My Powerlifting Mixed with BJJ Experience

[quote]humble wrote:
Personally I would skip the powerlifting for a while and concentrate on agility movement and training. Perhaps switch to Oly lifts but there is a steep learning curve so it may not be timely.
The simplest way is then to start kettlebelling which will activate your hips and program your cns to work as a whole rather in segments. It also teaches effective breathing, letting momentum work in parts and actually exerting your strength only when needed and relaxing when needed.
Concentrate on bodyweight movements that move you through space, there are tons of variations of pull ups that you can employ to help you better in bjj. One such pullup is the kipping pull up which is a highly metabolic movement and at the same time teaches an effective cns activation sequence transferable to bjj etc.

Think bear walks, crawls, various pushups that move your body in dynamic/multiple planes rather than just up and down. One legged or one limbed movements also help.
Contreas had an article the other day on torsional strength as well. Check that out.

POwerlifting is so rigid and lacking in dimension, the breathing involved counter productive to fight training. Breathing should occur as a by product of your movement not a concentrated effort. It kills me when I hear coaches screaming breathe, breathe and then athletes get into this stupid concentration trying to breathe which only makes them more tired in effect since they’re exerting effort to do it. Breathing should come naturally through the movement, for example when punching the movement involves contractions of certain muscles in the chest, ribs, diaphragm and more likewise in retraction of the punch their is activation and relaxation of various muscles. The aim being to tune these muscles which are working to perform the movement anyway to be the source of your breathing at the same time, without mentally thinking about trying to breathe.
The russians are famous for this and why they can actually fight in a lot calmer manner than many of us, their movements automatically facilitate breath[/quote]

I might agree with you if he was looking to seriously train BJJ… but the dude seems to like powerlifting better, and that’s what he’s truly “training” at, with BJJ being more of a supplement.

That being said, if he can handle the volume of what he’s doing, he should stick with it, simply because doing what you love is important.

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:

I might agree with you if he was looking to seriously train BJJ… but the dude seems to like powerlifting better, and that’s what he’s truly “training” at, with BJJ being more of a supplement.

That being said, if he can handle the volume of what he’s doing, he should stick with it, simply because doing what you love is important.[/quote]

Yeh, I only wrote what I did because he said he was entering a comp so I thought with all his mention of him being hooked on it that he was somewhat devoting more and more time to it.

[quote]SergeantQ wrote:

[quote]Spartiates wrote:

[quote]SergeantQ wrote:

[quote]Spartiates wrote:
How big are you?

I ask because for most of us, until we started competing/competing again body weight was just a number. But you have to remember if you ever compete, it will be against people roughly your size.

And while it feels great to power through that obnoxious buck-forty purple-belt who was sure his skill would have you tapping, when you compete it will be a different story.

I second the roll with bigger guys. I also say roll slow. If the other guy is moving quick, work your defense, think about what he’s doing, be quick/explosive briefly when it’s planned and timed for a specific purpose. 90% of the time when I’m rolling I’m not even breathing hard. When I’m training/rolling for fun, ego-free, I’d rather get caught by something I wouldn’t if I were rolling “competition style” because I’m moving a little slow, thinking and taking my time, than be powering through the round.

The big thing for me is to try and work something specific when I roll, based on who I’m rolling with. If I know I’ve got the advantage on top, I’ll let them put me on my back, and try the more technical/obscure sweeps I’m terrible at.

I think too many people, even who’ve been doing it awhile, treat all rolling as competitive rolling: it’s not.[/quote]

Great insight to the rolling aspect. Never thought about going slow.

My current body weight is 249Lb in off-season of powerlifting and since I have PL comp on 23 April, I will weigh in about 241-242. I try not to go over 250 during my off-peak PL trianing and then cut down maybe 10lbs during my peak season for the Comp.

I guess I should post full stats of:
Age…37
Weight…249

My instructor says I will be going in the Master’s category which is find by me. Nothing like dealing with Old man strength…

If you want to know squats, Bench and DL’s numbers see my training log of “Trying to be the strongest in the world”. [/quote]

Just curious how tall you are, not that it matters that much in grappling.

