A few questions about exercise and starting a MA

[DarknessZ28]

Let me just start by asking the main questions right away so you don't have to read the whole thing if you don't want to, but I'll go more in depth. Does keeping the same routine for a long period of time hinder your progress instead of help it? This goes for weights and cardio. What are some good compound exercises or exercises for functional strength in MAs? Are there any good books for a beginner that includes proper ways to punch, kick, ect?

I'll admit one reason I started exercising was to make an impression with the ladies but I also knew I wanted to start martial arts at some point. I kinda jumped into it without seeking knowledge first. The routine is 15 minutes of cardio followed by weights..biceps, tris, and chest one day..legs another..shoulders, back, and forearms the next..abs all days.. I exercise 6 days a week. The problem is I didn't know about functional strength vs looking good in the mirror, i thought muscle = strength/power and that was it, its been a year since I started but I have some concerns. This whole time I've done alot of 'body builder' stuff, isolated exercises..Also, I've been doing the same weight(with the exception of the first few weeks) for the past year, not changing anything, weight, reps, its all the same each week, but someone recently told me doing this doesnt actually improve you, they said infact it can make you weaker. is this true? Same with cardio, do I need to vary my intensity to improve?

I'm not big like a body builder, I never wanted to be, I'm very toned with some mass, but I would like to stay like this..Will doing compound exercises make me loose any mass, or will I stay the same size? Don't get me wrong, if I have to I'll sacrifice it, I'd rather pack a nasty punch than look good at the beach lol..I was thinking maybe I could do my routine for 2 weeks, then compound for the next 2, then switch again, and keep doing that to add variety so I continue to improve.

To sum everything up, I would like to increase my strength and endurance, keep the mass for inimidation but have a very strong and quick punch and kick..is this asking to much? Sorry for the ignorance and the long post, but its better to find out later than never ya know. And in the past 48 hours I've read so much information that I'm now confused whether or not one can be intimidating but good at a martial art, it seems from what I've read(mostly posts on other sites, no REAL information) you have to choose between the two. One last question, I would like to take classes this summer, whats a good MA for street fighting, anything in particular? Oh, and I'm not a one time poster, I plan on sticking around on these boards, so I didnt come here ONLY for this information. Thanks for the help

-Matt

Edit: I just wanted to stress that this post ISN'T about wanting to look good lol, the main issue is improving fuctional strength with every session for martial arts instead of 'hitting a brick wall' as far as progressing.

[Broadsword2004]

YES, if you do the same routine with the same numbers of sets and reps for a long time, it'll hinder your growth, because your body will adapt to it. It won't keep you strong once you gain the strength.'

Think pushups. If you can only manage 3 or 4 pushups, then pushups are a perfect way to increase upper-body strength. Once you get about 12 - 14 pushups though, you've got all the strength you'll get out of them after that. Sure, you can keep working them until you get up to like 100 pushups, but you'll just have increased your muscular endurance. You won't have increased your strength anymore.

Pushups are very good though, because in a boxing match, the ability to keep punching for a long time requires muscular endurance.

Think walking too. This is a hypothetical situation, but if you've been in a wheelchair your whole life because you were super lazy, and then decide you want to start walking, the first attempts at walking will be very hard because your legs are so weak. Once you get strong enough to walk fine, however, your strenght will only grow soooo much. Eventually it will stop. You can walk around al day and not gain any leg strength. You can gain endurance, butn o more strength unless you increase the resistance through squats or something.

So increase the resistance in your exercises. Also, do different exercises. For example, when doing pullups, vary your grips from narrow to wide. Do the military press with both barbells and dumbells, etc....vary your exercises. If you do benchpresses all the time to increase chest strength, try doing dips with a weight attached for the chest.

Yes, you can be big and muscular with a bodybuilder physique too, and be good at martial arts, but normal people may not have the time for such selective training if you've got a job and family obligations, etc....it depends.

One mistake I noticed with your program is you mention all the individual upper-body muscle groups, but then you just treat legs as one muscle group. The legs are like your arms. You arms have triceps, biceps, there's your chest, etc....well your legs have multiple muscle groups too! You have the quadriceps ("leg triceps," or thigh muscles), hamstrings ("leg biceps...they're the long tendons running down the backs of your thighs to where you knee starts), glutes (your butt muscles), and calves (the muscles between your heels and knees). Just as you don't work all your arm muscles on the same days, don't work all your leg muscles on the same day either.

