Qigong and/Vs Modern Strength training

[TaichiMantis]

I like dynamic loadbearing exercises. Here are some good shuijiao training vids...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KJG0tFJe4g

http://www.youtube.com/user/ashwix#p/u/40/5PbNpaiIi9I

http://www.youtube.com/user/ashwix#p/u/34/W3eb740pyiE

http://www.youtube.com/user/ashwix#p/u/39/ysQTBE5AbnA

[goju]

goju ryu is a qigong and weight heavy martial art so i never had any problems or conflicting feelings doing both

i dont believe size slows you down either

the person who taught me tkd, and goju could move extremely fast and still dospinning kicks, jumping kicks etcetc and he was a 280 pound body builder at five foot ten

[uki]

i find that applying martial applicability to natural movement works best - in essence this amounts to the hua jing level of moving... totally relaxed, effortless, and fluid motions that come naturally without thought; such motions contain great force simply because the entire body is moving as a sub-conciously connected unit - all strikes would have the entire weight of the body multiplied by the speed of the movement, in which case it really does not amount to the strength of the body, but rather the simple physics of mass and velocity.

i do qigong with the sole intention of extracting energy from the stars, the sun, the moon(indirectly thru reflective surfaces), the ground, air, and all of nature... this energy enters me and purifies me. simple enough... i could dwell and ponder the many intricate and complex methods developed by countless numbers of people over thru the ages OR i could be simply content with what i have discovered to work for myself.

considering that we are nothing more than a bunch of atoms compacted together in different combinations and denseness, what is strength??? we are all ultimately light(energy), so what is physical strength?? i believe our physical bodies, personalities, and creativity is nothing more than a manifestation of our inherent energy... what kind of energy are you?? perhaps stagnant chi is nothing more than explaining a mental construct that is effectively hindering your self-expression?? life is an artform, if your energy is weak, your life drawing will look like it was drawn by a 4 year old and a few crayons.

[Eugene]

maybe a silly question, but could one imagine weight, and by this way, strengthen the muscles ?

[IronWeasel]

maybe a silly question, but could one imagine weight, and by this way, strengthen the muscles ?

Of course. But you would only strengten the imaginary muscles.

Then when you imagine that you're fighting, you will crush your opponent!

[IronWeasel]

Reading back through some old threads, it seems that many people seem to equate ST to the body building style of hypertrophy. It's when people imagine resistance training, they immediately think of Mr. Olympia.

In my experience, training for hypertropy reduced my flexiblility. Especially after a heavy lift, when my muscles are pumped. 'Extreme stretching' as it's referred to helped somewhat.

The flexibility decrease wasn't much of an issue, until I was grappling (the evening after a morning lift), and my range of motion was limited enough that I got my arm wrapped around my own head by my opponent.

[Frost]

maybe a silly question, but could one imagine weight, and by this way, strengthen the muscles ?

depends how you imagine it, stress is stress and the body responds to it accordingly, if you imagine you are pushing a weight away and tense and push accordingly then your body will respond and grow (it will essentially be a dynamic strengthening exercise) but the thing is you can't regulate how much weight you are moving its hit and miss... also after a while you need more stress that what your body can generate you need external loading to accomplish anything after this point

[taai gihk yahn]

maybe a silly question, but could one imagine weight, and by this way, strengthen the muscles ?

actually, you can do this; you can also increase range of motion;

two tests:

Flexibility: sit on the floor and do a hamstring stretch to each side (however you do that: hurdlers, in a split, whatever); find the side that is the more flexible; then mentally imagine that you are stretching to that side (yes, the easy one); maintain this for up to 90 sec.; then re-test your flexibility to the more limited side and see the difference;

Strength: do a single leg step-up on one leg than on the other; see which side it is easier on (if u are in good shape to begin with, it may need to be a very large step-up, e.g. - 36", to get a difference between sides); when you have figured out which side is the easier one, stand somewhere and mentally imagine yourself blasting out 2 sets of 12 reps on that side; then, go try it again "for real" and see what the difference is on the harder side

I should not that this is not the usual way to go about getting these changes, typically it's done by actually stretching to / exercising the easy side to see the changes on the tighter / weaker side; the imagery exercise is just taking it another step further into the realm of possibilities;

if you are curious about how / why this works (there is actually a solid body of reputable neurophysiological research backing it up) and / or want to see some pretty cool "instant" changes in people with significant strength and flexibility loss, check out this website: www.totalmotionrelease.com

the youtube page
http://www.youtube.com/user/totalmotionrelease

[Scott R. Brown]

I works with skills too. There was a test years about with guys imagining free throws. As I recall, it isn't quite as beneficial as actually performing the action, but it is still a benefit!

[taai gihk yahn]

I works with skills too. There was a test years about with guys imagining free throws. As I recall, it isn't quite as beneficial as actually performing the action, but it is still a benefit!

I seem to recall that the athletes imagining basketball free throws did as well or even better than athletes actually practicing them!

you can also improve your non-dominant side by hyper-stimulating the dominant - so like throwing a baseball, you would take a heavier ball and really blast out a bunch of reps throwing as far and as hard as you can with the dominant side, and seeing how the non-dominant side improves significantly

it also works if you are gay, you imagine being even gayer, and it happens!

[Scott R. Brown]

it also works if you are gay, you imagine being even gayer, and it happens!

I suppose we should ask an expert like extrajoseph about that!

[Eugene]

ty Frost and taai gihk yahn, good things to try and read

[taai gihk yahn]

ty Frost and taai gihk yahn, good things to try and read

hopefully this time your queries won't result in a 5 page long flame war!

[taai gihk yahn]

I suppose we should ask an expert like extrajoseph about that!

he would appear to be the "go-to-guy" for that sort of thing at this point...

[Scott R. Brown]

ty Frost and taai gihk yahn, good things to try and read

Hey...what am I....chopped liver???

The free throw thing was ME!!!