Hard Round Or Tender Oval

打拳壯筋骨

Training to strengthen fascias and bones.

寧練筋長一寸，不練肉厚三分

Rather train to lengthen the fascias by one inch than to thicken the flesh by one third.

Contracting the muscles has become such a common norm that we tend to think that it is the only way to move, generate strength... Even when the terms of isotonic, concentric and eccentric are used to oppose three states, maintaining the same length, shortening and extending, it is always in regards to contraction. Still, there is a world outside of contraction, where the muscles relax and extend to their fullest, tensing without contracting. Already mentioned in this blog (see Fascia Elasticity), the image of the bow is central to such understanding, using the body and more especially the fascias and the flesh elasticity is a question of structure.

Structure can be addressed in two ways, the quite known one, a question of angles taken by the different parts of the body towards each other, the lesser known, the fascia/flesh one, the sought quality of our muscles and tendons to make it simpler. As far as external training is concerned, internal arts use the first way to deeply modify those. What science seems to point out lately, (second quote in A Bit Of A Stretch) is actually the cornerstone of the transformations one is looking for as far as the muscles are concerned in internal practices: thinning the muscle mass to let the connective tissues play a more important part, especially as far as power is concerned.

The problem we face, dire when practice is started after puberty, is that our inner structure, muscles, tendons.... is affecting the way we move and generate power. Indeed as a staff, a rope and an elastic know different motions, a bodybuilder, a sedentary and an internalist will move differently. Of course, being vertebrae and limited by our bony frame, it may not be something as obvious as the three tools mentioned before, but it remains being the little details changing everything.

Internal arts differ from external, as far as the body is concerned, by their flesh and connective tissues, or more visibly the muscles, which will be tender and have a more oval form while the contraction based practices will have hard and rounder ones (the sedentary tend just to have them flabby and with no real shape)1. Static stretching was the main way to transform the body structure.

Still both external and internal art actually shared the same basic training as far as added flexibility was concerned (see the first quote). Indeed, the splits, the bridge type postures, leg straight over the head... where feasts trained at a young age to keep the body flexible enough through live it wouldn't get hurt because of a wrong movement. It may be interesting to speculate on the reasons behind such training seen as basic for both type of arts, the next post.

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1 In nowadays leisurely world, such difference may not be obvious if one's training hours are short and not everyday. It all depends on one's lifestyle and age.