The Perfect Warm-Up

What is in the essence of a perfect warm-up? Essentially, it is important not to over-strain your muscles that will impede your performance during the actual training. Perfect is in striking the right balance in warming up all your various muscle groups. To me, warming up exercises can be divided into 3 parts – running/skipping/bouncing on old tires, shadow boxing and bag work. The idea is to prepare your body for the vigorous exercises that follows. It is not necessary to spend an excessive amount of time during warm up – the bulk of your training time should be spent on the techniques and strength training – an ideal estimate should be approximately 30 minutes.

Running / Skipping / Bouncing on old tires

Running

These exercises are substitutable. Running is essential for the development of leg muscles and stamina and while many say that it is most ideal to run in the morning, do note that the peak time for running is definitely not the first thing in the morning. Due to daily fluctuations in our body temperature, scientists have found that our temperature is the lowest in the morning and peaks in mid afternoon. And wholly from a running perspective, athletes perform better when their body temperature is higher and thus many prefer to run in the late afternoons and evenings. And because our body’s vital functions peak at the same time, it is found that our lungs work best in the evenings too.

I have broken down the pros and cons of running at different times of the day from a survey conducted by Running Times.

Early Morning – The Mental Hurdle

The peak time for running is definitely not first thing in the morning. Virtually all bodily functions are at their worst at this hour. Body temperature is low, which means that muscles will feel stiff, lung function is poor, and not having any substantial food intake for the last ten hours significantly depletes your energy stores. All these means the same level of exertion is likely to feel much harder at this time of day than later on. To top things off, exercising early will leave you more prone to injury or worse. Research has also shown that this is the most common time of day for heart attacks and strokes.

Just because nearly everything physical is against you at this time, however, doesn’t mean the early morning session has no benefit. The very fact that it feels harder means it’s good for building up mental strength.

Mid-Morning – Muscle Booster

Lung performance and body temperature are much improved from the early morning, plus if you’re training at this time you should have had a good protein and carb-filled breakfast, meaning your energy levels will be much higher. However, although most of your physical functions will be improved from the early morning, they are still not as good as later in the day. Furthermore, if you work normal hours, a mid-morning run is likely only to be possible on the weekend anyway. If you do put in a mid-morning run, on a Saturday for example, you might want to make it a speed or hills session in which building up your calf and quad muscles is the aim. The reason is that most scientists agree this is the best time of day to boost muscle. “There’s a strong argument for doing weight training in the morning if you’re interested in building muscle,” said Dr. Stephen Bird, from the School of Human Movement Studies in Australia. “This is because testosterone, the hormone most responsible for muscle-boosting, is at its highest around this time.”

Lunchtime – The Convenient Substitute

The lunch-time run is extremely popular with all those who work normal hours. Getting out of the office and breaking up the day with some running seems like a great idea. And indeed there are positives to training at this time, but mostly they have to do with your work performance rather than your running performance. "Many people choose to exercise at lunch because it doesn’t eat into their free time," said workplace psychologist Mike Clinton. "Plus it perks you up and is likely to make you more productive in the afternoon."

In fact, nearly all bodily functions experience a lull in the middle of the day, particularly those such as lung function and body temperature, which are crucial to running performance. Like the early morning, this doesn’t necessarily make it a bad time of day to train; just make sure you save those time trials, or sessions where you’re looking to run your absolute best, for later.

Afternoon and Evening – Score!

It has been known for some time that most physical activities are best performed in the mid- to late-afternoon, as this is when body temperature peaks, meaning the muscles are at their most supple and running at speeds that feel tough in the early morning will feel much easier. Recently this has been bolstered by a study by Dr. Boris Medarov of the Long Island Jewish Medical Center in New York, which found that lung function was more than 6 percent better in the afternoon than at other times during the day. So this is definitely the time of day to run if you’re going for a personal best.

If your gym trains in the evening, you’ll probably want to sweat out your personal best before class starts! A short 10 min run should be sufficient.

