One karate sensei said: “The secret of training is training”. There is no magic formula to improve one’s technique and the form, only consistent hard work. Training hard is a given in kung fu training; however, I wonder if training smart is more important than hard? At least, for the grown up adults who are not prepared to dedicate their full days and nights to kung fu training (as the Shaolin kids do). I’ve been reading quite a bit lately on sports physiology and how to train smarter.

Kung fu taught me to understand my body limitations. “The more physically fit the person is, the more acutely aware they are of their limitations” (Physiology for sportspeople by Peter Bursztyn). Because of these limitations, because you want to do your personal best, you also need to learn to use your advantages to the fullest possible extent. One advantage that grown up adults have over the kids in training is education and critical thinking. They can learn the scientific principles that would help them to make training more effective.

What prompted me to dig into internet and libraries was a recent wrist injury, and general feeling of being tired and worn out while maintaining the usual training schedule. I also had slightly pulled some leg muscles and even kicking at the very beginning of the training became quite painful.

The two books I really like are: Physiology for sportspeople (by Peter Bursztyn) and The Science of Training (by Tom Kurz). Tom Kurz has a website with loads of articles that draw on the book’s material (www.stadion.com).

So, after reading, what have I done differently in my training schedule this month? Instead of running through the same set of jiben gong (basic training) exercises every day, usually followed by a short stint of going through forms (when I was tired already and couldn’t do the forms at good speed), I alternated days with heavy focus on speed/form training (with only 30 min of basic exercises as a warm up) with days of heavy focus on basic exercises and strength training, including stances. I also devoted more time to stretching at the end of the workout.

Alternating different types of workout (speed vs strength training) presumably helps the body to recover different systems quicker. Forms should not be performed on the fatigued muscles, otherwise the technique would be wrong.

One other change I made: I stopped stretching in the early part of my workout – before kicks. Stretching before kicks is something that everyone seems to do in China – and that’s how I learnt it. But once I stopped stretching, and just warmed up the body before starting kicks (which is a type of stretch - dynamic stretch - in itself), the pain in harmstring muscle I felt in the last month was gone. Just like this – magic!

Well, the results of the changes in the training methods are great so far. I am full of energy and I look forward to starting each day with training. Now that I separated conditioning and strength exercises from the form training, my body feels that it can cope with each morning session without killing itself J