Martial Arts for Self Defence and Physical Fitness

Introduction

We believe that martial arts training can offer one of the broadest ranges of benefits of any physical activity. The primary gains for adults are listed below. Benefits to children can be slightly different, for example improving mental concentration, discipline, respect and attention span.

Self defence

Arguably 'self defence' could be said to be more about using your head than your physical body. In our classes an example of this would include developing the ability to deliver powerful strikes and combining this with knowledge of where to direct these strikes.

Improved fitness

There are several factors of physical fitness including Stamina (cardiovascular and muscular endurance), Suppleness, Strength and Skill (motor fitness). Our Martial Arts classes pretty much cover all of these to some degree.

Aerobic capacity or cardiovascular endurance (CV), is the ability of your heart to pump blood around the body and get oxygen to your muscles. It dictates how quickly you'll 'get out of breath'. This will improve significantly with training, or for those very fit individuals, at least help maintain it. The benefits CV training brings include fat loss and increased energy.

Muscular Strength is the ability of your muscles to exert a force. Development is generally achieved via resistance exercises such as free-weights, resistance machines and body-weight exercises. The exercises performed in class are largely body-weight exercises. The emphasis is therefore more on muscle 'tone' (a term popularly used to mean muscle definition) rather than just bulk.

Muscular Endurance is the ability of a muscle to repeatedly perform an exercise without fatigue. Muscular power is also important to martial arts training. Here we develop certain muscles to work at speed. Benefits of muscle development include, building stronger bones and joint integrity. The body's metabolic rate will also increase so you'll burn more calories even while resting.

Motor fitness refers skills such as agility, balance, coordination, reaction time, speed and power. It could be generalised as the effectiveness of communication between our central and peripheral nervous systems, or how well the body does what the brain tells it to do.

Further benefits of martial arts training . . . . .

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