Weight Training Question

[moocow65]

I have a question for those of you who weight train for kendo like myself. Because of the way we grip the shinai, I hypothesized that doing a neutral grip when lifting weights will better improve my kendo than if I did the standard barbell grip. For example, instead of doing normal curls, a hammer curl will be more beneficial because that is the same grip we use for kendo. Any muscle experts out there with the answer?

[Neil Gendzwill]

I'm no expert, but I do know that grip changes which muscles do the work. If you want to do kendo-specific weight exercises, try doing suburi motion with a dumbell in each hand, hammer-style. I do this with 10 lb dumbells, full backswing and then stop shoulder height with the same wrist flex we normally do. No clue whether this is helping with anything, but it's a good stretch.

Personally I don't think as kendoka we need much upper-body workout. I think core or whole-body exercises are more useful - squat, deadlift, legpress, crunch.

You might try asking your questions on usenet. The group misc.fitness.weights is full of experts (and trolls and nutbars and jerks - it's usenet, ya know?) who will know the answers for sure.

[funkyCmonkey]

[QUOTE=moocow65]I have a question for those of you who weight train for kendo like myself. Because of the way we grip the shinai, I hypothesized that doing a neutral grip when lifting weights will better improve my kendo than if I did the standard barbell grip. For example, instead of doing normal curls, a hammer curl will be more beneficial because that is the same grip we use for kendo. Any muscle experts out there with the answer?
I wouldn't consider myself an expert. I do have over 6 years experience in bodybuilding and powerlifting. I agree with the other post. Very little upper body strength is required in Kendo. A weighted shinai might be of better help than trying to change the grip on dumbells. I would imagine that just targeting the lower back and stomach, as well as shoulders might be a good idea.

[litige]

One thing I tough of was putting flexible weights around your writs, ankle, legs, waist, etc, everywhere it's of use in Kendo, and practise alone with all these weight on. Put them especialy on the lower body. But near the shoulder and wrist, is great if you wnat to be faster.

[Kendo-Militia]

I feel working out both lower and upper does help. I know for myself when I stopped working out, I had a harder time at tsuba-zeri. But be sure to stretch all your muscles. Do not work out your muscles and let your upper body get tight. This will defeat the purpose of working out.

[Neil Gendzwill]

Through serendipity, I've just landed an appointment with a good strength and conditioning coach. This fellow coaches a local olympic wrestler (meaning, she's actually going to the olympics) so he should know his stuff. The appointment's on the 20th, I'll report back anything interesting/applicable to kendo (I have other sports I'm also conditioning for).

[jmarsten]

Years ago I made two training accessories out of 1 inch thick steel bars 18 inches long. I taped one end as handles and do taiko excercise as well as suburi and a couple of other excercises with them. It really helped improve things for me. They are really good because they specifically mimic kendo activities and isolate specific muscles for improvement.
One time I had a college track coach come and give a seminar and lecture on how to improve our foot speed and power. One of the things he said was power is speed. This is why the world class sprinters have thighs as big as most peoples waists. He showed us several sprint training tools that could be adopted to kendo.

[Kendo-Militia]

Years ago I made two training accessories out of 1 inch thick steel bars 18 inches long. I taped one end as handles and do taiko excercise as well as suburi and a couple of other excercises with them. It really helped improve things for me. They are really good because they specifically mimic kendo activities and isolate specific muscles for improvement.
One time I had a college track coach come and give a seminar and lecture on how to improve our foot speed and power. One of the things he said was power is speed. This is why the world class sprinters have thighs as big as most peoples waists. He showed us several sprint training tools that could be adopted to kendo.
Would you share with us the Training tools you learned?

[Hyaku]

There is general opinion in Japan as the physical attributes of a Kendoka or who would make a good Kendoka. Being bigger and more muscular I have often raised comments such as "He does Kendo"? They generally associate it with tall slim guys (If thats possible).

