Plyometrics and speed on the track - A master class on developing power and speed in Karate

On Saturday 6 August Peak4karate hosted a specialist session on the development of speed, power and its application within a sport Karate context. Graham Beasley (former GB international) led the track session, first with an extensive dynamic warm up preparing the athletes for the work ahead.



Graham took the group through a range of hurdle drills, not only emphasises on the 'up' movement but the importance of the down stroke and its relevance to limb speed. Graham explained the science of how to maximise power output using the ratio of force and contact time.



Hurdles can vary in height with some of the more powerful athletes attempting the higher hurdles. The drills were demanding and challenging asking for new coordination skills to be used.





The most challenging of the drills was the box format, watch here as Graham explains.



Then came the sprints and although Graham had said he more interested in the individuals power output as opposed to the winner of the 30M sprint, The competitive nature to win was just too much to resist!!



The session was bought to an end with a cool down and a big thank you to graham for sharing his knowledge and experience with us. After a well earned break and lunch the athletes prepared themselves for the Kumite session with myself. The warm up was taken by Michael Burke then we went straight into hand / eye coordination drills.



We then moved onto a plyometric adaption that is specific to Karate. This can be adapted in various ways but here is one drill that can be used in any club. If you do not have benches you may (at your own risk) use people!!



We progressed through a number of drills designed to maintain focus, develop speed and power and to be enjoyable.



There were a number of burning questions but the most prevalent was how often would you do a track session of this nature and how long before we can see the benefits of this type of training. The fact is you would do this session once or twice per week dependant of other sessions you have planned, recovery time and total hours you have available to train, so as many are not training like professional athletes once per week should suffice.

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog and hope you may be able to attend the next session of we will focus on speed / endurance.

Willie Thomas
National Kumite Coach

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EKF 2011 European Karate Championships - ZURICH

I was fortunate to attend this years Championships in Zurich to support the English competitors, namely my son Jordan Thomas.

Although there were very few highlights for me to cheer about and some run of the mill bouts, there was some jewels that restored my faith in the game. Here is a good battle within the team final.



The 'mojo' seemed to have deserted the English competitors and as they toppled one by one like domino's, so did the confidence of the next Brit' to take the stage. I remember looking at the mens team goind out to compete looking a little overwelmed, and there presence bearly felt by the other teams.

Building blocks and hard work can resolve this in the future although change will have to happen for this to be achieved for as we know, 'if we carry on doing the same thing we can only expect the same results.