Читать книгу Solitary Fitness - You Don't Need a Fancy Gym or Expensive Gear to be as Fit as Me - Charles Bronson - Страница 14

Being a martial artist, the development of the punch is of maximum interest to me, so Charlie’s statement that the impact and power of a punch comes from the tricep and not the bicep made me think. As a bodybuilder for several years, all my focus has been on the bicep.

I weighed 18st at my peak, benching 150kg for ten reps without any steroid help at all. Just good diet, regular training and good sleep, which is very important. The trouble with being 18st of good muscle, you find it hard to even do your shoelaces up. To sort this out I took up Tang Soo Do, which is a Korean martial art, first introduced in England in 1945 by grandmaster Hwang Kee. Our martial art has a fantastic history going back over 500 years. I currently study under Master Tony Johnson who is the best Tang Soo Do instructor in this country, training three to four days a week. Of course, there are press-ups involved but I wanted more so I bought a professional tricep push-down machine and 30 sets of dumbbells from 15kg up to 30kg. Another good sound bit of advice Charlie gave me is bag work.

I have dropped to 15 ½st through karate and am twice as fit, with Charlie’s advice and training aids; my arms still peak at 18in round. It’s not about how much you can press but how fast you can punch. My master’s favourite quote is ‘a journey of a 1,000 miles starts with a single step’.

So, get off the sofa and, if you haven’t trained for a while, get a check-up and join a gym. Better still, take up a martial art. Try a few clubs but go for one that insists on discipline.

As a routine, I do five sets of push-downs with different bar attachments to work all sides of the tricep to get the full horseshoe shape.

A big thank you to Charlie for some good advice from a good mate.

Go on, fight to get fit. You never know, you may end up living another 20 years.