Training light is still training
We all have days where we are tired, unmotivated and feeling down. We know we should train but we can not find the motivation to trek to class and give training the energy you feel it needs.
If you regularly find yourself in this situation here are some tips and tricks that will help you make it to training and get the most out of it.
Learn to train light
This is something that beginners to kickboxing tend to struggle with. You want the pad to make a loud crack when you hit it and for the endorphins to flow after each session. Don’t get me wrong this is an important part of training, you need to enjoy it, but it is not the end all to be all.
In order to understand the importance of training light you need to slightly change your mentality. Kickboxing in fact any style of martial art is a skill, and skills take time. The shift in mindset is learning to recognize that mastering the skill of kickboxing is a process and the more hours we accumulate over years of training leads to mastery. So learning to train light or another way to put it ‘technically’ will lead to your development of the skills required to master kickboxing over a longer period of time instead of doing short bursts of high intensity training that leave you a shell of a person.
It is still important to have a break
Remember that although training is the foundation of mastering the skill of Sanda Kickboxing, you also need to give your body time to recover this is for a couple of reasons:
Without recovery your body will not adapt: exercise is a stressor that forces adaptation but your body needs proper rest, nutrition and sleep to make those adaptations and the harder you train the more rest you need, so train hard and rest hard.
Your brain also needs a rest: have you ever stopped doing something for a couple of days and you come back feeling sharper. That is because when you were resting your brain was developing new neural pathways and figuring out how to be a better kickboxer. This will happen more when you sleep so make sure you get your eight hours in!
The signs of when to take a couple of days off training
So now that you know the importance of training light and what wonders having a break can do. You now need to learn the signs of overtraining and when it is important to take your foot off the gas.
Here are list of symptoms to look out for:
Not feeling recovered or well rested between sessions
Feeling of heaviness or tiredness that does not improve with proper sleep or nutrition
Loss of interest or pleasure in kickboxing, difficulty concentrating and brain fog
Finding it hard to sleep, feeling depressed and inability to relax
Getting sick more often, loss of weight or appetite
A decrease in athletic performance, you may find it take more effort to perform techniques and you keep injuring yourself
What do I do if I am feeling any of these symptoms?
It’s easy, take a couple of days off and restart training when you are feeling well rested and your body and mind have recovered. You will be amazed at how a couple of days off can completely change your kickboxing.
When do I need to take a day off and when do I need to train light?
When you start your kickboxing journey this will honestly be quite a hard thing to gauge. This is because you will not know what overtraining feels like until you have experienced it.
The truth is that most people will not enter the overtraining zone as training one to two hours a week will not push most people into the red. That said, everyone is different and if you start experiencing the above symptoms take a couple of days off and see if that improves your kickboxing.
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