Internal styles and weights?

[lowsweep]

I have read that lots of internal schools discourage the use of weights and weight training. I am visiting an internal style in a few days (hopefully) and so was curious on the subject. I like weight training a lot and would not give it up easily (only if the school insisted). I am curious why weights are looked down on in some internal schools. Or is it just a few schools that happen to be the ones I have read about?

[Kumkuat]

Because weight training pulls you away from what you're trying to learn in an internal ma. For example, you have to tense up your muscles to do weight training while you have to relax your muscles in internal martial arts.

[Water Dragon]

I don't see a problem with it. It certainly wont hurt you. Just make sure you don't begin to rely on that extra strength.

[Braden]

If you're properly weight-training (although of course, this is betraying my personal bias of what 'proper' means), you should be increasing your body's flexibility and relaxation, and lowering RBP, etc.

If this is the case, you should be fine. If not, I think you should change your WT practice, regardless of interest in the internal arts.

All things in moderation.

That said, there are some pitfalls. Some specific areas (eg. lower back, inguinal folds, neck, trapezius) are very important and very hard to relax if there's any tension in them at all - so you may have to adjust your weight-training. Also, if you 'rely' on your strength in your training, you will probably never learn to use your body properly for the internal arts.

[crumble]

Weights won't hurt if you give yourself time to rest by either going hard only twice a week per muscle group -- or by doing short, heavy sets so that you don't work to fatigue.

If you are still worried about holding tension in any particular muscle group, try focusing on lifts that use whole body movements: dead lifts, squats, chinups, side presses.

The other thing you can do are "cheats". For example, by using your legs and back to do a shoulder press you are training the coordination of your whole body in a way that is more applicable to martial arts -- but is a no-no if your "sport" is body building.

Don't fear the wieghts, unless you are really stiff and awkward in your movements -- be honest. If that's the case, spend more time on relaxing while doing your style's form. But that said, almost all internal teachers will give you something heavy to play with at some point in your training.

-crumble

Oh and you should know that some schools don't like weight training because they're sick of new guys coming to push hands class and flinging around their supposidly "advanced" students. Haha!

Really: if you already train with with wieghts, don't stop. Maybe de-emphasize it while you're learning to be soft. But don't stop.

[miscjinx]

I would have to agree with Kumkuat...weight training could be couterproductive in internal martial arts because in weight training you are using you localized muscle to move objects and this is exactly what you will be trying to train yourself out of. Also as weight training tends to isolate, it is counterproductive because you are trying to get the body to work as a whole and rid yourself of isolating muscle groups. Also, weight training tends to make the muscle hold a little extra tension during the day. Especially at first, you will be trying to get very soft and relaxed. It is amazing how much tension is held in the normal body and I found weight training only makes it worse, especially at in the begining of internal martial art training.

I would say weight training is a bad idea when you start internal martial arts. If you want to continue, that is your choice; just remember that because of weight training you most likely will have a more difficult time learning internal martial arts - particularly at first.

[Mind Boxing]

My teacher has warned me against weight lifting...I go to the gym and run 5 or 6 times a week and I lift 15 lb dumbells in various exercises...He told me that this was OK, but no heavier...

[Water Dragon]

I think the real question here is this:

As thinking beings, are we able to discern between different stimuli, or, after learning one way of moving the body, are we forced to do everything that way?

The reverse question would be, if you do internal arts, does it become impossible for you to take the lid off of the pickle jar?

[bamboo_ leaf]

“ almost all internal teachers will give you something heavy to play with at some point in your training. “
its called your mind.


‘Oh and you should know that some schools don't like weight training because they're sick of new guys coming to push hands class and flinging around their supposidly "advanced" students. Haha’

yep that’s the real point. To be able to push the other out using muscular force. Forget about learning any type of principles just go pump a bunch of iron get really strong and do what you want.

Amazing what a little 4oz ring and a little rope can do to a 1000lb bull. ;)

[bamboo_ leaf]

“The reverse question would be, if you do internal arts, does it become impossible for you to take the lid off of the pickle jar?”

