How strong are tendons? How about ligaments?

[everything]

Often I'll read an idea like "taiji uses the strength of the connective tissues". Since muscles are what move the body and connective tissues connect different parts, that gets me wondering: how strong are tendons and ligaments anyway? Esp. compared to muscles? Is there some way to compare them with some objective measurements? Apples and oranges? How do you interpret that statement through a lens of modern biomechanics?

[Bodywork]

You train to strengthen and thicken them and to engage the fascia. Think of it like "using" more of the body. One old taiji term is "tendon changing." Unless you happen to have had an older Japanese teachers who in English called it "long muscle" and pulling "the strings" inside. As for stories, there was an old guy who trained DR who broke his arm and the Doctor who x rayed him commented on the thickness of his arm bones and connective tissue as being very unusual.
As for usable power by volume, tendons are stronger than muscle. They also require less blood and less energy than muscle in use. Something to think about in prolonged engagements and "gasing. "Further they allow more feedback than a flexed muscle. Down side is when damaged they take longer to heal.
Upside in internal training. The connective tissue gets less blood flow as you age. Internal training focusing on the bone, tendon and fascia energizes them and keeps you healthier and more fit.
I don't expect your thread to go much of anywhere other than people chiming in with western Medical "evidence" against it.
Cheers
Dan

[I-mon]

i don't think it's about how strong they are so much as it's about the fact that connective tissues form an unbroken network which holds the entire body together while individual muscles only work to move isolated parts. focus on connectivity and work with the feelings of springy tensile forces extending in sheets and cables throughout the body (covering areas much larger than individual muscles or muscle groups) and you can start to get feelings of "unified body" or "one part moves all parts move" or whatever.

[Bodywork]

We'll just have to disagree on that.
I think it is very important how strong they are and how supple they become. Also the idea of whole body movement should include the single largest connective organism-fascia. More and more research keeps coming out discussing "active" fascia.

[shawnsegler]

Tendonous strength is held in such high regard because it allows you to link up the entire frame and use the structural qualities...the "bowing quality" and the relation of the frame to gravity which allows the entire structure to support and generate power in a different way than when you are primarily using muscular strength.

You'll always be using some qualities of both, but training to recognize your frame and you cental equilibrium and the relation of your body parts to your position in space and your relation to gravity should give you enough proprioceptive info over time that you can begin to manipulate the efficiency of how energy is moved through the body...as an entire linked up unit and/or every subdivision of connection or lack thereof you can have between active muscular groups and joints that are open or closed to whatever degree.

That's one of the reasons ICMA are so good for you. YOu learn to distribute stress more evenly throughout the body, hence less wear and tear.

IME,

Best,

S

[everything]

Thank you for the replies.

Unfortunately the topic gets difficult for me to follow with no background in anatomy, biomechanics, etc, etc. How do tendons actually get trained? The only article I found on a bodybuilding site mentioned low reps, heavy weights, but that doesn't necessarily seem consistent with what I thought were training methods in "internal" arts. It doesn't seem people are too interested in this topic outside of internal arts, but I haven't tried searching too hard for info. Figure it's easier to ask the wu ming board.

[Ian]

Thank you for the replies.

Unfortunately the topic gets difficult for me to follow with no background in anatomy, biomechanics, etc, etc. How do tendons actually get trained? The only article I found on a bodybuilding site mentioned low reps, heavy weights, but that doesn't necessarily seem consistent with what I thought were training methods in "internal" arts. It doesn't seem people are too interested in this topic outside of internal arts, but I haven't tried searching too hard for info. Figure it's easier to ask the wu ming board.

isometrics and slow work.



not exactly how he describes it. adjust to fit your style.

[shawnsegler]

How do tendons actually get trained?

An easy way to feel that sort of thing right off the bat is to do chain punches in horse stance until your muscles gas. Same thing with doing any sort of standing practice or circle walking. You take a set of alignments designed to either stretch or twist your body and then you hold it until your muscles go and your joints open up and you have to use the intrinsic binding qualities of the frame to hold you up...then you're working the tendons and ligaments etc.

[Chris Fleming]

Thank you for the replies.

