This statement is so wrong. It is wrong informationally and to state it so emphatically is wrong. People want to believe the certainty they hear, whether the information is true or not.
Standing in a horse stance will change you in a very specific way that will enhance your martial arts practice.
There is an exact explanation of how it changes a person and what the goals of the practice are.
Would love to see that.
What is the EXACT explanation for this. Pease enlighten us all.
Well if you’re sticking point is at parallel it might help a bit. It is good for stretching the hips and strengthening the joints, if you need it. Eventually you can achieve the same thing with weighted squats.
Perhaps. Not as much as running or jumping or moving stance work. Dropping into a low horse repeatedly and briskly would improve springiness from the low horse position. Depth jumps would probably be better all around though.
Actually it does. My vertical is gaining along with my squat. Every Olympic athlete in nearly every Olympic sport squats for at least part of the year. Same goes for pro athletes. High volume like bodybuilding or the end of the peaking phase of a powerlifting cycle can negatively impact speed to a small degree. That’s one reason why cycling is important. Bands and chains will help your speed. I don’t use them though. All this stuff has been studied.
That remark is too nebulous to comment on. It’s good for something, I’ll say that.
Unnecessary for what? If you are a jockey, sure. For fighting, it helps. Unless you want to consider some superheavyweight lifter with chafing thighs. But it is quite easy to avoid growing that big. In fact, unless you dedicate yourself night and day to growing that big, you will not. So, quite easy to avoid.
You now, I like the horse stance training. I think it safely stretches and strengthens the lower back, hips, and knees. It may help to condition the legs to take hits by raising the resting tension level. It definitely helps with chambered kicking. In conjuction with other athletic training that goes on in a KF class it can take you a long way. Like wailing on the heavy bag or airshield, crescent kicks, etc.
Another place it may help is ingraining the instinct to drop your weight when fighting. I know that when sparring, the first instinct is to stand straight up. However, I fight better with a little “sink” in my stance.
If you actually intend to fight out of a low horse, of course it would help you there.
As far as training your muscles and strength, though, I think it is inefficient. A well balanced training regimen for a fighter should include strength training. Don’t rely on the horse for this.
Alrighty then. :eek:
10 minutes/day is long? What willpower exercises would you suggest that take less time? Most of the exercises I’m familiar with can take hours. That’s kind of the whole point of ‘willpower’ building, wouldn’t you say?
Horse stance is too much cardio for Ironfist.
i agree with everything that you said fa_jing,but i must say for the sake of completion on my behalf, 1.horse stanceis not the only stance training posture in martial arts. there are many which address not only the squatting position, the horse stance is a basic fundamental stance taught to beginners who need to develop a stronger foundation.2. one of the most important aspects of stance training is that it improves overall balance, a skill that is the lifeblood of any fighting art, the feeling you recieve when your sinking is your body being compressed into a more stable, stronger foundation to strike from, old stories tell of people who can sweep down trees due to the fact that they are so firmly rooted to support the kicking leg.3.a person with a strong foundation will be very difficult to take down, from my experience.
yes it is a very difficult and “unappealing” exercise.that is why most teachers use this exercise as a sort of “initiation” to test your willpower and dedication. to be honest, the power developed from stance training is very mysterious to me, its a different kind of strength. i read once in the thirteen chapters of tai chi chuan by chang man ching, strength comes from the sinews, and power from the bones.
I was enjoying this thread until I read that…
the squat can indeed improve your jumping skill. The horse being a static position, however, builds endurance and minimal strength only in the position that it is being held in.
How does horse increase the maximum output of leg muscles? What do you call unnecessary muscle?
