# weight training and MA's



## dok (Oct 20, 2006)

Just like to ask for some feedback regarding weight lifting / strength training and MA's.

I've recently started lifting weights again - this past week I've been doing it directly after a rather intensive kickboxing regimen (spaced out by 15 minutes... I hit the gym on my way back home from the dojo).

now, based on what i've read online - this goes against the weightlifting mantra which seems to be 1.lift first, 2. cardio second.  

Do any of you have a particular preference?  Do you know anything about muscles going into a catabolic (eating themselves...) state after 1.5 hours of intense exercise?  glycogen levels being depleated by martial arts thus lending a more ineffective strength training routine?

and finally, do any of you have any preferred strength training routines/exercises?  I'm not looking to be a bodybuilder, or gain 200 lbs of muscle as fast as possible - just solid, functional strength with some mass gains.  thanks


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## exile (Oct 20, 2006)

dok said:


> Just like to ask for some feedback regarding weight lifting / strength training and MA's.
> 
> I've recently started lifting weights again - this past week I've been doing it directly after a rather intensive kickboxing regimen (spaced out by 15 minutes... I hit the gym on my way back home from the dojo).
> 
> ...



Hi dok, this is just my take on the problem you mention. First of all, it's definitely true that aerobic exercise, if done the wrong way, can have catabolic effects on stored body proteins, most of which is in the form of muscle tissue. It's not that muscles `eat themselves', but that protein is accessed by the body for energy production, because the last thing that the body goes after is stored fat---it really hates to give up stored fat, alas! So if you want to do aerobic exercise for fat burning, but keep your body from attacking your muscles, you have to do two things: do aerobic exercise to burn fat, but do weight training at a high enough level of intensity that the body goes into recovery/overcompensation mode, seeking to build muscle tissue because you've put in a world of pain from your weightlifting routine.  The only way to satisfy the need for energy and the need for more muscle is to metabolize... well, _fat_ (stored carbs too, but that gets burned off pretty quickly quite early in your aerobic routine).

What's really important is that if you do very high-intensity type workout, the body will _stay_ in a muscle-growth mode for a long time---muscle biopsies have shown evidence of muscle repair and growth as much as a week after heavy-duty training. If you're lifting heavy, you don't have to worry that every time you do an aerobic workout, you have to finish off with a set of bench presses. Short, infrequent, very high intensity routines of the Mike Mentzer Heavy-Duty program type, or the Sisco & Little `Power Factor' system, will keep you in growth mode even if you do frequent MA workouts---and remember, training mid-to-high kicks for balance has the benefit that it does add a resistance component to your workout. 

My suggestion is to go to your library and look for Mentzer's books or the Sisco-Little books and build your workout program around them, or some other high-intensity routine---you'll see results fast and you will have absolutely nothing to worry about so far as catabolic effects of training are concerned. The Sisco-Little system is especially good, I think---the only requirement, really, is that you have access to a power rack, because you'll soon be using extremely heavy weights that no one is going to be able to spot you safely with. 

I would suggest something very simple: three big compound exercises---bench press, shoulder press, and leg press---using only the top four inches or so of your lifting range, where your leverage factors are good enough that you can quickly double the weight that you're stuck at in a full range of motion. You can do biceps, traps, lats and so on, but the real payoff comes from the first three I mentioned. Look at the analyses of the most efficient approach to weight training in the sources I mentioned and you'll be able to 
work out your own best routines. Just make sure you _keep increasing your lifting weights over time_. Once your body has added enough muscle to enable you to do a few reps at 315 lbs, it will not add morem muscle if you stat at that weight. If you want to do more than maintenance in any give session, your weights have to go up.

Hope this helps a bit...


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## exile (Oct 20, 2006)

PS To follow the programs I suggested, you need to learn to work in a power rack, but most gyms with free weights have them these days. After a certain point, relying on spotters isn't especially safe.


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## dok (Oct 21, 2006)

thankyou for the very detailed and rich feedback, exile!  thats exactly what I was looking for.
I'll definitely be looking into those systems

one question - I think I've come read briefly/peripherally about Sisco's system : how frequent should these work outs be?  once a week?  twice a week?  once every two weeks?

thanks again!


