Crosstraining with Aikido

I had to all but give up Kendo and Iaido at the start of this year as I found my fitness and recovery suffered. I found three evening sessions per week combined with my tri training was too much. I still do a bag work kickboxing/sparring session once a week (starting again this week after summer break) and this doesn't really affect my tri training. I have also cut my weights down from 3-4 times per week to 2-3 times per month.

I would say keep up the martial arts, but listen to your body. If you are feeling over fatigued or not getting sufficient recovery time something has to give.

I started Karate January 2007 and training for triathlons in January of 2008. I go to classes twice a week, Thursday and Sundays, 2 hours at a time. To start off I took those days off of tri training, however I found I needed a rest day too which would leave me only 4 days of tri training a week which I felt was not enough.

I started to throw in a workout on Sunday, a long run or bike. Then in August I threw in a lunch run on Thursdays as well. I took Mondays off completely. I found that it was doable. After a while, the biggest problem was finding the time to train 3 hours on a thursday and more than 4 on a Sunday.

I do not stregnth train either. Because of this I find my karate classes helpfull in terms of pushups, lunges and core training. And, as others have said, although our warm up is very rigerous, I find normally that at least an hour of the class is technique, which is very easy cardiovascularly and stregnth wise.

I would say that while I hope the Karate training helps my tri training in terms of some stregnth and core excercises, I have found that it is actually the s/b/r/ that helps my karate training because I now feel that I am in the top 5 percent of the class in terms of physical fitness so I can concentrate more on the technique and learning than sucking wind.

So do it. Take your time. Add slowly.