Horse Stance FTW!!!

[EmetShamash]

Allright... I know that more than a few of you bullies out there have done some pretty long hours of horse stance. What I want to know is what you think the benefits of such an excercise are if you even think that there are any. I also want to hear from the people that say that horse stance is a go-tarded worthless waste of time.

I have read people talking a little about this stuff but it has never been a real comprehensive talk. I am also a little more interested in people's opinion from within cma.

Give me sources of amazing science to gaze upon. I know there has to be some good info on this stuff out there.

[Virus]

It's of no use because you don't activate the muscles in the lower body ways that are used in an actual fight.

The angle of resistance is wrong; gravity lends resistance straight down, opponents don't resist in that direction.

The amount and type of resistance is wrong; you are only resisting your own bodyweight. To make this strenuous enough to provide overload, you need to spend minutes on it. Resistance from an opponent will be short quick and explosive which means you need to condition against that sort of resistance. This means much heavier weight for much shorter duration. Fighting is never decided by who can spend the longest amount of time in a squatted position.

[EmetShamash]

search. function. newb.

Well I found a thread on MAP (http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showthread.php?t=19578&page=1&pp=15) but I was hoping that there might be a little more intelligent conversation to be found here. If you can point me to the thread that you are saying I didn't find then I would be happy to read it.

Virus, do you think that all isometric excercise is worthless to martial training? What about body weight excercise? I would think that horse stance is both. Could it be that horse stance gives you different benefits that squats do not give? Being able to do squats doesn't give you the ability to do horse stance for longer does it?

[dwhomp]

To me most if not all stance-based work is a waste of time in my eyes.

While I havent had to do a horse stance hold in 15 years, as I recall, there was no benefit that could not be obtained elsewhere.

You mentioned the Squat...

The beauty of the squat is that done correctly, it works much more than just the legs. To me, it seems a waste to do an exercise that only really benefits one aspect of "the game".

[Alex]

spent roughly 2 and a half years doing them in kung fu, 3 or so doing them in karate... nope, cant think of a single damn thing they were useful for.

[Asriel]

Do squats with someone on your back and your arms out straight holding a medicine ball instead.

[john joe]

Fighting is never decided by who can spend the longest amount of time in a squatted position.

unless you're one of those fat sumo bastards

[Virus]

Virus, do you think that all isometric excercise is worthless to martial training? What about body weight excercise? I would think that horse stance is both. Could it be that horse stance gives you different benefits that squats do not give? Being able to do squats doesn't give you the ability to do horse stance for longer does it?

I started this thread which addresses the "traditional" training methods.
http://www.bullshido.net/forums/showthread.php?t=54596

In response to your questions, I don't think all bodyweight exercises are useless.

I don't see much use for isometrics in martial arts, they aren't very common in sports conditioning. You see them in stuff like arm wrestling. But I could be wrong, maybe if I thought about it I would find something that happens in combat that depends on an isometric contraction but off the top of my head I can't really think of any.

Squats are one of the best general conditioners of the lower body. Although the angle of resistance tends to be near vertical it's still better than horse stances. They will build mass on the legs which make for a harder kick, and that mass will help protect against injury. A factor you have to take into consideration is what training equipment you have available.

For developing power in the double-leg takedown ideally you would use a cable device that allows you to place the resistance directly behind you and attach the cables to the arms, legs and waist and have them perform the double leg movement. Such equipment is not always available and you have to work with what you've got. If you have your bog-standard gym with a squat rack then doing heavy squats, building up to explosive lifts would be a much better choice for training explosive wrestling takedowns.

They tend to use the horse stance in striking arts and I can't think of any time you use that position in standing striking.

[Hands]

Look up isometric exercise and check out the disadvantages. I've held the horse stances in the past, useless. If you're in horse stance while doing some drills than it is more helpful, but holding a static stance didn't help me. I got more benefits from holding low stances while moving around.

The horse stance has some application in throws.

[isol8d]

they are a good conditioning exercise.

