Help All You Experienced Athletes OutThere

ColdFire

Thanks for reading.

Im going to compete in a taekwondo tournament four days from now...
Im in featherweight division and im very nervous as this is my first tounament. My problem is deciding what to do in the next 78 hours or so... Initially i came up with this plan...

tonight - do a hard workout at home
wednesday - train in the gym
thursday - hard workout at home
friday - medium workout at home / rest
saturday morn - tournament yey!

but the blackbelts are saying that i should train tonight till thursday & have my rest on friday, but im hesitant in doing this since their pre tournament training is soooo extreme it will take at least 2 days to get back in shape, thats why i only opt to train in the gym only on wednesday...

please give advice, should i stick with my plan or follow their suggestion?

they also told me to eat a lot of bread friday night, aparently this will provide some sort of extra energy in the morning...
Rolling Eyes

Drawingguy

I'm no martial artist, but whenever I have any sort of competition, it helps to taper for a couple days before. Don't try working out in a couple days before- it's not going to make you stronger, only tighter, more sore, and more tired. Get rest and eat properly the day before, most importantly. If anything, do a light exercise, but nothing tough 3 days before.

driftingfe3s

Yeah, when I was training for running marathons I was told to tapir my workouts before the marathon. I would assume before any big athletic event it should be this way.

What kind of workouts are you doing? I've had no experience in martial arts but if you are trying to do strenght training, it takes lots of time and training for that to take effect. Doing strenth training in the gym a few days prior to a tornament wont help you much.

I've been to a taekwondo tournament before and it doesn't seem like you need alot of strength anyways to score points. It's seems like speed and technique are more important. If I were you I would just practice on technique and not do anything too difficult to minamize the chance of injury and maybe jog and do some light sprints to work on speed and keep your endurance/overall shape.

deStructuralized

Spar and work on your technique.

Maybe run a little to keep your blood flowing.

Rest a lot.

Stretch a lot.

But don't do too much strength training. Strength training is a long and tiring process...you won't see results immediately after those types of sessions and chances are you'll just end up feeling the muscle fatigue when you need it least.

Hard workouts should be what you do inbetween tournaments, not the week before Smile

ColdFire