Training progress - getting a little overwhelmed!

The balance of my training has changed a lot over the last two weeks. Most of my training has been done in my usual karate classes, plus a couple of pretty demanding weekend courses. I have also returned to kobudo training after missing a few weeks. With all the muscle soreness I have experienced over the last 2 weeks I decided not to do any additional training at home.

My legs now finally feel okay and I'm starting to feel that I can pick up the pace again. I have still not returned to the push up challenge which I stopped about 4 weeks ago because I was struggling with it and generally wondered if I was over training a little. I have not yet reached my target of 50 push ups, the maximum I got to was 35. I'm still considering whether to pick up this challenge again and try to reach my target. The problem is there are so many other things I need to concentrate on that are more directly relevant to the karate training so I may leave it for a while and pick it up again after I have got my black belt.

I'm not too worried that I'm not doing any fitness training at home because sensei has us doing a fair bit in the classes. Most classes we have 2 or 3 rounds of push ups, sit ups, burpees, star jumps, straight leg raising etc, as well as some stretching exercises so I'm still doing that kind of stuff.

I have finally settled on my 9 ippon kumite techniques. Some of the finishing moves may need a bit of tweaking but essentially I just need to keep drilling them (both physically and mentally). I now need to settle on my 9 goshin waza (self defence) techniques. We get to choose what type of attacks we want to receive and then have to demonstrate 3 different defences against each of them. I think I'm going to choose attacks from behind (bilateral rear wrist grab, rear bear hug and rear head lock); 3 different types of wrist grab from the front and 3 escapes from lapel grabs.

I also need to work on my kata. I attended a kata course a couple of weeks back and received a lot of feedback about my kata performance so I now need to practice them incorporating the information given. 

The amount of stuff I need to be working on seems enormous and overwhelming at times but then again I can only do one thing at a time- and there's still 10 weeks to go!

Coping with sore muscles....

I have had a pretty sore week this week. You know – the soreness you experience in muscles after extreme or unaccustomed exercise. I went on a karate course last Saturday and I’m only just getting over the pain! In fact, most weeks seem to be like this recently – I spend half my time experiencing stiff and sore muscles. Why? Is it my age? Am I working my muscles harder than usual? Am I not giving myself time to recover?

I decided to find out a bit more about post exercise muscle soreness, particularly in relation to age.

Apparently, with regular exercise, older people (older means over 30 in exercise circles – I know!) can still match the performance of their younger counterparts (even into their early 60’s) but their muscle physiology has to change to do it. In older people nerve fibres supplying muscle fibres start to die off and so there is a reduction in the number of muscle fibres. However, with exercise these fibres increase in size and can perform the same work as groups of small fibres. In other words, young people have muscles composed of many smaller fibres and older people have muscles composed of fewer but larger muscle fibres.

However, although performance doesn’t have to decline (assuming that the young and older person are doing the same level and intensity of training) the time taken to recover afterwards does increase with age and longer rest periods are required in between exercise sessions.

This post exercise muscle soreness is called Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS) and is felt most strongly in muscles 24 – 72 hours after the exercise. It is a symptom of muscle damage caused by eccentric muscle contraction. An eccentric muscle contraction is one where the muscle contracts but lengthens at the same time – running downhill or downstairs is a prime example.

Well, I did one and a half hours of sparring practice last Saturday – bouncing backwards and forwards on the balls of the feet for most of that time, followed by some vigorous skipping at karate on Monday and some fairly intense kicking practice on Wednesday. All of these activities involve eccentric muscle contractions so it is not surprising that I am suffering from DOMS!

Another interesting fact about DOMS (according to Wikipedia) is that soreness is only one of the temporary changes caused in muscles by unaccustomed or extreme eccentric exercise. Other such changes include decreased muscle strength, reduced range of motion and muscle swelling. It has been shown, however, that these changes develop independently in time from one another and that the soreness is therefore not the cause of the reduction in muscle function.

This is interesting to me because in karate class on Wednesday my legs felt weak, but not necessarily in the places where the soreness was. We were practising kicks over a chair to make sure we lifted the knee high before extending the kick. My legs definitely lacked the power needed to lift my legs in this way so I wonder if I had a bit of muscle swelling as well.

DOMS can take anything from 2-7 days to recover from. Research done on rats suggests that recovery is slower in older people (well, older rats at least) because they have lower levels of growth hormone and testosterone, both of which aid in muscle recovery. Muscles also tighten with age and blood circulation can be slower.