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## exile (Oct 21, 2006)

dok said:


> thankyou for the very detailed and rich feedback, exile!  thats exactly what I was looking for.
> I'll definitely be looking into those systems



Great, dok, I think you'll find that they give you a lot of what you want from a workout system.



dok said:


> one question - I think I've come read briefly/peripherally about Sisco's system : how frequent should these work outs be?  once a week?  twice a week?  once every two weeks?



What Sisco and Little say is, the more intense the workout, the longer the recover should be---and don't underestimate the amount of time a full recovery takes! Muscle growth doesn't occur, according to biopsy studies, till _after_ the muscle has repaired itself from the trauma of the workout; it then goes a little bit further, as a way to minimize the chance of a future trauma. But this `overcompensation', as the physiologist have dubbed it, doesn't take place till you've gotten over that physical shock from the workout---and if you train too frequently, you'll be constantly in recovery mode, and the extra muscle growth won't have a chance to occur, becuase the body is still trying to get back to square one. So what you'll see, if you're training too often, is that your performance plateaus or even goes south. The remedy is simple: just allow yourself more recovery time between the next pair of workouts. 

People's recovery rates differ, and definitely slow down as you get older. Experimentation is crucial. I work the same muscle groups, very heavily,
about one every 4-6 weeks. Any more frequent and I lose condition, I've found.



dok said:


> thanks again!



My pleasure, and best of luck on your training!


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## Stooooo (Oct 26, 2006)

As I am new to this forum I don't want to step on anyones toes.  Having been a regular at the gym for the past 11 months, (I have lost over 30 pounds, since I started) I have done a ton of research on the matter of which should come first cardio or weights.

Some say that you should do weights first then cardio, because you don't want to be to tired when doing your lifts as you might get hurt or not get the full benefit of lifting.  Others say, that you will burn more calories by doing your cardio first then hitting the weights.  So I guess it depends on what your desired results are.

That being said I have tried both methods and personally I enjoy doing cardio first then hitting the weights.  Reason being is for me doing the cardio first gets my body nice and warmed up and loose.  Sometimes in the winter it takes me a while to really get warmed up.

Now, recently I started doing Kempo, which I am doing on my off days from weight training.  But if I did it on the days I would train, I would do it last only because that is when the class is scheduled.

Hope this helps.
All the best,
Stu


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## airdawg (Nov 3, 2006)

Stay warmed up and streched out if you're going to be lifting and participating in martial arts. You can easily become injured lifting, or while you're on the mat. From experience, it does not matter how you get injured, being injured can put a stop to every phisical activity right quick and in a hurry. Don't over do it. If you don't give your muscles healing time, you will lose muscle. Be careful and stay safe.

best of luck in your training.


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## exile (Nov 3, 2006)

Stooooo said:


> As I am new to this forum I don't want to step on anyones toes.



Don't worry about that, Stu---reasonable, friendly (or at least civil) disagreement---no matter how major---isn't going to offend anyone on this forum. A lot of the fun is debate, right? Plus, that's how you learn stuff that you probably wouldn't if all you had was boring old agreement :wink1:



Stooooo said:


> Having been a regular at the gym for the past 11 months, (I have lost over 30 pounds, since I started) I have done a ton of research on the matter of which should come first cardio or weights.
> 
> Some say that you should do weights first then cardio, because you don't want to be to tired when doing your lifts as you might get hurt or not get the full benefit of lifting.  Others say, that you will burn more calories by doing your cardio first then hitting the weights.  So I guess it depends on what your desired results are.



If you do cardio first, you'll have less energy to do weights. So you'll burn more calories but will feel beat sooner when you lift. And the converse holds as well: really intense weight-lifting will limit the intensity of your cardio. Since I do intervals for cardio, I can't afford much fatigue when I get to that point.



Stooooo said:


> That being said I have tried both methods and personally I enjoy doing cardio first then hitting the weights.  Reason being is for me doing the cardio first gets my body nice and warmed up and loose.  Sometimes in the winter it takes me a while to really get warmed up.