Nope !!

But would you be able to do it using only the muscle required in a relaxed way?

I see nothing wrong with weight training in itself. But if you can’t do it with less then why add more :confused:

I think “bigger,better.faster” it’s kind of an American thing. The problem I feel for most is that they try and approach TC with this same attitude reaching far above their present level and ability.

With out investing in the time and TC effort to really see how the hell dose he/she do that. It takes time, the training may even be conter intutive, but you won't know it works unless you open your mind and give it a chance. (this assumes that you have faith in your teachers skills and abilities to beging with) :)

Once you can do it then you will know what is good and what is not. What takes you deeper and what leads you away.


I feel too many people give up, they don’t understand the process and mistake the method for the end result. They seek to produce the same results in away that they understand but not actually what was done.

luck in training ;)

[Braden]

What Mr. Leaf said.

Some people try to find victory in being stronger, faster, bigger. In truth, all martial arts are concerned with cultivating skill which allows you to defeat opponents when you are weaker, slower, smaller. Most martial arts accomplish this by training variations upon resisting and yielding to your opponent which effect the amount of strength, speed, and size you need to win. The chinese internal martial arts however seek to train a wholly other response which is neither resisting nor yielding (although you often hear the term 'yielding' in the IMAs, it has a very different definition than yielding in the colloquial sense - retreating parts or all of your body along the vector of a force; it is better called perhaps 'recieving'); one of the goals of this new way of moving is that it doesn't change the relationship combat has with your conditioning - it removes it completely.

This is not to say that conditioning is useless in combat, even for an accomplished internalist. Why? Because you will never, ever perfect this way of moving; and in the heat of defending your life and your loved ones, you should do _anything_ to assure your victory. However, the goal of training and the goal of fighting are two different things. While training in the internal arts, you should be focused upon cultivating this unique skill - if you are martially oriented, you believe that through this cultivation you will become a better fighter.

The point of this is that, you may want to condition yourself (which is fine provided you train with regards to the potential pitfalls which have been mentioned), but this conditioning should be kept completely distinct from your internal training. Especially at the beginning levels, but even later, it is very easy to use your conditioning to 'win' during internal training. Perhaps sayings like 'invest in loss' and 'noncompetitive' warn us against this folly. For example, the push hands situation that has been brought up in this thread: the goal of push hands (especially as a beginner - but this is always true) is NOT to 'win' (eg. to push the guy off-balance) but rather to cooperate with your partner to explore each others ability to move spontaneously according to the 'internal way of moving' alluded to above. If in your training you rely on your conditioning, you will likely never find nor train this unique skill. This example is a common one, and an easy one to consider. However, the principle is universal in internal training, and often more subtle. My teacher often comments to me, 'Yes, that would work. But only because you are tall and young and strong.' If I didn't know better, I would be content with the results, and train to reinforce what I was doing - thus never really finding the point of the internal arts. In fact, if I didn't have him reminding me, I'd probably do exactly that!

There is not much point in using specifics here, but suffice to say that if you give yourself up to your practice, you will find a new way of moving which will be exciting and will definitely have martial value - but you have to find it and train it first! I don't claim to be there myself, but I hope I'm on the right track, and I am lucky to have a good teacher who gives me personal, hands-on attention so that I can really feel the difference.

This is all just a long-winded way of expanding upon what has allready been said here. But I think it's worth expanding upon! It's also worth noting that all of these same concerns are present even for practitioners who do not do external conditioning exercises.

Oh yeah... and of course I could be wrong about all of this. I've neither been doing this as long, nor have been blessed with the talent for it that many others (even here! ;) ) have. But this has been my impression so far.

[shaolinboxer]

I quit lifting (which I was doing along side kickboxing at the time) and took up aikido. I lost 15 lbs of muscle, mostly from my chest, and then gradually gained weight back in my legs ( mostly in the thighs) and my upper shoulders.

