MT: For all the women

[Knowledge Bot]

For all the women By yumiko14 - 03-15-2008 01:59 PM

=========

In class, I've recently began noticing that we're working on out arms a lot. We tend to do 200 push ups (twice a week) on average (in sets, of course), and also a lot of other upper body workouts. Being the only female in the class at the moment, I'm not going to say anything, nor would I even if there were more females, but I'm realizing more and more every day that I'll have to choose: karate and very muscular arms, or less karate and not so muscular arms.
Now please, don't get me wrong. I'm not trying to complain or anything. I'm honestly leaning toward the karate and muscular arms, but friends and family think that it will effect me negatively in more than one way. One person said It would probably hinder my ability to do karate in the future, especially if i don't balance the workout out. I should probably mention that I go to four classes a week, and one sensei teaches two of the classes, and another teaches the other two. I'm finding that my second sensei tends to do a lot of upper body work. I really would like to continue going to all four classes, but I'm still debating. If I were to cut down, I'd probably only go to two or three classes per week, which for someone like me, will probably be very hard. Any thoughts?


Read More ... or click reply below.
------------------------------
MartialTalk.com Post Bot - Women's Self-Defense Feed

[tophalf69]

After reading this I really felt the need to answer!!

The work you are doing isn't muscle building as such, more endurance training which will increase tone and VERY slightly maybe some size but minimal. In order to make muscke grow to any degree it must be overloaded within a repetition range of around 6 to 12 and then the overload must be consistently increased over and over, aka bodybuilding. Not to mention that you need to eat more to grow and it is more difficult for women to grow as they have less testosterone. Besides, how many huge muscular martial artists do you see that don't supplement their training with weight training, NONE, especially female. To say it will hinder your ability to do karate is amusing to say the least, it aint gonna happen. Also, as you are training four times per week your muscles are barely getting chance to recover in order to grow therefore making the likelihood of large arms even less likey.
Trust me, you are doing ALL the wrong things to get big and muscular!!
You are however helping your endurance and your punching power will be improved, which is why you do pushups and other circuit style exercises in martial arts classes.

There are some serious misconceptions on how easy it is to get big muscles, it isn't easy.

[treelizard]

Wow.

Do you not work because you're afraid of getting too rich?

[tophalf69]

Wow.

Do you not work because you're afraid of getting too rich?

After bodybuilding for 19yrs and winning a show I have, strangely as it may seem, learned a few things about building muscle tissue. Press ups aint gonna do it, simple as that, I don't care if you can do a thousand. Not to mention the food intake that is required.

No amount of circuit style training EVER made anyone too bulky and to think more exercise means bigger muscles is a joke, more OVERLOAD and REST and FOOD makes bigger muscles, and just in case you missed it in the first post TESTOSTERONE plays a big role too.

I also train at a MMA gym where the guys who are fighting train hard circuits nearly every day and strange as it may seem they aren't big either, toned and fit yes, big no and they are men who it is easier for. Training to put weight on is very specific.

I have been training men and woman for years and also helping them with their diets so please if there is anything in my previous post that you specifically want to debate on please feel free to comment, I will be happy to reply.

As always happy to help.

[treelizard]

My response was to the original poster.

But honestly I don't care what anyone's credentials are; this stuff is common sense.

see Stumptuous Index