The distaste for strength in martial arts

[Unkogami]

I have an opinion on this.

Bigger means slower. ...

That's a dangerous, and false, assumption.

 

[Oily Dragon]

That's a dangerous, and false, assumption.

It's physics. More mass means slower to accelerate, slower to decelerate, slower to shift weight, and slower to get off the ground.

Heavyweights are much slower than lightweights.

Why is it a false assumption? I didn't say big means slow. Just slower.

 

[J. Pickard]

I personally have never seen this mentality in person, weight training and general strength building has always been a part of my training. Even BJJ school I train at does a strength training class twice a week. However I have seen enough of the "woo woo" type martial artists to believe it exists. Strength training has always been a part of martial arts as near as I can tell. The only difference is that we have better tools to accomplish gaining strength now and can do it better. Some TMA practitioners might consider this "cheating" and just stick to the old way with clay jars and stuff purely for the sake of tradition but it's still strength training either way.

 

[Ivan]

I think you are making the assumption that they didn't develop the skill before the muscle. You seem to put muscle before the skill building and if you look at their younger pictures you will see that it was the opposite. With the exception of Arnold. You look at the end result of what they look and seem to make assumptions. That the end game was to get bigger to be a better fighter /wrestler. The guys you named were dedicated to training skills and conditioning for the sport that they were involved in. To them the focus wasn't about getting bigger. Take a look at Brock Lesnar pre WWE

You may not notice, but when you talk about your own skills, you tend to "hang your hat" on things like, I'm stronger, I hit harder, I can knock someone out. I have yet to hear you state that you out skill someone. I hit like a truck but you'll always hear me talk about technique and that I'm working on my technique or working on endurance and it seems that you often fall back to the physical strength when things don't go your way.

What I have heard a lot of from you is people beating you with skill and not muscle. Maybe it's something you should reflect on.

Liston and Tyson were specifically known for their size before they took up boxing. Liston was abused and treated like a mule by his own father before being disowned, and thus had a huge physique and a very bad reputation on the streets and amongst police, mostly from his size and his skin colour, but not his actions. As for Tyson, he fought at the 17-years old age class at 13 because no one believed that was his actual age.

The reason why I say that is because that's what I place a lot of value on. I have good technical skill, and I polish it a lot and I am proud of my technical boxing style in the ring. I might be a slugger, but that does not mean I don't have technical tricks and skills in my repertoire. However, I like to focus on power and strength as well, because, in a real fight, I believe landing one clean, strong and flush shot is better than landing 30 shots with perfect technique and little power - of course, power and technique come hand in hand, but when it comes to striking, I have found it much harder to develop my body for being able to take and give out shots, than to develop my technique.

Developing technique is easy; I take the technique, I repeat it thousands of times, film it, ask for criticism, drill it again, rinse and repeat. Strength is much more difficult - I need to simulate the situation that my body will be put through in real life scenarions without injuring myself; it takes much longer to develop, it's much more painful, and it also requires a good diet and rest. One rep wrong of any exercise could possibly prove very damaging and injure me.

And plus, this is a kind of survivor's bias. I very rarely will make a post about someone dominating me in sparring because they're physically stronger, even though it has happened - the reason for this is because there is only ever two answers to this situation; get stronger or get more skillful. But when beaten with skill, there is many areas that skill can be applied to. Was he more skillful at dodging shots, making angles, technique variety? Strength in martial arts is arguably one-dimensional, skill is not.

 

[Ivan]

I have an opinion on this.

Bigger means slower. So all that extra mass isn't very helpful if it makes you slow enough that someone else who is smaller can dance around you, checking you at will.

So there's a balance somewhere between muscle mass and speed, and sure you can train to max out your own agility, but even then, if someone is smaller but a little faster that can make all the difference, even if you're stronger. I speak from experience.

In the weight room, or in front of a mirror, speed doesn't matter. Sparring, competing, its critical.

Sorry, but I must disagree. Mass just makes it harder to move at faster speeds. Bigger does not mean slower. Being smaller certainly helps, but just because someone is big doesn't mean theyre instantly slower than you. It's a very dangerous assumption to have. I have fought guys with more than 20kg mass than me that were faster than me at that point in time. Speed is also developed through muscles.

 

[JowGaWolf]

The reason why I say that is because that's what I place a lot of value on. I have good technical skill, and I polish it a lot and I am proud of my technical boxing style in the ring. I might be a slugger, but that does not mean I don't have technical tricks and skills in my repertoire. However, I like to focus on power and strength as well, because, in a real fight, I believe landing one clean, strong and flush shot is better than landing 30 shots with perfect technique and little power - of course, power and technique come hand in hand, but when it comes to striking, I have found it much harder to develop my body for being able to take and give out shots, than to develop my technique.

