How to Improve Our Karate

I apologise for the lack of new material on this blog over the past few Months. I could write an elaborate excuse as to why I haven't posted anything, but I don't want to be dishonest with my readers. The truth is I have not been inspired to write over these past few Months. I have been in a bit of a slump and my training and quality of life was affected by this slump. I sat down at my computer quite a few times, going back over the older unpublished posts in hopes that revisiting a topic would inspire me to begin writing again. I even began re-writing some of those older posts, but the feeling just wasn't there and after a few attempts I simply wasn't satisfied with the content enough to press the publish button and put it out there. Then, I finally got fed up with the way things were and decided to make some changes in my life style. I was looking for that ever illusive spark of inspiration as well, but I knew what I really needed to do was get in better shape.

So, in this article I'm going to share with you the number one thing that I think can improve our karate. The inspiration to write this article hit me rather suddenly, but the information I am sharing with you and my opinions on this topic were not formed lightly or quickly. It has taken me years, even decades of research and trial and error.

that said, now let's get right into it. The advice I am going to give you is simple in nature and straight forward, but realising this changes everything no matter what level you are at in your training. If you really want to improve your karate, I mean if you are really serious about taking your karate to the next level, no matter what that next level may be, my advice is now the same across the board. Here it is: To make our Karate Better, we have to get into better shape physically. Simple, right! Nothing new here. Well, not really. I'd like to share with you what I am doing to get into better shape. I hope that the information I share with you here can help you get in better shape, too and take your karate training to the next level.

Did you ever notice in your personal training that at some point, the older you get, the impact of the exercises that you are doing result in one of two things if you continue to go at the same intensity or try to increase the intensity. They result in either injury or exhaustion. After a certain point the impact of the same exercises on our body begins to decrease. Our bodies adjust as they become accustomed to the movements and our physical improvement begins to slow. In order to progress at this point we need to change things up. There are countless options to choose from and a good Sensei will, upon noticing this stagnation in their students, do just that and change the pace and or the routine. This is great and will stimulate the young healthy bodies nicely. But, what about the older non-athletic students? At this point the potential for the above mentioned outcomes; injury and rapid loss of energy are surely to occur. Therefore, it is also at this point when the amount of breaks taken by the older non-athletic students begins to increase or they assume the role of supervisor to the younger athletic students. they observe such things as the form of the younger fitter students as they go through these intense drills. I cannot speak for every Dojo, of course, but I bet that this is a common condition in most. At some point in each training session the senior students step back rather than jump in and perform the high intensity drills.

So, my advice is to take the time and put in the work outside of the Dojo to get into better shape, improve our health so that we can better enjoy the benefits of Dojo training. By doing so I am confident that we can all improve our quality of Karate and continue to make gains in the Dojo.

What I am doing to get into better shape

I am not a registered nutritionist, but I have tried my fair share of popular and crazy diets especially when I was competing. I wrote about this in a previous post (How Can We Train Longer and Get Better Results?). I need to make it perfectly clear that I didn't like any of them! And almost every time I was dieting I lost energy, strength, and stamina along with the weight resulting in poorer performance rather than better. Diets are not fun and they can be dangerous if you are not sure about what you are doing. I strongly suggest that you research this thoroughly before taking action. Consulting a nutritionist would be ideal, but most of us don't have the money or time to do so. We just look for what we want to see and hear on the Internet. The important thing to have is experience that can help you recognise the garbage from the gems of information out there. There is a lot to choose from and most of it is garbage. That is why I am so excited about finding the gems that I did by coming across the information I am going to share with you today.

I used to run everyday. I got slightly leaner, but never had the thin muscular physique I was looking for. Leading up to last Year's Chito-Ryu Karate-do National Championships I ran a lot! So much that my Achilles tendons began to swell and hurt about two weeks before the tournament. I reduced my running time, but was still sore the day of competition. I have not trained intensly after that championships until about 1 Month ago when I changed my whole approach to training. That is what I'm going to share with you now.

I am 38 years old and have a full-time job as a high school teacher, not as active as I used to be and after the age of 35 I noticed drastic changes in my body beginning to take place. My shape and condition has gotten progressively worse and worse during this time and it is harder and harder to maintain a good physique. Although I could still keep up with the high school training in the first year or two after my 35th birthday, it got progressively harder to keep up. A couple of years ago I began taking more breaks because a couple of years before that my injuries began to increase. Just as I wrote in the beginning of this post.

