As the instructor of Krav Maga Swindon, I’m often asked to recommend supplementary exercise for my students to do outside of their Krav Maga class. My answer: Tabata.

I’ll keep this simple and brief. You have two distinct metabolic modes: aerobic and anaerobic.

Aerobic Exercise

Aerobic exercise should be a component of any person’s fitness regime. Simply, it is exercise done at a pace you can maintain over a period of time, such as 45-60 mins. It might be swimming, jogging, cycling, spin or any other thing that you can settle into a rhythm with and maintain your pace for a decent amount of time (at least 40 minutes to get any real gains.) It’s called aerobic exercise because you are operating within your body’s capacity to metabolise oxygen in the generation of energy. (Below VO2 MAX for those of you into your exercise science.)

Anaerobic Exercise

When you exercise at a pace beyond your body’s capacity to metabolise oxygen your body slips into a different method of generating the energy you need. It can only operate like this for a short duration, usually measured in seconds rather than minutes. There are toxic byproducts of anaerobic exercise such as Lactic Acid, which I’m sure you are all familiar with. No matter how fit you are, you will not be able to sustain anaerobic work for very long. But your capacity to do so can be increased.

More importantly, increasing your anaerobic capacity will have large effects on your overall fitness.

Interval Training

Interval Training is the practice of exercising anaerobically for short intervals, usually broken by shorter intervals of rest.

The Tabata Protocol works as follows:

20 seconds exercise - 10 seconds rest (REPEAT 8 TIMES USUALLY WITH DIFFERENT EXERCISES).

Total, 4 minutes.

The idea is to chose 4 exercises and repeat them twice, for example: Burpees, Pushups, Mountain Climbers, Tuck Jumps. Do each exercise for 20 seconds with a 10 second rest between each set.

The only rule is that you train as fast and hard as you physically can. Absolute maximum.

People often say “Tabata isn’t that bad.” If you say this, you’re not doing it right. It should make you feel (or be) sick, or at least leave you destroyed after your 4 minutes.

Interval Training and Krav Maga

Fighting is profoundly anaerobic. Short bursts of the hardest exercise known to man, coupled with massive stress, which drives the oxygen hungry brain into overdrive. Training in Tabata will make you a better and more capable fighter, there’s no doubt about it. One of the most common lies martial arts and self defence instructors tell their students is “You don’t need to be fit.” This is nonsense. Clearly, the fitter you are the more resilient you will be when you are attacked. Especially if you tried to run and were chased down and forced into violence conflict.

Optimum Regime.

Tabata is so often misquoted as being the best method to improve fitness. Don’t get me wrong, it is, but people forget that the original study included steady state workouts as part of the trial. The optimum schedule may be something like 1 Tabata / day and 3x1hour steady state cardio sessions / week. The balance of steady state and fast High Intensity Interval Training (Tabata for example) will make you fitter than you’ve ever been and ready to take on the toughest of Krav Maga classes.

Good luck in your training.

Will Bayley, BKMA Graduate Instructor, Krav Maga Swindon, Krav Maga North Bristol, Bristol University Krav Maga Society.

On Sunday I watched twenty five people survive what was, for many of them, the hardest physical and mental challenge they have ever faced. I know these people well, every one of them. I remember every conversation. Every concern, worry, doubt, confidence. Every moment’s training. Every hard won technique. I know what it took to learn what they know and I know what it took to prepare their bodies and minds for what they had to do.

I believe in tough. I believe in making these assessments as hard as I can make them. I do not apologise for this. The toughness makes the achievement. And it’s not just achievement these people walked away with. It’s belief. An absolute certainty in their ability to stand up and fight, no matter the odds, no matter the pain or fatigue.

Five hours of hard combat phys, combatives and pressure testing. Five hours of exercise at around 1500 Kcals an hour. Five hours of cramp-inducing, lung-burning intensity. Warriors were made in those hours. In all of us there is this strength. We just have to find it. And we find it in the fires and forges of hard training. We find it ten yards after we refused to quit. We find it over the hill we never expected to summit. We find it in hour five, when there’s nothing left in the stomach, when the sugars are gone, when the muscles have cramped so hard you’re numb to the pain. We find it in the other people at our sides, in the togetherness that truly tough training brings. We find that it was always there, hiding behind years of softness and weakness. We remember that we were born warriors, and warriors we remain.

We don’t hand out belts. Step into class and you won’t see the symbols and trophies of success. But you will see it in the bearing of those who took that test. You’ll train with them and know, without doubt or hesitation, that if you had to walk into trouble, you’d want these people at your side.

They make me proud. Of what we do. Of the effort and the sweat and the sheer, bloody minded drive for excellence.

Spare a nod and a slap on the back next time you hit pads with these souls. Know this: they earned it.

There’s a reason people take up Krav Maga. There’s always a reason. There’d have to be - it’s hard work, hard exercise and not for the faint of heart. And out of the hundreds of people we’ve trained with at Krav Maga Swindon, it’s often the same reason - a desire to learn effective self protection. But what does that mean? For most people entering the martial arts world, self defence is a dream, an ideal they will never reach or realise.

