You want to have power in martial arts, have strong muscles through the study of karate or kung fu, and that’s not bad. But there are a couple of things you should know. These things will help you select a good martial art, or even ‘fix’ your training in that style of karate or kung fu.
First, martial arts are a form of calisthenics.
The basic horse stance is a squat. It’s a little wide, but you bend your knees and lower the weight. Holding the weight deep, and for time, will give you incredibly strong legs.
The front stance is a lunge. During the course of a class, doing the martial arts forms, you will do hundreds of lunges. Once again, incredibly strong legs.
Closing muscles quickly with punches or kicks is plyometric. Plyometric means rapid expansion and contraction of the muscles, and results in very lean, dense muscle. During a workout, you can deliver literally thousands of punches and kicks.
Working out with a partner is pure resistance training. Better than any isokinetic machine, your muscles adapt to change and exhaustion, giving you the best workout possible.
Second, there are three types of muscles: slow-twitch red, fast-twitch red, and fast-twitch white.
Slow twitch muscles are good for endurance activities. Long-distance runners, cyclists, they all have incredibly well-developed slow-twitch muscles.
Fast twitch muscles are the muscles of choice for boxers, karate practitioners, and other types of explosive force activities.
Different fighting disciplines build different types of muscles.
Tai Chi Chuan builds slow twitch muscles. You are slowly moving through martial arts poses, this is a type of ‘suspended force’ weightlifting.
Karate develops fast twitch muscles. You are exploding in a punch or a kick.
But both martial arts, all martial arts, are going to develop both types of muscles. It will only be in different amounts or percentages.
Third, the fact is that martial arts develop the best and most useful type of muscle in the world. Different arts give different types of muscles. But all the muscle developed is lean and dense. All of the muscle can be used for anything from lifting furniture to spending long hours in a chair.
The fact is that muscles are the secret of movement and of life. To the extent that you have movement, and here we include the concept of movement through good, strong muscles, to that extent you have life.
And to the extent that you have no movement… to that extent you have no life.