This will be your next lesson to learn. I'll give you another year and a few more coaches to run through and you'll learn on your own what others have been telling you about technique.

Developing technique is easy;

You are the first person I've ever heard say this.

Strength is much more difficult

And you don't wonder why this is the case? After all you are doing it your way right? Chasing power? When you get tips from boxing coaches, what do they give you tips on? Technique or Power?

I very rarely will make a post about someone dominating me in sparring because they're physically stronger, even though it has happened

Again. And you don't wonder why this is the case? Did they really dominate you with Power or was it skill?

Strength in martial arts is arguably one-dimensional, skill is not.

Not sure how you got this, but I don't know any Martial Artist that thinks this.

 

[Ivan]

Not sure how you got this, but I don't know any Martial Artist that thinks this.

This is my entire reason for making this thread. It sounds like you find it inconceivable to be beaten by physical strength. Also, chasing power in a physical and internal sense are two different things. Skill comes with time and practice and hard work with good guidance. As for being the first person you've heard to say it was easy, I stand by that - you've seen my development throughout my years on this forum. My skill and technique was much easier to attain than my conditioning, because I will always find it easier to do 500 punches daily focusing on technique, than a two month regime in which I eat the same gruelling meals in three day cycles with 5-6 days weekly with heavy weights for the most meager of improvements. The 500 punches get easier with time, and eventually, they become 750 punches. But those circuits only get harder everyday - not physically, mentally.

 

[Oily Dragon]

Sorry, but I must disagree. Mass just makes it harder to move at faster speeds. Bigger does not mean slower. Being smaller certainly helps, but just because someone is big doesn't mean theyre instantly slower than you. It's a very dangerous assumption to have. I have fought guys with more than 20kg mass than me that were faster than me at that point in time. Speed is also developed through muscles.

Like I said, there's a point where people with a certain mass can find balance with speed through training.

But ultimately the more massive you are, the slower you are. And for the topic, the distaste for strength training, it has to be said that too much mass without sufficient physical control leads to poor control. Another way of saying if you have 150 lbs of muscle mass, but you are also as stiff as a board, you're not going to fight well.

Do you disagree with that?

 

[Damien]

People with a don't get strong mindset are just wrong. Muscle size and strength doesn't slow you down and it doesn't stop you being flexible, unless you get so big that your body literally gets in the way of itself, but then you could say the same thing of being morbidly obese.

If you continue to stretch and continue to practice speed, you wont get inflexible and you wont get slow. If you only ever train really slow movements, you will develop more slow twitch muscle fibres, and so get slower. If you never stretch you will tighten up. But these are easy to overcome. Plyometrics, stretching dynamically and statically all parts of much MA training.

There's a reason Olympic athletes do a lot of weights, it makes them stronger, and therefore more able to apply force. More force equals faster running, longer throws, higher jumps. Elite sprinters do weighted squats and they are sure as hell faster than anyone you know!

Some styles like Shaolin put a strong emphasis on body conditioning, mainly with bodyweight and a few simple tools. But we do have better tools these days. Outdated suppositions in traditional martial arts is one of my bug bears. TMAs are great, but we need to come into the 21st century. I love a good form, and training 9 sets of deep squats a week at around 20 reps is going to let me train that form for much longer.

 

[Damien]

If you have good punching technique, then you can probably knock someone out with 20% - 30% power. Technically this means you should throw a faster punch with less effort and get good results. If you rely on strength too much then you'll gas out very quickly because you are muscling through everything.

True, but if you are stronger, you could do it with 10% or, you could do it more consistently with 20-30%. Some of the hardest hitters in boxing are strong. Sure they have technique too, but the two don't have to be mutually exclusive.

You can be super strong and still look to learn good technique, and any good coach will spot when you're not using it and slap it out of you. We shouldn't pretend that we learn technique so we don't have to rely on strength, and that building strength means we'll just not bother. If you care about being a good martial artist and if your instructor cares about you doing things right then the technique will still come.

Plus when we think about going to the body or kicking the leg, knockouts aren't a factor. It's how much you can tire and damage the opponent. Generating more force because you have more and stronger muscle fibres means you hit harder and hurt them more.

You can also have huge muscles and still have energy to keep going; these are different systems in your body. Just check out Ross Edgley as an example, he is jacked, but swam all the way round Great Britain, did a triathlon carrying a tree and did a marathon pulling a car. He definitely doesn't have a problem with gassing out.

 

[Damien]

I would agree to some extent but that’s not necessarily the case. I don’t need to train my biceps in a specific way to help me defend armbars, or to help lift bigger weights. Regardless of your goal, bicep curls will still get you there.

I think this only applies to muscles that are there to absorb strikes, or stabilisers. For example, I like to slam medicine balls against my ribs and stomach to get me used to tightening my core as much as I can on impact. But deadlifting will help me build a strong trunk and base and back just as much as any grappling exercises for that specific muscle group.

