Again I'm limited for time, so I will try to make this brief.

Ok, we're all familar with the traditional kung fu training principles, for example:

"Carry this jar around using tiger claw. Every 2nd week, add one cup of sand the the jar, when the jar is full one will achieve success."

or, more generally speaking

"do this weight bearing movement. after every x amount of time, do something to increase the weight by y units. when y has been increased to it's maximum, you will be strong."

the latter example can be jumping out of a pit and digging it deeper each week, or lifting a barrel with more and more weight in it, etc.

But, modern exercise science tells us, however, that this simply doesn't work. If you start out benching 50 pounds, and add two pounds per week, in 10 years you will be benching over 1000 pounds. Obviously, for many reasons, this won't work. Isn't this the same principle as the kung fu methods mentioned above? If this example is extreme, consider one of the following:

1) do 1 pushup today, increase by 1 each week. Sounds easy right? MAYBE after the first year you will be doing 53 pushups. I doubt by the second you will be doing 105, and definately you will have failed this method long before the third year comes to an end.

2) run 1 mile at top speed. each week, increase by 1 mile. You won't be running anywhere near 50 miles at the end of a year.

Am I totally missing something here? Someone who understands what I'm saying, clarify for me.

Or are the old kung fu methods mostly just "legend" and no one really does them...

Iron