Tendons versus Muscles

[Dmitri]

Once you've started rebuilding/rewiring your body and you try that kind of weight training again, you'll do them differently.

Care to elaborate on what you think this difference would be? I'd be truly interested to see the difference between a 400lbs squat performed by someone who has rebuilt/rewired their body in this way you speak of, and a 400lbs squat by someone who has not.

Not to speak for Mark, but here's how I see it, FWIW...
There wouldn't be a lot of difference between the two "body methods" for something like a 400lbs squat because it is a largely localized effort by definition. Taijiquan involves attributes like continuous sensitivity to ongoing changes in pressure to various body part from various angles, remaining relaxed in order to be able to quickly move in response to the said changes, remaining relatively loose and maintain abdominal breathing during the whole thing, etc. All at the same time, and all the while being able to produce substantial-enough amount of outward force (whether explosive or not) and "root" the inward pressure. None of which is required in a "pure" weight lift like the squat you mentioned. Different specialization, so to speak. In other words -- not the best example, IMHO. (For what little that's worth.)

[dspyrido]

Ok, then lets go beyond this. How to do it?

This thread just got interesting again.

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.

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.

[MaartenSFS]

Interesting ideas. My teacher also learned Tuina and was taken by his teache to cut open a corpse and see all the bones and connective tissues. He said it really helped him.

[WVMark]

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.

From what I can tell from reading your description, that's not how I train. Not saying good or bad, just not how I train. I didn't mention relaxing large muscles, which doesn't sound like how I train either. I talked about the difference between building localized isolated muscle groups as being detrimental to gaining whole body, integrated, relaxed power. How do you train it? Intent, but nobody wants to believe that so I don't usually talk about it. Dunno. Everyone has their training. I just agreed with MaartenSFS' post about what his teacher told him. Sounded like good advice to me.

[Patrick]

@dysprido: the Body uses till 40%fmax type I fibers. Over 40%fmax the different Type II fibers get gradually activated (Ramp effect). As far as Tendon Training, they require the Same stimulations as muscles and react similar.
Postural muscle activity is carried out by Type 1 fibers, they have longer edurance and better Motor control.
When you will train an activity, you will Train in many instances all types. But the activities differ in the ratio of activation.

[suckinlhbf]

What I can recall from my previous reading of older Chinese Literature is "Tendon long, Power strong" and train to "stretch the tendon and pull-up your bones". I don't recall I have read something like "use your tendons and don't use your muscles". My understanding is Tendon and Muscle have different functions and are working together to achieve a purpose. I use a hell lot of muscles in my training, and to get tendons and muscles to work together.