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Wanna be physically strong?

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ChadTower:

--- Quote from: shorthair on May 27, 2007, 04:52:32 pm ---Chad: you start off right - body-builder friend is all about looks - then run countre in the second part....because you have faith in the use of weight equipment. Not that you couldn't use that stuff to get REALLY strong. But you'd use it differently.

Of course, the most often over-looked element is flexibility. Even with a tremendous amount of stretching, most weight-trainers don't have even a tenth the flexibility of those utilising functional exercises, and may only be as strong in a limited number of ways. So it's actually contextual. How broad a context do you want to be able to function within?

--- End quote ---

Many of the powerlifting assistance exercises are actually specifically about flexibility.  You can't squat below parallel without highly flexible hips.  You can't safely deadlift if you don't have a flexible lower back and hamstrings.  You can't bench in the upper weights without flexible shoulders.

But anyway, yes I have faith in weights, because all a weight is is a mass against gravity.  Fighting gravity is the core of strength training and it matters little how you do it so long as you do it efficiently and safely.

shorthair:
I used to do squats and deadlifts just fine. Some time later I started bridging and hindu push-ups and found I wasn't that flexible. And, one crucial difference in moving a weight and moving your body (or your body weighted down, like with a weight vest, or with resistance cables) is point of leverage. The other is that coventional lifting exercises are linear. Functional exercises are what I call radial. They involve perpendicular planes of range of motion.

But none of that is what I was last referring to.

clanggedin:
Bruce Lee used dynamic tension/isometrics to stay in shape. I did dynamic tension for about while I lived in Argentina, it worked out really well. I came back to the the US in awesome shape. Had a six pack and everything all from dynamic tension.

I don't understand how Tai Chi hardens your body. I know that Tai Chi will strengthen you using what they call "relaxed strength", it's not dynamic tension though, but to harden your shins/ forearms like a Muay Thai fighter it can't.



shorthair:
From what I understand, Lee used machines a lot for isometrics, vs static objects. Both are good, but again I think point of leverage is important in separating which is better.

Tai Chi is about energy. Instead of merely hardening/acclimating the physical (and perhaps stumbling onto the psychical), you regulate energy flow to whatever configuration you imagine.

(As I alluded to in a post above: I happened upon this program a little while ago where all the dude had to do was touch you to paralyse a limb, stun you so that you would immediately fall and need to be caught, or even kill. He could also heal. You know, like in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.)

JackTucky:

--- Quote from: ChadTower on May 27, 2007, 11:55:23 am ---When we tried to move the piano, he had trouble keeping an end lifted (the thing is probably 800lb, 100 year old upright).  I walked over and did it easily. 

--- End quote ---

Chad is superman, really.

=J

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