8 Reasons Your Martial Arts Class is Horrible for Fitness

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Category : Fitness★Martial Arts

Martial arts offers a number of great benefits, such as improving your overall fitness level and helping you develop discipline, but there’s one huge thing you need to understand. You can’t get these benefits from just any martial arts class. In order to reap the amazing benefits discussed above, as well as the improved cardiovascular health, enhanced reflexes, increased muscle tone, and everything else that is associated with martial arts, you must take a class taught by a highly trained instructor several times a week. Are you?

Here are 8 reasons your martial arts class is horrible for your fitness. If you identify with any (or all) of the reasons discussed below, it is time to switch to a new martial arts class.

  1. Class is held in someone’s garage.

Let’s face it. In most cases, a garage, especially one that is being used as a garage except for when “class” is in session, is simply not the same as a martial arts studio. Not only is a studio climate controlled, which is a must during extreme temperatures, but it also offers adequate lighting and plenty of mirrors. When it comes to martial arts, performing the movements correctly and adopting the proper stance directly impacts the quality of your workout. Mirrors allow you to do this.

  1. There are rarely more than 1 or 2 people in class.

In martial arts, training partners are essential and unfortunately, the same training partner time and time again doesn’t provide the practice or test you need. After all, people come in every shape and size. To truly master a technique and be effective with it, you have to practice will all kinds of people…short, tall, thin, a bit larger, long arms, shorts arms. You get the drift.

  1. Your instructor isn’t in the best shape.

Sure, your instructor may hold a black belt, but that doesn’t mean he or she is in the same shape now that they were when they got it. To effectively teach martial arts, you have to be able to go through the motions over and over without losing your breath or taking a few minutes to sit down and rest/ recover.

  1. The instructor lets a student take over class.

While an instructor will call students up to demonstrate moves they have already mastered, a true instructor wouldn’t dream of letting a student teach class. There is a chance that your instructor will bring in someone who is training to be an instructor and allow them opportunities to teach under the instructor’s watchful eye. This is not the same thing.

  1. Your instructor guarantees you will receive a black belt in 90 days or less.

If these words come out of an instructor’s mouth, pack up your things and go. It takes serious time (years!), effort, and commitment to earn a black belt. Anyone who tells you differently isn’t concerned with whether or not you really know what you are doing. It’s likely that shortcuts are being taken and you aren’t actually mastering everything you should, which means you are probably not getting all of the fitness benefits you should.

  1. They only offer one or two classes a week.

Again, to master and eventually excel at martial arts, you have to practice, so attending one class a week simply won’t cut it. This is why committed instructors offer classes on numerous days and times throughout the week. If the class schedule is so limited that you will only be able to make it once a week, this is not the instructor for you.

  1. When class is over, everyone heads out for dinner and a drink.

Even if you know that you just finished a martial arts class that gave you a real workout and burned up quite a few calories, it doesn’t mean it is time to go out to eat. In most cases, all of your hard work will be for nothing, at least from a fitness standpoint, if you eat a juicy cheeseburger and fries or perfectly grilled steak and loaded baked potato right afterwards.

  1. Your instructor is constantly checking his or her phone.

One of martial art’s top benefits is its ability to help you develop discipline, which includes the ability to focus. If your instructor frequently stops to glance at his or her phone, chances are that they are still trying to master this very important lesson.

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