Do You Even Lift Bro?! - Internal Martial Arts and Weight Lifting
This blog post is a little later than planned. Whilst we have lots of ideas for posts scribbled down, ultimately you need a spark of inspiration to bring them to life. Often it is the idea of getting out of your own way and not forcing it that allows creativity to flow. However on this occasion it came whilst willing it. Just an interesting break of that paradigm we thought worth mentioning.
Over the years we have seen many instructors, some quite high profile, advocate for Tai Chi practitioners not to engage in strength training. Their rationale is that it would prevent Tai Chi’s characteristic soft power, preventing them from being ‘sung’. This is bullshit! Obviously speak to a personal trainer and/or medical professional for the official line on the importance of strength training. But even the likes of us not specialising in this area can say with some confidence that strength training is essential for longevity. The best kind of strength is that farmer’s strength which is an organic (excuse the pun) part of a natural self-sufficient lifestyle. But for those that drive a desk, you’re going to need a plan.
Some qualifying statements…
It doesn’t have to be weights as such. We are big advocates for body weight exercises and really enjoy bouldering which not only builds strength but also mobility, grip strength and problem solving. Resistance bands are a more naturalistic way to build strength and are especially useful for the kind of trained force (jin) associated with the internal martial arts. We happen to have some nice branded travel/gift sets of resistance bands still in stock, check out the store. Ok, advert over, moving on.
When you do work with weights we have personally found the old fashioned body part split routines i.e. legs/arms/back etc. on different days/sessions, to not be hugely effective. We have also found it to promote injury and just not feel that nutritious. Kettle bells and the various systems of clubs are closer to something functional. We would advocate for using lighter weights and exploring the magnetic and electric lines of force with the added resistance. That is to say transitioning between magnetic (yin) and electric (yang) postures through which you can support the weight or resist the weight for yin/yang respectively through the connective tissue and frame. This is more fun because it is another outlet for your kung fu, and it will give you the body you need to intensively run the esoteric energies.
Get those gains!