Topic: Periodization in Karate

[Susan]

4 consecutive days training of 3 hours a day at Edinburgh is a big increase for most of us. It's worse for us (STKF) because we have a 3 day kyu grading course just a fortnight later.

If you don't prepare for this you know you're letting yourself in for injury and missed training later in the year. But what does everyone do to prepare?

How early do you start stepping up your training? What do you do? How late do you start cutting back to make sure you're fully recovered for the start of the course?

Gizmo, I know you started a thread about periodization in karate a while back, but no one showed much interest. Did you look into it in any depth? There's lots of available info on the subject, but it's hard to apply it to karate.

I'm not just talking about preparation for courses, but for continuous imporovement throughhout the year. The biggest problems I see are:

1. No control over timing of karate classes
2. No control over content of karate classes

[Moley]

Mmmmmmmm

Yes I think you are right

Better "STEP UP THE TRAINING" GET ready for Edinburgh.

     

[Huw]

Oh hell. SUSAN did you have to encourage him ?!! You should have seen the state on my Gi last night after we finished. Saturated.

But what does everyone do to prepare?

A pre Edinburgh course of Voltarol has been the usual for me - but I don't think I'm going to need it this year   I'm on holiday until the Sunday before we leave and that's probably just what I need. 12 days of rest and gentle excercise on holiday, one Monday night back in the (proper ) dojo and then off to Edinburgh.

Thursday has often been the toughest day for me in Edinburgh, after that it all seems to get easier!!

[Susan]

Ooops Sorry Huw....I didn't expect that to happen - honest  

It's not just preparation for courses that I'm thinking of.

Time and motivation aren't an issue - I have plenty of both. But I need to plan things a bit better so I make progress in all areas (strength, power, speed, endurance, raising lactate levels) without missing out on skill training.

My tendency is to put strength/power/speed first, but the other things tend to fall by the wayside because I can't fit them in and recover in time for the next training session. So really I suppose I'm trying to find a way to fit in more endurance training and lactate raising stuff without loosing ground anywhere else.

The rule of thumb tends to be that in a cycle you should concentrate on speed, power, strength, endurance in that order. And this certainly feels right to me.

So, Greenock training is on a Tues & Friday. It's pretty much guaranteed to be high intensity training focusing on speed/power. So I make weekdays speed/power and fit in either an extra karate class or occasionally sprinting/plyometrics on a Wednesday/Thursday.

Strength and endurance training is on a Saturday & Sunday at the gym. But because my muscles are tired from strength training by the time I start on endurance training they don't protect my joints and ligaments so well...so I can't do loads and still recover properly in time for Tuesday's training....or I can, but it catches up with me after a few weeks.

Things get worse when I'm training at other clubs - for example, Kenny's Thursday classes tend to be primarily endurance which messes up my plan to save endurance for the end of the week.

Most weeks, through necessity, endurance training / raising lactate threshold gets abandoned in place of an aerobic plod.

So if anyone's got any thoughts on periodization, or has been involved in another sport that makes use of periodization I'd be interested in hearing your experiences. Maybe I just need to persevere with these weekly cycles, or maybe I need a change of approach...but how?

What about you Siwan? I've read that periodization plays a big role in football training?

[siwan]

sunday- football match
monday karate training at seki
tuesday- karate training at sakura
wednesday- football training- (if its not a hard session i'll go to the gym to do some more fitness training) pre season starts next sunday
thursday- karate at seki
friday- karate at sakura
saturday- rest or if im bored, go on the bike, gym or up snowdon,or whack the punch bag at home.

I wish there was another day in the  week sometimes.

Sometimes, ive been going to the gym before work in the morning too, but it's only to get match fitness, which is totally different to my general fitness. I know there are better ways of getting maximum results, but what I'm doing now suits me fine, and i'm not looking to change it either. If i feel i want to focus on something specific, then I will do that at that time.

[siwan]

If I was a professional footballer, of course it would be a different schedule,. But i'm not,and wouldn't have the time in the week to follow such a schedule as a  professionnal footballers has. Theirs involve a lot of weight training, sprint work (depending on the position u play), general fitness, ballwork technique etc, also enough rest time to recover for their match.

[Huw]

That's OK Susan. My point, bizarely, is probably a fair one - are you getting enough rest ?!! It doesn't sound like your giving your body any rest days at all. Same goes for Siwan. Aren't you meant to rest every other day or something like that ? Gizmo?

My schedule goes something like:
Saturday - gym
Sunday - gym or longish cycle ride
Monday - Seki
Tuesday - nothing
Wednesday - Gym and Seki
Thursday - Seki
Friday - nothing

I'll probably start adding more gym work soon simply because I've started to enjoy it more recently.

