MMA and Power Lifting


this should work instead of the link

[quote]damutt wrote:
not much to add… for some people lifting is important to the fight game for some its not…

Well, yes… there are different ways the way fighters train, and you especially can notice those differences among different continents of this world… the fighter on this link is a decent fighter, he doesn’t look like a bodybuilder, and most likely he doesn’t misuse heavy weights, the picture or video doesn’t mean he lifts often, it could possibly mean the opposite, someone took a picture when he was doing something unusual in his training…

But anyway, with all respect to any guy who comes to fight in an octagon, ring… just lets be honest, this fighter not in the same class as lets say Fedor Emelianenko, but OK that doesn’t really matter… We have to admit that probably there is a lot of “wrong” not the most efficient training among some MMA gyms around the world… and I think this comes from traditions or maybe no traditions at all…

Of course, if you have a talented guy who naturally picks up technique easily and was born to fight, then even if you give him a slightly “wrong” conditioning training he would still be a good fighter and maybe even great… as long as the fighter is spending 80 % sparring, on the mat, and doing other direct striking and wrestling training it’s probably OK enough. However, having a coach who is good in fight tactics and strategy is crucial for a competitive fighter.

No one knows what would have been if had been… the “wrong” training would affect average athlete way more though. And I don’t think that if the gym has a barbell with weights in the corner, allowing to deadlift here and there would do any harm for a fighter.

If a fighter relies purely on strength in the octagon, he will be destroyed. To say that PL correctly would hurt the majority of fighter’s games is absolutely asinine. There is more to power/strength than just traditional 1RMs and 5x5 schemes. Power is about as important as any physical attribute a fighter can have. You want to deliver a punch, kick, takedown etc as quickly and with as much force as possible, which amazingly enough, is the definition of power!

You can be an endurance machine, but when I snap a jab out that breaks your nose in the first minute of the fight, those oxidative fibers aren’t going to be doing a whole lot unless you want to breath through your mouth :)…I never said anything about just using strength in a fight, all I said is that fighting is the best conditioning for FIGHTING. Not jogging, swimming, or the shake weight.

So fighting/drilling itself gives you your endurance, cardio and technique, which we all agree are very important aspects of fighting (but I’m sure I’ll be “wrong” about this too and be interpreted as to saying something along the lines of “technique doesn’t matter”). Typically combat athletes face opponents around the same technical skill level as them, which is where the difference is made in other areas (I really thought this was assumed but apparently I have to clarify that I understand this).

For power and strength, there is nothing that is going to build these things more than PL. For most fighters the power aspect should be the priority as they probably don’t need to possess much more absolute strength once they hit a certain level. If you are lifting correctly, mobility should IMPROVE, stability should IMPROVE, and rate of force production should IMPROVE. To say these things aren’t incredibly important to performance and health of a fighter is wrong.

All fighters have to stay loose and relaxed, but when it comes time to throw a strike or grapple they better have something behind it. On a separate note, I am not an amazing fighter by any means. I train with some of the best guys in the Northeast and am a couple months away from graduating from one of the best Exercise Science/Strength and Conditioning programs in the country.

So please do not try to pass blind judgement on me because I am simply on these forums in an attempt to learn and help others by passing my knowledge and experience on to them. I have still yet to see a solid argument as to how my remarks have been wrong or stupid besides having words put in my mouth. Cause/correlation curse?

I understand the difference quite well actually, but I am not exactly sure what you are referring too? Anyways, use the weight room for yourself and your athletes to get their bodies to the point where sport-specific movements can be performed in the most efficient and smooth manner possible while improving their physical health.

Sure there are no EXACT motions in MMA that mimic a hang clean (except maybe a suplex…), but every piece of that motion gets trained in one exercise (violent triple extension, violent serratus punch, good posture) and that’s just one example of hundreds of power-development movements that can be performed. Similar to how jump rope develops in-synch full-body coordination/endurance, power-lifting develops in-synch full body coordination and POWER.

