Yin & Yang of Training: Application to Training Organization and Long-Term Programming for Athlete Success

It is great to see more interest in Eastern philosophy and medicine from the sports community in recent years. However, as Doctor of Chinese Medicine and martial artist who comes from a professional sports background, I think we need to understand some basic concepts first. If we can grasp some fundamentals, we can begin to see what we do in a new light, rather than simply appropriating language to attempt to reaffirm what we already know. My humble understanding of these concepts shows up in everything I do, whether in technical work for performance, movement analyses where we are looking for the root cause of an injury, or basic training theory.

The Relativity Responsible for our Universe

There is no better place to start than the concept of Yin and Yang. While Yin and Yang sometimes seem esoteric or “fluffy” to the Western audience, they are actually very solid constructs. The confusion arises with Western Philosophy’s inability to deal with subjectivity – Yin and Yang are very solid constructs, it’s just that they are very clear only in relation with one another. They have no fixed existence and take into account a universe in motion – what would be considered Yin in this scenario may be considered Yang in another, and an entity can move from Yin to Yang in the same way night moves into day.

Once you understand these concepts, you will see that most criticisms of Yin/Yang theory are as silly as refuting a person who wrote “it is daytime!” at 2 in the afternoon because you are reading that remark 8 hours later. Both perspectives are true, but we have to understand relativity in order to grasp this. Absolutism doesn’t really have a place when talking Yin & Yang, whether in training or any context. While there are most definitely consistent themes and patterns once these polarities are understood, they are dynamic concepts.

In the Ancient Chinese Cosmological view of the universe, in the beginning there was Wuji. Often translated as emptiness, Wuji is roughly a single point in space, with no polarity. Wuji (emptiness) splits into Taiji (ultimate polarity, oneness) which splits into the polarities of Yin and Yang, which create the movement that brings the universe as we know it into existence. This view is quite similar to the concept of the Big Bang – there was nothing, then there was an expansion, which will later become a contraction.

Taiji Symbol Picture – “Always in Balance”

As my teacher states in a blog post (https://daoistgate.com/yin-and-yang-of-physical-training-and-discipline/):

“Yin and Yang refer to two complementary forces that can be found in all things in the universe.  Everything in nature (seasons, night and day, birth and death, etc.) can be understood as Yin and Yang.”  Chinese philosophy teaches that:

• Yin and Yang cannot exist without each other – you can’t have night without day
• There is some Yin within Yang and vice versa – like clouds on a sunny day, or bright stars in the dark night, Yin and Yang contains pieces of each other
• Yin and Yang are in a state of dynamic balance – change is constant, Yin and Yang are always transforming into each other, just like night turns into day”

Yin & Yang relate to each other in some important, dynamic ways, but to begin, let’s look at some static dichotomies that will help us to begin to understand the context in which these exist:

So, as we can see, yin and yang are tools to help understand the world around us. If we are to live with any degree of sustainability, these concepts must be balanced in our lives. So how can we balance them in training to make our athletic careers more fruitful and longer-lived?

Perhaps the best way to see how practical balance might look is to analyze these components over the course of three days of training. The following is sampled from the training program of a high jump athlete – the proximity of technical days being exactly what we’re working with this particular year:

Monday: Technical Day I:

• Self-Massage, rolling etc. – Yin
• Continuous jogging/skipping, light drills, dynamic mobility – Yin movements
• Sprint drills, takeoff drills – Yin moving into Yang, Yang
• Individually/technically focused high jump session at “low” bars (<2.00 meters) – Generally Yang, but the more Yin technical session
• Cool down movements and mobility – Yin
• Later in the day:
  • Passive Therapy (Acupuncture/Tui Na Massage) – Yin
  • Visualization – Yang within Yin

Tuesday: Speed, Plyometric Focus

• Self-Massage, rolling etc. – Yin
• Continuous jogging/skipping, light drills, dynamic mobility – Yin movements
• Sprint drills, Acceleration Series – Yin moving into Yang, Yang
• Speed work with full recovery, low volume – Peak Yang
• Hurdle Hop Series – Yang
• Cleans, bar speed focus – Yang
• Squat Jumps – Yang
• Medicine Ball Heave Circuit (measuring distances in lightly competitive setting) – Yang

Wednesday: Technical Day II

• Same warmup/cooldown template as Monday
• Technical jump session with higher bars (close to season bests), lightly competitive, more outwardly focused mindset – Yang

(Competition jumping is Yang in comparison with individual, technically-focused sessions)

Thursday: Recovery/Circuit Day

• Self-Massage, rolling etc. – Yin
• Continuous jogging/skipping, light drills, dynamic mobility – Yin movements
• Bodyweight Strength and sub-maximal acceleration build-ups, with a work/rest ratio and some lactic accumulation – Yin within Yang
• Medicine ball circuit targeting smaller muscle groups, different planes of motion, etc – Yin within Yang
• Passive stretching, deep breathing, meditation – Peak Yin

So as you can see, some days have a very Yang emphasis, while others have more of a Yin focus, and even others may attempt to achieve a balance.  As an oversimplified table to illustrate this balance between Yin & Yang::

Vs…

We don’t achieve balance every session, we are looking for peak adaptation to a stimulus. So sometimes we look to find balance by heading to the extremes in each session, and balancing them out over the course of a week, and later on during the whole training year.

