Getting fit With Traditional Chinese Medicine

If you are looking for tips on getting fit using Chinese Medicine, you have come to the right place. This is a topic not found on many TCM websites. Mainly, people don’t look for workouts or training advice from a Chinese Medicine blog. However, you can leverage the principles in this ancient healing method to skyrocket your health and fitness.

Getting Fit With Traditional Chinese Medicine

The beauty of Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) is that it can be applied to all aspects of life, and fitness is no exception. When you hear fitness you may first think about gyms, diets, jogging, and some gymnastics but nothing related to Chinese Medicine.

Want to get fitter?

In this post, I will show you how you can apply the principles behind Chinese Medicine to supercharge your fitness.

Here’s what you’ll find:

• How to set the ideal fitness goal using TCM.
• How to look at exercise for better health.
• Create your workout plan using both the Yin and Yang aspects.
• How to rest properly for improved results and better mental health.
• Create a simple meal plan you can stick to.

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How Traditional Chinese Medicine looks at fitness

Chinese Medicine cares about balance and harmony. A healthy individual is one that both his Yin and Yang aspects are in equilibrium. You should cultivate the external but also cultivate the internal.

Yang aspects focus on the external: hard feats like strength, speed, explosiveness, and muscle size.

Yin aspects focus on the internal: soft feats like flexibility, mental clarity and calmness, proper functioning of your organs, and harnessing your Qi/Chi so your inner vitality can secure a lengthy and healthy life.

Mainstream fitness places an extreme emphasis on the external: how muscular you are, body fat percentage, personal records in the bench press, and so on. It also overemphasizes strength over other aspects which are more Yin in comparison. Yang aspects are more appealing to young people whereas the more Yin ones are of the preference of elders.

Both are equally important.

Doing resistance exercises helps fight the age-related decline in muscle size (sarcopenia). And having a good amount of muscle mass helps in cancer survivability.

Incorporating Chi Kung in your life helps expand your quality of life.

Translated as ‘Chi Work’ but better understood as Chi Harnessing, Chi Kung/Qigong is an ancient healing practice that mixes gentle and low-impact exercises with breathwork and visualization.

It has been used for longevity and improving the health of individuals for a long time, it is currently really popular among elders who experience amazing health benefits from it.

TCM states that too much of one is detrimental. So we must aim to have a proper balance. You must be strong, yes, but you also need to develop the ‘soft’ sides like flexibility, and being able to move your body.

Your muscles can’t be a hindrance to your movement.

What’s more, the Yin aspects are the ones who that ensure that all your Yang gains can be translated into a healthy life full of vitality. We sure know that person who is great in the gym but is always with a sore muscle or can’t touch his toes. I’ve been there myself.

The way TCM prescribes fitness is with a balanced mix of Yan aspects i.e. gym, sprinting, and martial arts; with Yin aspects i.e. Chi Kung (Qi Gong), Taichi, and meditation.

The Ideal Body

There is no fixed concept of an ‘Ideal body’ in TCM but we can apply its principles to have a good idea of what a good body looks like through its lens.

In traditional Chinese medicine (TCM), the concept of an ideal healthy body is intertwined with the principles of balance, harmony, and the free flow of Qi. TCM emphasizes the interconnectedness of the body, mind, and spirit, and views health as a dynamic equilibrium.

Here’s a broad overview, keeping in mind that individual constitutions and needs may vary.

1. General Characteristics:

Men and Women: Both men and women are seen as having an ideal body characterized by a harmonious balance of Yin and Yang energies.

2. Physical Appearance:

Muscle Size and Body Fat:

Men: The ideal male physique is often associated with well-distributed muscle mass, moderate body fat, and a robust frame.

Women: For women, a balance between strength and suppleness is emphasized, with an emphasis on toning rather than excessive muscle development.

Body Dimensions:

Symmetry: Symmetry is valued, with balanced proportions and a sense of poise.

3. Sensations and Feelings:

Vitality: An ideal healthy body is characterized by a sense of vitality, energy, and a feeling of being grounded.

Comfort: There is an absence of discomfort, pain, or stiffness, with smooth and unobstructed movement.

4. Mental and Emotional Aspects:

Clarity and Calmness: Mental clarity, emotional stability, and a calm disposition are considered integral to overall health.

Adaptability: The ability to adapt to changes in one’s environment and emotions is valued.

How to set the ideal fitness goals

As you can see, these are parameters but not fixed ones nor carved in stone. Chinese Medicine is not a one-size-fits-all approach. You must grasp the principles and apply them to your specific needs. If you need further guidance then seek a licensed TCM doctor for more.

If you want your health to be the best it can be then you must incorporate both Yin and Yang aspects into your training regime.

Setting specific goals can be tricky but here are some guidelines you can use:

• Getting more muscle size and increasing my flexibility in one specific movement or joint.
• Losing body fat and being able to go deeper in moves like the horse stance.
• Develop more cardiovascular endurance while moving smoothly and not stiffly.
• Having more energy throughout the day and having a calmer mind.
• Perform better at the gym but also feel free to move my body with ease.

As TCM uses the holistic approach, you can see that mixing gym workouts, martial arts, jogging, or similar ones with regular Taichi, Chi Kung, or yoga practices will cover all those goals globally.

As you lose body fat you will be able to move freely but also have more energy, and increase flexibility.

A very special note: Don’t stress over whether you are getting the soft results, those are harder to see because they take time but they will be harder to vanish, unlike muscle size.

Applying Chinese Medicine to Fitness

Now we are going to see how we will apply Chinese Medicine directly to fitness:

Workout Plan

A good workout plan using the principles of TCM will have a good proportion of gym workouts and regular Qigong practice. Ideally, it would be a 50/50 split but it depends on your available time and specific goals. But you will see significant results even if you just add two days a week.

I had a tremendous improvement after incorporating 2 days of Qigong into my schedule. I got better in martial arts and got more flexible.

You can incorporate Qigong as the cooldown exercise after your gym training or you can have a separate day only for Qigong or Taichi. I recommend the latter because it lets you recover properly from the gym workouts and allows you to focus on Qigong or Taichi as a separate entity that needs your full energy.

Here are some schedule examples for 4 days a week, 5 days a week, and 6 days a week.

For each training session, pick one to two exercises per muscle and perform three sets with adequate resting.

4/week training:

• Monday: Warm up + Pull workout (biceps, back, glutes, ,abdominals, and hamstrings) + Quick 10 min qigong practice
• Wednesday: Warm up + Push workout (chest, triceps, shoulders, abdominals, and quadriceps) + Quick 10 min qigong practice
• Thursday: Full QiGong day, select three routines and perform them. I recommend Baduanjin (8 Brocade), Daoyin Shi er Fa, Wu Qin Xi (5 Animals Play), and other Daoyins.
• Friday: Warm up + Full body workout (Do one exercise from each pull and push routine) + Wu Qin Xi (5 Animals Play).

5/week training

• Monday: Warm up + Pull workout (biceps, back, glutes, ,abdominals, and hamstrings) + Quick 10 min qigong practice
• Tuesday: Warm up + Push workout (chest, triceps, shoulders, abdominals, and quadriceps)
• Wednesday: Qigong or Tai Chi (my go-to forms are the 24th form and the 8th form, but you can also do the sword, fan, or other weapons)
• Thursday: Warm up + Pull workout (biceps, back, glutes, ,abdominals, and hamstrings)
• Friday: Warm up + Push workout (chest, triceps, shoulders, abdominals, and quadriceps) + Quick 10 min qigong practice

6/week training

• Monday: Warm up + Pull workout (biceps, back, glutes, ,abdominals, and hamstrings) + Quick 10 min qigong practice
• Tuesday: Warm up + Push workout (chest, triceps, shoulders, abdominals, and quadriceps)
• Wednesday: Qigong
• Thursday: Warm up + Pull workout (biceps, back, glutes, ,abdominals, and hamstrings)
• Friday: Warm up + Push workout (chest, triceps, shoulders, abdominals, and quadriceps) + Quick 10 min qigong practice
• Saturday: Tai Chi

Note: You don’t need to know the forms and exercises in Qigong or Taichi perfectly. And you don’t need the weapons to do the forms. Feel free to explore and have fun!