This year I finally reached my breaking point where I new that I had to make some real life changes in order to continue to enjoy my karate training. Coincidentally, this happened after the Kumamoto earthquake. It shook up more than just the land and buildings, it caused us to take pause and reassess the things that we hold dear. Many here reassessed their health as I did. This is when I began seriously looking at how to loose weight, effective diets, and training programs that would get me lean but allow me to maintain and even improve my muscle strength.

About a Month ago I changed my eating habits and began practising intermittent fasting as well as lifting weights 3 to 4 times a week. After just 3 weeks I have began to see noticeable changes in my body physique, energy levels, motivation, flexibility, and strength. My physique is changing and it is not hindering my karate. It is actually improving it. Recently I practised Kata for the first time since beginning this new routine and it felt Great!

What I am doing, specifically:

I've always considered myself to be a Karate-ka before an athlete or competitor. Growing up I was never particularly good at sports, but after beginning my karate-do training when I was 10 years old my coordination, strength and quickness improved. It was the training in the Dojo that developed these skills which led to a pretty successful competitive career in sports karate and it was also the sports specific training which I began around the age of 15 with my Senpai that helped me become better at any sport that I played after that. But, I would like to make it clear that I never really thought of myself as an athlete, only a Karate practitioner. I took pride in the fact that Karate develops all the skills needed to be proficient in any sport, but I was still limited very in my thinking and approach to training. I wish I knew then what I know now.

As I said earlier, I began a pretty serious alternate training routine to augment my karate training in an attempt to achieve gains in my dojo training which includes an intermittent fasting diet and weight training. The following is an outline of what I am doing now and the results after only one Month of implication are very satisfactory to me.

Intermittent Fasting:

This is super easy to do and fits my lifestyle in Japan perfectly. I don't eat anything for about 4 to 6 hours after waking up. I drink one travel mug of black coffee and multiple glasses of water during this time. I usually take my first sip of coffee about 2 to 3 hours after getting up and stretch that mug of coffee over the duration of the fast. Recently I haven't even been able to finish the whole mug of coffee, but I feel great! I break my fast with a piece of fruit, usually one medium sized apple sliced with the skin still on.

I don't eat again for at least 2 hours after finishing the piece of fruit. This may sound like a long wait to have the first meal of the day if you do not consider the apple to be a meal. But, let's put this into perspective. I usually get up at 5:00am that puts the 5 hour mark at 10:00 am and 6 hour mark at 11:00 am, either time could easily be considered a perfectly suitable time for breakfast, which I consider my peice of fruit to be. Lunch would then be 2 hours after that either 12:00pm or 1:00pm not even skipping a beat for lunch. I do watch my calories and try to eat about 40% of my daily intake during this lunch time meal. This is not difficult to do in Japan with prepared bento lunches which tell you the total amount of calories included in the meal. I also use an app on my smartphone, "MyNetDiary" http://www.mynetdiary.com/in which I can plug in all of the foods as well as a target total calorie budget and assess what I'm eating quickly and easily.

I usually work out in the afternoon, evening after classes have finished and get home around 8:30pm. Most diets would say that I could not eat very much before going to bed, but intermittent fasting allows me to eat the remained of my calories even before going to bed. On other diets I also had to be very picky and choosy of what I ate saying no to rice and other high carb foods that my wife prepared. Note, the Japanese diet is very high in carbs. Now I can eat whatever she prepares as the meal will make up the remaining 60% of my total calorie intake. Trust me, this is a lot easier than it sounds and I dare to say that it is actually fun. You don't really have to be counting everything, just plug the menu into the app and take it from there. Below is a pyramid that illustrates where we should be taking the majority of our calories from. There is a lot more information available if you follow the links i provide below.

(from The Path to your Goal Physique by Radu Antoniu)

The GREAT thing about this is I am surprisingly not hungry, I feel great, I have more energy and I'm drinking far less coffee than I used to! The results of this year's Health check up support the way I feel, I'll provide you with the results of the brief assessment at the end of this post and the more detailed assessment results when I get them in a couple of Months.

So that is how I approach intermittent fasting, but there is a lot of good material out there online. I would recommend "Think Eat Lift" by Radu Antoniu in Romania http://www.thinkeatlift.com/ and "Kinobody" by Greg O'gallagher in Canada https://kinobody.com/ as good sources to check out for all of the core information you need to get started. There is a lot of free stuff by them on line that can help us get started, too. Now for my weight training routine.

Lifting:

I approach weight lifting like circuit training, doing multiple exercises in succession before taking a break. This allows me to get a lot of exercises done in a short amount of time and I find that this circuit type of approach helps me maintain a good momentum and fairly high levels of motivation during the entire session.

