Benefits of Horse Stance Training

[tattooedmonk]

palates, yoga , meditation and tai chi are all things I have seen / heard MMA fighters and the pros do for exercise....

[ginosifu]

so at one point in your post you acknowledge weights are useful and ancient teachers didnt have access to them so had to use stances (the implication being if they did have weights they would have used them) then call those of us who are simply saying the above implicitly and not just hinting at it, that we are stupid meatheads (oh and thanks for that nice way of lumping those of us who have done both TCMA and modern weight training and studied both seriously in such a stupid group)
And you are right they are supplemental exercises which should not take time away your main training: so if one method is superior, quicker and better at producing your desired end goal (getting stronger) why not switch to it?

I do not think lifting weights is bad for MA, It just not the preferred method for me. I do know that many Meatheads (A term I use for those individuals that lift and are overly bulky) have come to my school thinking that they can replace training with more lifting and they get their a$$es handed to them by my guys who don't lift and spend most of their time drilling and sparring.

I don't think that squats or leg press are the superior method for MA training. Yeah you have strength in your legs.... Weights may help you have stronger legs which may help have stronger kicks.... but to me small amount of difference in strength for kicks is not worth it.

Because clearly th horse stance gives you teh ultim@t3 d34dly pow3rz even though it's inferior to weight training.

You are not adding to this conversation....

ginosifu

[Lucas]

its also misleading to say that old world did not use weight training. they just werent shiny machines and cast metals. a portion is through general labor. building and repairing stone/wood structure by hand. the other is martial specific, such as lifting and pulling weights of stone or wood. locks, logs, over-weighted weapons, water, sand, ropes etc.

[tattooedmonk]

Because clearly th horse stance gives you teh ultim@t3 d34dly pow3rz even though it's inferior to weight training.

Its not that at all. It just works the components of the kinetic chain differently....

also, you can still use weight in a static exercise...

anyone can move a lot of weight fast with forward momentum and inertia but what about holding that weight and stabilizing with that weight .

exercises do not always have to have added weight or movement to be beneficial. its like believing in the fat burning zone or that only cardio burns fat, it just plain and simply isnt true.

why does everyone around here do that? its either one way or another and not maybe somewhere in between?

[tattooedmonk]

its also misleading to say that old world did not use weight training. they just werent shiny machines and cast metals. a portion is through general labor. building and repairing stone/wood structure by hand. the other is martial specific, such as lifting and pulling weights of stone or wood. locks, logs, over-weighted weapons, water, sand, ropes etc.

agreed...hello

[tattooedmonk]

is the process of passively taking a muscle to the point of tension and holding it for an MINIMUM of 20 seconds. low force longer duration.

One of the proposed mechanisms for this type of stretching is autogenic inhibition. By holding the muscle in a stretched position for a long period of time, the golgi tendon is stimulated and produces an inhibitory effect on the muscle spindle. This allows the muscle to relax and provides for better elongation of the muscle.

Static stretching should be used to decrease muscle spindle activity of tight muscles before and after activity.

[IronFist]

IronFist:

#1. Basic leg strength is just as I stated..... basic. Like I said if you want to do more or go beyond this... do squats or leg press etc....

That doesn't define anything.

#2. When you sit is a low horse stance you will feel your ligaments / tendons in your hips pull and stretch. Doh.... what? you never sat in a horse stance and felt your hips stretching?

If you feel your ligaments stretching you're probably doing it wrong. You're not supposed to stretch ligaments or tendons. All lack of flexibility issues are caused by muscle tension coming from a CNS that is putting the brakes on because it thinks its about to be injured (with exceptions being possible previous tendon/ligament injuries, etc.).

#3. I am truly sorry you do not understand gravity..... try this this to help explain: Raise your arms straight up above your head and point them to the sky. Hold them there for a minute or 2. Quickly lower them down and you will actually feel your blood flowing back down into your arms. This is because blood and body fluids can move thru your body because gravity forces it downward. Gravity plays a role in your blood / fluids and how they flow in your body. as you learn to relax (in your stance) blood vessels will relax and open up, allowing blood to flow where ever gravity will take it.

