Weight Training question.

[Karate_Warrior]

Hi.
I was wondering; If you look at bodybuilders or persons who have worked out alot with weights, they are pretty big, bouncy and heavy. I am pretty rough in the bones and pretty big built genetic, eventhough I've not been working out with weights. And beside that I am flexible, can jump high and have alot of speed. Something most people would expect from a smaller and lighter guy.

And my question is: If I start with weight lifting, will my flexibility, speed and ability to jump high disapear? And will I become huge and bouncy with less speed, flexibilty and less jumping height like a bodybuilder? (I want to gain strenght and mucsles, but still keep my speed, flexibility and ability to jump high.) Could I balance it in some way?

Please, I really need some answers.

 

[terryl965]

It all depends on what type of wieght training youare doing and for what. If you are doing to stay strong probaly not, if you are doing the type to build mass it might. That all depends what you are doing in conjunction with the wieght training.

 

[Brother John]

IGNORE those who'll tell you that if you train with weights and gain some muscle that you're ability in the martial arts will decrease! The idea of a "Muscle Bound" weightlifter is a myth at it's best!

Those who get big enough to really alter their motion because of the sheer dimension and heft of their muscles work LIKE CRAZY to get to that exact point! It's never an accident. Nobody trains for any length of time and one day says "oops.....I'm MORE muscular than I aimed to be", nobody.

Check out professional athletes who get paid MILLIONS of dollars for their ability to move faster, stronger, longer and with great agility! They have HIGHLY trained/educated trainers who have the latest and best of the knowledge in the field... and ALL of them will tell you that one of the key things that an athlete can add to their training regimen in order to move faster/stronger/longer is weight training. Pro-foot ball = weight train. Pro-Basket ballers = weight train. Track and Field athletes (in every event) = weight train. BOXERS = Weight Train!!!

You DO want to train in the way and with the best strategy for YOU and what you're aiming to do! But do your research, it's not too hard! Go to a book store, go to the 'sports' section......you'll find oooooodles!

If you don't want to look like a body-builder, don't train like they do. There are NO accidental bodybuilders. They look that way on purpose and through intelligent planning and loads (literally) of hard work.

One of my first Sensei was also a professional bodybuilder!!!!!! ..and he was an extraordinarily gifted Budoka!

Enjoy
Your Brother
John

 

[Carol]

If I start with weight lifting, will my flexibility, speed and ability to jump high disapear?

Speed, flexibility, and vertical leap is something that anyone can lose if they don't constantly work at it....whether or not they weight train. If you find that you are lifting instead of working your speed, flexibility, and leap, then yes it can affect it. However, if you lift in addition to working on your other training then, you should not see a negative affect...and may even see an improvement. Proper weight lifting also makes your bones stronger and less-susceptible to breakage.

And will I become huge and bouncy with less speed, flexibilty and less jumping height like a bodybuilder?

Weight lifting and body building are not one and the same. Weight lifters lift for the health/athletic benefits. Body builders go for a specific look, and often enhance their look by taking on activities that *reduce* their athletic performance, such as dehydrating themselves to make their muscles stand out or targeting specific muscles instead of improving all-around strength.

Plus, not everyone has the genetics, or the time, or the overall support (discipline/diet) to get the "look" of a body builder.

Remember; Weight lifting is athletic, body building is cosmetic. I have nothing against either, but their is a BIG difference in the approaches to the too.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with lifting weights for the sole purpose of getting stronger and putting on more muscle tissue.

(I want to gain strenght and mucsles, but still keep my speed, flexibility and ability to jump high.) Could I balance it in some way?

Nothing wrong with that goal at all, and for many people its quite doable . I would strongly urge you to seek out a personal trainer in the beginning so you can learn right the first time and not get in to bad habits. Learn the proper way to lift, and learn the right track to meet *your* goals for *your* body.

Finally...use your head, too. Make sure weight lifting doesn't dominate your routine at the expense of other types of training. Treat your body right and build naturally. Results will not be fast. Be pateint. Eat real food, and stay far far away from the drugs.

Enjoy your training and keep us posted. Good luck to you!

 

[searcher]

Great advice so far. I will add a tid-bit onto Carol's comment. Bodybuilder's typically use "chemical enhancement" to gain the size they accomplish.

What type of workout are you planning on doing?

Have you talked to a trainer?

GL in your training.