Warning: Minor Off Topic Incident
Here's something I've started doing in the gym recently. Warm up on an excercise bike (around 5 to 6 mins for me) then whack the resistance up as high as it will go. Pedal till you can't pedal any more !! The first time I did this I lasted just over 5 minutes. On Sunday I lasted 7 and a half   Next target is ten minutes. It works wonders for the legs and I can already feel the benefits in the dojo.

[Susan]

It was a fair point Huw - I think when preparing for something like Edinburgh you need to start building up your training at least a couple of months before, and taper it down in the lead up. I think a two week holiday probably is better than training flat out in the two weeks before the course.  I'm just going to cut back though...not take a complete rest.

I have two rest days a week - Monday and either Wednesday or Thursday. Sometimes I slip in extra karate classes for a while, but never anything strenuous.

I think two rest days a week is enough for me, but my problem is I can't get everything I want to do into the remaining five (It's not a time thing but a recovery thing). If I didn't have to fit around karate classes I could change to say a 10 day (rather than one week) cycle and everything would be fine. And that's where I see the big problem with periodizaton and karate. I guess you need to look at it at a higher level - perhaps for weekend training: week 1 - 4 strength, week 5 - 8 speed/power, week 9 - 12 endurance....and just accept whatever you get in the karate classes.  But I'm a bit reluctant to try that.

Everything is moving along nicely....except endurance/lactate raising. For the most part all I get in this respect is karate training. And it's just not enough.....it's a real weakness for me. But I don't want to slip back on the other stuff  

What does your football training involve Siwan - is it mainly skill stuff or do you do specific fitness training too?

[siwan]

the training session itself it varies, sometimes we do fitness work without the ball and other times with the ball, improving skills, passing shooting etc. Other times the training is tactical. Sometimes working on speed, other times on stamina. If I go to the gym I work on the tread mill, by icreasing the speed after a mile or so, every 3o seconds, then by the 3rd mile, im sprinting. It's a good workout.
I know yo re supposed to rest at least one day a week, but if i'm bored, and feeling energetic, I will do something. However if i'm knackered one day, then I wont do anything. If my body is very knackered, I usually listen to it.

[wani]

Good topic. Even though it has been segregated, there is some good info here to compare.

FWIW, when work does not get in the way too much:

Monday - Seki, 2+hrs
Tuesday - Rest; summertime - xcountry run
Wedneday - Rest; Garden and grass cutting
Thursday - Seki, 2+hrs
Friday - Social; home office
Saturday - xcountry run; mountain bike or fast 10-mile roadwork
Sunday - xcountry run; enthusiastic coastal/rock sea kayak

So far, the stamina developed (and particularly dojo heat) in Seki training is becoming really noticable in my other 'events', especially knee support and lowered heart rate.

BTW, when are we going up Tryfan Siw?

Wani

[siwan]

When it's convenient with Gizmo. I heard that a woman broke her arm going up the North ridge  last week. It s a dodgy mountain if you don't know the way. Best to have someone to take us up the first time Wani.

[Susan]

So which takes priority....

Siwan - football or karate?
Wani - cross country running or karate?
Huw - cycling or karate?

When Gizmo started up his thread about periodization a while back he asked whether it was suitable for karate because there is no competition season in karate, so no targets to optimise for I suppose.

But without really thinking about it I already do a kind of periodization. We have courses every three months, and after each course I tend to make a little mental list of things to fix before the next course. Some of it's technical, but Kawasoe always emphasises a lot of fitness things as well. So my training year is already broken up into four 3 month chunks, and each of those is a training cycle with a rest period at the start and end. It would be good to apply a little science to this and see if it yielded better results.

Mokoto - you're an aerobics instructor aren't you? Do you have any experience/interest/knowledge about periodization techniques?

[Huw]

Karate comes first.

I started cycling mainly to try and boost my general fitness. I was bought up in the countryside so I cycled a lot as a kid - cycling seemed like the natural choice of 'extra' activity to boost fitness. Nowdays I enjoy cycling more than ever - but I can't be bothered to start racing or stuff like that.    

[wani]

1. Karate (serious 'time in' for the next 5 years)
2. The great outdoors, our natural facilities = time to think and fresh air

Wani

[siwan]

Both are as important to me as each other. I enjoy both.
Before my sandan grading for at least 7-8 months beforehand I was training karate every day, at home and in the dojos, at least once or twice a day. Even at work or when not training physically I was mentally rehearsing the kata and the combinations. It took over as the most important thing then.
Now i'm just enjoying both  and trying to improve, but not training so severely.
I've been thinking a lot about the question people ask me sometimes "would you like to be a professionnal footballer if you could", and to be honest, I don't think I would, because I think I would lose a lot of the enjoyment of it. It would be a job, not something I do because I choose to to. And I wouldn't have the time to train karate either