Dead < laying down < sitting < standing < walking < running

[Xue Sheng]

Some people believe that to stand like this can be good for health.

I believe this is much better for health.

There are many parts to health. What are you looking for?

To say this is better than that has no basis since all you have listed are good for health and can be equally as important; laying down (sleeping), sitting (recovery, meditation, stress relief), standing (stress relief meditation leg strength or stamina), walking (most medical studies show is better than running as far a joint health), running (cardio, stress relief, but possible joint damage)

And while we are at this, you seem to have omitted strength training, also very important.

Looking at heath is not a binary problem, it is not all 1s and 0s, it is multifaceted, so other than all you mentioned being better than dead (as far as I know) I find the question way to one demential for any actual real answer

​

 

[MetalBoar]

Dead < laying down < sitting < standing < walking < running < HIIT < sprinting/Tabata (SIT)/high intensity resistance training​

When talking about exercise, I feel that greater intensity is almost always better*. That being said, the higher the intensity the greater the recovery demands. Most people can't use the Tabata Method every day without significantly over training, at least not if they're doing it as originally designed. A lot of people probably can't do it more than 3-4 times/week and for quite a few people 1-2 times/week is going to be the max. The same is true for high intensity strength training if done to complete failure. Nor can most people over the age of 30 combine these 2 forms of training multiple times a week and get optimal results, but they will probably still benefit if they add some walking every day.

I think context and goals matter. So, sprinting is better than walking if you have recovered from your previous workout and your goal is to increase your fitness. I go for a long walk almost everyday, and while this is partly for physical health purposes, the 2 main reasons I do this is 1) because I find it mentally relaxing and 2) I walk with my wife and we find it to be a great time to talk and enjoy each others company.

While I can get into a flow state while doing intense physical activity, I feel that I have gotten different benefits from seated meditation. Is high intensity resistance training, or competitive martial arts, better than seated meditation? Those things are better for improving physical fitness, but they do not provide me with the same mental benefits that meditation does. I don't do them for the same reasons. I haven't done much standing meditation, but I would assume the same is true for that.

All of which brings me back to my first point. I am a very big proponent of high intensity in exercise. If you exercise at the levels of intensity that I advocate, you will not be able to spend very much time per week doing "exercise", but you can still go for a walk, do seated or standing meditation, do less than high intensity martial arts drills, etc. and gain benefits from doing so.


*"Better" defined as more effective in producing positive adaptation and more efficient in terms of time requirements

 

[Bill Mattocks]

• Walking may help you live longer. A study published in JAMA Internal Medicine found that older women taking about 4,400 steps per day had a 41% lower risk of dying. Another study, this one published in JAMA Network Open, found that taking 7,000 steps a day was linked to a 50% to 70% lower risk of mortality. Yet another study, this one published in Nature, found that walking briskly for as little as 10 minutes a day may lower your biological age by 16 years and help you live up to 20 years longer.

I get tired of people telling me to do what I cannot do. I cannot walk the length of the building where I work without pain. It does not get better with exercise, it gets worse. Yet people encourage me to 'do more'. If I could do more, I would do more. I cannot, and would like it people would leave me alone about it.

My life was one of activity, running, hiking, and generally keeping in motion. I agree that it is good for you.

But telling me to walk more is the same as telling a person with no legs to practice the high jump. It's not happening, so get over it.

 

[Wing Woo Gar]

I get tired of people telling me to do what I cannot do. I cannot walk the length of the building where I work without pain. It does not get better with exercise, it gets worse. Yet people encourage me to 'do more'. If I could do more, I would do more. I cannot, and would like it people would leave me alone about it.

My life was one of activity, running, hiking, and generally keeping in motion. I agree that it is good for you.

But telling me to walk more is the same as telling a person with no legs to practice the high jump. It's not happening, so get over it.

How bout smiling through it? I’m betting you can do that. Laughing at my circumstance and/or my mistakes helps me breathe and keeps my outlook positive, even through the pain. Maybe a good laugh could help.

 

[punisher73]

ALL training methods have their pros/cons. What is "best" for one person, may not be the best (or even possible) for another.

"Pushing yourself" means many things to many people based on what they are able to do without causing more injury to themselves.

I remember corresponding with an Okinawan Sensei one time and he passed on the knowledge of his instructor (a student of the founder of Uechi Ryu). It was this....the best self-defense is to outlive all of your enemies. They viewed "karate" as a LIFELONG pursuit to a healthy and long life. Doing things that would cause injuries down the road was against their philosophy. Much of what we see in "modern training" is based on being able to fight when you are young, healthy and strong. But, look at many pro athletes using the latest "cutting edge training methods" and how injured they are later in life. Look at how many pro MMA fighters who are shells of their younger selves because all of that hard sparring resulted in life long injuries and damage.