My solution is to do the two on different days. One thing that my inquiries into the `aerobic catabolism' problem made clear is that if you do high-intensity lifting, cardio is much less likely to go after muscle tissue, because the body is running in `compensation' mode over very long stretches of time (up to ten days or so, according to muscle biopsy studies). And interval aerobic training is much less likely to lead to muscle catabolism than moderately based, longer-term jogging. My high-intensity lifting schedule means that I'm only on the weights once every two to three weeks. I try to run intervals three times a week, but that's pretty intense too. I try to do a fairly intense TKD workout every day as well. It gets pretty packed and a lot of times I'm exercising tired. But it does seem to have major benefits even so, and I like the feeling of continuous physical activity.



Stooooo said:


> Now, recently I started doing Kempo, which I am doing on my off days from weight training.  But if I did it on the days I would train, I would do it last only because that is when the class is scheduled.
> 
> Hope this helps.
> All the best,
> Stu



In the end, you have to work out a schedule which meets your `real world' restrictions and your preferred way of operating so that things balance comfortably for you. I really don't think there's any one way to do this stuff, though I think there are good reasons for doing high-intensity both in terms of weight training and aerobic training. But as far as scheduling goes... if it turns out to be sustainable over more than a week, you're probably doing exactly the right thing.


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## airdawg (Nov 4, 2006)

Have you tried HITS? High Intinsity Training and Sprints. don't even dream of lifting after 15 minutes of these. I worked up to 30 minutes. Every workout ended with me thowing up. 

What I'm trying to say is seperate cardio and lifting days if possible. That doesn't mean you don't start lifting, or cardio without a 20 minute warm up.

On lift days, I run a 2 mile warm up, or 20 minutes on the bike, or row machine. On cardio days I warm up with lunges, combat squats etc...


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## exile (Nov 4, 2006)

airdawg said:


> What I'm trying to say is seperate cardio and lifting days if possible. That doesn't mean you don't start lifting, or cardio without a 20 minute warm up.



Yeah, this is just what I mean about keeping the two activities separate. If you do high intensity on both weights and cardio, it's a must. 

My cardio intervals involve half an hour of brisk jogging 50 seconds and all-out sprinting the remaining 10 seconds of every minute. After seven or eight minutes, it's extremely unpleasant. By the end of the half-hour, I feel like I'm gonna die. I keep reminding myself that I have very low blood pressure, that my total cholesterol is way on the low side... but I still wonder if I've just done it to myself. The thought of lifting anything heavier than the key for my gym locker would be unbearable. And on a weight-training day, it's the same thing but on the other side. 



airdawg said:


> On lift days, I run a 2 mile warm up, or 20 minutes on the bike, or row machine. On cardio days I warm up with lunges, combat squats etc...



It _is_ good to do light a cardio warmup for heavy weight-training... I should do it more often!


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## airdawg (Nov 4, 2006)

When I was going through the most intense training of my life, I was riding a motor cycle. I never new how important my core strength was until the rides home. 

Like you said, it is hard enough just lifting a key.


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## exile (Nov 4, 2006)

airdawg said:


> When I was going through the most intense training of my life, I was riding a motor cycle. I never new how important my core strength was until the rides home.
> 
> Like you said, it is hard enough just lifting a key.



Good thing our pain/discomfort threshhold rises as we get more into that kind of training, eh? It really is, by far,  the most upleasant thing that's good for me that I've ever done...


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## thewhitemikevick (Nov 23, 2006)

What is HITS? It sounds like an interesting method of training. 

I must agree, however, that it seems more logical to seperate the two periods of exercise. Maybe not even by days. I think that waking up early and doing aerobic exercises in the morning, going home, eating, resting a little, and then doing weightlifting later on the day is perfectally acceptable. I'm not sure about the EXACT specifics on what it does to your muscles on a scientific level or anything, but I know that my boxing trainer definitely has me doing my roadwork everyday as the basis of my exercise routine, and then later on in the day he'll add in another main variable to the workout program, and each day it will change...one day it will be weightlifting focusing on a certain muscle grouping, the next day it will be another musclegrouping in relevance to weight training, then one day we'll work heavily on sparring and fight tactics, one day we'll work on making the abdominal region into an iron foretress, another day range of motion. -shrugs- Just be careful with what you're doing I guess. Don't undertrain, but at the same time don't overtrain. It's a fine line, and a difficult one to follow, I know.


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