Help with kung fu conditioning

[Chris.H]

Greetings everyone,

I was wondering if you guys know any links/books/videos to kung fu body conditioning/training? I used to do kung fu on and off the last few years, but my current job has stopped me going to training, but I still have a fanatic passion for the body training that chinese martial arts provides.

The sort of conditioning I'm after is the non-striking kind (striking with my hands was affecting my digital art skills). The conditioning of muscles/joints/ligaments is what I'm after. For example wrist rolls with weight on a rope, twist sitting without using hands to get up (if that makes sense haha), striking the bell with a long stick like I think on Jet Li's 36 rooms of shaolin, etc...

If anyone could offer any references, that would be much appreciated.

Oh I almost forgot, if anyone has any exercises/stretches to offer to help me with back bridging, that would be great too, I still can't pull it off haha.

Thanks for taking time to read this, and I hope to hear back from you.

Cheers,

Chris


'My God is me, because I believe in myself'

[kristcaldwell]

yang jwing ming has a video that's 3 hours + dedicated to the subject of kung-fu conditioning...i suggest you give it a look, it's very interesting (and previews are available on youtube).

[Chris.H]

cheers kristcaldwell,

Some of that was amazing, I'll have a look into the video

[bawang]

do squats.

[IronFist]

Are you looking for bodyweight exercises?

pushups (pecs, anterior (front) deltoids, triceps)

diamond pushups so your hands are closer and it makes a diamond shape between your index fingers and thumbs (pecs, triceps, anterior deltoids)

handstand pushups against a wall (anterior delts, triceps)

one arm pushups (pecs, anterior delts, triceps, core)


crunches (abs)

planks (abs)

side planks (obliques)

Janda situps - Google it (abs)


Hindu squats - google it (quads)

One legged squats/pistols - google it (quads)


plyometric jumping (quads)


There really aren't many back/biceps exercises you can do without some equipment. The best bet is doing pullups and chinups which works the lats and the biceps, but this requires a chinup bar (or a tree branch or monkey bars at the playground). It also assumes you can do a chinup or pullup, which not everyone can when they're a beginner.


There aren't really any lower back exercises you can do without weights, unless you wanna do "iron bridge" which is when you put the back of your head on one chair and your heels on another chair and keep yourself horizontal, but I wouldn't recommend that to a beginner (or at all, honestly).

[Chris.H]

Thanks guys, hopefully anybody else who is after the same results, can use some of the advice you've provided.