Precisely. It’s a wonderful linguistic mess that means whatever your teacher says it means. From a linguistic perspective Qi Gong is composed of the character’s qi (which means qi) and gong (which means work). Nei Gong is composed of nei (meaning internal) and gong (meaning work). Anything from that point onwards is personal interpretation. No one is ever going to agree.
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@Nyxifer Also, given the OP it should be noted that, depending on the system, the moment you start to get any meaningful physical exercise out of your Nei Gong practice it could very possibly be a sign you are doing it horribly wrong. There are systems in Japan for example that do train the physical body simultaneously. However, in many cases if Nei Gong practice is helping you “stay in shape” or if you are even exerting yourself, through your Nei Gong practice, to the point where it could be considered “healthy daily exercise” it could very well be extremely detrimental to your practice.
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@Nyxifer Point is that many systems of Nei Gong are fundamentally NOT physical training disciplines. Any attempt to make them so can seriously jeopardise your practice. The focus must always be on the internal energy, because it is internal work. Trying to approach it as physical exercise, as opposed to a purely internal discipline, is one of the primary reasons why most people fail to get to the levels of power that these systems promise.
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@Nyxifer Physical movement does not necessarily mean exercise. That’s what many people get wrong. SOME of these practices are indeed perfectly compatible with the goal of physical exercise. With many others though that is ABSOLUTELY NOT the point. There are many reasons for the complicated physical movements in those traditions. Training of the physical body is NOT one of them. In fact the need for absolute relaxation in those practices means that with a few exceptions the moment your body starts to feel exerted is the moment those practices stops working. The precise reasons for why physical movement is used in that particular context is complicated. The basic idea though is that physical movement either IN AND OF ITSELF or with the assistance of some basic mental exercises can trigger specific mental actions that then lead to internal energetic effects that drive a rapid cycle of internal (and eventually physical) change.
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If you are interested in eastern, Ba Duan Jin is Shaolin Qi Gong exersize and will help overall health and Chi! It’s movements are simple and easy to learn. I haven’t been doing exersize for a few years either and it’s given me some serious health problems. Great move set to learn as it is only 8 movements to learn and will only take about 8-10 minutes a day once you learn the movements. You will feel the benefits straight away but with all things Gong Fu it takes time and effort so daily practice is the way to mastery with anything Shaolin. Gong Fu basically means hard work over time. I know tons of Shaolin method and lore, more than most westerners if anyone is inclined then feel free to pm.
Here is an instructional from Grandmaster Shi De Yang
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And can’t weigh in on the Qi Gong vs Nei Gong discussion as that is not something I am familiar with haha 
@Nyxifer I do have it on good authority that those particular exercises DO help with physical exercise. Our “school” if you will would of course argue that they are less effective energetically, but I don’t want to get into the whole inter lineage debate.
No worries, I was just wondering which books you would recommend for learning Nei Gong.
Hmm. Isn’t the practice of Nei Gong/Qi Gong supposed to convey a whole host of health benefits, though? One source I read even said that it can be a better substitute for aerobic exercise like jogging because it’s less detrimental to the body, but provides equivalent or superior health benefits (I guess from helping increase circulation of the lymphatic system?)
My main goal here is to increase health and build a firm physical foundation of energy upon which my magickal practices can draw, so if I can obtain this from Nei Gong or Qi Gong as opposed to problematic practices like jogging or weightlifting this would be ideal.
Health benefits in the magickal sense really for the particular practices I engage in. The Shaolin stuff is almost entirely different both in theory and practice.
The type of Nei Gong I do is NOT for you then.
I’m not qualified to ‘debate’ because your school as it were is not something I am familiar with. What I can say is that what your authority (as you have stated) said could be so, however I can attest personally to this being good energetically as well as physically conditioning. I have no desire to argue dude I have literally just heard of Nei Gong now from this feed. Like I said, not qualified to debate nor is it my will.
@Oldways1 It’s become something of an inside joke now in the Nei Gong community. Every Master claims their style is energetically superior to the extent that it has become a farce.
Ahh right haha didn’t realise, though that is mostly very true! 
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The only thing I have on good authority is that Shaolin stuff trains the physical body as well. Everything else is inter school rivalry that’s hard to seperate from fact.
I’m still interested in learning as much as I can about energy work, so any literature recommendations with respect to Nei Gong would be greatly appreciated. 
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@Nyxifer The most interesting thing is that as far as pure theory goes, out of all the BALG authors, I have seen the most similarities between what I do and Kurtis Joseph’s Kunda Yoga. It is NOT the same thing, but there are A LOT of surprising similarities.
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@Nyxifer Just dropping that in there because I’ve been very, very impressed with the videos on Kunda Yoga. Might be something worth reading up on if you are interested.
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Ayye Shaolin Wushu and Shaolin Qi Gong do train your body as well, the Shaolin are warrior monks so they work to be crazy strong and solid as well as using qi energy to eventually perform various feats which include healing. Shaolin itself consists of Chan, Taoism and Confuscism and so is spiritual, mental and physical. Like I say man no interschool bullshit from my part haha I’m happy to answer anything within my knowledge on the matter of Shaolin and that of eastern mysticisms
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