Martial arts sells this dream. If you learn *this style* you will be able to fight/defend yourself/walk with confidence. But all too often this is simply not true. Why? What is it that makes a great deal of martial arts training utterly ineffective when it comes to real world violence?

Number 1. Martial arts is often dominated by a wide range and variety of complex technique.

Complex technique, such as locks, throws, or any technique that requires many separate movements to be executed at the same time, does not work under the pressure of adrenal load and in the minute time frames available. It can be argued, though there’s little evidence outside a few exceptional, world class athletes, that years of training can overcome this problem. This may be true, but if you had a way of achieving the same result in months, wouldn’t you take it?

Number 2. Martial arts seldom pressure test their students. Pressure testing is the practice of applying physical, emotional and psychological stress to an individual while that individual carries out practice of a given technique or series of techniques. Only under these conditions is it possible to effectively practice for the real world. If you don’t train under pressure, how do you know if something is going to work under pressure? The best time to try out a technique or solution is not when someone is trying to kill you.

Number 3. There is no desensitisation inherent in most martial arts practice. Desensitisation is the practice of systematically confronting whatever makes you afraid until the fear reduces to a manageable level.

The third point is without doubt the most important. Management of fear.

For many people, the world of martial arts is shrouded in mystery. We think of old masters in monasteries who hold the secrets of combat and war in their wizened hands. We think of tireless practice, of waxing on and off, of tournaments and belts and discipline. We think it is complex and difficult, as much art as science, a practice requiring a lifetime of study. And yet, the practice of violence is actually nothing like this. Violence is simple. It is straightforward. And effective self defence can be learned quickly, employed simply. It is just a matter of approach.

At the British Krav Maga Association, we carry out regular violence surveys. We send out questionnaires to thousands of people asking for accounts of their experiences with real world violence, mugging and assault. We then collate the statistics. The results inform our curriculum and our instruction. Here’s an interesting statistic for you: around 80% of the assaults we surveyed began with an overhand right punch. The defence against this technique, in Krav Maga terms, is simple: 360 block against the strike while bursting in and striking to the throat. We can teach this technique effectively in minutes. All that stands between you and successfully employing this technique is the mastery of your own fear. Fail to master it and you’ll freeze and be beaten to the floor. Overcome it, however, and this basic response will defeat your aggressor and keep you moving forwards.

So it is fear management that lies at the heart of any reality based training. Fear management and basic technique. Krav Maga, in its original form, is a very basic system of movement and striking. There is little in the way of complexities, little in the way of flair or style. All of this is unnecessary. Krav Maga is simple, blunt, brutal and effective. It is what is required, and nothing more.

But many Krav schools today teach more advanced technique, often including technique that did not appear in curricula even ten years ago. Krav’s basic, functional groundwork syllabus has been adulterated with many aspects of BJJ and other grappling arts. And instructors focus more and more on advanced areas of the curriculum - disarms in weapon defences using locks and complex movement. A focus on firearms work, when statistically most people in the UK will never see a real firearm. Of course there is nothing wrong with exploring advanced technique, as long as you keep addressing the basics. As long as you keep testing your sensitivity to fear and threat. As long as you never lose sight of what you’re doing.

Train in what interests you. Cross train. A little of this, a little of that. Enjoy your academic interest in the martial arts, its history and tradition. Hanker after advanced weapon disarms and flowery Americanas and Kimuras and Sacrifice Throws and Outside Twists. But never forget your basics. And never forget what it actually takes to get the job done. An old friend once said to me “I get it now. The man who wins is the one who is prepared to do the damage.” And that is as simple as it gets. What do you need to do damage? A jab and a cross.

Geoff Thompson, a world renowned fighter and martial arts hall of famer, spent years working the doors of Coventry, racking up over 300 fights. His favoured technique was to deploy a basic fence, issue a warning and then pre-emptively strike with a right cross. Most of the hundreds of fights he won were with a single punch to the face. He said of this: “I train for the first shot. It’s all I need.”

Thompson epitomises real world training. Look at his method. He needs two things to make it work. One, a solid simple punch. Two, the will to employ this punch. All this simplicity hides the work that went into getting to where he is. The punch was easy to learn, but the desensitisation, the mastery of fear and self doubt - that was won with each fight, each threat to his life, each Animal Day.

A good Krav Instructor will teach you basics and pull you apart until you get them right. And when you get them right, a good instructor will make you do them again and again, maintaining the sharp simplicity of Krav Maga.

And lastly, he or she will push you beyond your comfort zones. Because if you are not facing fear and stress in training, you are utterly unprepared for what comes on the street.

Train hard, fight easy.

 

-Will B

 

Reading:

Geoff Thomspon : Animal Day

Geoff Thomspon : The Fence

Rory Miller : Meditations on Violence