hi guys. I just started muay thai and I really enjoy it. I train 3 times a week at the club. Outside of that i do lots of core work, stuff on the roman chair and some turkish get ups.
I don’t lift heavy weights - used to ages ago but not for awhile.
I was thinking about adding a bit of weight training but dont want it to interfere with my kickboxing so i was planning on introducing one single lift - the deadlift.
Is there a problem with just lifting the deadlift and nothing else? i don’t want to lead to imbalances and such.
Deadlift smokes squat for fighting strength. You are using your upper body to harness the strength of your lower body. The extra muslce groups you are using are ones you also use for punching.
[quote]Sifu wrote:
Deadlift smokes squat for fighting strength. You are using your upper body to harness the strength of your lower body. The extra muslce groups you are using are ones you also use for punching.
[/quote]
I’m not trying to make a joke, but you are saying that Deadlifts are better for fighting strength, correct?
Deads are great for Muay Thai. I used to do them a lot and they definitely got my overall strength up and really helped with my knees that were injury prone before I used deads to strengthen my posterior chain. I don’t do them much anymore as I hit those areas with dumbbell swings a few times a week but I would definitely advise you to deadlift.
Squats are a great excercise but they mainly focus on the legs.
With deadlifts you are taking all that forcse from the legs through the body to the arms right down to the hands. The traps play a big role in punching power and dead lifts really hit traps.
Watch Mike Tyson drop his weight and come up with an uppercut sometime. Deadlifts will do more for that than any other lift.
[quote]JonnyTMT wrote:
Deads are great for Muay Thai. I used to do them a lot and they definitely got my overall strength up and really helped with my knees that were injury prone before I used deads to strengthen my posterior chain. I don’t do them much anymore as I hit those areas with dumbbell swings a few times a week but I would definitely advise you to deadlift.[/quote]
That posterior chain is really important for upper body techniques. But the Hamstrings are really important for kicking, because you need to be able to decelerate kicks and retract them if you don’t connect. Also certain kicks like side kick also use the posterior chain. Pulling the lower leg in for knees. Then there is the grip and forearm strength, you’ll have a fist like a rock from deadlifts.
I would say that squats for combat are best done at body weight and extremely high rep.
This helps for fatigue.
Deadlift high intensity low rep.
Squats low intensity very high rep.
Imo.
[quote]blazindave wrote:
I would say that squats for combat are best done at body weight and extremely high rep.
This helps for fatigue.
Deadlift high intensity low rep.
Squats low intensity very high rep.
Imo.[/quote]
I don’t think we should be debating which is better, but including both. They both are important for core and overall strength. Build power,stability, etc. Let’s not separate them by importance. They both should be used…IMO
I agree with millhouse340 squats and deads are the two biggest exercises to increase full body strength and although that isn’t all a fighter needs, having the strength of a gorilla isn’t going to hurt. If I were you I’d add some bench to that too but done at a medium weight and perform the reps as quickly as possible, that’ll add extra power to your punches. G
Wow, I would be really interested in more discussion on this high rep/low rep deadlifting and squatting debate, i have never heard it said like that before.
[quote]blazindave wrote:
I would say that squats for combat are best done at body weight and extremely high rep.
This helps for fatigue.
Deadlift high intensity low rep.
Squats low intensity very high rep.
Imo.[/quote]
I concur. And what’s with the dude in your avatar? Looks like a loser.
My impressions are that it is a theory on
separating strength training from conditioning.
Lots of people think they are the same thing
Lots of people want them trained independantly.
In college and post college at the OTC we did not separate the two
decent amount of weight
lots of reps done fast.
Fast mostly O-lifts and the like.
often we paired this with sprints/hills/stairs in the same workout
another method would be to train “strength”
separately from other conditioning work
doing your cardio, energy systems etc separately from “strength” training.
At the OTC they did it by weight
Big guys spent more time lifting weights.
Big deads, Big Squats Big cleans, Big snatch.
( ooops)
smaller guys,
more agility lifts more cleans, OH squats,split squats
deads and squats little to less.
We did much more body weight conditioning.
like burpees pushups, etc in the 100s
Lots of coaches have different theories
on what works , and why.
there was a thread on the strength forum
right before this forum was started- about
the Iowa Wrestling team’s strength training.
[quote]WolBarret wrote:
blazindave wrote:
I would say that squats for combat are best done at body weight and extremely high rep.
This helps for fatigue.
Deadlift high intensity low rep.
Squats low intensity very high rep.
Imo.
I concur. And what’s with the dude in your avatar? Looks like a loser.[/quote]
Lol, thats me you douchebag. Was 17 doing my first triathlon
Also, for roundhead:
The deadlift works your body more as an entire unit than the squat. Hence why they say the deadlift is the truest indicator of total body strength.
Throws, and any hit should be full body movements.
You dont throw a punch by swinging your arm forward with your tricep power, you channel the energy down from your calves to your legs and into your hips and rotating with your core through the back into your shoulders to your arms and finally to your hands. It’s like a whip.
