Drop Sets

What they are: Three or four sets of one exercise performed without rest, using a lighter weight for each successive set. Also called descending sets or strip sets.

Why they’re useful: Drop sets are a great quick workout, fatiguing your muscles in a short time, getting your heart going, and giving you an impressive postworkout pump as your muscles fill with blood.

How to use them: Use drop sets when you’re pressed for time. Don’t do them more than three times a week; you’ll get so tired you won’t be able to accomplish much else. Start with a warmup, using 50 percent of the weight you expect to use in your first set. Now use the heaviest weight you’d use for eight repetitions of that exercise to perform as many repetitions as you can. Drop 10 to 20 percent of the weight and go again. Continue to reduce the weight and go again, always trying to complete the same number of repetitions (even though you won’t), until your muscles fail.

Circuit Sets

What they are: A series of exercises (usually six) that you complete one after another without rest, though you can do some cardiovascular work (such as jumping rope) between exercises.

Why they’re useful: When you use weights, circuits can be a great total-body workout. But they’re most valuable without weights as a warmup of the nervous system, joints, and muscles, Ballantyne says. Because a circuit stresses the entire body, it’s more effective than a treadmill jog, which primes only your lower body.

How to use them: You’ll annoy the other guys at the gym if you do an entire workout based on circuits, because you’ll monopolize so many pieces of equipment. But one circuit is quick and effective. If you’re using it as a warmup, you need only your body weight or a barbell. Or use just a pair of dumbbells and circuit-train at home where you won’t annoy anyone.

One Of My Favourite Martial Arts Resources

When it comes to martial arts, I’m not a big fan of learning techniques through books or websites. With that said, I have to give credit to StickGrappler (http://stickgrappler.tripod.com/), a fairly comprehensive martial arts knowledge base. The site covers the traditional martial arts as well as the less common systems such as bando and jail house fighting.

The site is basic – devoid of design elements – which is something you can appreciate, especially when you’re there solely to reference information. Systems are categorized well and it also includes information on nutrition and conditioning. Although, the muay thai section provides technique outlines, most of them are applicable for the ring. There’s info on krabi krabong but nothing I found on ledrit or other traditional muay thai sub-systems.Stick to the conditioning, nutrition, and street smarts pages as if you practice ledrit or muay chao churd you probably know everything the muay thai section covers.http://stickgrappler.tripod.com/

Blog Shared From: http://oldstylemuaythai.blogspot.co.uk/2008/10/one-of-my-favorite-online-martial-arts.html