40th Birthday Workout

Today I am 40 years old and in better shape than I have ever been.  The last 4 years have been dedicated to my return to martial arts after an 8 year hiatus.  In 2009 I was in pain, depressed and out of shape.  I was in an accident that caused me great pain in the lower back.  My job requires a great deal of sitting, which I could not do for long periods of time making my work difficult and contributed to a lot of stress and anxiety about my ability to perform my duties.  All of this made day to day living a misery.  Exercise that I was used to such as biking and running were hard to do.


In July of 2009, I started to fight back.  I learned about high-intensity interval training as a way to have a good well rounded workout.  Over the course of a year I developed a few circuits that I used to re-build my body and prepare it for a return to a normal work/life with the hope of eventually returning to martial arts.  I celebrated my 40th birthday this morning with the following workout:

Static Active Stretching

As part of our workout this Saturday, I led the class in some static active stretching exercises.  I like to do these stretches because they help develop the strength and balance needed to deliver solid, controlled kicks. This day's exercises consisted executing front kicks and round kicks in the following progression:

1. Position the pedestal leg for the kick 
• Front kick: turn base foot outward 20 degrees
• Round kick turn base foot outward 90 degrees from the target
2. Lift the leg to chamber for the kick
3. Extend the kick as high as possible and hold for 5 seconds
4. Re-chamber the kick
5. Put the foot back down

This type of exercise helps develop superior strength in the legs, hips and foot.  This will make both sparring and forms training easier in the long run because students will have the strength to hold themselves strong in every component of a kick technique.

Joint Warm-ups

Joints hold the body together and if our students have been sitting at their desks all day and commuting to work, their joints are probably very tight and stiff.  Before tossing limbs about, it is essential to warm up the major joints that will be employed during the workout.  I have used the following progression recently:

1. Head rolls (deep slow rolling of the head from one shoulder, down to the sternum and up to the opposite shoulder and then all the way up trying to touch the back of the head in between the shoulder blades)
2. Head twists (Slowly turning the head side to side as far as it will go)
3. Head nods (Slowly nodding the head back and forth as far as it will go)
4. Shoulder rolls (Shrugging the shoulders up and rolling them back trying to scrape the shoulder blades together
5. Arm rotations (Spread arms wide parallel to the floor and make small circles , gradually making the circles larger (forwards and backwards)
6. Arm crossovers: (Straight arms cross in front and then spread them out wide (back and forth)
7. Trunk Rolls (Lean as far forward as you can and roll making sure you lean as far back as you can (look behind you if you can)  [clockwise, then counterclockwise)]
8. Hip Rolls (Veritical) (Chamber for a front kick and rotate you hip outward as far as you can and put it back down)  [Left and Right]
9. Hip Rolls (Horizontal) (Chamber for a front kick and rotate it into a round kick chamber and rotate it outward and put it down behind you) [left/right]