Edmonton man combines kung fu and fitness
Chris Zdeb, edmontonjournal.com
Published: 9:48 am
Martial arts classes don’t make you fit or get you in shape. It’s a martial arts myth, says Mike Wittig who studied kung fu for 16 years but joined a gymnastics class to get the conditioning he wanted.
“People assume a martial arts person is very fit, but realistically, when you’re really good at kung fu, for example, you don’t really need to be that flexible, you don’t really need to be in shape and the muscles that you don’t use aren’t strong,” he explains. Wing chun, a form of kung fu, allows anyone of any size, including children, to evade and redirect an opponent’s attack once they’ve mastered the technique. So Wittig knows black belts who can’t do a single push up, or they can do several push ups but can’t run.
Such lack of balanced fitness increases the risk for injury, which prompts many people who compete in martial arts tournaments to go to a gym and do a lot of fitness training on their own.
Why isn’t that part of martial arts training? says Wittig, who, inspired by his own knee and lower back injuries, decided to combine kung fu with fitness and created Kung Fit.
Over four weeks and 16 sessions, clients learn the 12 basic moves of kung fu fighting, but more importantly they run, jump, do push-ups and ab exercises and build an overall level of fitness at their own pace, he says.
At the top level, they’re able to do 100 push-ups and run three kilometres in the river valley, including stairs in 20 minutes. “They’re Kung Fit,” Wittig says.
Read more about Kung Fit in Monday’s Journal Body and Health section.
Well, let’s look forard to learning more in their article tomorrow!