 

[exile]

Brother John, Carol and searcher have zeroed in on what I think are the key points; I just want to elaborate on a few issues that bear on what they've told you. The bare bones of the story are that

(i) weight-trained muscles are not only bigger but faster, because, as numerous, well-designed studies confirming the increased speed of movement generated by larger muscles suggest, part of normal hypertrophy is progressively greater synchronization of muscle activation by the neuromotor groups involved. In fact, the very first phase of weight-training a muscle group leads to strength increases that are not due to muscle size but to this firing-in-synch of the neural units that drive muscle fibres that are already there `in place'. More synchonization translates to faster response times; and...

(ii) ...the problem with bodybuilders is not that they have powerful, well-developed muscles; it's how they got those muscles—now, almost universally, anabolic steroids. Same with many other athletes (remember, it was powerlifters who were the first American guinea pigs for John Ziegler's disgusting abuse of his medical credentials by making anabolic steroid available to those athletes; but the East Germans, Bulgarians and other Communist bloc athletes, swimmers and runners, had been using them for probably a decade or more in Olympic competition, and those were the ones who let Ziegler in on the secret). The problem with steroid-and growth hormone-inducedmuscle growth is that muscle tissue development can be, and routinely is, forced beyond the natural limits imposed by skeletal structure. Connective tissue cannot keep pace with the excessive development of muscle size through abuse of anabolic substances, and serious injuries will inevitably result (Dorian Yates' forced retirement as a result of repeated muscle/tendon tears off his arm bones is a glaring high-profile example, but the history of contemporary body building is litted with stories like his).
​

So if you're training strictly naturally, then no matter how big your muscles get—and there are limits imposes by your skeletal structure to natural muscle growth, make no mistake!—you can only get faster as your muscles grow larger. Explosive strength, which is what muscle growth promotes, and increased neuromotor syncrhonization, are going to translate into faster reaction times, all other things being equal. The steroidal monsters that modern body-building chemistry projects turn out have enormous muscles but, crucially, lack correspondingly stronger tendons and connective tissue—those don't respond to externally introduced anabolic stimuli. So you have these guys with maybe a hundred pounds or so of muscle tissue more than the best they could achieve if they were training naturally (I'm talking about the new breed of 300 lb+ mutants who show up with 5% bodyfat at contests), but only have the connective tissue to lug around 200 or less of those pounds... sure they're going to be `musclebound'. But that's because they are carrying muscle around that they haven't actually earned, but have in effect stolen by using the complex chemical cocktails that they take, and therefore their muscles are just too big for their much weaker connective tissue to move quickly and efficiently. These guys run cycles more complex than the epicycles in Ptolmey's model of the solar system, juggling four or more major steroids, industrial strength diuretics, growth hormones, plus other drugs to counteract the side effects of these. Pro bodybuilders shouldn't even enter the discussion, for the most part. If you just use a good, high-intensity weight training program of the Sisco/Little or Mentzer type, you'll develop good muscularity in a relatively short time and both your strength and speed—hence, power—will increase, completely safely.

 

[tahuti]

Replace phrase weight training and bodybuilding with Resistance Training or Strength Training. Don't think strength = muscle mass, try to answer this question, weightlifters compete in weight divisions so how they beat world record without increasing their mass.

Focus on compound exercises, those that affect whole body like deadlift, snatch; avoid isolating exercises, not time efficient.

How much strength per week, 1-3 sessions depending what you need. Example of 5day cycle: conditioning, maximum strength, conditioning, explosive strength, rest.

Story of boxer strength training without weights http://www.maxboxing.com/Kim/Kim071807.asp

Good things about maximum strength training, improved intermuscular and intramuscular coordination, strengthening ligaments

Bad things, negatively impacts speed and explosive strength.

Read what ex coach of Cro Cop said (original article http://www.index.hr/sport/clanak/bi...o-spreman-ali-za-neki-drugi-sport/358483.aspx Translated http://www.sherdog.net/forums/showthread.php?t=641034&highlight=cro+cop+coach ):
Zizanovic claims that a lot of mistakes were made during preparations, that too much emphasis was put on the development of so called absolute strength.
If you work on absolute strength, disregarding explosive strength, condition or flexibility, you won't get a good fighter. In martial arts the most important thing is the balance between condition, flexibility and explosive power.
From what I can hear, Mirko was in excellent shape. It might be true that he was ready - ready for some other sport. But not for MMA.


Quotes from researchers:
Verkhoshansky - An extraordinary development of absolute strength has a negative influence on speed.

Siff - Verkoshansky and colleagues has established that excessive maximum strength training can impair speed-strength and technical skill in boxers.

