Excercises

[Andy]

random said:

srew top, still too new to exercise for me, I could hurt my wrist.

Not if you just Karate Chop the top off the bottle.

[kenshiro]

Physical training might be good for young people, but I hate doing it especially in a Karate session. I would rather recommend stretching.
I used to keep exercises like weight training believing that it would help strengthen myself much effectively. However, after keeping it several years, I found it had made my body stiff and unbalanced. More shockingly I had lost the sharpness in my karate techniques.

After reaching this point, it reminded me of what one famous karateka in another club had ever told me. He insisted that if we did Karate training (eg kata or kumite) correctly and very hard, no extra training would be necessary, necessary muscles should be strengthen in that way. Hence he seldom had extra exercises except for Karate training itself, said he. I didn't believe it at that time since his strength in Karate was extraordinary!

But now I came to agree this opinion. My way of weight training was not good actually, but having a correct Karate training with concentration would be much more effective than correcting and keeping extra exercises. Also such an idea of being strong with keeping strong muscles would collapse as the body gets old.
So my opinion is that seeking for the correct and ideal movements in Karate is more important. That will help you keep practicing Karate for a long time. Also, you might someday be able to regard every movement in your life (eg walking) as effective Karate training!

[jack]

I undserstand that if you were to do too many weights you might become a bit bulky for karate. I think warm ups are very necessary for safety reasons, and I do like pressups etc, it doesn't hurt to strengthen yourself a bit for karate, but our warm ups are now half the lesson. As Kenshiro, I also believe that if you do your karate hard and powerful this will make you strong. I always do a technique as if it were my last, downside is that I get knackered quite quickly.

On another slightly related note, I do have a problem in that I really do put everything in to every technique and I do not relax. I have been told to relax until the very last fraction of a second and kime at the very end. I tense every muscle from about halfway through a technique.