Excel in sports like world-class Chinese athletes—without the use of drugs or steroids
Ma Jun Aren was born on October 28, 1944, in a humble village in China. At age fourteen he dropped out of school and worked to help his struggling family survive. After a short stint in the army he returned to the countryside, where, like generations before him, he scraped a living out of the soil. In 1970 the Chinese government began seeking out qualified lay people to fill the shortage of teachers. Ma had little education, but because of his army experience he was recruited into a training program to become a physical education teacher. He was assigned to work at a middle school in an impoverished rural region, where he immediately established an all-girls athletic team.
When his athletes turned up at their first track-and-field event with no uniforms or shoes, they were the laughingstock of the opening ceremony. The girls had the last laugh when they won most of the medals and collectively placed number one. Ma and his team were dubbed the Barefoot Troops.
After this initial success, Ma was regularly transferred from school to school. Wherever he went he made champions. His reputation for being a miracle worker in athletic competition grew. Unconventional, often abrasive and hard working, Ma was controversial. His critics argued that though he had had some success at lower-level competitions, he could not succeed in more advanced national or international competitions. Ma proved them wrong. Throughout the eighties Ma's farm-girl athletes broke records in track and field throughout China. Ma was eventually promoted to the position of professional coach. By 1991 his athletes were winning in national championships, breaking national records and winning international competitions. By the end of 1991 his girls had won over a dozen domestic national medals. In 1992 they consistently won national championships, minor international championships and Asian championships. The highlight came in the Barcelona Olympic Games. In track and field two of his girls placed third and fifth in the 1,500-meter run. Both girls broke the Asian records. By this time Ma's girls had positioned themselves to be competitive in the major international competitions.
Coach Ma Jun Aren had become a national hero in China and something of a curiosity among sports enthusiasts worldwide. How could someone who hailed from a long line of peasant farmers take center stage in global sporting events? By 1993 Ma's athletes had won too many domestic and international competitions to list—five out of eleven of his girls broke the world record thirteen times in three fields. In August 1993 at the World Track and Field Tournament in Germany, Ma's athletes took the gold medal in the 10,000-meter race and the 1,500-meter race in addition to all three medals in the 3,000-meter race. On September 8, 1993, in Bejing, Wang Jung Xia, Ma's best athlete, broke the world record in the 10,000 meters by 41.99 seconds—a record that had been unchallenged for seven years. A few weeks later, Wang Jung Xia and Qu Wun Xia both broke the world record in the 1,500 meters—a record unchallenged for thirteen years. Another world record, for the 3,000-meter race, was broken by five of his girls at the same time. The same record was broken by the same girls again in the finals of that game. In October 1993, Ma's athletes appeared in Spain in the fifth World Marathon Games and took all the medals for first, second, third and fourth places. Wang Jung Xia, known as the Oriental Deer Goddess, was selected as the United Press International Female Athlete of the Year. She was invited to accept the award in New York accompanied by Coach Ma. The male athlete of that year was Michael Jordan. In 1994 Wang Jung Xia joined the ranks of Carl Lewis, Marion Jones and Lance Armstrong in receiving the Jesse Owens Award.
Because of Coach Ma's unlikely success, there was speculation that he used stimulants to increase the athletic abilities of his Barefoot Troops. The athletes were repeatedly checked and rechecked for traces of stimulants. The tests came out clean. The most often used performance-enhancing drugs (steroids and testosterone) increase muscle mass tremendously and thereby increase body weight, which is undesirable in mid- and long-distance running. In fact, Ma in-tentionally recruited girls who were light, with smaller, leaner musculature. Ma had grown up in a poor peasant family that could not afford medication and used Chinese herbs to treat illness and to maintain health. In Chinese culture the herbs overlap with food. Foods may have both nutritional value and strong medicinal qualities. The secret to Ma's success was his focus on the relationship between training and recovery as well as on nutrition and supplements. He developed a unique method to help his athletes recover from high-intensity training which included nutritional programs—especially herbs. Coach Ma said, “Chinese medicine is really a great treasure. I literally grew up in a pile of herbs, and they are in my blood.”
