Tell us about your home gym....

[Jimmythebull]

Plyometrics, while effective, also place a lot more shock on the body than many other forms of strength training. There may be other examples that I'm less familiar with.

Plyometric training is proposed to reduce the risk of future injury by training muscle coactivation through neuromuscular adaptation. This is particularly relevant for reducing the risk of anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tears by training quadriceps and hamstring muscle coactivation.

 

[Jimmythebull]

It depends I suppose on the experience of the therapist too but I used plyometrics after a knee operation way back in 1999. Definitely helped strengthen/ stabalize my knee.

Learn Box Jump Progressions

Learn Box Jump Progressions

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[Jimmythebull]

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

The resistant bands are awesome.

I think we are talking about 2 different kind of home weight training here.

1. You want to make your muscle strong.
2. You want to use weight equipment to enhance certern MA skill.

If your goal is

- 1, you may just use it to develop certain muscle (such as your arm muscle).
- 2, you will not be interested in how strong your arm can pull that resistant band, but how stronger you can use your body to pull that resistant band. That's the "body unification" I'm talking about.

When you pull the resistant band, the harder that you pull, the stronger the resistant band will pull you back. You want to make sure that your body can resist fully against the resistant band's pulling back.

Goal 1:

Goal 2:

 

[Oily Dragon]

This is just one example of what Kung Fu wang was talking about as "body unification" . When he says "isolation" he's talking more about when like what you get when working on one of the machines that target one area. The example that you show actually targets more than what's highlighted in red. That is very different than this

Do this same exercise standing up and more muscles will be engaged. Bend your legs slightly and even more muscles are engaged. To this while walking and even more are engaged. Do it while walking in a hilly area and everything gets worked. When I was a teen I stopped doing squats and started cycling. Cycling developed my legs faster than and to a greater extent than doing squats. Cycle required my legs to be engaged more often. I could use push and pull mechanics and I could shift how may legs were being worked out by slightly shifting my position on my seat. The best thing I like about it is that my arms were being worked out as well.

I think the main issue for people who lift weights is based on the purpose. Are they lifting weights to shape their body or are they lifting weights to be functional. I used to lift weights to shape my body but now I just want to be functional. There's not "much body" sculpting going on. I'm not trying to create a specific look. My muscles and the shape of my body will be what it is. I'm not actively trying to get a specific idea look.

When we get older muscle function is going to be more important than having that idea body look.

Muscle mass as a fraction of total body mass is the most important thing that an aging man has to work to maintain.

I don't usually throw out info about myself, but I have about 110 lbs of muscle. Middle aged dude.

It's not easy. Kung Fu with weights made it possible. On a typical day I'm as tired as anyone, so I push myself, even on a Sunday.

 

[JowGaWolf]

No you can't isolate any muscle.

You are missing the point and you keep showing exercises that require a large group of muscles, (except the dumbbell press). Which is not what Kung Fu wang is talking about. I know you understand this because they show this on every piece of machine weight equipment with a graphic that shows which muscles the machine targets.

No one does tricep pull downs to work on their back. But I can show some free weight and resistance bands that work the back and the triceps and the core, and the legs at the same time.

View attachment 28993

I don't do these exercises anymore because they are very limited in terms of the development of muscle groups. The group of muscles that this workouts out is small. I do one of my staff strikes while using a bar like but 20lbs. I get more development of muscle doing that then I do tricep pull downs.
View attachment 28994

Plyometrics are also useful. Used in many sports and definitely build power & speed.

There are a couple that are found in traditional martial arts.

 

[JowGaWolf]

This just isn't how the body works, barring genetic defects, pre-existing injuries or other unusual external factors. Stimulus, rest and nutrition that lead to muscular development also stimulate the body to strengthen the associated connective tissues. It's a musculotendonous unit, you aren't going to stimulate just part of it. This is largely true of bones as well, though there appears to be contradictory evidence as to whether or not low weight resistance training provides sufficient stimulus to increase bone density, it is pretty well established that lifting weights in the neighborhood of >=85% of 1RM will do so (regardless of mode of resistance training - machine, free weights, whatever).

If people are tearing tendons and ligaments with more frequency these days (I've not seen particular evidence of such), then I'd argue strongly that they must also be suffering from muscular tears at a similarly more frequent rate. This may be possible, and you still hear about the connective tissue tears a lot more, as tearing a tendon tends to be a bit more serious than tearing a muscle and that's what people are going to talk about. If this sort of injury (muscle and tendon tears) is happening more often, I'd argue that it's either because we've developed a sub-culture of fanaticism about fitness and there are a lot more people over training, or some form of exercise has become popularized that's much higher force, or is not aligned with proper muscle and joint function (and thus improper form is to blame, not strength imbalance between muscle and connective tissue), or people are skipping warmups for some reason, or some combination there of.