That makes no sense. Your blood is always flowing everywhere anyway (assuming no circulation issues). Relaxing in a horse stance is like an oxymoron. Contrary to what TCMAists think is happening in the body, your quads are always contracted when you are in a horse stance. There is no such thing as relaxed tension. If anything, there is increased circulation in the quads because of the increased tension, not because of any "relaxing."

Granted... aerteies are trying to carry expired blood back to the heart. You can still lower your center of gravity without bending your knees or lowering your body....by blood dropping making your center mass lower. Anyone can do this, there is no secret, just horse stance training.

And lowering your center of gravity has nothing to do with blood flow. Do you think your body goes "Urgent! Our center of gravity has been lowered! Increase blood flow immediately!"?

Where do you guys come up with this stuff?

#4. We had a discussion here before.... Horse stance is used and they even had a video clip of some mma guy hittin a horse and punching the opponent while in it, so don't gimmie that crap that it is not used in reality.

So it happened once. Way to go. Was he fighting in a horse stance? Of course not. So there's no reason to need to sit in one for 15 minutes as part of training.

#5. If spend more time in the gym lifting than do in the kwoon practicing drills and sparring, then you are a meathead and you are trying to replace skill with strength.

Wow, stereotype much? lol.

All supplemental training is good. However TCMA has reasons for Horse stance as stated in my earlier post. If you want to do other things like lifting weights.... just don't forsake your meat and potatoes like sparring / drills etc.

I agree TCMA has reasons for horse stance training. But practical fitness and fighting do not. That's why I said, if your goal is to do TCMA stuff, like forms that require long stances, then keep on doing your horse stances.

Just don't do them thinking you are getting stronger, because (after the first minute or two) you are not.

[wenshu]

I suspect hundreds of years ago they also did weightless body squats (sometimes called "Hindu squats"), but for some reason those got dropped out of popular kung fu training.

The fuck you talking about?

If there is one thing I've learned from you dull efficiency obsessed pragmatists is that apparently the most efficient way to train something is to not train it at all.

[IronFist]

Ironfist, your experience is your own.

You are starting to do the brash chest pounding crap now, so, chill.
You may very well like what you like, But I don't count you as qualified to speak in depth about what TCMA does or doesn't offer.

your experience with it, in it is limited. You have obviously jumped ship and so, don't even bother learning it anymore it would seem, but you take time to make criticism of it's methods.

That's cool. It's your stuff. Hang onto it. I don't share that view with you and find your view to only be an attempt at trying to diminish. And your post 4 did not scientifically explain anything. You seem to have cherry picked 1 line from the article I provided.

Just odd man. Why do you hate TCMA so much anyway? We are likely to all go train some Horse stance today. You disapprove, oh well. lol

I explained biomechanically why hip flexors don't play a role in horse stance. I'm not sure what else you need.

Here I will try again:

Hip flexors pull the knee up. Like if you do a front kick and hold your leg out, you will feel them flexing. If you do an exaggerated marching motion, that is what your hip flexors do. If you throw a knee strike, that is hip flexors.

Hip flexors pull the knee up against tension. In the above examples, the "tension" is the weight of your leg on gravity. If you put weights on your ankles and did a marching motion, your hip flexors would work harder because they are lifting more weight (the weight of your leg + the ankle weights against gravity).

When you sit in a horse stance, you're not pulling your knees up against any resistance, therefore your hip flexors are not doing anything.

Hip flexors are antagonistic in a horse stance. If they are doing anything during a horse stance they are relaxing by definition of antagonist muscle.

[IronFist]

The fuck you talking about?

If there is one thing I've learned from you dull efficiency obsessed pragmatists is that apparently the most efficient way to train something is to not train it at all.

