AnonymousOne
Red Belt
Joined: 27 Jan 2002
Posts: 812
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 Posted: Tue Jan 29, 2002 10:37 pm Post subject: |
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Principally, karate and other martial arts is anaerobic work for the body. In other words you need your body to use the muscle at high speed and high muscular power.
For those that are not farmiliar with these terms a marathoner developes great aerobic capabilities and a sprinter great anaerobic capabilities.
For the most part in the Dojo your school is getting you to develop anaerobic endurance and this is great.
Another system is based on a balanced combination of aerobic and anaerobic work. Aerobic work means work within your capacity to use oxygen.
Everyone, according to his or her physical condition, is able to use a limited amount of oxygen each minute. With the right kind of exercise, you can raise your limit.
The maximum limit is called the "Steady State", the level at which you are working to the limit of your ability to breathe in, transport, and use the oxygen. If you exceed this limit, the exercise becomes anaerobic. When this happens, your body's metabolism changes to supply the oxygen you need to supplement the amount of oxygen you are breathing in. This re-conversion process has limits, so the body is always limited in its anaerobic capacity. When you work anaerobically, you incur what is called "oxygen debt". Oxygen debt is accompanied by the build-up of lactic acid and other waste materials, which in turn leads to neuro-muscular breakdown, or simply, tired muscles that refuse to work. Oxygen debt has the unfortunate feature of doubling, squaring, and then cubing as you continue to work anaerobically.
In other words, the faster you work, the greater your need for oxygen to continue working becomes.
It is necessary to understand that, while the object of training is to develop your anaerobic capacity to exercise, this can only be done in relation to your oxygen uptake level and capacity to exercise aerobically. In other words, it is necessary to work as much as you can at economic or aerobic speeds to lift your oxygen uptake to your highest possible level as the foundation upon which to base your anaerobic or speed training.
To gain the best results for the time spent in training, it is important to work at your best aerobic speed: i.e. at speeds at a level just under your steady state or Maximum Oxygen Uptake. This is theory and can be applied in practice.
Even very slow work will effectively increase general cardiac efficiency and therefore raise the oxygen uptake. However, by working at speeds much below the maximum oxygen uptake level, it is going to take much longer periods of time to gain the same results than if the if the rates of speed were at faster aerobic levels. In other words: one can work too fast or too slow and it is important to control the work efforts as well as possible if the optimum results are to be achieved in the time spent exercising.
To train at speeds above the oxygen uptake is anaerobic exercising with the net results the development of lactic acid that causes a lowering of the blood pH with the ultimate results of neuromuscular breakdown in the working muscles. This means that the volume of exercising will be limited according to the oxygen debts being incurred. Seeing that, in this marathon type conditioning phase, it is important to do a large volume of training and it has to be economic, or aerobic. The net results of the aerobic exercise is carbon-dioxide we breathe out; and water and salt we perspire. we are really endeavoring to lift the pressure by the heart upon the cardiac systems generally, to an economical level to bring about the development of the under-developed parts the smaller arteries, arterioles, capillary beds and veins.
To carry out this 'near best aerobic' training practically, it is necessary to time your work, and to progressively increase the work efforts as fitness improves.
It can take many years to gradually and continually develop general cardiac efficiency. This is the reason why marathon runners are usually better performers at ages nearer forty rather than in their earlier years; that is if they continue with systematic long aerobic training.
The more time that you are able to work aerobically in training, then the greater endurance you will be able to develop. So there is really no limit to the work that a teacher should place upon his students, provided that the supplementary work is above the required faster aerobic work are as easy effort at the lower aerobic speeds. In other words; it is wise to work once a day at faster aerobic speeds and supplementary to this work, to work as much time as you find time and energy for; even if it is only for fifteen minutes jaunt.
The aerobic work should be approached this way: Decide how much time you have daily for your training and balance your conditioning schedule upon this. Measure out.
So measure out the time you have available Then you need to pick a form of exercise that you can measure easily for progress. A Karate Kata is perfect for this.
So allocate say a 2 hour training session for example. Rather than aiming for peak anaerobic performance, slow down a little and work at a slightly slower pace but you will be spending more time doing it and thus increasing your aerobic capabilities. Anaerobic endurance is developed by doing anaerobic work, yes, but its also developed by having a strong foundation of aerobic capabilities.
Most people can do a Kata, (if they do it slow enough and lightly enough), for 2 hours. The point here is to gradually increase your vigorousness as your ability to is developed. When you are working this way your goal is not to get puffed out. This is aerobic work not anaerobic work. However your breathing should be laboured and you will and should be sweating. In effect you are jogging here not sprinting. Your anaerobic work is done at another time and is greatly enhanced by doing this daily.
