Patrick wrote:Ok, then lets go beyond this. How to do it?
This thread just got interesting again.
Patrick wrote:I bet he is in actuallity very much focused on his muscles. He wants to train lower intensity but for a longer duration focused on relaxation which in turn targets mainly type I muscles (fine motor skills), instead of explosive strength work which targets mainly type II (gross motor skills). IMHO every IMA based art trains like this.
johnwang wrote:Does this make sense?
Muscles training - more weight, less repetition.
Tendons training - less weight, more repetition.
& then we get explanations of ksloka, WMVMark on relaxing the large muscles which you can learn to in order to rely on structure. But this leads to the question from David Boxen. If I do a leg squat how am I going to will myself into tendon leg squat? Does this make sense?
Nope. So here is the main point.
It is not just about the number of reps, aiming for relaxation or load bearing. It includes all these things but a big part is - how you train.
I mentioned this before:
Muscle training vs tendons training - is it really so complex? Ask a body builder what they do. Now talk to a cyclist or runner. Is it the same? No ... so people can train differently.
But what are the characteristics of "tendon" training that make it different. Well we use: lower, longer, faster. The faster part may throw some of the slowish TC guys but the other concepts are still there. Don't worry though because in the beginning it is all slow.
So for example - when we step with the heel we pull the toes right back stretching tendons along the leg. In practice the stepping leg planes across the ground (not touching but not lifting more than 1cm). On placing the heel we want to have leading leg extend as far as possible without loosing balance & control of the center. Then the leg pulls the bodyweight up to go into the next step. All this while twisting the torso. Now we repeat and repeat and repeat.
This is an complex body excericse & requires enormous awareness of balance & control to get right.
Ask a person who can do a 400lb squat to do this & they will fall over, struggle to keep balance etc. I have asked several guys into bodybuilding & all of them moved like a 1 year learning to walk. But after practicing this for a long time can we do 400lb squats without any really squat training? The answer was yes because the strength was still there & the ability to do balanced control under the horse stance was actually far far easier than the twisting postures.
So at the root it's not in the weight or repetitions but in the stretching, twisting, structurally "relaxing"/song that something different starts to get trained. Is it tendons vs. muscles? Actually I don't know specifically & I am not about to cut myself open but the enormous benefit this has provided means I will keep doing this sort of training vs. doing squats.