Second, YOU DO NOT BUILD A BODYBUILDER PHYSIQUE SOLELY THROUGH ISOLATION EXERCISES. YOU USE COMPOUND MOVEMENTS TO BUILD UP MUSCULAR SIZE AND STRENGTH, THEN USE ISOLATION MOVEMENTS TO SCULPT THAT MUSCLE. Bodybuilders aren't weak, they just aren't AS strong as other guys who train purely for strength, since bodybuilders concentrate more on looks. But proper bodybuilding involves doing compound movements to build up size and strength, then sculpting it with isolation exercises. Also, muscle size and muscle strength are not directly-related. Some guys can gain lots of strength, while their muscle stay relatively the same size. Whereas other guys will strength-train, and as they gain strength, also get very huge. It depends on the person.

One wya to gain mass if you don't gain it easily is to use creatine. This basically makes your muscles gain a lot more water, and thus increased your bulk. If you've got a lean, sculpted physiqe, but want more size, creatien will do this for you. You must drink a LOT of water for this though. HOWVEVER, that is all creatine will do for you. You'l look more intimidating, but you'll have no more strength then you did before the creatine, because it's just extra water in your muscles.

I do not recommend creatine though, as, from reading another thread, according to Koto Ryu (a former Marine here), they're now finding that long-term use of creatine kind of cancels your body's ability to produce it (your body makes its own creatine as well), and when that happens, you become dependent on the artificial stuff (i.e. it turns into a drug). Creatine is something naturally produced by your body. Taking artificial creatine increases your muscular size, but it kills your body's own production of the stuff. Long-term use of it, they are now finding, completely kills your creatine production.

So if you want mass, do it the traditional way through hard work and eating right (lots of protein and so forth).

I'd recommend you do calisthenics and compound exercises and get decent strength, along with a fairly nice physique, then if you want to look more bodybuilder-like, do some isolation movements.

Compound exercises with weights are deadlifts, benchpress, barbell squats, clean & press, military press, pullups, etc....

Compound exercises that are calisthenics are regular pushups, pullups (with palms facing away from you....think if you slipped off the edge of a cliff, how would your hands be to pull yourself up), dips, handstand pushups, walking on your hands, Hindu pushups, Hindu squats, single-leg squats (also known as pistols), one-arm pushups, hanging leg raises, regular situps (situps, not crunches), bridging, muscle-ups, planche pushups, and lever pullups.

Planche pushups and lever pullups will make you super strong, because you actually have to be super strong before you can do them. But hte process towards achieving them will make you super strong. Here is a good website for learning them: http://www.dragondoor.com/cgi-bin/ar...&articleid=229

Also, STRETCH. Flexibility relies on being strong. You don't want to be flexible and not strong. If you want the ability to do splits where you have two chairs with a foot on each and your groin off the ground, you'll need strong legs. So get strong. And stretch. But DO NOT stretch heaviliy, only VERY lightly, before doing something like squats. Heavy stretching decreases muscular strength by up to 25%, so if you stretch your groin muscles, and then do a barbell squat, with your toes pointed outward, which will thus stress your groin muscles, if you've stretched it too hard and thus decreased the strength too much, you could tear a groin muscle. Not only is this excruciatingly painful, but you've also got a big-@$$ barbell full of weight on top of you! So only stretch heavy AFTER a heavy workout, not before. And even after, be careful, as the muscles will also be weaker then as well.

Worry about getting real, functional strength and muscular endurance first, then worry about sculpting it for bodybuilding. If you get a really strong chest, but you say want a really strong, but CHISELED chest, then you'd just incorporate some sculpting movements into your routine.

As for developing hard punches and fast kicks, you also just have to kick and punch a lot too. Punch the heavybags, and kick them.

As for books, Pavel Tsatsouline (www.DragonDoor.com) has some good books. This website also has some very good articles. Matt Furey has good books too, though he is expensive as hell. Thomas Kurz is another good author for gaining knowledge on strength and flexibility.

A very good website for you to go to is www.crossfit.com. A VERY good article you should read to get you started better is here: http://media.crossfit.com/cf-download/CFJ-trial.pdf - that should explain a lot of stuff to you. This article is actually a downloadable trial issue of the CrossFit Journal.

