I recently had a conversation with another student at my school about the type of floor that is best to work out on.
Basically what we have at our school is a carpeted concrete floor. You’re not going to slip but it is hard when you fall.
I thought nothing of it. Our Master’s explanation was "When someone attacks you on the street you do not have a padded floor…true, very true. However another student was using a football analogy. He mentioned that many players careers have been cut short due to playing on the much harder (especially the older stuff) artifical surface. I was thinking about that and it makes sense. Once you get a little older and have been working out on the same hard flloor for, let’s say, 20 years it’s bound to have an adverse affect on your joints.
Right now I have no problems but over time I’m wondering if maybe a padded floor might be best.
I’d much rather train on a softer surface so I can perfect my technique while reducing the risk of injury, and then have the one time I get into a fight on the street have hard ground, than to always train on a hard surface and possibly get injured.
omg I phrased that terribly, but you know what I meant.
Just get some firm mats. They will protect you, but they’re still hard enough to know that you’ve fallen on them.
The object of training is to avoid injuries as much as possible.
people glue carpet directly ontothe cement because the carpet layers are lazy and talk you into believing that it is the only way. My first school was built this way, but my second had padding underlayment, and tackless. Cemeted directly to the floor will prevent stretching and buckling, but your installer can come in and re stretch it. Besides, those cheap indoor outdoor carpets only last about five years before you need to replace it.
Carpet directly on cement is cement with rugburns. The parents might think, :"Oh good, my child will be safe here" but it’s bull. You hit your head on the floor, you’re done.
Century sells those puzzle mats-not all of us can afford Swain. The puzzle mats are more costly than cheap industrial carpet glued on cement, but they are cheaper than anything else/
They are also hygenic, and can be mopped each class, or each day with a disinfectant. They don’t hold dust mites, toe jam, saliva, blood, sweat, mucus,open running pus-dripping lesions, or children having accidents.
The mats can be replaced if there is a tear, carpet soon becomes stained, dirty, smelly,splits at the seams,and filled with duct tape, and looks like sh1t.
need I say more?
Century’s are softer but stickier than others. They are not good to do forms on.
And, their key system isn’t the best and the mats will come apart under hard sparring or grappling. However, Century puts them on sale a couple of times a year at least 1/3 off.
I’m going to a harder, denser mat with a better key shape and that has a slicker (but not slippery) surface. Falls suck on them but you should, as IF suggests, put thicker mats down for falling anyway.
Well, we train on both carpeted concrete (cemented without pading) and mats (tatami style). I believe the mats cost about $150 CAD a piece when new. I got it on loan for free right now (working to purchase them). I have to say once you do mats you never go back especially if you are grappling oriented. I am just in love with the tatami style mats. Carpet is not bad just rough on the skin. well, bad fall as well… I don’t mind brusies but scratches are horrible. It takes too long to heal and people wonder why you have all those marks on your elbows and arm when you are in short sleeves. So…
man… Owings Mills Gold’s gym, where Baltimore San Shou was based out of, used to have the NICEST carpeting I’ve seen anywhere, it was your typical wooly/rough feeling carpet, with at least a good half an inch of padding underneath. We didn’t even need mats, falling on that carpet was nicer than falling on a lot of types of matts. Then they had to go and replace it with a hardwood floor to make the aerobics instructors happy. :mad:
The nice thing about soft surfaces is that they tire your legs out quicker. You often hear boxers talking about a “soft” ring making footwork more difficult and sapping a boxer’s strength.
What your master should have said was: “I’m cheap and my wallet comes before your safety”.
All kiding aside. carpet on concrete is usually that very thin indoor/outdoor type of carpet. All it really does is make the concrete fuzzy.
Working out/training on this type of surface could eventually damage your joints and may also cause long term problems. Notice how I said “could”. Everyone is different. Training on concrete is fine for some but extremely bad for others.
Maybe suggest some kind of fund raiser for the school so you can get some proper mats and flooring.
dawg…this is the same line of crap that has been force fed to those who are gulliable and do not know any better for 15 years plus.. padded floors is the best… many of my friends/ students have quit over the years for this reason alone ..it does not make you tougher ..it makes you stupider…for all the reasons that these guys have said above me… and more…many years ago I swept another black belt he turned a 180 degrees vertically in the air and landed on his head…got a concussion …after that they inplemented the helmets…the helmets do nothing for your other joints …yeah you can pad up ..but the where is the real contact in sparring?? …your contact in sparring should be with a solid opponent and not solid concrete…it has no give what so ever…and if you hear about the shaolin monks training on the concrete …well they do …but not for sparring or down and ground training…and their concrete is not made of the same composition as ours..the school is a training facility and should use safety gear and padding and all that for specific reasons to protect the student …on the street if you have been training in a school with no pads and no contact then you will get your ass kicked either way ..by the ground or your opponents…because of the repeated injuries involving fuzzy concrete many people are apprehensive about using certain techniques in turn when the time comes if and when they have to use those techniques they cannot because of the psychological block that goes with it…does this make sense or am I an idiot??
…food for thought
trust me this is true on all accounts…the injuries will happen and have…no ones joints can take that impact for very long,they are not designed for that…
‘When someone attacks you on the street you do not have a padded floor’
If this logic is to be valid then this would also have to be true: Every time you train at this place you go totally all-out, life or death – you truly fight just as hard as you would if your life was at stake on the street; if you use weapons you use the exact same ones in the same condition as you would be carrying on the street; you use no boxing gloves, mouth-guards, or other protective gear what so ever; you wear the same clothes and shoes as on the street; you don’t do any warm-ups beforehand…etc.
good training my ass…the list is long with practioners who have had their martial arts training ended or severly altered because of this STUPIDITY…it stands to reason if you want to keep your students safe and in good standings then you provide the proper protection and training equipment to ensure they will be there in the next class, next week ,or next year…let go of your egos( yeah we are tough we practice on fuzzy concrete…just like on the street man …even the MMA guys do not even do that)… give me a break…it is a liability…and just plain ignorant and stupid…
I’ve trained a lot on all kinds of surfaces. Then all it took was a full tackle (I wasn’t training, I was having a bit of rough and tumble with a mate) on concrete on my lower back to give me constant recurring back problems (bulging disc). It’s ****ing stupid: all it takes is one bum fall.
One day, a few years ago, my senior and I decided to do a few throws in his aprtment. Concrete covered with carpet. I got thrown (ridicuously slowly) 3 times before I quit and realized I was probably one of the world’s biggest idiots. You don’t want to train on concrete. Trust me on this one!
And wood floors are all polished like a mirror and sterilized to hospital standards? With no splinters of course… :rolleyes:
Personally I have been training for years on a wood floor. And I have had no problems.
Kind of like the guy falling out of a tall building… “I’m all right so far, I’m all right so far…”
Depends of course, if you’re not training full throws and sweeps and groundwork all the time fine… otherwise, get mats.
We have a solid painted concrete floor. I have never trained on a padded floor (except for the padding on the boxing ring. I had to learn how to break fall on concrete floor, and has never known any other way. Down here, padding is expensive, I would have to sell my car to be able to afford padding for the whole floor area.
But we do have a small padded area for those who want to train like that.
BTW- we have never had injuries from not having padded floors. We have broken noses, broken jaws, face cuts, broken ribs, body injuries, even broken toes, but never injuries from falling.
