the rum soaked fist: internal martial arts forum

Hi Folks,

has any studies been done on the adaptations that can be expected from Zhan Zhuang Standing Exercises?

Does anyone have any links?

Cheers
Konn

The best study you will find is your own study of it (learning from an “qualified” teacher)

I have not looked carefully at the following 2018 study, but you may find it interesting:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6160034/

The use of “randomized, assessor, and statistician blinded, parallel-controlled trial” is what one would want, but the control group is just “unaltered lifestyle,” which is OK for just seeing benefits, but not parsing out the contributing factors. For example, a seated meditation group may have been good to compare with as they would have the instructor/instruction factors similar to the standing qigong group (controlling for the Hawthorne effect, etc., but not doing something that would be expected to improve one’s balance...), as well as the contribution from meditation without the held standing postures. There are no real controls that look at various aspects that they examine like balance, breathing, psychological health, mobility, and other “quality of life” issues.

One can probably see if there are significant effects (changes, improvements) from standing post qigong practice when compared with “subhealthy” individuals who do nothing differently than normal (i.e., remain “subhealthy”). But we cannot tell if those improvements are from things like the Hawthorne or placebo effects, general health improvements, etc., or if they are due to the specifics of the standing posture qigong.

There have been quite a few but they all tend to be grouped together as quiet standing, with or without mentioning an origin, albeit zhanzhaung, taijizhuang or just plain zhuangfa. IQuan/IChuan, etc does have references to this static neigong activity. The linked PubMed reference does have a great introduction because the Inclusion/Exclusion section does determine the degree of healthy of the students though they aren't rated as 'subhealthy'.

Inclusion criteria for a clinical trial does serve as a baseline so that anything during or post study, or selected intervals (of said study) can be analyzed and determination made regarding some effect, be it positive or negative.

Many Thanks for your replies.

I am really already sold on the health/performance benefits; I'm more interested on Physical adaptations i.e. muscle tone, tendon strength, neurological efficiencies etc.

However, LaoDan the link you sent is quite interesting I will go through it and digest.

Thanks All.

Konn