Squatting For MMA

[quote]Schwarzfahrer wrote:
p.s. out of fairness-

CW backpedaled quite a bit since he threw his recommendations out there.
Depending on the article, his recommendations are now way lower.
Around 2.5xbw for deadlift [b]IF[/b] you are talented.[/quote]

Yea he did, but he did lose a lot of credibility with me on that one.

Once again, this is what happens when you have someone who doesn’t fucking train fighters, writing about how to train fighters.

I rarely read anything of his after that “series.”

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:

[quote]Schwarzfahrer wrote:
p.s. out of fairness-

CW backpedaled quite a bit since he threw his recommendations out there.
Depending on the article, his recommendations are now way lower.
Around 2.5xbw for deadlift [b]IF[/b] you are talented.[/quote]

Yea he did, but he did lose a lot of credibility with me on that one.

Once again, this is what happens when you have someone who doesn’t fucking train fighters, writing about how to train fighters.

I rarely read anything of his after that “series.”[/quote]

I so want to comment on the whole CW thing… Ah whatever, you guys figured a good bit out yourselves anyway… “doesn’t train fighters” doesn’t even begin to describe what’s going on with that one.

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:

[quote]Schwarzfahrer wrote:
p.s. out of fairness-

CW backpedaled quite a bit since he threw his recommendations out there.
Depending on the article, his recommendations are now way lower.
Around 2.5xbw for deadlift [b]IF[/b] you are talented.[/quote]

Yea he did, but he did lose a lot of credibility with me on that one.

Once again, this is what happens when you have someone who doesn’t fucking train fighters, writing about how to train fighters.

I rarely read anything of his after that “series.”[/quote]

Yip. CW is really good for strength training but really annoyed me with his series.

Weight training is good for MMA in the following cases I have found:

  • Recovery after an injury. Or to fix some chronic issue (usually guys who decided to do nothing but bench or squats and now are too strong in one way. Bench is a real killer since every guy who doesn’t know what he’s doing but wants to get strong does it. I now have a guy who is hella strong at bench and has rounded shoulders. Can hit like a mule but pulling his arms back when grappling will probably rip a pec, – seriously, I’ve had to limit his floorwork because of injury risk – so I have him in the weight room pulling everything in sight. No bench for him for a couple of months.)

  • If there is a bona fide strength issue. Someone who is unbalanced or just plain weak should back off training the MA then do a couple of months of just straight strength training. Example, one of my best guys a couple of years back (went on to clean up at the last Grapplemania, btw) did tennis and was so damn quad dominant I don’t think he even had glutes. Again, lots of squats and deads in various forms were the order of business. He put on a bit of mass, but mostly got so he could find and use the muscles right.

  • Someone who wants to beef up a weight class or two. Normally this is because they have some real advantage to exploit. Say they have a great striking game but are pretty small, Getting them beefier to hit harder might be a good strategy in the ring. Course, if they’ve been a featherweight their whole life, meeting up with a solid welterweight might make them rethink their life choices, so I don’t suggest this too often…

  • Someone who wants to drop down a weight class or two. One other of my almost ex students (moved away but talks to me regularly) has trouble maintaining weight. I told him to do German Volume Training (10x6’s mostly) since he needed something to maintain the mass while he cuts. So sure, he’d do bench, pullups, (front) squats and DL’s in circuits, then he afterwards do a few weeks at and honest weight once he’d finished losing weight just to be sure he didn’t lose strength. Worked great. Kept up his endurance, kept up his strength. Gotta keep him off the doritos when he doesn’t have a bout coming up though.

Just a few examples from my experience…

– jj

[quote]jj-dude wrote:

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:

[quote]Schwarzfahrer wrote:
p.s. out of fairness-

CW backpedaled quite a bit since he threw his recommendations out there.
Depending on the article, his recommendations are now way lower.
Around 2.5xbw for deadlift [b]IF[/b] you are talented.[/quote]

Yea he did, but he did lose a lot of credibility with me on that one.

Once again, this is what happens when you have someone who doesn’t fucking train fighters, writing about how to train fighters.

I rarely read anything of his after that “series.”[/quote]

Yip. CW is really good for strength training but really annoyed me with his series.