They do sell wrist weights etc at a bogu shop and for years people have sometimes weighted shinai for general practice. By far the most effective way is to practice until you can't find the strength to lift up your arms, the power to move the legs. The next day your arms and legs will feel like you did a hard weight training session as you gradually build up. If you have lots left after a training session then you have wasted your time.

Initially years ago I did make up a one inch steel bar with a plastic tube for a tsuka to do suburi. But it was no substitute for a hard keiko.

Also like a gymnast its the fingers you need to work on. Look at them supporting their own weight. We produce all Japan finals class every year and one of our training exercises is rope climbing. Its seems to work well. If I see any of our kendoka putting on weight I send them off running.

More related to sword work I do suburi with a tanden using the fingers only now.

Hyaku

[moocow65]

Cool, thanks for the info guys. I used to do suburi with my 20 lb bench pressing bar and would put weights on the end as I got stronger, but I wasn't sure if it was helping my kendo at all so I stopped. One more thing... I think doing fast repetitive weight excercises would increase speed and doing heavy slow excercises would decrease it. Agree or disagree? P.S. That rope climbing thing sounds pretty good. Think I'll start doing that.

[Neil Gendzwill]

In my understanding, generally strength == speed, which is why world class sprinters have thighs like Godzilla. However there are ways to train for speed and ways for strength, which is one of the reasons I'm going to talk with this guy. misc.fitness.weights is a good resource for this kind of stuff, if you can sort through the crap. Google news is a good tool for that. Here's an example thread (http://groups.google.ca/groups?hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&threadm=khobman-1302020822180001%40192.168.0.2&rnum=6&prev=/groups%3Fhl%3Den%26lr%3D%26ie%3DUTF-8%26oe%3DUTF-8%26q%3Dhobman%2Bspeed%26btnG%3DGoogle%2BSearch).

[litige]

Cool, thanks for the info guys. I used to do suburi with my 20 lb bench pressing bar and would put weights on the end as I got stronger, but I wasn't sure if it was helping my kendo at all so I stopped. One more thing... I think doing fast repetitive weight excercises would increase speed and doing heavy slow excercises would decrease it. Agree or disagree? P.S. That rope climbing thing sounds pretty good. Think I'll start doing that.

Agree, if you are super fast (but still have a nice form) with a 3kg suburito, than imagine with a shinai. but then if you can do normal speed suburi, with a 20lb bench press bar and your form is good, it still pretty light with a shinai.

[m_french]

... I think doing fast repetitive weight excercises would increase speed and doing heavy slow excercises would decrease it. Agree or disagree?
Actually lifting heavy weights increases the response in your quick twitch muscles which are ddirectly related to speed and reflexes while lifting lighter weights at higher reps will increase your stamina. Be careful though the added weight gained through lifting will require more power to move.....life's viscious circle. :beard:

[Hyaku]

Ooooops "Tanren". Although tanden is required too

More related to sword work I do suburi with a tanden using the fingers only now.

[Neil Gendzwill]

Had the session with the S&C coach today. Bear in mind he comes from a wrestling and karate background, and is currently doing mostly powerlifting. This guy benches around 400 and squats about 600 I think, and weighs around 225 at 5'9". Makes me look like a girly man. I don't want to be that hyooge, luckily for me he's got a fair amount of experience coaching people other than powerlifters.

He suggested for muscular endurance, flexibility and general conditioning to do the "Royal Court" exercises, hindu squat, hindu push-ups and bridges: see here (http://www.cbass.com/Furey.htm) for descriptions, ignore the spammy nature of the site. FWIW lots of grapplers use these, a top-notch grappler can do 500 of the squats in a row. Erk. I'm to warm up using the "hindu rites", shown here (http://www.alchemilla.com/martial/5rites.html). We're skipping the first one as he agreed that it probably didn't do anything much useful - the remaining 4 are supposedly terrific dynamic stretches.

