Formosa Fitness

I mentioned this in my review of Scott Sonnon's Kettlebell Foundation DVD but didn't describe it much. Basically, when you use the kettlebell or most anything else for high volume work, you're packing stress into the body. You then MUST find a way to get that stress out. It's  like wringing a towel and then leaving it in that condition rather than letting it unwind. Or think of a rubber band that's wound up and then not released.

Kettlebell training isn't alone in this regard. I often got this feeling from training baguazhang simply because in that art, you're constantly coiled. You coil one way towards the center of the circle while walking one palm change and you want to wring the tissues in that direction -- maximum coiling. You then unwind with the next palm change but use the momentum to wind in the opposite direction. What's happens is that you're constantly wound up and the more you practice without a compensatory component, the worse you might possible feel -- especially in the back and knees. Those areas don't take winding too kindly.

Kettlebell training works in a similar fashion with it's high volume training. The forearms and back are in constant use while training the kettlebell. If you don't then release that underlying tension, you're asking for overuse injuries.

I've had similar results from over-training the tiger form in hung gar (hongquan). It used a type of constant tension that taichi didn't release. Only closed chain kinetic releases would have worked but I knew nothing of that then.

When I was doing the escalating density training hard and heavy in July, I was packing stress into my body and not really releasing it. Just the name "escalating density" hints at that. The result was that my elbows were feeling pulled apart. Tendonitis was starting to set in. But releasing that tension with compensatory motions as in Sonnon's DVD is getting it out.

These motions are the key to long term practice of these various arts IMO. They are the best antidote to overuse injuries that I know. And as a teacher, I now make at least a few of them a part of every class I teach.

Avoid them at your peril if you're working hard on this stuff.