Martial Arts -Top 8 Reasons to Train

Many people want an “easy fix” to improve their mental and physical well-being. Unfortunately, there is no such thing. Fortunately, there are martial arts. While it’s not always easy, training martial arts can improve your mind and body like no other activity. You’ll get definite rewards for every ounce of energy you put into your training. Here are the top eight reasons why you should consider training martial arts as part of your healthy lifestyle:

1. Self-Awareness. Training martial arts is not a mindless activity. You’re not able to watch television, read a magazine or simply zone out like you can when you jump on a treadmill for thirty minutes. Training martial arts requires you to get (and keep) your mind and body in tune with one another. To do this, you’ll be very aware of your body and your abilities.

2. Self Confidence. Being in tune with your mind and body gives you the confidence you need to control and defend yourself. You’ll learn that you don’t need to lose your temper and you’ll know that you’ll be able to physically defend yourself if needed.

3. Focus and Concentration. While training martial arts, you need to focus and concentrate on what you are doing so that you don’t injure yourself or those around you. The best part, however, is that this necessity during training actually carries over into the rest of your life. It improves your overall ability to focus and concentrate at work, school and home.

4. Challenge. In order to effectively train in martial arts, your workout will always be changing. This means you’ll never get bored. You’ll always be striving to reach a new goal to get to a new level. Doing different exercises works different parts of your body and mastering new moves challenges your mind. It’s not the same old routine that you get from exercise videos or from jogging the same route everyday.

5. Stress Reduction. Most people believe that physical exercise alone is a great stress reliever. Well, they are half right. Many physical exercises such as a bike ride or spinning class can help reduce the physical effects of stress. However, if you do these activities, you aren’t helping your mind relieve stress as much as you could. Activities that require you to concentrate on your movements and core strength can give you full stress relief in one activity.

6. Physical Conditioning. Training martial arts uses your entire body. To keep control of your body and movements, you can’t just use one muscle set at a time. With martial arts, you don’t have to switch between upper and lower body workouts. You don’t have to continually research new movements so you don’t get bored. With martial arts, the exercises are always changing and evolving to get the maximum out of each training session. If you’re still not convinced, here is another benefit to training martial arts: regular physical activity can lower your chances of suffering from heart disease, diabetes and obesity.

7. Flexibility. Flexibility training is a major component to martial arts training. While many people think they’re too old to improve their flexibility, it’s never too late to start and the benefits of high flexibility really do speak for themselves: People who are flexible suffer fewer injuries, have better posture and are better able to relax their muscles.

8. Self Defense. While many martial arts do not train specifically for combat and fighting, the ability to use self-defense, if needed, is there. This self-defense isn’t even always physical. The focus, concentration, awareness and confidence you gain from training martial arts can give you the peace of mind to handle most situations.

Everyone owes it to their minds and bodies to take care of themselves and the best way to get an all-around physical and mental workout is to start a martial arts program. Why not give it a try? You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. To make it even easier, I’ll help you get started. Just contact me and I’ll send you my free report on how to pick a martial arts school.

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