Since the deadlift works like a whip as well and hits everything, it is more practical in terms of strength\ power to practice than the squat.
However when you kick, whats usually being moved the most is the muscles surrounding the legs…hip flexors and what not. So this area needs more endurance than power if you want to last in a fight.
Since the squat focuses more on legs than the deadlift, it is more practical to use it to build stamina\endurance. Especially if you throw your leg out alot. Hence why high rep is a great idea.
I was speaking with sensei Koi from Shinkyokushin organisation (i believe he is with international relations…) and he told me that in japan an ofen used idea is you do 100 full bodyweight squats, rest a minute and then repeat.
You do till you hit 1000. Sounds like a good exercise.
[quote]Roundhead wrote:
Wow, I would be really interested in more discussion on this high rep/low rep deadlifting and squatting debate, i have never heard it said like that before.[/quote]
I’m in the belief high and low rep have there place. Especially in athletic performance. I switch up on the low rep high rep. I’ll spend a few weeks concentraining on heavy weight low rep switching into other weeks high repping failure.
It’s worked for me and happy with results. I do this with many exercises.
Striking power comes from fast twitch muscle fibers more than aything else. High repping works slow twitch fibers.
That’s why I like German volume training with deadlift. It strikes a balance between putting a high demand on the endurance system with a load and working strength. The ability to do repeated high intensity efforts is really important to fighting. Especially a street fight.
You aren’t going to go 12 rounds out on the street. It’s usually wham bam thank you maam and it’s over, out on the street. And if you are up against multiple opponents you need to take people out quick so you can even up the odds.
[quote]Sifu wrote:
Striking power comes from fast twitch muscle fibers more than aything else. High repping works slow twitch fibers.
That’s why I like German volume training with deadlift. It strikes a balance between putting a high demand on the endurance system with a load and working strength. The ability to do repeated high intensity efforts is really important to fighting. Especially a street fight.
You aren’t going to go 12 rounds out on the street. It’s usually wham bam thank you maam and it’s over, out on the street. And if you are up against multiple opponents you need to take people out quick so you can even up the odds.[/quote]
So what do you suggest squat wise, Sifu? What rep/set scheme so we can have legs for fighting?
[quote]Sifu wrote:
Striking power comes from fast twitch muscle fibers more than aything else. High repping works slow twitch fibers.
That’s why I like German volume training with deadlift. It strikes a balance between putting a high demand on the endurance system with a load and working strength. The ability to do repeated high intensity efforts is really important to fighting. Especially a street fight.
You aren’t going to go 12 rounds out on the street. It’s usually wham bam thank you maam and it’s over, out on the street. And if you are up against multiple opponents you need to take people out quick so you can even up the odds.[/quote]
The body weight squats are supposed to be done fast.
If anything, turn them into jump squats. That must be fucking killer.
You do 100 jump squats at full force, 1 minute break.
Repeat 10 times.
[quote]WolBarret wrote:
Sifu wrote:
Striking power comes from fast twitch muscle fibers more than aything else. High repping works slow twitch fibers.
That’s why I like German volume training with deadlift. It strikes a balance between putting a high demand on the endurance system with a load and working strength. The ability to do repeated high intensity efforts is really important to fighting. Especially a street fight.
You aren’t going to go 12 rounds out on the street. It’s usually wham bam thank you maam and it’s over, out on the street. And if you are up against multiple opponents you need to take people out quick so you can even up the odds.
So what do you suggest squat wise, Sifu? What rep/set scheme so we can have legs for fighting?
Teach us, Grandmaster.[/quote]
Thanks Bro. I think it’s going to vary for each individual. There are things a fighter has to be careful of with leg training. One is that they don’t lose speed. Range of motion is important if you want to be able to use kicks effectively. So adding a lot of size is not always the best thing. Because it can make you somewhat slow and clumsy.
So I like to use full range of motion on squats as a substitute for adding a lot weight and doing partial reps. Also as I am getting older my knees can get a little touchy if I go real heavy. My last routine I was using a higher rep scheme on squats, I was starting with an olympic bar for a warm up of 15 reps then just kept bumping each set up twenty pounds for 15 till I got up to around 200-220, which was about my knees limit.
I put on a good amount of size but it didn’t help my punching power a whole lot. And I found all the extra weight threw off my ballance. And my feet started to hurt all the time.
Weight lifting is not the only way to develop striking power and it can even be counter-productive in some instances. I’ve known some skinny guys who could develop some scary power. One of the things a fighter has to be careful of is the muscles shortening and having a high level of tonous. You end up working against yourself when that happens. Muscle cells contract all way or they don’t contract at all. So when you throw a technique all the cells that are already contracted aren’t going to do anything. It’s all the uncontracted cells that kick in the moment you meet the resistance of an opponent that give a strike penetration. This is why relaxation is important for doing something like one inch punch.
So you need to go by how you feel. If you constantly feel like you are flexed even when you aren’t you need to change up your training so you can loosen up. The old theory of weight lifting making you muscle bound wasn’t totally wrong.