Several month ago someone left the following questions on one of my YouTube videos:
Q:
"...I have a few questions I was hoping you could help me with. When you do incorporate calisthenics into your training, do you do them before or after your internal arts training? Do you think it makes a difference doing them before or after? Do you do any extra cardio to supplement your internal arts training?..."
There are many different opinions out there about whether or not it is acceptable to practice calisthenics, cardio, or strength training exercise routines while training in internal martial arts like Tai Chi (Taiji) or Qigong (Chi Kung). Because I have received several questions similar to this one in the past, I have copied my response to this viewer's question below. It is my hope that this response will be helpful to those of you who have struggled with the same question.
A:
"Those are great questions. There are times when I practice calisthenics, strength training, or cardio before I do internal training and times when I practice those things afterwards. I do not often practice them during the same training session though.
Typically I start my day with internal training, so any other training I do that day comes afterwards. If I am going to train them during the same session, the order entirely depends on what training I will be doing and what my goal is, because the order does make a difference. There are a couple of benefits to starting with strength training, calisthenics, or cardio prior to internal training.
The first is that it can act as means of priming the pump. It get your blood flowing, gets you breathing deeply, increases alertness, etc. and often, if someone feels stuck in their training or like their energy is blocked, a little cardio prior to internal training can help get things moving.
For something like Zhan Zhuang, especially if the practitioner is having trouble holding good alignment and they tend to use excess muscular strength and finish their sessions more tense than they started, doing some strength training ahead of Zhan Zhuang training (to make the muscles tired) forces them to rely on good structure to hold Zhan Zhuang because their muscles are too tired to do the extra work that poor structure requires. Someone has to have a good understanding of good structure prior to trying this and they have to be able to really pay attention to their alignment to avoid injuries from over-stressing joints due to poor alignment.
A similar approach can be used to solo form and push hands practice, but with the increased complexity of movements the risk of injury increases when following this approach and it is not really a necessary approach. I typically only use strength training ahead of internal work when I am going to be doing an extended Zhan Zhuang session, because it really helps me find errors in my structure that I might not notice easily otherwise.
Doing other types of training, following internal training, can be useful if a practitioner is wanting to practice transferring the body connection, alignment, and awareness that are developed with internal training, into other exercises/movement patterns. This can be more useful for reducing risk of injury in the other exercises. So the goal of this practice is not to enhance the internal training, but to enhance other movement patterns using the internal training as a tool.
Aside from those uses for combining internal training with other forms of exercise, it's usually best to train them at separate times. The down sides or benefits of training them too close together is going to very from person to person. Right now, I have very little time for extra training, so I have not been doing as much cardio as I used to, but when I do cardio it typically comes in the form of bag work, since it is directly applicable to skills that I do not want to lose/want to develop further. So it takes care of two things at once and that is best for my schedule right now..."
If you have not visited my Youtube channel and you are looking for a great source of free Tai Chi and Qigong training videos, go to YouTube.com/AndrewPlitt and start learning today.
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