Weight training is good for MMA in the following cases I have found:

  • Recovery after an injury. Or to fix some chronic issue (usually guys who decided to do nothing but bench or squats and now are too strong in one way. Bench is a real killer since every guy who doesn’t know what he’s doing but wants to get strong does it. I now have a guy who is hella strong at bench and has rounded shoulders. Can hit like a mule but pulling his arms back when grappling will probably rip a pec, – seriously, I’ve had to limit his floorwork because of injury risk – so I have him in the weight room pulling everything in sight. No bench for him for a couple of months.)

[/quote] You don’t even need to bench in order to end up with shoulder issues like that… A lot of striking with nothing to balance it out (or just crappy pull-ups like so many do, i.e. shoulders rolling forward at the top and so on, no rhomboid/lower/mid trap/rear delt/ext. rotator training) will likely be enough after a while to cause chronic shoulder pain.
My dad treated most of the local boxers in our area as the only doc with experience in sports medicine left there…

[quote]

  • If there is a bona fide strength issue. Someone who is unbalanced or just plain weak should back off training the MA then do a couple of months of just straight strength training. Example, one of my best guys a couple of years back (went on to clean up at the last Grapplemania, btw) did tennis and was so damn quad dominant I don’t think he even had glutes. Again, lots of squats and deads in various forms were the order of business. He put on a bit of mass, but mostly got so he could find and use the muscles right.

  • Someone who wants to beef up a weight class or two. Normally this is because they have some real advantage to exploit. Say they have a great striking game but are pretty small, Getting them beefier to hit harder might be a good strategy in the ring. Course, if they’ve been a featherweight their whole life, meeting up with a solid welterweight might make them rethink their life choices, so I don’t suggest this too often…

  • Someone who wants to drop down a weight class or two. One other of my almost ex students (moved away but talks to me regularly) has trouble maintaining weight. I told him to do German Volume Training (10x6’s mostly) since he needed something to maintain the mass while he cuts. So sure, he’d do bench, pullups, (front) squats and DL’s in circuits, then he afterwards do a few weeks at and honest weight once he’d finished losing weight just to be sure he didn’t lose strength. Worked great. Kept up his endurance, kept up his strength. Gotta keep him off the doritos when he doesn’t have a bout coming up though.

Just a few examples from my experience…

– jj[/quote]

Yep, it’s typical of german boxing.
The shitty stance is often reinforced harshly in many gyms. Not that it ever helped german boxing.
I’d even say it produced 10x more damaged shoulders then champs.
But that’s how it is with coaches:

if a teacher whacks a pupil and defends himself with: “That’s my idea of discipline!” they fire his ass.
if a coach ruins an athlete’s health: “Meh, guess he didn’t have what it takes, the whining bitch wanker!”

In MMA, the Diazes show protruding shoulders prominently. It works for them.

CC, you go ahead and post that Waterbury critique, I’m def. interested.

[quote]Schwarzfahrer wrote:
Yep, it’s typical of german boxing.
The shitty stance is often reinforced harshly in many gyms. Not that it ever helped german boxing.
I’d even say it produced 10x more damaged shoulders then champs.
[/quote]

I’m curious what stance you’re talking about, and why German boxers would be more prone to shoulder issues?

So fucking true.

x 2

[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
[/quote] You don’t even need to bench in order to end up with shoulder issues like that… A lot of striking with nothing to balance it out (or just crappy pull-ups like so many do, i.e. shoulders rolling forward at the top and so on, no rhomboid/lower/mid trap/rear delt/ext. rotator training) will likely be enough after a while to cause chronic shoulder pain.
My dad treated most of the local boxers in our area as the only doc with experience in sports medicine left there…
[/quote]

Terrifically true.

How can I realistically expect to balance out my volume when I’m throwing 100 punches a round, for 10-15 rounds, 3-4 days a week?

It’s happening to me as well - I can see my arms turning in because of that kind of volume, and I’m doing everything I can to fight against it.

On my upper body days I’m mostly pulling, whether it’s band pullaparts, straight arm pulldowns, pullups, rows, or whatever.