In a similar vein to what you are asking. Many people use the years they have been alive as their years of study. I've met MANY martial artists that claimed 20+ years of martial arts training, but in reality they had one year of training repeated 20 times. They never delved deeper into their study, they just kept on doing the same thing year after year.

Ok, rant off....its Monday and I'm grumpy.

 

[MetalBoar]

ALL training methods have their pros/cons. What is "best" for one person, may not be the best (or even possible) for another.

"Pushing yourself" means many things to many people based on what they are able to do without causing more injury to themselves.

I remember corresponding with an Okinawan Sensei one time and he passed on the knowledge of his instructor (a student of the founder of Uechi Ryu). It was this....the best self-defense is to outlive all of your enemies. They viewed "karate" as a LIFELONG pursuit to a healthy and long life. Doing things that would cause injuries down the road was against their philosophy. Much of what we see in "modern training" is based on being able to fight when you are young, healthy and strong. But, look at many pro athletes using the latest "cutting edge training methods" and how injured they are later in life. Look at how many pro MMA fighters who are shells of their younger selves because all of that hard sparring resulted in life long injuries and damage.

In a similar vein to what you are asking. Many people use the years they have been alive as their years of study. I've met MANY martial artists that claimed 20+ years of martial arts training, but in reality they had one year of training repeated 20 times. They never delved deeper into their study, they just kept on doing the same thing year after year.

Ok, rant off....its Monday and I'm grumpy.

I'm not sure if this was directed at me or Kung Fu Wang or some combination of posters but I thought I'd respond and add some nuance to my previous post.

ALL training methods have their pros/cons. What is "best" for one person, may not be the best (or even possible) for another.

I agree with this in general but I do think that some methods are objectively, universally, better than others for their specific purpose. I fully agree that not everything is right for everyone and would go further and say that some things are bad, or at least less than ideal, for anyone.

In my post I accepted Kung Fu Wang's hierarchy and then added 2 more levels of intensity. That was a shorthand way of responding to his original premise, which as I understood it, was that more physical intensity is always better* exercise than less. I tend to kind of agree with this, in general, when applied to physical exercise, but don't agree with this when applied to things that have other benefits and/or purposes. And as I said above, I also think some activities (cough, jogging, cough) can almost always be replaced with something better - unless you just love them for their own sake, in which case "better" has a different meaning.

To actually talk about this in a less general way I'd have to break it down more, but that would take a lot more writing.

*Better - again, defined as more effective in producing a greater positive adaptation to exercise and more efficient in terms of time requirements. I absolutely agree that context is important here. If standing up from a chair is difficult task for someone, sprinting is far too intense an activity for them, though I'd argue that in most cases low force, high intensity strength training would not be too challenging. That's a much larger conversation.

 

[punisher73]

I'm not sure if this was directed at me or Kung Fu Wang or some combination of posters but I thought I'd respond and add some nuance to my previous post.


I agree with this in general but I do think that some methods are objectively, universally, better than others for their specific purpose. I fully agree that not everything is right for everyone and would go further and say that some things are bad, or at least less than ideal, for anyone.

In my post I accepted Kung Fu Wang's hierarchy and then added 2 more levels of intensity. That was a shorthand way of responding to his original premise, which as I understood it, was that more physical intensity is always better* exercise than less. I tend to kind of agree with this, in general, when applied to physical exercise, but don't agree with this when applied to things that have other benefits and/or purposes. And as I said above, I also think some activities (cough, jogging, cough) can almost always be replaced with something better - unless you just love them for their own sake, in which case "better" has a different meaning.

To actually talk about this in a less general way I'd have to break it down more, but that would take a lot more writing.

*Better - again, defined as more effective in producing a greater positive adaptation to exercise and more efficient in terms of time requirements. I absolutely agree that context is important here. If standing up from a chair is difficult task for someone, sprinting is far too intense an activity for them, though I'd argue that in most cases low force, high intensity strength training would not be too challenging. That's a much larger conversation.

It wasn't directed at anyone specific.

I also agree that some methods are better than others for their specific purpose. If all other things are equal.

I also agree that some methods are done because that is what people enjoy doing.

