Hello everyone I am new here.

I have a brief question about how to effectively go about cross training martial arts and powerlifting. The common adage among strength athletes is "too much cardio will cut into your strength gains." Moreover I am concerned about psychological burnout training 4 days a week with weights and two with jiu-jitsu. I have tried cross training Judo and powerlifting before and met only with limited sucess. This time I want to make an honest effort to do both activities well. I know for a fact that several martial artists are avid fans of heavy strength training. Can anybody offer any insight on how they can grapple heavy and lift heavy as well? How should a weight training routine be structured around martial arts training if both were to be considered equal?

I am thinking that I could get away with a full body workout twice a week with an optional additional day for assistance work and to do any exercises I omitted during other workouts, with two days on jiu-jitsu. Obviously nutrition is going to be important with regards to this, I'll have to keep the calories and carbs up and have plenty of protein.

Anybody have any advice for a guy who lives for heavy weight training, but just isn't complete without martial arts?

Thanks a lot everyone.

Just be careful to look for signs of overtraining would be the only advice I have. You don't want to end up sliding backwards while making all this effort. Also, you don't want to burn out and end up doing nothing. You already know that the rest time is when your muscles develop, so schedule that rest just like any other activity. If you keep that in mind you should be able to evolve to some kind of reasonable schedule that allows worthwhile progress in both your interests.

Good luck!

[IMG]http://www.fightingarts.com/forums/ubb/smile.gif[/IMG]

Thanks for the reply, I'll have to be careful and maybe proceed slowly until I can strike a balance between the two. My first jiu-jitsu class is tonight, I hope all goes well. I am still sore from weight training on Monday.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by the504mikey:
Just be careful to look for signs of overtraining would be the only advice I have. You don't want to end up sliding backwards while making all this effort. Also, you don't want to burn out and end up doing nothing. You already know that the rest time is when your muscles develop, so schedule that rest just like any other activity. If you keep that in mind you should be able to evolve to some kind of reasonable schedule that allows worthwhile progress in both your interests.

Good luck!

[IMG]http://www.fightingarts.com/forums/ubb/smile.gif[/IMG][/QUOTE]