Balancing martial arts and lifting

I saw a few people ask this before but wondering what to do in my own case. I try to train my martial arts (Jeet Kune Do) about five days a week and at least 45 minutes to an hour a day during those times. Usually it just consists of throwing as much punches, and kicks I can muster and some basic/advanced training drills.

Dependent on whether or not I have a partner there to train. I also like to lift though and try and work out each body part at least once a week. I have done many different lifting programs in the past. Lately though been struggling to find one that complements the martial arts well.

I recently switched to doing a five day a week lifting program. Working out one body each day to build some mass. It has really been interfering a bit with the martial arts. I find some of those days it feels too much, or that some muscles are too sore to be doing the martial arts after lifting.

I know most people here usually do bare minimal lifting or a 5/3/1 style routine. Right now I really want to bulk up a bit though. So anyone ever try a body part split Push/Pull maybe four days a week and noticed it is easier? Or perhaps working two muscle groups each day, and having a leg day? On top of that how do you balance the martial arts days in that? Lift or train and a few hours or later in the day do the other, or split up different days?

Thanks for any help,

Todd.

If your main focus is Jeet Kun Do, you can get by with 4 days of MA training and 2 days of lifting. I would do a full body lifting session each day. For example:

Sun: Rest
Mon: JKD
Tues: JKD
Wed: Lifting
Squat 5x5
Bench 5x5
Deadlift 3x5
Barbell Row: 5x5
Thur: JKD
Fri: JKD
Sat: Lifting
Front Squat 5x5
Ohp: 5x5
Power Cleans: 5x5
Pull Ups: 5x5

Try to add weight VERY slowly. 5lbs a week is good at first but after a while you will hit a wall and have to periodize your lifting. At that point hit me up if you need a strength coach to help you out.

Listen man, there’s only so many hours in the day, and if you’re chasing too many goals, you’ll accomplish exactly none of them.

If you’re attempting to gain mass, focus on that. Cut back JKD to two days a week - enough to keep you sharp, but not so much that your lifting suffers - and lift hard on the other ones. I’ve never had luck doing too much in one day … I’m not a huge guy and I don’t have a great work capacity, so the idea of boxing in the morning and lifting later that same day is a joke. So I would be wary of prescribing that approach without knowing that you could handle it.

My log is on here, and I typically shoot for 2/3 days of boxing, 2 days of lifting, 1 day of roadwork, and 1 day of combatives. I don’t always hit those goals, but my priority is ALWAYS boxing first. So if something suffers, you can be the first thing to go is gonna be the lifting. That sucks because I am trying to get a little stronger, but it is what it is.

If you want to get bigger, pursue it. But something is going to suffer as a result.

Thanks for the replies. Loftearmen that plan looks pretty solid thanks! FightingIrish I was following your log before and its definitely good stuff. I will just have to continue to focus on the JKD and cut back a bit on the lifting. Hopefully I can continue to gain mass by getting a calorie surplus and having enough strength training to support that. Definitely have no desire to sacrifice the JKD because it is where my main passion lays anyways. The lifting has always been just a supplement to that anyways.

My Mantra with strength training and MA or MMA is

skill work
conditioning
Iron
make room for all three but only when they don’t impact recovery on your skill work.

lofterman spelled it out in much better detail
and truth be told he knows a bunch more abou S&C work then most

[quote]brotardscience wrote:
My Mantra with strength training and MA or MMA is

skill work
conditioning
Iron
make room for all three but only when they don’t impact recovery on your skill work.

lofterman spelled it out in much better detail
and truth be told he knows a bunch more abou S&C work then most[/quote]

Seems like the golden rule. Yeah he wrote out some pretty detailed and useful info.

[quote]Loftearmen wrote:
If your main focus is Jeet Kun Do, you can get by with 4 days of MA training and 2 days of lifting. I would do a full body lifting session each day. For example:

Sun: Rest
Mon: JKD
Tues: JKD
Wed: Lifting
Squat 5x5
Bench 5x5
Deadlift 3x5
Barbell Row: 5x5
Thur: JKD
Fri: JKD
Sat: Lifting
Front Squat 5x5
Ohp: 5x5
Power Cleans: 5x5
Pull Ups: 5x5

Try to add weight VERY slowly. 5lbs a week is good at first but after a while you will hit a wall and have to periodize your lifting. At that point hit me up if you need a strength coach to help you out.[/quote]

Wanted to send a quick question to you Loftearmen, too bad PM’s don’t work. Are you able to substitute dumb bells over the barbell for the bench with good benefit? Reason I ask is that I feel a bit injury prone using the bench press, since switching to dumb bells I noticed less risk of injury. I tore my chest a bit few years back and have to be more careful now. Combining this with a barbell OHP, Squat, and Deadlift seem a bit odd but if it helps I will do it.