For developing speed/strength, he suggests squat to press with dumbell and dumbell snatch. Both the exercises are done with a strong, quick upward motion. Squat to press is a normal squat (feet fairly wide, weight on heels, ass to the grass) with dumbell held on the shoulder, and as I come up I'm to thrust the dumbell up straight overhead. Snatch is done with the dumbell starting on the ground, squat-y position (knees behind the toes, back straight), grabbing arm straight like a rope, the last part of straightening the legs particularily explosive as I chuck the weight straight overhead. I only have access to dumbells, if I had bars he probably would have had me doing regular squats and snatches.

I have access to a good leg press machine (sled style) and he also suggested explosive leg presses, with an upward motion so quick that my feet actually come off the platform, and then I "catch" the weight on the way down back into the starting position (which is very low, squat-style).

He recommends pull-ups or lat pull-downs but I don't have access to either in my gym so instead we're going with a cable row machine.

He says for my goals, benching is a waste of time and I'll get plenty of upper body strength from the snatches. My bench sucks anyways.

I like to run too, but he says running tends to result in tightening the hamstrings so is actually counter to some of my goals for flexibility. It's also a different endurance than the sort I want for judo. I'm still going to run though, just not as much.

Anyways, this routine is completely different from what I had been doing, which was a fairly conventional weight lifting routine. I'm going to give it a go for a month or so and see what happens. He's asked me to keep logs, if it's interesting enough I'll post a summary at the end of the experiment.

[Ross]

Hi, I am new to the Kendo as well as to the forum.

Last night was my first Kendo Practice after wanting to take part for over 15 years. Anyway, I have been a weight lifter (body builder) for many years now.

The Sensei put a more experianced Kedoka in charge of helping us with a basic men strike. The one thing she noticed is with the size of my shoulders, I alwasy looked as if I was slouching forward. Granted I was training in sweat pants and a t-shirt and my shoulders showed quite a bit. I also had difficulty in bringing the Shinai back over and past my head as my arms would get in the way, and the tighness of my back made me look as though I was a robot when we did aiyumi ashi and okuri ashi. Hopefully I will loosen up as I get further down the path.

Anyway, I thought I would just add my comments.

Regards.

[Paul Kerr]

I'll second Neil's recommendation of the Royal Court exercises. Body weight exercises are definitely something to check out as a good overall training regime for both strength and endurance. I've sporadically lifted weights for years. Last year I started on the royal court daily and the results have been very pleasing - strength is up, as is flexibility and endurance.

[Neil Gendzwill]

Ross - I've found that the tight shoulders issue is likely to happen to stronger guys, whether or not they lift. Often they are used to muscling their way through movement, which just doesn't work with a kendo swing. Eventually they relax and are able to swing freely. I've never taught anyone who was hyooge but I've worked with some fairly well-muscled guys, and they all get through the stiffness eventually, so long as they keep practicing.

I think the notion of "muscle-bound" is a myth - I guess if all you do is train for hypertrophy that can happen, but if you add some flexibility conditioning then there's no reason to not be able to move. This fellow who was coaching me was quite a bit more flexible than I am, at least through the waist. No idea what his shoulder flexion is like, although probably pretty good as he trains olympic lifts in addition to power lifting.

[hyuna]

Those "hindu squats" look a lot like sonkyo. I wonder if it would be useful to combine them with suburi.

[Neil Gendzwill]

He suggested doing exactly that.

[Kiki]

For developing speed/strength, he suggests squat to press with dumbell and dumbell snatch.

I was looking forward to hearing what your S&C coach had to say and glad to see this exercise in particular. When I started doing these last year I noticed a big difference within a few weeks of adding them to my routine not just speed but mainly in overall reflex quickness. Something about nerve synapses getting a work out as well as the muscles because of the sequential movements.

Regarding Moocow's original question about grip. Except for curls, seems like I lift using the neutral position most of the time. Depending on the lift I may add a curl with the wrists at the end of the move. My grip is stronger and I swing with more power and speed than before. I think doing "pull downs" with the tight grip rope helped me a lot.

