Episode 707 - Setting Up a Training Space in an Apartment
In this episode, Jeremy and Andrew talk about how to design a training space for yourself if you live in a small apartment.
Setting Up a Training Space in an Apartment - Episode 707
Having a training space in your own home could be handy, especially in the time of a pandemic. However, it could be challenging if you don’t have the luxury of a big space when you are living in an apartment. In this episode, Jeremy and Andrew talk about how to design a training space for yourself if you live in a small apartment.
After listening to the episode, it would be exciting for us to know your thoughts about it. Don’t forget to drop them in the comment section down below!
Show Transcript
You can read the transcript below.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Hey what's going on everybody, welcome. This is whistlekick Martial Arts Radio. And today, Andrew and I are talking about designing a training space for a small environment like an apartment or something like that. Yeah, there's a lot that you can do. Stick around, you will find out more when we say more joined, as often can't say always, but often by Andrew Adams, Andrew, thanks for being here. That's such an honor.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, it's always great to be here. And yes, I'm spoiling my new whistlekick dragon hoodie for those that are watching,
Jeremy Lesniak:
And I'm sporting my vintage never settle ability from like four years ago. Because my closet is pretty much all this tech stuff. If you're new to the show, welcome. This is where we talk about traditional martial arts and all of its forms and all the ways that it might impact your lifestyle. And if you want to see more about all the things that we're doing, as whistlekick to support you, in your martial arts lifestyle, go to whistlekick.com You're gonna find all kinds of cool stuff over there. From apparel, we talked about trading products, like our protective equipment, training programs, like our free flexibility program, and so much more. In the store, if you use the code PODCAST15, you'll save 15% on something, anything. So check that out. Now, this show, whistlekickmartialartsradio.com, which has well over 700 episodes, which you can get access to all of them for free, and go to whistlekickmartialartsradio.com for transcripts, and show notes and photos, and all kinds of good stuff like that we do an interview.
On Mondays, we have a conversation, usually for Thursdays, and it's all to connect, educate and entertain you, the traditional martial artists, wherever you are. And whatever you do, we bring in the show twice a week, like I said, and if that means something to you, if you want to make sure it sticks around, consider supporting us on Patreon, patreon.com/whistlekick. Okay, or buy something. I love to do that. If you want the whole entire list that was a really good cadence for those of you listening. You didn't see that. But Andrew, that was very consistent, which is not an easy thing to do. And I'm going to chalk that up to your drumming skill. Okay, that makes sense. Yeah. If you want the entire list of all the things you can do to support us to help us in our mission to connect, educate and entertain. Whistlekick.com/family. Alright, so this came through as a listener suggestion, right?
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, it was a listener suggestion, and also somewhat driven by actually a discussion I had with a good friend of mine. And someone that you know, as well, Abby, who has, you know, lives in a smaller place. And the thought was how to design a training space for yourself. If you live in a small apartment, like, you know, I live in a house, I have a 20 by 20 out building, a 20 foot by 20 foot outbuilding in the bath, that I've got a really nice matted out, I've got a heavy bag. I've got all kinds of stuff out there. But not everybody has that luxury. And so the thought was, how do you design a training space? How can you have a personal training space? If you live in such a small apartment?
Jeremy Lesniak:
When I think back to my days in the apartment, there were a few things that were out of consideration that I think are relevant here. One is not permanently moving things around, you don't own that apartment, most likely, you're probably going to need to take stuff with you. And you don't want to lose your security deposit.
So that's one, two, versatility. Yep. Whether or not you decide to send something like this up, you're probably not going to want it to occupy whatever space it's in indefinitely, you're going to want to be able to move it around. You know, you've been in my house and many of the listeners and viewers have seen elements of my living room where I have a stand up heavy bag, and it gets moved around, depending on what I'm doing. Like that's a good example of something like that. Is there anything else we have to think about? Potentially.