I can feel the difference though. I am weaker in some aspects, and honestly I miss my physique which I had trained so hard to gain.

It is true ofcourse that surrendering my strength has help me make big leaps in technique. But strength and size are good defenses again the unpredictable nature of the world. It sends a visual message to people and can help you avoid fights and protect you from injury.

I begin lifting again in the new year to hit the spots I have lost.

[miscjinx]

"The reverse question would be, if you do internal arts, does it become impossible for you to take the lid off of the pickle jar?"

No, but you would take the lid off of a pickle jar differently.

I liked Mike Sigman's advice. Once you get the basics of internal strength, use it for everything to work it into body memory and normal use. Opening a door, flushing the toilet, lifting the lid off of a pickle jar, etc.

[Kevin Wallbridge]

Resistance training was a basic part of most complete martial systems in the old days. Taijiquan has spear training and other apparatus. Bagauzhang is reknown for the use of extremely heavy weapons for training.

I believe the key is to maintain connection when training with weight. Western weight lifting routines are the antithesis of useful resistance. Isolation is the last thing you want in whole body connection. If you are going to isolate something I feel that it would be more useful to isolate an area with your awareness in the context of a form, rather than as a target for work.

As for the idea of being weak, it seems a bit suspect to me. So much of internal martial arts is structure, relaxed structure. Much of the teaching methodology that people have been exposed to, both here and in China, is focussed on the building of relaxed structure. Hence the idealization of softness in many internal practices. However we can't spend all of our time in kindergarten. At some point you need to explore the filling up of that structure. Empty all of the time is just as pathological as full all of the time. Yin Yang balance.

How, once the structure is relaxed, do you dig out more power? If two excellent structures meet, the one that can change will have the advantage of initiative, and the one that can dig out more power will have the advantage of being able to finish the encounter.

The peasants of the Chen village farmed all day. If they were half as strong as my Grandfather then they would have been formidable fighters with an understanding of structure. In the Chen lineage that I study in there are many kinds of power training, from Qigong to weights to certain kinds of partner work.

[Fu-Pow]

Just thought I might bring up the issue of Peng in regards to weight lifting. It seems like weight lifting would be counterproductive to this important Taiji skill.

(A note to beginners: Peng is a relaxed coordination of the muscles and a way to lengthen internally. Or you might look it at as a creating a unified structure. It is the most important Taiji skill.)


Flexing isolated muscle groups is not conducive to Peng.

But I guess you theoretically you could get into Peng "mode" before doing internal practice even if you did lift weights.

But in actuality this is very hard to do. My personal experience has been that it is hard enough switching from an external art where the muscles are shortening to and internal art where the muscles are lengthening. I imagine with weight lifting it would be even harder.

Braden brings ups an interesting question though. Does weight lifting actually help your muscles to relax? It this really true? I don't know enough about muscle physiology to say if this is right or not.

[Repulsive Monkey]

For sure doing too much weight lifting will definitely slow down and impair your internal development. Fact!!!. If you have muscle mass it will be more dificult to cut the the amassed layers and truley relax properly to invigorate a smooth unhindered flow of Qi. It is a tricky one to be honest, if it were down to personal experience and opinions I would say reduce your weight lifting definitely. Persoanlly I would endorese weight lifting and Internal arts too much, its just that they seem so diametrically opposed to each other. One seems to undo the good work of the other.

[crumble]

Hehe, do I get troll points for mentioning the push hands senario? :D

I think that if you read through this thread, you'll see that there are varying degrees of HOW MUCH weight training people think that you can do.

Some say none is appropriate, but no one says that weight lifting is a substitute for learning internal, coordinated movements (despite people arguing as if someone did say it.)

I think most people would agree that strength, per se, is not a hindrance to coordinated movement. Right? But stiffness is, for sure. The interesting thing about strength is that it takes a lot of weight work to obtain it, but then you can keep it by training at about 60% of your max.

So I ask you, doesn't it make sense for the guy who is already weight training to reduce his weightlifting to about 60% - but not stop - while he is learning the basics of coordinated movement?

