effects of doing stone warrior workouts for years

[IronWeasel]

I don't know enough about it to say.
I am pretty happy with what I have learned.
I'm 52 now and I feel great. I attribute a lot of that to Kung Fu, Yoga and qigong practice.
Not even religious practice. Just regular practice.

Feels weird if I don't practice for more than a week.
I feel weird if I practice too much.
Found the sweet spot and I'm sticking to it. (the sweet spot shouldn't be confused with the wet spot )

...unless you are sticking to that too

[IronWeasel]

Some time ago I was doing Stone Warrior again. I was doing the exercises for like 10 minutes which was 8 reps. I think I sometimes had the inclination that I should be taking a break between some of them. I mean even 10 minutes of constant exercise is a bit weird. It was rewarding, though.

Ten minutes of exercise is not all that demanding. If you think so, you might want to consider increasing the intensity of your workout lifestyle.



Let me just focus on the basic Snake Turns Over:

Constant tension will not hurt you.

The "Program" was to do 10 reps (right arm, then left arm= one rep).
Add 1 rep each day (EVERY DAY, no skipping), until you reach 100 reps.
Do 100 reps for ten days.

Notes:

"MAX" tension. The maximum amount of tension that you can apply and still complete the range of motion in the appropriate amount of time (8-12 seconds per rep).
If you miss a day, drop back by three reps.
If you miss two consecutive days, drop back by ten reps.
If you miss three consecutive days, start over.

You are in a horse stance the entire time.
Max tension is applied to the entire body.
Crank hard on the wrist movements.
Clench your other fist tightly when performing each rep.

Good luck.

[IronWeasel]

iron thread yes but stone warrior is some kooky sketchy sh1t bro

Then origin of Stone Warrior is controversial.

That's all that I need to say, right?

[bawang]

in large cities with immigrant population a whiff of what you are doing makes you persona non grata to traditional kung fu community. since you are living in hilly billy kingdom it isnt hurting anyone, but its still moronic to actually pay for it.

[IronWeasel]

in large cities with immigrant population a whiff of what you are doing makes you persona non grata to traditional kung fu community. since you are living in hilly billy kingdom it isnt hurting anyone, but its still moronic to actually pay for it.

A whiff of which what?

[mooyingmantis]

in large cities with immigrant population a whiff of what you are doing makes you persona non grata to traditional kung fu community. since you are living in hilly billy kingdom it isnt hurting anyone, but its still moronic to actually pay for it.

Don't be a *******!

We have had traditional Chinese instructors and arts in Ohio since the 60s. Wing Chun, Hung Gar, Shuai Jiao, Bei Shaolin, Qixing Tanglangquan, Meihua Tanglangquan, Babu Tanglangquan, Baguazhang, Chen Taijiquan, Yang Taijiquan and Bajiquan were all taught by Chinese instructors in the Cleveland, Akron, Canton and Columbus areas.

[IronFist]

Ten minutes of exercise is not all that demanding. If you think so, you might want to consider increasing the intensity of your workout lifestyle.

I was a competitive powerlifter. I know what a hard workout is.

I'm saying ten minutes of nonstop tension is ridiculous. And 90 minutes is nuts.

Let me just focus on the basic Snake Turns Over:

Constant tension will not hurt you.

The "Program" was to do 10 reps (right arm, then left arm= one rep).
Add 1 rep each day (EVERY DAY, no skipping), until you reach 100 reps.
Do 100 reps for ten days.

Notes:

"MAX" tension. The maximum amount of tension that you can apply and still complete the range of motion in the appropriate amount of time (8-12 seconds per rep).
If you miss a day, drop back by three reps.
If you miss two consecutive days, drop back by ten reps.
If you miss three consecutive days, start over.

You are in a horse stance the entire time.
Max tension is applied to the entire body.
Crank hard on the wrist movements.
Clench your other fist tightly when performing each rep.

Good luck.

When I found out about Snake Turns Over I didn't know it was to be done that slowly. There is a tape by Green Dragon that has Sifu Allen discussing some stuff and he mention Snake Turns Over and does part of the motion really quickly and that's where I learned it together with some details from people on this forum.

I think Chinese Martial Arts also misses the concept of periodization. If you are exercising you can only increase intensity for a while before you have to reduce it or you will see your gains remove. This is the case with weights and probably with other stuff, too. If you lift 5 pounds more each workout you can only do that for a while before you have to stop, wait, and then start over again with less weight. It is the same reason why all the push the tree every day and then when it's a big tree you will be able to bend it stuff is wrong. With things with Snake Turns Over you can still increase each day but I wonder if it would be better to stop and back off a bit before resuming. Because you are able to control the amount of tension though you probably will never level off the same way you would with weights. And 90 minutes of constant tension is nuts. Back in the day I did Stone Warrior up to 12 reps which took like 25 minutes or something and it was crazy. I didn't really get much size from it although that was the time I started lifting weights and I wasn't very strong when I started. Potentially stronger than I would've been otherwise, though.