I divide my weight training sessions into Upper Body + Abs (Workout A) and Lower Body + Abs (Workout B) which I alternate between the days of the week. Ex. Monday - Workout A plus Karate training and supervision, Tuesday - Workout B plus Karate training and supervision, Wednesday - Rest, Thursday - Workout A plus Karate training and supervision, Friday - Workout B plus Karate training and supervision, Saturday - Karate Training only, Sunday - Rest. This schedule works well for me, but the training approach is very adaptive and I'm confident that you can make it fit your schedule.


I based my lifting routine on the models given in "The Path to Your Goal Physique" by Radu Antoniu. The following is what my lifting routine looked like when I started about a Month ago and what it looks like now.

(This is where I lift. No frills and nothing fancy equipment wise. It is old school and hard core)

Workout A:
My Routine One Month ago

Name of Exercise	Weight in Kgs.	Number of Sets	Number of Reps
1 Incline Bench    Press 2 Lat Pull Down 3 Barbell Row 4 Benchpress 5 Dips 6 Seated Bicep Curls to a standing position 7Standing Overhead Press 8 Lat Raises 9 Knee Ups 10 Heels to Heaven 11 Ankle Touches	Dumbbells 15kgX2 Machine 65kg Machine 70kg Machine 60kg Body weight Dumbbells 15kgX2 Dumbbells 15kgX2   Free weight 5kgX2	5 5 3 5 3 3   3   3 3 3 3	5 5 10 5 5 10   8   10 10 10 30

  My Routine Now

Name of Exercise	Weight in Kgs.	Number of Sets	Number of Reps
1 Incline Bench Press 2 Lat Pull Down 3 Barbell Row 4 Benchpress 5 Dips 6 Seated Bicep Curls to a standing position 7 Standing Overhead Press 8 Lat Raises 9 Knee Ups 10 Heels to Heaven 11 Mountain Climbers (Two Step Jab & Reverse Punch combination immediately after the mountain climbers) 12 Ab Rollouts	Dumbbells 15kgX2 Machine 75kg Machine 75kg Machine 60kg Body weight Dumbbells 15kgX2   Dumbbells 15kgX2   Free weight7.5kgX2	5 5 5 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3 3	15 5 5 5 10 12 8 10 20 10 50 10     10

Workout B:
My Routine One Month ago

Name of Exercise	Weight in Kgs.	Number of Sets	Number of Reps
1 Sumo Deadlift 2 Reverse Lunges 3 Standing Leg Curl 4 Knee Ups 5 Ab Rollouts 6 Heels to Heaven 7Ankle Touches 8 Free Squats	60kg Dumbbell 15kgX2 Machine 25kg Body weight       Body weight	5 3 3 3 3 3 3 3	5 10 10 12 10 10 50 10

My Routine Now

Name of Exercise	Weight in Kgs.	Number of Sets	Number of Reps
1 Sumo Deadlift 2 Reverse Lunges 3 Standing Leg Curl 4 Leg Extensions 5 Knee Ups 6 Ab Rollouts 7 Heels to Heaven 8 Calf Raises	80kg Dumbbell 15kgX2 Machine 30kg Machine 30kg	5 4 3 3 3 3 3 3	5 12 10 10 20 10 10 10

(I am sorry if the cells are out of alignment. I had real trouble with these tables. I hope you can understand)

Results After only One Month of Application:

I am a 38 Year old male who has kissed girls, who does drink alcohol, but doesn't smoke. While on this diet I cut down on the amount of beer I drink, but did not cut it out of my diet completely. I still drink the occasional beer or two or a couple of glasses of red wine with my final meal of the day and a few more than a couple on the weekends, but I code them into the MyNetDiary and am somewhat careful to not go over my maximum calorie intake budget of 1,700 calories a day including the alcoholic beverages.

I am 170cms tall and last Month I weighed over 76kgs. My pants were getting tighter and tighter. I could no longer wear the pants with 82cm waist and the 85cm were uncomfortable. My gut was showing at over 90cms. I was not motivated and very sluggish. On my most recent health check up, June 14th, I weighed 72kgs. My blood pressure was 111 over 60 and 50 bpm at rest. My pants fit nicely and my gut was 86cms. I felt great!

To my surprise even my eyesight improved from last year! Although that improvement is probably not related directly to this diet, I do believe it is related to healthy life changes which the diet most definitely contributes to. Last year my Right eye was 1.50 and my Left eye was 0.80 This time my Right eye was 1.80 and my Left eye was 1.50. I am feeling better, 'looking' better and even seeing better! 

There you have it. This was a pretty long post, but I hope it was worth the wait. I hope the information presented here can help you to improve your health which will Definitely improve your Karate!