I await people's replies.

- crumble

P.S. I mentioned the push-hands example as sort of an inside joke to people who have witnessed so-called senior students or instructors getting dusted by strong beginners. When I saw that it made me think. Of course the point of push hands is not to "push", but on the other hands, what does it mean if senior students or instructors get pushed around?

[Wu-Xing]

Weight training with internal arts is fine, but only if it is done properly. I have always been taught to use the 70% rule. eg; while streching tendons strech 70% of how much you could strech. It applies to more than just that and personally i would apply that to the extent of your endurance during weight training.As for the HOW of doing the weight training properly, i cant say. simply because i dont do it .

"what does it mean if senior students or instructors get pushed around?"
I experienced that when pushing hands with this huge guy during my short lived tai chi practise. He was a senior student and he also looked like GI Joe, so i was quite intimidated to begin with.I didnt push him around per say but i did better him on many occasions, as he did me.But i was a beginner; so i believe that shouldnt of happened.Anyway i think it just came down to him underestimating me and letting his ego get in the way. Once he realised that he kicked my ass ;)

[wcb]

Quote lifted from a Bagua instructor in Taiwan:

"Four oz. -can- deflect a thousand pounds, but just in case it doesn't, you better have a thousand pounds at your disposal."

;)

[bamboo_ leaf]

The problem with the weight training as I see it.

Is that you don’t need it if you really have true listening skills.

Your time would be better spent in training gaining the real skill. Then if you feel that this is needed for what ever reason you can pursue it.

Not having listening skills will lead into all types of misconceptions about how things are done.
Not being able to give up the idea of strength or overcoming the other will also hinder development.

Pushing is not done for pushing per say, it’s to gain the ability to really listen and follow. It is better to get pushed then to push, only then can one really feel what is happening.

once you can listen you will see its more following and helping then leading and preventing. :)

The next step is gaining an understanding of how this is happening. In most cases it’s because
Of not really being relaxed, you use force or you didn’t hear.

;)

[Braden]

I don't think anyone ever suggested weight lifting in place of kungfu. They're just asking if they can do both. Alot of kungfu practitioners are also interested in other things.

[baby dragon]

Hello! I'm an external art practicioner and do many things to condition my body but am very interested in the internal arts and have begun to look at bagua and tai chi.
My Sigung is a Hung Gar practicioner as well as a Tai Chi practicioner and has a Tai Chi school. About strength and lifting weights, there are different aspects to this question. I'm a personal trainer and study exercise science in school and am a freak about the body (as in, I love it and do everything I can to keep it in shape).
After beginning kung fu I stopped lifting as much simply because I was training (kung fu) more. My body is still hard and toned because of my training but I'm more aware of every little part of my body. I still weight lift and believe that it is very beneficial to kung fu. Even internal kung fu.
My Sigung is a pretty big guy and I don't think he has worked out for a very long time (10-15 years; with weights in a gym, hardcore). Even still, he is an awesome fighter and he's pretty known for his stability and strength. Even though he's a tai chi master, I believe he still takes care of his body in a strengthening way. Weight lifting tends to focus on more major muscles that contribute to power and strength, while tai chi movements and chi kung contribute to stabilizer muscles and endurance training. I have found that weight lifting has helped in some aspects of kung fu, like strikes, blocks, root, but because internal arts don't put main emphasis on strength (want 70 year old man to throw around a 20 year old) but on how force is used and from where it's generated, it doesn't make weight lifting pointless, just not as condusive to your training as other things.
I work out now for my physique and train differently in some areas for my kung fu. Even in my weight training I try to incorporate kung fu. Go ahead and try to use your whole body while doing a squat, that's just fine. This isn't against western thinking, it's just not emphasized because it's not always understood all of the muscles that can be used to do a certain exercise. Isolation is used only for growth and strength in a specific region of the body. It doesn't mean it's not taught or that it's wrong to use non-isolation training, which is also vital in weight lifting.
To finally get to some point, one of the most important parts of weight lifting and kung fu, is stretching. Flexibility is huge in both. The sometimes stiff look of a body builder leads to the assumption that the person is also stiff. This is sometimes true but the same amount, not. When muscles are huge, they do begin to restrict movement after a while (really big, most people seriously don't need to worry too much about this) but this can be mostly alleviated through stretching. Good, long, hard stretching, kung fu stretching. Flexibility and range of motion is emphasized greatly by me in whatever you do. I find flexibility to be one of the most important components to kung fu, internal and external.
This leads me to say that if you think about it, it's pretty silly to say that strength can hurt you or hinder you (I don't think anyone said this) and as long as you're stretching, focusing on your kung fu, and like many others said, not leaning on your strength, you'll be just fine and I recommend weight training (light or heavy) keeping kung fu your priority (if this is what you desire most) and letting that guide the way you lift. If you want to lift for your looks, go ahead while keeping your mind on kung fu and your body stretched and capable of growing in kung fu. You will find that different strength training will help your stances, power, and kung fu will help your weight lifting. That may sound confusing but I'll explain later :)
My last point about "leaning on your strength." Let me kind-of take that back because you can go ahead and lean on your strength all you want to but you'll soon find out that that doesn't matter all that much in kung fu. Besides the visual component, size doesn't either. Once you find this out, your strength may help you but remember, you want to be just as effective in your old age as in your youth which tells you again that there is something else there besides physical strength that is your dominating factor.
If there's anything confusing about this, just ask me:) I know it was long winded but I love talking about the body.

