A few years ago I came across a particularly good example of how this fundamentally correct view can result in something wrong. I was involved in looking after an ice-hockey team and found that even in the professional game, where a great deal of money is earned, there is a frightening lack of knowledge about muscle function. In their efforts to improve their performance in matches, the players trained completely non-specifically according to the motto: as long as I’m pumping weights, it’s bound to do some good. A suitable strengthening regime, stretching and loosening were alien to them. Apart from the fact that function-specific muscle training would bring significant advantages for the movements in ice-hockey, non-specific, general muscle training could also be helpful if done correctly. But what happens if one is ignorant of the movement sequences to be correctly improved, and if one does not compensate the increased shortening effect of residual contractions? As a result of the muscle shortening which accompanies the gain in strength, the movement sequences required to play the game are hampered more and more. The players become stronger, but their inner "muscular friction" also increases, with the result that the energy externally available to play the game can even be reduced despite greater strength.

Quite apart from the accompanying wear and tear on the joints, and the pain that serves as a warning above a certain threshold.

While we WT-people certainly remember Grandmaster Kernspecht’s often cited example of the tense biceps which slows down a punch, I question whether this theory is actually fully understood and always put into actual practice. What do these inter-relationships mean for our training?

Three training conditions follow from the above. The first is the actual status, whatever it might be in individual cases.

The second follows the initial intention to minimise the "inner muscular friction". Incidentally, this follows the training goal of the first strength principle: free yourself from your own strength! On the basis of my experience with the muscle function of countless sportsmen who have come to me for pain therapy, I can confidently claim that merely by minimising this inner resistance, an average approx. 50% increase in usable external strength becomes possible. Without ever pumping a single weight. How can this be achieved? Above all by practicing the first form, which is why it should play a major role in the day-to-day training of any WT follower for life. This is also where WT-people can benefit from WT-ChiKung, whose main training goal is to eliminate the muscular resistances throughout the entire body. Specifically improving ease of movement turns the seemingly impossible into reality, for example the fact that a much harder punch can be carried out with a thinner arm than with a muscle-laden forearm which is hampered by corresponding "inner friction". Until this second stage has been intensively realised, no intensive power training should be carried out. At least this is the only way to approach the actual goal, which is to maximise the external energy output.

The third stage builds on the second. If you have freed yourself from your own strength, you can add your own to it. Our Grandmaster Keith R. Kernspecht is a living example of this. If you look closely you will see that whenever his upper arms are not tensed, they are completely relaxed. But when he transfers energy, i.e. builds up power, the corresponding muscles suddenly expand considerably. Owing to long years of training he has been able to bring his musculature into optimal functioning condition. Despite immense strength increases through weight-training, he is completely relaxed when passive.