The only pushing I ever do is a couple sets of military press or dumbbell bench, but nothing excessive and only one pushing movement per workout (compared with between 2 to 4 pulling movements.)

It’s not enough, but I’m trying.

What’s the right word- I mean the positioning of your arms, shoulders etc.

It’s pretty universal in gyms all over the world to learn how to protect your whole body up to the chin.
Using the whole arm, standing tight, chin down etc.
But the german coaches I had were anal to the point where guys had trouble finding their groove.

Sometimes you have to loosen up a bit, play with your stance, open up for some power.

It’s no wonder german boxers never move great nor look very inspiring.
And for a lot of them a good defense means only keeping your arms up.

Everyone I taught the basics to learned how roll the shoulder forward, especially with most jabs.

But I think it’s something you can overemphasize.
Same story with ellbows protecting the body, for instance.

[quote]Schwarzfahrer wrote:
Yep, it’s typical of german boxing.
The shitty stance is often reinforced harshly in many gyms. Not that it ever helped german boxing.
I’d even say it produced 10x more damaged shoulders then champs.
But that’s how it is with coaches:

if a teacher whacks a pupil and defends himself with: “That’s my idea of discipline!” they fire his ass.
if a coach ruins an athlete’s health: “Meh, guess he didn’t have what it takes, the whining bitch wanker!”

In MMA, the Diazes show protruding shoulders prominently. It works for them.

CC, you go ahead and post that Waterbury critique, I’m def. interested.

[/quote]

Not sure if I can get away with it man, e-mail me if you want to discuss it a bit. Nothing surprising or anything.

As for the shoulders thing… It can be at least somewhat balanced out via specific (and not particularly recovery-intensive) strength training… But I don’t know if you can nullify the issue entirely, especially over a long career…

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:

[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
[/quote] You don’t even need to bench in order to end up with shoulder issues like that… A lot of striking with nothing to balance it out (or just crappy pull-ups like so many do, i.e. shoulders rolling forward at the top and so on, no rhomboid/lower/mid trap/rear delt/ext. rotator training) will likely be enough after a while to cause chronic shoulder pain.
My dad treated most of the local boxers in our area as the only doc with experience in sports medicine left there…
[/quote]

Terrifically true.

How can I realistically expect to balance out my volume when I’m throwing 100 punches a round, for 10-15 rounds, 3-4 days a week?

It’s happening to me as well - I can see my arms turning in because of that kind of volume, and I’m doing everything I can to fight against it.

On my upper body days I’m mostly pulling, whether it’s band pullaparts, straight arm pulldowns, pullups, rows, or whatever.

The only pushing I ever do is a couple sets of military press or dumbbell bench, but nothing excessive and only one pushing movement per workout (compared with between 2 to 4 pulling movements.)

It’s not enough, but I’m trying.

[/quote]

What sort of periodization do you use on those pulling exercises/what sort of progress have you made?

There’s also technique to consider (very important here to both avoid further injury and get the right training effect as well as allow for progression)… I’d like to discuss this more, but the thing is… I don’t train fighters either… Not the kind who use their fists etc anyway. So take what I say for what it’s worth…

[quote]Schwarzfahrer wrote:
What’s the right word- I mean the positioning of your arms, shoulders etc.
[/quote] Posture? [quote]
It’s pretty universal in gyms all over the world to learn how to protect your whole body up to the chin.
Using the whole arm, standing tight, chin down etc.
But the german coaches I had were anal to the point where guys had trouble finding their groove.

Sometimes you have to loosen up a bit, play with your stance, open up for some power.

It’s no wonder german boxers never move great nor look very inspiring.
And for a lot of them a good defense means only keeping your arms up.

Everyone I taught the basics to learned how roll the shoulder forward, especially with most jabs.

But I think it’s something you can overemphasize.
Same story with ellbows protecting the body, for instance.[/quote]

Rolling the shoulders forward while striking is dicey from a health perspective, same as doing it when benching (well, sort of similar anyway). When you bench, you don’t want to do it anyway… But when striking, you have to I suppose (hell I’m talking out of my ass on the latter, all I know about fighting with my fists is some crappy combatives we were taught a decade ago, but you get my point).