You don’t hold a horse for 10 mins before you lift…unless you are trying to summon up enough qi to perform said lift :rolleyes:
so you associate a deep root with power? what of boxers, wrestlers, judoka, etc?
can you give us that explanation?
unneccesary muscle is muscle that impairs flexibilty, overdeveloped. okay while doing a squat the front leg thigh muscles are being overworked and the hind hamstrings are being underworked. as a result a weight lifter will have bad knees. stance(not just horse) training makes sure that eventually under strain every leg muscle will be strained and worked(if the stance is correct) you will also be able to make yourself heavier by sticking and sinking to the ground. you are a martial arts teacher yet you discredit stance training? squats are good, weight training is good also. and it is expected to hear so many negative views on stance training. also please forgive me if i am unclear, i think a little too quickly, and most of my info is from experience. i can squat a good 325 10 times easily, and im 135 5’6", i got this ability not from stance training but from power lifting training. static training gives me a feeling of power in my leg, an explosive inexaustble power, ive been lifting weights since i was 13, its nothing new, yet stance training ive only been doing for a few months and feel a drastic increase in power “during combat”
i have experience in each field of martial arts, i wrestled in high school and am a judoka currently, so i still get down with very formidable wrestlers, as for boxing, my dad showed me a thing or two, and so did the streets that i grew up on, a wrestlers on guard position is sunk very deeply, making them hard to tke down and quick offensively and defensively, a boxer roots his feet into the ground when he executes a punch, if not he will be pushed away rather than srtike the opponent, a judoka is constantly sinking before each throw is executed. you cannot escape stances unles you cut your legs off.
the horse stance is the POSITION that your body is in prior to execution of a deadlift, who said anything about holding a horse stance
Um… Do you know how a muscle works? That’s a pretty inaccurate statement. Size is not at all related to flexibility.
okay while doing a squat the front leg thigh muscles are being overworked and the hind hamstrings are being underworked. as a result a weight lifter will have bad knees.
Wrong. The hamstrings also assist the hips in flexing when you STAND UP. Sounds like a squat, doesn’t it? When done properly, barbell squats are one of the best hamstring developers ever (next to deadlifts). Weight lifters have bad knees if they use poor form.
you will also be able to make yourself heavier by sticking and sinking to the ground.
Please go take an introductory physics course.
i can squat a good 325 10 times easily, and im 135 5’6",
I doubt it. Do you do frat boy squats where you only go down 2"? Or is that on leg press or smith machine or something? I bet you can’t even unrack 325. If you post a vid of you doing TWO reps with 325 ass to the grass I will retract my statement. Or, a pic of you with that much weight on the bar at the BOTTOM of a squat. Oh wait, I’m sure you probably don’t have a camera or something, right? The reason I call complete BS on this is because a) you have demonstrated that you have no knowledge when it comes to physiology and b) that computes to over a 3x bodyweight squat 1 rep max, and no one gets a 3x bodyweight squat without knowing something about physiology (unless they have some sick ass genetics).
ive been lifting weights since i was 13, its nothing new,
Dude, your e-c0ck is so big. We’re all jealous.
Seriously.
Physiological proof:
Basic physiology principle: SAID (specific adaptation to imposed demands). In other words, your body gets better at what you do and worse at what you don’t do. This is why marathoners don’t train with sprints, and why sprinters have no use for long distance running in their training.
How it relates here: if you hold stances for long periods of time your muscles will become better at holding one position for long periods of time. This does not translate into kicking, punching, weightlifting, or anything other than holding one position for long periods of time.
Real-world proof:
If stance training were useful for building strength, olympic level weightlifters would do it.
If stance training were useful for building speed, olympic level speed skaters/runners/basketball players/soccer players would do it.
If stance training were useful for fighting, professional fighters (UFC/Pride/Boxing) would do it.
You can’t refute that. Why would people whose lives and income depend on being the best in the world at their given sport NOT undertake a particular training method if it would benefit them? Please don’t go into “old kung fu masters know the workout secrets that elude modern sports scientists” mode.
Finally, someone said something about squatting or explosive weight lifting not improving your jumping… um… you do know that 300lb olympic lifters have INSANE vertical jumps, right? And it’s certaintly not from playing basket ball or doing horse stance all day.
nice witty yet ambiguously gay comment.