I just started training martial arts (BJJ 3x/week and Muay Thai 2x/week) in addition to 5/3/1, and I’ve been trying to cut weight, so I don’t have any experience attempting to gain mass while also working on my martial arts training, but I can tell you from past experience that the Westside for Skinny Bastards upper/lower split worked wonders for my mass gains in the past. Again, I wasn’t training martial arts at the time, but I think you can make the gains you want on a four day a week split.

The reason I prefer 5/3/1 is because going on the prescribed reps is optional, because it lays out percentages that are submaximal and because the assistance exercises are customizable/optional. As FightingIrish mentioned, there are only so many hours in the day, and you only have so much energy to give, so it helps to have a program that isn’t forcing you to put up new 3 rep maxes every week and is flexible.

So, I’d personally advocate for the 5/3/1 protocol, and you can customize accessory lifts to reach your mass gaining goals. And if you find that four days of 5/3/1 is too much to go along with your JKD and that you don’t want to sacrifice your time training JKD, you can switch to the 2-day/week variant of 5/3/1.

Just my two cents. Hope that helps!

[quote]shallowseason wrote:
I just started training martial arts (BJJ 3x/week and Muay Thai 2x/week) in addition to 5/3/1, and I’ve been trying to cut weight, so I don’t have any experience attempting to gain mass while also working on my martial arts training, but I can tell you from past experience that the Westside for Skinny Bastards upper/lower split worked wonders for my mass gains in the past. Again, I wasn’t training martial arts at the time, but I think you can make the gains you want on a four day a week split. The reason I prefer 5/3/1 is because going on the prescribed reps is optional, because it lays out percentages that are submaximal and because the assistance exercises are customizable/optional. As FightingIrish mentioned, there are only so many hours in the day, and you only have so much energy to give, so it helps to have a program that isn’t forcing you to put up new 3 rep maxes every week and is flexible.

So, I’d personally advocate for the 5/3/1 protocol, and you can customize accessory lifts to reach your mass gaining goals. And if you find that four days of 5/3/1 is too much to go along with your JKD and that you don’t want to sacrifice your time training JKD, you can switch to the 2-day/week variant of 5/3/1.

Just my two cents. Hope that helps![/quote]

It helps man, thank you for chiming in. To be honest in terms of energy and time I have space to do both in a day. The issue I was concerned about was overtraining. I only get together with my friend twice a week for the real JKD classes in Santa Ana. Other then that it’s really the technical training on my own.

Just working my punches, kicks, foot work, combinations, etc. (never full power or speed usually). I thought this didn’t sound too bad but maybe to others it seems like alot combined with the weights. Or I didn’t clarify enough on my original post.

I was going to attempt the 5/3/1 program again before in conjunction with the martial arts, just wasn’t sure if it was too much. After the responses here, I felt it was also wise to listen to others who do both as well.

Your martial arts schedule sounds a lot more cardio impacting then what I usually do though. You train 5/3/1 four days a week with assitance exercises doing all of that? How do you feel with recovery, and I know you said you just started but how long is that exactly?

Whether a person wants to gain or cut weight taking on a higher work load though seems simple. Just adjust calories to either gain weight, or lose. Making sure macros are met as needed, the diet is nutritious enough to give necessary micro minerals, sleep is optimal, mobility and stretching exercises are implemented strongly,using additional supplements if needed.

The challenge I guess is making sure you have enough balance that you are not over reaching too long, not turning the body catabolic, and having training between the two optimized that workload doesn’t create injury.

