Nutrition in Combat Sports

Chapter 15
Taekwondo
Willy Pieter
Learning Objectives
To gain a basic evidence-based understanding of the historical background of
taekwondo
To be able to identify the physical, physiological, biomechanical, and psychological
characteristics that, as of this writing, have been shown to be related to taekwondo
performance
To recognize the most frequent as well as time-loss injuries in taekwondo
To be familiar with the injury mechanisms and preventive measures for both
general and time-loss injuries in taekwondo
15.1 History and Rules
Taekwondo is a modern sport from the twentieth century. It is based on karatedo,
which was introduced to Korea after World War II by Koreans who came back from
Japan. They called it either tangsudo (the way of the Tang hand) or kongsudo (the
way of the empty hand) with its concomitant technical arsenal and philosophical
orientation, the latter of which was basically Chinese in origin [1] .
Taekwondo’s “history” always refers to the Korean hwarang , a youth group
suggested to have practiced a forerunner of the sport. According to Rutt [2] , the
best translation for hwarang is “flower boys,”, for it is a literal rendition and does
not violate Korean and Chinese grammar. Other translations, such as “flower of
youth” [3] , “flowering knights” [4] , or “flower of manhood” [5] are grammatically
incorrect. The concept of the hwarang as a military cult did not become well
known until after World War II when the Japanese started to promote their idea of
bushido , the Way of the warrior [2] .
Our knowledge of the hwarang is mainly based on the Samguk Sagi ( History
of the Three Kingdoms ), compiled in 1145 by the soldier-statesman Kim Pusik
(1075–1152), and the Samguk Yusa ( Memories of the Three Kingdoms ), written by
the Zen monk Iryǒn (1206–1289) in 1279. Neither the Sagi nor the Yusa claims
R. Kordi et al. (eds.), Combat Sports Medicine, 263
DOI: 10.1007/978-1-84800-354-5_15, © Springer Science + Business Media, LLC 2009