Breathing for Cardiovascular Health is the topic of my 2nd video on breath and breathing. I have nicknamed the program Body SPARKS. SPARKS stands for – Stimulating Power by Adding Respiration to Kinetic Strength. It is a Natural Strength & Power workout without weights.
In our society Cardiovascular Health has come to be publicly defined by cardio training which has come to mean jumping around and getting your heart rate up but that it is only a small part of the cardiovascular health story. There is a lot more to it.
I will start by writing a bit about body inflammation. Body inflammation is a major cause of health problems in those over the age of 40 and is increasingly being found in those well under the age of 40. This includes thickening / clogging of the arteries that leads to heart attacks and strokes etc. and is a major Cardiovascular Health problem.
The exercises on this video are exercises to reduce body inflammation and they will also help you to sidestep osteoporosis by building & maintaining bone & muscle mass. This of course is one aspect of what proper Tai Chi training is doing for you long term as well.
In our video on this we are demonstrating some very specific stretches. Proper Stretching will instantly gain you at least 10% more power and can gain you as much as a 300% increase in power. However, be careful, Improper stretching can rob you of power. The stretching exercises shown on this video are Natural Body Flow Stretches. Natural Body Flow Stretching and moving is the best kind of stretching for more overall body health and power. Of course we also use Bagua stretches and exercises to achieve these results but we only recommend those to folks who are actively engaged in the our martial arts programs as these exercises are quite a bit more sophisticated and take a lot more time and dedication to learn.
There is a way that you can practice some of this with your Tai Chi. Pick one of the Tai Chi moves such as Cloud Hands and make sure practice it 12x in a row without interruption. Make sure that your body weight is sunk so that you get the bone maintenance and building of muscle mass benefits and extend your range of motion enough so that you get a gentle but noticeable stretch in your entire upper body and arms from your performance of the movement.
We do spend a bit of time on this video working on proper form for basic exercises. The lessons contained within are also excellent for those working on the internal martial arts including Tai Chi as the basic essential elements of posture, relaxation, movement and breathing apply and are covered in some detail.
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