Originally posted by Shooter
[B]T’ai Ji monkey, try these for 4 months:
Get a sledgehammer, pick-axe, and shovel. Drive to your nearest gravel pit and break rock, break ground, dig holes, fill em back up. Wear safety glasses at all times, and maybe some steel-toed boots. 4 hour sessions, twice a week.
Get a big old tractor tire - throw it, lift it, and carry it around your back yard. 2 hour sessions, 3 times a week.
Do odd carries equalling your own body weight up and down a flight of stairs. 1 hour sessions, 5 times a week. [/B]
Thanks.
Makes me remember the time when I was working for 2 months as a labourer on a farm got plenty fit and strong during that time. Add to that plenty of wood chopping, etc.
Next summer was a 1-month stint at a Kibutz.
I didn’t even read this thread because I’m sure everything that’s been asked can be found in the training forum, where this should have been posted in the first place.
Reasons martial artists should weight train:
Nothing in TMA will get you very strong. Bodyweight exercises, dynamic tension, etc. The only way you get stronger is by lifting heavy weights. Being able to hold a horse stance for a long time or do a lot of pushups does not mean you’re strong. It means you have good endurance, which is important, but it doesn’t mean you’re strong. You could hold a horse stance all day long and still not be able to squat your bodyweight on a barbell. How important is strenght in a fight? Go fight someone who is a lot stronger than you and you’ll see.
I realize that list ended with 1. Now let’s look at myths that accompany weight lifting.
It will make you inflexible.
It will make you slow
I forgot the rest of them but if you heard a martial artists say it it’s probably not true.
1 and 2 up there are false.
Next question?
IronFist’s number one rule of weightlifting?
Never learn about weightlifting from a martial artist (unless it’s one of the smart ones here). But if you go to a MA school and your teacher tells you “martial artists shouldn’t lift weights because they make you bulky and slow” or some crap like that, you should find a new school.
Shooter, what’s TCC? I want to hear this crazy workout.
A while back, someone (I think it was omegapoint) gave a long theory of his that summed up qi as being nothing more than metabolism and everyone ridiculed him. It sounded plausible though. [/B]
It was Goktimus Prime, and his theory while plausible had some huge holes in it. Metabolism may be a part of it, but does not adequately explain the concept of qi.
Personally I don’t see why it is so hard to accept the explanation that qi is breath and the various effects it has on the body.
“Largely these qualities are achieved by relaxing the exterior muscles, aligning the body w/ gravity and utilizing deeper “core” muscles/tendons/ligaments coordinated with whole body movement and breathing.”
FYI, tendons and ligaments do not move your body. When you move whether it is in Taiji or in the weight room, it is your muscles moving your body. The relaxation is just so there are no antogonist muscles and risidual tension acting as brakes on the movement which would sap your power.
Learn how to olympic lift (snatches and clean&jerks). It take full body power and coordination. You must have proper alignment, form, breathing, etc. The power snatch and power clean is better for beginners.
I think on the “Full” versions they were sinking lower.
I can’t do that, I’d do a lot better with the “power” versions because i have serious balance issues squatting down that low.
shooter had some nice functional strength stuff: odd object lifting, strong man training, and old school stuff like wood chopping/sledgehammer/pickaxe, which you can kinda do with clubells.
Originally posted by Shooter
[B]T’ai Ji monkey, try these for 4 months:
Get a sledgehammer, pick-axe, and shovel. Drive to your nearest gravel pit and break rock, break ground, dig holes, fill em back up. Wear safety glasses at all times, and maybe some steel-toed boots. 4 hour sessions, twice a week.
Get a big old tractor tire - throw it, lift it, and carry it around your back yard. 2 hour sessions, 3 times a week.
Do odd carries equalling your own body weight up and down a flight of stairs. 1 hour sessions, 5 times a week. [/B]
i mean baseball players and boxers used chopping wood to build crazy strength in the muscles that create that KO kinda torque.
Jack Dempsey and Babe Ruth immediately come to mind.
But if it makes you feel better, I hear Pek Kwar was a style used by a lumberjack who could eventually chop down trees without the axe.
Roy Jones Junior uses tire flips and sled drags as well.
I guess the kung fu analogy would be a chef with a heavy iron lid over his pot having a lot of power.
If you are going to lift weights, instead of using the bar for benchpress, do dumbell presses so you use the support groups. I try to avoid using machines unless its a kung fu specific activity, like leg kickbacks with a couple hundred pounds. (theres a machine called the “butt blaster” at my gym that works in almost the exact same motion as the backward kicking motion in shuai chiao)
Originally posted by Meat Shake (theres a machine called the “butt blaster” at my gym that works in almost the exact same motion as the backward kicking motion in shuai chiao)
… don’t lie, you know that you only use that thing to increase your “clench”, to defend against the “donkey punch”, or to make the guy really pay for it if he don’t give you a reacharound…
Originally posted by Meat Shake If you are going to lift weights, instead of using the bar for benchpress, do dumbell presses so you use the support groups.
by doing that, you limit your strength gain. I bench 285… you won’t find two 142.5 lb. dumbells.
You know what, Seven? I can’t do 1/3 the reps or near the same weight that my sons (14 and 17) do in their weight training (I’ve never done any kind of w/t).
They can’t last 30 minutes doing what I do all day on the job.
Different kinda strength.
I got them doing 100lb pitches, cantilevers, and one-handed hoists with their barbells though, so there’s still hope.
Add to that plenty of wood chopping, etc.