What I was interested in finding out was whether there is there anything you can do to either prevent DOMS from occurring or speed up the recovery period? I was surprised to find that there is not a lot you can do to prevent DOMS, other than avoid eccentric muscle contractions, and that pre-workout warm ups and post workout cool downs make no significant difference. Stretching also makes little difference though it might help older people more by increasing blood flow to muscles.

The only thing that has been shown scientifically to reduce the intensity of DOMS is light aerobic exercise at the end of a workout.  Other more anecdotal suggestions include massage, hot baths or a sauna which are thought to help because they increase the blood supply to the muscles.

If there is not much we can do to prevent DOMS developing is there anything we can do to hasten recovery? Again, there are many anecdotal remedies including taking an ice bath, applying muscle compression or doing yoga. Research though suggests that exercising sore muscles is the best way to reduce or eliminate soreness. The degree of soreness does not reflect the magnitude of muscle damage and exercising sore muscles does not damage them further.

Other factors that appear to be important are getting adequate sleep – 8 hours a night is recommended, reducing mental stress and eating a balanced diet rich in micro-nutrients.

So, what have I learnt here that is useful to me? Well, the good news is if I train hard I should be able to keep up with the youngsters in our karate class. The muscle soreness I’m experiencing isn’t a cause for concern – just inconvenient and it is perfectly safe to continue exercising through it. In fact it seems that it is preferable to continue exercising through it as it may help speed up recovery from the soreness. I also know that I need to try and get more sleep; I’m not sleeping to well at the moment (partly due to the soreness). Perhaps a hot bath after karate class would help reduce soreness AND promote better sleep? Mmmmm…I like the sound of that…..

Do you have any advice on the prevention or reduction DOMS?

Slowing down, speeding up and Iain Abernethy seminar....

I decided to slow down a bit this week. I don't think I've been giving myself enough time to recover between sessions.

Over the last few weeks the schedule has been:



Monday 1.5 hour workout at home in the morning followed by 2.5 hours of karate classes in the evening,
Tuesday push-up challenge,
Wednesday 1.5 hour karate class,
Thursday push up challenge,
Friday 1.5 hour workout at home,
Saturday push up challenge and
Sunday 1.5 hour kobudo class.

So, not a lot of time for recovery between sessions! My muscles have been aching and I've been more stiff than usual following a session so I think a slow down was definitely needed.

This week I've laid off the push up challenge. I repeated week 5 last week and still failed to achieve 45 consecutive push ups in the exhaustion test. I decided that rather than repeat week 5 again I would take a week out and then try the exhaustion test again to see where I'm at.

I've still managed to fit in my two long home training sessions but I've concentrated very much on karate rather than general fitness. I had been determined to pin down my ippon kumite techniques this week but alas time ran out on me. This will definitely be my job next week...

Sensei was clearly not aware that I was trying to rest up a bit this week and decided to have a fitness binge with us on Wednesday. This consisted of push ups, sit ups, squats, burpees, running around....and that was just the warm up. We then moved onto pad work and after doing a few minutes of punching we were straight into doing the following sequence: 10 kicks with each leg of - front kick, roundhouse kick, back kick, side kick, spinning hook kick and jump kick! Just when we thought it was all over Sensei shouts 20 push ups! Followed by a 1 minute plank, followed by standing in shikko dachi (horse stance) for 1 minute. Get a drink! Then immediately into kata with bunkai demonstration. After doing 3 different kata : Get your sparring mitts on! Two rounds of sparring was then followed by some stretching. There was definitely some soaking wet gis after that session!

Last Sunday I attended a seminar with Iain Abernethy. This is the second seminar I've attended with him and it is always a great experience. I can't believe how fast that guy can execute self-defence techniques - you just wouldn't stand a chance against him! Anyway we focused on the bunkai from pinan nidan (there's always more to that kata than meets the eye) and then looked at bunkai from Bassai Dai. This was especially useful for me as Bassai Dai is one of my kata for shodan grading. Iain is such an easy, approachable guy with lots of amusing anecdotes to tell in between teaching us. Apparently he was impressed with our standard of kata which he said made it easier for him to teach us bunkai. Nice to know I can do something right!

The photo above shows left to right: Steve Hegarty (my instructor), Iain Abernethy and me!

Some ups and downs this week.....

The last two weeks training has gone a bit slower than planned! Unfortunately some of my training has been thwarted by illness (heavy cold) and injury (pulled deltoid muscle). Typically, the days I was unable to train because of illness or injury were the days I had the time to do it!

Last week I managed to fit in the program twice by doing different bits on different days as I felt up to it but this week I didn't do anything significant until today. I managed to get off work early so came home and spent an hour in the gym doing some fitness and weights training and some karate stuff. I feel I've made up a little bit for not training on Monday (my day off) but my left shoulder was so sore I thought I'd better rest it.