Unfortunately the topic gets difficult for me to follow with no background in anatomy, biomechanics, etc, etc. How do tendons actually get trained? The only article I found on a bodybuilding site mentioned low reps, heavy weights, but that doesn't necessarily seem consistent with what I thought were training methods in "internal" arts. It doesn't seem people are too interested in this topic outside of internal arts, but I haven't tried searching too hard for info. Figure it's easier to ask the wu ming board.

Steve Justa talks about this sort of thing in his book, Rock Iron Steel. Yes it is from the weight lifter's methods and perspective (Steve doesn't do taiji) but that doesn't mean this type of training will derail your IMA practice.

[Josealb]

How do tendons actually get trained?

Ive always thought this was the specialty of quality Zhan Zhuang.

[I-mon]

We'll just have to disagree on that.
I think it is very important how strong they are and how supple they become. Also the idea of whole body movement should include the single largest connective organism-fascia. More and more research keeps coming out discussing "active" fascia.

yeah i didn't see your post when i wrote mine. i agree with what you're saying 100%. the strength of the tissues is extremely important, but my point is that the fascial network needs to be seen as all-encompassing, extending through the whole body without any gaps, rather than looking at this muscle or that muscle or this tendon or that tendon. there is no special point in training the tendonous attachments of muscles to bones, rather the point is to train to engage the whole connective tissue network in sheets and cables which extend through the whole body. training like this will make those sheets and cables thicker and stronger, and of course the feelings of connection throughout the body will get much stronger as well.

everything: connective tissue is the stuff which holds our entire body together. every physical structure is contained in a fibrous rubbery bag of connective tissue. every muscle, every bone, every organ, every nerve, even every individual cell. all of these rubbery bags are connected to each other in an unbroken network of connective tissue which varies in thickness or hardness. muscles are contained in bags of fascia, these bags of fascia wrap the muscles and also wrap the bones, and this fascia gets thicker where muscles attach to bones and where bones attach to each other - these areas of thickening are referred to as tendons and ligaments.

just my experience! much more training to do, but i'm starting to feel the effects of training in this way and i'm sticking with it!

[D_Glenn]

Anyone who has worked with cooking raw chicken has probably tried to peel the chicken's fascia off of the muscle. So that is what it is. Fasica allows different muscle groups to slide past one another so there are several layers of fasica that are like sacks surrounding and separating muscle fibers and then larger sacks separating whole groups and larger ones separating all the muscles from the skin and the internal organs. One large connected sack connects the whole body under the skin. When the fascia is not moved and stretched it can start to crystallize and become rigid, the separate layers of fascia begin to stick to one another which is felt as tightness and stiffness. Rolfing addresses this issue but I think the IMA's address this problem through standing and relaxed movement. Some people mistakenly think dantian movement is the abdominal muscles moving like a belly-dancer or something, what actually is happening is the fascia sack that is separating the intestines from the other organs is bound and connected to the rest of the fascia that connects to the whole body. It's like a gyroscope or counterweight where you can feel "externally stretched, internally bound". Working the fascia through these IMA practices is called "building up and strengthening the 'wei qi' (defensive qi), which travels in the fascia.


.

[everything]

Thanks a lot. That sounds very, very cool. After reading this thread, I tried to read and understand the Wikipedia article on Fascia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fascia but cannot follow the whole thing at this point with my extremely limited understanding of anatomy and biochemistry. Do you think we are trying to train the deep fascia in IMA?

[D_Glenn]

Hey, I was just going to link that wiki.

Defensive Qi (weiqi) - definition: (quoted from the wiki article) "Deep fascia can contract. What happens during the fight-or-flight response is an example of rapid fascial contraction . In response to a real or imagined threat to the organism, the body responds with a temporary increase in the stiffness of the fascia."

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[klonk]

How do tendons actually get trained?

Ive always thought this was the specialty of quality Zhan Zhuang.

Right! Bullseye! And you don't even need to know how it works. I read articles (Boy, do I ever!) about fast twitch and slow musculature, the dark meat and the white meat, tendons and fascia. And you know what? It is all irrelevant. The body knows how to respond to the unnatural stress of standing still.

The slow muscles take over the job of supporting the body.

The fast muscles are freed for the job of defense.