As for good martial arts, well in general, from what I know, Muay Thai, boxing, Brazilian jujitsu, etc...are very good for street-fights. Karate is very good too, the problem is karate has been so commercialized that it is hard as hell to find a quality karate school these days. Most are interested solely in money. Wrestling and judo are good arts as well.

[DarknessZ28]

Thanks for the info man, I'll make sure to use it. I'll also look into those links and books you mentioned. I do have just a few more concerns though. First off I've been thinking about it and I really don't want to gain mass after all, I feel it might slow me down alittle bit, and just not suit me. I almost don't want to say it because so many do, but I've always been a fan of the idea behind Bruce Lee. Compact muscle not to alot of size but very strong. So is it possible to create 'dense' muscle with great strength or does this go along with what you said about it depending on the person. Meaning I would just have to try it and see if I get big of stay relatively the same size.

Also how do I go about increasing strength with weight and reps keeping in mind the goal of not becoming huge? I've be told for as long as I can remember, high reps/lower weight = lean muscle where as high weight/low reps = size gain. does this still hold true? And about increasing, lets say regarding bench press I can do 3 sets of 15 comfortably, do I increase the weight so that I reach 15 on the 3rd set with a bit of struggle, or do should I go for muscle exhaustion or struggle on lets say 8 or 9, then work up with later sessions. And when I'm satisfied with strength/size/speed ect can I just keep the same weight, maybe just go beyond the 15 reps(assuming its not a ridiculously high amount of weight) to build endurance, or after awhile will I start losing the strength?

Last thing I'm curious about is the routine, would it be best to set a routine and stick with it for about a month or 2 then switch to some other exercises for another month then back again? I'll use bench press as an example again, I was thinking I could do that for a month, then the next month I might do pushups or weighted pushups in different variations each set, hands close, far, on knuckles ect. Would this keep improvement regular and prevent hindering? Oh and I plan on researching didn't types of exercises I can do to change my routine over time, do you know of any sites that have a bunch listed? Anyway, those are all the questions I have. Thanks again for the info, goin to look at those links and to check out those exercises you mentioned as well.

-Matt

[Broadsword2004]

I think you'd more or less just have to train for strength and see if you gain in size. But don't worry about it slowing you down. Unless you are talking about freakish big, big muscles won't slow you down as long as you train them for things other then solely weight training. Look at professional football players. They are huge, yet they can run incredibly fast, throw the football very far, etc.....they are very strong and fast. Just work to gain the proper strength and speed, and your muscles will grow accordingly. Don't worry about size too much with those things. If you develop a nice physique along the way, great, if not, oh well, you are still very strong, you just may not look it.

The notion that highreps/light weight = lean muscle is one of the BIGGEST LIES in strength training! High reps/light weight builds endurance, and nothing more. It is like pushups. Doing lots of pushups is like bench pressing with a light weight. You gain a lot of muscular endurance, but no muscular strength, unless you can only barely manage a couple pushups. Well that applies to light weight/high reps. It only makes endurance. If you want lean muscle, weight train until you are lean. As long as you train more for strength instead of size, you should get lean naturally, anyhow.

And light weight/high reps WILL NOT make you cut. That is BULLoney. To train for strength, or to train to be cut, whichever, use HEAVY WEIGHTS. And don't do any benchpress with a weight that lets you go up to 15 reps if you want strength. Use a weight that allows 6 - 8 reps, and then once you get to about 12 reps, add more weight to take you back down to 6 - 8 reps again.

If you want to get cut, do sculpting exercises once you get enough muscle, but use heavy weights for those too. Light weights does nothing but build endurance really. You also need to do running or some form of cardiavascular work to burn body fat as well.

Yes, changing exercises/routine each month is beneficial, just experiment. If you get to a weight that you are satisfied with and want more endurance with that weight, you shouldn't lose too much strength, because you're still doing the exercise at a good weight.

[EmptyneSs]

dude, all u gotta do is hit the gym like 3 times a week, doing hard, challenging exercises that workout your entire body in many different ways while gradually increasing strength and cut down on the fats and sugars u eat and u will be fine. theres is no way in hell u are ever going to get "too big" unless u take steroids. in fact, u probobly wont even get big, at least not for a long time if u are working out naturally. however your body will fill out more and get more lean muscle and u will get gains in strength and confidence.

[DarknessZ28]

thanks for the help