the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

For the last 6 months or so I have gotten a lot more serious about my workouts. I have been playing around with the KB's for a few years and I have gotten some strength gains, I haven't really gotten any "conditioning" out of it. Here's my question:

What are you guys doing right now for Strength, Cardio and Flexibility, and how does that dovetail with your Internal training?

I usually get to the Kwoon 3x a week. This is what I usually do:

Walk 4.5 miles to the Kwoon, or do 30 flights of stairs when I get there (down backwards, up forwards)

6 rung circuit ladders of kettlebells (Swings, Cleans, Military Press, Squats, Renegade Rows) Start with 6 reps of each with 2 35's, ending with 1 rep of each with 2 70's.

Class is usually either 3 hours of Ba Gua Zhang or Yi Quan

High Rep Swings, Cleans or Snatches with either a 53 or 70 to finish, usually 80 to 100 reps depending on how toasty I am. The whole day usually takes about 4 hours.

My Internal work right now consists of a lot of Taiji Ruler, our qigong, and I am working on some stuff in my ZZ.

My Qigong feels really good these days. I feel like practicing Neigong and Waigong with equal vigor is really where it's at. I feel like my structure has never been better. I've got a couple of little things I'm working on in my standing in terms of connection and power transmission, but overall I'm pretty happy with where I'm at.

What are you guys up to?

Lewitt

How relaxed are you? Just curious.

Strength - Lifting, isotonic/isometric, yoga
Cardio - Plyo, Bag Work, Run, MA
Flex - Yoga, MA, reg stretch

relaxed as in bob marley? or relaxed as is morehi ueshiba?

Lewitt

Taoboxer- i know what you mean about questioning if your getting stronger or not. kettlebells, circuits, bag work are in my weekly routine.
Having had a good meeting with Dr. Ken fish- I am going to try the Authentic pilates for proper stretching and core strength. In boxing call we normally do 100- 150 sit ups. trying the pilates situp- i couldnt do one with proper structure.

i dont mind taking a step back and relearning my body with new ways of stretching and core training through this recommendation pilates.

having been lazy as hell the last 15 years or so about the "wai" workouts, i'm getting back into this by doing: 3 sets of 5 burpees, followed by 3 sets of 5 hindu pushups, and then perhaps 1 set of 10 bodyweight squats if i've got any gas left. i'm doing this 2 days on, 1 day off. been at it for about 3 weeks now. i'll add more stuff as i get stonger and my cardio improves. seems like it's helping the "nei" workouts (zhan zhuang, circle walking, single movement stuff) a little.

Are you joking?

TaoBoxer wrote:relaxed as in bob marley? or relaxed as is morehi ueshiba?

Lewitt

With all that strength work, how loose are your shoulders? Can you do those rope stretch thingies* with your hands at shoulder-width?

*Take a rope in both hands, palms down, next to your thighs. Raise over your head and keep rotating until your hands are behind your back, palms up. What the hell is this stretch called, anyway??

FWIW I have a similar routine to yours, but I also spend an equal or greater amount of time getting loose.

Chinese heavy weapons are always good.
At my teachers studio I found a five foot long straight sword that is very difficult to use. Walking 15 minutes with that thing seems like a pretty good workout.

Mix,

Another great exercise:

Take 2 bells, press them over head.... WAlk the circle, do bamboo stepping, 7 star stepping.... whatever. When your arms burn out, drop the bells to your chest.... keep walking. When that gets to be too much.... drop them to a suitcase carry.... Keep walking. It's a great drill.

Ian:

If I understand the drill you're talking about, I can't go more than 10 or 15* past my head..... But I couldn't do that before I started lifting a lot either. It's not somthing I ever spent time on. As far as I can tell however, I haven't lost any flexibility or rang eof motion.... and I am much stronger in the range of motion that I do have. That's the beauty of the Bells. You dont' really get bulky. It's not power lifting. Most of the big name instructors look at strength as a "learned skill."

Qi:

You're really on to somthing. I love a vigorous warm up in qigong.

Lewitt

Mix, you would love my kwan dao. It's just about 30 lbs and has a super heavy blade.
the weapon just has to be put in plae and then it falls on it's own.

highly impractical, but reall fucking cool and luckily I learned a complete set for it's use that contains dozens of handy techs.

Darth, That's awesome. The Hung Ga sifu in my kwoon saw me playing with a 45lb olypic weight bar and was like "come over here and let me show you this tiger fork set..."

Heavy weapons for big guys :-D

Lewitt

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Bhassler wrote:Internal training (relative to body mechanics and awareness) should meet all the needs of external training, if done properly. I do all sorts of things that require external types of strength (freerunning, cycling, Pilates, flying trapeze, etc.), and when I struggle with any of it, I look at it as a puzzle (how can I jump more explosively? how can I do a handstand more easily?) and then bring that puzzle back into my taiji/qigong training to find an answer. So far, it's worked great. I can try something new and suck at it, go away for two weeks to integrate it into my neijia, then come back and blow people away with the progress I've made.

When you get right down to it, internal and external are pretty much arbitrary distinctions-- all any of us have to work with is our whole self. I use so-called internal work to build the external, but I know lots of free runners (for instance) who use external to build some very internal qualities.

QFT......great post

well, im not actually all that big per se.

im about 185. I was less when i learned that set, but to be fair, the general's knife that i learned with was only about 8 lbs. (wooden pole, chromium blade)
It was after learning the set that i purchased the metal pole heavy blade combat quality kwan dao.

it fucked me up for about 10 sessions before i could properly weild it again as it should be.