How can an athlete minimise the *luck* factor when they are preparing for competition and when in actual competition? Is approaching competition like flicking a coin and calling heads or tails and hoping the right side will come up? For some it is, who simply don’t know better but for others… read below :)
By good preparation, period. The answer to the question is pretty simple however, the actual preparation and training is not so simple.
In July 2006 on the Gold Coast, Australia, the World All Styles Championships (WASO) kicked off. This event comes around every 4 years with the next one scheduled for 2010 in London. It’s pretty big with over a thousand competitors competing in different categories like points sparring, continuous sparring, forms and weapons forms as well as synchronised forms. Many different styles of martial arts are represented like kung fu, taekwon do, karate, free style, Jiu Jitsu etc. It’s an eye opener to see so many under the one roof and its pretty cool too!
The division that I competed in was the Veterans Division, 35 years and over (I was 39 at the
time) and in two events, the Forms event and the Points fighting event. Both events had over a hundred competitors in each. So it was huge. I won the forms event by a good margin and I lost the final bout in the points fighting 3 points to 4 to a very good leg technician thus coming second. It was oh so close!
In the same year in December, I competed in the Australian National All Styles Championsips (NAS) and also took out the forms division however; I didn't compete in the points division. I also competed in my local area, the Canberra, ACT NAS Championships where I took out the points and forms of the open black belt division as well as the veterans forms and points divisions respectively. It was a bumper year and exhausting one but also hugely rewarding.
My background in the martial arts began in karate at the age of 16yrs and i hold a sandan or 3rd dan black belt. In the early years, training was constant and sporadic simply because I was a younger bloke and other interests held me in check. As I got older, then the karate
fascination/obsession took over and training was a constant 3 times per week at 2 hours per training session. Training followed the 'big three' traditional format of kata (forms), kumite (fighting) and its variations like freestyle, single step and 3-step sparring as well as combination fighting drills with footwork, kicking, blocking, punching, offensive and defensive drills. The final of the big three was kihon which is your basic technical drills in technique training. In many ways, kihon is the hardest to do in terms of mental concentration and physical exertion because it forms a very important layer in ones training. It develops a very solid foundation from which an ever increasing complexity in technique training drills can be performed. Without a solid background in kihon (your basic technique) then you have 'buckleys chance' of getting the complex stuff right. You even have a greater chance of buckling under pressure if faced with a threatening situation out on the street. Kihon is very important. This holds true of other martial arts as well as sports. Get your basic technique right and constantly practice and refine it. I can't stress that enough!
One of the highlights in my martial training was writing to Sensei Sadaharu Fujimoto, 9th Dan and asking for permission to head over to Tokyo, Japan and experience two weeks worth of training with him. That was in 1992 and amazing. He was kind enough to write back to me in person and the letter I received from him was delicate rice paper welcoming me as well as training times and location of the dojo (training studio).
I had heard a lot about Fujimoto Sensei and his accomplishments. He had been the Coach of the National Japanese Team and he also held high level dan ranks in Judo as well as Iado which is the art of drawing and cutting with the sword. He was also an accomplished tamashiwari (breaking) expert. He would smash bricks, boards, cement blocks with his hands and feet and also drive his fingers in a spear fashion through free standing wooden boards and apples completely breaking the boards in half and shearing the apple in two pieces. It was quite incredible to witness these feats and I have fond memories of them as well as his kindness in welcoming me into his training fold. I remember the first time I met him, I shook hands with him and what struck me (no pun indented) was how incredibly muscular his hands were and the incredible grip strength he displayed. It was quite frightening to a young man of 25yrs but also fascinating. You can view Fujimoto Sensei in action in the old documentary Budo: The Art of Killing. Do a search in Google.
My apologies as I've digressed. I simply wanted to give you my background experience otherwise you might accuse me of being a charlatan, so back to minimising the luck factor when it comes to competition.
In addition to the 3 times a week training I described above, the other type of training that i did was specialised in order to prepare myself for the WASO. I trained short sharp sessions in the mornings before work no longer than 45mins as well as trained ballistic shock lifts in order to increase my strength, maximise my speed and reaction timing in the afternoons after work on the non karate days. This type of specialised training began about 4 months prior to the WASO event in July and followed a simple approach of light, medium and hard training sessions. Of course I used common sense (I listened to my body!) to rest up when I felt fatigued rather than jump in and train anyway. Rest and recuperation is so important that a lot athletes neglect this one area of their training. It is balances the athletes economic fitness sheet with pure and simple rest. I completely agree in an old blog post of Scott Sonnon where he says and I quote "most fighters stink in their performance due to over training". You can view his post at http://www.rmaxinternational.com/flowcoach/?p=69
A book that holds a special place for me is Professor Emeritus Patrick O'Shea in his book
Quantum Strength Fitness II: Gaining the Winning Edge. The book may be purchased from Clarence Bass' site at http://www.cbass.com/ O'Shea's book is brilliant in that it touches on all aspects of strength related fitness but what aroused my interest was his Interval Weight Training protocol (IWT). It was this protocol that I used to maximise my chances of not only coming within striking distance but in actually winning the championships and hence why the book is so dear to me. I refer to it all the time because the information it contains is gold. I urge you to pick up a copy.
