Formosa Neijia

My personal martial arts journey

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Entries Tagged as 'Fitness'

A hard workout (for me anyway)

September 12th, 2008 · 11 Comments · Fitness, Training log

Here’s where I’m at: 82.1 kilos this morning (damn pasta, haha)
Workout today:
50 body weight squats
100 jumps on jump rope (this is my active rest)
10×4 assisted pullups with three different grips (pullups suck for me)
100 jumps
50 Mark Hatmaker/judo pushups (hindus but going back up the same way you went down)
100 jumps
20 pushups on p-up bars
100 jumps
1 [...]

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Finally, some success in judo

September 11th, 2008 · 2 Comments · Fitness, Judo

This clip is one of the best I’ve seen for judo. Inspiring, isn’t it?
I’ve recently started having some success at judo randori and I want to mention a few things that have really helped.
First, I’ve been hitting the body weight training really hard. Mark Hatmaker’s Gladiator Conditioning is really doing it for me. I’ll review [...]

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Bill Maher: “ask your doctor if getting off your ass is right for you”

September 11th, 2008 · 7 Comments · Fitness

Big hat tip to Lou Schuler — the fitness guru — for his post on this. It’s a bit old but so clearly shows why exercise and nutrition are important. And in a way that only Bill Maher could present it.
If you believe you need to take all the pills the pharmaceutical industry says you [...]

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Diet tips — what worked for me

September 5th, 2008 · 7 Comments · Fitness, Training log

I was 81.8 kilos yesterday, a new low. Dipped up just a bit today but it usually stabilizes at the lower weight after a while. I also just got back from the doctor’s office for my monthly check up. My liver function, renal function, blood pressure, cholestrol and uric acid levels were all in the [...]

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Better start getting Thai massage

August 9th, 2008 · 15 Comments · Fitness, Massage

Want to look like this?

This is Dora Torres, one of our Olympic swimming hopefuls. She’s a 41-year-old mother and she’s the new poster child for physical fitness. But how did she get to look like this? Check it out:

This “resistance stretching” looks an awful lot like a version of Thai massage to me. Thai massage [...]

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Strength fills in the gaps

June 22nd, 2008 · 20 Comments · Fitness

So why train for strength at all?
There are many answers.
One that I liked from the recent thread in have strength but don’t use it was that life doesn’t stop while you train IMA. That’s very true. We still need to move furniture. I find I need to pick stuff up off the floor almost everyday. [...]

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Gyrotonics

January 24th, 2008 · 5 Comments · Fitness, Yoga/Daoyin

(Warning! Beautiful Brazilian women moving rhythmically. Proceed with caution!)
So here you have gyrotonics — silk reeling as a workout. This is also known as “yoga for dancers” although that seems a little redundant. If you look at the moves in this system and in the gyrokinesis system, you’ll see that they are basically doing silk [...]

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Why being fat will hurt your martial arts

December 17th, 2007 · 6 Comments · Fitness

The main thing that being fat and having a weak core does to your martial arts performance is that it prevents the smooth transfer of force from your legs to your arms. Consider the following picture from the excellent book Stronger Back and Abs.

Figure A shows what having a weak gut can do to your [...]

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Flexibility training for taiji

September 4th, 2007 · 10 Comments · Fitness, Yoga/Daoyin

Here’s Y.C. Chiang — a top student of Kuo Lien-ying — doing something that GuangPing Yang style is famous for — kissing the toes. I’ve been after this stretching ability for a few months and I have recently hit a bit of a plateau in my development. I can get my chest to my thigh [...]

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Foot exercises

July 5th, 2007 · 6 Comments · Fitness

You guys have obviously noted a switch in what I’m talking about lately. There’s more discussion of yoga and stretching issues because of a few things I’m dealing with. One of my problems lately is plantar fasciitis. I keep waking up with pain near my heels. I’ve come to the conclusion that I’m not doing [...]

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