Hey Everyone

[Spider92]

Hey ya'll I'm a 17 year old who is interested in getting into doing a martial art. Currently my sport is weightlifting and powerlifting and from these I've gotten pretty strong for my age. I would like to add a martial art to my training just to improve my confidence and mental discipline. The problem is that I don't know what I want to do or what I can do. The only restricitons I have when thinking of a martial art is that I don't want to get too hurt or too tired because i want to keep my current weightlifting schedule and progress I've made with it. I'd really appreciate it if you guys could suggest a martial art that I could do that would be not only safe but effective as well. Thanks alot

Spider

[chillaplata]

I would suggest you try wrestling. It will greatly improve your cardio and anaerobic endurance, it will teach you genuinely useful skills, your strength will be a great advantage, and it will be free if you are still in school. The potential drawbacks for you though are that (i) there is a risk you will get hurt, as in any contact sport, and (ii) wrestling is a very demanding sport and you will almost certainly find the training quite tiring.

If you think you might be interested in wrestling, talk to the coach at your school (assuming you are in school), find out what kind of time commitment joining the team would require, and then decide whether you want to make that commitment. Even if you can't, the coach may be willing to let you work out with his guys informally: it would be good experience for them to roll with someone as strong as you, while you would be able to pick up a bit of wrestling knowledge and experience without actually joining the team.

Oh, and welcome to the board!