I’m not certain it can be completely balanced out depending on the specific mechanism of injury you/others are suffering from. If you aren’t injuring your bicep tendons there, then it might be possibly to fix it at least to some degree. But if you always have to roll so hard and your specific shoulder structure causes tendon impingement then, well… Guess you’re screwed tbh.

Damn quote function, I always mess it up…

[quote]Schwarzfahrer wrote:
Chad Waterbury did just that, but lost a lot of credibility with it.

His recommendation was: A (MMA) trainee should strive for triple bw with either deadlift or squat, double bw with bpress.

Primo: That’s way too much weight. Waaay too much, in fact!
In the cold eighties, olympic games were just another front for two rivaling superpowers and their proxies.
Winners were to demonstrate their ideology’s intrinsic superiority.

Coaches were testing everything on their human material. Drugs, exercises, programs etc.
If you destroyed an athlete’s health, nobody shed a tear nor gave a shit.

Sprinters for example were all squatting big weights.
Ben Johnson, one of the fastest ever, was doing 300kg or 600lbs, depending on the source for a few reps.
Let’s assume he was at 190 when not shredding for a contest, so he’s exceeding the recommendation a bit. I bet he was around 180lbs when sprinting.

However, and once again, he was talented as fuck, juiced regularly, and was a specialist competing in a 10second endeavour. And his path was paved with the career-corpses of his teammates.

Today, practically no sprinter does that. They all squat (maybe) half the amount with better control and speed. And they run just as fast.
And they are still supertalented, superspecialized, superdrugged dudes in their prime.

Secundo: The articles were written with MMArtists in mind. The most complex Martial Arts known to men.
Like Xen already wrote, one could argue -with good reason- if use of weights are prudent at all.
People get ugly injuries from one discipline alone- Judo, Muay Thai, Wrestling, these are some injury-laden sports!

Of course Waterbury had some thoughts about conditioning, the usual high volume stuff, which is a bit of a disease in MMA. So throw that on top.

Tertio: No, not one exercise, he’s recommending to pile on the iron with THREE exercises.
I have nothing against benchpress, but most fighters get far too less carryover from it.
Especially when bwx2 is your goal.
Deadlifts and squats are better, but doing both with at least one going for bwx3?
Madness.
What are his recommendations for bodybuilders?
5x bw for benchpress?

If you ask me, an MMA athlete playing with weights should:
Max out his newbie gains.
Do an occasional 2-4 months run when not really training MA, focusing mostly on strength.
Work on his muscular weaknesses and strucural imbalances to get more injury resistant.
Not compare himself with bodybuilders.
[/quote]

well said.

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:

[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
[/quote] You don’t even need to bench in order to end up with shoulder issues like that… A lot of striking with nothing to balance it out (or just crappy pull-ups like so many do, i.e. shoulders rolling forward at the top and so on, no rhomboid/lower/mid trap/rear delt/ext. rotator training) will likely be enough after a while to cause chronic shoulder pain.
My dad treated most of the local boxers in our area as the only doc with experience in sports medicine left there…
[/quote]

Terrifically true.

How can I realistically expect to balance out my volume when I’m throwing 100 punches a round, for 10-15 rounds, 3-4 days a week?

It’s happening to me as well - I can see my arms turning in because of that kind of volume, and I’m doing everything I can to fight against it.

On my upper body days I’m mostly pulling, whether it’s band pullaparts, straight arm pulldowns, pullups, rows, or whatever.

The only pushing I ever do is a couple sets of military press or dumbbell bench, but nothing excessive and only one pushing movement per workout (compared with between 2 to 4 pulling movements.)

It’s not enough, but I’m trying.

[/quote]

Youre also doing pulling when throwing combinations.You are pulling your shoulder back when throwing a punch with other arm.The body is zig zaging.The WHOLE body.
The biomechanics of punching cant be simplified to correlate to something like weightlifting upper body pushing & pulling.

[quote]Cephalic_Carnage wrote:
What sort of periodization do you use on those pulling exercises/what sort of progress have you made?
[/quote]

I do 5/3/1 twice a week, so much of my assistance work is not really the 5 x 10 that Wendler prescribes, but somewhere thereabouts.

