At first sight, Iron Shirt looks like an external physical thing (which it is) but it also has an internal aspect one should not neglect. Especially the first phase when you do a lot of static stances for fascia strengthening.
Did I get other benefits: yes. Health is a first, stamina too but not flexibility. Iron Shirt actually reduce flexibility so you need to compensate with stretching after the training. As for endurance, it’s not a cardio type of training but because you cope with pain better, you learn better breathing, you learn to relax and use less energy so in the end it does help with endurance.
The Qigong part is helping tremendously in these aspect. The steel brush, as you mentioned indirectly help with them by increasing your pain threshold and hence help with other martial arts training as you can now cope for tough exercises for longer. So yes, it’s a mixture of both, like Yin and Yang, they are complementing each other.
See my Iron Shirt Neigong training I did last year which for us is the key to access the Steel brush training. It gets your body ready.
https://hive.blog/@quochuy/wu-xing-dao-s-iron-shirt-neigong-level-3
https://hive.blog/martialarts/@quochuy/i-completed-the-100-day-iron-shirt-neigong-training
Thanks a lot for the thorough answer, I will check the entire training and I'll definitely apply this information in my own martial training. Once again, blessings!
Unfortunately I’m not allowed to give out the details of the training but you should be able to find some videos online showing other variations of Iron Shirt Qigong and steel brush. I believe Yin Yoga is also very similar to the Qigong or any other Fascia fitness training would work too
Yes, I imagined this was only a taste. I'll read the posts and research on my own. I'm part of a training group and there's much benefit we could distill from these practices!