there is no use for it in combat.
just like your school bow really doesn't have a practical combat use, or bowing, or lighting incense or some other ritualistic practice that is part and parcel to every single school of chinese martial arts that ever there was.
not everything that is in martial arts practice has martial application and people who say everything should are taking the anus point of view of martial arts. lol
ask about combat stretching.
everyone does it, no martial application, or how about combat situps and pushups? combat cardio anyone? combat sand can lifting? combat weight lifting? anyway...you get the inference.
There are entire forms that are more or less a string of different chi kungs. Then, amonst the gongs, a couple of combat moves, then back to the string of gongs. These types of practices are quite common across many styles of chinese martial arts. It is a design of efficient use of time in practice more than anything.
If you have 50 moves in a set and you practice that set 1000 times, then you have practiced each of those moves 1000 times. Now, this build takes a while, but you will effectively have more usable things in the long wrong an hence the variant heavy nature of chinese martial arts.