JKD and Weight Training

[pknox]

Hello All:

I have heard many many times about how beneficial weight training can be for martial artists. What I haven't heard, though, is the training load the average martial artist who weight trains has. I train Mon-Thurs, about 3 hours a day, in Jun Fan, Kali, Silat, and mixed grappling (ground). I am 6', about 230 lbs, and consider grappling my "favorite" range. For someone like myself, who is in class about 12 hours a week, is weight training beneficial, or would it just lead to overtraining? I'm wondering if I would just be better off training in my art at home on the "off days." Given my schedule, I could weight train on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday. Would once a week be enough, or if I lifted on two days (say Friday and Sunday, to allow a day of rest in between), would the fact that there would be a minimum of four days between weight training sessions (7 if I only trained 1x week) negate the benefits I'd receive by lifting in the first place?

Thanks in Advance,
Pete Knox

 

[sweeper]

in my experience with my freinds who weight train, everyone is diffrent.

out of curiosity have you ever done any weight training before? if not the first 8 or so weeks is spent "teaching" your body the exercises (for more maximal muscle recruitment). In that period most people won't see much diffrence if they only train once or twice a week.

It also deppends on what you want to get out of lifting, I mean are you just looking to increase your strength or do you want to add bulk, or maybe you are looking for a speed advantage??

 

[pknox]

Excellent questions.

Yes, I have weight trained before - at one point, fairly regularly, but not in the last year or so. I've trained off and on for about 5 years. While I've tried various options, I most recently concentrated more on pure strength training, using compound movements as opposed to isolation ones (lots of benches, cleans, deadlifts, rows, and squats, moderate to high weights, usually 3 to 5 sets, never more than 10 reps, as few as 2, training Mon,Wed,Fri).

I can definitely not say I am looking for bulk, as at my height and weight (6', 230) I think I have enough bulk -- just functional strength and speed increase for my art, and also reduction of bodyfat. My guess is that the JKD will take care of the latter, as it seems to me rather aerobic. While I'm not necessarily planning to look like Ken Shamrock or Mark Kerr, I know my body type doesn't lend to making me look like Bruce Lee either. I'm just kind of hoping for a nice middle ground.

Part of my concerns is due to my past experience -- to me, lifting even all 3 "off" days (Fri, Sat, and Sun) would be like a 3 on, 4 off system, which seems a bit strange. Also, with such a scheme, my guess is I would end up splitting, as opposed to doing whole-body workouts, which is more what I am used to.

 

[sweeper]

well for me I could do once a week (well twice a week split)

I personaly would do something like lower body on friday and uper on saturday and leave sunday for rest.

I know some people who practice and lift on the same day.. they are usualy beat to heck.

I realy don't think lifting should lead to overtraining because when you just have gloves on or are bare fist, throwing punches doesn't realy take as much energy as lifting does.. I would just be carefull of injury. But I would deffinatly do at leaste some compound leg work on one of your off days (personaly I don't realy like isolation except for my forearms).

 

[Red Blade]

I believe in weight training for Jeet Kune Do! Same as for boxing. I lift three times a week, on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.

 

[pknox]

Originally posted by sweeper
well for me I could do once a week (well twice a week split)

I personaly would do something like lower body on friday and uper on saturday and leave sunday for rest.

I know some people who practice and lift on the same day.. they are usualy beat to heck.

Exactly...that's why I plan to lift on my off days -- I was thinking of a schedule similar to what you're stating (either Fri/Sat or Fri/Sun -- I'll either split push/pull, or upper/lower). My only concern was the break between sessions -- it will be seven days between body parts (Fri and Fri and Sun and Sun or Sat and Sat), and at least a 4 day break between lifting days (Sun to Fri). I realize that my body will be taxed by class Mon-Thurs, but will the gap between sessions negate my gains? That's really my biggest concern. I'm already somewhat "beat to heck" by the four intense sessions , but I'm willing to be even more tired by having intense activity six days a week, but only if the benefits are worth the work I'm putting in.

 

[pknox]

Originally posted by Red Blade
I believe in weight training for Jeet Kune Do! Same as for boxing. I lift three times a week, on Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday.

Red Blade:

How often per week do you train JKD (# days/week & # hours/day)? Do you train Jun Fan exclusively, or other approaches as well (Muay Thai, kali, Silat, grappling, etc...)?

 

[sweeper]

well, you might try doing some isometrics on your training days.. they don't take much energy but they help strengthen your tendons (and I think maximal recruitment), they may be able to act as a bridge in the week.

also you could probably do leg workouts in the week days.. most of the time I think in JKD your upper bosy is much more fatigued than your lower body, also your lower bodies ability to recover is higher than your upper body. so you might be able to do a fri/sun upper body and maybe like a tues/thurs lower body and give it a rest on saturday (and maybe go a little lighter on sunday)

 

[James Kovacich]

Since your available training days are unusual, you might need to consider a schedule that is unusual. You have 3 MA off days. You could try splitting your lifting workout into 2 heavy days and leaving you 1 rest day before your MA training.