Siff - Filinov has established that excessively heavy strength loads diminish the force and speed of boxer’s punches

Conclusion:
If you notice you are spending more time worrying about bench press than your martial art of choice you are doing too much strength training.

 

[exile]

Good things about maximum strength training, improved intermuscular and intramuscular coordination, strengthening ligaments

Bad things, negatively impacts speed and explosive strength.


Quotes from researchers:
Verkhoshansky - An extraordinary development of absolute strength has a negative influence on speed.

Siff - Verkoshansky and colleagues has established that excessive maximum strength training can impair speed-strength and technical skill in boxers.

Siff - Filinov has established that excessively heavy strength loads diminish the force and speed of boxer’s punches

I'd very much like to see the controlled, lab-standard studies that showed that training for maximum strength gains impedes `speed and explosive strength'. Can you point me to some hard research in that direction? Because I've read several dozen such studies that pointed to exactly the opposite conclusion: increased strength translates into decreased reaction time. I'd very much like to see just how these sources you refer to have `established' these results, and what they were, and were not, controlling for. I'd like to see just what kind of training protocols were used and what sorts of tests were involved.

And especially I'd like some explanation of what kinds of plausible mechanism could account for the diminution of `force' and `speed' of a boxer's punch. What would slow it down? Muscle growth has been shown repeatedly to yield vascular development proportional to that growth, so there's no question of diminished blood supply. And I've also read accounts based on muscle biopsies and EMG studies strongly suggesting that new muscle growth also is accompanied by synaptic elaboration, so that the network of neurolelectrical connections associated with hypertrophy increases at least proportionally to the new muscle growth. Just where is the `slowdown' coming from, then? If blood supply and activation potential keep pace with muscle growth, just where is this supposed reduction in speed and power originate? Can you shed some light on these questions?

 

[Adept]

And my question is: If I start with weight lifting, will my flexibility, speed and ability to jump high disapear?

No.

 

[Carol]

I'd very much like to see the controlled, lab-standard studies that showed that training for maximum strength gains impedes `speed and explosive strength'. Can you point me to some hard research in that direction? Because I've read several dozen such studies that pointed to exactly the opposite conclusion: increased strength translates into decreased reaction time. I'd very much like to see just how these sources you refer to have `established' these results, and what they were, and were not, controlling for. I'd like to see just what kind of training protocols were used and what sorts of tests were involved.

And especially I'd like some explanation of what kinds of plausible mechanism could account for the diminution of `force' and `speed' of a boxer's punch. What would slow it down? Muscle growth has been shown repeatedly to yield vascular development proportional to that growth, so there's no question of diminished blood supply. And I've also read accounts based on muscle biopsies and EMG studies strongly suggesting that new muscle growth also is accompanied by synaptic elaboration, so that the network of neurolelectrical connections associated with hypertrophy increases at least proportionally to the new muscle growth. Just where is the `slowdown' coming from, then? If blood supply and activation potential keep pace with muscle growth, just where is this supposed reduction in speed and power coming from? Can you shed some light on these questions?

My take...if you don't use it, you lose it (or never get it).

If you work on absolute strength, disregarding explosive strength, condition or flexibility, you won't get a good fighter.

If one works on weight lifting at the expense of the other training elements, such as flexibility and speed...yes, one's flexibilty and will suffer.

If one works on weight lifting, playing video games, web surfing, playing bocce ball, eating pizza, playing pool....doing just about anything at the expense of the other training elements, such as flexibility and speed....yes, one's flexibility and speed will suffer. Those other training elements will suffer from neglect.

It's not the weightlifting itself that creates the detriment. It's the neglect created the athlete's decision to do something at the expense of an element in his/her training.

 

[Adept]

weightlifters compete in weight divisions so how they beat world record without increasing their mass.

Thats interesting. Weight lifters have weight divisions? Hmm. Perhaps because the much larger (and therefore much stronger) competitors would otherwise dominate the competition?

You can increase strength in two or three ways. You can use technique, where you apply leverage so that your strength is amplified. You can use synergy. Your punch will be much stronger if you drive it with your whole body, than if you just use your arm. And there is muscle size. The larger a muscle is, the more power it produces, the more quickly it can contract.

Bruce Lee might be able to hit harder than Arnold Schwarzenegger, but that is because Bruce's technique and synergy were excellent. If Arnold had the same technique and synergy, he would have been exponentially stronger.

 

[exile]

My take...if you don't use it, you lose it (or never get it).



If one works on weight lifting at the expense of the other training elements, such as flexibility and speed...yes, one's flexibilty and will suffer.

