During the period of closed gyms and limited activities, we learned that it can be great fun to include an outdoor training session, especially with the beautiful weather we’ve been having lately.
Of course, we can all go walking, cycling, running and so on, but as a martial artist, you sometimes want to do something different too.
Of course, follow the rules imposed by the RIVM and only train with your partner, children or housemates while keeping sufficient distance from one another.
Starting with a running session and some light stretching exercises is perfectly fine, but be sure to put some pads, jump rope, a medicine ball and preferably a large kicking shield in your gym bag and take them with you.
Training with punching mitts
Working with pads is great and can easily be done together while keeping sufficient distance. With children and beginners, you can use the affordable punching mitts, but for adults, we do recommend spending a little more on somewhat more durable punching mitts.
You’ll really enjoy them for many times longer. We recommend the Booster BPM2 pads. They’re really fantastic! You can have a lot of fun with the small focus pads, so that investment will quickly pay for itself.
And let’s be honest... we’re all living fairly frugally at the moment anyway.
‘focus pads’ are also very useful and excellent for training: small, often round kicking shields that can be used to practise countless exercises and techniques.
The larger kicking shields are also highly useful, particularly for children, beginners or practising powerful techniques.
Hard kicks on large kicking shields
A large kicking shield is great fun. Let loose with low kicks, front kicks, side kicks and roundhouse kicks. And why not practise those more difficult spinning back kicks and 360-degree kicks as well?
You can also use the kicking shield as an additional training aid during your warm-up and training session. Place the shield flat on the ground and use it as an obstacle to jump over forwards and sideways.
It also makes a great bench, like the ones we normally have in the gym. These jumps do wonders for your fitness and explosive leg power. Your legs will really start to burn.
Besides absorbing hard kicks, you can use the kicking shield for many other exercises: hold the shield at chest height (and gradually move it higher) and jump onto it with both feet at the same time, pulling your knees up so that you tap the shield.
As you do this more often, you’ll notice that your leg strength, volume and explosive power increase significantly.
Would you like to add a more playful element to your training with children (or grown men, it makes no difference ;) )? Use the shield as a battering or pushing pad to push Dad or that big, strong partner away in rugby style. In short, with a little creativity, there are plenty of variations to come up with for a fun outdoor training session with a large kicking shield.
Technical exercises
Would you like to work more specifically on your footwork or on avoiding techniques through body movement (bobbing and weaving)? Stretch a cord (or long budo band) between two poles or trees, or have two people hold it at shoulder height.
Stand at the beginning of the cord in a fighting stance and move slowly forwards to the other side while continuously moving underneath the cord in a ‘bobbing & weaving’ style, keeping your eyes facing forwards.
And for the martial artists among us, now is also a great time to perfect those breaking techniques with our rebreakable plastic breaking boards in various thicknesses.
For very enthusiastic martial artists, we also have various kicking cords and resistance bands to make leg and glute training really challenging. Use these around your ankles during training and you’ll emerge from your training routine like a real beast!
Dummies and punching bags
Nowadays, besides traditional punching bags, there are also ‘dummies’ on the market. These are freestanding punching dummies mounted on a base filled with sand or water. The advantage of these dummies and/or a punching bag is that you can always train without a partner.
Furthermore, you can perform techniques as hard as you like without injuring anyone else. They are of such high quality that you can easily put them in your garden and, if you can afford it, really go all out on them.
Jumping rope, abdominal exercises and similar activities are also perfectly possible, so we don’t have to use this crisis as an excuse to get out of shape. Osu, Ush, Taekwon and keep Training!