The GoJu-Te practitioner is encouraged to avoid using the same training routine week after week. We acknowledge the basics and the fundamentals but we believe that these do not make up the bulk of one's training. We also avoid using the same duration and intensity in our workouts. We have hard days and we have easy days. We also need days of rest to enable us to recover. As one becomes more proficient it is his body that will dictate what each day shall entail. This "body feel" come only after years of experience. The practitioner without lengthy experience is discouraged from using this approach fully since he will be the subject of much miscalculation. One that is inexperienced in "body feel" is prone to misreads. That is, he will not be able to distinguish when the body is simply lazy as opposed to when the body is tired. In the first instance the misread will result in under-training while in the second it will result in injury which in turn will result in many days of lost work outs.

Some Rules of Thumb

• Hard Days: Where the effort is 85% or more;
• Easy Days: Where the effort is less than 75% but more than 60%.
• Anything less than 60% is considered an "off" day. Our philosophy is that the athlete who cannot put in an effort above his 60% mark, barring any injury, is served better to rest that particular day and recover so as to enable him to re-engage fully in training.

In addition to hard and easy days the athlete has to consider what part of his training will be background training and what will be peak training. Athletes that compete tend to focus the majority of their training time building the background or fundamental part of the skill required in the sport. For example, in Olympic weight lifters focus on strength, flexibility and speed since these are the elements that are required to perform the clean and jerk and the snatch in competition. In turn this requires individual attention to these areas on particular days of training where the athlete focus only on strength, speed or flexibility. As competition nears the athlete’s sessions become more and more intense and the three different elements slowly begin to merge until competition day approaches. It is hoped that on competition day all three of the elements will come together – the lifter will be at his strongest and fastest.

In GoJu-Te the task is more complicated than the one of the competitive athlete. Since we do not train for competition but for actual combat the need to "peak" is of little significance. However, the idea of "background" training and "peaking" has application in the sense that we adopt the approach. That is, we spent much of our time practicing the fundamentals than refining any particular technique. Therefore, in GoJu-Te the constant practice of the elemental parts of the art is the focus of our practice for the majority of the time while technique is refined on an interval basis. Climate is usually a good guide to follow whereby during the cold months we focus on background and during warm months we focus on refinement of technique.