Progress

[Robinf]

Nospam! Missed ya!

For my legs, I concentrate on squat in order to improve my horse stance and it's working very well. I still do hammer curls, heel raises, and cable leg abd + add. Next week I'm adding back cable leg extension--my roundhouse kick is suffering right now.

I would like to round out my shoulders a little, look a little more proportional. I have to figure out exercises I'll like.

Any suggestions? From anyone.

Serpent,
Thanks for the compliments.

I'll take some "before" shots of my legs, but I'm not posting those until I have "after" shots. Actually, I can have some photos with some nice bruises from sparring last night.

[Oso]

nothing wrong with weight training but doesn't it primarily just work the large muscle groups? The postures for ma rely on the smaller muscles that get missed unless you do your stance training and/or slow form work holding each posture till it burns.

If you want a strong horse...do horse stance for a long time. I can do 5 sets of 12 inverted squats w/ 630 lbs but am struggling to hold a low horse for 5 minutes.

I'm working on the body weight stuff before practice: stance training, more push ups, crunches, full sit ups, hip ups, toe ups.

just need to add more cardio to drop some weight.

[Robinf]

Thanks, Oso.

I work my squat as a horsestance--my feet the appropriate distance apart, and I do hold the weight down there.

I do have a problem with holding the horsestance for long, but I am able to hold it longer and I am much lower. I've improved leaps and bounds in the past 7 months, than the years I spent not doing the serious weighttraining.

Robin

[Serpent]

For shoulders do flys, military press, rows....

I'm more a bodyweight trainer. IronFist is the dude to ask about this, or ElPietro or Ford.

Go on, guys, help a lady out.

[fa_jing]

Dumbell presses, do not raise your upper arms past parallel to the floor, any higher works the traps, as well strive to keep your forearms vertical. Very different from what you see most people doing, this exercise was shown to me by a champion powerlifter and is #1 for building the side delts. Choose a weight where you can do sets of 5.

Front military press.

[FatherDog]

Progress update:

I broke my **** foot at the gym on Wednesday night.

Fractured the 3rd metatarsal.

And it's my right foot, so I can't drive.

God******.

[fa_jing]

So what? Just drive with your left foot. That's what I do anyway when my right foot gets stiff on long drives. I'll do it just for fun anyway, even on shorter drives. Just don't drive with both feet at the same time.

Unless you've got a stick shift? I jsut got one, it's cool, but you definitely need two feet.

BTW, I am not responsible if you drive with your left foot and you are awkward and send 100's of people to a fiery death.

Well I am, but I'll sure feel bad about it.

[IronFist]

Originally posted by Oso
If you want a strong horse...do horse stance for a long time. I can do 5 sets of 12 inverted squats w/ 630 lbs but am struggling to hold a low horse for 5 minutes.

What is an inverted squat?

IronFist

[FatherDog]

Originally posted by fa_jing
So what? Just drive with your left foot. That's what I do anyway when my right foot gets stiff on long drives. I'll do it just for fun anyway, even on shorter drives. Just don't drive with both feet at the same time.

I'm 6'4", have size 13 feet, and now I have a gigantic plastic thing wrapped around my right foot. I don't have /room/ to drive with my left foot.

Also, it's specifically illegal, and if I get pulled over I'll get additionally ticketed, which shoots my insurance up. And I live in New Jersey, where auto-insurance is a euphemism for sodomy to begin with.

In case anyone is curious, by the way, it's a simple fracture of the 3rd metatarsal in my right foot. Anyone with experience figure how long it'll be before it heals?

[SevenStar]

Originally posted by Oso
nothing wrong with weight training but doesn't it primarily just work the large muscle groups? The postures for ma rely on the smaller muscles that get missed unless you do your stance training and/or slow form work holding each posture till it burns.

If you want a strong horse...do horse stance for a long time. I can do 5 sets of 12 inverted squats w/ 630 lbs but am struggling to hold a low horse for 5 minutes.

I'm working on the body weight stuff before practice: stance training, more push ups, crunches, full sit ups, hip ups, toe ups.

just need to add more cardio to drop some weight.

weight training hits large and small muscle groups. Strength training is just that though - strength training - not endurance training. things like a 5 min horse stance and 100 pushups are not feats of strength, but of endurance.

What's an inverted squat?

[fa_jing]

Inverted squat - you know, that thing where you lie on your back and push the weight straight up in the air?

Compared to a normal squat, remember that you are no longer moving your own weight. I don't know how else the mechanics of the motion effect the work your muscles do , but it probably takes strain off of the back.

So if Oso wieghs 225, if he was doing regular squats with 405 it would be roughly the same wieght as 630 with an inverted squat.

Still impressive, but no he doesn't seem to be a freak.

[Oso]

sevenstar; fa-jing

funny, I do weigh 225. I don't consider that weight to be impressive at all...there are some guys at the gym that are in the 900-1000 lb. range/

I guess the point I was trying to make was train to do what you want to do. If you want to have good, strong stances...train stances and the stancework/postures of forms longer.

not knocking weight lifting, I'm just shifting to the body weight approach, like I said.

I did switch to the inverted squat vs. reg squat due to a back pull last fall. though, I do use a cool brace type thing to do body weight squats after the inverted squats.

[Samurai Jack]

Actually, it's called a leg press. Sorry to nit pick. Also it's much easier than a squat since it takes out the weakest muscles in the back/arms, but on the other hand you can work your legs alot harder. I'm leg pressing around 1200 pounds currently, and while my legs are very strong and quite well developed, I am not a freak either (not yet anyway ).

[Oso]

ok, but there is still a regular leg press and an inverted leg press, right?

see, I knew I wasn't a freak.

[Robinf]

The "inverted leg press" I know as a hip sled.

I don't like using that because it takes the rest of my body out of the picture.

Doing the squats, my horse stance has finally gotten lower, almost to the point where I can put a staff on my legs and it won't roll off (the staff doesn't roll off if I put it up by my hips). I trained horse stance for years, but with 7 months of serious squats, my stance is finally getting to where I want it.

Plus, I enjoy squats.

Samurai, I was counting on you being a freak, and now you're not?! My world....

I also realized this weekend the trouble I'm having with chinups. I'm getting heavier as I get stronger and that appears to be cancelling things out. Grrrrrrr.

And, drum roll..... I chose lat raises and widened my arms on my overhead press to help develop my shoulders. Thanks for all the suggestions.