My point about animals' make up is that even if appes are very similar to humans we are still so vastly different that our species cannot reproduce with one another. Muscle composition of appes is also very different than muscle composition of humans, is a matter of different materials not a different way of building (i.e different muscles, not a different way of building strength)
Yeah and chimps also DIE a lot sooner; even in captivity. They're skeletons are also different. Besides you can't just attribute their strenght to having a gut. How do you know their strength doesn't come from genetics? Or the food they eat? etc. You can't just say "Oh look a chimp has a gut like this, obviously that's why it is so strong." As a bio major, I can tell you that this is just flat out wrong. Having a six pack won't cause you to have a restricted blood supply to your organs!!! I don't know where you heard that!
My bio knowledge is limited but that is what I thought aswell, a six pack is just a sign of low body fat and developed muscles, I would think this will improve circulation.
I know very little about anatomy etc, but from what I've heard six packs are natural. If you had 0% body fat, even without ever having worked out or anything, you could have one. I'm not sure how true it is, but it does make some sense. You breathe 24 hours a day, and you have to fight gravity to do it. Now, how wrong am I? :Angel:
Just some facts for you all since you seem to 'know' so much about anatomy. The 'natural' state of a human is not what the media would have you believe. Humans are well known for being called 'the naked ape' but we could equally be called 'the fat ape'. Now Im not talking about homer simpson style obesity which is highly unnatural, but we do have a higher body fat level than our primate siblings. If you are unconvinced and argue lifestyle have a look at a chimp baby and compare to a human one, you cant argue lifestyle there and the human will be fatter. Secondly muscle structure, there are different types of muscle fibre (I wont go in to detail as it is not necessary) e.g. cardiac muscle is very different to all other muscle. Within a muscle e.g. bicep there are again different types of muscle e.g. fast and slow twitch, ever wondered if there is more to it than body weight and metabolism rate sepparating a 100M sprinter and a marathon runner, well there is. This difference can be seen more promenantly between humans and chimps, they just have different muscle fibres than us. Lastly one important reason chimps are stronger is they are active all day long, have you ever been grabbed by a manual worker and tried to break their grip? In my bjj class there is this little old guy, quite frail and relatively weak generally but he was a plumber all his life and his grip strength is phenomenal!
He argued for lifestyle in regards to strength and against it in body composition, I think. He sure can correct me and defend himself if I'm off. But I agree with him even if I am completely uneducated on the matter. Being both active and a good ten or twenty pounds heavier and rounder than most folks, I can't see any fault in what he said.
That was a joke, YODA. I'm just trying to say that if you had very little fat, you would probably have defined abs. Of course, I'm basing this off of stuff I've heard/read, not off of actual research or anything. Basically my point is this: Breathing + Gravity - Too Many Donuts = Nice abs
If you want to help your taiji belly, do some bagua circle walking as well. The twisting action is great for your whole torso. Also, try resistance exercise, anything where you need to coordinate the whole body will help your taiji as well, e.g. swimming, climbing, pilates. Don't use any weights.
I really disagree with not using weights... I have lifted for about 15 years most of it trying to put weight on and I took up taiji (well partly) because I wanted to balance the weights work on my outer with working on my inner... you could say that the weights are my yang and taiji is my yin... if you put together a good all round program with weights they are as beneficial as any other program... totally agree you cannot compare different species in regards to muscle cross section and strength... some people are leaner than others and some are stronger... some have more fast twitch fibres and others more slow twitch... its pretty much all down to genetics what you get but you can develop this through training... or work...
Hey KungFuGirl, I did not say 'Oh look a chimp has a gut like this, obviously that's why it is so strong', maybe you should read more carefully. I said a Chimp is allot stronger and has a gut, but it seems to me when you think gut, you think fat. A Tai Chi belly, is not fat, it may have fat over it, but it is abdominal muscles with increased muscle mass that can flex out as well as in. In my experience most people can only flex a six pack inwards. Furthermore, I think, and yes this is my opinion and not a fact, that this abdominal muscle group has a much larger range of movement than most people can use, because they work their abdominals to be tight and immobile, whereas Tai Chi does the opposite, i.e. outward, relaxed and very mobile. It is my assumption that this factor, which from external observation seems to be present in other Primates could be responsible for generating a significant amount of power. I don’t expect anyone without knowledge of how Tai Chi and IMA’s generate power to be able to comprehend why this could be important, if you know nothing about IMA’s and how they work, I will not respect your opinion on this specific matter. A bio major, congratulations, but Biology and most other sciences are limited to what they have researched, and even then allot of opinions are bias. In fact I would say that Science knows next to nothing about Internal Martial Arts. So Biologists don’t know Tai Chi better, than those who do Tai Chi. Thus, let me reiterate, I said a six pack that is flexed in, and tense due to working out, does not offer the same level of blood flow to the viscera as an abdominal wall that a Tai Chi Belly offers. This is not just my opinion, this is stated by allot of Tai Chi and Qi Gong masters who are more educated in various sciences including biology, than you. So keep your 'flat out wrong' to yourself. Furthermore, when we refer to a Tai Chi Belly, we must also take in to account its other attributes, most importantly Abdominal Breathing. Abdominal Breathing is imperative in Tai Chi, anyone who ignores this, is not doing Tai Chi, and I think the same goes with all IMA’s. Abdominal Breathing uses the diaphragm to draw more air in to the lungs, and at the same time massaging the viscera, this is why such exercise is beneficial to the internal organs. Since you’re a bio major, I would think you should know that massage increases blood flow.
