The system to choose depends on your interest and your physical composition.
As a rough guide, in Kung fu, the grandfather of all martial arts the split is in two major schools:
Northern systems (were people were tall, athletic and lean), tended to systems more like 70% kicking and 30% hand techniques. They did a lot of acrobatics, and had a superb cardio base because of the use of so much kicking.
Southern systems in which people were short and stocky (more agricultural type) had a prominence of hand techniques in low positions to generate power. They also developed systems that explored the acupuncture knowledge to strike pressure points.
Many think that in the south because of taoism the internal arts developed more, so that internal energy (chi), was used to effect neutralizing effect in the pressure points.
Modern hand systems have a mix of techniques:
For good arm / fist conditioning Wing Chun kung fu is considered great.
For self defense Krav Maga (Israeli commando techniques) has a combination of styles including wing Chun.
Aikido is considered a soft system (circular, redirecting energy type), as opposed to karate which is considered hard direct in straight line system.
The recommended path for stand up fighting is: boxing, tkd, muay thai, varieties of kung fu including sanda.
for grappling: judo, Brazilian ju jitsu, variations of mma.
Aikido is a specialty, has good break falls, economy of movement, and includes sword training at higher levels.
Remember that in original kung fu (Chinese) there were 5 areas: punching / striking, kicking / kneeling, sweeps, throws, holds and locks. It took too long for a monk to become master of all techniques, so the set was broken up and the best students of the different areas were trained in that specialty.
The beauty of Krav Maga, is that the technique has to work on all 3 levels to be accepted: standing, sitting, and on the floor.
That allows to have a limited amount of techniques that can be applied in almost all situations.
I do martial arts mostly for physical training, after a while of doing it I noticed that specialization has disadvantages.
If I box a boxer with boxing rules, I will lose most likely.
If I spar a tae kwon do guy with their rules I will most probably lose.
If I do wrestling or ju jitsu under their rules, they will smoke me.
so on, and so forth.
Funny thing is that when allow to free fight, I can beat most of them easily because I use what I notice they do not know.
Example: I was sparring guys that were smaller than me, so to not hurt them too much I would just clean them and slam them down to the mat, letting my weight fall on them was enough to have them out of breath and quit.
Then I came to a guy that was a wrestler and bigger than me, I did a fake kick with rear leg touching his knee, and he tried to catch my leg with both hands, I did a switch in mid air n kick him in the face with the lead leg a la tkd (actually just kind of fan his face, barely slapping him, but with such speed that he got scared, and decided to end the spar).
So you have to look at your abilities and needs, also at the kind of situations you may find yourself in.
If you are nimble and fast, you can try Hapkido, which is a combination of tkd and aikido.
If you envision close encounters, then muay thai (knees and elbows), and some jujitsu.
If you do it just for conditioning, learn tkd (olympic sport), and apply the training techs to punching and kneeing, etc.
For quick self defense try Krav Maga.
If you want an artistic type with varied people as fellow trainees, try capoeira, is very interesting and acrobatic, just be careful that at higher levels it turns into occultism.
If you want to break things, and be really tough, and have the body and stamina for it, then definitively do Kyokushin Karate.
Jeet kune do, from Bruce Lee is not that known, but in reality is a good system. It is very practical, but they fight south paw.
If I am not mistaken, in the US there is a Christian martial arts federation. They offer training, certification, or you can just join to have training conducted in a more humane and respectful way (I would suppose).
Chuck Norris' system was Tang Soo do, and he was a real undefeated kickboxing champion before mma (mixed martial arts -octagon- type) era.
I have some friends practice mma, with actual mma fighters, a lot of injuries from sparring and rolling: ribs, shoulders, elbows, etc. so be careful.
You can also put your own training together:
Then you can compare a supposedly comparison between wing Chun kung fu and Karate / judo that happened historically supposedly capture in the movie below:
Aikido has a lot of break fall, if you are heavy be careful:
kyokushin is brutal but effective:
View attachment 191410
You can always look for templates and adjust to include your preferred system if working out is your objective.
https://www.muscleprodigy.com/floyd-mayweather-workout/
The best deal on a dojo I ever got was one in which for 70 dollars a month, I could do any training offered: ju jitsu, muay thai, and capoeira. That was a good deal.
If there is something similar to a community leisure center, maybe you can get such a deal, do different systems, pick the best of each and some days do your own programming at home.
Kind regards.
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I do not draw the elements I use in my designs