What type of training is best for competition? Well, let’s see just how savvy you are when it comes to this subject. I get this question all the time, and not just from our online subscribers, but from our own students as well.
Let’s say you’ve got a tournament coming up and you’re planning on doing poomse and sparring. For poomse, you’re not worried. Sparring, on the other hand… that’s a different story, right?
The tournament is 8 weeks away. How do you begin preparing for this? Should you:
A. Run long distance- 6 to 10 miles.
B. Run medium distance- 3 to 5 miles.
C. Run short distance- 1 to 2 miles.
D. Sprint- 50 to 100 meters
Okay, before I give you the answer to the question, I’m going to talk about each of the answers.
Before you understand which answer is correct, you must know some important things about your body. Your body is comprised of 2 types of muscle fibers- white and red. Your white muscle fibers are your fast and explosive ones, also known as “fast twitch.” Your red fibered muscles are your endurance muscles, or “slow twitch.”
Now, everyone has a different make up of red fiber muscles and white fiber muscles. In other words, some people have more red and less white, and others have more white and less red. The Olympic track athletes who run short distances, like the 100 m. or the 400 m. have an abundance of white fibers. The long distance runners, such as 1600 m. and marathon runners have an abundance of red fibers. If you switch the athletes events, the sprinter will fail miserably in a marathon, and the marathon runner would be ultra slow at the 100 m.
Red fiber or white fiber, it really doesn’t matter because you can’t change what you’ve got. You were born with it. Here is the good news- No matter how many red fibers or white fibers you have, you can always train in a particular way to strengthen what you’ve got.
The second important item to understand is that Taekwondo is an explosive and fast moving sport. Points are awarded when your strikes are fast enough to hit the target area before your opponent can move out of the way. Something that can prove to be quite difficult when you’re slow.
So, the question you should ask yourself, what sort of training would most resemble a Taekwondo match.
If you chose “A”, then this means you are training for slower movements that must be sustained for a very long period of time. Depending on the rules at your competition, your match will be anywhere from 2 to 3 minutes. Not a very long time, compared to running for an hour straight!
If you chose “B”, then you’re still training your red fiber muscles. 3 to 5 miles is still for endurance, and not explosiveness.
If you chose “C”, then you’re getting closer, but still, when you run 1 to 2 miles, you’re never utilizing your white fiber muscles to their potential. Think about it this way... it takes the average, in shape, Taekwondoist to run a mile, between 6 and half to 7 and half minutes. Still, this does you no justice since your Taekwondo match requires more explosiveness in a shorter period of time.
If you said “D”, nice job! An all out sprint puts your muscles under the same exertion level as a Taekwondo match. Now you’re probably asking, “but it only takes me 13 seconds to do a 100 meter sprint, and my Taekwondo match is 3 minutes long.” This is why you rest for 15 seconds, then you sprint 100 meters again. Continue this cycle until 3 minutes are up. Then, you rest 1 minute and begin again for another 3 minutes. You just simulated a Taekwondo match consisting of 2, 3 minute, rounds with a 1 minute rest.
This repetitive cycle of sprinting/resting, sprinting/resting, etc. is very similar to a Taekwondo match. Most matches are highly explosive for about 13 seconds, at the most. Then, there is usually a moment of some downtime while you move around the ring before the explosiveness begins again.
If you’re a competitor, I wish you the best in your next competition. Otherwise, good luck with your training!
Respectfully,
Duncan Richardson
Chief Master Instructor
http://www.SucceedinMartialArts.com