[Kumkuat]

Originally posted by baby dragon
master, I believe he still takes care of his body in a strengthening way. Weight lifting tends to focus on more major muscles that contribute to power and strength, while tai chi movements and chi kung contribute to stabilizer muscles and endurance training. I have found that weight lifting has helped in some aspects of kung fu, like strikes, blocks, root, but because internal arts don't put main emphasis on strength (want 70 year old man to throw around a 20 year old) but on how force is used and from where it's generated, it doesn't make weight lifting pointless, just not as condusive to your training as other things.
I work out now for my physique and train differently in some areas for my kung fu. Even in my weight training I try to incorporate kung fu. Go ahead and try to use your whole body while doing a squat, that's just fine.

whole body does not necessary mean internal if that'w what you mean.

[Crimson Phoenix]

Wow, I jump in the middle and I have to admit that I didn't read the whole thing so maybe it was said already...
Here's my point: I heard many times, my bagua sifu being the closest example, that a major part of internal training along with coordination, relaxation etc...was to be able to use the tendons and their elongation/elastic properties to generate jing instead of muscular contraction.
Now here is the theory: if you agree with that, don't you think that weight lifting is detrimental (at least to internal arts) because you actually put much emphasis on muscular contraction, making your tendons shorter and less elastic (rough description, of course, but you get the idea)??
Not to mention the obvious fact that when you put much time and energy flexing your muscles, you cannot use this time, and even worse you condition your brain to generate force in that sole way instead of learning the internal way of issuing power which is the opposite way?
What are your ideas/comments on this hypothesis??

[Kumkuat]

Originally posted by Crimson Phoenix
Wow, I jump in the middle and I have to admit that I didn't read the whole thing so maybe it was said already...
Here's my point: I heard many times, my bagua sifu being the closest example, that a major part of internal training along with coordination, relaxation etc...was to be able to use the tendons and their elongation/elastic properties to generate jing instead of muscular contraction.


um, how are tendons elastic? I thought muscles are elastic, not tendons.

