Martial arts, Tai Chi

When I was in England there was a point, right before my wedding when I was in probably the best shape of my F-ing life! During those times I was actively involved in martial arts - Muay Thai and Kickboxing at the EFC Club. The thing about martial arts training, even if you never fight, and I am way too fucking old to be fighting (outside of bars that is), the workouts are intense. They work conditions and muscularity. Like gymnasts - you never see a fat martial artist, or rarely, I should say. So there's obviously something to it. 

First conditioning - quite frankly the first time I did a muay thai class, I thought i was going to die if not from dehydration because I had sweat so much from sheer torture! Class after class, however, my conditioning increased and I was loving the effects it had on my body. 

Second - the impact based training. You are basically doing body weight exercise with impact resistance. Let me explain. Throw a punch while shadow boxing and you are doing a body weight exercise that works your triceps and shoulders. Throw that punch into a bag or pad being held by someone and the impact it generates is equal (roughly) the amount of force with which you can throw a punch, kick, elbow, knee, etc! I notice that this type of conditioning makes things 'tighter" especially my love handles. Not sure why, or how, but this was something I noticed. 

Third, and lastly - balance and coordination. Try throwing a kick to a bag while blocking a punch - you are on one leg (balance) and need to coordinate several large muscle groups (coordination). This can only be beneficial for the gymnastics style training I am working on. 

I have started a Tai Chi class and am going to start King-fu next week. We will see if it helps my progression....