[mickey]

Greetings,

IronFist, there are definitely breaks in the tension with Stone Warrior as on goes from one exercise to another. If you choose to keep it constant, that is your choice. 100 percent tension is absolute stiffness. There is no movement through a plane. It is just an isometric contraction.

mickey

[IronWeasel]

I was a competitive powerlifter. I know what a hard workout is.

I'm saying ten minutes of nonstop tension is ridiculous. And 90 minutes is nuts.

Ten minutes is fine. 20-30 minutes is probably the max amount of time for Snake.
100 reps at 12 seconds each is a total of 20 minutes.

And you won't reach that until nearly the end of the program.

You are looking at 4 to 5 minutes of exercise in the beginning.

Easy peasy.

[Frost]

As Ronin said its not debatable that that stuff works, nor is it debatable that there are better ways to train strength
If you have the time do both, if you are time limited pick the best method which takes the least time
Its also worth noting that the Chinese were manual workers/farmers etc so already had strong bodies going into this stuff (general to specific) if you aren’t strong and rely on this stuff to make you strong…well good luck
I remember reading the articles about green dragon and their powerlifting team (still have it actually), they always maintained they build their strength via these special programmes and not powerlifting just used powerlifting as a vehicle to show how good their system was
Of course they have a long history of making claims which may or may not be umm truthful

Personally Whilst I like to do a few minutes of a dynamic set I know every day as a warm up and stretch, building strength is left to powerlifting and strongman stuff

[mickey]

Greetings,

Frost,

I do not know if it is the same article that you have, Master Allen wrote that his students did not engage in resistance training until they have trained their program, again to build a foundation. They did do resistance training with weights. And powerlifting has such a specialized approach, you can't just walk in there and do it. I think you know that.

Edit: I do remember the article mentioning the use of compression suits: definitely not neophytes.

mickey

[Frost]

I know a little about powerlifting yep

The article talked about how they did little or no weight training, but how permission was given to a few ladies to start a female powerlifting team, but less than 10% of their time was spent powerlifting and there gains came from the traditional training

Come to think about it im not sure if they did a full meet as the photos were bench only, and the lifting numbers they talked about were only bench ones
Will look tonight to see

[sanjuro_ronin]

People shouldn't fall for any of these "either / or" views.
Also, building of strength and conditioning is NOT "rocket science" and is not some big "ancient chinese secret".
The reality is that building strength and conditioning is very easy, very basic and doesn't require any "mysticisim" or "exoticisim" at all.
The Iron wire, the stone warrior, the jade dragon and the titanium pelican ( whatever) are just specialised sets created for a specific purpose that deals with a specific system of Kung Fu.
The cool thing to me with these sets that are ancient ( and there is some debate about how ancient the stone warrior set is) is that the developers knew that these things worked and created them.
I do the IW as an homage to my Hung Kuen roots and because I like doing it and because it is a nice supplement to my strength and conditioning regime.
I also like how I can do it anywhere with no equipment.

Set of this nature were developed and always used as COMPLIMENTS to standard MA strength and conditioning, not replacements for it.

[SevenStar]

Sanjuro, how similar is this to sanchin?

[mawali]

CMA exponents of the past were the alleged "low lifes" (the modernist descriptive) as they engaged in many professional that were considered menial i.e. carpenter, bricklayer, poverty stricken to some degree, bodyguards, etc when compared to the palace employees of the era, their local landowners, or those with hereditary titles of some kind. There was no need for special exercise equipment or tools. When CMA became what it is today, there was reason for exercise principles and concepts to be part of the skill building background while saying that one's occupation back in da day was the background for the specific study of certain types of CMA coupled with the good fortune of affiliation with well known exponents in proximity to a village or province.

If I was a poor miscreant with some folk MA system knowledge (let's say shuaijiao), I would pack my bags and head to Cang county where I have heard there are some great teacehrs and I would have a chance to elevate my MA knowledge and perhaps join the local militia or even create my own style and become the leader so I could be paid! No one to kowtow to and be a force to be reckoned with! ISn;t that the evolution of these unique styles of CMA when you bruk it down!

Keep in mind that certain Confucian principles required one to only engage in those arts that uplifted societal status and prestige Dirtying one's hands with association with the riff raff was a no no but CMA never paid that much unless one had the attention of the local Qing Flag Battalion/regiment personnel or someone associated with them for entrance into their world.