[quote]cstratton2 wrote:

[quote]shallowseason wrote:
I just started training martial arts (BJJ 3x/week and Muay Thai 2x/week) in addition to 5/3/1, and I’ve been trying to cut weight, so I don’t have any experience attempting to gain mass while also working on my martial arts training, but I can tell you from past experience that the Westside for Skinny Bastards upper/lower split worked wonders for my mass gains in the past. Again, I wasn’t training martial arts at the time, but I think you can make the gains you want on a four day a week split. The reason I prefer 5/3/1 is because going on the prescribed reps is optional, because it lays out percentages that are submaximal and because the assistance exercises are customizable/optional. As FightingIrish mentioned, there are only so many hours in the day, and you only have so much energy to give, so it helps to have a program that isn’t forcing you to put up new 3 rep maxes every week and is flexible.

So, I’d personally advocate for the 5/3/1 protocol, and you can customize accessory lifts to reach your mass gaining goals. And if you find that four days of 5/3/1 is too much to go along with your JKD and that you don’t want to sacrifice your time training JKD, you can switch to the 2-day/week variant of 5/3/1.

Just my two cents. Hope that helps![/quote]

It helps man, thank you for chiming in. To be honest in terms of energy and time I have space to do both in a day. The issue I was concerned about was overtraining. I only get together with my friend twice a week for the real JKD classes in Santa Ana. Other then that it’s really the technical training on my own.

Just working my punches, kicks, foot work, combinations, etc. (never full power or speed usually). I thought this didn’t sound too bad but maybe to others it seems like alot combined with the weights. Or I didn’t clarify enough on my original post.

I was going to attempt the 5/3/1 program again before in conjunction with the martial arts, just wasn’t sure if it was too much. After the responses here, I felt it was also wise to listen to others who do both as well.

Your martial arts schedule sounds a lot more cardio impacting then what I usually do though. You train 5/3/1 four days a week with assitance exercises doing all of that? How do you feel with recovery, and I know you said you just started but how long is that exactly?

Whether a person wants to gain or cut weight taking on a higher work load though seems simple. Just adjust calories to either gain weight, or lose. Making sure macros are met as needed, the diet is nutritious enough to give necessary micro minerals, sleep is optimal, mobility and stretching exercises are implemented strongly,using additional supplements if needed.

The challenge I guess is making sure you have enough balance that you are not over reaching too long, not turning the body catabolic, and having training between the two optimized that workload doesn’t create injury.

[/quote]

I started at the end of January with Muay Thai and added BJJ in mid-March. I’d say I spend a combined total of 8 hours a week training the two arts, and I’ve managed to continue hitting the gym four days a week for 5/3/1 while cutting weight. This would all be way too much for me if I was going 100% in the gym though. I started with very conservative estimations for my maxes for 5/3/1 and add weight every two, sometimes even three cycles instead of one. But that’s mainly because I’m eating under maintenance and not because I feel overtrained. And if you only have two formal sessions of an art a week, I’d say it’d be hard for you to overtrain on 5/3/1 4x/week.

[quote]cstratton2 wrote:
I saw a few people ask this before but wondering what to do in my own case. I try to train my martial arts (Jeet Kune Do) about five days a week and at least 45 minutes to an hour a day during those times. Usually it just consists of throwing as much punches, and kicks I can muster and some basic/advanced training drills.

Dependent on whether or not I have a partner there to train. I also like to lift though and try and work out each body part at least once a week. I have done many different lifting programs in the past. Lately though been struggling to find one that complements the martial arts well.

I recently switched to doing a five day a week lifting program. Working out one body each day to build some mass. It has really been interfering a bit with the martial arts. I find some of those days it feels too much, or that some muscles are too sore to be doing the martial arts after lifting.

I know most people here usually do bare minimal lifting or a 5/3/1 style routine. Right now I really want to bulk up a bit though. So anyone ever try a body part split Push/Pull maybe four days a week and noticed it is easier? Or perhaps working two muscle groups each day, and having a leg day? On top of that how do you balance the martial arts days in that? Lift or train and a few hours or later in the day do the other, or split up different days?

Thanks for any help,

Todd. [/quote]

The general rule I go by is that you have to take care of the following as absolute priorities:

  1. Priority #1–you absolutely MUST define which is most important to you a) short term b) medium term and c) long term. This defines what weeks you give lifting or MA your most time/energy as well as how you approach the long term plan

  2. mobility–lifting does not make you “muscle bound” but it can stiffen you up if you a) are not actively working on dynamic mobility and flexibility and/or b) are lifting with shortened range of motion or bad form.