[Crimson Phoenix]

Have you seen a slow-mo of a city concrete shot at high speed during a marathon? You can actually see the concrete deform under the steps of the runners, eventhough everyone would tell you you are crazy if you say concrete is elastic.
Did you know that in a day you can lose an inch of size just because your bones gets more compact as you keep standing and walking and then expand again when you lie down and sleep??
Our conceptions on what is elastic and what is not is very much warped.
Tendons are elastic, if not how could you gain flexibility during stretching? It's not only a matter of muscle stretching, true flexibility reaches the tendons. You know the funny little thing the doctor does, hitting you with a little hammer under the knee when you are sitting, that makes your leg contract in a reflex?? Well, the receptor to this Babinsky reflex is located in the tendon, it "feels" the tendon being elongated and sends an order to the muscle that will contract in order to counterbalance that.
The tendons' crucial caracteristic which is used in internal arts is that their elasticity is not passive like that of a rubber band, they actually behave more like a spring that can be pressed or stretched but that instantaneously return to the original state when the force ceases to be applied on it. At the same time a force constraint (for example, a correct internal posture with good intent) can elongate tendons, they have an opposite tendency to regain their original size...that's how we can generate jing.

[Fu-Pow]

Now here is the theory: if you agree with that, don't you think that weight lifting is detrimental (at least to internal arts) because you actually put much emphasis on muscular contraction, making your tendons shorter and less elastic (rough description, of course, but you get the idea)??

Exactly, as Feng Zhiquiang is fond of saying. Taiji is the art of lengthening. In order for the muscles to lengthen they must be relaxed. What's going on inside is speculative. But I suppose you could call it tendon strength.

Let's take an example. You reach out past arms length to touch something. The normal muscular ways is to to reach out relaxedly then at the end you contract your shoulder and your tricep to get extra reach. You shoulder lifts up slightly as it contracts. Your muscles effectively shorten.

The Taiji way would be to relax all the way out. That means lengthening from the inside. Your shoulder muscle stays relaxed. Your elbow stays sunken down, meaning your tricep stays relaxed. Now the lengthening doesn't stop at the shoulder but the whole body coils out to effectively make your reach longer.

The Taiji way gives you a springy kind of power that comes from the inside all the way out from the ground.

I don't know if it makes your reach physically longer but it is definitely two different ways of moving.

So weight lifting doesn't make sense to me as far as enhancing internal practice because you are essentially practicing shortening your muscles purposefully.

[Braden]

You get shorter during the day because the cushioning between your spinal vertebrae settle, not because your bones shrink. Concrete depressing under a runners foot is an optical illusion.

FYI, there are weight-lifting exercises that emphasize training the lengthening of muscles. Properly done, any weight-lifting exercise should train both lengthening and shortening.

To play devil's advocate - I hope those of you who claim that 'the isolation principle' in training impairs the ability to utilize whatever you're training in a holistic manner also do not do internal exercises for training individual 'jings.'

'How could you gain flexibility during stretching?' Mostly by tearing your connective tissue and then having it repaired with less durable, even less elastic scar tissue which functionally 'lengthens' the overall structure. Also possibly by retraining the stretch reflex.

[Crimson Phoenix]

Braden, although I always agree with your views as far as I can remember, this time I'll have to disagree with you on all points.
Actually, my research lab is located near an experimental lab mixing biology and physics where they precisely measure these types of things: bones ARE elastic, and even piezo electric, which mean that the guys in the labs can actually develop an electrical current out of the bone just by tensing or pressing it...nice for the qi scholars out there, and some already dream of powering bionic prosthetics just with the bones connected to it! Also elastic is concrete, it has nothing to do with an illusion (how could you have an optical illusion on a video recording that is precise to the tenth of millisecond???), that was confirmed to me by a friend who is a phD in material sciences working at the national petroleum institute...even without all these neaty greaty laser measures stuffs, my stepfather who was a prosthetics designer could really see that after a day of training, a guy's valid leg (only the leg, no vertebras here) was a little shorter than the prosthetics he had designed using precise measures on a resting guy...a measure has been made during soccer matches on the parisian stadium: it's edges deform by more than 6 feet both ways when peeps in it start jumping during a match...by the way, even the earth crust is considered viscous, many people think tectonic plaques move on a lava bed, they do not, it's still solid rock...earthquakes are precisely caused by the elastic rebounding of a pressed plaque.
Connective tissues are not the limiting factor to flexibility in the human body, they are more flexible than anything, so even if you tear them, you won't gain any more flexibility (you would even lose some, because scar tissues are inert tissues with bad physical properties). And if you stretch correctly, you're not supposed to tear anything.

