Advice - home training vs. cross training

Oldguy

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(I posted this in the standup section. But, I think this may be a better spot)

I am a BJJ black belt and a Shotokan Black belt. I have been training Shotokan again for the last 3 years. I recently took a 60 day break to recharge. I ran and lifted weights extensively. I made incredible strength and size gains. Now that I am back at Shotokan, I am reconsidering the way I treat my training away from the dojo.

In the past, I train in class (Shotokan) 2-3 times a week. When I was not in class, I stretched 45 minutes and then spent an hour every day doing basics, kata, and hitting the bag. I would do this 6 days a week in addition to going to class. It did not leave much time for weight lifting or running.

As a result (56 years old), I started to look and feel frail. I used to be pretty muscular during BJJ. I had a few friends comment and confirm my observations. My style of karate with thousands of reps really brings out your innner Kenyan body style. Muscle is burned off quickly.

Now that I am back, I am considering not doing any karate on my days away from the dojo and focusing on weights 4 days a week, stretching, and running for cardio. No home based karate training. So, it would be a pure cross training program. I would still train in the dojo 2-3 days a week.

I only have so much time in the day. So, I feel I need to choose one. The downside of substituting cross training for home karate training is that my karate skills may not improve as much. But, cross training would be better for me physically.

Which approach would you take?
 
As a former karateka, boxer and Thai boxer, and with the benefit of having a home gym setup, I would chose hitting the weights whilst at home, and saving your karate training for the dojo. A properly constructed weights based program would only help your karate, not hinder it, imo.
 
The basic question is whether non-dojo time should be spent developing skill doing kata and drilling technique. Or, should it be spent building strength and cardio.

For what it is worth, when I am training in class, When I notice my technique slipping, it is usually due to fatigue. Does that imply that cross training strength and cardio is actually better karate training than directly working on technique?
 
For me it's a factor of how far along one is in ones (martial art) training.

There is a law of diminishing return with all training, and indeed as you have discovered maybe even a negative effect.

Identifying weaknesses and eliminating them is more efficient because almost by definition a weakness is an area that has been under trained and will benefit from the greater gains in the early stages.

This is imo the most efficient way to improve at ones sport of choice. Only once one is making diminishing returns.
 
Sounds like a good idea to incorperate some strength training and/or cardio at home. Not only for performance, but more so for injury prevention. The older you get the more important it is. Slowly build up your body with controlled exercises for a few months, but don't overdo it to the point that it negatively effects your karate. Just take your time and be consistent. Then you can always taper it off and keep it to maintanence if you want to increase the frequency of your karate training again.
 
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