Training this was has these benefits:
* You are training more hours in a week thus mental satisfaction
* You are developing long endurance, gradually and safely.
*Your mind is thinking and concentrating on your technique
* Your leg strength will develop because you are spending far more time in your stances.
* Your performance of Kata for grading will increase significantly. In a 2 hour session you would complete your Kata 120 times for most Kata. Imagine how good your Kata will get doing it 720 times per week!
* Your aerobic capabilities, over time, will dramatically increase.
* You avoid muscle strain and injury
* Your fighting skills increase significantly, not only because your body is working but because your mind, the most important part, is concentrating on fighting much more often.
You dont have to use a Kata, but pick a series of movement that you can use over and over that you can directly measure. Perhaps you might want to do 5 different Katas in a row to relieve boredom and then start again.
In these sessions you should not be totally worn out at the end, please remember this is daily aerobic work and NOT anaerobic work. You should be nicely and comfortably tired at the end of your training.
The body cannot sustain anaerobic work for a long period of time, its very taxing and takes time for recovery, but the body is beautifully designed to develop great aerobic endurance.
Just slow down and work below your steady state condition and work for longer periods of time. You will notice, over a period of time, that your whole Martial capabilities improve significantly.
At other times in the week you can do anaerobic work, weights and so on. But for these sessions, time and working slightly below steady state is what its all about.
Does it work? Well back in the 1960's they developed this system for marathon runners and the result was world records were broken left right and centre. They still use the system today. A maranthoner needs a great aerobic capabilities yes, but they also need anaerobic capabilities and this is the foundation upon which they build.
The conditioning phase of this training stresses exercising aerobically to increase your Steady State as high as possible given your particular situation. For best results, you should exercise between 70 and 100 percent of your maximum aerobic effort. This is working at a good effort and finishing each bit of work feeling pleasantly tired. You will certainly benefit from training slower, but it will take much longer than if you work at a good aerobic pace.
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[ This Message was edited by: AnonymousOne on 2002-01-29 23:41 ] |
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YODA
Black Belt
Joined: 25 Jan 2002
Posts: 1033
Location: England (int'north west)
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| Posted: Thu Jan 31, 2002 12:00 am Post subject: |
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Very interesting post AnonymouseOne. 
People often talk about "aerobic" versus "anaerobic" exercise as if they where mutually exclusive. There is no definitive border between anaerobic and aerobic activity. All[b] activities are fueled by both means. When we refer to something being "aerobic" or "anaerobic," we are talking about the system that is the primary contributor of energy for that activity. There is only one muscle that works 100% aerobicaly - the Myocardium - your heart muscle (It's a good job too - we wouldn't want [b]THAT to stop due to lactate build up!).
This "Steady State" you talk about is the "Anaerobic Threshold" - often measured as a percentage of your "V02Max" or "Maximum Oxygen Uptake." It is the level at which your body cannot sustain the activity indefinately by predominantly aerobic respiration (with it's clean fuel & lack of toxic waste products) and therefore your body switches its primary energy production to anaerobic glycolysis - with it's ineficient & toxin (lactate) creating process - this then limits your performance as lactate levels build.
The training you describe (sub-maximal aerobic) is the foundation - namely, building a strong aerobic base. It gives you the ability to improve the %age of your V02Max that you can sustain (typically 40% in the untrained & up to 90% in the trained). If you wish to improve your actual threshold however, it is necessary to train beyond it. This is where interval & Fartlek training comes in.
This level can definately be measured & improved upon. Have you had your V02Max measured or calculated recently to measure your hypothesis scientifically? The last time I had mine done my V02Max was at 75ml/kg/min - about what you'd expect from a national level middle distance runner. Your maximum potential for improvement is, as with most things like this, genetically set. As the saying goes.... "If you want to be an elite athlete - choose your parents well" LOL! 
One important point to mention that is now widely believed - if your activity requires a large amount of strength & speed (the two are linked!) then you should limit the amount of aerobic training you do - there seems to be a trade-off between elite levels of speed/strength & muscular endurance.
I hope this info helped some of you understand just a little more about this stuff.
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YODA
2nd Degree Black Belt : Doce Pares Eskrima www.docepares.co.uk
Qualified Instructor : JKD Concepts www.jkdc.co.uk
Qualified Fitness Instructor (Weights, CV, Circuit, Kinesiology) |
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on the post.
(which incorporates both anaerobic and aerobic conditioning)... at least mine does. There are many threads in the Health & Fitness forum that praise the benefits and necessity of both aerobic & anaerobic conditioning for the martial artist