His IWT comprises of 2 phases whereby Phase 1 has 2 cycles and Phase 2 has 1 cycle. O'Shea gives examples of exercises when describing the cycles and I simply changed the exercises I felt were appropriate for martial comps. The key with IWT is that it takes the Tabata Protocol and magnifies it 100 fold, 1000 fold even! What this means is that Phase 1 is composed of two different athletic type lifts, in my case I chose the long cycle clean & jerk and the snatch corresponding to the 2 cycles in the phase respectively. The examples of the rep range of the lifts that O’Shea gives are around the 10 - 15rep ranges. In addition, as soon as a lift is finished, you immediately move onto your sport specific training for whatever length of time is appropriate. In my case, I did 3mins worth of shadow sparring to mimic the 3 minute bouts in the competition. The other key is that after the lift is performed, the sport specific exercise is performed at or near HR maximum. Each cycle is repeated for 2 to 3 rounds.
Phase 2 comprising of 1 cycle is composed of exercises designed to strengthen the body and while O'Shea gives examples, I simply chose the ones that I felt most appropriate. In this case I chose the 1 leg deadlift off a bessa brick which is an excellent exercise, the see - saw press and the pull ups. Performing a 1 leg deadlift off a height (in my case the brick was around 30cm high) is an exercise in total mind and body concentration simply because of the extra range of movement and balance required. I used 2 x 24kg KB for this exercise.
Here's then what the whole IWT exercise routine looked like:
Phase 1:-
Cycle 1
Round 1:-
Long Cycle Double Clean & Jerk 2x24kg KB for 10 reps
Immediately into 3mins worth of shadow sparring
rest 2mins
Round 2:-
Long Cycle Double Clean & Jerk 2x24kg KB for 10 reps
Immediately into 3mins worth of shadow sparring
rest 2mins
Round 3:-
Long Cycle Double Clean & Jerk 2x24kg KB for 10 reps
Immediately into 3mins worth of shadow sparring
rest 5mins
Cycle 2
Round 1:-
Double Snatch 2x16kg KB for 10reps
Immediately into 3mins worth of shadow sparring
rest 2mins
Round 2:-
Double Snatch 2x16kg KB for 10reps
Immediately into 3mins worth of shadow sparring
rest 2mins
Round 3:-
Double Snatch 2x16kg KB for 10reps
Immediately into 3mins worth of shadow sparring
rest 5mins
Phase 2:-
In a circuit fashion did 3 rounds of 5 reps
1 leg deadlift off a height 2x24kg KB by 5 reps
See Saw Press 2x24kg KB by 10reps
Pull Ups by 5 reps
I performed the IWT routine an average of 1 - 3 times per week depending on how I felt on top of full time work as well as other commitments. Its a tough workout and I believe I was probably the best conditioned or close to the best conditioned athlete there and it got me the results I was after. One aspect that I’ll mention again is that rest was very important to me and I average 8 – 9hrs of sleep every night.
Knowing what I know now (its important to continue learning!) would I go back and do it all again? My answer would be probably not. The training that I did was largely a Hard Style approach which fatigued me greatly and is what I knew at the time. I suspect that most in Australia followed the HS method. If I had a approached the IWT using the Girevoy Style approach, I believe my ability to recover and my work capacity would have been far superior but as they say, hindsight sux!
So getting back to minimising that luck: there is no need to flip that coin and hope for the best. A methodical approach with clear defined goals will get you your winning ways.
Workout Thursday 26th March, 2009
1 arm long cycle clean & jerk - continuous without stopping
40kg x 3reps left and right
32kg x 6 reps left and right
24kg x 12reps left and right
16kg x 20reps left and right
12kg x 30reps left and right. Wanted to get to 40reps in order to follow the doubling up effort
but was too fatigued.
rest 3mins
Tabata Snatches for 10mins using 16kg. Thats 20 sets of snatches and I was able to average out 10 snatches per 20sec set. Snatched out 200reps.
20sec on, 10sec off as per usual.
Total volume lifted in roughly 30mins = 5760kg
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