This is a question of philosophy of training and educated opinion. When I used to swim competativly there were two mindsets on resistance in training. These seem to apply well to MAs to. The big debate is this; it is better to work with heavy resistance regularly in the belief that when it is removed in normal circumstances it will allow for better performance due to adaptation to the higher resistances (in short, extra power from overcompensating recovery or "raising the bar"), the differing opinion is that it is best to practice in normal conditions a lot because your body will adjust and improve to the real circumstances of competition.
In the swimming example drag (extra clothes) was added to apply an artificial resistance. The drag people said you could only improve, but the no drag people stated that this slowed your strokes and made the technique sloppy and less efficient (essentially that the body was less used being free of cumbersome trappings and less adjusted to traveling at faster speeds through the water, not to mention more prone to strain injuries).
I have run into this issue again with stick work and punches. Is it better to train with big heavy sticks or with over weighted gloves to raise power and endurance, or is it better to train with lighter sticks or no gloves to allow your body to be most comfortable with the conditions it will likely be in if my martial skills are needed.
This seems to fall into the into the train for power or train for speed debate, but there is much more to it.
Opinions?
In the swimming example drag (extra clothes) was added to apply an artificial resistance. The drag people said you could only improve, but the no drag people stated that this slowed your strokes and made the technique sloppy and less efficient (essentially that the body was less used being free of cumbersome trappings and less adjusted to traveling at faster speeds through the water, not to mention more prone to strain injuries).
I have run into this issue again with stick work and punches. Is it better to train with big heavy sticks or with over weighted gloves to raise power and endurance, or is it better to train with lighter sticks or no gloves to allow your body to be most comfortable with the conditions it will likely be in if my martial skills are needed.
This seems to fall into the into the train for power or train for speed debate, but there is much more to it.
Opinions?
), but other than that, I had only used wood. One of my fellow students has a nice metal broadsword, and it's fairly heavy. I tried training with it this weekend, and what a difference, I could feel the path of the blade much more easily, among other things. I then tried the wooden one again, and it just felt flimsy. However, I will continue to train with both as I want to be able to use just about anything I pick up, whether it be a wooden sword, stick, or metal pipe. One important thing to keep in mind is whether or not your body is ready for the amount of resistance. I think I've developed to the point that I wasn't too tense using the "heavy" broadsword, and would probably have hurt myself if I had tried this a few months earlier. If you can't assess this yourself, perhaps your teacher can help you out. :asian:
