Peacedog wrote:The ligament in the penis is much stronger than most people realize. As long as you progress slowly little risk to the tendon exists.
The issue is the nerves, to a greater degree, and vascular tissue, to the greatest degree, in the penis. The vascular tissue is easy to injure and has been the source of most of the injuries I've seen on people using Chia's material.
That's interesting. His videos are much more in-depth than the books and comefrom his training in Thailand. He specifically states in one clip that he has treated many people from Taiwan that have gotten injured from doing too heavy (he doesn't recommend more than 20-30lbs IIRC) and he says they rarely practice the rest of the material which is very important.
Peacedog wrote:What I can say outside that, is that there are some super-jacked purveyors of bodyweight and "not barbell based training" out there that are practitioners of this method. They advertise their exercise systems as the source of their "amazing fitness" when in fact it's the shih shui gung. I wouldn't quite say they are lying. It is just that you will never get their results from just doing their exercise system.
Also regarding Chia and YJM, they are known for having others write books for them on specific material and publishing it as their own. I've known people who were approached by both organizations.
The guys in Ohio, right? The thing is most of the "swingers" don't use the increased test to build their bodies the way they should nor is the nutrition there. The exercise portion isn't nearly as popular because it's hard work.
As for the ghost-writing, Chia's main disciple (Michael something?) came out and said he had ghost-written several of Chia's books after they split and then he retracted the claim after he went back.....um, got paid more money, I guess.
Peacedog wrote:If you look for some of James McNeil's students of his xishuigung/shihshuigung ... they have posted testosterone level lab results online in the past. It seems to take about a full year of practice to reach peak effect. The one I remember best went from a score of something like 245 ng/dl to 800 ng/dl over the course of a year.
That's a significant increase. An increase of that magnitude should result in the natural gain of at least 7-8kg of muscle mass with a corresponding drop in body fat. For normal guys over the age of 50, that's a game changer for sure. Sacropenia is something no one talks about and practinging a so-called "internal martial art" not only doesn't rescue you from the effects of sarcopenia, such practice usually makes it worse by denying the positive role that muscle plays in health, fitness, and fighting.
A friend of mine is doing a trial of HRT to see if raising his test levels can improve his lifting and his life and getting from around 250 to 500 costs him about US$100 per month IIRC and that's with insurance covering part of the cost. Getting a guy from 240 to 800 through HRt alone is expensive and they will regress if they get off the drugs.
Just want to throw out there that there are entire branches of iron body and xishuigong that don't use the weight hanging. In fact, Qiao's material is much broader than just hanging/swinging weights although how effective the other parts are without the hanging is up to debate.
The real contribution of this material and the other iron body neigongs is that this model provides an antidote to the nearly worthless "sink the qi to the dantien" neigong model that takes 25 years if it ever works at all. The effects of xisui/ironbody are felt very quickly, showing how potent they are.