Therefore, you need to prioritize and spend time working on gaining and maintaining mobility, flexibility, and structural balance so that you can move fluidly.

  1. soreness–if you’re experiencing debilitating soreness you can’t do skill drills very well. Not to mention if you actually got into a fight you’d be hampered (possibly fatally if it was an improvised scenario). When I was a bouncer I trained very hard, but always made sure I was not very sore so that I could take care of my job and myself if things went bad in a crowded setting.

  2. food/sleep–obviously. If you aren’t paying attention to what/when/how much, then you can work yourself into a recovery hole and shortchange BOTH things. So don’t do that.

Provided you can do that, a LOT of different training styles allow you to work both art and lifting hard.

Very frequent training helps a lot with soreness, because your body has to learn to adapt to a schedule where it trains before it “wants” to or has time to fully recover. Yes, there is an adaptation time period where you’ll be in agony, but it’s temporary unless you’re doing something hideously wrong haha. This is invaluable, and can be adapted to competitive fighting very well if you have the time/inclination. This option is also very dependent on food intake so that you recover, but it is my favorite.

[quote]shallowseason wrote:

…that’s mainly because I’m eating under maintenance and not because I feel overtrained. And if you only have two formal sessions of an art a week, I’d say it’d be hard for you to overtrain on 5/3/1 4x/week. [/quote]

Agree. Food intake and rest is key, and if those are taken care of it is very hard to truly overtrain although it is definitely possible. Overtraining is a demon I think people give far too much power to. More insidious is not eating enough/the right things, and not taking care of your rest/mobility/supplements for recovery.

I am critical of overtraining for NON-competitive martial artists mostly because they are not doing anywhere near the intensity or frequency of pro or aspiring pro fighters. And, in my personal experience, it just doesn’t line up. It’s far far more likely for the guy to not be taking care of something else vastly important like I mentioned above than actually to be overtraining.

[quote]shallowseason wrote:

[quote]cstratton2 wrote:

[quote]shallowseason wrote:
I just started training martial arts (BJJ 3x/week and Muay Thai 2x/week) in addition to 5/3/1, and I’ve been trying to cut weight, so I don’t have any experience attempting to gain mass while also working on my martial arts training, but I can tell you from past experience that the Westside for Skinny Bastards upper/lower split worked wonders for my mass gains in the past. Again, I wasn’t training martial arts at the time, but I think you can make the gains you want on a four day a week split. The reason I prefer 5/3/1 is because going on the prescribed reps is optional, because it lays out percentages that are submaximal and because the assistance exercises are customizable/optional. As FightingIrish mentioned, there are only so many hours in the day, and you only have so much energy to give, so it helps to have a program that isn’t forcing you to put up new 3 rep maxes every week and is flexible.

So, I’d personally advocate for the 5/3/1 protocol, and you can customize accessory lifts to reach your mass gaining goals. And if you find that four days of 5/3/1 is too much to go along with your JKD and that you don’t want to sacrifice your time training JKD, you can switch to the 2-day/week variant of 5/3/1.

Just my two cents. Hope that helps![/quote]

It helps man, thank you for chiming in. To be honest in terms of energy and time I have space to do both in a day. The issue I was concerned about was overtraining. I only get together with my friend twice a week for the real JKD classes in Santa Ana. Other then that it’s really the technical training on my own.

Just working my punches, kicks, foot work, combinations, etc. (never full power or speed usually). I thought this didn’t sound too bad but maybe to others it seems like alot combined with the weights. Or I didn’t clarify enough on my original post.

I was going to attempt the 5/3/1 program again before in conjunction with the martial arts, just wasn’t sure if it was too much. After the responses here, I felt it was also wise to listen to others who do both as well.

Your martial arts schedule sounds a lot more cardio impacting then what I usually do though. You train 5/3/1 four days a week with assitance exercises doing all of that? How do you feel with recovery, and I know you said you just started but how long is that exactly?

Whether a person wants to gain or cut weight taking on a higher work load though seems simple. Just adjust calories to either gain weight, or lose. Making sure macros are met as needed, the diet is nutritious enough to give necessary micro minerals, sleep is optimal, mobility and stretching exercises are implemented strongly,using additional supplements if needed.