In a sport like fighting you have to cover all spectrums, with hypertrophy typically being the least important (typically). I just ask that you guys look at the bigger picture here and stop acting like I am clueless because I do know quite a bit (although there is still so much to learn). The whole field of Strength and Conditioning is moving more and more sport-specific powerlifting, especially with the increased popularity of new tools like the Kaiser machine.

Technique is clearly incredibly important, but if I want my fighter to reach his full potential, I want him reaching his physical peak as well as his technical peak come fight time. You can be explosive/powerful and have great endurance guys. There are as few fighters who can win with just technique as there are fighters who can win with just endurance or just strength.

If you’re talking MMA, then I don’t necessarily disagree with you, only because it has a grappling aspect where strength becomes extraordinarily important.

If you’re talking boxing or MT, then I disagree hugely, simply because as I said before, it just ain’t necessary and the history of those sports prove that quickly. If you can do 30 or 40 pushups with good form, it’s a safe bet your body is strong enough to throw a pretty solid punch once you got the mechanics down.

ME lifting does not influence punching power.

CKenney, you’re chasing your tail around a tree dude. I agreed, I think everyone did, that PL will improve aspects of MMA. The grappling, wrestling, body-to-body massage parts especially. But I really think you are missing the mark with the arguement that PL and striking (of any kind) improve performance more than just modestly. Seriously, if you’re advocating weight lifting to improve punching speed and power, then write up a log, have your exercise school look it over and prove to us and all of boxing (since forever) that you are correct.

And to explain ‘Cause/Correlation’ to you in Layman’s terms: Everytime I wash my car, it rains. I thus conclude in error that car washing is the root cause of rain. This also leads to you making further incorrect assumptions, such as when it rains but you have not washed your car that day. You wrongly assume someone else in the area must have washed their car. In reality, precipitation and condensation are the root causes of rain. That you washed your car is merely a coincidence that correlates with certain times that it rains.

In other words, arguing that a squat or deadlift will make you a better, faster, stronger punching boxer is like arguing that car washing makes it rain.

Yeah i get the difference between cause and correlation, just never said anything that his comment could have applied to at all. If I had said, so and so is a great power puncher and he squats so that must be why, then it would apply. All I’m saying is that PL is going to help, If his comment was correct, than any person advising a certain training style for anything would be falling victim to the “cause/correlation curse”. As my final point, proper PL is fantastic for reaching your physical peak in terms of force production, speed, strength, stability, and mobility. If you reach your physical peak, then you are more able to learn your sport-specific movements (in this case punching, kicking, throwing, etc.) and stay healthier in your sport longer! Once you reach a certain point of strength/power output, then we can really focus on the sport-specific movements because the benefit of training PL will decrease more in more, but most people do not ever reach this point.

[quote]Pigeonkak wrote:
And to explain ‘Cause/Correlation’ to you in Layman’s terms: [/quote]
Wow, really?

[quote]Khaine wrote:

[quote]Pigeonkak wrote:
And to explain ‘Cause/Correlation’ to you in Layman’s terms: [/quote]
Wow, really?[/quote]

I’m still not sure what you meant by that, but I re read my last post and I am not happy with my comment either. I think I could have worded the statement better, and failed to properly explain that I think CKenney has drawn an improper relationship between squats/deadlifts and fighting

. I guess what I was saying is he is seeing PL as the cause of a good fighter when really there is only a correlation between PL and good fighters. Meh.

BUT: Powerlifting does not create a super fighter in the manner Ckenney believes, and it will not guarantee performance improvements once the fighter gets around to actually training the necessary skills to fight.

Clearly it doesn’t, neither does sit-ups, push-ups, or jogging every night. Just a very very effective tool in created a healthier, more powerful, and stronger athlete with a more efficient nervous system that will likely pick-up on technical, sport-specific movements quicker.

Really no arguing that increasing rate of force production is going to increase performance potential. And I could just as easily say that you are seeing everything that isn’t powerlifting as the “cause” for good fighters. It isn’t a point when it is completely made up lol. All I’ve really gotten from you Pigeonkak is that you like to make assumptions and base your argument off of it.

