Training Dont's - How to recognise bad practice

There is still a lot of poor instruction practice out there. It could be helpful to compile a list of things you should not see in a class. Please add to the list.

• A class should not begin without a warm up.
• A warm up should not put stress on the muscles. No rolling, no break falls, no forceful movement's.
• Stretching should not be done without a warm up first.
• The person stretching should never be forced into the stretch by a partner.

 

It depends on what you define as a warm up,

I'd do a general heart rate warm up first, then some relevent skill base warm up which could include rolling breakfalls.

I would only do static stretches as part of a cool down, at the end of a class.

 

Avoid Anyone who:
- yells "train hard fight easy" puts you through gruelling conditioning session upon session rather than skill development
- shames folks into continuing past exhaustion several times a week
- provides no advice on recovery and nutrition
- tells you to man up and keep training when your injured.

Theres a young man out there that needs to here this, because I didnt - thats a terrible teacher.

 

I've heard all these things from my current coach at stages along his development.

I'd agree that there all not optimum.

Continuing past perceived exhaustion isn't always a bad thing, but it depends what your doing, and if your perceived exhaustion is real, and /or because of the pace your setting yourself.

Rolling with new people who go all out for two minutes and then attempt to cardio tap when their on bottom isnt great, and some people just don't listen to reason.

 

This is what I call a warm up. increase in heart rate. increase in blood flow to muscles. slight increase in temperature of muscles to plasticise the muscle sheathes. Maybe it would be better to call this a body warm up.

only around 3-4 minutes required.

I entirely agree that skill based mental and muscle memory warmups that practice fundamental techniques such as rolling and break falls are good practice following on from the body warm up.

You are young. you may live to regret that when you are older. Just because you can do a class without stretching first does not mean that you should. A gentle stretch at the start of class greatly reduces the chances of muscle injury. The little muscle niggles build up over the years. Best to avoid them if possible.

 

Mobility work after a warm up is a good idea and sound practise, unless you have chronic issues static stretches should usually be done at the end of the workout doing them before can lead to injury and reduced performance.

Some basic corrective stretches held for 10 or 20 secs can be a good idea at the start though if you have specific issues which effect correct movement patterns

 

Re stretching, there was a large scale study on static stretching that said that static stretching before sport was associated with a large increase in joint injures, I'll try and find it, ....... I think it was focused on tennis players.....

So anyways I personally do about ten minutes of static stretching after training, as a warm down, but not before, otherwise I fall to bits,

 

Situational dependent really

In a fight prep class some of the above is useful, in a normal class you really shouldn't hear 2
You should never hear number 3 at all and number 1 only on occasion

 

I think I was pretty clear that this is a regular thing that happened.

It's not situation dependent, its shouldn't happen regularly.
Theres a ton of rubbish coaches in my area that prey on young men that want to be hard and abuse them to give themselves a power trip.

 

It's definitely something that is easily misused by terrible coaches.

But as good coach may use them sparingly without being abusive.

The big one for me would be, not caring if people get injured, and not learning from people getting injured.

So a few people get hurt doing heel hooks in the first few weeks.

A bad coach wouldn't care,
A good coach may ban heel hooks for newbies, or insist newbies spend more time learning about them, or even just clarify what the rules are for everyone for rolling.

Good can look different, in different gyms, the commonality is the wish to improve everyone safely.

 

Apologies @icefield I took your comments much too personally.

I've been on map from the day I started training and you can see the stupid things I did under stupid coaches.

After encountering good coaches, becoming a coach in other sports myself and caring about my students and class mates, It angers me that these coaches and ideas are still perpetuated when they dont need to be.

Classes for gen pop should be a forge not a filtered. And they dont need to break people, like I was getting broken, to do it.

 

This has become my main guiding principal and it's something scant few martial arts classes and gyms take on board let alone think about.
I maintain that martial arts classes should be for the people that need them most. People who aren't naturally confident, strong, aggressive or assertive.
Not just the naturally aggressive fighters looking for an outlet (who of course need an outlet and should find one in martial arts too).
A person with no fighting or self defence experience should be able to walk in on day one, comfortably do the lesson and then by a progressive system of achievable challenges and baby steps slightly out of their current comfort zone walk out 5 years later as a fighter to be reckoned with. Not a world beater or champion but someone with an extra spring in their step, the determination to overcome and some skills to back it up.
As Mango says...a forge not a filter.

 

I think there are good warmups and bad warmups. Bad warmups don't get your bpm above 100 and just waste time, good warmups get you up there in bpm at the same time warming and loosening muscle.

I may sound like a broken record but jumping rope is still my favorite good warmup, it brings the heartrate closer to 70-80% max heart rate (ideal) and warms up the whole body, arms legs and core. Great for cardio and leg strength, essential boxing conditioning, but for some reason you get guys who dis it because and I quote "jumping rope is for girls".

But spend enough time in a gym you will see some really weird warmup routines. One that comes to mind is one guy would do laps around the ring. Now light jogging is a fine warmup, but this guy would end up dizzy after 20-30 laps, gas out, and need at least 10m to shake himself out, and by then your "warmup" is gone. Seriously, I told him he'd be just as good if not better just hopping on one foot or doing burpees.

 

Also, the only place I ever really intentionally stretch is a hot shower or steam room/sauna, because it's a hell of a lot easier and safer in those places than a cool gym, especially air conditioned. I believe AC is the cause of a lot of injuries in gyms...you get the weekend warrior types fresh in from their 9-5 desk job, trying to limber up fast in 70 degree air. Snap!!

 

Like everything, it's more complicated than that: Acute Effects of Static Stretching on Muscle Strength and Power: An Attempt to Clarify Previous Caveats

I like gentle, short static stretches at the start of a class more for breath control and a mini meditation than anything else. They can be good for emptying people's cup and drawing a line behind whatever was going on in their head before class.

 

Good write up, generally I like to keep things super simple, and as such there doesn't seem to be a very good reason to introduce static stretching in between the warm up and the skill based portion.

Why waste 5 minutes doing little stretches near the start, when you could do that at the end and avoid the injury risk, and gain better flexablity?

 

Just 2 or 3 minutes to get people quiet and focused on their bodies. I feel it has a benefit for learning and focus, so I wouldn't call it a waste.

I haven't seen any evidence of increased injury risk when combined with dynamic stretching and training-specific exercises.

To be clear, I don't expect it to make people more flexible, but use it to encourage breath control and body awareness to get people ready for learning.

 

It makes sense, but is there something else you can do that would give them the same benefits without reinforcing the idea that stretching before exercise is good?

 

Yeah, maybe!

 

...thinking about it, I'm not sure I can think of something that is both static and encourages the internal body awareness focus in the same way.

Plus, stretching before exercise isn't bad! As long as you mix it with dynamic stretches and specific exercises, and don't spend over a minute stretching each muscle group, it won't do any harm. The worst it might do is lose you 1% or 2% power, which might be bad for competition but isn't a bad thing when you're trying not to injure your training partners. It might even reduce musculotendinous injuries, though I wouldn't count on that from the scant research.