Is taoist breathing compatible with 6-pack abs?

[Sleepy Panda]

Not that I am interested in 6-pack abs or anything. I do engage in strength training alongside my qi gong daily training. I am wondering if I should train my core or ab muscles?

 

I practice longevity breathing from Bruce Frantzis' book and the basic idea in it (and also generally) is that you want to have a soft belly by which the breath is able to cause expansion of the abdomen in along all sides and this expansion and contraction motion acts as a pump massaging our organs 24/7. If I practice strength training in the abs, I suspect I will end up creating tension and stiffness/hardness against the massaging motion of my belly. If my belly can't expand anymore during my breathing, likely my breathing is ineffective.

 

What are your thoughts?

[freeform]

Exercising the core is important for qigong... but it's not abs we're going for - but thew whole core. Overtraining or using heavy weights will slow down or stop progress in qigong however.

 

My core routine includes quite a few plank variations and those types of exercises.

[Sleepy Panda]

9 hours ago, freeform said:

Exercising the core is important for qigong... but it's not abs we're going for - but thew whole core. Overtraining or using heavy weights will slow down or stop progress in qigong however.

 

My core routine includes quite a few plank variations and those types of exercises.

 

Can you list the different exercises you use for training your core?

[freeform]

Oh I think I wouldn't do the exercises any justice trying to explain. Let's see if I can find pictures online.

 

The only nuance I have is that I'm doing these with my mind fully absorbed through the whole body, and using my soft tissues as a single unit - not just individual muscles.

 

Here's one that covers a few:

 

Few more:

Also animal crawls - here's one example:

[MuadDib]

Actually, your six packs are already there under fat and skin tissues. If you want to make them visible to the eye, you will need to lower your body fat ratio to single digit levels. No abs exercise in the world will get you there unless you get your body fat ratio really low. For most people, it is out of reach due to life style.

 

In my experience, core exercises actually help with abdominal and reverse breathing, not hinder it. As a matter of fact, I feel my breathing becomes inefficient when I put on a few kgs of weight and develop a bigger belly. So I would say from experience that when you work towards a 6 pack (doing core exercises and lowering body fat ratio), you will help your breathing become more efficient.

 

 

 

On 6/10/2020 at 11:19 AM, Sleepy Panda said:

Not that I am interested in 6-pack abs or anything. I do engage in strength training alongside my qi gong daily training. I am wondering if I should train my core or ab muscles?

 

I practice longevity breathing from Bruce Frantzis' book and the basic idea in it (and also generally) is that you want to have a soft belly by which the breath is able to cause expansion of the abdomen in along all sides and this expansion and contraction motion acts as a pump massaging our organs 24/7. If I practice strength training in the abs, I suspect I will end up creating tension and stiffness/hardness against the massaging motion of my belly. If my belly can't expand anymore during my breathing, likely my breathing is ineffective.

 

What are your thoughts?

 

[Sleepy Panda]

11 hours ago, freeform said:

Oh I think I wouldn't do the exercises any justice trying to explain. Let's see if I can find pictures online.

 

The only nuance I have is that I'm doing these with my mind fully absorbed through the whole body, and using my soft tissues as a single unit - not just individual muscles.

 

Here's one that covers a few:

 

Few more:

Also animal crawls - here's one example:

 

Fantastic stuff for my routine.

[Takingcharge]

On 10-6-2020 at 11:47 AM, freeform said:

 Overtraining or using heavy weights will slow down or stop progress in qigong however.

 

 

forever?  or just temporarily?

i really need to heavily train my body because of pretty bad hyper mobility,  so i might as well hit the weights as well and shape my body,  but i may have to start qigong in the future , for health purposes

will it cause trouble for that further down the line?

Edited June 12, 2020 by Takingcharge

[freeform]

14 hours ago, Takingcharge said:

 

forever?  or just temporarily?

i really need to heavily train my body because of pretty bad hyper mobility,  so i might as well hit the weights as well and shape my body,  but i may have to start qigong in the future , for health purposes

will it cause trouble for that further down the line?

 

You should be fine. Just that doing both at the same time is leading the body in different directions.

 

In the case of hypermobility - you're probably using the leftover tension from your muscles to hold your joints together. With Qigong, you work directly with the various connective tissues - and over time they become much stronger and more supportive (and sort of springy) - it's of course much healthier to hold your body together in that way (rather than tension) - the only problem is it takes quite a while to achieve.

 

So I think for now - keep doing what is helping - but eventually, if you do decide to go for qigong, you'll need to stop weight training to get the full benefits as quickly as possible. And yes, you'll need to undo all the tension built up - but that's ok!

