Question from Brian - 15-05-02

Hello Monica, I was looking on the web for some fitness advice and came across your site. Great job on your site, very informative and easy to use. Another reason I liked your site is your particular skills. I am also a martial artist, having been training in Tae Kwon Do for the last 5 years. I also weight train regularly and even play hockey once a week. I noticed that you study karate. I was wondering what style and then I am testing for my blackbelt in a few months and I was wondering if you might have some advice as to what type of cross training would best help me prepare to test. As I said I use weights a few times a week but I am wondering what exercises would best help for martial arts and perhaps any other stretching or particular exercises that work for you. I noticed you compete in karate and do very well so obviously what you do works!! I look forward to hearing from you and if you are ever in the Boston area and need a workout/sparring partner let me know! :-) Have a great day! Take care Brian

Monica's answer:

Thank you for the compliments on my website! I did it myself! So you study TaeKwonDo, this is another martial art that I would love to study. Unfortunatly, I no longer train in my martial art which was free-style Karate and Jiu-jitsu. I miss it alot. Since I was weight training at the same time, I then decided to compete in fitness which I then had to take up gymnastics. So, the decision was made to drop the martial arts.

As for some advice for your cross training, you may want to try these exercises in the gym:

-with the cable machine, strap your ankle on the bottom cable and do a variety of leg raises - front, back, outside and inside. This should help put more power in your kicks. (and help your skating for hockey!)

-then, of course, abs must be trained to take the kicks/punches. To add to your ab excersises, try sitting at the edge of a bench and like knee tucks to your chest, keep your legs straight and bring your legs to your chest. You will find this one a little more difficult than tucking your knees. (this is my favourite ab burner!) also try the same move but lying on an incline bench (also known as reverse crunches) - the lower the incline, the harder it is to do the crunch.

-as for stretches, I recently purchased the FlexMaster to train my middle split. Here is a good guide of stretches
I hope this helps! Good luck on your Black Belt test!