For people who take up martial arts with the thought of never getting hit, then im afraid you are wasting your time. You will get hit eventually, even if you train semi or non contact. There are plenty of these types of fighters that attack so fast and vigorous that it is very hard to “pull” there kicks and punches. For this reason, abdominal toughening should be a must for all martial artists.
There are various ways to condition the abdominals to take hard shots. Obviously you need to strengthen the abdominal muscles so crunch’s, reverse crunches, roman chair sit-ups etc are a must, and should be carried out about three to four times a week. Then there is impact training on the abdominals, where the midsection is struck. This gets the abdominal wall used to taking hits. It also helps you as a martial artist to get used to being hit, so when it happens in sparring or a fight, it does not surprise you. There are many ways to carry this out, including dropping a medicine ball of a heavy bag on your abdominals while you are lying on the floor, having a partner punch you in the midsection whilst wearing gloves, concentrating on a variety of punches, so he/she also benefits from practising, with a partner, kicking each other in the midsection for a few minutes, getting harder as time goes by, or even self hitting. A method found in Fighting Power by Loren Christensen involves positioning yourself a certain distance away from a heavy bag, so as you can swing it and it hits you square in the gut each time it swings back. If you are new to impact training, you must start lightly and as your abdominals become stronger and your punishment threshold expands, the shots can get harder and harder. Work frequently on abdominal toughening, especially if you are planning on fighting full contact or MMA style.
Marks
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Monday, 4 February 2008
Abdominal Toughening for Martial Arts
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abdominal toughening,
full contact,
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martial arts,
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1 comments:
Very useful information on impact-training: while it's common-knowledge training the abdominals regularly is a must in the martial-arts (for strenghtening your punches and kicks, self-protection and general fitness-level) I heard of few arts that actually practices getting hit.
It's very true you cannot avoid getting hit all the time (although that should be the main goal of training, especially for self-defence) and in those cases you should be able to take a few punches, especially in an area that can be developped relatively easy.
Just look at kickboxers and MMA-fighters: those guys' abs are so well-conditioned they can take full-power punches, kicks and even knees to the gut without even flinching.
Truly a great asset in fighting and while most of us simply do not have the time to do a thousand sit-ups a day we can at least learn from those professionals and condition ourselves as best as we can.
The average Joe cannot punch even half as hard as a professional boxer anyway so even relatively mild conditioning should do the trick (along with pain-surpressing adrenaline).
While it is advisable not to take unnecessary blows to the stomach, normally this is one of the least worrysome places to get hit (that's if you did your crunches on a regular basis) and it's far more important to focus your defence on vital body-targets: the solar-plexus, the floating-ribs and the liver.
I think I'll try this type of conditioning (first run it by my trainer of course), although first I'd better increase the number of crunches and other abdominal exercises, along with the frequency of the exercises.
Right now I can do about a 100 consecutive sit-ups, I found a program on the net that offers guidance on how to get to a solid 200 in just 6 weeks. I'll give that a try and then we'll see about this conditioning-business.
Thanks for the info.
Zara
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