During your MA training days. Try to fit all of your body parts trained lightly, all on 1 day. The key is lightly. That will keep your body in the "zone" without overtraining. If you are doing too many body parts, then break it into 2 days but lift lightly. Lift after your MA training for best results.

You still risk overtraining because you only have 1 official rest day for the week. It really matters how many body parts that you train.

I can tell that since the new year I have slowed down on lifting and my chokes are much smoother. There will always be pros and cons to your training.

If you lift, you will probably need another day off during the week or maybe every 3rd or 4th week, don't lift at all. Trial and error and your body will tell you work works for you.

 

[pknox]

Originally posted by akja
Since your available training days are unusual, you might need to consider a schedule that is unusual. You have 3 MA off days. You could try splitting your lifting workout into 2 heavy days and leaving you 1 rest day before your MA training.

During your MA training days. Try to fit all of your body parts trained lightly, all on 1 day. The key is lightly. That will keep your body in the "zone" without overtraining. If you are doing too many body parts, then break it into 2 days but lift lightly. Lift after your MA training for best results.

You still risk overtraining because you only have 1 official rest day for the week. It really matters how many body parts that you train.

Interesting. I was thinking 2 days as well; I probably could do all of my workouts in 1 day if they're all compound movements. I was thinking something along the lines of this for 1 day a week:

Bench Press
Clean and Press
Bent Over Rows
Squats
Deadlifts

If I split it into two days, I probably would add reverse curls, perhaps barbell curls, and split legged deadlifts - I'd break it into 4 exercises each session.

I'm a little confused about one thing though. When you say:

Originally posted by akja
Since your available training days are unusual, you might need to consider a schedule that is unusual. You have 3 MA off days. You could try splitting your lifting workout into 2 heavy days and leaving you 1 rest day before your MA training.

During your MA training days. Try to fit all of your body parts trained lightly, all on 1 day.

Do you mean two total training days, or three(2 heavy, 1 light)?

The cool thing about doing it in one day is I get two rest days (Sat and Sun would make it easy). This should keep the overtraining demon at bay. My only concern is that 7 days between lifting sessions would be too long. I remember reading something a while back that most strength gains are lost within 72-96 hours of training. I don't know if they were referring to functional strength gains or hypertrophy, and I don't know if that meant only with no activity at all, or if it also took into account non-lifting activity. That's really my only concern about 1 day a week. I guess if I can get the workout to be 30 to 45 minutes, I could do it one day before I have class. I was never much on "light" workouts though, because I figure weightlifting isn't as efficient as cardio at cutting bodyfat, which is why most people lift light. I consider myself a strength trainer, not a bodybuilder (no slight to bodybuilders there -- just a difference in philosophy and approach).

Didn't the Mentzer's only lift like once a week, or even farther apart than that? I thought I remember hearing that somewhere.

 

[pknox]

Originally posted by sweeper
...also your lower bodies ability to recover is higher than your upper body.

True. They are larger muscle groups, so they take more work to fatigue, and they recover faster. That's one of those basic facts I learned in Anatomy and Physiology many moons ago. But I think I'd need some extra convincing of its veracity after a heavy squat day.

 

[sweeper]

well.. if you can get in a couple extra hours of sleep that night (after the work out) you should probably be ok for jkd (unless your instructor wants an all heavybag kick day or something)

 

[pknox]

Originally posted by sweeper
well.. if you can get in a couple extra hours of sleep that night (after the work out) you should probably be ok for jkd (unless your instructor wants an all heavybag kick day or something)

True. And that almost never happens. While we do train basic kicks in Jun Fan, its much like you said earlier - we train hands a lot more. My guess is I throw 5 or 6 punches for every kick I throw. While we use footwork in Kali, it doesn't impact me like it does my wrists and forearms.

In the grappling class, that is a completely different story, however. One of the bases of our grappling system is BJJ (Machado), and I for one was surprised to find out how much the Brazilians use their legs to set up armbars and chokes. Not to even mention the holds where they actually use their legs to execute the hold, like the triangle choke. Definitely not like the stand-up grappling I'm used to, which is mostly if not all upper-body. Its one thing to have to use your legs after squat day to throw kicks, or just to stand on them. Twisting them in a million different directions, like when your pushing or pulling someone in your guard, is a whole different animal. Silat relies on a lot of pivots and twists as well.