Andrew Adams:
But yeah, yeah, cost is part of it. I think space size limitation is not permanent. And the ability to do multiple, like lots of things with it if possible.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah. And then I think you need to connect here's my favorite word. Why, you know, what is it you're trying to train? What are you trying to get better at? You know, you might have the room for a wooden dummy. But what if you don't train in Chinese arts and don't have any interest in that? You might have the space for a stand up heavy bag. But what if the focus of your At Home Training is flexibility and forms? I think the number one thing that I would suggest starting with is not actually going one of the martial arts things but how do you create more space? Is your couch easily movable? Right? Because I think most of us it's going to end up being the living room.
Andrew Adams:
That is one that I think the thing that every apartment has, I can't think of an apartment that doesn't, is a doorway and a doorframe. It's kind of hard to not have a door. I mean, you could have a studio, you could have a studio space, but then you still have a door in.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That's true. You could live in a yurt. You could live in a yurt. And if you live in a yurt, you probably have an outdoor space.
Andrew Adams:
True. So I'm thinking the two spaces that I was taking would be, as you mentioned, living room for size, right? For actual square footage, typically is larger than most places in your apartment and utilizes a door frame in a multitude of ways.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, and anybody who's been on Patreon knows the propensity I have for developing training protocols, around door frames, like door frames are great, because they're always there, they don't move, you can hit them kind of hard. The house isn't falling down, it was that they don't sas back, they do not sas back. At least I haven't hit mine hard enough that I get any responses. So, if we think about those two things, you know, we've got walls and floor, probably in a living room door frames doorways. What are some of the things that we might implement, that are simple, probably inexpensive, and can be put up and taken down quickly?
Andrew Adams:
Well, the two that the first two that came to my mind in terms of actual things you would want to put in or utilize in your house. Super easy because they attached to a door frame is a pull up bar to work, you know, and both of these are more weight training things. But a pull up bar, which you could actually leave connected on your doorframe and still use the door. And the second one is something that I got into in the early 2000s. And they're still around, haven't used it for a while, but p90x. Because you can again, attach it to the door frame easily and take it off. And for those that don't know, their straps and webbing that you use your own body weight, as the resistance to do different exercises.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Mentioned trainers is a broad category.
Andrew Adams:
And so those are the two that I'm like. Well, you know, for this would give you this is just for more weight training. But those are the two that I first thought of.
Jeremy Lesniak:
So you've got those. And you certainly, if anybody out there who has purchased or is familiar with the strength training program that we have, of course, you know, it's designed with zero. If you have equipment, you can substitute things in. One of the things I'm thinking of and we've seen kind of gimmicky gadgets like this, you know, they make the rounds every few years. You've probably seen them on social media, but some kind of a ball on a string and attached to a sump. Now you have a pull up bar, it makes a wonderful mounting point, you can often use it as a mounting point for those suspension straps. You can use it as a mounting point for a ball like it's absolutely wonderful, because it comes down very easily. But you can take, you know, take a tennis ball and punch a hole and put some fishing line through it and hang it right and you can adjust the height potentially right like depending on how you set it up. Right now you can punch, now you can kick and you have a nice focus target. Cost me a couple bucks. Yeah.
Andrew Adams:
The other thing I thought would be something that I actually have used for drumming based drummers right everybody whether you're a drummer or not, you probably have a vision in your head of what a person marching in a parade with a bass drum, right? It's strapped in front of you, you hid it from the side. And I often have my bass drumming students practice standing in the middle of a doorframe facing the frame itself. And with their bass drum mallet, which in the drumming that I do, bass drum mallets are soft and fuzzy. So they hit the bass, the cord bass drum, which is actually the wall on one side. And then they hit the wall on the other side and it doesn't damage the wall because it's you know, and so my thought is utilizing a door frame like that you could easily put up like a couple of poodles on the inside of the doorframe. You know, they'll stick out into the doorway, an inch or two, but that gives you something to actually kick in or hit with and you can get at it from multiple sides, as opposed to just, you know, putting a pool noodle on a wall like just on a flat wall. You really can only hit it from the front like a monkey waterboarding, right? This way you would be able to get it from different angles. You can get your round kicks, you could get hooks and things like that. But now you're not kicking the door frame. You're kicking poodles or something softer.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, yeah, I like that. I like that. Depending on how you set things up, you may need to take things down. And this is where gaffer tape or painters tape might come in really handy. For those of you who don't know, gaffer tape is kind of like a fabric duct tape that doesn't leave residue, you want to be careful on paint, paint and services, it's probably going to pull the paint off. Painters tape by definition probably will not but doesn't hold quite as well. But painter's tape is great for the floor. If you're practicing forms, and you train in a style where you want to make sure you end in the same place. That's great.