Nutrition

Nutrition and dietary therapy are core components of TCM. Extensive texts and corpus of knowledge are dedicated to this specific topic in Chinese medicine.

Proper nutrition has foods that nourish the organ networks and support Qi and Blood.

Getting into detail about diet would make this article needlessly extended.

So here are some dietary guidelines for you:

• Every meal should have all the 5 flavors in it (salty, bitter, sweet, sour, and spicy). Those flavors reinforce the organ networks.
• You should only eat until you are no longer hungry, not until you are full. (Hara Hachi Bu)
• Avoid artificial seasonings and ultra-processed foods. It harms the Kidney network specifically and impacts the quality of life.
• Eat seasonal food. One good rule of thumb is that if that fruit is not endemic to winter then don’t eat it in winter. Food additives and chemical substances impact the body.
• Your first meal should be the bigger one, emphasizing fat and protein. Then reduce portions with each following meal. The Chinese saying goes like this: ”Your first meal (breakfast), you should eat it all by yourself; share your second meal with your spouse; and the third meal, give it to your enemy”.
• Avoid extensive amounts of carbohydrates. You need them, but you don’t need as much as you are currently having. And leave them for later meals because they aid in falling asleep.
• Don’t get into a restrictive diet. While it may work for you in a short time, you must look to maintain a balanced one. Just focus on getting your food as natural as possible. Go to a farmers market.
• Don’t drink cold beverages and avoid cold foods. Cold impacts your kidney yang. Yes, you can have a refreshing glass of cool water when it’s really hot outside, but don’t make it a habit. Your body needs warmth to function properly.

”Kidney Yin is subject to damage by chemical agents, such as antibiotics, analgesics, tranquilizers, food additives, air pollutants, and recreational drugs. It may also be harmed by inadequate intake of water and too much bitter, salty, or hot, spicy food. The Kidney is generally undermined by inadequate sleep, excessive exercise, sexual activity, or work.”

Between Heaven and Earth, by Harriet Beinfield and Efrem Korngold

If you follow these guidelines you won’t have problems securing good nutrition.

Rest

Now we are onto one of the most neglected aspects of fitness and health, especially in today’s day and age. Nowadays people look at rest as that useless but necessary side of our lives we can’t deny.

Almost all of us have been affected by the rushed lifestyle and hustle culture that makes you feel slothful if you take a break.

I’m pretty sure you have heard that before.

You should grind and hustle.

But that is one of the most unhealthy advice ever given to mankind. I know that the core message (or at least at the beginning of it) was not to be lazy. But it went haywire.

”All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.”

Forgotten popular saying

Rest is vital as the Yin side of our daily lives. It is here where our bodies repair and rebuild, we turn to the anabolic drive, and to the parasympathetic drive.

Neglecting rest has severe impacts and will reduce your quality of life quicker than other things. Just 24 hours of impaired sleep will wreak havoc on you.

What is also true is that we are facing an epidemic of ‘restless rest’. People sleep but don’t recover, their minds can’t calm and appreciate the stillness, and they sometimes even feel guilty because they are not ‘productive’ thus making it worse. They think about holidays while on work but think about work and duties while on holiday.

This cascades into not feeling energized anymore, barely doing daily chores but dreading doing every aspect. It is a depressing landscape.

Luckily, it is a solvable one.

To reverse the effects of the lack of sleep and the hustle culture we need to cover a few aspects to ensure proper recovery.

These are simple steps but will require you to commit to them. Commit until they are second nature.

Focus properly: Set timers and commit to them

Just like you read. The first thing you’ll do is set timers so when you are doing that thing you do only that thing. No using your phone for 5 minutes, no going for a walk. If you are at work, focus on work, if you are resting focus on resting.

