The Taekwondo fighter's primary concern being his or her martial arts perfomance. The fighter will come to the weight training room or gym with a view perhaps to getting stronger, faster or just generally fitter. However, despite the proliferation of gymnasiums, health clubs and fitness centres there is a definite shortage of knowledge coaching and direction on the subject of weight training for Taekwondo.
as discouraged from weight training for a variety of reasons. The most wide spread myths about the dangers of weight training revolved around the notion that weights will make you tight and give you big muscles that will slow you down. The success of many superb weight trainined athletes in a number of sports requiring great speed, notably the athletes sprinting events, such as the 100m, 200m and 400m have debunked the notion.
The other great notion in the dojang is that if you rely too much on strength then you will not develop the necessary technique, so that although you may have some early success, later when you fight someone just as strong you will loose through inferior technique.
The first thing any martial artist needs to do prior to embarking on a weighting training cource is to define his or her goals. Why are they going to weight train? Do they want to get faster, stronger, heavier, lighter, fitter or some combination of these things?
Phyical Training is bascially of two types - aerobic and anaerobic, and it is your current level of fitness that will determine at what point you switch from working aerobically to working anaerobically.
Aerobic or stead-state training is characterised by the repetition of low intensity movements over an extended period of time. Studies have shown that the absolute minimum work-load required to improve the aerobic system is twelve minutes a day three times a week at a pulse rate of seventy per cent of maximum. This is of course the minimum requirement as a Taekwondo fighter who has to work harder to improve his or her fitness.
Aerobic simply means "with oxygen" and any activity which gets the heart rate up to your optimum training range and keeps it there is ssaid to be aerobic.
Anerobic training is quite different and will cause pulse rates close to the maximum and lead to large build-ups of lactic acid in the muscles accompanied by feeling of total fatique and an inability to continue doing the activity. Anaerobic training is very demanding and severly taxes the trainee, so it should not be undertaken by anyone who has not reached a decent level of aerobic fitness first as the heart, lungs and muscles need to be in good condition before subjecting them to the sort of stresses involved.
Training with maximum poundages in weight-lifting is highly anaerobic, but it's value to Taekwondo practitioneers is highly questionable, espacially given the high risk of injury.