What’s your prognosis on using martial arts(kickboxing,karate,ninjitsu) as part of a strength regimen for a sprinter?
Just what i know is that there´s a guy for here, ( Ahgchile if i´m not wrong ) this guy started sprint thing after more than 10 years of martial arts and he started running times around 11.0s which is very fast considering he was not sprinted before.
It´s not only about strenght but also about flexibility, since most of martial art “fighters” have very flexible muscles.
The bulk of my athletic preparation was in Martial Arts. I was a nationally ranked TKD fighter in my early teens, and started when I was 4. My pr in the 100m is 10.9, at age 20.
I feel a large amount of my athletic potential was untapped by an early start in TKD, which provided gymnastic and plyometric and strength and work capacity, but I was very YOUNG.
How old are you?
What is your current level of conditioning?
I feel that in terms of “intangibles,” martial arts as a whole provide an excellent education.
If you are looking to improve your sprinting, its possible, if you choose a discipline with progressive training techniques and high plyometric demand (personal bias, Olympic TKD). Then simply train yourself as a sprinter, maintaining speed with a sprint speed workout once a week, and twice a week take class. However, if you are looking to be an ass kicking machine - in either sprinting or martial arts - keep them seperate, as I feel being very good at one will not make you better at the other.
For what I feel is supreme in ass kicking, Krav Maga is well worth your time. I consider it the “short cut” to kicking ass, where as Boxing and BJJ are what I would consider the long way.
I no longer compete in martial arts b/c of concussions and some shoulder and rib injuries sustained concurrent to my short, dismal football career. But I love them, and when I have kids will encourage my wife to let them try these wonderful disciplines (judo, olympic tkd, and non-Americanized karate are all acceptable for youngins, imho. Just be sure to get a quality instructor). Maybe she’d even let me try them again
I’ve trained on and off in kickboxing and Ninjitsu for about 8 years now. But what i was thinking of doing was maybe doing a bag session a with kick/punch combos for 60 second intervals and while resting doing some med ball drills for 60 seconds. Maybe repeat that 3 or four times and then go and have a power lifting session after. Thats what i was thinking because next week i’m going to start full time 100m, 200m training and i’m quite unfamiliar with weight training but I’m pretty familiar with martial arts, so i thought maybe a combination of the 2 might be beneficial? What are your thoughts? I’m in pretty good shape but i’ve had a 2 year layoff from sprinting.