Mostly it’s a pretty straightforward way of doing things - i.e., 3 x 15 or more for band pull aparts, higher rep rows, pullups, etc.

I’ve wrestled with a few different injuries this year, and I was making pretty good progress on bent over rows until I fucked my forearm up. Only recently, after months of pain, am I beginning to be able to do as much pulling as I should and want to.

It’s tough, because I only lift for my upper body once a week, so getting enough work to counteract days of boxing inside of 7 or 10 sets of pulling is hard to do.

That’s my log:

http://tnation.T-Nation.com/free_online_forum/blog_sports_body_training_performance_bodybuilding_log/log_o_the_irish?pageNo=17#5159236

I welcome all opinions.

[quote]SKELAC wrote:
Youre also doing pulling when throwing combinations.You are pulling your shoulder back when throwing a punch with other arm.The body is zig zaging.The WHOLE body.
The biomechanics of punching cant be simplified to correlate to something like weightlifting upper body pushing & pulling.[/quote]

That’s very true, I don’t disagree.

But the impact is only on one end - the pushing end. I’m not sure that pulling the arm back is giving the same amount of work that punching a 250 lb. bag 400 times is going to.

Like I said, I’m just trying to balance my strength as much as I can to prevent injury. My shoulders are in bad enough shape as it is haha.

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:

I welcome all opinions. [/quote]

SEE A DOCTOR SEE A DOCTOR SEE A DOCTOR

Oh, you mean opinions that don’t consist of me asking you to find a specialist at least as good at their job as you are at yours?

Ribbing aside, I do have a suggestion that you might try. Should I post it here or in your log?

Regards,

Robert A

EDTA: I wrote it up in your log.

RE: Waterbury’s strength standards.

When I read them initially I chalked it up to one of or a combo of the following:

1.) More theoretical than achieved goals

2.) Waterbury is REALLY good at getting people strong without putting weight on them and what he sees as reasonable but high level goals others see as crazy high

3.) The fiscal consideration that he is better off if people see themselves as “not strong enough” and in need of “coaching” regardless.

Regards,

Robert A

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:

[quote]SKELAC wrote:
Youre also doing pulling when throwing combinations.You are pulling your shoulder back when throwing a punch with other arm.The body is zig zaging.The WHOLE body.
The biomechanics of punching cant be simplified to correlate to something like weightlifting upper body pushing & pulling.[/quote]

That’s very true, I don’t disagree.

But the impact is only on one end - the pushing end. I’m not sure that pulling the arm back is giving the same amount of work that punching a 250 lb. bag 400 times is going to.

Like I said, I’m just trying to balance my strength as much as I can to prevent injury. My shoulders are in bad enough shape as it is haha.[/quote]

FWIW, striking and hitting someone is somewhat like getting punched in the shoulder yourself… By your own upper arm bone… Well, sort of.

So you are causing blunt force trauma to parts of your shoulder joint that way…

There are several mechanics of injury at play in striking-related shoulder issues, some you may be able to balance out with strength training, others I don’t think you can balance out (blunt trauma to the socket, bicep tendon grinding between bones with your arm extended and shoulder rounded)…

I have some ideas here, but I’ll have to wait until after I’ve had a good night’s sleep before I discuss them, I’m no good right now… Too much caffeine, too little rest.

Fighting Irish-

I always smile when I say that -cuz Im a black irish bastard.
my shoulder right now are feeling good

in my chiropractic school drop out voice-
I ask how do you sleep - not in some ghey bodybuilding forum call out way
but do you sleep on your stomach- back or side

sleeping on your side keeps the shoulder -impinged for several hours a night.
sleeping on your stomach - makes you turn your head to one side-
not exactly good for cranial or shoulder posture either

I have made big progress with my own shoulders-
broken collar bone Ac separation and like you a shoulder that has popped out at will.

here is what helps if you go to O35 I have it all in the mobility sticky-
with vids
scap pushups - basically retraction
wall slides - just an activation move
lytp or ytlw how ever you do it do them.
high rep face pulls in the 15 to 30 range with retraction
seated db ‘cleans’ from Joe defracno I will post his video-

these will add some volume and mass to your upper back and rear shoulder girdle
I wont name the muscles its silly .