Me and one of my friends used to laugh to ourselves when we went to the gym because we could always tell what the new workout program was in Muscle & Fitness/Flex etc. because you would see beginners doing very muscle specific exercises that were highlighted in whatever famous BBer was featured in that month's magazine. Kind of like the trend trying to do squats on a bosu ball. It really serves no purpose outside of a very specific rehab exercise. But, it looks cool!

As an aside, it must also be remembered that some "traditional" training methods in the martial arts were used for purposes in addition to just the muscle building/training portion of it. For example, squats are much better at building muscle than standing in the horse stance. But, standing for long periods of time in a horse stance wasn't just about the muscle endurance/strength benefits. It was also designed to fully fatigue the muscles so that your body would naturally find its own proper structure to make you more biomechanically sound. It was also designed to help you learn that meditative state in the midst of discomfort. There are others as well. But, just because a modern method is "better" at a specific purpose, doesn't mean that it is "better" in the traditional method when other things are also being trained. If that makes sense.

 

[MetalBoar]

As an aside, it must also be remembered that some "traditional" training methods in the martial arts were used for purposes in addition to just the muscle building/training portion of it. For example, squats are much better at building muscle than standing in the horse stance. But, standing for long periods of time in a horse stance wasn't just about the muscle endurance/strength benefits. It was also designed to fully fatigue the muscles so that your body would naturally find its own proper structure to make you more biomechanically sound. It was also designed to help you learn that meditative state in the midst of discomfort. There are others as well. But, just because a modern method is "better" at a specific purpose, doesn't mean that it is "better" in the traditional method when other things are also being trained. If that makes sense.

It's funny, in another thread I'm sort of arguing against "traditional" training methods, but I mostly agree with you here. For me, the horse stance example that you cite falls in the category of things (like walking) that I would do for another purpose but also has potential fitness benefits. The primary benefits are those other things; developing structure, providing a state that has benefits for entering a meditative state, etc. That it also produces some stimulus to strengthen the legs is a mostly useful byproduct in my opinion, but that doesn't lessen the value of the horse stance, it just means you need to know why you're doing it.

I have said that combining strength training and skill acquisition is less effective than focusing on those things separately. So, if someone came to me and said they wanted stronger legs for martial arts (or other purpose) I wouldn't recommend they do horse stance, nor would I recommend the exercises that Kung Fu Wang suggests in that other thread for strengthening the body as a whole. I could be convinced that some of these training methods are an effective means of skill development (and I am convinced of the horse stance in this regard), I just think we do ourselves a disservice to believe that they are an ideal means of strength development. I also think that in some cases we risk continuing with inefficient methods of skill training because we are blinded by tradition and fail to investigate better methods.

 

[punisher73]

It's funny, in another thread I'm sort of arguing against "traditional" training methods, but I mostly agree with you here. For me, the horse stance example that you cite falls in the category of things (like walking) that I would do for another purpose but also has potential fitness benefits. The primary benefits are those other things; developing structure, providing a state that has benefits for entering a meditative state, etc. That it also produces some stimulus to strengthen the legs is a mostly useful byproduct in my opinion, but that doesn't lessen the value of the horse stance, it just means you need to know why you're doing it.

I have said that combining strength training and skill acquisition is less effective than focusing on those things separately. So, if someone came to me and said they wanted stronger legs for martial arts (or other purpose) I wouldn't recommend they do horse stance, nor would I recommend the exercises that Kung Fu Wang suggests in that other thread for strengthening the body as a whole. I could be convinced that some of these training methods are an effective means of skill development (and I am convinced of the horse stance in this regard), I just think we do ourselves a disservice to believe that they are an ideal means of strength development. I also think that in some cases we risk continuing with inefficient methods of skill training because we are blinded by tradition and fail to investigate better methods.

Yep. Just thought I would also toss in that if you (generic usage) look at the old manual 72 Consummate Arts of Shaolin, you will find exercises that pretty much mimic modern strength training exercises like the squat/deadlift/military press. Old school training had a strength training component that seems to be lost in many "modern" traditional schools. Too much drinking the kool-aid that if you just learn the "secrets" you will be invincible in a fight without putting in the hard work and training (no matter how that looks to someone).

The older I get, I realize that I can't train like I did 30 years ago. I don't recover like I used to and the same type of training gets me injured more quickly. I have to adapt so my "hard training" will still allow me to get better without hurting myself in the process.

Its a paradox of martial arts and self-defense. When you are younger, you are more likely to get into a fight, so you train. As you get older you train more to present a "hard target" that doesn't have to fight.