Or if you're trying to track distance, like I'm working on, kicking from a distance and kind of pushing forward on that kick. What's my starting point, and being consistent with that starting point, and then being able to move that back? You know, a wall of painters tape is $3. Yeah, and one roll is going to last you a very long time. Well, gaffer tape is more expensive, but pretty versatile. as well. One of the things I always think of and that I figured this out by accident, I ended up because of a whistlekick event somebody left a very short, like some forefoot bow. And I started using it inside and went, oh, I can still train 80%, 90% of what I need to train with this really short bow. So if you think about smaller versions of weapons, there's a lot you can do there tell me that you can't train, you know, full on Chinese Spear? Or Naginata with a short bow, or is it going to be perfect? But it's enough that you can work through a lot of your things.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, yep. The other training thing that people need to keep in mind is, when you do forms, you don't actually need a ton of space. Right now to work the full form. Yes, obviously you do. But when I was a kid, and I was learning kata, I would actually practice all my kata in the shower, standing in the bathtub, and none of the moves are big, but I'm going through them mentally. And I mean, I would literally turn around and I would like to do little baby steps like low block and then turn around a little bit and have I mean, it wasn't doing fast moves, but just going through it.
And on that same token, if you want to work, the power, and the actual movement, starting your starting position in your living room, all you need is enough space to make one move, go from your starting position and do move one and then looking at check it out, then back up to where you were before getting that first move, then go to move to right you you don't have to go from move one to two to three to four, you don't need to have a 20 by 20 space in order to practice your forms. You need enough space to do one move. And then go back to the beginning and go to the next move.
Jeremy Lesniak:
I was brought up that you should be able to do all of your forums before foot square. If you have a really short stances, and you're just kind of practicing walking through it, you don't need a ton of space. Yeah, if you're trying to improve things, maybe you're not working on the whole thing at once you're picking one or two moves, there's a lot of things you can do there. And again, that's where the tape, I think, becomes really handy. You know, if you take a set and you realize, oh, you know, I'm trying to start and end at the same point. And I know that it's this movement here as opposed to this movement going the opposite direction that's throwing me off. So now you can sit up to pieces of tape and make sure you're consistent from A to B and then B to A as you practice.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Flexibility is something that people often want to train at home on their own. The FLEX program, you know, doesn't require anything again, but one of the bits of feedback that I get from people is what about measuring progress on flexibility? Tape? Yeah, sure. Tape. If you're measuring, you know. So, you experienced the Bill Wallace way. This weekend, putting one foot against the wall, or some kind of exploit, and then how far out can you go with the other foot, put a piece of tape down. Because sometimes it's going to take you months to really move a lot. But oh, it looks like I'm an eighth of an inch past where I was a couple of weeks ago. Cool.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, progress is still progress.
Jeremy Lesniak:
What else, there's a lot you can do in combination.
Andrew Adams:
Yep. The other thing, if you start to realize you have a little more space, maybe your partner's a little bit bigger, you could purchase a stand up heavy bag, as opposed to a hanging one, like the one you have in your place. The other thing that I thought that you could easily do depends, because most of those stand up heavy bags, the base is the part that's really heavy, right, the base is the part that's filled with water or filled with sand or whatever. And the part that goes in it, you put down in, maybe you turn it, screw it in a little bit. But that part is very light. And it is such a thing that you could have the base outside.
Because the base is always metal up plastic rather. So it doesn't, who cares if it gets rained on right or whatever. And you could just have this stand up part in your house, in a closet or whatever. And then when you want to go train, you could go outside, like we're talking about training in your apartment. But if you have a small apartment, but you have an outside, that would be another option for you to then put your heavy bag outside and you don't have to carry the whole thing up and down the stairs or wherever you only have to carry the part that goes in the top. And most people don't realize that those are pretty light.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah, yeah, that top part is quite light. And we understand not everybody's gonna be able to keep things outside or train outside. I don't expect that all of these suggestions apply to everyone. But it gives you some things to work from. Let's kind of go back around to the top, like I mentioned, like making what you have that is not training stuff like your couch, your coffee table, either more versatile or easier to move around. There are plenty of times that I kick furniture. Most people, if you have a coffee table, it's probably pretty sturdy. Take it, flip it on the side ticket, punch it. Turn it height wise, brace it against a doorframe, punch it ticket. Yep. Now you've got another hard surface you can strike.