If one works on weight lifting, playing video games, web surfing, playing bocce ball, eating pizza, playing pool....doing just about anything at the expense of the other training elements, such as flexibility and speed....yes, one's flexibility and speed will suffer. Those other training elements will suffer from neglect.

It's not the weightlifting itself that creates the detriment. It's the neglect created the athlete's decision to do something at the expense of an element in his/her training.

Thats interesting. Weight lifters have weight divisions? Hmm. Perhaps because the much larger (and therefore much stronger) competitors would otherwise dominate the competition?

You can increase strength in two or three ways. You can use technique, where you apply leverage so that your strength is amplified. You can use synergy. Your punch will be much stronger if you drive it with your whole body, than if you just use your arm. And there is muscle size. The larger a muscle is, the more power it produces, the more quickly it can contract.

Bruce Lee might be able to hit harder than Arnold Schwarzenegger, but that is because Bruce's technique and synergy were excellent. If Arnold had the same technique and synergy, he would have been exponentially stronger.

Excellent posts! I OU both rep, but alas, you're both still on my rep stack. Gotta wait till you cycle off it, but I keep my promises...

I think that there is this strange, lingering sense that a big muscle is harder to get moving than a smaller muscle, and therefore that a more powerful-looking fighter, with bigger muscles, is inherently slower than a fighter with smaller ones. Adept's response, where I've bolded it, is exactly to the point on this. Someone who assumes that a car with a six cylinder engine will get better acceleration than a car with a twelve cylinder engine because, after all, a V-12 is so much bigger and heavier than a V-6, is making the kind of mistake he's cautioning against. Does anyone really think that a Honda Accord V-6 is going to outperform a Ferrari Testarossa? But the cases are parallel: a bigger muscle is like a bigger engine, not a heavier chassis.

But nothing takes place in a vacuum, eh? It's always a matter of, `all other things being equal...' That's what Carol's post really drives home. If you spend too much time and effort doing weight training instead of MA, your MA is going to suffer no matter how powerful and fast you are. The assumption is, at some point you are going to take your new improved and more powerful body to the dojo floor and do some serious training in your combat system. Increased speed and power are not a substitute for technical training but an enhancement of it. You still have to do the work of training the art. But that's equally true for skiing, tennis or anything else you want to put in there...

 

[tellner]

Body building can actually work against functional strength training. To get the hyper-defined rippling muscles look they work each muscle separately. It certainly gives you a specific look. And by "specific" I mean "not unlike a weird mutant insect." Someone who is building functional strength will use several muscle groups working together to get a greater effect. There will be more of a tendency for long-looking dense muscle and a slab-sided appearance.

If you look at pictures of old-time strongmen they looked more like gorillas, fireplugs or cinderblocks than they looked like Mr. Olympia. Oh, they could flex muscles, but it isn't at all the same.

 

[tahuti]

Thanks Carol, you clarified my post.

Maximum Strength is prerequisite for Explosive Strength training. In untrained and beginners maximum strength also increases endurance and explosive strength, but competitive athlete needs additional training in endurance and explosive strength, just working maximal strength is not enough.

And trick with weightlifters is called strength deficit, now to put some definitions.
Absolute Strength is maximal Involuntary muscle contraction.
Maximal Strength, maximal Voluntary contraction.
Difference between absolute and maximal is called strength deficit.

Strength depends on 2 elements: amount of fiber in the muscle (cross section) and coordination of central nervous system to command fibers.
Only way to recruit reluctant muscle fibers is with high resistance. Gymnasts, weightlifters and other athletes try to decrease strength deficit. Of course you can't indefinitely train Central Nervous System, you will hit point where to increase strength you need to add more muscle.

It is good example with motor cylinders, now why we don't make 20 cylinder engine? I would say it is probably due hard to synchronize all cylinders, what would it feel when it skip cylinder.

