IronFist
11-07-2001, 12:04 AM
Here's a compilation of what I've said about it in the past. I hope this helps you out. If you have any questions let me know. All this was taken from the Training forum.
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Stone Warrior: Basic Description
It's a long dynamic tension set. Basically, it's 21 movements, of which you start with the first 3, and then add three more each week until you're at 21. You start the reps at 12, and then once you're doing all 21 movements, you increase the reps by 1 rep per movement per week until you're at 36 reps. Make sense?
Sifu Allen, the guy who demonstrates it on the tape, is a fairly large guy, but I wonder if all his size comes from stone warrior. When I did it i didn't really gain any size (aside from in my shoulders), but you can expect increased muscular endurance and hardness, if you practise it for a while.
All the movements directly translate into fighting applications, and Green Dragon claims that this will build strength through the fighting motions. Makes sense.
However, I have recently come across research that says that even if dynamic tension exercises are practised, one still needs to occasionally lift heavy weights so the nervous system will become accustomed to the stress as well. (power to the people - pavel tsatsouline).
If you have the money, it's worth a try. The only thing is some of the movements on the tape he demonstrates, he only does them on one side. Always split everything up, x on this side, x on that side, otherwise you will look and perform lopsided. After all, you wouldn't train your left bicep more than your right, would you? Excatly. Split everything up evenly.
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Stone Warrior vs. Wing Lam's Iron Body
First of all, Stone Warrior is basically a external, muscular enhancement program. It is designed to give you bigger, stronger muscles. The program is divided into 21 movements, each repeated a certain number of times. Basically you start with the first 3, and each week you add 3 more until you are at 21. Then you start adding reps until you are at all 21 movements for 36 reps. But, that will supposedly take you 90 minutes, so it's quite time consuming, as well as TOUGH.
Wing Lam's iron body is designed to make you more resistant to attacks. It's not really going to make your muscles stronger or bigger. Granted, Green Dragon says the Stone Warrior will make you more resistant to attacks, but not in the same sense that Iron Body will.
One of the cool things about Stone Warrior is that all of the movements have direct fighting applications. This means that you are building power through the movements you might use in a fight. Actually, one of the 21 movements is internal, but the other 20 are external.
You've seen Wing Lam's iron body you say, so I don't need to go into detail of what it entails. Trust me, Stone Warrior is very hard, and all of the dynamic tension used has a lot of bad press by some people. It's rather expensive, too. You might want to find a friend to split it with.
Stone Warrior is definately a unique program, however there are some problems with the copy I have on tape. If you decide to go ahead and get it post a message here so I can keep you from practicing it wrong. (Actually, I've mentioned the errors before, so a search of my name and stone warrior might bring them up).
Anyway, I hope this helped.
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Stone Warrior vs. Weight Lifting
Well, first by "dynamic tension" I'm going to assume you mean "going through movements with opposing muscle groups pitted against each other" and not "tensing the muscles in a stationary position (no movement)".
Hmmm, you've no doubt noticed that many kung fu forms involve some type of dynamic tension. There are even a few that are entirely dynamic tension (Green Dragon's Stone Warrior comes to mind).
Green Dragon claims that their forms not only make you stronger, but also make you stronger through the range of motion that you perform the movements (all the movements in the form directly correlate to fighting applications). Sifu Allen, the head of the company, is also a rather large man. So, perhaps his methods work. In theory, they will make your muscles harder and denser, but not necessarily "bigger" as thought of by weight lifters.
Weights, on the other hand, will make you whatever you do with them. There are two other recent discussions on this forum that cover training with weights for strength vs. training for size, so I'm not oging to go into it here. I would say that weights are the least contraversial of the two, however.
Each system also has it's own drawbacks. Obviously with weights you can pull ligaments, mess up your joints (too much weight or bad form), drop it on your head, and it's even possible to pop blood vessels if you get too much of a pump (don't worry, this won't happen unless you're juicing (that means using performance enhancing drugs), and even then it's very, very rare). Dynamic tension, some people say, can do bad things to you like increaed blood pressure, if you do it too much. I've even heard that it can enlarge your heart and stuff. I don't know how much I'd believe that.
Before I started lifting weights, I had about a year of daily experience with Stone Warrior. I can say that I didn't achieve that much mass with it, but back at that time I didn't realize how vital diet is to making gains, so I feel safe saying that my progress was hindered by simply not eating enough.
