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Date Posted: 08:58:27 10/01/02 Tue
Author: ryan
Subject: Re: Chi Kung
In reply to: Akart 's message, "Chi Kung" on 03:31:44 10/01/02 Tue

hi,

to be honest, i really dont know jack about qigong, but i can try to give you a scientific/personal opinion.

you should control your breathing at all times when you exercise, trying to balance respiratory supply with tissue/organ demand + effectiveness, in order to perform the exercise more efficiently. your breathing pattern however will largely depend on the activity that you are performing.

in performing slower movements, slow twitch type 1 muscle fibres are mostly recruited which help you to perform more controlled, stabilised, and precise movements. these fibres run on an aerobic metabolism, burning mainly fats(which has a low combustion rate) in the presence of oxygen to produce energy for the muscles. a considerable amount of oxygen is required to effectively carry out aerobic metabolism, thus controlled breathing is required similar to the one you mentioned above. the advantage of this type of metabolism is that provided you dont reach your anaerobic threshold in terms of power output or speed, then you wont fatigue very quickly since theres no lactic acid buildup, and the fuel source fat is highly abundant in the body. realistically though, unless your anaerobic threshold is incredibly high you really aren't going to be using this type of metabolism too often in a real fight since the power and speed you use are very high (around 80-90% of your maximum).


in doing faster movements, fast twitch type 2 muscle fibres are mostly recruited which help you to develop the extra speed required. these fibres run on an anaerobic metabolism, burning glucose (which has a very high combustion rate) and requiring no oxygen, to produce a lower amount of energy (cf.aerobic metabolism) for the muscles and also a lactic acid end-product. thus very little breathing is required during this period, just a minimum amount required to match the oxygen demand of vital organs (heart, brain etc.), and also the few type 1 muscle fibres that are still being recruited during the movement. the disadvantage with this metabolism is that you fatigue very quickly in that you cant hold anaerobic metabolism for very long since glucose stores are easily depleted and also the buildup of lactic acid becomes too great, leading to a burning sensation forcing you to stop. to get rid of the increased concentration of lactic acid, the body converts this into carbon dioxide, then forcing the respiratory system to hyperventilate to expel it.

the problem with breathing is how to maximise ventilation to the lungs without wasting energy and diverting blood suppply on just breathing, when that can be used to supply working muscles. on conscious breathing (ie you control the breathing manually, not your respiratory centre in your brain doing it for you while you dont have to think), you can either perform shallow breaths or deep breaths. with shallow breaths, you have to counter chest wall resistance which will require extra muscle use to breathe. this diverts blood supply to these extra muscles, and in the end is considered wasteful since the amount of ozygen you get is pretty minimal. on the other end, with deep breathing you have to counter the elastic forces of the chest wall and lung wall to fully inflate your lungs. this again leads to "blood stealing" due to extra breathing muscle use. also , with expiration, we normally rely on elastic recoil of the lungs to aid in expiration, which requires no active energy in terms of metabolism. however on deep breathing, this recoil is rendered useless since there is too much gas in the lungs, and so extra muscle use is required (ie more blood stealing, wasted energy) to aid in expiration. alternately, forceful expiration will also require the aid of extra muscles to help force air out of the body.

knowing the above then, to breathe efficiently, most athletes balance between the 2 to maximise efficiency of what it is they're functionally trying to achieve.

a practical example (based now on what i think, not on what i've read) can be seen in fighting. when punching, speed and power is usually required and since the arms are mostly composed of type 2 muscle fibres, anaerobic metabolism is usually used, so not much oxygen is required. also, on punching, the force applied to the target will be greatly increased if the entire body is tense at the moment of impact. increased limb tension can just be achieved via isometric muscle contraction, however to achieve increased thorax tension, one must increase both intrathoracic and intraabdominal pressure. to increase intrathoracic pressure, one just has to hold their breath, while to increase intraabdominal pressure, the abdomical muscles are tensed.

knowing this, it can be seen that the most effective way of breathing would be to take 1 moderate breath in, and as you are about to strike a short burst of forced expiration is taken and the breath is then held at the moment just before impact to tense the body. these short bursts of expiration followed by a punch on striking are continued until the lung is relatively empty of held gas. from there, another moderate breath is taken and the process repeats.

on analysis of the breathing pattern, inpired volumes of air will meet the oxygen demands of the body (eg vital organs etc.). expiration however is the key to an effective and functional breathing pattern in striking. making the expirations short and fast acts to: (i)allow the body to tense faster between strikes, thereby allowing you to strike faster, (ii)keep a considerable amount of gas in the lungs upon the end of each expiration, allowing for more than 1 effective strike during each breathing cycle giving rise to the possibility of performing combinations, and (iii)recruit the use of the extra breathing muscles on expiration so that on striking, tension is still held in the breathing muscle, allowing for increased total body tension, and in turn a more effective force application on the target.

realistically, a fight wont last longer than 30seconds unless youre in a tournament, thus you really wont be using aerobic metabolism. if your opponent isnt down by the time you get short of breath from the carbon dioxide buildup (due to lactic acid buildup), then you can just dance around the opponent blocking any of their attacks, until you get your breath back (ie expel all the carbon dioxide, while using aerobic metabolism). alternatively, if what youve done for the past 30 seconds hasnt even fazed your opponent itd be just wiser to run. ;p


ryan

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