It's funny -- when you look at what the Brazilians are able to do with their legs, you'd think strength is the limiting factor. For me, at least, that is not the case. No matter how strong my legs are, my lack of flexibility is what keeps me from executing the positions I want to use. Whatever weight training approach I do end up using, my guess is that I will be increasing my stretching time as well.

 

[James Kovacich]

Originally posted by pknox
Interesting. I was thinking 2 days as well; I probably could do all of my workouts in 1 day if they're all compound movements. I was thinking something along the lines of this for 1 day a week:

Bench Press
Clean and Press
Bent Over Rows
Squats
Deadlifts

If I split it into two days, I probably would add reverse curls, perhaps barbell curls, and split legged deadlifts - I'd break it into 4 exercises each session.

I'm a little confused about one thing though. When you say:



Do you mean two total training days, or three(2 heavy, 1 light)?

The cool thing about doing it in one day is I get two rest days (Sat and Sun would make it easy). This should keep the overtraining demon at bay. My only concern is that 7 days between lifting sessions would be too long. I remember reading something a while back that most strength gains are lost within 72-96 hours of training. I don't know if they were referring to functional strength gains or hypertrophy, and I don't know if that meant only with no activity at all, or if it also took into account non-lifting activity. That's really my only concern about 1 day a week. I guess if I can get the workout to be 30 to 45 minutes, I could do it one day before I have class. I was never much on "light" workouts though, because I figure weightlifting isn't as efficient as cardio at cutting bodyfat, which is why most people lift light. I consider myself a strength trainer, not a bodybuilder (no slight to bodybuilders there -- just a difference in philosophy and approach).

Didn't the Mentzer's only lift like once a week, or even farther apart than that? I thought I remember hearing that somewhere.

You might want to lift 2 days on the weekend and lift during the week 1 or 2 days lightly after training martial arts though.

I think the rest issue is you have 4 days MA in a row and you want to lift.

You might want to lift 2 light days during the week after your martial arts training and 1 good heavy day say on Saturday. That would give you Friday and Sunday for rest days. The 2 light days will keep your muscle memory active and shouldn't interfere with you martial art training too much.

 

[pknox]

Sounds like a great idea, as that answers most of my problems. If I had 3 days, I wouldn't have to worry about losing my gains. If at least one day is a light day, my guess is that would be OK, as it would keep me from overtraining. I'm thinking three heavy days would definitely burn me out. Maybe I'll do a light day (10-12 reps, light weight), a medium day (8-10 reps, moderate weight), and a heavy day (6-8 reps, heavy weight). This way I hit all approaches, and get the advantages of each. The heavy day would have to be on a non-MA day, otherwise I'd have no juice left for class. If I do the light on Tue, medium on Fri, and heavy on Sunday, I get two lifting days on non-MA days. I'll start it as a full-body (exercises I mentioned above), and maybe later I'll end up splitting it. Goal is to keep the workout to 30-45 minutes.

Hey...if i don't die, and I get to the point that the cardio aspect of class no longer bothers me, maybe I'll eventually start running a bit on the non-lifting days

We'll see how that goes.

 

[James Kovacich]

Its trial and error. You have "your" key.

 

[pknox]

Thank you sir - you are both a gentleman and a scholar.

 

[melteye]

Originally posted by pknox
I remember reading something a while back that most strength gains are lost within 72-96 hours of training. I don't know if they were referring to functional strength gains or hypertrophy, and I don't know if that meant only with no activity at all, or if it also took into account non-lifting activity.

I don't see how this is possible since you don't actually gain strength and mass until 48 hours after you overloaded the muscle. 80% of muscles heal in your sleep, and the next day is spent rebuilding muscle tissue... thus the reason you need a rest period.

Here is my schedule:

Monday: Back & Shoulders
Military Press
Barbell Shrug
Dumbbell Bent-Over Row
Cable Front Pulldown
Deadlift

Wednesday: Chest, Triceps & Waist
Barbell Bench Press
Dumbbell Incline Bench Press
Dumbbell One Arm Triceps Extension
Dumbbell Side Bend
Weighted Crunch (Cap'n Crunch)
Assisted Triceps Dip

Friday: Biceps, Hips & Legs
Dumbbell Preacher Curl
Sled Standing Calf Raise
Sled Reverse Calf Raise
Weighted Incline Leg Raise
Lever Seated Hip Abduction
Dumbbell Squat


This routine was created using a list of almost every human muscle. I tried to overlap muscles as little as possible to allow proper resting. I beleive in training every part of my body, including my jaw muscles (overboiled meat, huge amounts of gum).

