up the pace. Increase your speed by increasing your pace. Increase your power by hitting harder. Improve your endurance and overall ability by putting all of those together and going at the it for specific amounts of time/rounds.

There are a ton of things you can do on your own. Hitting a bag is just one of them. You'll realize all the different things you can and should do on your own outside of class once you actually start taking classes. If you can't figure out what to do outside of class, you lack imagination and creativity. A beginner will be far more limited with actual MA stuff to because they don't have as much material and because I think they shouldn't be doing something they just learned for hours on end. Practicing something that's complex over and over on your own without any feedback isn't a good idea if you're still making gross mistakes. You'll ingrain the mistakes into muscle memory and have to spend more time undoing them. But sticking to the basics at home at first will help tremendously.

The dojo is the class work, and at home or even a gym is the homework. It's quite easy to tell who does and doesn't do their homework when class time comes around. Go to the dojo twice a week and train on your own for an hour or so on the other days, and you won't have any issues (relatively speaking) progressing.

 

[Chris Parker]

I have looked into different places in my area which offer different things and what I didn't like is
that they usually offer 2 training sessions per week and each of them takes 1-1,5 hours. this really isn't very much especially when you really want to improve quickly.

at another place you only train ONCE per week for 3 hours straight.

what do you think about this? does this even make sense or is it a waste of time? i mean I'm not
getting into anything knowing that this is some half-assed stuff where I needed 5 years to get to a point
where I can use it.

i wish I knew somebody personally who knows some kind of MA or SD system and who could basically
train me 10 hours daily. imagine how MUCH quicker you would progress if you trained 10 hours daily
for weeks compared to 3 ridiculous hours per week!

after a few weeks you'd have made more progress than you'd make in 2 years training 3 hours per week.

and alone at home you can't really train anything can you? i mean it's not like they show you something
in class and then you can spend hours at home on your own perfectioning it right? this really sucks.

For gods sake….

Dude. Stop trying to over think the whole thing. Get to a damn class already. You seem to continually come up with reasons and excuses after each other, more questions, all just to stop yourself from actually starting. Here's the thing… when you start actually training, most (if not all) of these questions get answered. But you have to start first.

Find a school local to you, train there (the way they say… don't worry if it goes against your completely ignorant and ill informed opinions, they frankly don't matter in this regard at all… you don't have anywhere near enough understanding to even follow what you're told here, let alone being able to guess as to how viable a classes schedule actually is yet), and let that guide you. If you're not willing to do that, then get past the idea of training… so far, you're not filling me with confidence that you are in any way suited, as you simply seem to like the idea of training in martial arts, provided you don't actually have to, you know, put up the investment and actually train in them.

 

[Kenpoguy123]

However long you can and thinks right simple as that

 

[WaterGal]

Once a year, we have a three day seminar where we train nine to five. Not everyone does the full three days but I do. Even though we are not training full throttle the entire time (due to explanation), when the three days are over, I need a week to recover.

Yeah, I did a TKD sparring seminar once (taught by a guy on the national team) that was, IIRC, 3 hours of drills, an hour for discussion about strategy, how to train better, etc, and then 3 hours of sparring. I was toast the whole rest of the weekend. I couldn't have run to save my life. It was a great experience, and I'd love to do it again sometime, but it's not the kind of thing that you can do every day.

 

[Dylan9d]

I think Chris hit the nail on the head. Just start training and you will notice for yourself if it's enough or not.

 

[kuniggety]

I would take 2 x 1.5 over 1 x 3.0 personally. A lot of things come from repetition. Yes, you should be practicing on your own but having the more frequent vectoring from the instructor helps. It depends on the martial art too. If you've got forms to practice, then excellent. Or just strike patterns then you can work on a bag, then awesome. You should be doing that once or twice a week on top of your two classes. Then leave a couple days a week for conditions: weights or cardio (running, rowing, swimming, etc). Most people get plenty of calisthenic training from their martial arts and don't need it in their workout regimen. Lastly, make sure you leave a day for relaxing, preferably with some stretching (Or a massage). Good maintenance of your body will help your martial arts improve.