[Braden]

For someone who disagreed with me, you sure didn't disagree with me! ;)

"bones ARE elastic, and even piezo electric..."

I didn't say they weren't. I said you don't shrink over the course of the day as a result of your bones shrinking. I encourage you to do the measurements yourself the day following your reading of this.

"Also elastic is concrete..."

Again I didn't say it wasn't. I simply said stepping on it isn't going to deform it noticably. Again, this isn't something that is particularly hard to check out for yourself.

"Connective tissues are not the limiting factor to flexibility in the human body..."

I didn't say they were. Conditioned reflex clearly is.

If you're honestly interested in this topic, go to the lab coordinator of the undergraduate physiology courses at your school and ask to attend one of their muscle labs. If you're nice he'll let you. You'll have plenty of raw muscle (along with the associated connective tissue) that you can play with for hours. What stretches and what doesn't will become readily apparent.

[Crimson Phoenix]

Thanks for the info, Braden...uuhhhh...I don't need to go to the undergraduate lab, actually I'm finishing my pHD in cell biology and used to design some lab experiments for animal physiology classes in university, along with lessons in endocrinology and neural communication (ack, that is so far, all I know now is nitric oxide and leukemias ahahahahhahahah).
Anyway, hahahahah I guess we didn't really disagree...it's just that I had probs with reducing body "shrinkage" to the sole intervertebral flattening, just as you had problems to reducing it to the sole bone pressing. In good scientist way, I should have said "part of the body shortening is due to bone pressing" indeed. As for the concrete, I have been shown that by this friend I told you, and it's incredibly surprising to see how deformable concrete is (of course, the measures and apparatus magnify it, but still we're often stuck with the idea that concrete is hard...as concrete!!). He then proceeded to show me the new materials some were working on, mainly for running tracks, that were, of course, incredibly more elastic than concrete...you couldn't break a world record on regular concrete nowadays...
You know, the problem with experiments is the Cartesian approach (strange to say for a scientist, but less and less if it's a biologist)...since we don't seem to disagree on the fact that true flexibility comes in majority from tendons (notice the "in majority", pure bio lingo that enable you to be right by not being to categorical!!!) we take an isolated muscle, try to stretch it, and it doesn't stretch much indeed...can we conclude it is not very elastic? No...because what makes it grow more and more elastic in the body will be the long repetition of stimuli that will deeply yet discretly change the inner structure over time, which we cannot simulate in a lab (agreed, along with all the factors like tendons, reflex etc..., but I'm concentrating just on muscle now). A watch is more than the sum of the pieces in the clockwok, Cartesianism enables us to deconstruct the pieces of the watch, study and know them to the fullest, but the trick is that we don't have any info on the whole watch after and most of the time we cannot reconstruct it.
Modern biology is getting like this, we have reached the limit of what we can understand by studying the pieces and their individual properties, and are getting scaringly aware that even the properties we know so well could be quite different when integrated back in the whole. Much like the quantum physics dilemma of "you mess up with the system when trying to measure it".

[Braden]

"I don't need to go to the undergraduate lab, actually I'm finishing my pHD in cell biology and used to design some lab experiments for animal physiology"

I'm not interested in getting into a credentials war.

But so far as my experience goes, I spent two years playing with the sartorius of Rana catesbiana, and have loaded it with much more weight than the muscle is capable of contracting (this is with stimulation far greater than would ever occur in a live organism) and there was never any noticable deformation of the connective tissue. This is consistent with what is written in physiology texts. How has your experience been different?

"In good scientist way, I should have said 'part of the body shortening is due to bone pressing' indeed."