I am the type that does a VERY intense workout for 45-60 minutes and ends up wanting to do it again 5 minutes later. It is extremely difficult to exhaust me. I usually train lightly at night on workout days and medium on rest days... I can't make myself rest completely... too much energy. Since I cannot afford schooling I practice on my own using the little knowledge I received from Goju and my computer as a reference... Getting myself ready for real training.

Originally posted by pknox
I figure weightlifting isn't as efficient as cardio at cutting bodyfat

This is a common misconception. When you do cardio you actually mostly just burn what calories you consumed that day, to force your body to burn fat you do early morning cardio; before eating anything at all. But this also causes some muscle loss (as most cardio does). Muscles must be maintained with proper nutrition; the more muscles you have the higher your caloric intake will be. Weight training increases muscle mass, meaning during the day you will be constantly burning more calories... unlike cardio which burns calories during and 1-2 hours after your workout. If done correctly cardio is not needed whatsoever in terms of weight loss. Lifting light will not effectively burn more calories but it will increase muscular endurance as well as slow-twitch muscles; and as you all know endurance is heavily needed in the arts.

In case there are any misunderstandings I am not saying that cardio is useless... It's a very important part of endurance training... Just not weight loss.

 

[melteye]

Originally posted by sweeper
well for me I could do once a week (well twice a week split)

I personaly would do something like lower body on friday and uper on saturday and leave sunday for rest.

I know some people who practice and lift on the same day.. they are usualy beat to heck.

I realy don't think lifting should lead to overtraining because when you just have gloves on or are bare fist, throwing punches doesn't realy take as much energy as lifting does.. I would just be carefull of injury. But I would deffinatly do at leaste some compound leg work on one of your off days (personaly I don't realy like isolation except for my forearms).

Just be sure to stretch properly before even thinking about practicing after working out. If you have no learned proper stretching techniques email me ([email protected]) and I will spend the time to post information on Static/Dynamic/PNF stretching.

As for doing upper body on one day and lower body on another I would recommend being more scientific in your training. Just remember the ideals of Jeet Kune Do. Every aspect of training is important, not only your fighting but your training and lifestyle must reflect your grasp of the art.

If you train your entire upper body you will be pre-exhausting certain muscle that are needed to to achieve proper exhuastion of others. If you work your biceps first you will not be able to properly exhaust your back and shoulders. Everything must be dissected and examined. If you decide on a schedule and need help deciding the order of exhaustion send me an email of what equipment you have access to or what excercises you prefer and I'll help you as much as I can. Compounds movements aren't the most effecient.

Less is more, and isolation is the key to a well balanced body.

Originally posted by sweeper
in my experience with my freinds who weight train, everyone is diffrent.

out of curiosity have you ever done any weight training before? if not the first 8 or so weeks is spent "teaching" your body the exercises (for more maximal muscle recruitment). In that period most people won't see much diffrence if they only train once or twice a week.

It also deppends on what you want to get out of lifting, I mean are you just looking to increase your strength or do you want to add bulk, or maybe you are looking for a speed advantage??

This is a very good point. The only way to correctly choose a schedule is through experience. You do not want to workout a muscle that is even slightly sore or you'll be doing more harm then good; thus you must watch how fast you recover. Tweak your schedule until you have almost 24 hours of "non-soreness" between excercises. Not often enough is better then too often. You won't notice as much gains; but you won't be damaging your body.

And as sweeper stated the first few weeks of weight training is actually neuromascular adaptation; basically your body "rewires" itself to get used to certain movements. Further down the road you must modify your schedule and training method to force your body into this stage once again. Your body needs variety to achieve maximum potential. Although I disagree on not noticing a difference. Beginner gains can be amazing sometimes; the more you workout the slower development will be and the more you will have to challenge yourself. But once again as sweeper stated you will notice the most gains after adaptation.

If you are looking for mass then 4-8 reps max (to exhaustion) is usually used (depends on the individual) for endurance I've seen anywhere from 15-20 reps. I am currently researching speed training and will post information when and if needed.

Note: Be very careful and use correct form on all excercises; especially deadlifts (straight leg especially) and good mornings; which bruce damaged his back performing without a proper warmup. Which brings be to the point; always perform 5 minutes of cardio before lifting to raise your body temperature and loosen muscle tissue as well as allowing lactic acid to disperse more easily. Static stretching before working out is optional, but as a martial artist I would recommend it. It will lower your lifting ability slightly but allows more muscle fibers to be brought through their full range of motion. If not just lift lightly through your full range of motion to stretch enough to reduce the risk of injury.

 

[melteye]

Edit: Sorry... I didn't mean to reply in two different posts.

I hope the information I provided is useful... Sorry if I'm stating whats already known.

I'm not sure about this (I'll research) but I beleive weight training after your martial arts training should be fine... Allowing you to integrate both into a day while allowing you to focus on your training.