The challenge I guess is making sure you have enough balance that you are not over reaching too long, not turning the body catabolic, and having training between the two optimized that workload doesn’t create injury.

[/quote]

I started at the end of January with Muay Thai and added BJJ in mid-March. I’d say I spend a combined total of 8 hours a week training the two arts, and I’ve managed to continue hitting the gym four days a week for 5/3/1 while cutting weight. This would all be way too much for me if I was going 100% in the gym though. I started with very conservative estimations for my maxes for 5/3/1 and add weight every two, sometimes even three cycles instead of one. But that’s mainly because I’m eating under maintenance and not because I feel overtrained. And if you only have two formal sessions of an art a week, I’d say it’d be hard for you to overtrain on 5/3/1 4x/week. [/quote]

Thanks for the information man. Seems like you got a lot on your plate and hope you see improvements with it all! Yes, I felt similar but again maybe I didn’t clarify enough on the original post so seemed more to others. I will eventually move into three classes a week. Typically an hour for tuesday and thursday, Saturday class is two hours. Still nothing too major.

[quote]Aragorn wrote:

[quote]cstratton2 wrote:
I saw a few people ask this before but wondering what to do in my own case. I try to train my martial arts (Jeet Kune Do) about five days a week and at least 45 minutes to an hour a day during those times. Usually it just consists of throwing as much punches, and kicks I can muster and some basic/advanced training drills.

Dependent on whether or not I have a partner there to train. I also like to lift though and try and work out each body part at least once a week. I have done many different lifting programs in the past. Lately though been struggling to find one that complements the martial arts well.

I recently switched to doing a five day a week lifting program. Working out one body each day to build some mass. It has really been interfering a bit with the martial arts. I find some of those days it feels too much, or that some muscles are too sore to be doing the martial arts after lifting.

I know most people here usually do bare minimal lifting or a 5/3/1 style routine. Right now I really want to bulk up a bit though. So anyone ever try a body part split Push/Pull maybe four days a week and noticed it is easier? Or perhaps working two muscle groups each day, and having a leg day? On top of that how do you balance the martial arts days in that? Lift or train and a few hours or later in the day do the other, or split up different days?

Thanks for any help,

Todd. [/quote]

The general rule I go by is that you have to take care of the following as absolute priorities:

  1. Priority #1–you absolutely MUST define which is most important to you a) short term b) medium term and c) long term. This defines what weeks you give lifting or MA your most time/energy as well as how you approach the long term plan

  2. mobility–lifting does not make you “muscle bound” but it can stiffen you up if you a) are not actively working on dynamic mobility and flexibility and/or b) are lifting with shortened range of motion or bad form.

Therefore, you need to prioritize and spend time working on gaining and maintaining mobility, flexibility, and structural balance so that you can move fluidly.

  1. soreness–if you’re experiencing debilitating soreness you can’t do skill drills very well. Not to mention if you actually got into a fight you’d be hampered (possibly fatally if it was an improvised scenario). When I was a bouncer I trained very hard, but always made sure I was not very sore so that I could take care of my job and myself if things went bad in a crowded setting.

  2. food/sleep–obviously. If you aren’t paying attention to what/when/how much, then you can work yourself into a recovery hole and shortchange BOTH things. So don’t do that.

Provided you can do that, a LOT of different training styles allow you to work both art and lifting hard.

Very frequent training helps a lot with soreness, because your body has to learn to adapt to a schedule where it trains before it “wants” to or has time to fully recover. Yes, there is an adaptation time period where you’ll be in agony, but it’s temporary unless you’re doing something hideously wrong haha. This is invaluable, and can be adapted to competitive fighting very well if you have the time/inclination. This option is also very dependent on food intake so that you recover, but it is my favorite.[/quote]

Thank you Aragon, I appreciate the time and energy you took to write out this post as well. My main goal lies in my martial arts. I am not competitive because it is street self defense type training strictly. I however am also teaching come June and need to be sharp enough, not just for myself but representing the organization and for students. My long term goal with it is just continuing to improve and become more efficient over time.