I would disagree slightly. Your body adapts to what you put it through (to an extent). So if you want to build explosive power, you need to move explosively. If you want maximum ability to exert force over time, lift heavy and few reps, if you want to have more endurance, lift light and lots. To build size, go in between. Of course size helps with maximum force.

So a bit of size training (hypertrophy), a bit of maximum power, a bit of explosive and some endurance training for martial arts. Easy right!? 😂 That's why we need periodisation, focussing on different elements in our training at different times, because we can't adapt to everything at once.

So I guess you could say just doing middle of the road strength training won't help you with martial arts too much. As you build size, you will build strength, but you could get more out of it with a tailored approach.

 

[Damien]

I have an opinion on this.

Bigger means slower. So all that extra mass isn't very helpful if it makes you slow enough that someone else who is smaller can dance around you, checking you at will.

So there's a balance somewhere between muscle mass and speed, and sure you can train to max out your own agility, but even then, if someone is smaller but a little faster that can make all the difference, even if you're stronger. I speak from experience.

In the weight room, or in front of a mirror, speed doesn't matter. Sparring, competing, its critical.

Big muscles don't make you slow, training slow makes you slow. Muscle isn't just dead weight hanging around needing to be moved like extra fat. Muscle is what does the moving for you, more of that the more you can move. Train fast for fast twitch fibres and your muscles will grow big and quick. It's just how physiology works.

Ever seen Yohan Blake or Dwayne Chambers? These guys are fast and definitely big in the legs, arms, chest etc. Compare them to long distance runners who are running much slower, none of them have this level of muscle because what they need is maximum endurance and indeed different running mechanics.

 

[skribs]

I have an opinion on this.

Bigger means slower. So all that extra mass isn't very helpful if it makes you slow enough that someone else who is smaller can dance around you, checking you at will.

So there's a balance somewhere between muscle mass and speed, and sure you can train to max out your own agility, but even then, if someone is smaller but a little faster that can make all the difference, even if you're stronger. I speak from experience.

In the weight room, or in front of a mirror, speed doesn't matter. Sparring, competing, its critical.

Speed is about strength-to-weight ratios. Where does that strength come from?

 

[Damien]

It's physics. More mass means slower to accelerate, slower to decelerate, slower to shift weight, and slower to get off the ground.

Heavyweights are much slower than lightweights.

Why is it a false assumption? I didn't say big means slow. Just slower.

Applying physics to the movement of the human body doesn't work as a one to one correlation with moving an inert mass. A 100kg cart takes more force to accelerate than a 50kg cart. But when 80kg of that first cart is an engine, and 20kg of the second is an engine suddenly the 100kg cart is going to accelerate a lot faster, because a lot of its weight is actually generating force, not just dead weight.

Sure if you use your arm or leg like a baseball bat and just swing from your core it will be slower if you have more muscle, but if you actually throw a half decent punch.... and we're back to needing technique again. But anyone who has trained MA for more than a few weeks who uses their arms like a baseball bat probably has bigger things to worry about than being too big....

 

[JowGaWolf]

We shouldn't pretend that we learn technique so we don't have to rely on strength, and that building strength means we'll just not bother. I

I agree. My perspective is that technique allows power to flow. I don't buy into the learn technique so you don't have to be strong. Without technique, a person is just brute forcing everything. This why I like to spar against brawlers.

 

[drop bear]

It's physics.

No it isn't.

 

[Oily Dragon]

No it isn't.

Is that all? Do you have anything of substance to add?

Isn't everything physics?

 

[Oily Dragon]

Speed is about strength-to-weight ratios. Where does that strength come from?

There seems to be a miscommunication. I never said anything about muscle.

 

[Oily Dragon]

Big muscles don't make you slow, training slow makes you slow. Muscle isn't just dead weight hanging around needing to be moved like extra fat. Muscle is what does the moving for you, more of that the more you can move. Train fast for fast twitch fibres and your muscles will grow big and quick. It's just how physiology works.

Ever seen Yohan Blake or Dwayne Chambers? These guys are fast and definitely big in the legs, arms, chest etc. Compare them to long distance runners who are running much slower, none of them have this level of muscle because what they need is maximum endurance and indeed different running mechanics.

I think you and the others misunderstood me. When I said mass makes you slower, I meant mass.

I never said muscles make you slow. I lift, I dance, I like my gains.

So please put me in the "muscles good" column. Sorry for the confusion.

 

[Damien]

There seems to be a miscommunication. I never said anything about muscle.

You kind of did...

"Bigger means slower. So all that extra mass isn't very helpful if it makes you slow enough that someone else who is smaller can dance around you, checking you at will.

So there's a balance somewhere between muscle mass and speed, "

But misspeaking is easy enough. I appreciate you being on side with the muscles good team!