There was definitely a time when at least a minority of Cross Fitters had the attitude of "Just do the work, as fast, as hard and as long as you can - don't let concerns about form (or Uncle Rhabdo!) get in the way!" Plyometrics, while effective, also place a lot more shock on the body than many other forms of strength training. There may be other examples that I'm less familiar with.

I guess someone should tell the rock climber that he doesn't know what he's talking about.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

exercises that require a large group of muscles,

The belt cracking is a good exercise that you can use it to polish and enhance almost any MA skill. It doesn't build hug muscle. It build slenderly muscle.

 

[Jimmythebull]

You are missing the point

No you are.

 

[Jimmythebull]

The belt cracking is a good exercise that you can use it to polish and enhance almost any MA skill. It doesn't build hug muscle. It build slenderly muscle.

You know what I grew up with the Charles Atlas courses & the Bullworker but sorry your post Is just,........
Is that a chinese boy group like New kids on the Block?

 

[Jimmythebull]

No one does tricep pull downs to work on their back

 

[JowGaWolf]

You know what I grew up with the Charles Atlas courses & the Bullworker but sorry your post Is just,........
Is that a chinese boy group like New kids on the Block?

Thanks because you only see the belt. You aren't paying attention to the other movements involved.

 

[Jimmythebull]

Thanks because you only see the belt. You aren't paying attention to the other movements involved.

Ah ok..so the snapping belt was just a show thing..
From the OP..
The belt cracking is a good exercise that you can use it to polish and enhance almost any MA skill.

 

[Kung Fu Wang]

You know what I grew up with the Charles Atlas courses & the Bullworker but sorry your post Is just,........
Is that a chinese boy group like New kids on the Block?

 

[Jimmythebull]

So how will this help my escrima? Maybe explain further..I'm all ears.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Ah ok..so the snapping belt was just a show thing..
From the OP..
The belt cracking is a good exercise that you can use it to polish and enhance almost any MA skill.

There are things that the body does during the exercises that are also useful to striking and grappling concepts. It's more than what Kung Fu Wang Just showed.

I started to explain this to you but I just don't have the energy to explain to someone who really isn't interest in how. So I'll just end it with this. Polish and enhancing skill sets doesn't mean learning the skill set. I could as simple as something that helps to generate more power or something that allows you to make use of what you already know. You only saw one belt cracking exercise and proceeded to make an assumption about something you don't do, or have no interest in doing.

 

[MetalBoar]

I guess someone should tell the rock climber that he doesn't know what he's talking about.

I'll start by saying I apologize for having spoken too authoritatively. The studies that have been done aren't extensive enough, nor of sufficient quality, to warrant the level of certainty I expressed. That being said, those I've read tend to support the overall point that I was making. Tendons respond to the same stimulus that muscles do and I've seen no evidence at all to suggest that we can target them separately from the skeletal muscles. So, if you want stronger tendons, you have to do the things that give you stronger muscles.

I have seen some studies that imply that like bones, tendons may require a greater stimulus (closer to 1RM) than muscles to trigger an adaptive response. If so, that's an argument in favor of weight lifting, not against

There is evidence that tendons do strengthen more slowly than muscle, but the exact timeline isn't well established. Depending on the study, it looks like it takes somewhere between a couple weeks to maybe 3 months before significant structural changes can be detected, as opposed to a few days to maybe a couple of weeks for skeletal muscle. It's generally more difficult to measure changes in connective tissue than skeletal muscle so that's not definitive either. The research does show collagen synthesis markers (associated with tendon growth) are produced 24-hours post resistance training, so it's not unreasonable to think that adaptation begins at roughly the same time for both muscles and tendons, it just may take tendons longer to complete the process.

The video isn't actually making the point he (and you) think he's making. Sure, tendons may develop more slowly than muscles, but they seem to respond largely proportionally to the stimulus (to the degree that we can and have measured such things). So, if you do something that makes a muscle stronger, it's likely that the tendons connected to that muscle will become similarly stronger, though that increase in strength may lag behind by a couple of months.

Again, this is in response to stimulus, so a rock climber and a power lifter and a boxer will all develop muscle and tendon strength differently from each other because they do not put the same stress on the same muscles. Sure, on average, rock climbers likely have stronger and larger tendons in their forearms and hands than most other athletes because the hands and forearms are disproportionally important in rock climbing. On average, it's also likely that rock climbers have larger and stronger muscles in their forearms and hands than most other athletes. On average, serious cyclists likely have larger tendons and muscles in their legs than rock climbers, etc.

