Real Strength Training

[Keeper]

Howdy folks

In my quest for real functional strength I've recently started up yoga again and now do bodyweight exercises pretty much every day and do a full body workout at the gym with heavy weights once a week just to maintain some body bulk.

I'm just interested in what you guys think about this concept as I'm aware that grapplers like the Gracies aren't really into 'bodybuilding' and pumping iron for pretty-boy muscle and aim to develop functional tendon strength instead.

I hope this doesn't turn into a discussion about what are the the best weight-lifting techniques. I just wanna know more about what people call 'real' strength and what the dissadvantages of over-doing heavy weights are.

Thanks a lot, i'm sure if anybody knows about this stuff it's you MMA guys.

Keeper

[cakegirl]

Hi Keeper,

A lot of the Gracies who are professional fighters use yoga to help their functional strength as well as their flexibility. Elvis Sinosic (from Australia) also uses yoga.

Check out the Rickson page http://rickson.com/articles.htm# - a lot of the articles are in Portuguese, French and German, but you can see in a lot of the pictures he's doing yoga poses.

A lot of the top BJJ competitors also use surfing - it helps with upper body strength (from the paddling), as well as balance, base and coordination, core strength, abs/obliques, as well as it being a hell of a lot of fun!

Cakegirl

[Jakuzo]

it is good to have muscle, but not too much. you want to go for strong and flexable not big and bulky. they may be strong but their slow. I would suggest traing with lite weights and do lots of reps. this will build muscle and give you an arobic workout.

[Ronson]

The scientific term, "training specificity," dictates that in order to acquire/improve in a specific skill, you must train that specific skill exactly as it is (or components of it with an ultimate progression to the actual skill).

Basically what I'm saying is is that if you want functional strength in grappling, roll/spar with fully resisting opponents often and hard (grappling is about the only martial art that you can train at/near 100% while minimizing injury to yourself and your training partner.

In my opinion, the bodyweight ex's you do are great for supplementing your training. The disadvantage of training hard with heavy weights is that they tax your body (recovery will be very important) and coupled with grappling, you'll run the risk of overtraining (your body will tell you when this happens). A big bench press and huge squat is just that. Plus grappling kind of frowns upon guys who just power through shit without technique - but a grappler with power and technique gets mad respect.

[HtTKar]

grapplers like the Gracies aren't really into 'bodybuilding' and pumping iron for pretty-boy muscle and aim to develop functional tendon strength instead.

These guys get strong from working. This is their hobby, and their job, they are at this all day long. Working throughout the entire day, year-round is what really builds functional strength.

Check out naturalstrength.com
On the left side you will see a link for "Strength research"
there's an awefull lot of useful information in there.

[shirase]

"it is good to have muscle, but not too much. you want to go for strong and flexable not big and bulky. they may be strong but their slow. I would suggest traing with lite weights and do lots of reps. this will build muscle and give you an arobic workout."
thats bs advice, dont listen to it. If you train low weights and high reps you dont build muscle or strength, you just gain muscular endurance. I suggest doing explosive movements(ex all the "olympic" weightlifting, clean & jerk etc) because they are compund exercises and work both upper body and lower body, and they train your muscles to work fast and use all their strength in coordination. Also i agree that just training for your sport continuosly will help you gain a little bit of strength specific for what you do, but its always good to supplement that. Also, the comment on overtraining, if you have some dayts off of your MA training you can do weightlifting, or you could do it right before or aftr your MA workout so that your muslces dont have time to get too tired.

