For those who train hard and overtraining

[neijia_boxer]

Here is a good article on pulse taking which leads to a few more articles on HRmax and your zone.

http://www.time-to-run.com/beginners/pulse.htm

[Chris McKinley]

Overtraining can occur anaerobically as well and does so, in fact, more frequently than aerobic overtraining, but that article is a good simple method for guaging one's target zone for BPM.

[Darth Rock&Roll]

If people can get this into them, they will be ok.

Workouts are the architect
Rest is the builder.

Over training is essentially when you spend all your time working out and you don't give your body the chance to make the gains you should be providing it with.

7 days a week? your gains will take a long time

6 hours a day? why? not even pro fighters train this much and frankly, people who say they train this much are mostly just in a training facility for that long and not actually training that long. Or they are out and out lying to posture on the internet like some poser fag.

eat right, train smart (don't devise your own damn program unless you have a strong strong background) and don't forget fluids and rest.

It's not rocket surgery. lol

[Jonny]

I've come from a bodybuilding background. Overtraining occurs when the CNS is stressed to point of slowing down your body's function to rebuild itself. It's not so much the muscles, as it is the central nervous system.

Listen to your body. Rest is 1/3 of the game.

[middleway]

i overtrained about a year ago and ended up with no energy & colds/ flu for about 3 months .... was not a pleasant thing.

As has been said ... Lack of Rest is a big factor in overtraining. Combine that with insufficient Calories or a poor diet and its only a matter of time.

Thanks for the links.

Chris

[shock and awe]

train every day barring illness " xing yi song

i trained 7 days a week for a good period of time though the 7th was weak. five days is probably better although i found that resting made everything i was doing 10x painful.

[C.J.Wang]

Overtraining and incorrect training are definitely two issues that MAers need to recognize. They are nothing new, by the way. Even respected masters in the past have died young.

[XiaoXiong]

I gave myself rhabdomyolysis from working out too hard. I couldn't bend over to tie my shoes the next morning and felt so weak walking was difficult for a day or two. I luckily treated myself appropriately and by the time I got to the doctors my kidneys were working okay, though I had elevated pancreatic enzymes as well from my body trying to repair the damaged muscle. I was doing bagua classes 4 days a week and bjj 3-5 days a week, and sometimes just rolling for an hour or more at pretty high resistance. I was also working at my job 50+ hours and sleeping only 5-6 hours at night, and practicing ima at home. I probably wasn't eating or drinking enough either. So take it from me, overtraining can kill you. I was lucky I knew my body well enough to notice my kidneys weren't working properly.
J

[Chris McKinley]

XiaoXiong,

I'm glad you made it through okay and learned your lesson.

To everybody,

Look guys....learning how to fight, even in very intense high-stakes situations, doesn't take the absurd number of hours a day some of you guys are putting in. If you're putting in more than 1 to 2 hours a day in training, you're either a professional fighter or you're completely wasting your time. Real combat doesn't require hours and hours a day of training. As a completely subjective and anecdotal test, I'm willing to bet that all or nearly all of the guys who put in the most number of hours of daily training (say, 4 or more) have never experienced real combat and are simply putting in that kind of time because they have been told by fellow practitioners of their style that such is necessary if one is to develop any real degree of skill.

Frankly, if it takes you that long every day to get any skill, you're doing it all wrong.

[johnwang]

If you're putting in more than 1 to 2 hours a day in training, you're either a professional fighter or you're completely wasting your time. ... Frankly, if it takes you that long every day to get any skill, you're doing it all wrong.

When people asks me, "How many days do you train per week?" I always like to ask, "How many times do you train per day?'

I have just finished 3 hours workout from 8 pm to 11 pm. It's too hot to train during day time in Texas summer (it's over 100 degree today).

If you want to maintain your

1. endurance, you need to run 4 miles 3 times weekly. That will be average 30 minutes daily.
2. ability, you need to work on your heavy bag, single head, double heads, Gon rotation, bag throwing, stone lock, ... That will be average 30 minutes daily.
3. striking, you need to work on vertical punch, horizontal punch, willow palm strike, hammer fist, hook punch, upper cut, back fist, ... that will take about 30 minutes daily.
4. kicking, you need to work on your front kick, side kick, roundhouse lick, spin back kick, inside and outside crescent kick, ... that will take about 30 minutes daily.
5. throwing, you need to work on your hip throw, leg block, leg lift, leg twist, front cut, inner hook, outer hook, leg bite, spring, ... that will take about 1 hour daily.

That will be 3 hours already and you have not train any solo forms, stretching, locking, 2 men drills, wrestling/sparring yet.