But, I’m not going to assume this because, you know, that would be retarded. So again for everyone to see, I will re-iterate my original point. Power training for fighting is going to increase rate of force production, increase stability/mobility if done properly, improve strength of muscles/tendons/ligaments, increase nervous system efficiency, create general motor programs similar to many movements performed in combat sports thus allowing for new movements to be learned quicker, and more.

When it comes down to it, it makes you more of a beast/physical specimen which, despite what you may want to believe, definitely plays a role in a fight/sports in general. For other aspects of conditioning/technique, both EXTREMELY important, FIGHT, FIGHT, FIGHT and drill…

[quote]Ckenney wrote:
Power training for fighting is going to increase rate of force production, increase stability/mobility if done properly, improve strength of muscles/tendons/ligaments, increase nervous system efficiency, create general motor programs similar to many movements performed in combat sports thus allowing for new movements to be learned quicker, and more.

[/quote]

I’m quoting that chunk and not the rest of your tirade because your tirade about me assuming stuff, is in itself an assumption. Having actually trained to fight, then fought, I have more than enough experience in the field to tell you that you are advocating an approach to training that I have tried and registered limited benefits for myself.

Maybe you should have been my trainer and not a 100 pro fight veteran of Muay Thai, or a gold medal winning pro rated boxing trainer. In fact, by attempting to lift heavy weights and commit to fight training alongside against my trainers best advice, I unsurprisingly became slower, had less energy for hard cardio and advanced, fast paced padwork and sparring. Yes I was stronger, but I was not experiencing significant gains in the area that mattered - boxing.

You’re maybe also assuming that I don’t enjoy powerlifting. You would be mistaken. I was privileged to also be coached in that discipline by a former Westside Barbell gymrat and former World Powerlifting Champion. But okay, I don’t know anything about lifting weights do I? I clean and detail boats for a living. Will squatting and deadlifting make me a super boat cleaner too? By the way, I am by no means a big guy, or super strong. But I LOVE powerlifting and I LOVE fighting and I KNOW that you are wrong to advocate PL as a priority over drills and classic boxing training. In the area of MMA and grappling, I have been submitted by a 120lb 14 year old BJJ practitioner who I could military press with ease. The kid was technically proficient, a natural and trained by the best grappler in my city. That’s why he was so good. Not because he weight trained. That’s anecdotal, but it’s the way martial arts have been trained since the first day a guy punched another guy and called it a ‘system’.

You make it seem like Floyd Mayweather and Anderson Silva would be SO much better if they just squatted. If only… imagine…

I think you kind of have to lifts weights… Strength and power seem to hold quite a bit if an advantage if you manage to be able to pick up the aspects other posters have already addressed in an actual event. But I think kettle bell lifts, not really kettle bells that matter but the actual lifts that are popular to perform with kettle bells, they can be that dumbbells or barbells even too. So if you have to quench your thirst for lifting heavy weights I think those lifts will do better for your goals. They develop power were its really important too, your waist

[quote]Pigeonkak wrote:

[quote]Khaine wrote:

[quote]Pigeonkak wrote:
And to explain ‘Cause/Correlation’ to you in Layman’s terms: [/quote]
Wow, really?[/quote]

I’m still not sure what you meant by that, but I re read my last post and I am not happy with my comment either. I think I could have worded the statement better, and failed to properly explain that I think CKenney has drawn an improper relationship between squats/deadlifts and fighting

. I guess what I was saying is he is seeing PL as the cause of a good fighter when really there is only a correlation between PL and good fighters. Meh.

BUT: Powerlifting does not create a super fighter in the manner Ckenney believes, and it will not guarantee performance improvements once the fighter gets around to actually training the necessary skills to fight.[/quote]
Just sounded terribly patronizing to me. I prefer this post.

Regardless, the argument can be twisted to fit any practice, i.e. just because great boxers do road work/jump rope/shadowboxing doesn’t mean road work/jump rope/shadowboxing makes great boxers. For instance.

I really really doubt anybody that matters will claim strength training should take a back seat to training your sport though. Similarly, I feel the consensus among the posters with experience is that the more grappling is involved in your sport/your game, the greater the importance of physical strength. And that there’s a base level at which strength is useful for ANY sport (the level will obviously vary from sport to sport, i.e. higher strenght required for football than tennis).