When we are afraid we tend to tighten our bellies. In taiji we try to relax our bellies. This is all part of trying to attain a 'relaxed' state. This is not the relaxation of a couch potato, but the loose and alive relaxation of a cat. A way in which we try to relax our bellies is to think about breathing into our bellies. Now, we know that our breath does not actually go there, but the visualisation helps us to expand the belly on the in-breath. I attended a yoga class where we started with some 'pranayama' (?) exercises, gradually working up to very deep breaths that utilised all the available expansions to allow the lungs to really fill up. Part of that was to visualise the belly expanding. We see this belly expansion in children, when they are out of breath. They have not 'learned' how to keep their belly tense so breath naturally. We are trying to re-learn what we have unlearned. The media persuades us that the flat 6-pack abs doodah, is the ideal. We are told that this is the way to be. That's fine in a way, but if we keep our belly tense, we are using unnecessary tension. Generally if we relax our belly we won't suddenly become obese, just an inch or so bigger. We don't wonder around keeping our arms tense, or our neck, so why should we keep our belly tense? Traditional Chinese Medicine believes that a relaxed belly is good for the internal organs. Now, while this may not have been explored fully by western science, this is still beeing advised and TCM is still being used to help with a wide range of medical problems. If they advise me to keep a relaxed belly and western science does not advise against it, then I'll keep my belly relaxed. As for why so many taiji players have the taiji belly? Pies are part of the answer. Also if taiji is the only exercise regime that they take part in, then you can see how the stomach muscles are not really used that much. Also it is not the most physical of exercises. But there are things within the practice that can give a greater workout. Cheng Man Ching is said to have put on weight whenever he went to Taiwan, because he did no fencing over there, whilst in his New York studio, he loved to race after the students. I know that after a serious fencing session (by that I mean long duration and not po-faced) I am out of breath and feeling the effect of the higher level of effort required. I used to have the belly, but since I stopped the pies it has decreased quite a bit!
We'll have to agree to disagree. I've read in many interviews (and from speaking to) taiji/IMA masters, that weights are a negative influence on your taiji. In taiji you're taught whole body coordination. Any muscle mass you build is from "resistance training" against the rest of your body. Your body should be encouraged to develop in its own way - yep, that might not be the aesthetic way (a la six packs and v-shaped torso), but it's the healthiest way. Weight training by its nature isolates muscle groups. You can try to develop an all-round weight training routine, but it won't be perfect (there are too many muscles in the body to develop a weights program to cover all of them), it won't develop them in the optimal rate (as you'll be relying on a training card instead of your own body) and it won't do much to develop the ligaments/tendons, at least at the same rate. Also, by influencing some muscles (i.e. pumping them up), you will affect your sensitivity to your own balance, and your fine motor coordination will suffer. This might not be a problem with an external martial art, where the fast muscle contractions of a punch/kick cancel out most problems, but in IMA, where you're relying on motor coordination and whole body force rather than muscle strength, it'll be a negative.
nzric, I'm with you there. I was going to a gym and lifting heavy things and putting them down again. I felt it was not having an adverse affect on my taiji, but when I stopped and my teacher found out that I had stopped going, he said: Good! I guess it was a hinderance, but I could not see it. Saves me a lot of money in gym fees anyway! My thinking was: what if you lead a very physical lifestyle? i.e. working in a physical environment, or doing physical things in your spare time (gardening for example, just try digging up an entire garden and tell me that isn't physical!). Would this be an obstacleto progress in taiji? I guess they would be more general exercises and not 'focused' ones.
You are so full of it! This is not what you said at all! Nice try! You said, that a six pack restricts blood flow to the organs. You did not say "a flexed in six pack" you did not say a "tense six pack" You just said a six pack. So stop trying to weasel your way out. Sorry, but when someone makes outrageous false scientific claims I'm going to call them on it. But you can continue to try to intimidate if you want...but it won't work. As well, I never said that Tai Chi did not increase blood flow and I never once claimed to be an expert on Tai Chi. I just said that you were wrong that six packs restrict blood flow to the organs. BECAUSE YOU WERE WRONG. Not my fault you have a problem admitting it. You can continue to try and argue but it's pointless a) because I am oh so obviously right b) you are oh so obviously wrong and c) I am the most stubburn human being on the planet. You don't know what you're up against. However if you want to continue I'm all up for it and I can pull up every circulatory chart in the world to show you that a six pack doesn't hinder blood flow to the organs. It's your call really. edit: I edited this post to remove the word "liar" as I decided it was too harsh even though his reply to me was rude.
I guess you have problems reading and understanding, if you know nothing about Tai Chi and IMA's perhaps this is not the right forum for you. Or maybe you should do some Tai Chi it will help you control you emotions. In addition you can keep your Biology based circulatory charts, they have little meaning here, but you could study the TCM Qi circulation charts and learn something new.
I definatelly agree with ya'll - V Rat and Nzric, When I first started training Tai Chi I was told to stop working out, I did not listen at first, then gave it a shot for a few weeks, I have since sold my weights. In IMA’s we stretch and lengthen the sinews, and make the muscles soft and sensitive. Weight Training your muscles does the exact opposite, the two cannot be combined positively.