So you don't think kung fu dudes used to do Hindu squats? Ok. I have no proof either way, I just said I suspect they did at one point.

Re: your second paragraph, you must have misread every post I've ever made in this forum. The only advice I've ever given is 1) develop good technique and 2) get strong, a subset of which is 2.5) don't waste your time doing training that doesn't help with points 1 and 2 (eg. horse stance).

[wenshu]

I see your sense of irony is as well developed as your martial art skills.

[ginosifu]

I explained biomechanically why hip flexors don't play a role in horse stance. I'm not sure what else you need.

Here I will try again:

Hip flexors pull the knee up. Like if you do a front kick and hold your leg out, you will feel them flexing. If you do an exaggerated marching motion, that is what your hip flexors do. If you throw a knee strike, that is hip flexors.

Hip flexors pull the knee up against tension. In the above examples, the "tension" is the weight of your leg on gravity. If you put weights on your ankles and did a marching motion, your hip flexors would work harder because they are lifting more weight (the weight of your leg + the ankle weights against gravity).

When you sit in a horse stance, you're not pulling your knees up against any resistance, therefore your hip flexors are not doing anything.

Hip flexors are antagonistic in a horse stance. If they are doing anything during a horse stance they are relaxing by definition of antagonist muscle.

What I would Like to know is who made you an authority on the human body? Just because you type words on the page does not make you an authority on anything. Granted I have no degree in human anatomy but I know what works for me. I have gotten more flexible in my hip areas with more horse stance training, the more I do it the more wider I can go out in my splits. Works for me.... More horse stance, more flexible.

Just because you do not understand gravity does not make you right. I may not be expalining it exactly correct but the idea is that can control the blood flow in your body.

ginosifu

[No_Know]

Horse stance works the hip flexors about as much as barbell curls work the triceps.



Whether I'm a kinesiologist or not has no bearing on the correctness of what I say. You were disproven by your own wikipedia link.



How does it existing in yoga have anything to do with this discussion? Holding a static pushup is useless as far as MA is concerned and as far as strength development is concerned.

I might think that the muscles about the joints get conditioned in a locked-out position held to better support the articulation. In an unlocked position the tremmor might be some sort of exercise plus cardiovascular--better wind/endurance

Then use science to disprove what I said in post 4 rather than just posting what you think. FWIW, I also used to train horse stance daily years and years ago. I thought it was giving me all these benefits, but really all it was doing was letting me hold horse stance longer.
...
To the person who said it improved their skiing, I can see that happening because your skiing posture is probably within +/- 15 degrees or so of horse stance posture and the ability to hold it longer may have some carryover into your skiing stability.

It seems more that a Wing Ch/Ts un stance would be more akin to a skiing stance, I say this because my comprehension for downhill skiing is knees together. But actually T'ai Chi Ch'uan's...Golden ****ereral Stance. unevenness suited to one leg stances as a condition training...Muay Thai rising knee exercises might also be good for skiing if I have correctness about the unevenness or bent knee straight knee of slalom.
But yes, conditioning cross-over.

[No_Know]

The way I did it I got breathing benefit it seemed. I also liked how I eventually leveraged the stance into a defensable position. Abdominal development when wlking with it as well as Phoenix-Eye Fist's dynamic use/movements while stancing-particularly Horse-riding based stance. [saw in a book]

No_Know

[Bacon]

What I would Like to know is who made you an authority on the human body? Just because you type words on the page does not make you an authority on anything. Granted I have no degree in human anatomy but I know what works for me. I have gotten more flexible in my hip areas with more horse stance training, the more I do it the more wider I can go out in my splits. Works for me.... More horse stance, more flexible.

Just because you do not understand gravity does not make you right. I may not be expalining it exactly correct but the idea is that can control the blood flow in your body.

ginosifu

That's not hip flexors. That's adductors.
I'd like to know who made you the self righteous king of the idiots.