As most of us know, imagining that you’re doing an activity (imaging) can help you improve your performance at that activity. Athletes have done this for years, but how about this: what if imaging a strength-training exercise can increase your strength almost as much as actually doing the exercise?
A study has shown that if you do the imaging under circumstances similar to those under which the real exercise would be performed (smelly gym and all), you’d get similar results to those you’d get if you actually performed the exercise.
“The percentage increase in weight lifted was 23.29% in the PETTLEP imagery group, 28.03% in the combination group, and 26.56% in the physical practice group. The traditional imagery group and control group increased by 13.75% and 5.12%, respectively.”
In other words, pumping iron increased strength by 26%, but imaging with this technique increased it by 24%. The PETTLEP imagers first pumped iron while being viedotaped, then did the imaging while sitting at the bicep curl machine and watching the tape, recalling as many bicep-curling sensations as they could. It seems that recalling the physical sensations was very important.
Here’s the study. “PETTLEP” is the name of the imaging technique.
This has terrific potential for rehabilitation, although someone who could not do the exercise (and thus could not be videotaped) would not perform as well.
By the way, this actually ties in somewhat with Yiquan’s imaging techniques as written in J.P. Lau’s Yiquan Beginner’s Guide. Interesting.
To get healthy, or at least in shape, a lot of us run and lift weights. This seems to make sense, based on a few paradigms: 1) you use it or lose it, 2) an active life is more natural than a sedentary life, and 3) the body adapts when stressed physically, making itself stronger.
I can definitely buy into this in terms of bringing one’s physical activity up to a healthy level. For example, a computer programmer might have to do some weights to bring himself up to the level of a construction worker or farmhand or Tom Hanks after some time on a desert island. I just don’t assume that marathon running and extreme bodybuilding, by themselves, lead to high degree of health. That sort of stuff seems to be unbalanced to me, especially the bodybuilding. Why curl 100 pounds? So you can … curl 100 pounds? Sure, do some resistance training to increase circulation, burn fat, gain energy, and so on … but once it starts to only serve itself, I think it’s time to take a more balanced approach. To my mind, such an approach would include more flexibility training along with compound movements like lunges and push-ups. I like those because they seem to simulate real-life activities and use more muscles naturally.
But it seems the Chinese (to make a vast generalization) take it a step farther. According to sources including Wong Kiew Kit’s Complete Book of Tai Chi Chuan, they believe that running and lifting weights to get healthy is a backwards approach. They see those activities as the results of good health, not the causes. They believe that you should get healthy first, through breathing, eating, qigong and meditation. Those activities would then allow you to run and lift weights when the situation called for it…. which, if we think about it, makes sense. If we adopted this approach, we could increase our level of fitness so we could rise to the occasion when we need to run somewhere, help with lifting, or just approach the energy needs of the day with pleasure, not dread.
I wonder what they think of exercising to lose weight? To burn off fat that wasn’t a good idea to ingest in the first place?
What do you think?
Hey … I’ve been sick.
Sorry I haven’t posted for a while. See you tomorrow.