Many years earlier, when Ma was first promoted to head track-and-field coach in Liao Ning province, he often took his athletes for high-altitude training. Blood in the urine usually signals the limit of high-altitude training. Ma pushed his athletes beyond that limit and wanted to figure out a way to solve this problem. He consulted an herbalist who told him about Cordyceps—one of the most peculiar herbs in Chinese herbology. Its Chinese name is Dong Chong Xia Cao, meaning “winter worms and summer grass.” Cordyceps is typically found only on the China/Tibet border. It is two life forms—a fungus grown on the head of a caterpillar. It is considered one of the ultimate Kidney tonics. It is also used to treat lung problems such as chronic asthma. For that reason it can be used to enhance the body's ability to breathe deeply. Coach Ma began using Cordyceps for his girls, and the blood in their urine quickly cleared up. To his surprise, Cordyceps also seemed to help enhance the girls' endurance, particularly helping them to recover quickly from the high-altitude training. From that point on, Ma consulted a panel of sports medicine experts and herbalists who further developed his recovery system.
Sports medicine as a specialized field of study in Chinese medicine has been explored in depth in the past three decades. Each of the Five Major Energetic Systems is involved in promoting athleticism. On the most basic level, Chinese medicine can increase energy and endurance and can reduce fatigue and recovery time following intensive training. The next level of effectiveness involves specific and well-targeted support, depending on exactly what the athletic activity requires. For example, certain athletic performance requires powerful muscle strength to be utilized over a very short period of time, such as in power lifting, wrestling and sprinting. Other activities require endurance and the availability of sustained energy, such as long-distance running and swimming. In the first group, one strives for increased muscle bulk and explosive strength. In the latter group, the goal is to develop small, tight, lean muscles while at the same time keeping the athlete's total body weight as low as possible.
Heart Energy
Heart Energy is a dynamic source that delivers the blood supply to the various muscles and critical organs. Therefore, cardiovascular capacity is a critical component. Although Western medicine and Chinese medicine both consider the heart in a very similar way—that its main function is to act as a pump, circulating life-giving blood throughout the body—Western medicine's view is that the heart is an electomechanical device, whereas Chinese medicine views the heart's pumping action as being the result of life's Energy source stimulating the action as well as carrying the circulation. In Chinese medicine, when working with patients who suffer from poor circulation, the master herbalist will prescribe not only an herb that dilates the blood vessels, thereby improving circulation, but also herbs that increase the vital Energy of the Heart and other Energetic systems, thereby producing a much greater improvement in overall circulation.
Furthermore, in Chinese medicine the Heart is the “monarch.” Heart Energy empowers and coordinates the optimal expression of the whole being. It also endows the love and joy required to excel at any endeavor. The closest association from a Western point of view is the use of the word heart to describe someone with great skill and courage.
Lung Energy
According to Chinese medicine, the Lung Energetic system takes in air and converts the air in our environment into Qi (within our body). By supporting Lung Energy, we provide the body with an ample supply of Energy source. This is consistent with Western medicine's view of promoting lung capacity in the athlete in order to enhance performance.
Liver Energy
Liver Energy regulates Energy flow and circulation. The theory in Chinese medicine is that Liver Energy stores the blood when in a state of rest and relax-ation, and releases the blood and redistributes it to the skeletal muscles when in a state of activity. Liver Energy is also responsible for maintaining the structure and function of the body's ligaments and tendons, which is a critical part of an athlete's ability to maintain muscle strength and flexibility without sustaining joint or soft-tissue injuries. In Chinese medicine Liver Energy has much to do with endurance. Liver Energy is involved in the coordination and gait of movement. Graceful, powerful movement requires balanced Liver Energy. Liver Energy regulates the steady and adequate supply of Blood and Qi to the tissues during strenuous activity, thus providing endurance. Liver Energy also endows us with the insight to be subtle and harmonious in our relationship to our internal Energies. This is crucial for refining physical performance to high levels. Stress and emotional imbalance, which impact Liver Energy, are acknowledged to inhibit peak performance.