Finally, I want to say that the guy making the video either has poor critical thinking skills or is intentionally disingenuous when he compares the visual muscle and tendon development of the 3 participants in the video. If they were identical triplets it might offer some insight into what stimulus different athletic activities provide. As it is, based on this sample, it's about as valid to say that smaller/less visible wrist tendons are correlated with greater height. This kind of error (or deception) is unfortunately common, but that doesn't make it acceptable.

 

[Jimmythebull]

There are things that the body does during the exercises that are also useful to striking and grappling concepts. It's more than what Kung Fu Wang Just showed.

I started to explain this to you but I just don't have the energy to explain to someone who really isn't interest in how. So I'll just end it with this. Polish and enhancing skill sets doesn't mean learning the skill set. I could as simple as something that helps to generate more power or something that allows you to make use of what you already know. You only saw one belt cracking exercise and proceeded to make an assumption about something you don't do, or have no interest in doing.

I'll Stick to my gym training.. thanks anyway.

 

[MetalBoar]

I think we are talking about 2 different kind of home weight training here.

1. You want to make your muscle strong.
2. You want to use weight equipment to enhance certern MA skill.

If your goal is

- 1, you may just use it to develop certain muscle (such as your arm muscle).
- 2, you will not be interested in how strong your arm can pull that resistant band, but how stronger you can use your body to pull that resistant band. That's the "body unification" I'm talking about.

When you pull the resistant band, the harder that you pull, the stronger the resistant band will pull you back. You want to make sure that your body can resist fully against the resistant band's pulling back.

Goal 1:

Goal 2:

I agree that we're talking about 2 different things.

I lift weights to get stronger. Being stronger is universally beneficial to any physical activity I choose to pursue and especially useful in martial arts. Because strength is so foundational to physical movement, I want to maximize the results from my resistance training. I choose my exercise methods to maximize strength gains and to do so as efficiently as possible so that I have time and resources for skill development separately. I've done a lot of reading and experimenting on the subject and everything supports following a focused, high intensity, weight training protocol, centered around big compound movements as the fundamental component of my exercise program. There are other good approaches and some of them may work better for some other people, but I've found this to be the best for me and to work very well for most people.

I train in martial arts to get better at martial arts and the skills associated with martial arts. I view body integration as a skill associated with martial arts. When developing skills, I prefer to do drills and exercises that focus on skill development because motor learning research and my own experience indicates that most people learn more efficiently when they don't split or dilute their focus. If the best drill for developing skill also develops strength that's great, but for me that's a side effect, not the point.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Tendons respond to the same stimulus that muscles do and I've seen no evidence at all to suggest that we can target them separately from the skeletal muscles. So, if you want stronger tendons, you have to do the things that give you stronger muscles.

Certain exercises work a group of muscles more than other exercises. Tendons strengthen during static holes. The longer someone holds a position the stronger the tendon will become as it must stay engaged. The less time that a tendon has to stays engaged the less of a work out it has and as a result it doesn't develop at the same pace as the muscles which are engaged for a longer amount of time.

For example. Standing in a horse stance will give you stronger tendons. It will give you stronger leg muscles only at the position of the horse stance. It doesn't make your legs actually stronger because you can do horse stance for 20 years and still have a weak squat. In order to make the muscle stronger, a person has to work the full range of that muscles. Full extension and full contraction. This is different for tendons. For tendons, static holds and continuous tension develop those better than they develop muscle.

When you see rock climbers you will see that their grip is engaged for longer periods of times, which is why that guys tendons looked that way. His forearms aren't built like those of someone who lifts weights. So he's gaining more tendon strength faster than he his gaining muscle strength. At most he is gaining a lot of muscle endurance but not any muscle build that will allow him to lift heavy weights.

This is why rehab exercises often look like this (these are actually supposed to be done slowly and with holds)

This is more at the pace the exercises should be done. These exercises help engage the tendons more than the muscles. In short the tendons will get stronger, but no one is getting big calf muscles from these exercises as they are designed the rehab the tendons of the angle and not the muscles. are muscles involved. Yes, any movement of the body requires muscle use. What changes is how much muscle use is actually being used.

If you want stronger tendons, then do a lot of static holds where the tendons have to be continuous engaged. It doesn't take a lot of weight to strengthen tendons. In reality it's better to use the minimum weight for such things so that the tendon's don't start to tear. For me it's easier to know when I tendon is reaching it's limit because it's like feeling a cord in the body that's close to the joint in. It's always closes to the joint in. Muscle failures are the opposite and can be felt away from the joints. If you are doing horse stance and the knees start to hurt then that means too much tension is on the tendons of the knee. If you feel it in the thighs then that means you are doing it correctly. For tendons strengthening exercises you don't want to feel it in the tendons. The moment you do, you'll need to stop or you may need to position the body better. If you are using the correct technique then you shouldn't feel much in the tendon at first. If you are using bad technique or bad body positioning then you'll feel that right way that the load is on the joint.