I found an interesting post by "P" on a different forum. I thought it was interesting, here it is if you want to read it.

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Explosive Endurance Training
P ( 3 training entries)
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Date created: 04/28/03
Last updated: 04/28/03 4:30 pm
Views: 358
Rating average: 4.66 (9 total votes)
Comments: 11


There is a lot of confusion when it comes to cardiovascular training for martial arts. We don’t want to do too much aerobic training, because it burns up to much muscle and decreases strength. Most of us don’t really care about the muscle, but we need our strength.

Strength is necessary because it aids us in our explosive power, and speed. It also adheres and helps us increase our muscular endurance, or doing the same movements over and over again. Martial Arts can be called, to some extent, and Explosive Endurance sport.

I’m probably the first person to use this term, because I haven’t heard it being used anywhere else. The term Explosive Endurance is pretty much self-explanatory, meaning that you must do the same movements over and over again, in an explosive manner.

Now, you’re all probably thinking of plyometrics. But plyometrics is in itself a complicated tool to use. Because, lets take the exercise titled Plyometric Pushups. Although these pushups help develop fast-twitch muscles in chest, triceps, and shoulder region, this doesn’t necessarily transfer into explosive punching.

The type of Explosive Endurance I’m talking about is doing a combination, or even an individual technique that lasts a mere second and doing this over and over again. Now, many of you can say that, yah, I can do 100’s of kicks, or 100’s of punches, but are they all explosive? If so, than can you do these 500 kicks the same manner you can do 5,000 kicks? Got you interested, didn’t I?

I came up with this idea because of competitions in my school. The sensei would show us a specific combination. We would practice this combination for about 15 to 20 minutes, than we would compete. Last man-standing wins. I’ve had some tough competitors, and even when I was in my best condition, both strength, and endurance, I was still beaten out.

Then, I read something on RECOVERY. Damn, RECOVERY IS WHAT IT’S ALL ABOUT. Most likely, you’ll never need to use what I’m teaching you, but it’s like, in order to survive a five-round, five minute per round fight, you have to be able to survive a ten-round ten minute per round fight. See the exaggeration? And you can also see the difference in fast and slow twitch muscles being used.

Ok, this is what I’m saying. Can you use the same amount of energy that you would use in five minutes, in 10 minutes? I’m asking this because, as my conditioning got better, and people started looking up to me, copying what I was doing. Everytime I had everyone else stepped up a Notch; I had to step it up a notch.

I hop you guys can understand what I’m saying. Before I forget, let me just introduce the routine:

The routine basically combines Optimized Volume Training (the idea of doing 100 reps in a superset manner with short rest periods), and Pavel’s 5x5 ( the idea of going maximum on all sets)

All right, here we go....

I call this training protocol EXPLOSIVE ENDURANCE TRAINING!!!!!!!!!!!

Basically, choose a combination. My combo is going to be a simple Front-leg Round kick, Front-leg snap kick. Now, choose another combination, with similar or greater difficulty: Rear-leg Sidekick, Back-leg Back kick.

Now, do both techniques, going all out on each set, doing 5x5, in a superset fashion:

Superset
Front Round, Front Snap 5x5
Rear side, Back Kick 5x5
Rest 30 sec

You will do one side, switch your feet, and do the other side, and without resting, go on to the second combination, and do the same thing, than, and only then, will you rest 30 second. This is 50 total repetitions for each side.

Now, choose two other combos, and do another superset in the same fashion, completing 100 repetitions total.

This should be tiring, and after about four weeks of this, you can increase your reps by 3. Every 4 weeks continue to increase your reps by 2 or 3, and try to choose different combinations each week. I suggest doing this 3 days a week.

End

So, tell me what you think about it.

Swordfish
My forum: The JKD/Martial Arts Web Forum
"I am a slow walker, but I will never walk backward"- Abraham Lincoln

Firstly if you do lots of cardiovascular you do not loose muscle and strength. You burn energy and if you do not eat enough then your body turns to your protein sources. If you maintain your strength training you will still keep getting stronger.

If you want to develop fitness at a proffesional (My Sifu used to fight pro in asia) level you need to be able to go full on for at least 3 times the time of each round. So 15 not 10 min.

The explosive strenth that lasts comes from endurence exercises. So doing high reps on any exercise is good. I will try to do at least a hundred kicks per leg per kick type when I train, a pro would do a thousand. Most I done is 500 it hurt like hell, but my kick got better immediately (after the initial week it took my leg to recover).

Develop strong ligaments and the means to get oxygen to them i.e. cardio, keep relaxed and you will be fighting fit.

I read in a history book, that back in the turn of the 19th century it was the Indian wrestlers who were number one in the world. They trained 14 hours a day, 1000 press up every morning, 4 hours of full on grappling included in the regime.

Question everything, Know nothing.