newbalance Posted September 15, 2003 Posted September 15, 2003 Im not about to say weights are worthless, because we all know that would just be wrong. But I was reading a fitness book by some karate master yesterday, oriental guy, and it was all about increasing strength. Quite a few of the exercises invloved this: moving really slow, and straining. For example- pretending there is a giant rock in front of you, and straining and pushing it away from you, slowly. Well, I went home and tried some of them, and I'll tell you, 10 minutes into it, I was dripping wet, and it was working! Has/does anyone else ever do these kinds of exercises?
CloudDragon Posted September 16, 2003 Posted September 16, 2003 Plyometrics (sp?) is what you are doing, it builds lean hard muscle, for a visual, look at any Bruce Lee photo as he was a great proponent of this. A Black Belt is just a white belt that don't know when to quit!
WhiteBelt Posted September 16, 2003 Posted September 16, 2003 Plyometrics are exercises that resemble sports. ie: throwing a medicine ball forward as hard and fast as you can, jumping as high as you can... It sounds more like isometric exercises, which build strength but not as quickly as weights. Standing in a half splits and squeezing the floor is isometric and only builds strength in that single position. If you wanted to have strength in the full range of motion you'd have to squeeze the floor at different elevations.
JKTT Posted September 19, 2003 Posted September 19, 2003 Plyometrics are exercises where you perform the reps in rapid sucession. Isometrics are exercises where you hold a position for a period of time. Such as sitting in a horse stance or holding a point in a pushup movement. What you have been doing is called dynamic strength training. Where you tense your muscles and use them to counteract eachother making a movement as difficult as you wish. The great thing about dynamic strength is that any movement can be a strength training exercise. I have also found DST to be a nice developer of speed The most complete guide that I have seen is a book by Harry Wong called "Dynamic Strength".
Tibby Posted September 19, 2003 Posted September 19, 2003 WhiteBelt and JKTT are right, he is talking about Isometrics. Plyometrics are a whole other ball game. As for Isometrics making your drip sweat, well... I can make love for 10 minutes and be dripping in sweat! I can sit in my car that has been in the hot sun all day and sweat after 1 minute. You can sweat and accomplish nothing. And you don’t know if the work out worked untill the next work out! Isometrics are good, but they don't come close to matching up to Isotonics, such as weights.
JKTT Posted September 19, 2003 Posted September 19, 2003 Sorry for being unclear, but I was talking about dynamic strength training not isometrics. Here is an example of an exercise called the Vertical Palm Press. It's the same exercise that newbalance had described with the imaginary rock. 1. Start out with your hands out in front of you, at chest level. 2. With your palms facing away from your chest and using a count of 3, extend your arms straight out from your body using as much tension as possible. 3. After you fully extend your arms, bring them back to the starting position with as much tension as possible, using the 3 count. IMO, Dynamic strength exercises have strength gains different from weight training but just as beneficial. (I hear it's good for cholesterol too.)
Tibby Posted September 19, 2003 Posted September 19, 2003 Oh, no, you were clear. I were replying to the original post about Isometrics.
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