Good science isn't compromise. Good science is going out and finding the truth by looking at reality. In this case, the problem is so widely studied, you could find the answer in about 13 seconds by doing a websearch. In fact, I just did this and the first five results were science webpages aimed at children, which all clearly stated daily shrinkage was due entirely to compression of spinal disks. Again, this is consistent with what is found in higher level literature.

"it's incredibly surprising to see how deformable concrete is"

I guess you should tell that to civil engineers and architects in cold countries who spend billions of dollars a year filling the cracks in roads and bridges with rubber so that they do not fill with water which, when it expands, will break the concrete. If you're right, they're wasting their time and money.

"since we don't seem to disagree on the fact that true flexibility comes in majority from tendons"

If that's what you believe, then we quite clearly disagree as I directly stated where I thought the majority of true flexibility came from in my last post - and it was not the tendons.

"we take an isolated muscle, try to stretch it, and it doesn't stretch much indeed"

It doesn't? What muscles are you playing with? Rana catesbiana's sartorius can deform to remarkable lengths under force; indeed, isn't it plain 'on the face of it' that this is required for muscle functioning?

"the problem with experiments is the Cartesian approach"

I will grant you that there are some issues with a purely reductionist approach to knowledge, particular to this conversation - in regards to the properties of tissues in a living organism versus those removed from the living organism. I will not grant you that muscles and tendons undergo a magickal transformation upon being removed from a body which alters all of their basic characteristics.

P.S. You're studying nitric oxide as a neurotransmitter? That's an absolutely fascinating topic.

[Crimson Phoenix]

Braden, even a rubber band can be rendered fragile as glass if you freeze it enough, your example as nothing to do with concrete's physical properties at normal conditions of temperature and pressure, just as putting an elastic in liquid nitrogen and breaking it like a branch of wood wouldn't be a proof that rubber bands are not elastics. Freezing itself independantly to the presence or abscence of water can change the concrete's properties and decrease its elasticity, just like freezing a rubber band does.
It was not my intention to go for a credential war, I just wanted to point out that I am not totally out of the topic when I claim things. I would look stupid trying to discuss driving with a pro driver, or programming with a computer genius, but when it comes to some biological or even physics (my first love!) I am just not an ignoramus.
Now when you mention my "compromise", I'm sorry but this is the type of language that you HAVE to use in any scientific peer-reviewed paper...it is not a compromise, rather a careful way of not ruling out categorically any factor that could be involved.
I don't personally matter if you believe me or not, it's not like my life depends on it, I got these facts from long time professionals (my step father, and the material engineer guy).
In the case of the shortening, it has been recognize that bones can get shorter due to applied constraint, so you can't just plainly say the body's shrinking is due to intervertebral cushionning solely. It might play the biggest role, but if you do good and careful science you can only say it is the major cause of shortening, not the only one. My stepfather clearly had to deal with this phenomenon when he designed prosthetics for different persons that wanted to perform different activities...in his system, there was no vertebra, sometimes not even a joint (in the prosthetics, that is) he'd just witness the bone itself was getting shorter...so when your intervertebral discs are all flatened, why would the bone stop getting pressed like magic instead of slightly flatenning too, adding to the phenomeon???
Once again it's not a matter of compromise, it is just the holding back we have to adopt when we know we don't have the whole system in view as it is often the case in biology.
Speaking of which, in my example I didn't mean that the muscle changes when you isolate it, not at all, I mentionned on the contrary way that when you isolate it, you "freeze" its properties in time (as long as you can keep it safe from degradation), whereas in the whole organism the stimuli of life (be they neural, physical, chemical) can greatly make the inner structure evolve. As soon as you take something off an organism, you just don't know how it would have behaved if it has stayed there...of course, for simple systems you can always do some kind of comparative before/after experiment (uuhh, one treated mouse, one control mouse!!).
Anyway, I do not really study nitric oxide as a neuromediator...in my nitric oxide studies I came across it, but my real specialty is more nitric oxide involved in leukemias and inflammation...I believe it is still fascinating as you pointed out :)