Weight Training and Ving Tsun
There has been a popular myth that if you weight train, it will affect your Ving Tsun. I have been testing this theory out for the past 2-3 years and here are my findings.
If you started out weight training without a proper trainer and does not understand mind-muscle connections then it will affect your Ving Tsun because you will end up using brute force and pushing for the sake of pushing. If you don’t understand how to relax and use proper body structure and mechanics in Ving Tsun, you will end up treating it like a newbie weight lifter (without mind-muscle connection) and you will just use upper body strength to force through it.
However if you understand Ving Tsun body mechanics AND you understand proper weight training, which means mind-muscle connection and focus on using certain muscles for the particular exercise, then I would say it will NOT affect your Ving Tsun.
Ving Tsun and weight training is very similar in a way that you need to understand what muscles are used and at the same time relaxing other non used muscles, such as in the straight punch, you want to lead with the elbow and triceps muscles and not lead with the fist. You want to clench your fist just before impact and not before. Just like bicep curls, you are curling with your biceps which means your grip should not be super tight and ends up being the main focus. In the chest press, you are squeezing your chest at the top and squeezing the back scapula. You are breathing out and breathing in just like in Ving Tsun, you are breathing at the proper moments and not holding in your breath all the time.
The Deadlift or squats, you are focusing on bracing your core and using your quad muscles to push through the floor, similar to the Ving Tsun forward movement or the stance. You are only using your quad muscles to give you structure, strength and balance. The famer’s carry, you are learning to relax your shoulders and walk using your legs and core, similar to Chi Sao, you are trying to relax your shoulder and use your legs and core to support all the movements. I understand how to relax my shoulders, forearms, upper body, and generate speed through my legs and proper body alignment. I also understand which part of my muscles and how they connect and stay relevant in order to generate power from the waist. As always, after a weight training session when you are extremely tired, stretch and do some chain punches and use your legs to do some kicks and movement drills. This will help to improve your flexibility and speed as well as in muscle recovery. These are some examples of similarities with training in Ving Tsun and weight lifting.
In the old days, weight lifting was often misunderstood or there were a lack of gyms available in Asia, thus strength training were limited to using the stance to increase our leg power, the Long Pole to practice our elbow/triceps/core strength and stability, and the Baat Jaam Do to increase our wrist strength. Do these training still work? Of course it does, however it’s the 21st century, sports science has improved and tons of data has been published. We, as Chinese Martial Artist must evolve with time and continue to research on how to improve ourselves as a better fighter, both in techniques as well as in overall fitness and strength aspects. It is time to dispel myths and begin to re-examine how weight training can be beneficial to your Ving Tsun training. In the end, it’s your body, you must continue to test and see what works for you and how it works for you.