Beneficial adaptation

The first point that comes to my mind is that you need to think back to when the was written. Exercise truly is an issue that only become relevant with wealth and to some degree literacy/education. In other words, the text was written at a time where people had far more significant life/death health issues to be concerned with than whether jogging would be good for their health. Accordingly the text deals with such issues in less significant terms.

That said, the principles in the text can be applied to more modern times with more modern issues. Our problems largely being from lack of movement, stress, and indulgence and historical issues being from physical labor, hygiene/sanitation issues, and all that comes with poverty.

For us the rules become moderation, not letting our hinges rust and controlling our emotions which are all mentioned in the text to varying degrees along with the issues that were more common among the masses at that time...

While I cannot put words into the yellow emperor&#39s mouth, I can say the general rule with exercise is the same with every other aspect of our lives - not too much, not too little - and I do believe this is the whole point of the classics. Too little creates dampness and stagnation, too much weakens our blood and qi. The trick for the modern day is to try to understand things that at the time would of seemed absolutely ridiculous like jogging into that paradigm. In our culture we tend to be drawn to more substantial exercise because of the incredible sedentary nature of many of our work/home lives. Perhaps office workers need to jog really fast or take power yoga as a balance, perhaps manual laborers need tai chi, I imagine this is a question that people can answer on their own. The problems again, in my opinion, only come from too much or too little and this will be an individual decision.

TCM theory emphasize balance and internal organs&#39 coordination, also emphasize human body&#39s essence, qi and mind(spirite) three kinds of power united as one, through body exercise to effective the internal organ&#39s secretion(endocrine) balance conditiion to get health, coordinate different part of body&#39s energy and strong the body autoimmue power to get stronger, use meditation to lead Qi combine with essence to refresh and tonify body energy, also give out sick energy through meridians use breathing exercise such as Qi Gong or Tai Chi exercise and make body and mind stronger and healther.

I guess what I don&#39t understand is the idea of strengthening in the tcm model. I accept that the purpose behind all the theory was created for the purpose of managing health.

But at the same time I would have thought that the palace would have been aware of the benefits of strength training as regards to their soldiers.

Correct me if I&#39m wrong but the only means of increase in strength alluded to in the classic is in relation to uptake and processing of the different forms of chi. Beneficial adaptation is completely absent whether it be callouses, bones mending, tendons or muscles growing.

If I understand the situation correctly the paradigm was created for the purpose of health management and so obviously wouldn&#39t contain these elements. However don&#39t you think there might be some really useful missing pieces to the model?