[middleway]

To everybody,

Look guys....learning how to fight, even in very intense high-stakes situations, doesn't take the absurd number of hours a day some of you guys are putting in. If you're putting in more than 1 to 2 hours a day in training, you're either a professional fighter or you're completely wasting your time. Real combat doesn't require hours and hours a day of training. As a completely subjective and anecdotal test, I'm willing to bet that all or nearly all of the guys who put in the most number of hours of daily training (say, 4 or more) have never experienced real combat and are simply putting in that kind of time because they have been told by fellow practitioners of their style that such is necessary if one is to develop any real degree of skill.

I agree that it isnt really necessary in a rudimentary 'self defence' context, but i would say that some of us are not simply training High intensity for our MA practice or for SD.

I am training for the military, and it takes a huge amount of cardiovascular fitness and endurance so over training/training correctly has become a very important point for me. Also i would say that some guys here are training for MMA which can make high demands on the system.

Regards
Chris

[Jonny]

I'm lucky, as my job starts early and I have most of the afternoon for 'leisure' time. I'm 25 years old.

the afternoons are spent:
1. stretching / warming up
2. standing or sitting quietly / ZZ
3. playing my taiji form
4. drilling my taiji / bag work
5. IP qigong / bag tapping
6. weight training
7. riding my stationary bike for 15-20 mins.

All of this takes me at least 2 hours. I can afford to do it, since I am young and have the time. I do not like to watch TV and do not have many other hobbies. This is what makes me happy: training. But I do plan on going back to school, so I am taking advantage of this free time I currently have to train hard. Most of this is internal work, so it's not as physically demanding as say, beating on a heavy bag for a few hours. I usually feel refreshed after I train, depending on how hard I hit the weights and the bike.

Jonny

[Chris McKinley]

John,

Once again, you're obsessed with precise-but-arbitrarily-arrived-at numbers. I'd ask if you have any research supporting your assertion that your items 1. through 5. actually require the specific training times you mention, but from both personal training experience and academic training, I know you don't. I know from your past postings that you are simply making up those numbers, in this case time requirements, out of your own personal opinion and a need for nice, tidy, exact numbers for everything.

The truth is, you don't need anywhere near that kind of time daily to develop those abilities to a level that will allow you to function effectively in even life-or-death combat circumstances. I know from both direct personal experience and from the many such people I've personally trained over the years. I'm sorry, John...I generally have high respect for both you and your practice, but if you actually believe all of what you stated in that post, you fall into that category of those who are doing it wrong, plain and simple.

Now, I know that's just my opinion and you're not going to change what you're doing just because of something somebody says on the internet, but if I could ever get you to do one thing, it would be this: ignore everything I've ever said, but set aside for a moment your certainty about what training actually requires and go look at the actual research provided by professional trainers, sports physiologists, kinesiologists, biophysicists, learning researchers, etc. Find out what's actually been shown to be true when compared objectively. Perhaps you might let that color your perspective even a little bit.

Beyond that, go and talk to a variety of trainers who are producing today's most effective amateur fighters, regardless of genre. Not pros, because we've already mentioned that those people do nothing else and consequently spend amounts of time devoted to training that are completely unrealistic for anyone who doesn't do that for a living. Take notes on exactly how much time these guys, on average, spend training. If you actually believe that it takes 3, 6, or a greater number of hours a day to produce a functional fighter, you will be astonished by what you find when talking to these people.

[Chris McKinley]

Chris,

You're of course right about military service requiring extraordinary amounts of cardiovascular endurance. However, there are a couple of points I could make RE: "I agree that it isnt really necessary in a rudimentary 'self defence' context, but i would say that some of us are not simply training High intensity for our MA practice or for SD.":

1) Those levels of cardio simply aren't necessary for real self-defence skills, and in fact, past a threshold, they reach a point of diminishing returns and do not significantly contribute to one's likelihood of survival. Real combat doesn't require the ability to run 10 miles nor to go 10 rounds. It requires that you be able to go all-out for a relatively short burst then be able to run your ass off for a couple of hundred yards. Yes, it's cardiovascularly taxing, but you need to train more like a sprinter than a marathon runner.

2) For those not training their MA for self-defense....frankly, they're outliers. They're no more relevant to the discussion than those who are taking swimming lessons not to learn to swim but only because they like wearing speedos and goggles.

[Chris McKinley]

Jonny,

Your description of your training regimen brings up another vital point to the discussion....namely, that combat training and fitness training are not the same animal. Both benefit symbiotically from each other, but both also benefit from being trained in dedicated separation. You'll get far better fitness if you train it separately from your combat work. You'll also get a lot better combat skill if you'll train it separately from your fitness work. I don't know how many times I've worked with guys and busted them out of training plateaus simply by getting them to separate their fitness training from their combat training. I'm not even talking about doing any less or any more of each, just separating them.