Within a warm-up, we cannot immediately jump into Yang (fast, explosive) movements from a Yin (sedentary) state. The gradual Yin-Yang transition is even more important in training environments that are more Yin (cold, damp) whereas on a hot sunny day, the extra Yang in the atmosphere assists that transition.

The key is that in a training week, monthly cycle, or even in a training year, these factors have to be enough in balance in order to allow the body to adapt to what is being asked of it (i.e. performance) and to avoid injury or overtraining. If you train 11 months of the year, a month off is important. If you train only a few months a year, you may not need as much of a down season. Likewise, even though it is not listed in the above schedule, athletes that are in training need more food and sleep than the general population, more Yin to balance out Yang.

Another side note is a common issue around scheduling – in much the same way that we need a gradual warm-up into activity, we also need adequate time between the end of practice, especially a Yang day, and the time we are hoping our athletes will sleep (Yin). We have hit a similar workout to that speed day finishing at 8 p.m., and all of us (including my before-midnight sleeping self) were up ‘till 3!

South Florida could be described as a more Yang training environment than New York, for example.

As a side note, Yang within Yin applies to visualization because even though there is apparently no movement, there is clearly something happening internally which will manifest in movement. Yin within Yang is a theme of the recovery-oriented day because we use work/rest ratios that stimulate endocrine fitness (hormone recovery). Additionally, we strategically use small doses of lactate as a “recovery” tool as it stimulates an anabolic response, even if it may feel very effortful. Thus, Yin within Yang.

Balance & Longevity

So as we begin to understand these concepts more, we can see how focusing on only Yang and not Yin, which is the common imbalance in athletics, we not only reduce our capacity for performance but set the stage for injury as well. Further, by understanding Yin & Yang, we can see how we can find balance – the precursor for longevity. If a system is out of balance, it will not last long. If we can balance that which we spend (yang) with what we take in (yin) we can see why, in Western sporting culture, it is almost impossible to train in a traditional way and compete at a professional level for very long.

Athletes do not get “old” at age 30, they accumulate years of an imbalanced training schedule and lifestyle. This is evidenced both by famous examples in sport (Tom Brady being the most obvious), and even more-so by examples in Masters’ athletics where someone who was “never an athlete” takes up running later in life and runs circles around their contemporaries.

Most training programs in the US, as an example, are built not around creating a foundation for a balanced, healthy, long-term sporting career, because why would they be? Most athletes finish their careers in high school, a few make it to college to compete, and even fewer compete beyond that. In context, athletes not only need to get better, they need to improve fast.

I remember reading an old Russian study that compared the results of heavy-lifting dominant throwing (track & field) programs as compared to more technically oriented programs. For 3-5 years, the heavy lifting group outperformed the technical group. However, after those years, the group that was mainly using specificity as a rule for training – meaning using same-but different training stimuli, like differently weighted implements, different types of throws, etc as the primary training means – kept improving, while the lifting-driven program plateaued. So as we can see, the training means (or techniques) that produce the greatest short-term gains should not be confused with the greatest long-term program.

The lifting-specific example drives home an opinion that I’ve only heard in the East Asian martial arts and occasionally Soviet-influenced track coaching circles – that the body needs to have a balance of hard and soft in order to be healthy. Soviet studies focused on tension/relaxation relationships, while the martial arts traditions I am trained in would include partner massage after most practices in order to soften the muscles, in addition to specific breathing and meditation exercises (including TaiJi [“Tai Chi” as it is commonly mispronounced]) to restore the suppleness of our muscles, tendons and ligaments. The hardness accumulated from training is termed Yang, and will eventually break if not balanced by the softness of Yin. Additionally, over a lifespan, our youth is more Yang (an expanding phase, as we are literally growing and developing) while once we start to age we become more Yin.

So a traditional cultural belief is that younger people having more muscle tone matches the season of life that they are in, while older folks holding that kind of tension will actually accelerate the aging process. Teachers of mine have emphasized the untimely deaths of certain masters of hard martial art styles as evidence of this process, what was once healthy and natural is now out of alignment with one’s life. Aging martial artists needed ways to continue to practice their arts, so they created “softer” styles to keep sharp without accelerating the aging process. This is what drives many older individuals to parks each morning in order to practice Taiji, Qigong, or simply stretch and move in a gentler way. We need the soft to balance the hard, especially as we start to show signs of aging.

Balance is really something that only shows up long term. Running in only one direction on the track probably isn’t going to lead to an injury the first day you do it, but if you do it for a decade without measures to balance that, it might. Yin and Yang are the same way. Over the course of a season, understanding these concepts might lead to a small increase in performance. But over the course of 3 years? 5? 10? The accumulation of imbalance is exponential. Likewise, the areas in which we can prolong a career are also plentiful. I hope that this article highlights a few areas in which we can do that, to continue to practice what we love for as long as we wish to.

About Sam Wuest

Sam Wuest, L.Ac., M.Ed., is the head coach and manager of Intention Athletic Club based out of South Florida. A licensed acupuncturist and former collegiate track & field coach specializing in the jumping events, Sam owes much of his unique perspective to apprenticeships with Ukrainian Olympic Hurdle Coach Olex Ponomarenko and several master acupuncturists as well as his continued education within Daoist Gate’s martial arts and meditation programs. Please visit wayofsam.com or IG: @way_of_sam to hear more about his training philosophy.

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