I am not looking for anything too particularly outward with it, It is almost a kind of spiritual thing for me in a way. Regardless I have been at it ten years, and plan to continue to do it the rest of my life. For lifting I have been doing it almost as long, my goals are to just gain a bit of size and strength each year. I wanted to compete before but not as keen on that anymore. Mainly the longevity and health benefits. I have always been sure to stay on top of my mobility, along with adequete stretching and ART to prevent injuries and stay healthy. Actually have been using an article from T-Nation a lot with it. Bulletproof Your Body

Soreness is definitely something I have to pay attention to, have had trouble with it in the past. However I was not in a ring fight or bouncing like you so it wasn’t as risky or detrimental. At least outside of having lousy technique and not getting the best out of my training when sore. I usually make sure to avoid DOMS triggers and keep things within means in the gym to offset it. When I adjust to training programs it is not a huge issue either. Food and Sleep have never been too much of an issue. I definitely make sure to eat enough, get proper macros, and balance my electrolytes and micro minerals to help support all of that. Low stress lifestyle, meditation, and all that good stuff too.

The biggest hurdle I have been having is just some health issues. I contracted Lyme disease a few years back went undiagnosed for a while, and have been treating it the past nine or so months. I gained a lot of my health back which means a lot because it almost killed me, however my body is still not fully back together yet. No lasting damage or anything just have to be careful while my body gets back into equilibrium. Even though I am doing the martial arts and lifting I take it easy in the gym, try not to burn myself out with the martial arts either. I gained 15 pounds back the past four months with no noticable fat gain while doing it all. I just pay extra attention to recovery/need to make sure my immune system remains strong.

My pleasure. It sounds like you are on top of the general items in terms of your goals and that should make it much easier to determine your abilities in the gym.

Supplementation is a big area I feel plays into recovery and DOMS as well. Properly taking care of that can have positive effects on strength and size gains while not letting the harder workouts drain your JKD time. Lyme disease is a bitch and I am very glad you are on the upswing. Once you get back to 100% you will be able to push it harder as well.

Again, I really advocate a high frequency plan since it sounds like you are very grounded in the other aspects already. Frequency allows you to get more growth and strength stimulus while also keeping soreness at bay. Since you stated you are in a place where you can do both training and JKD in a day you should not have too much trouble spacing them far enough apart to eat and recover for teaching/sparring/JKD. A sort of stripped down version of olympic lifting style templates comes to mind, or a WSB or 5/3/1 style of training at full frequency rather than cut down.

I don’t know how your school trains JKD, but I might suggest finding a fight house and maybe even stepping in the ring a couple times in amateur fights to really get a firsthand feel for the pain level involved in fighting. It doesn’t require you to want to be a competitive fighter long term at all, but what it will do is to help you distill what you are learning into practical and reliable bits and discern where you lie with regard to pain tolerance. I feel it will inform your teaching and art rather than detracting from it, because it makes you test your limitations and adaptability under a stress level that is simply not available at the school. Unless you guys are doing full contact sparring, which would be great. Still though, even under full contact sparring conditions there’s no “threat” because generally your goal is not to hurt your sparring partners but train :). I have known several fighters that have developed “I go, you go” habits from sparring that have hurt them in the ring. They will hurt doubly in a street situation, which is what you have stated you want to go into. I don’t want to come across as telling you how to train your own art though, so I’ll leave it at that. I think it’s a useful measuring stick.

Best.

[quote]cstratton2 wrote:

[quote]shallowseason wrote:

[quote]cstratton2 wrote:

[quote]shallowseason wrote:
I just started training martial arts (BJJ 3x/week and Muay Thai 2x/week) in addition to 5/3/1, and I’ve been trying to cut weight, so I don’t have any experience attempting to gain mass while also working on my martial arts training, but I can tell you from past experience that the Westside for Skinny Bastards upper/lower split worked wonders for my mass gains in the past. Again, I wasn’t training martial arts at the time, but I think you can make the gains you want on a four day a week split. The reason I prefer 5/3/1 is because going on the prescribed reps is optional, because it lays out percentages that are submaximal and because the assistance exercises are customizable/optional. As FightingIrish mentioned, there are only so many hours in the day, and you only have so much energy to give, so it helps to have a program that isn’t forcing you to put up new 3 rep maxes every week and is flexible.

So, I’d personally advocate for the 5/3/1 protocol, and you can customize accessory lifts to reach your mass gaining goals. And if you find that four days of 5/3/1 is too much to go along with your JKD and that you don’t want to sacrifice your time training JKD, you can switch to the 2-day/week variant of 5/3/1.

