Lads, Two Questions...

Chupa_chick

Hope you guys can help me out here, coupla questions:

1. Fitness
I'm reasonably fit- run, swim, train (thai boxing) etc etc, however I'm looking for suggestions on how to improve my pad and/or sparring fitness, so high intensity/short time frame, which I can replicate outside of training. I can't think of anything beyond sprint and hill sprint training - any ideas?

2. Instructing qualifications
Beyond the qualification of the actual martial art (fights/belts etc), is there any qualification that you think an instructor should have - i.e. personal training, fitness instructor cert./first aid training. If so, any recommendations on courses? (I'm thinking of instructing in a non-martial art related sport but curious about MA stuff). Also are there any tax breaks available on instructor courses??

Thanks in advance!

I think it's essential for an instructor to have first aid training.

yomchi

Apart from what you're doing, sprint training and loads of rounds. You could incorporate olympic lifting into your regime. If you haven't the head for that, simple dead lifting and squats with weights are ideal when done explosively.

Other that your required art qualifications, to coach/instruct you should have:
1. Insurance
2. First Aid cert
3. If your teaching children - a child protection cert
4. Garda vetted

If you're registered for income tax, anything you do through your club/business as an expense can be claimed off a tax bill.... i hope

Hope that helps

--amadeus--

My recommendation for improving sparring training is firstly to spar! There is a concept called the "Principle of specificity" It says:

The principle of Specificity also implies that to become better at a particular exercise or skill, you must perform that exercise or skill. To be a good cyclist, you must cycle. The point to take away is that a runner should train by running and a swimmer should train by swimming

So if you want to be able to spar effectively for x rounds then you need to really be working at sparring.

If you can't do that then the training you should be doing should closely mimic the activity. Depending on teh sparring you do you will be probably be doing short sharp bursts of anaerobic exercise followed by slightly longer aerobic periods. In effect when you spar you put in a short sharp hard effort then usually step back for a second or two, drop the intensity and then back in - it's rare to be hammer and tongs at full intensity for teh entire duration of a round (although each art is different)

So you want excecise that will do the same thing. Short hill sprints are ideal as teh sprint up and job back follow teh hard easy pattern. Also try Fartlek running. Basically run ata steady pace and pick an object in front of you (a tree, bench, lampost, whatever). When you reach that point then pick up the pace - for martial arts training you want to go to almost a full sprint to mimic fighting intensity. As you speed up pick another object and hold your faster pace until you reach it. Repeat until you're knackered For sparring it will depend on how long your rounds are (we spar anything from 1 - 3 minutes for example) but I would imagine that you won't be holding the faster sections for more than 30 seconds at a time. Fartlek is a great way of building both endurance and stamina as well as anaerobic capacity.

Your second question I have no idea on!

Chupa_chick

Thanks guys -yeah I've incorporated a few fartleks into my training already, come very close to reacquainting myself with my last meal

Yeah sparring is obviously the best way to go to get fit for sparring, but I often feel more confident to do more/go harder/faster when sparring, if I know that I've been working on my fitness for it outside of training.

Can't seem to get it in my head though that a half hour of sprint training is just as good as a 5m run (in different ways), although I'm stuffed, I always feel like I haven't done enough!