[Virus]

To Hands: Which throw did you have in mind?

To Iso8ted: Yes they are good conditioning, but conditioning for what?

[Ming Loyalist]

you can certainly use horse stance to counter a hip throw.

all TCMA stance work is useful for training to be balanced in various positions, and learning to drop your weight into strikes.

squats are great and i suggest that students do them. they do not work the legs in the same way as horse stance.

i can elaborate in person at the next new york throwdown with anyone who really wants to know, but i'm not going to get into an internet pissing match with a guy like virus who just comes to the CMA forum to troll and doesn't really want to discuss anything.

[isol8d]

To Hands: Which throw did you have in mind?

To Iso8ted: Yes they are good conditioning, but conditioning for what?

Chinese Martial Arts (rimshot please)

Physical training for building leg strength and endurance. It can help build mental toughness too.

Let's also define horse stance "training". For me, most of my classes start up with 2-5 minutes of a "riding horse stance", then 2-5 minutes of a "hill climbing/bow horse stance", combined with breathing exercises, followed up with the rest of our "basics", stretching, kicking, bridges....

Other times we'll run or do calisthenics, or both.

The other "stance" training we'll do is either a basic set of transition footwork, or contests to see who can keep a stance without falling out first. That happens maybe once or twice a year.....

[Istislah]

We only do Ba Shi (eight stances- horse stance is one of them) infrequently in class; Mostly to check our form with the intention that we will do it at home. If you're doing the whole sequence of 8 stances for a minute each on each side you're looking at 16 minutes of valuable class time so it's much better as "homework".

It's not the most efficient strength builder as others have pointed out though it does have the advantages of requiring absolutely no equipment, very little space and won't disturb a downstairs neighbor. Also I find it pretty relaxing as a form of standing meditiation (not saying this makes me a better fighter- just saying it's calming).

What I have found the stances useful for is helping with proper form during sparring. Mostly the stances are the "endpoints" of movements. While there obviously isn't a whole lot of point in training the ability to hold for minutes at time the stance you'll be in for a quarter of a second at the end of a sweep or strike- I have found that doing so has made it more likely that I'll actually end up in the proper form and therefore generate the proper force and maintain balance when executing techniques in sparring. I've noticed that effect particularly towards the end of a sparring session/round.

The more tired and gassed I am the harder it is to get my body to do what it's supposed to- by conditioning the stance for moderate periods (1-2 minutes) I'm making it easier on myself to fall naturally into that posture and maintain balance for that quarter second during the execution of a technigue when my legs are screaming at me to just take a freaking rest already. Squats do a better job of making your legs and lower body stronger and everyone should definitely do them but they're not going to reinforce proper technique and footwork.

[EmetShamash]

What about using weights in horse stance? I know people do a whole lot of stuff in horse stance like different weight excercises for the arms or putting a weight on the shoulders. Could doing horse stance with lots of weight be more acceptable to the naysayers?

[Virus]

It does build leg strength and endurance but only at that particular angle that your legs are in when doing a horse stance. It won't significantly transition to building strength in movements like hip and knee extension, which is used a lot more in martial arts than static wide squats. It's static strength whereas martial arts depends far more on dynamic strength, which is strength throughout particular ranges of motion.

As for throw defense, yes I am familiar with dropping your weight low when someone moves into a hip throw but performing extended horse stances won't elicit a very significant benefit to that movement because you resist gravity (straight down) when you do horse stances and being picked up by a throw provides resistance pulling you up, the excat opposite angle of resistance. The throw will only last a split second whereas horse stances have to be done for minutes to start providing overload. They rely on different energy systems of the body which have to be trained differently. One is muscular endurance (Horse stance) the other is strength and power. Endurance uses anaerobic glycolosys, whereas power uses the phosphate system.

If someone was set on developing power in dropping their weight for hip-throw defense, then something like holding a tricep-pulldown cable to your chest and squatting down would be a better conditioner becuase it would actually resist in the correct angle.