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Jack of all trades...


Guest Ido Portal
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I think I tend to agree with you. I think its better to specialize in certain things or at least do exercises that have cross over. Myself I do numerous physical activities like Wushu, Gymnastics, Acrobatics and rock climbing. I've benefited from the fact that all these have alot of cross over to the others. I make an effort to stay clear of things that will not in some way benefit the others.

There are always trade offs anytime someone tries to train multiple things at once. Myself I decided to focus mainly of gymnastics for conditioning with wushu for agility. I've found that gymnastics conditioning is far superior to what most martial artists do. I see most people doing endless crunches or simple pushups at "conditioning". I find those worthless. I consider climbing a hobby and something done for pure fun. BUt even then I've found that gymnastics conditioning combined with wushu flexibility and agility has translated very well to the crag. The only limiting factor was grip and forearm strength, which i decided to work on. Though now the increased grip and forearm strength has translated well into both wushu and rings training.

I think training multiple things at once is completely possible if done intelligently. I think simply taking 2-3 completely different activities with completely different fitness goals is kind of a waste of time.

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Guest Ido Portal

Joe,

Please provide some insight into what you call wushu agility and flexibility training, do the chinese have different ways to work on those physical traits? Anything interesting?

(Besides skill training, which every art contains)

I got to work a bit with Chase Armitage who showed me some Wushu stuff, he used to be the UK champion before he started freerunning. In another lifetime I also used to do some Hung Gar Kung Fu training for many years, but abandoned it once I started Capoeira at 15.

Of course you can enjoy multiple diciplines and succeed to a certain degree in each, but you wont be a world champion in either one. (And that is ok, since many of us dont want to be world champions in one area, but instead be good in many areas)

This is a world of specialists. Once, an MD was just an MD. Nowdays, you specilize in blood vessle surgery of the human hand. The amount of knowledge and physical abilities are similar in that they are so developed that you have to dedicate your life to aquire it.

Gymnastics is no different, as nowdays the event specialists dedicate themselfs to one event, basicly. In years to come, I suspect this process of specialization would start even earlier, right after aquiring a base in the first years of training. A ring specialist can devote his entire time to stregth and stability and achieve a much higher level than the current one presented in championships. (After learning the dismounts, of course)

This is starting to happen.

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I agree also. Although Crossfit is a nice program that kind of increases everything, but mainly metcon capacity. If you actually focus on a department for a while you will gain a way lot than if you followed the all over department. This has happened to me. I used to train kind of everything. Now is mainly Gymnastics training, while doing 1 metcon work out a week, sometimes it gets pushed to a week later since is not the main thing is just maintenance.

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I think its slightly different when comparing medicine to any kind of sport. In medicine the reason there is now so much specialization is because alot of knowledge now exists where before there was none. It makes sense to have someone that specializes in blood vessels of the hand. Just as in biology there might be someone that specializes in certain genes of a certain kind of fruit fly. Where as before there would just be general biologists.

In sports though I think the drive to specialization is driven in part by peoples desire to win. "If I spend all my time on this one event I will be better than someone that trains all events equally. So, at least I can win this one" I'm not saying this is the only reason. but I doubt any doctor says I want to only study blood vessels in the hand so I can at least be good at something.

In terms of Wushu type training. We do alot of complicated combinations involving twisting, rolling, kicking, jumping , sweeping and punching movements all rolled into one. Not only that but the movements are done at different speeds. So, I might punch and kick fast then move slowly into a twisting movement before quickly exploding into a jump with 540 or 720 degrees of turn, then moving slowly again. In that it can be seen more like ballet of sorts. Not only that we work with weapons the way gymnasts work with apparatus. So, now you are doing teh same thing as before but while adding sword, staff, spear, chain, or some other weapons movements to it. Wushu also has the animal styles like Eagle claw, Tiger, Mantis, and dozens of others. I am studying eagle claw now so I am supposed to do all the standard wushu elements while adding the flare of eagle movements to it.

Alot of the principles are similar. Stuck landings are a must in jumps just as in gymnastics. The big difference I would see is how the martial artist needs to be able to effortless transition from being soft and loose to being tight and strong. I've seen a few gymnasts try to pick up wushu. For the most part they are capable of picking up the movements easy enough as the strength and flexibility is there. However, they have the hardest time developing hat wushu flavor of being loose and explosive at the same time. When done right its extraordinary to watch. On the reverse of it WE had a Rhythmic Gymnastic take class with us for a time. She was unbelievable too. Nationally ranks and everything. She had flexibility to spare but couldnt quite get the hang of using power. So, her kicks were high and effortless but generally very weak.

This is kinda why I like combining the 2 where I can. Get the best of both worlds. If you want me to go into detail anywhere else let me know.

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As some guru once said "take up one thing, make that thing your life,think about it, dream about, live it, that's the way to success"

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George Launchbury

Or as Charles Poliquin said in a Q&A article regards CrossFit:

It reminds me of a Hungarian proverb: "If you only have one ass, you can't sit on two horses."

If you try to do everything in your workout, you get nothing.

Cheers,

George.

P.s. Article here on T-Nation.com (site may not be considered work/family safe)

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Thanks for that Ido I enjoyed that...good read.

Out of interest for a beginner/ intermediate athlete how many goals would you consider reasonable? This said, I'm sure that there are many many variables that should be taken into consideration before answering such a question. Also, could you have a few goals if they are closely related such as planche, front lever and their pushup/ pullup variations. That's four goals right there but they are closely related.

This may sound stupid but what exactly does everyone classify as a skill and say a exercise used for conditioning. For instance the planche could i'm sure be classified as a skill by some but is used in a conditioning program often. As a guess i'm guessing it's both a skill and conditioning move and how you train it can have an impact on what specifc qualities you are trying to achieve.

Thanks.

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Guest Ido Portal

Gymrob, you answered yourself there.

Also, it is not only multiple skills that I was talking about, but even more - physical traits. Working endurance, strength, speed, stability, and more cannot be done at the same time optimaly.

If a training program promises large improvements in many areas, guess what? It is too good to be true.

Going for planche, f-lever and push/pull variation is fine, of course.

Ido.

PS. everything is a skill. everything. Neurologicly, this is true.

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I agree entirely with this principle and would extend it beyond training to non-sports talents and the like. You can not learn to play Rachmaninov on the piano with an hour a day; rather it takes focused training towards that. Once you can play for example the second concerto at an acceptable level, it's much easier to keep it than if that same focused time had been divided between piano, learning A. Egyptian, and painting.

Good post, it hits something key to the development process.

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Well, you can learn Rachmaninov with 30 minutes of practice a day, it just takes 10 years!

Sow in many fields, but only cultivate a few.

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I am curious about your stance on the conjugate periodization model. Also wondering if you mean that when training for a specific goal say strength for an athlete he should just concentrate on that and do no extra work or concentrate on that goal more while still maintaining or only slightly raising the others.

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