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have an owner's manual for your car, your stereo and even
your blender, so why not your body? The Fighter's Body is
exactly that, an owner's manual for your body, the most complex
piece of equipment you will ever own. As a martial artist,
you have special needs. Have you ever wondered how that latest
fad diet might affect your performance on the mat? Ever wanted
to take off a few extra pounds? How about putting on muscle
without slowing down? Make weight for a tournament? Lose 5
pounds fast? Eat better? Change weight classes? Confused about
supplements, vitamins and protein shakes? Can't make sense
of the food pyramid? Don't know where to start? Start here.
Author Loren Christensen and personal trainer Wim Demeere
combine their knowledge of martial arts, weight training,
nutrition, diet and exercise to answer your questions and
put you on the road to becoming the best martial arts athlete
you can be. This book will answer your questions about important
topics including: Why some diets are harmful for martial artists;
How to calculate your protein needs for training; When and
how to use supplements; How to eat at fast food places and
not ruin your diet; Why it's okay to splurge on "Dirt
Day"; How to safely make weight for a tournament; Why
HIIT training is essential to weight loss; What to eat on
competition days; How to create a plan that works and stick
to it.
All Customer Reviews
4 out of 5 - July 24, 2006
Definitely recommended for anyone wishing to
step up their martial arts, this is also a good book for someone
looking for ideas on how to add some spice to their everyday
training, or wanting a practical guide to sports nutrition.
Authors Christensen and Demeere have clearly
been round the block a time or two, once or twice on their
knees, and they share with their readers their experiences,
good and bad, of different training regimes and nutritional
mixes. There's nothing cranky or foody about the content -
no shamen or charlatans, no Atkins or F-plans here. There's
lots of very practical advice on how and how not to train
and eat, when you can afford to rest or transgress, and what's
downright dangerous.
There are sections dealing with how to train
and eat in order to lose, hold or gain weight, how to build
strength, stamina and speed, and a particularly welcome introduction
to High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT). The only criticism
I have of the section on HIIT, as with many of the sections,
is its concentration on striking techniques (punching and
kicking, bagwork and so on) at the expense of throwing or
grappling techniques. As a judoka who has also studied karate,
aikido and t'ai chi, I'm reasonably familiar and comfortable
with the whole range of techniques, and still incorporate
bagwork in my training regime (even more now), but for those
who really specialise in judo or want to do some serious cross-training
it might have been useful to show how, say, uchi komi could
be used in an HIIT context.
The authors also seem to have a somewhat idealised
view of the level of control most of us have over our working
day - the ability to eat your pre-training snack at 4 pm in
readiness for your 6 pm training session is nothing but a
fleeting dream for most of us, I would suppose, as is eight
hours' sleep a night.
But that's just to cavil about a book which
has, in a short while, had a definite impact on the way I
train. Most useful for me, I guess, has been the information
on exactly what it is the protein, carbs, fats, vits and other
supplements are doing and can do. It's some credit to the
authors that even a non-foodie like me has actually recently
been seen reading the nutritional information on labels!
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