How many reps? point of drills?

Tim's Discussion Board: Concepts : How many reps? point of drills?
   By Brian Kennedy on Monday, December 06, 2004 - 04:28 am: Edit Post

I remember in some thread folks talking about how many repetitions one should do of a given move to get it right. If I remember right it came out in the context of how long does it take to be able to apply taijiquan in real fights. In the course of that thread somebody, I think it was Tim, used the example of learning to ride a bike. Learning to ride a bike is a fairly complex set of motor skills but Tim pointed out that it does not (normally) take thousands of repetitions or years for a kid to learn to ride a bike.

I have thought a lot about that. I remembered back to when I learned to ride and it took me two days. The first day was my dad helping me out by steadying the bike while I learned to pedal it and tried to stay on. We only did about 10 repetitions that day, as my dad got tired of messing around with it. Then next day on about the third try, it clicked and I could ride¡Xafter a fashion. But by the end of the week I could ride as well as I ever was going to be able to ride.

Okay then, mastery of bike riding; two days, about twenty repetitions. Now rather than talk about something complicated like learning to use taijiquan in a fight let me keep the question simple; learning to do a jab-cross combo, western boxing style.

Most western boxers do this combo thousands of times either as shadowboxing or against the mitts. Why?

Are they:
Just warming up?
Just taking some exercise, doing it for the aerobic conditioning?
Doing it because their coach tells them to and their coach is telling them to because that is what his coach did; i.e. it is traditional training without any real reason behind it?
Doing it because you do not always have a sparring partner or an open ring and rather than just stand around they do these kinds of drills?
Wasting their time??

Do these kinds of drills have any purpose in terms of really improving their technical execution (i.e. making the combo "perfect") or speed?

What do you folks think? I should be quick to mention I am not anti-drilling. In our school we do these kinds of shadow drills and mitt drills all the time. And I realize that mitt drills can have other purposes such as improving your timing and giving the instructor some idea how hard and snappy your hits are so he can make suggestions on what you are doing right and what you are screwing up.

Take care,
Brian


   By Kenneth Sohl on Monday, December 06, 2004 - 09:48 am: Edit Post

Learning to punch properly and developing a truly devastating blow are 2 different things. My experience is that such repetition is necessary for increasing power and strength, as form follows function. Of course, they make for good consistent self training in addition to partner training, not just because a partner isn't available. Perhaps should be among main coniditioning exercises for fighters (supplemented by calisthenics, etc.) due to nature of the movements
Having the proper sense of timing to insure complete transmission of a punch's force against a live opponent who will negate much of it with instinctive movement is yet another thing, I think.


   By Chad Eisner on Monday, December 06, 2004 - 02:36 pm: Edit Post

The more your body goes through a particular motion, the more cofortable it gets. The more comfortable it gets, the more relaxed and 'unconsious' performing that move becomes. The less tension in movement, the less energy expended and thus, the more effecient that movement becomes. When fighting you want to be as effcient as humanly possible to stay up with theaction. That goes for all types of combative situations: sparring, street defence, ect. ect. ad nauseum.


   By Michael Andre Babin on Tuesday, December 07, 2004 - 09:11 am: Edit Post

A hundred reps of any martial drill is better than ten only if the other ninety have the same amount (or better) of attention to detail and body mechanics.

It is also best to practise reps with a partner at whatever you are training to do --whenever possible -- particularly for anything that is supposed to be martial in any way.

Practising by yourself only teaches you to practise by yourself, unless you are already an expert.


   By Mark Hatfield (Unregistered Guest) on Tuesday, December 07, 2004 - 05:35 pm: Edit Post

Brian. There's an older thread called Quality vs Quantity. You might want to browse that.


   By Kenneth Sohl on Wednesday, December 08, 2004 - 07:46 pm: Edit Post

Michael, you don't need a partner to do conditioning drills, which many high repetition exercises would fall under (but you are right, high reps with partner is great reaction traiing). How much time and effort you put into solitary training can make a big difference in a match. When training with a partner, I won't waste time doing things I could do by myself (push-ups, bagwork, etc.), but it would be foolish to shirk those things as they are every bit as important.

It seems a no brainer. The track and field athlete who trains 3 hours a day beats the weekend runner.


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