Hello everyone and welcome back to Rhetorical Roundhouse, your online home for Tae Kwon Do training and academic research. Last week I reflected on the road to mastery and made some resolutions to refine the fundamentals in my own Tae Kwon Do training. To do that, I've decided it might be useful to plan consistent workouts to share with folks on social media. This will hold me accountable for planning a well-conceived fitness regimen as well as pushing myself during training...I don't know about you, but I always perform better when I think someone is watching!
I recently experimented with doing a live video on Instagram for a weekend workout and I had a lot of fun! I learned some important things though that I think will make the next weekend workout more successful. Thanks to everyone who popped by--if you'd like to check out the next weekend workout on Instagram, be sure to follow @rhetoricalroundhouse and tune in Sunday at 10:30am.
For a preview of what the workout entails, I'll share with you how I think about dividing up a 60 minute workout. First I consider the four phases of my ideal workout. These include:
Warming up (mobility)
Building strength (stability)
Increasing cardio (stamina)
Cooling down (flexibility)
In phase 1, I like to do dynamic stretching exercises (like hip rotations, knee bends, leg swings, etc) as a way to compliment simple warm ups like jumping jacks, footwork routines, or jumping rope. The goal of phase one is to get the blood flowing to all parts of the body and prepare the joints to move fluidly. Stay loose and bounce a little bit in this quick, short stretches to make sure you don't hyper-extend anything when you kick higher later on in the workout. Don't worry, if you don't feel like you've gotten that full body stretch at the end of phase 1, you'll end the session with slower, deeper stretches.
Phase 2 exists because of the physiological evidence that cardio workouts are more effective at burning fat if performed after weightlifting or other strength-building exercises. Phase two includes difficult yoga poses, kick extensions, push ups and other body weight exercises. Many of these, like the deep squats, are designed to further open your hips before moving into the cardio rounds. Others target your core area and help increase kicking torque.
The pinnacle of the workout happens in Phase 3 where kicking combinations, boxing drills, and pumsae challenge the practitioner to push their heart rate higher. I'm really going to try to keep this third quarter fresh with some techniques that we may not practice very often in a traditional Tae Kwon Do setting. Ultimately, the goal here is to keep your feet moving, your guard up high, and get a good sweat.
Finally, one thing that I encourage all training facilities to adopt, especially for adult students, is the cool-down stretching period for full-body flexibility. This final phase of the workout includes deep yoga stretches and breathing exercises as well as a focus on improving splits for kicking flexibility. Even 5-10 minutes is invaluable here to keep you fresh for the next workout.
I usually break up phase 2 and 3 into two minute rounds. I think next time I will do rounds the whole way through to keep the warmup and cooldown a bit more structured. Each round will have a one minute rest period in between so I can show you what's coming up next.
Anyway, I'm looking forward to getting better at hosting workouts on Instagram and hanging out with some quality Tae Kwon Do athletes. Be sure to check it out Sunday!
In other news, we've got a cool Good Black Friday all ready for you to check out on the YouTube Channel! Please be sure to hit the subscribe button :)
Of course, please consider donating to the Pil Seung Martial Arts Gofundme Campaign if you can. I know I've been mentioning this for a while but we are well over halfway to our goal. Please support Master Rupert Cox during the COVID-19 pandemic so he and his outstanding team can continue to offer quality martial arts education to the New River Valley.
That's going to do it for this week. As I continue to focus on how to improve my own training I will be sure to continue sharing those thoughts here and more publicly. I'm excited to have a time weekly when I can workout and socialize with the marital arts community so I hope to see you all Sunday!
Kamsahamnida!