Just my two cents. Hope that helps![/quote]

It helps man, thank you for chiming in. To be honest in terms of energy and time I have space to do both in a day. The issue I was concerned about was overtraining. I only get together with my friend twice a week for the real JKD classes in Santa Ana. Other then that it’s really the technical training on my own.

Just working my punches, kicks, foot work, combinations, etc. (never full power or speed usually). I thought this didn’t sound too bad but maybe to others it seems like alot combined with the weights. Or I didn’t clarify enough on my original post.

I was going to attempt the 5/3/1 program again before in conjunction with the martial arts, just wasn’t sure if it was too much. After the responses here, I felt it was also wise to listen to others who do both as well.

Your martial arts schedule sounds a lot more cardio impacting then what I usually do though. You train 5/3/1 four days a week with assitance exercises doing all of that? How do you feel with recovery, and I know you said you just started but how long is that exactly?

Whether a person wants to gain or cut weight taking on a higher work load though seems simple. Just adjust calories to either gain weight, or lose. Making sure macros are met as needed, the diet is nutritious enough to give necessary micro minerals, sleep is optimal, mobility and stretching exercises are implemented strongly,using additional supplements if needed.

The challenge I guess is making sure you have enough balance that you are not over reaching too long, not turning the body catabolic, and having training between the two optimized that workload doesn’t create injury.

[/quote]

I started at the end of January with Muay Thai and added BJJ in mid-March. I’d say I spend a combined total of 8 hours a week training the two arts, and I’ve managed to continue hitting the gym four days a week for 5/3/1 while cutting weight. This would all be way too much for me if I was going 100% in the gym though. I started with very conservative estimations for my maxes for 5/3/1 and add weight every two, sometimes even three cycles instead of one. But that’s mainly because I’m eating under maintenance and not because I feel overtrained. And if you only have two formal sessions of an art a week, I’d say it’d be hard for you to overtrain on 5/3/1 4x/week. [/quote]

Thanks for the information man. Seems like you got a lot on your plate and hope you see improvements with it all! Yes, I felt similar but again maybe I didn’t clarify enough on the original post so seemed more to others. I will eventually move into three classes a week. Typically an hour for tuesday and thursday, Saturday class is two hours. Still nothing too major. [/quote]

Thanks, man. I put in a lot of work, but the nature of martial arts and lifting means that we’ll always be rewarded for our efforts eventually.

I’d say you’ll do fine on a four day a week program. I agree with Aragon regarding high frequency protocols. Your body will much better adapt to lifting four days a week at a lower volume than it would a high volume, low frequency program. I also feel like your nervous system responds better to high frequency programs, but that’s just a personal hunch. So I’d personally recommend maintaining high frequency and adjusting your volume/intensity as needed.

Hello Loftearman,

I was wondering how to go about contacting you to become an online client? Private Messaging does not seem to work.

I have not had the greatest success going it alone. After reading your posts, and the advice you have provided, I thought I would reach out to you.

The program you provided in this thread looks great; it fits into my restricted schedule. I just had questions regarding certain areas and long term goals.

Thank you.

[quote]RDSOffense wrote:
Hello Loftearman,

I was wondering how to go about contacting you to become an online client? Private Messaging does not seem to work.

I have not had the greatest success going it alone. After reading your posts, and the advice you have provided, I thought I would reach out to you.

The program you provided in this thread looks great; it fits into my restricted schedule. I just had questions regarding certain areas and long term goals.

Thank you.
[/quote]

Lofty is excellent at what he does. Good choice.

Thanks, Irish.

Both you and Loftearman are big influences on how I am approaching training now.

P.S - I did Kelly McCann’s Detroit Kembativz seminar this past weekend. Amazing to get coached by, and feel (!), the techniques directly from the man himself. Your comments and review of training with him were spot on. Thanks.

[quote]RDSOffense wrote:
Thanks, Irish.

Both you and Loftearman are big influences on how I am approaching training now.

P.S - I did Kelly McCann’s Detroit Kembativz seminar this past weekend. Amazing to get coached by, and feel (!), the techniques directly from the man himself. Your comments and review of training with him were spot on. Thanks.[/quote]

Oh no shit! I saw that he’d gone there this weekend, awesome you got to go!

The training with him is worth every fucking penny.

And he’s a bad, bad motherfucker.