Skipping / Bouncing on old tires

Skipping is an intense cardiovascular workout, more tiring than running I would say. Skipping strengthens the muscles in your upper and lower body and also promotes the hand-leg coordination that is much needed in most Muay Thai techniques.

Skip in sets, usually 3 sets of 3 mins each should be sufficient but if you feel that it is not warming up your body enough, bring it up to 3 sets of 5 mins or 2 sets of 10 mins. Do not skip with both your feet bouncing off the ground at the same time. Alternate between legs, for example, tap 3 times on your right leg and then switch to your left. It might not seem easy at first but you’ll get used to it.

The same goes for bouncing on tires.

Here’s a good video on jump rope: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvEnee4rF4k

I’ll update a bit more on shadow boxing and bag work for warm up in the later part of the day.

12 Scientifically-Proven Fitness Tricks to Up 'Burn Rate'

I know we're Muay Thai practitioners, but we're girls too! Keeping our body in shape is probably one of the reasons why some of us pursue Muay Thai as a long term hobby, other than, of course, we all love the sport! The twisting and turning in Muay Thai techniques help to burn a alot of calories and develop nice ab muscles. However, females tend to have a higher density of fats than men. When we're training, we're building muscles fast and because the training requires high power intensity, we tend to develop muscles in bulk, bulk up especially the upper part of our body. And this when accompanied with our high density of fats makes us heavier and bulkier.

I don't know about you guys but sometimes getting bigger kind of worries me. I build up muscles on the upper part of the body very fast and therefore, I make an effort in watching my diet and make it a point to do my long runs and intervals at least 2 to 3 times a week. I find that by doing this, I am maintaining my muscle density and losing the weight of my fats at the same time, keeping me in shape and not exactly bulking up too much.

I found the article below on the web:

Know this: If you’re convinced that you’re melting fat while exercising, you’ll make a mind-body connection that will actually help you lose fat faster, Dillinger explains. In a 2007 Harvard study, participants who believed they were getting a good workout showed greater reductions in body fat than subjects who performed the same activities but didn’t feel like they were really exercising.

Do this: The next time you do anything active, remind yourself every few minutes that you’re giving it your all. This little mental move may moti-vate you to push yourself harder, leading to even greater fat loss.

read more | digg story

Working the bag

I remember coming across a video once before and it had some great bag work techniques. Most people would be bag work in this manner - 4rds x 2mins - and the instant the timer starts, you pump your muscles and exhaust yourself even before you get to the 3rd round.

This technique that I came across is not less exhausting. It can in fact be more exhausting on the body. This technique, however, propels your mind to think before executing your moves, slowing building up an instant effect of body and mind coordination. Here is the routine:

4 Rounds(8 sets) x 4 Mins

Each round constitutes 2 sets, 2 mins each set.

As soon as the timer starts, begin your first set by executing whatever moves that first comes into your mind. The first set is about power. Pump your muscles, throw your punches, master your roundhouse kicks. Sweat the first set out. Stop at 2 mins.

The second set is a slow set. As soon as the timer starts, think through your combinations before executing them. The second set is about technique, about combination, about anticipating your opponent's move even if you are just really punching a dummy bag. Go slow for this first round. Stop at 2 mins.

Set the timer at 30seconds. At the end of each round, it is good to work on some cardio. For the end of the first round, do a 30-second speed punch.

Rest for one min.

Repeat the two sets for each round till you reach the fourth round. As each round progresses, your second sets should go faster. You should develop clearer combar mentality. You should slowly see your techniques forming up in successive first sets. End the second round with 30 seconds of knee, the third round with 30 seconds of push kicks, alternating legs, and the last round with 30 seconds of roundhouse, alternating legs.

This bag work technique is good for getting your body and mentality used to throwing certain combinations such that when your body is tired out in the middle of a bout, your mind has pre-programmed combinations that your body can use.