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Iron
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Stone Warrior: Basic Description
It's a long dynamic tension set. Basically, it's 21 movements, of which you start with the first 3, and then add three more each week until you're at 21. You start the reps at 12, and then once you're doing all 21 movements, you increase the reps by 1 rep per movement per week until you're at 36 reps. Make sense?
Sifu Allen, the guy who demonstrates it on the tape, is a fairly large guy, but I wonder if all his size comes from stone warrior. When I did it i didn't really gain any size (aside from in my shoulders), but you can expect increased muscular endurance and hardness, if you practise it for a while.
All the movements directly translate into fighting applications, and Green Dragon claims that this will build strength through the fighting motions. Makes sense.
However, I have recently come across research that says that even if dynamic tension exercises are practised, one still needs to occasionally lift heavy weights so the nervous system will become accustomed to the stress as well. (power to the people - pavel tsatsouline).
If you have the money, it's worth a try. The only thing is some of the movements on the tape he demonstrates, he only does them on one side. Always split everything up, x on this side, x on that side, otherwise you will look and perform lopsided. After all, you wouldn't train your left bicep more than your right, would you? Excatly. Split everything up evenly.
-----------
Stone Warrior vs. Wing Lam's Iron Body
First of all, Stone Warrior is basically a external, muscular enhancement program. It is designed to give you bigger, stronger muscles. The program is divided into 21 movements, each repeated a certain number of times. Basically you start with the first 3, and each week you add 3 more until you are at 21. Then you start adding reps until you are at all 21 movements for 36 reps. But, that will supposedly take you 90 minutes, so it's quite time consuming, as well as TOUGH.
Wing Lam's iron body is designed to make you more resistant to attacks. It's not really going to make your muscles stronger or bigger. Granted, Green Dragon says the Stone Warrior will make you more resistant to attacks, but not in the same sense that Iron Body will.
One of the cool things about Stone Warrior is that all of the movements have direct fighting applications. This means that you are building power through the movements you might use in a fight. Actually, one of the 21 movements is internal, but the other 20 are external.
You've seen Wing Lam's iron body you say, so I don't need to go into detail of what it entails. Trust me, Stone Warrior is very hard, and all of the dynamic tension used has a lot of bad press by some people. It's rather expensive, too. You might want to find a friend to split it with.
Stone Warrior is definately a unique program, however there are some problems with the copy I have on tape. If you decide to go ahead and get it post a message here so I can keep you from practicing it wrong. (Actually, I've mentioned the errors before, so a search of my name and stone warrior might bring them up).
Anyway, I hope this helped.
-----------
Stone Warrior vs. Weight Lifting
Well, first by "dynamic tension" I'm going to assume you mean "going through movements with opposing muscle groups pitted against each other" and not "tensing the muscles in a stationary position (no movement)".
Hmmm, you've no doubt noticed that many kung fu forms involve some type of dynamic tension. There are even a few that are entirely dynamic tension (Green Dragon's Stone Warrior comes to mind).
Green Dragon claims that their forms not only make you stronger, but also make you stronger through the range of motion that you perform the movements (all the movements in the form directly correlate to fighting applications). Sifu Allen, the head of the company, is also a rather large man. So, perhaps his methods work. In theory, they will make your muscles harder and denser, but not necessarily "bigger" as thought of by weight lifters.
Weights, on the other hand, will make you whatever you do with them. There are two other recent discussions on this forum that cover training with weights for strength vs. training for size, so I'm not oging to go into it here. I would say that weights are the least contraversial of the two, however.
Each system also has it's own drawbacks. Obviously with weights you can pull ligaments, mess up your joints (too much weight or bad form), drop it on your head, and it's even possible to pop blood vessels if you get too much of a pump (don't worry, this won't happen unless you're juicing (that means using performance enhancing drugs), and even then it's very, very rare). Dynamic tension, some people say, can do bad things to you like increaed blood pressure, if you do it too much. I've even heard that it can enlarge your heart and stuff. I don't know how much I'd believe that.
Before I started lifting weights, I had about a year of daily experience with Stone Warrior. I can say that I didn't achieve that much mass with it, but back at that time I didn't realize how vital diet is to making gains, so I feel safe saying that my progress was hindered by simply not eating enough.
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Iron