Learning a martial art is excellent for both the body and the mind. Depending on where you live it can be difficult to find a club, or perhaps afford the classes. Nothing is able to replace the experience of learning from a qualified instructor. Though, there are options available for the home student.
For all of us Martial Artists, this Covid period has been a real detriment to our training. Being unable to see our training partners, or come into close contact with anyone has really prevented us from training martial arts effectively. While we may not be able to train in the ideal way, there are still ways that we can improve our skills from the comfort of our own homes with minimal or no equipment.
First of all let’s identify what exactly we can be working on.
It’s evident that any inter-personal practise is out the window, so direct combat techniques will be very difficult to work on. So what does this leave us? We are still perfectly able to work on strength, power, balance and flexibility uninhibited. I’ll address each of these in turn.
We’ll look at strength and power first, grouped together as they’re closely related. Developing our strength from home can certainly be a challenge with no weights or gym machines to use. But working through a decent calisthenics program is plenty for anyone to improve their muscular density and endurance. As for power, for those who don’t know, this is the combination of mass and acceleration. Though we may not want to increase our mass if we compete in weight divisions, we can improve our speed by improving our muscle:fat ratio, and training our fast-twitch muscle fibres. To do this we need to incorporate explosive movements into our training routine, such as long jumps.
Next up is balance, and we can also include coordination.
Any martial artist can appreciate the benefits of both of these factors. Improving our balance can be done through Yoga and Calisthenics training, both of which require no equipment, and are available in abundance online. These training methods will focus on core strength and muscular endurance, which will undeniably develop our balance. Coordination is unfortunately a longer and more time-consuming task, but we can do this too by engaging in simple activities such as catch, juggling, dancing, and performing tasks with your disfavoured hand. Improving our balance and coordination will undeniably benefit our performance in martial arts.Lastly there’s flexibility, fundamental for all competitive martial arts.
As you would imagine, this is a fairly easy one to work on from the comfort of our homes. Daily stretching routines as well as practising yoga will advance our movement and range of motion in all martial arts. The key to working on flexibility is consistency, and you’ll see results after long committed periods of stretching.
To recap on these training methods...
Yoga is fantastic for:
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Increased flexibility.
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Increased muscle strength and tone.
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Cardio and circulatory health.
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Improved athletic performance.
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Protection from injury.
Calisthenics are useful for:
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Increased strength
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Better flexibility
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Improved coordination
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Greater balance
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More agility
Training Martial arts is extraordinarily beneficial to our lives, especially during this difficult time. Not only are we making positive improvements to our health and physique, but we will also benefit from the focus we must apply while training. Keeping our mind occupied on a challenging task will significantly help us to deter the winter blues. With people all over the world struggling with their work and personal lives, mental health is paramount. The discipline of Martial arts can act as a very useful tool in this fight.
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Dustin Hone