At that weight you’ll probably always be doing the heaviest and/or open weight anyways.[/quote]

6’0 with shoes…LOL, but seriously, 5’10. Yeah, I was looking at the brackets and I will be in the super heavy weights. My hope and dream is that they are big guys but weak as hell… OH well, if not, I will just have to keep mobile and moving more than them and keep on the offensive. [/quote]

They probably won’t be weak as hell, but will have trouble with you being stronger. You don’t need to be stronger to stall. I had trouble in February with guys much heavier than me just stalling in a position. I’m 5’6’’ and 245lb. Several guys were over 6’ and above 290lb.

Ask your instructor to just put you through your paces for the first few minutes of a round. You need to have him trying to exhaust you for the first 60% of the round, then you have to work your BJJ fatigued with a time limit. Competition matches are very short for white belts, and the super heavyweights like to muscle muscle muscle. Be ready to deal with the stalling without tiring yourself as much as they do.

[quote]humble wrote:
lemonman, big and strong - yes, better at bjj - no.
[/quote]
Edit:
saw irish’s post

For the record, I enjoy PL more than BJJ at this point. I use BJJ as more of a supplement to my training as fighting irish indicated. The cardio I get is great and the flexibility helps because I tend to end up positions I would have never thought I could get into.

Giving up PL will not happen because I love lifting heavy crap. Yes, I am hooked on BJJ because I see the progress I made in short time from having problems with flexibility putting a person into a triangle choke to being more mobile than I have been in a very long time and easily being able to wrap my legs around a person’s neck or body.

Maybe some time in the future, if my training in BJJ progresses to a point where I have to focus more on training to improve my BJJ skills than I will consider shifting my weight lifting training. But for now, PL it is and the BIG 3 rules…

[quote]goose27 wrote:

[quote]SergeantQ wrote:

[quote]Spartiates wrote:

[quote]SergeantQ wrote:

[quote]Spartiates wrote:
How big are you?

I ask because for most of us, until we started competing/competing again body weight was just a number. But you have to remember if you ever compete, it will be against people roughly your size.

And while it feels great to power through that obnoxious buck-forty purple-belt who was sure his skill would have you tapping, when you compete it will be a different story.

I second the roll with bigger guys. I also say roll slow. If the other guy is moving quick, work your defense, think about what he’s doing, be quick/explosive briefly when it’s planned and timed for a specific purpose. 90% of the time when I’m rolling I’m not even breathing hard. When I’m training/rolling for fun, ego-free, I’d rather get caught by something I wouldn’t if I were rolling “competition style” because I’m moving a little slow, thinking and taking my time, than be powering through the round.

The big thing for me is to try and work something specific when I roll, based on who I’m rolling with. If I know I’ve got the advantage on top, I’ll let them put me on my back, and try the more technical/obscure sweeps I’m terrible at.

I think too many people, even who’ve been doing it awhile, treat all rolling as competitive rolling: it’s not.[/quote]

Great insight to the rolling aspect. Never thought about going slow.

My current body weight is 249Lb in off-season of powerlifting and since I have PL comp on 23 April, I will weigh in about 241-242. I try not to go over 250 during my off-peak PL trianing and then cut down maybe 10lbs during my peak season for the Comp.

I guess I should post full stats of:
Age…37
Weight…249

My instructor says I will be going in the Master’s category which is find by me. Nothing like dealing with Old man strength…

If you want to know squats, Bench and DL’s numbers see my training log of “Trying to be the strongest in the world”. [/quote]

Just curious how tall you are, not that it matters that much in grappling.

At that weight you’ll probably always be doing the heaviest and/or open weight anyways.[/quote]

6’0 with shoes…LOL, but seriously, 5’10. Yeah, I was looking at the brackets and I will be in the super heavy weights. My hope and dream is that they are big guys but weak as hell… OH well, if not, I will just have to keep mobile and moving more than them and keep on the offensive. [/quote]

They probably won’t be weak as hell, but will have trouble with you being stronger. You don’t need to be stronger to stall. I had trouble in February with guys much heavier than me just stalling in a position. I’m 5’6’’ and 245lb. Several guys were over 6’ and above 290lb.

Ask your instructor to just put you through your paces for the first few minutes of a round. You need to have him trying to exhaust you for the first 60% of the round, then you have to work your BJJ fatigued with a time limit. Competition matches are very short for white belts, and the super heavyweights like to muscle muscle muscle. Be ready to deal with the stalling without tiring yourself as much as they do.[/quote]

Thanks for that heads-up. I will tell the instructor to push the pace as you dictated to see how I respond. Again, good info to know and I appreciate you sharing your experience from the “big guy” perspective and experience.