Anecdotally, I’ve ran through blue belts, who are faaar more technical and better practitioners of their sport than me, and attribute that solely to my power and pressure and not to any sort of innate ability (I hit subs that aren’t really “on”). Ergo, that strength base can make a difference, assuming the technical discrepancy isn’t too large (doesn’t happen every time, and doubt I’d sub anybody at a higher level).

Jesus I’m sick of this subject though. 3 active threads about the same shit now.

[quote]Khaine wrote:

[quote]Pigeonkak wrote:

[quote]Khaine wrote:

[quote]Pigeonkak wrote:
And to explain ‘Cause/Correlation’ to you in Layman’s terms: [/quote]
Wow, really?[/quote]

I’m still not sure what you meant by that, but I re read my last post and I am not happy with my comment either. I think I could have worded the statement better, and failed to properly explain that I think CKenney has drawn an improper relationship between squats/deadlifts and fighting

. I guess what I was saying is he is seeing PL as the cause of a good fighter when really there is only a correlation between PL and good fighters. Meh.

BUT: Powerlifting does not create a super fighter in the manner Ckenney believes, and it will not guarantee performance improvements once the fighter gets around to actually training the necessary skills to fight.[/quote]
Just sounded terribly patronizing to me. I prefer this post.

Regardless, the argument can be twisted to fit any practice, i.e. just because great boxers do road work/jump rope/shadowboxing doesn’t mean road work/jump rope/shadowboxing makes great boxers. For instance.

I really really doubt anybody that matters will claim strength training should take a back seat to training your sport though. Similarly, I feel the consensus among the posters with experience is that the more grappling is involved in your sport/your game, the greater the importance of physical strength. And that there’s a base level at which strength is useful for ANY sport (the level will obviously vary from sport to sport, i.e. higher strenght required for football than tennis).

Anecdotally, I’ve ran through blue belts, who are faaar more technical and better practitioners of their sport than me, and attribute that solely to my power and pressure and not to any sort of innate ability (I hit subs that aren’t really “on”). Ergo, that strength base can make a difference, assuming the technical discrepancy isn’t too large (doesn’t happen every time, and doubt I’d sub anybody at a higher level).

Jesus I’m sick of this subject though. 3 active threads about the same shit now.[/quote]

I acknowledge your criticism of my post. I was absolutely being a dick to CKenney. I share your frustration with the threads though. I think the reason they are getting replies is because CKenney, barely out of college, is lurking in all those threads claiming to have unlocked the secret to being a better fighter - and the secret is practicing a totally different sport.

As for your success in jits, it might be that you are far better at creating opportunities for submissions than you think and just need to work on your finishing. Correct me if that isn’t the case, but we often times don’t analyse our route to the move, and only critique the more static execution of the submission. And in that respect, creating those opportunities have everything to do with technique and fluid movement than strength. A perfect example is the triangle from full guard. You are not performing it properly if you are trying to force your opponent into it, and his excessive use of strength and lack of awareness is typically what leads him into the trap ala Chael Sonnen getting tapped at the last moment by Silva. But of course, conversely, an arm bar is difficult to complete without good strength if you haven’t set it up well.

As we’ve been saying here repeatedly: Grappling benefits from lifting, striking not so much if at all.

[quote]Pigeonkak wrote:
I acknowledge your criticism of my post. I was absolutely being a dick to CKenney. I share your frustration with the threads though. I think the reason they are getting replies is because CKenney, barely out of college, is lurking in all those threads claiming to have unlocked the secret to being a better fighter - and the secret is practicing a totally different sport.

As we’ve been saying here repeatedly: Grappling benefits from lifting, striking not so much if at all. [/quote]

Well on those counts we’re pretty much in agreement. CKenny’s not alone though; these threads just won’t stop cropping up.