Chinese medicine attributes acuity of vision to Liver Energy. This is consistent with the Western understanding that eyesight endows us with approximately ninety percent of our spatial information and coordinated balance for skillful movement.
Spleen Energy
According to Chinese medicine, Spleen Energy converts nutrients into the nourishment required by the body. It is responsible for developing and maintaining muscle mass. Strengthening Spleen Energy will improve all functional and structural components of the digestive system, which is consistent with optimal nutrition being the foundation of physical training.
Kidney Energy
Kidney Energy is the ultimate source of energy and vitality. It is also responsible for the structure and functions of the bones and joints. Ligaments, muscles and joints are the three primary components of the body's athletic makeup. This is consistent with the Western anatomical understanding that the adrenal glands (located just above the kidneys) mobilize our resources for strenuous activity. By balancing and strengthening our sympathetic response, the body can develop greater capacities for physical performance.
Interaction of the systems
Kidney, Spleen and Liver Energies are all involved in the processes that make blood. Oxygen delivery capacity of blood is critical for any athletic performance.
Western medicine and Chinese medicine share the perspective that there are three major areas of focus of sports medicine: (1) the body's capacity to transport and utilize oxygen via hemoglobin (a component of blood), (2) the training and shaping of muscles and (3) cardiovascular and pulmonary (lung) conditioning.
In Chinese medicine, the strength of Blood Energy is particularly important for endurance competition in female athletes, because Chinese medicine considers women to be more vulnerable to Blood deficiencies. This too is consistent with Western medicine, whereby normal hemoglobin values for women are considered to be lower than for men—along with the fact that most women experience routine periodic loss of blood through menstruation. Some of the more commonly used herbs that Tonify or strengthen Blood are: Dang Gui, He Shou Wu, Dan Shen, Shu Di, and A Jiao. Some of the more commonly used foods are mulberry fruit, Notoginseng, longan fruit, dates and chicken broth (made without chicken skin). These herbs and foods help strengthen Blood. Other herbs, such as Chuan Xiong, Ji Xue Teng and Tao Ren, and foods, such as turmeric, wood ear mushrooms and safflower, promote circulation.
The strength and shape of muscles is maintained by the Liver, Spleen and Kidney Energetic systems. The Chinese medical concept of muscle includes muscles, ligaments, bones and joints, not just the muscles themselves. Therefore, by supporting and strengthening critical underlying Energetic systems Chinese medicine is able to enhance athletic ability and performance without the need for use of dangerous steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs.
Avoid overtaxing your system
Many people feel that their exercise program is lacking—even when they are exercising adequately. Our culture has developed an unfortunate mind-set about the quantity of exercise needed to be healthy. In fact, regular moderate exercise is optimal.
As you begin to exercise, your adrenal glands produce adrenaline, which raises your heart rate and directs the blood flow to your working muscles. Adrenaline also releases blood sugar into your bloodstream for your muscles to burn for energy. As you continue to exercise moderately, your pancreas releases the fat-utilizing hormone glucagon. Glucagon releases fat from your fat cells to be turned into sugar and burned as fuel. The entire time you are exercising, your adrenal glands continually release the stress hormone DHEA, which also stimulates your body to burn fat for fuel. Because of the release of these hormones during regular moderate exercise, your body will burn fat.
However, if you increase the intensity of your exercise without training gradually—such as weekend warriors do—your body will switch into alarm mode. The stress hormone cortisol will be released from your adrenal glands to deal with this emergency fight-or-flight signal. High cortisol leads to muscle wasting, lowered metabolism and weight gain. The better trained you are, the further you can go without getting into cortisol production. That is why gradual athletic training is important.
Protein is an important component of your diet. When you do not eat sufficient protein, your glucagon production will decline. Then when you exercise, your brain will be forced to call on cortisol to release blood sugar from your muscles for energy. No fat will be burned.
Vary your athletic activities
To maintain balance (physical symmetry), always stretch and strengthen in opposition. For example, if you swing a golf club, swing it backward to work the opposite side of your body. If you play tennis, it is important to work your opposite arm. If you weight train, incorporate stretching to lengthen the muscles that have been contracted by your training. If you are a runner, incorporate yoga to stretch your hamstrings. Endurance, strength and flexibility are factors that are important to consider when training in any sport or athletic activity.