Strangely this did not stop me doing a double karate class on Monday evening (I'd have to be on my death bed to miss that). Unfortunately, Sensei had decided to dedicate the whole week to kihon training, mainly punching - which was good but very hard on my poor shoulder which was really throbbing by the end of class! We did some stretching at the end and Sensei showed my partner how to stretch out my shoulder.

Next morning I woke up expecting my shoulder to be really sore but to my amazement it felt fine. I don't know if it was the stretching or the kihon or something else but it's not bothered me much since.

The part of my training that I have consistently managed to maintain this last fortnight is the Push Up Challenge (see my left side bar for results). I am now on week 3 and have been following the program to the letter. My husband has joined me in the challenge so we can motivate each other to keep going. It is a hard challenge but I'm slowly making progress. At the end of last week (week 2) I maxed out with 16 push ups. I know this doesn't sound many but that only represents the last set of push ups out of 5 sets. You do a prescribed number of push ups for the first 4 sets with a minute rest between, then you do as many as you can in the last set - that's the number you record. However, if you add the 5 sets together I did 61 push ups - which sounds more respectable!

I have another day off tomorrow so I am hoping that now I am free of illness and injury I will be able to get up to speed with program again and have a good long session of solo training.

Happy training....

The perils of overtraining...

Since I embarked on this fitness training programme a few people have warned me about over training. This is a serious issue and is not something one should overlook when doing regular, hard exercise. Anyone undergoing a serious program of exercise for a long period of time needs to be able to recognise the symptoms of over training and take steps to avoid it.

So, what exactly is over training? Muscle conditioning requires a balance between overload and recovery. The wikipedia article- Over training states that:

"Improvements in strength and fitness occur only after the rest period following hard training. This process can take days to complete, depending on the intensity and duration of exercise leading to the over trained state. If sufficient rest is not available, then complete regeneration cannot occur. If this imbalance between excess training and inadequate rest persists, then the individual's performance will eventually plateau and decline. Mild over training may require several days of rest or reduced activity to fully restore an athlete's fitness. If prompt attention is not given to the developing state and an athlete continues to train and accumulate fatigue, the condition may come to persist for many weeks or even months".

This inability for muscle to repair properly due to inadequate rest periods may be due to several factors - protein deficiency, calorie deficiency, elevated cortisol levels and an imbalance between catabolism (breaking down of muscle tissue) and anabolism (building up of muscle tissue).

It's easy to get carried away with training isn't it? With all those endorphins flowing through our bodies it can become quite addictive. We may even think that training more often will produce quicker results. Well, it will to a point but then we will start to experience diminishing returns for our efforts. Sometimes less is more. We will get tired more easily, we may become weaker rather than stronger, be prone to infections and injuries, experience a variable heart rate, become depressed or lose interest in our training.....

Over training is a bit more serious than 'just over doing it a bit'. Over training is often considered a medical syndrome - something that needs diagnosing and treating. If you are aware of its existence then there are a few symptoms you should look out for in yourself and a couple of self-diagnostic tests you can carry out:

Zen to Fitness lists 5 signs of over training:

• Increased appetite
• Feeling unmotivated
• Lower back pain
• Muscle twitches and
• Sleeping too much or too little

Muscle aches, headaches, mood swings and general irritability can be added to that list too.

According to About.com sports medicine , there are several ways you can objectively measure some signs of over training. One is by documenting your heart rate over time. Track your aerobic heart rate at  specific exercise intensities and speed throughout your training and write it down. If your pace starts to slow, your resting heart rate increases and you experience other symptoms, you may heading into over training syndrome. You can also track your resting heart rate each morning. Any marked increase from the norm may indicated that you aren't fully recovered.

Another test is the Orthostatic Heart Rate Test. Essentially this test requires you to lie down for 15 minutes to rest, then take your pulse (bpm), stand up and after 15 seconds take your pulse again. Compare the first reading with the second one. If the difference is greater than 15 - 20 beats then it means you have not recovered sufficiently from your last workout and should rest for another day.

If you think you have been over training then the main stay of treatment is to give your body more time to recover and repair itself:

• Taking a break from training to allow time for recovery.
• Reduce the volume and/or the intensity of the training.
• Split the training program so that different sets of muscles are worked on different days.
• Make sure you get adequate sleep.
• Deep-tissue or sports massage of the affected muscles/ self massage of affected muscles.
• Make sure you eat a nutritious diet.
• Take supplements such as protein bars/drinks after training.
• Keep well hydrated before/during/after exercise

If you think you are over training, do yourself a favour - TAKE A BREAK!