[quote]HeavyIronMonkey wrote:
[quote]Loftearmen wrote:
Fair enough. There is still a fallacy in that logic though. Having good technique is the most important aspect of striking power and right after that would be power, then strength and then mass (some would argue to rearrange the last couple). You get the point though. Considering that you probably have decent striking form from your MA training, the only things you are missing are the strength and power. Those weightlifting guys are specialists in the field of what you don’t have and would like to develop regardless of what you intend on using it for. Simply put, there is no such thing as “strong for kung fu” vs “strong for wrestling” vs “strong for anything else”. You are either strong or you are not strong so trying to cater your strength training specifically to your sport defeats the purpose of training for strength.
I swapped from powerlifting to bjj and muay thai about 6 months ago. When I first started, my striking form was pretty bad but I could still end a fight with 1 well connected punch because of how much power I had and I had not been training for MA specific attributes at all. I just had lots of strength to brawl with.
So what you need to develop is a large amount of generalized strength. The best way to do that is to train compound strength and power movements through a full range of motion with a high level of frequency, moderate volume and progressive overload weight progression while allowing ample time to recover between training sessions and adequate food intake. It is also important to note that, if you want to be strong, you cannot continue to cut. Eat at maintenance (so you don’t lose or gain weight) and slowly watch your fat be replaced by muscle. If you keep cutting you will hit a wall with your strength fast.
If you want to learn to fish, read these books:
Starting Strength: Basic Barbell Training by Rippetoe
Practical Programming by Rippetoe
These 2 books tell you pretty much all you need to know to be a strong sonuvabich.[/quote]
I completely understand where you’re coming from, my striking form, well one can never say one knows Kung Fu given it’s nature, but I will say work is coming along much more preferably than when compared to my strength. I think where you see fallacy, there mostly lies uneducated fear. I’ve worked hard on my MA. My past instructor didn’t know a lot about exercise and the human body. Just Kung Fu. I admit now, the belief that any form of weight lifting, though monks trained with sand bags, simply served to slow one down and shred any hope of flexibility was one that was constantly reinforced.
My first three sparring matches were three older men of 6ft and over and heavy set, myself being 5.7 and lean and wiry from my training (this was a hard goal to reach, my genetics are a very very stocky build) this fight was a set-up to mimic the real-life scenario that often it is normally someone bigger than you that is going to pick a fight with you. During the fights, Speed was my ally, strikes were targeted (lightly) at bone joints (implicating limb destruction), muscle-heads (implicating momentary paralysis), repeatedly the sternum (implicating starvation of oxygen requirements for a larger, heavier, muscle-hungry (O2) target in an unbroken round).
Obviously due to the height differences I was also able to get within guard, do my damage and leave but sticking to the point of muscle growth/flexibility/size essentially I played the scenario that one cannot knock out the Oak, but one could cut it down to size. This worked so well, I think I began to fear any loss of my abilities through any gain of theirs.
That is, until I sparred a man my size. I’d sparred others my size before of course, but this man was different. He was me, if I had gone with my genetics. My size, but thick set, solid muscle. But most intimidatingly, still fast. To this day, I will never forget my sparring match with him and here’s why. I punched, it hit, he didn’t move. Not a jot. Not a fraction. I hit this man thirty times in a row at least. He blocked a few sure but as I said I’m not exactly slow. But the thing is it didn’t matter. It was like punching stone.
I was in so much disbelief, I forgot to pace as I continued. I wore myself out. That’s when he unleashed, and to this day it still remains so much a blur I wonder if I’d been fully conscious at the time, even though I remained on my feet, barely. The speed was faster than mine. I’d never been so confused in my life. Since then I’ve been trying to train to reach that ability. Packing on muscle isn’t hard, not for me, and I’m not talking about “newbie-gains”. Keeping the fat off is often difficult but I’ve only recently learned how to control my nutrition so time will tell on that one. But I’ve not worked out how to pack on muscle, and retain my own speed let alone gain his even with drills.
But if I can find a way to get to that point, I will be a very happy man indeed.
Thank you for the book advice it’s my preferred method of learning so I really appreciate that and hopefully I can grab them on a kindle so I can get at them today. [/quote]
To be perfectly honest it sounds like you were given a false sense of effectiveness during your first 3 “sparring” sessions, only to realize that you in fact had not developed effective striking when you encountered someone who was actually giving you real resistance (your first real sparring session).
Now to be fair, there are some truly rugged people out there who can take serious punishment and just keep coming at you and can really hurt you when they get a hold of you. But even they are going to be affected by repeatedly landed solid strikes to effective targets.
I would say that your striking mechanics are not as solid as you assume, you need to work on your targeting (forget the “hitting muscles thus causing temporary paralysis” nonsense), and while I think strength training can be a huge asset if done correctly, I don’t think it alone is going to result in the huge speed or power increase that you are seeking.
