Intense

When it comes to working out, the importance of efficiency is stressed quite often. Many of us, myself included, have limited time for a workout. The typical routine heavy weight lifting over a long period of time (eg. 5 sets of 5 reps at high weight) is neither realistic nor feasible. Instead, I’ve opted for a routine that can be completed in a 30 minute time frame and yet get the results I want (I’m aiming for a fit/lean look). There are two ingredients for this to happen:

1) Incorporate exercises that use various muscle groups all at the same time (eg. compound exercises)
2) Increase the INTESITY of the workout.

There is a guy who works out at the gym in my apartment – his routine consists of a set of exercise A followed with watching an entire segment of CNN or BETTER YET, an entire period of a hockey game. How annoying is that?

The concept of intensity is key here. It’s no problem to choose compound exercises but it’s another thing to keep the intensity high. Some ways to do this are to superset your exercises (do exercise A then IMMEDIATELY move onto exercise B without rest) or take short rests in between exercises (eg. 30 second breaks only). But the hardest part of maintaining intensity is the discipline and “work” that goes into it. When intensity is a priority, there is no slacking off.

The end result is an efficient and intense sweat compressed into a 25 minute workout. I’m serious. You should be winded, fatigued and lying in a pool of sweat when you’re done.

So then, why not extend this to your wing tsun training? Bring intensity into the game. That means, no time for chatting about the weekend. That means, no half-assed pak-sao’s. That means, no breaking eye contact off the target. That means, sweating and muscle fatigue.

It seems that such intensity is few and far between in some classes. Of course, this is normal considering the topics and details discussed in class but even then, you can always fine tune the intensity so that you get the most out of each opportunity. Si-Fu talks about this all the time but we cannot rely on him to remind us all the time. Can you talk to your partner? Of course. Just make sure that when it’s your time to perform the drill, you commit your attention to the drill. Also, take less breaks and increase the reps. Mind you, we don’t want to get into any bad habits, this is where your partner should monitor for that, should your intensity increase too much and your wing tsun becomes sloppy.

Folks, keep the intensity high. Keep the stress levels high. It will make for a way more efficient lesson.

Until then.