[quote]Pigeonkak wrote:
As for your success in jits, it might be that you are far better at creating opportunities for submissions than you think and just need to work on your finishing. Correct me if that isn’t the case, but we often times don’t analyse our route to the move, and only critique the more static execution of the submission. And in that respect, creating those opportunities have everything to do with technique and fluid movement than strength. A perfect example is the triangle from full guard. You are not performing it properly if you are trying to force your opponent into it, and his excessive use of strength and lack of awareness is typically what leads him into the trap ala Chael Sonnen getting tapped at the last moment by Silva. But of course, conversely, an arm bar is difficult to complete without good strength if you haven’t set it up well. [/quote]

Of course, this is possible, but I don’t really consider myself particularly good at disguising approaches to subs; I tend to force stuff and get away with it. It’s all staying heavy, driving and grinding relentlessly and forcing mistakes though pressure, then subbing people with half assed stuff like rear nakeds across the jaw or arm triangles from guard(!) I have stumpy thighs thick as shit from all the squatting I do, so regular triangles aren’t exactly a go-to move and I’ve never hit them on anybody that’s not a rank amateur. Air tight though. Definitely a lot more Chaal than Silva to my game.

My grappling deficiencies could fill a separate thread though, so no need to highjack this one and risk it going back on topic. Just let it drown.

To use the greats as examples is all well in good until you look at what they are, genetic specimens who are perfect for their sport! They are NATURALLY so close to their physical peak it is kind of sickening. I mean, who on this planet has a more efficient nervous system in terms of fighting than Silva? The guy is the perfect blend of technique, power/speed, flexibility, and winning mentality.

Unfortunately, not many of us are specimens like him or others like Ali, so we must make up for it by training our bodies to become twitchy, mobile, fast athletes.

[quote]Khaine wrote:

I tend to force stuff and get away with it. It’s all staying heavy, driving and grinding relentlessly and forcing mistakes though pressure[/quote]

Um… just always wear protection bro! :wink:

Anderson got that way by practicing technique ALL the time instead of weight training.

We get it, weight training is good. For someone with finite time and recovery resources, its not a priority.

If you have all the time in the world to train and are at Greg Jacksons gym, have at it.

Each fight sport has different strength and energy requirements. Thus a Judo guy is going to train differently than a Muay Thai guy.

I noticed the biggest increases in power during times when I did thousands and thousands of perfect repetitions.

I had a 40 year old taekwondo coach who didnt lift at all and was brutal, downright brutal to fight. When he was in his 20’s and competing at a national level, he kicked paddles and sparred endlessly and had more than a few knockouts.

Once again, nobody is arguing that strength training, that all encompassing term, is detrimental. Hitting the bag, is strength training. Judo randori is strength training. Sport specific. Ive trained with boxers and judo guys that I am far stronger on and have been schooled by.

I have fought competitively in amature boxing and at a pretty high level in olympic taekwondo. I now compete in powerlifting because I dont have the time to devote to fighting competitively.

When I did compete in tkd, I lifted weights, occasionally. When I boxed, I didnt touch weights.

I would run run run, spar spar spar, and hit the bag for 3-4hrs a day, every day. I couldn’t do that and do anywhere near the weight training I do now.

Broken Record thread.

If you disagree, go ahead, get 10-20 fights under your belt with your training methods and get back to us. Otherwise its pure conjecture.

I train allot of fighters and grapplers and as for conditioning most of the time I only train that 1 time a week and that depends on what part of conditioning they are lacking. Anaerobic? Aerobic? Muscular endurance? Strength endurance?

If you are training proper most of your sport specific conditioning should come from practice.
As for weight training an athlete should focus on movements and not body parts. Your focus should always revolve around strength for it is the basic foundation for any program.

If you feel that you are stronger but slower then incorporate more power, explosive, and speed training. Learn periodzation or your programs will fail. Or pay someone like to design your program tailored to your goals.

Remember strength training makes you more an efficient athlete it does not make you a better one. Only skill can provide that in other words you can skip or shorten your weight sessions but NEVER skip practice unless hurt or overstrained.


I posted this in another thread. It’s appropriate here too:

Also, look upon how that dapper gent flogs his steed with the gayest abandon!

He would be able to flog and fawp better if he squatted though.