Andrew Adams:
Here's the other thing, how many times Jeremy and maybe the answer is zero. But how many times has an instructor put a chair in front of you and said, don't kick it. There's a great one folding chair. So, kind of something to lift your leg over? Correct. So your coffee tables in the living room, you don't want to move it okay? Practice your kicks over it, or it may turn on its side so it's a little bit higher and kick over it. So you didn't gain any space, you didn't have to make a huge space in your living room, but you're utilizing the space and the things in it in a way that will still help you in your training.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Right? Most people's coffee table, again, is pretty durable, but also not so tall that you couldn't take a kicking shield and wrap some rope around the handles and fix it. So now you have a really impromptu striking service. Yeah, that's a little bit softer. And it's gonna be a heck of a lot cheaper and easier to store than some kind of heavy bag.
Andrew Adams:
Exactly, exactly. In fact, if you really wanted to, you could even rope it to the underside of the coffee table, if it has four legs, and then it's just always out of the way and you just flip it up. Ooh, I like that. Don't but don't do this. Okay, listeners, watchers don't do this. If you have a glass coffee table.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Please don't put your body through glass. Because we told you to. Yeah. Don't do that. Also don't fall in the shower.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah, that's also true.
Jeremy Lesniak:
That's a lot. I'm missing things. And I really hope that listeners will say, oh, but what about this? What about this? What about this?
Andrew Adams:
Or tell us what you do?
Jeremy Lesniak:
Yeah. Yeah.
Andrew Adams:
Think about the space you have and how you can utilize it best. Keeping in mind functionality, versatility, and mobility, right? The ability to take down and easily because you know, you may not live in that apartment forever. Or maybe you may not own the space that you're in.
Jeremy Lesniak:
Right. And just a reminder, I think a lot of us get wrapped up in this idea that things need to be fancy. They need to be comprehensive. They don't. What's the one thing that you should be working on? You know? gonna be different for different people. But what's the easiest way for you to train that one thing? Oh, I need to get stronger, I need better cardio, I need to work on this form I need to work on, like flexibility or my sidekick or what? To work on that one thing. You know, sadly, a lot of people said to spend the time and the money setting up some kind of training space. They never use it. Don't do that. Do something simple. And use it until it needs to be something else. And then change it for that.
Andrew Adams:
Yeah.
Jeremy Lesniak:
All right. So, Andrew said it. I hope that we hear from many of you. What do you do, you can email us, you can post on the Facebook group when we post this episode in their whistlekick Martial Arts Radio Behind The Scenes. You can leave comments on the website whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. When this episode comes out, tell us what you do there, and you know what if there's a bunch of stuff that we missed, we'll have a party.
I'm looking at my outro notes. I bet on the website, you know, you're gonna find photos and videos and links and transcripts and stuff like that over there. If you're trying to find something that happened in a past episode. That's why we do the transcripts. You can search for it there. And if you're up for supporting us in the work that we do, you got lots of things. You could share an episode, leave a review on Facebook, Google, Apple podcasts, leave a rating on Spotify, those all help us out. You can consider the patreon, patreon.com/whistlekick. Okay, we've also got patreon.com/whistlekick Thank you, Andrew. beautifully smooth, nice and steady. whistlekick.com/family Now if you want to bring me to your school for a seminar, I would love to reach out to me. We will make it happen. Don't forget the code PODCAST15 gets 15% off anything that whistlekick.com and if you've got a guest suggestion topic, anything like that, I want to hear about it. Our social media @whistlekick my emails, Jeremy@whistlekick.com, Andrew’s andrew@whistlekickmartialartsradio.com. Until next time, train hard, smile, and have a great day.