I like to run too, but he says running tends to result in tightening the hamstrings so is actually counter to some of my goals for flexibility. It's also a different endurance than the sort I want for judo. I'm still going to run though, just not as much.

Have you tried the Stair Master? 20mins using a progressive level workout for warm up, then go lift for a few muscle groups. Jump back on the SM for another 2 mins at a high level. Go back to lifting for the next few groups, repeat until you are finished with all the muscle groups you were working that day. I have been using the SM for a long time because I think the cardio is closer to kendo. Recently I began mixing it in with the weights part of my work out and I can tell you it feels like you're doing a hard series of jigeiko. You can run or bike in-between I just prefer the SM.

Lastly, I have been working with a trainer. He also does Martial Arts, which is great because he understands it's not just about strength. However, the best part about working with a professional is learning the correct way to lift for maximum benefit and no injuries. I thought I knew how do things but turns out I knew very little. He's my work-out sensei. Worth the extra cash to learn even if it's just for a short time before you're back out on your own.

Don't forget to stretch.

[Neil Gendzwill]

I like the stairs because you can get up on the balls of your feet, it's easy on the knees, and the programs on the machines make it easy to do intervals the way I want to. I don't like the stairs because I get bored stiff on them, and we have this beautiful river close to work with nice trails to run along.

[Hai_hai]

I have a question for those of you who weight train for kendo like myself. Because of the way we grip the shinai, I hypothesized that doing a neutral grip when lifting weights will better improve my kendo than if I did the standard barbell grip. For example, instead of doing normal curls, a hammer curl will be more beneficial because that is the same grip we use for kendo. Any muscle experts out there with the answer?

To give you the answer to your question, the dumbbell curl, hammer or standard, mainly works on the biceps. When you do the standard curl with proper extension, you work the long muscle of the bicep more than the hammer curl, thus getting a higher bicep peak. The hammer and standard curl both work the short muscle of the bicep thus getting a wider bicep, not the peak. When I say peak, I am talking how high the bicep appears when you flex your bicep like you see in bodybuilding poses.
If you are looking to increase your grip strength, then you want to concentrate on your forearm muscles.
Curls do work the forearm. However, the standard curl will work the forearms more than the hammer curls, opposite to your hypothesis. Therefore, one is usually able to curl more doing hammer curls because less energy is used by the forearms. Try it.

[neo_dragon_kai]

question:
how do you achieve a body like bruce lee?
i dont want to be any bulkier than i am now but i want lean muscle
everywhere so it looks sexy and it hurts like hell when i punch (not that i'd actually do it)
it seems if i lift weights then i bulk up. when i dont do it i get fat. =-(

someone mentioned somewhere that in japan the typical kendo body is tall and slim. does being buff have a negative effect on kendo or something? cuz i'm both short and buff and i wish to begining jodan next yr when i get my shodan (which is apparently a tall-person-style)

[Neil Gendzwill]

question:
how do you achieve a body like bruce lee?
Here's the deal - you can't gain muscle without gaining fat, you can't lose fat without losing muscle. The only thing you can do to help is to get lots of calories from protein and lift weights, which will tend to increase the amount of muscle you gain and decrease the amount you lose. To look like Bruce or a soloflex model or whatever, first you must train hard and eat lots (and correctly), then you must diet like crazy while still training hard. To look ripped like that you need to be in the single digits for bodyfat, which means when you cut (as the bodybuilders say) you're basically starving. See www.bodyrecomposition.com for info on how to diet (warning, this site is targetted at people who are already in terrific shape by most standards and want to get ripped, ie bodybuilders). The usenet group misc.fitness.weights is also a good source of info, use google groups (http://groups.google.ca/groups?q=misc.fitness.weights&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&btnG=Google+Search) to read it if you don't have normal usenet access.

Personally, I think it's more healthy to just train for the sports you like to do and carry a comfortable amount of fat (around 15%) so you don't have to starve yourself.