Incorporate mind/body breathing exercises into your program
No matter what your sport, you will benefit from incorporating a mind/body breathing practice into your program, such as Qigong, yoga or Tai Chi. These practices bring Life Force (Qi) and healing into your life. They cultivate strength, vitality and longevity. See chapter 16 for more on these practices.
Use Chinese herbs in cooking to enhance your performance
You can use Chinese medicinal herbs in recipes to promote athletic endurance. See chapter 21 for recipes.
Astragalus (Huang Qi)
Dan Shen
Deer Velvet Antler (Lu Rong)
Ginseng
Poria mushroom (Fu Ling)
Supports Ligaments
Bai Shao
Chai Hu
Huang Qi
Nu Zhen Zi
Strengthens Bones and Joints
Du Zhong
Niu Xi
Sang Ji Sheng
Xu Duan
Improves Cardiac Functioning
American ginseng
Dan Shen
Gan Cao
Gui Zhi
Promotes Pulmonary Functioning
Astragalus (Huang Qi)
Bei Sha Shen
Cordyceps
Mai Meng Dong
Yu Zhu
Obviously, the success of Ma's Barefoot Troops was partially determined by herbs. Ma also pays a great deal of attention to nutrition, especially foods that have medicinal qualities.
Astragalus
Bee pollen
Codonopsis
Cordyceps
Ginseng Lycium
Supports Muscle
Chinese yam Codonopsis Licorice Poria mushroom Royal jelly
Supports Ligaments
Beef and pork tendons
Supports Bones and Joints
Black sesame Lycium fruit Turtle soup Walnuts
Improves Cardiac Functioning
Chinese date Cordyceps Licorice Longan fruit
Promotes Pulmonary Functioning
Almonds
Asian pears
Lily bulbs
Walnuts
Chinese herbs and Western supplements
Vitamin B is depleted through exercise. If you are a serious athlete, ask your doctor to have your homocysteine levels checked. High levels of homocysteine are a risk factor for heart disease. See page 206 for more on homocysteine.
The stress of athletic achievement can increase the production of the stress hormone cortisol. Taking 100 milligrams of phosphatidylserine before a workout can help keep cortisol levels from rising too high.
Prolonged high cortisol levels will result in a decrease of the stress hormone DHEA. High cortisol and low DHEA leads to muscle wasting, lowered metabolism and weight gain. DHEA can improve your overall health and athletic performance, but it must be prescribed and monitored by a doctor.
Ask your doctor to have your sex hormone levels checked. Overexercising can result in decreased testosterone, estrogen and progesterone. Hormone replacement can improve your strength and endurance, help you lose body fat and improve insomnia and mood.
Super green food every day in a protein shake will provide your body with phytonutrients and probiotics to nourish your cells as well as the electrolytes necessary to replace those lost during exercise. Electrolytes are minerals required by your cells to regulate the electric charge across cell membranes. Electrolytes are lost through sweating. See page 104 for more on super green food.
As you age, your body repairs less effectively and much more slowly. Regular moderate exercise slows the aging process and prolongs your life. When you exercise moderately the release of human growth hormone (hGH) from the pituitary is stimulated. hGH helps activate all the metabolic and repair systems in your body. hGH is the longevity hormone. It accelerates repair of all tissues, stimulates immunity, increases muscle building and fat burning and therefore gives more energy. (See page 289 for more about hGH.)
Ma's recovery system had several basic components. He used herbs such as ginseng, which is considered to be a Qi tonic and therefore strengthens Qi Energy. He also paid a great deal of attention to Blood tonics. These are the herbs that help strengthen the blood by keeping the hemoglobin and red blood cell counts up, which supports the body's ability to utilize and process oxygen at a cellular level.
Routinely, three times a day, thirty minutes before meals take two or three capsules of free-form amino acid complex.
You can take Chinese herbal formulas and Western supplements specifically formulated to enhance athletic performance. Formulas may be purchased online at ancientherbsmodernmedicine.com.