[koto_ryu]

Ya'll knew I'd be jumping in on this

All I can say is look up Brooks Kubik and Steve Justa on the Internet and get their books. That'll save you the time and the hassle

[fenwick99]

re

I think yoga and pilates are great, but the best way to do strength training is to do slow movements with very heavy weights,in perfect form. Leg exercises are squats, deadlifts, leg presses, leg extensions, hamstring curls,and various machines. Standard upper-body pull movements are pullups/chinups, pulley or nautilus pullovers, seated rows, and lat pulldowns. For the chest and shoulder, all versions of chest pressing and overhead pressing from various angles, plus various sorts of pushups..... Just pick a few exercises, start light, develop perfect form,and build up to heavy weights. I do not believe in vertical or 45-degree leg press machines. You do not want to go too heavy on leg extensions or other leg machines. Also, avoid upright rows and dumbell or barbell pullovers.
If you cannot do regular squats, try front squats on a smith machine.
Use common sense, do not overdo anything, do not use any movement that hurts, and avoid overtraining. Some people want to overcomplicate the issue,but it is really very simple.
btw if you must do explosive weightlifting, find a qualified coach.

[Juninho]

Here we go again.... every time this question pops up on an mma forum, you get the following people showing up;

1) the bodyweight mystics; these people know for a fact that weight training will only build a bulky physique that lacks functional strength. They know the only way to develop said functional strength is by performing calisthenic workouts. Anything else is a waste of time. They probably also have some stories about times they like, TOTALLY dominated a 300lb powerlifter, all because of their new animal-yoga routine they do daily.


2) the plain misguided, aka the pump and curl crew; these people will use weights, but only very very light ones for fear of bulking up. They will perform very high reps of each exercise, as this is exactly what you need to do to be a good fighter. They know that heavy weights will ruin your back, and make you too stiff to fight.

3) the health and safety bores; these people offer some sound advice regarding weight training if your main aim is simply improved general health and fitness. Often they advocate fairly sensible exercise choices, but performed at a painfully slow tempo just in case you injure yourself. Besides, all that momentum only means you're cheating anyway... *yawn*

4) the HIT jedi's; following the logic that most people over train, (a correct assumption) and that your main sport (mma) requires a lot of energy (2 ticks so far), these people advocate very infrequent weights sessions, where you normally perform one set to failure. Obviously the idea is that you have more subsequent energy for your main sporting endeavours. CNS fatigue simply does not exist anyway.

5) the olympic lift enthusiast; a quick google search will tell you all you need to know about why athletes perform these lifts - put simply, there are few better ways at developing power throughout your body. And if there's no coach around it doesn't really matter, most of you will have a vague recollection of how to perform the lifts from last years olympics. Start heavy, and then go heavier. Soon you will be an animal, son.

[koto_ryu]

^ I like this guy already.

[Tom Yum]

Here we go again.... every time this question pops up on an mma forum, you get the following people showing up;

1) the bodyweight mystics; these people know for a fact that weight training will only build a bulky physique that lacks functional strength. They know the only way to develop said functional strength is by performing calisthenic workouts. Anything else is a waste of time. They probably also have some stories about times they like, TOTALLY dominated a 300lb powerlifter, all because of their new animal-yoga routine they do daily.


2) the plain misguided, aka the pump and curl crew; these people will use weights, but only very very light ones for fear of bulking up. They will perform very high reps of each exercise, as this is exactly what you need to do to be a good fighter. They know that heavy weights will ruin your back, and make you too stiff to fight.

3) the health and safety bores; these people offer some sound advice regarding weight training if your main aim is simply improved general health and fitness. Often they advocate fairly sensible exercise choices, but performed at a painfully slow tempo just in case you injure yourself. Besides, all that momentum only means you're cheating anyway... *yawn*

4) the HIT jedi's; following the logic that most people over train, (a correct assumption) and that your main sport (mma) requires a lot of energy (2 ticks so far), these people advocate very infrequent weights sessions, where you normally perform one set to failure. Obviously the idea is that you have more subsequent energy for your main sporting endeavours. CNS fatigue simply does not exist anyway.

5) the olympic lift enthusiast; a quick google search will tell you all you need to know about why athletes perform these lifts - put simply, there are few better ways at developing power throughout your body. And if there's no coach around it doesn't really matter, most of you will have a vague recollection of how to perform the lifts from last years olympics. Start heavy, and then go heavier. Soon you will be an animal, son.

LOL....I like it, especially number 5.

I learned how to do the snatch & clean from Jan Todd about 6 years ago in Austin who was teaching a class on the proper mechanics of the snatch & clean. She can lift