If you are at home and you are struggling with losing time because of your phone, set a timer for 15-20 minutes. Do all the things you want to do and once the timer is off, turn off your phone set it aside, and go do the next task.

One major fact in the ‘rest guilt’ many people face is their inability to set boundaries on work and rest and poor time management skills, mixing both work and ‘rest’.

Scrolling on your phone while you work kills your work performance and your attention, leading to insufficient input, which leads to a feeling of debt with work once you are on your resting time.

This loss of boundaries between work time and rest time is deadly, especially if you are running a side hustle.

Setting specific amounts of time for both work and rest allows you to be more mindful of what you do with your time.

If you just mindlessly scroll for two hours, setting a timer for just 15 minutes will force you to go and check those things you are interested in.

If you are at work you will have a timer set already for 8 hours. While at home, make sure to also set timers for dedicated work for your side hustle and your rest periods.

Enjoy a deliberate guilt-free rest (1 hour on weekdays, 2 on weekends)

This is one of the most valuable advice I have learned. Every two days or every other day take one or two hours of your time and dedicate them to rest from everything. Do whatever it is that you want to do.

Want to sing? Sing! Want to binge-watch Game of Thrones? By all means.

Just make sure you stick to the timer and once the time is up you will resume your daily tasks.

Take this time to do your guilty pleasures without the guilt of ‘not being productive’. This will lift the heavy burden we all feel when we are taking a break but there’s that lingering sense of ‘I should be doing more’.

Approach this moment like this: ”I will not feel bad. I chose this time to relax, it is my decision and not a spare time I found. I decided to take this time and refresh”.

Have a decompression day

Paired with the last tip, you should take one day completely off. Not just from work and chores, but off of everything. Take time for yourself, let your mind rest and wander, and let this be the day you metabolize everything your mind has consumed.

No phone usage is allowed, no screens as they stimulate your mind, and don’t let it rest.

At first, it will be difficult for your mind to do because of the habit of being constantly stimulated. But it will pay off later on.

Have a steady sleep schedule

Sleep hygiene has been overlooked but is now making a comeback. More and more people are realizing the importance of sleep and having a good sleep schedule. Sleep deprivation causes immense damage to your body and just one night of bad sleep harms you.

Here’s how to fix it:

Set a fixed time to go to bed and to wake up. Make sure you sleep at least 8 hours. Let everyone know you are going to do it so no disturbances happen. Stick to that schedule every day, even on weekends and days off. Eventually, your body will get accustomed and you will rest better.

You can also learn about your chronotype to optimize your energy levels throughout the day.

Spend more time doing things you enjoy, not just what you have to

”Medicine, law, business, and engineering, these are noble pursuits and necessary to sustain life. But poetry, beauty, romance, love, these are what we stay alive for.”

Robin Williams, Dead Poets Society

When was the last time you did something that filled you with joy? Maybe it was singing just because, or dancing to that song’s sound that always brings the good vibes out of you.

Those are important aspects of your life because they feed your soul. You are not a machine that only needs fuel and oiling. You need a complete state of well-being to flourish. And this is fostered by those activities you love doing.

So next time you find yourself with some spare time, pick one of those activities and let yourself be absorbed by it. Let the minutes turn into hours.

By the time you return to this realm, your mind will have rested more than you think. You will be joyful.

Final thoughts

I wrote this article with the purpose of giving you a guide on how to focus your fitness journey. Don’t be discouraged by having to do everything at the same time.

Begin incorporating one aspect, and then another, and then another, and so on.

Remember this is a lifelong journey and your goal should be to feel energized and healthy.

Looks come and go but by applying these principles you will ensure a good-looking body according to your goals but also one that moves and feels good.

Now, here is a gift to you for reading this lengthy post. Next on is a curated Chi King exercise gallery for your workouts. These are the ones I enjoy the most and the ones I think will help you the most.

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Bonus: Curated QiGong and TaiChi Exercise gallery

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See you in the next post.