Probably should have done this AAAAAAAAAAAAAAGES ago. I haven't been training martial arts at a gym for almost a year now, so I've been trying to run regularly to build my fitness. At the moment I've been alternating between a "distance" run of between 1.5-3.0km, 3 x 3minute runs, and 5 x 1minute sprints. I'm totally over it now. So; should I even bother continuing, or should I just stick with weights, bagwork and shadow training? AND; seeing as I'm looking at becoming financially stable within the next couple of months, if I begin training again, should I continue with the running?
Actually, I think you should keep running- it's one of the simplest and best 'cardio' exercises. I just think you should switch to a more sprint-based plan. This kind of thing is cool: http://www.trainforstrength.com/Endurance1.shtml I also think there's no real harm in doing a long distance run every so often, but bear in mind that the kind of fitness we're talking about in long runs has no real carryover to martial arts or vice versa.
Ultimately that depends on why you train, what for, and a lot of other parameters. Aerobic conditioning for Kyokushin is actually just as important as anaerobic, due to the way tournaments are run and the actual fighting itself. For many organizations, a belt test often involves you sparring continuously for a set period of time (i.e. such as my next one, where I have to fight 30 minutes straight against a fresh opponent every 2 minutes). If you primarily train in an anaerobic fashion, you will gas out quickly. Same with their tournaments where you can expect to fight multiple people in a row, and depending on how many are there and how quickly your fight is, you can often end up fighting back to back. This is why I often throw in one long distance day a week, which is typically no longer than 3-5 miles. Interestingly enough, adding that one longer day a week in addition to what I was regularly doing actually improved my 2-mile run pace. Aerobic conditioning is not the anti-christ like many people make it out to be.
Personally I find a 20-30 minute jog every so often seems to help my breathing and fitness levels during higher intensity work like sparring. Maybe not in terms of raising my Vo2 level but it seems clear out my lungs and allow me to breath deepering. It also kinda loosens everything up. Obviously impossible to prove but thats sure how it feels. I find doing 1 - 2 a week is quite an important part of my training.
I don't want to come over like I'm irrevocably against jogging or anything. In fact, I kind of miss running, actually. I used to do quite a bit when I was younger. I would argue, though, that interval work has an impact on how you perform at more traditional cardio tasks, and the effect doesn't seem to go both ways. It's probably better, then, to focus more on interval training than on traditional cardio.
Quite true. Just as lifting heavy weights will help you both lift heavy things and lift light things, but lifting light weights only isn't going to have you breaking PRs any time soon.
actually its probably more true to say intervals have an postive effect on some aspect so of traditional cardio training (VO2 max for example) and a negative impacty on others (decrease in mitochondria for example) its also probably fair to say that steady state training can aid intervals because the mitochondria produced during aerobic training are also involved in buffering acid accumulation during higher intensity/anaerobic activities. Its also probably true to say doing both might be a good idea