 

[tempus]

I primarly trained to get strong, but noticed I was packing on some pounds as of late and in 2008 I am starting my black belt test and need to get the endurance going. I did some research on the training the actors in the movie 300 went thru. So I decided to a modified circut (one exercise after another without rest) for as many rounds as I could to do in 1/2 hr. How hard could this be for someone who has some decent 1 RM on certain exercises.
-Pull ups x 10 reps
-Pushups x 20 reps
-25 lb Medicine ball clean from the floor into an overhead press x20
-135 lb Deadlift x 20

I was able to do three rounds in 18 Min before I could no longer move plus for each round I could not get the amount of reps I had planned. It looked more like this.
-Pull ups x 5-6 reps
-Pushups x 20 reps
-25 lb Medicine ball clean from the floor into an overhead press x10-15 reps
-135 lb Deadlift x 10 reps

So far I have done this type of exercise two times this week (Sunday and Tuesday). The second time I did it I tried to hit the heavy bag afterwards, but only lasted 2 minutes. I was exhausted and there were puddles of sweat where ever I stood (Its my gym so I will sweat where I want

My goal is now to keep doing similar circuits over the next few weeks and then go back to some strength training (x5 rep max range) and then try to incorporate the different types of workouts in the same week. I am hoping to get the full reps I had planned for during the original ciruit.

Some other exerciese I will incorporate, weather permitting: KettleBell work, Medicine ball throws and chases, static holds, sled dragging, squats and presses with chains on the ends of the bar and some other odd multi-range\functional exercises. I am also trying to find a 3 inch rope to hang from for grip strength. I am hoping by the summer to improve my body fat percentage, but we will see. Damn you breyers Vanilla Bean Ice Cream damn you.

 

[tahuti]

Have you tried to use Tabatha intervals?

Example
1-hard exercises (pushups)20s
2-easy (jumping jacks) 20s
3-easy 20s
4-hard 20s
5-easy 20s
6-easy 20s

Rest 40-60s between sets, do 4-8 sets. Idea is to do as many as you can in 20s time frame, easy movements are just to keep your heart going but they are not so strenuous, so recovery is possible.
If you don't have timer, browser only timer http://www.speedbagforum.com/timer.html or make music with added sounds.

Regarding rope, you can use towel or thicken your pullup bar with foam and tape.

 

[tempus]

I have not heard of this routine before. Thanks for the information sounds like a good alternative when I do not want to go all out or hit the treadmill.

Now you have me thinking, since I have a 3 inch bar I bet I could attach it to my cage some how. I have to check what the highest pin hole is on the cage. If it is high enough I could put the safty bars up that high and put the 3 inch bar on that and just pull my legs up to hang.

 

[Marginal]

Hi.
I was wondering; If you look at bodybuilders or persons who have worked out alot with weights, they are pretty big, bouncy and heavy. I am pretty rough in the bones and pretty big built genetic, eventhough I've not been working out with weights. And beside that I am flexible, can jump high and have alot of speed. Something most people would expect from a smaller and lighter guy.

And my question is: If I start with weight lifting, will my flexibility, speed and ability to jump high disapear? And will I become huge and bouncy with less speed, flexibilty and less jumping height like a bodybuilder? (I want to gain strenght and mucsles, but still keep my speed, flexibility and ability to jump high.) Could I balance it in some way?

Please, I really need some answers.

As long as you keep stretching and do relevant exercises with the weights, you shouldn't have a problem.

You're not likely to get "big and bouncy" unless you're also doing 'roids.

 

[Kwan Jang]

Once again, Exile has made some very good points and brought very good information to the table. There is a current trend in athletic circles to try to bash bodybuilding with pseudo-scientific "principles". Well, at least another round has come up, the trend has existed for decades and each time one comes around, it ends up biting the dust when the studies are actually done. Almost all of it that I have seen relies on redefining what bodybuilding is or at least is when properly done (martial arts are ineffective if done improperly, too). This is one of the main reasons that I give little credibility to any of these theories.

When done correctly, bodybuilding consists mostly of compound movements taking the muscle to or near failure. It combines rep ranges so that you work all components of the muscle cell (myofibril, mitochondria and sarcoplasm) that respond to stress stimuli. This contributes to greater athletic ability, not the other way around. Also, every major muscle group should be fully developed and in proportion to the whole. This also contributes to greater athletic performance rather than the opposite. Isolation movements are good for working around injuries or strengthening up a weak area.

I will not defend the pre-contest practices of bringing the bodyfat to dangerously low levels, dehydration, or the methods that are used in modern chemical bodybuilding to do so. I will say that (based on all the research I've seen, including that when I was working on my degree) I have seen nothing that would change my (educated) opinion that for increasing your overall physical abilities, a well planned out bodybuilding program, supplemented by cardio and stretching (which should be a part of that training anyway) is the best way of becoming your best.

For the OP, don't worry about losing speed, agility or your jumping ability. Check out youtube under the listing KJN David Hughes and you will see the proof is in the pudding. Weight training will enhance your abilities, not detract from them. Of course, you must also train the specific skill sets that you want to improve to get the positive results you seek.