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What is the muscle chain?

The concept of muscle chain applied to martial arts

After having roughly seen the difference between concatenating and summing the power of our body elements (read Sum and concatenate the power of body elements), it is time to start to talk about the principle of the muscle chain.

Note – This article has been asked by one of our Core Course practitioners on Patreon (see how to attend our home study classes here Learn Kung Fu online: a beginner-to-expert course).

For a total beginner, the idea of “chain” may appear not too clear (if not misleading), so let’s try to “disassemble” the concept and explain it:

In this context, to “concatenate” means to connect the effort of more adjacent elements of our body, so let’s imagine cogwheels of gears pushing each other
We could then see each single body element (that is able to move “independently”) as a cogwheel moved by a motor
The idea is that we want to make them work harmonically together

What do we obtain? Primarily stronger inertia and eventually more speed, more strength.

A note by Master Kongling – Does our body use this capability? Excluding certain primordial actions / reactions, tendentially no. Especially if we are not used expressing athletic performances, our education / daily life tends to bring us to work only on a few muscle groups at a time and even while practicing sport (if we do it), we do it predominantly in a partial and / or instinctive way. Unfortunately, the maximum expression of the muscle chain can only be achieved through a specific and voluntary path of conditioning.

What kind of performances does the muscle chain allow to reach?

Let’s see the incredible potentials of exploiting this method at various levels.

Basic level advantages

In most cases, if our muscle chain is even only minimally coordinated, the group work of the muscles guarantees a result higher than that given by the individual one
…

Intermediate level advantages

A good control of the muscle chain means to be able to express superior performances (speed, power, etc.)
This kind of “teamwork” not only allows us to do more but also to save precious energy, in fact, the more elements are harmoniously involved in the same effort, the less each of them fatigue
…

High level advantages

Ideally, even the strongest person on the world will never be able to exert enough energy to counter the one unleashed by so many connected muscles (naturally without exploiting it in turn)
Again, ideally, it is as if our entire structure worked as a single huge limb (no one could subdue such power)
…

When does the muscle chain not work?

The activation of the benefits we have seen is not automatic at all, the obstacles that make it not easy to implement are:

Absence of coordianation (if the body does not respond perfectly at our will, it is inevitable that we will not achieve even the most basic results)
More or less voluntary hostile work of the body elements (antagonist muscles, etc.)
Poor technical preparation (a combat related muscle chain is strictly connected to the quality of execuion of the move that calls it, the muscle chain is not accessible to beginners, let’s first focus on the fundamentals)
Poor flexibilty (it is not about being contortionists but the less we are able to stretch, the more resistance we will find, read also Conditioning check for flexibility)
Broken flow (strength is transmitted only through fluidity, if we interpose even the slightest stiffness, the whole sequence will suffer)
Wrong timing (especially in the case of full body chains, if the movement is not correctly guided by the mind, it will be impossible to reach the highest level)
…

A note by Master Kongling – Of course, if we delude ourselves that we can limit our preparation to a few attempts, we will almost certainly find ourselves facing the difficulties just highlighted. In martial arts (but also in all the other fields of life), any skill that is really worth developing takes time and dedication (read also All the skills of 6 Dragons Kung Fu).

Said this we must stress 2 facts:

Throwing for example a punch (read How to punch (simple explanation)), if 2 or more of the mentioned difficulties exist, we risk that the result of our effort becomes inferior than the one of a single muscle group (in this case, the arm)
Physics teaches us that, every time an energy is transferred, there is a dispersion (in a non-theoretical context it is inevitable) but this is precisely what our training focuses on, to limit its entity as much as possible

The basics of muscle chain development in 6 Dragons Kung Fu

To become able to start to exploit the basic level we need to:

Train to describe (in slow motion) in the air clean curved lines (characterized by a linear trend in time and space)
Train to move in sequence first our limbs, then, with time, each of our muscles (we must understand that if even only one of them moves before or after its “turn”, or in contrast with another, the entire motion will be frustrated)
Train / move / fight limiting as much as possible stiffness (it generates vibrations that deviate the forces in unfavorable directions)
…

A note by Master Kongling – From a physics point of view, the context is different but let’s imagine a sphere that runs on an inclined plan: the more the surface is smooth and free of obstacles, the more the ball will follow its path with more and more power / speed, almost without dispersion of energy (in this example, it is the inclination to guarantee the increment but the parallel remains valid if we replace it with the muscular work of each body element).

The more our body moves sequentially and harmonically, the higher will be the power that we can trigger (or better, the smaller will be the one that we will lose).

Final notes

A few conclusive thoughts:

What we are talking about is not a technique that is simply to be understood and applied, it is the result of constant training and rarely makes sense if improvised
Although it seems easy, without the right process of development and adaptation, the resultant power will often be lower than the one we could trigger using a single limb (or almost equal)
To condition our body to express a perfect muscle chain (especially in a real combat scenario) is not a quick route; to reach good result, we need 3-5 years of serious daily training but the good news is that after them the improvement is potentially endless
Not being physics experts and not having gone into the details of formulas, on a theoretical level it is possible that we have expressed ourselves in a not formely correct way but from the martial point of view, the theory finds direct confirmation in the practice; if the chain is clean, the result is absolutely incredible
…

In the next article of this series, we will see what is the difference between the rigid (or semi-rigid) muscle chains and the soft ones (read Muscles chain: the difference between rigid and soft).

In-depth video courses

Muscle chain for martial arts: how to – A video course about how to correctly develop the muscle chains of 6 Dragons Kung Fu
Basic 6 Dragons Kung Fu Exercises – The fundamental technical practice to learn to basically (instinctively) implement the muscle chain

In-depth articles

The muscle memory – What is and how to eduate it for martial arts purpose
Introduction to the idea of Precision Control – The harmony of all the martial skills

Questions

Reply in the comments and share your experience:

Can you feel the difference of power while using your entire body structure?

Author: Master Kongling

Founder of 6 Dragons Kung Fu.

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