Working, working out, and training -- Exercises aren't created equally

Since it seems that I've had a bajillion things to do around the yard this summer, mostly involving a fair amount of physical labor, I've had some time to reflect upon how working, meaning hard, physical labor, working out, as in the gym, and training are similar and yet different. As it is easy to get caught up in substituting labor or a workout for training, particularly since both make you feel like you've accomplished something physical and eat into your training time and energy, I thought it might be worth putting something down about some of the differences, at least in my understanding.


Working

Physical labor is great. It's exhausting, it creates a particular kind of strength and conditioning that are hard to get by any other means, and it accomplishes something more than just burning some calories and putting a demand on your body. Anyone that is aware of the insane strength of steel workers, lumberjacks, or even bakers (at least in their hands!) knows that working makes for quite a workout. In fact, push-mowing a yard such as mine weighs in at just the right kind of aerobic/cardio exercise that is supposed to be hugely beneficial to overall health, and it burns nearly 800-1000 calories to do the whole thing in a go. Yard work that involves pulling, digging, hauling, sawing, or other such activities takes it to an entirely different level.

Is this kind of thing good to implement as part of your overall training scheme? Yeah, I think so, particularly some of the manly hard stuff like sawing things by hand and moving heavy, awkward crap around. It's a good form of exercise that's usually performed at a controlled pace, which has a large amount of benefit. It also forces you to perform muscular activity that is typically outside of your everyday range, which is rapidly becoming known to be a very good way to keep your physical body hopping in terms of benefit. On the down side, though, it's easy to overdo and thereby cause yourself injuries (low back, anyone?) that limit this and other forms of exercise.

Here's a list of things I feel characterize this type of "exercise," if you'll allow the term:

• Typically a moderate, sustained pace over a long period of time;
• Seeks to accomplish a goal entirely distinct from the exercise obtained;
• Can require huge amounts of unfamiliar effort;
• Often highly repetitive and can therefore (especially in the light of the previous points) easily lead to overuse injury;
• Burns a lot of energy and uses the body in a variety of highly functional ways, developing a real, non-cosmetic strength and fitness;
  
• Is extra rewarding when well done.

Working out

Hitting the gym, treadmill, track, bike, weights, fitness class, or other fitness routines all fall directly into this category, which is primarily categorized as having the exercise be the primary goal of the workout session. This kind of exercise is by far the most popular in the Western World today, and it makes up a huge, very profitable industry. Body builders and even relatively casual gym rats can and do produce fantastic physiques with tons of strength and sometimes insane levels of fitness (I know a guy that knows a guy that does ridiculous things like run "three marathon weekends" a couple of times a year). Working out is definitely high on the list of regular activities sought by the fit.

As a Yin Style Baguazhang practitioner, is this kind of thing good to implement into your overall training scheme? Yeah, I think so, yet again. The word from the top is that supplemental training, most of which I file under the word "conditioning" should make up around one part in seven or eight of your overall training (to quote: "twenty minutes of [favorite *exercises*] for every two hours of training"). Honestly, I probably hit a little higher than that ratio, but that's because strength-building has been made known to me as a major training/development goal for the last while. To expand upon what has been said about conditioning, evidently the more nearly it replicates or achieves training goals, the more nearly it constitutes training, which goes beyond working out, and is slightly more desirable. One with little interest in weaponry and lots of interest in Yin Style Bagua might argue that saber training falls under this kind of umbrella (though it properly is "training" according to the working definition I'll be using below).

If you have a deficit of strength, poor general conditioning, excess adipose weight, or are abnormally tight and stiff -- in other words if you have a specific physical development need to focus on to put yourself in the right place to train well -- then this kind of exercise is indispensable to your overall training scheme. Otherwise, it's really up to you, but it can prove really helpful. For what it's worth, studies are starting to show that activities that use whole body movement and/or explosive, high-intensity interval activity benefit martial artists most of the entire non-training workout menu.

Here's a list of things I feel characterize this type of exercise:

• The specific and primary goal of the activity is for the improved fitness, in whichever category, e.g. strength, aerobic/cardio, flexibility;
• There is a high payout for a relatively low time commitment if the proper exercises are chosen and executed well with the exact opposite problem if the exercises are chosen poorly to your goals;
• You can sculpt your body rather quickly this way, although much of the strength developed is cosmetic and only moderately functional (a better term is "highly specifically functional");
• Done properly with education, these activities are always very safe and rarely taken to the point of causing repetitive strain injuries if done correctly and within the proper parameters;
  
• It's very easy to get caught up in so that your real goals are forgotten;
• The "skills" you gain while in these activities are also "highly specific" and generally rather useless, and the rewards can be high but tend also to be transitory.
  

Training

In simple terms, I think training can be summed up by calling it "exercise with a developmental purpose." Compare this with working out, which might similarly be labeled "exercise for exercise's sake" or "exercise for the purpose of fitness." Also, physical labor might be tagged "exercise with a mostly external purpose." These simple terms make it clear what training is, I hope: It's doing things that the majority of us would deem in the world of "exercise" with the specific goal of getting better at some skill. Of course, when we talk about "development" in Yin Style, we're talking about both sides of this coin: improved physical condition and improved skill. Thus, training proper is an activity that centers on getting better at something (in this case at YSB) and has the exercise come mostly as a secondary effect.

It goes without saying that this sort of activity is important in your training scheme; it should be central, in fact. As a Yin Style practitioner, you should be training regularly, meaning working hard at developing the skills of a Yin Stylist, which will entail a tremendous physical output on your part. Within the context of your "workouts and training sessions," developing skills or training the practices of this martial art should constitute 85-90% or more of your sweating time (6/7, per the quote above, is just short of 86%, for what it's worth).

So, in summary, training as a form of exercise is characterized by:

• The specific and primary goal of the activity is to improve in the skills of the art or practice that you're training (here: Yin Style Bagua, though this is more widely applicable);
• Unless you're training something with a strange training protocol behind it, this should be (and is in YSB) highly physically demanding, netting large amounts of "exercise" in the process;
• The types of strength developed in the process of gaining and refining the skills of your art are maximally functional to your training goals because they are wrought as a byproduct of training those goals;
• The skills obtained are exactly in line with your training goals as well;
• These activities can also be highly repetitive since an outcome other than the exercise is the main goal, so as with physical labor, repetitive strain injuries can be common and must be dealt with to prevent the hindrance of more training;
• The rewards of this kind of practice are very high and readily apparently, falling into the deeper category of "development" (Chinese: gongfu) instead of just general personal improvement.

So, that's most of what I had to say about this, or what I've thought so far. All three variants of highly physical activities are valuable in their own ways. Physical labor is functional and typically necessary to some degree (and is a far better non-training use of your time than television or typing up blog posts), fitness workouts are awesome for remedial purposes in specific aspects of your development, and training is and must be the cornerstone of the practice of any art, particularly one as physically and mentally demanding as Yin Style Baguazhang.

Happy training!