Training Methods
Home training
Home workouts are now more popular than ever and even though the majority of people were excited to get back into a gym, there was a percentage who realised they can get everything they want out of exercise by doing it at home. And no one can blame them! Take a look at some of the benefits of training at home.
Strength Training For Striking Martial Arts
All Martial Artists dream of possessing that KO power. We all see it on TV and wish we could do the same. When it comes to throwing a hard strike, there are a lot of variables controlling our ability. You may think a decent punch directly correlates with a muscular, strong arm, but this very often isn't the case. When developing an effective strike we need to consider factors such as strength, mobility, speed, dexterity, balance and more.
In this article we're going to try and break these down, to understand the training methods we can use to improve our overall striking.
Understanding Bodybuilding
Bodybuilding is the use of progressive resistance exercise to control and develop one's musculature for aesthetic purposes. An individual who engages in this activity is referred to as a bodybuilder. In professional bodybuilding, competitors appear in lineups and perform specified poses for a panel of judges who rank them based on symmetry, muscularity, size, conditioning, posing, and stage presentation. Bodybuilders prepare for competitions through the elimination of nonessential body fat, enhanced at the last stage by a combination of extracellular dehydration and carbo-loading, to achieve maximum muscular definition and vascularity; they also tan and shave to accentuate the contrast of their skin under the spotlights.
Time Under Tension Explained
Time under (Abbreviated as TUT) repetitions are performed with lighter weights than usual. Time under tension refers to the amount of time your muscle is under stress during a working set. This consists of the time spent in the concentric or the muscle-shortening, peak contraction phase, as well as the eccentric or the lengthening phase. For example, if you performed a set of 10 reps and each rep takes 3 seconds to complete, your muscle is under tension for a total of 30 seconds. If you were to perform the same exercise but if you spent 2 seconds in the concentric phase, 1 second to stop during peak contraction, and 3 seconds to lower the weight during the eccentric phase of the rep, the same 10 reps would end up putting your muscles under tension for about 60 seconds, hence resulting in more time under tension.
Training and diet around your menstrual cycle
Do you ever notice that some weeks you feel like Wonder Woman, others you feel like a 15-year-old tabby cat? Have you ever thought about tracking when these feelings occur? Have you ever thought that this rollercoaster of feeling may be linked to your monthly cycle? Let’s explain the physiology behind the menstrual cycle, how this may make you feel, and how we can use this to our advantage.
Training and Dieting around the Menstrual Cycle
For women, having a good knowledge of our menstrual cycles and patterns can help us plan training and nutrition. Hormonal fluctuations can affect more than our bleeding cycle- mood, strength, recovery and more! The average female cycle is 28 days, so that’s what we’ll use when we talk about the phases BUT it can vary from 22-35 days. Every woman is different but there are some changes that happen to us all as our hormones fluctuate, and these can be beneficial to know about!
Rules of progressive overload
Progressive overload is one of the most important factors in getting bigger, stronger and fitter when it comes to training. If you haven’t heard of it before, don’t worry, there is a good chance that you are already doing it.
Progressive overload is defined as ‘the gradual increase of stress placed upon the body during exercise training’. In layman’s terms, it's aiming to be stronger, faster or fitter each time you train.
How long off training is detrimental?
Nobody likes taking unplanned time off training, it sucks. If you are anything like me then you love training and it's an enjoyable part of your day. I don’t think I would be far off claiming that many of you probably search for gyms you can visit when planning a holiday. Nothing beats going to the gym, having a great workout and setting some personal bests. The sense of accomplishment and confidence boost it can give you is unrivalled.
Exercise selection
Exercise selection is something that I feel is overlooked in many people's training programmes. They may choose exercises that are popular on social media, that their favourite influencer does or even randomly assign exercises to their program without ever thinking about why they are performing them. For the beginner, it's less of an issue. They can merely stare at a weight and begin to grow (okay not quite, but you get my drift). Having said that, a beginner will get off to a much better start if they choose the right exercises at the start of their weight training journey. Compound movements over isolation movements for example. When it comes to intermediate and advanced lifters, exercise selection becomes even more important and you really have to be in tune with your body to know what exercises work for you, how often to use them and when to change them.
How much muscle can you really build?
This is a question that I have always been interested in, ever since I started building muscle and noticing the change it can have on your appearance. Surely, if you are able to build 4lb of muscle in one month then you can just replicate that in the next month and build another 4? Oh, if only. Everyone would be walking around as a 250lb plus bodybuilder. Plus, these types of gains only really happen when you are a newbie. The body is a very smart machine and quickly adapts to stimulus. Which sucks for building muscle, but it's what has kept us (humans) at the top of the food chain.