[Takingcharge]

yup,  but its far from an ideal solution

in the almost 8 months ive had the nervous system issues i spoke about with you, my tendons ligaments etc have reached entire new depths of laxness.  im kind of worried about it.  the only way to reduce the symptoms  was to relax every part of my body as deeply as possible so i took every bit of tension out of my muscles and probably inadvertently also further relaxed the connective tissues as well.    and i just kind of ''hung in them''   and theyve stretched significantly more .  ive kept that relaxation 8 months now, n havent trained for 8 months.        

having issues with my hip joints,   knees,    back vertabraes - wrists ,and especially worried about my neck   its gotten alot looser im worried, theres alot of movement in the vertabraes.  im kind of afraid what happens  with one little wrong hit.  - that especially could be very dangerous,        it really isnt healthy condition overall , everything seems elastic, overstretches.     

much worse is possible obviously, judging from some of the online things ive read from hyper mobile people -  i mean one person couldnt use any free weights ( small weights)  because they'd  dislodge their wrists and finger bones from the sockets.  WOW! thats crazy.  arm came straight out of the socket as well.     i dont have that, (THANKFULLY)  i have the arm socket moving a ridiculous amount though.  and ive got to watch out with my wrists and strongly tense when holding weighted things with 1 hand

 

im looking into other ways i might be able to strenthen or shorten the connective tissues
and if theres any research  on shortning the connective tissues or anything that would help me.

because it really isnt the role for the muscles to take over that job
but its the best ive got.   kind of

 

 

is there anyway you think,  for the connective tissues to tighten, shorten or shrink through chi gung(or any other method for that matter)?  i dont know  just grasping at straws, maybe  discovering what things i dont know off yet
 

Edited June 14, 2020 by Takingcharge

[Cleansox]

4 minutes ago, Takingcharge said:

 

is there anyway you think,  for the connective tissues to tighten, shorten or shrink through chi gung?  @freeform

@freeformsome version of yijinjing? With small movements, arms low in the beginning, isometric low-impact.

Any suggestions? 

[RobB]

Hi @Takingcharge, you could contact Serge Augier. His Stone Warrior training might be appropriate for your situation.

[freeform]

4 hours ago, Takingcharge said:

my tendons ligaments etc have reached entire new depths of laxness.  im kind of worried about it.

 

I’m sorry to hear it. I would be worried about it too - it sounds like a difficult situation.

 

4 hours ago, Cleansox said:

@freeformsome version of yijinjing? With small movements, arms low in the beginning, isometric low-impact.

Any suggestions? 

 

This might be wrong of me, but I don’t think qigong is a curative or health art. Not really. Health is a side effect - but there is a lot of hard work involved - and it takes time.

 

I think @Takingcharge needs to see a senior and talented Chines Medicine practitioner first. 
 

From a qigong perspective, yes the Yijing Jin principles would be what improves the situation. In particular, hyper mobility is often a sign that the mind can’t get into the body - the body-mind separation taken to extremes.

 

But to start yjj practice, one needs a base level of health and vitality, otherwise problems arise. A good Chinese medicine practitioner will be able to help develop this base level of health to start with.

 

@Takingcharge How does your body react to a gentle jumping up and down (preferably on a trampoline)? 

[Cleansox]

And if it is EDS, one needs to find someone with clinical experience on that problem. 

[damdao]

@freeform as I understand, muscle tension is what hinders qi circulation. Chronic tension is the worst scenario but some exercises like Yijinjing could be counterproductive if you don't relax enough after each cycle (the same for other qigong exercises involving some degree of tension). So, how is that planck is good? I think that even if you engages your connective tissue you will need to sustain muscle tension.  Or perhaps you are avoiding muscle tension at all?

 

[freeform]

16 hours ago, damdao said:

So, how is that planck is good? I think that even if you engages your connective tissue you will need to sustain muscle tension.  Or perhaps you are avoiding muscle tension at all?

 

Great question

 

So while tension is bad - strength is good. In fact, strength is necessary to be able to fully relax and release tension. (bit of a conundrum)

 

Let's say your legs are weak and you have a go at standing practice.

 

You have only so many muscle fibres in weak legs. But in strong legs, you have a lot of muscle fibres...

 

So as you stand and release tension - you're met with the obstacle of keeping yourself not falling to the floor... For the ones with weak legs - their few muscle fibres have to work much harder - and in this way they actually create tension. Whereas with strong legs you have more fibres doing less work, so they don't move from 'engagement' all the way to 'tension'.

 

Engagement is important - you don't want to be a wet noodle. Once you can relax and de-habituate the outer muscles enough, deeper muscles will start to work. This is an aspect of the muscle-tendon changing. Your body should be engaged (through all tissues - the deeper muscles but also the 'ligaments' and also the softer huang tissues)

 

With the plank you're creating strength in the core muscles, relaxing the outer big muscles and in turn, this assists with dantien development.

 

The tricky part is how to get stronger without developing tension. This isn't easy. Particularly if you're starting with slightly weak muscles. So what my teachers recommend is to do a few months of intense bodyweight training (the kind of things you see Shaolin kids do - crawling on all fours up and down stairs etc) In that time you would have developed a baseline of strength as well as some tension... the key now is to keep your baseline of strength by carrying on with a less intense physical training while at the same time releasing both the stored up tension and the tension you develop (through stretching, loosening exercises - aswell as neigong and qigong)

 

In the beginning, it's a kind of leapfrog game of tension - song - tension song...

 

Once there's a baseline of strength, your taining focuses a lot more on song.

 

Eventually, once your body knits together and starts to develop the YJJ principles, you generate a lot of strength through song. At that stage, you can even use weights but move them through release rather than contraction. But this takes years to achieve

 

Please excuse the sloppy explanation - but it was typed in a rush and unedited