How important is weightlifting for competitive MMA fighting?

**Nord** · Posted On: 10/08/2007 4:47am

I remember when I asked if bodybuilders would make great martial artists and everyone made fun of me. It's good to see you all have finally figured it out! :)

**Teh El Macho** · Posted On: 10/08/2007 6:36am

Originally Posted by Nord

I remember when I asked if bodybuilders would make great martial artists and everyone made fun of me.

We made fun of you because you are fucktard and because you don't know how to read. Apparently, you still don't know how to read.

Originally Posted by Nord

It's good to see you all have finally figured it out! :)

The position is the same. Bodybuilding doesn't help. Olympic weightlifting, powerlifting and similar methods of strenght training do.

You still fail in reading comprehension. And you are still a retard. So let's make fun of you. HAHAHAHAHAHA snort HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! TARD!!!! HAHAHAHAHAH snort snort HAHAHA!

**NoMan** · Posted On: 10/08/2007 6:46am

GIJoe is correct. Ideally, a weight-lifting routine would be composed of various meso-cycles and you would know roughly when you would want to compete. At the most basic level, it's a tapering from General lifting to Specific exercises designed for your sport. Let's say you want to start fighting in six months, and have no weight-lifting background.

Cycle one would start you off on the conditioning phase of training. Since you're untrained, you'd spend probably about three months at this level. Initially, you'd start off lifting and conditioning the stabilizer muscles and doing the large muscle lifts. Squats, deadlifts, back/glute extensions, crunches, rows, etc. If you haven't lifted before, you're going to see major gains when you first start off. (Unfortunately, it doesn't continue, so don't get discouraged when you start seeing the results taper off.) You'd do general aerobics and conditioning to improve your aerobic conditioning which has a cross-over to other forms of endurance.

People who already close to their limit strength would spend less time doing the conditioning cycle than people who are new to lifting.

Cycle two would put you in the competitive cycle. Here, you'd focus more on plyometrics, glycolytic endurance training, bag work, speed training, chute running, etc. The goal here is to convert limit strength to explosive strength.

Cycle three: In-season cycle. Depends on how good you are at cutting weight and when your coach thinks you need to focus solely on the fight. Training here will almost all be sport-specific, glycolytic, and concentrated. Once you start dieting, you won't have much energy to recover from heavy training, so everything you do needs to be concentrated. Work closely with your coach on this phase.

If I may pull out a line graph here to demonstrate the importance of proper training, (click on the attachment), and quote myself with modifications:

One: The Angle of "Q"

The Q angle tells you how many muscle fibers you have recruited for an eccentric movement. For example, prior to throwing a hook, you twist your body to the left on the lead side, thus eccentrically contracting them prior to throwing your punch. You do the same thing when throwing a baseball, bowling, yada yada. You lengthen the muscle group involved to generate force and movement. Amongst trained athletes, this angle will be steeper as they recruit more muscle fibers in the eccentric phase than non-trained athletes.

Two: The angle of "A".

The "A" angle tells you if you are increasing speed expotentially, (which is optimal and is an indicator of a high level of physical fitness), increasing speed at the same rate, or losing speed over a period of time.

This is important for the competitve phase of training. Anytime you lift weights, you slow down on the last 1/3 of the lift because your body anticipates lockout. You were genetically designed this way, and if you weren't, you'd hurt yourself lifting weights. Plyometrics does not have a lockdown phase, hence, the reason why time and again research has shown that plyometrics is the most effective way to increase speed.

This is also the reason it's important to have strong antagonistic muscle groups, because they will begin contracting to oppose the motion of the agonist muscle group sooner to overcome the inertia of the stronger muscles.

Force: The amount of force you are capable of producing at a given time is your F-MAX. If you throw a punch in .7 seconds, F-max is how much force you are capable of generating in .7 seconds. If you lift a weight, you generally take much longer to generate the force necessary than .7 seconds. Watch someone max on a squat lift or bench press and it usually takes 3-5 seconds to generate the force, which is too long for most sports movements.

This is why athletes lift explosively, to try to generate maximum force in minimum time as they would in an athletic movement. This is also why plyometrics helps produce explosive movements, because the muscles do not need the average 3 seconds per lift as you do in weight lifting, they respond and react quickly to external stimula.

Time: T-max on the graph. How long does it take you to complete a movement? The faster your punches get, the less time you have to summon muscle fibers. Hence haymakers are powerful but slow.

This introduces the relationship between time and strength. Power equals force / time. The faster you can punch while recruiting the same amount of muscle fibers is equal to a tremendously powerful punch by physic standards.

Limit strength: The important thing about lifting weights. If you train explosively and manage to recruit 90% limit strength and your limit strength is let's say 100, (for ease of my math skills). Then you can hit with 90 lbs. of force. If your limit strength is 150 and you only have 80% limit strength recruited on a movement, you'd hit at 120 lbs. of force, 30 lbs. harder. It's very important in fighting, wrestling, etc.

Summarization of forces: Just means how well you integrate all of your body movements into a single motion. Or what we would call "Technique", in this scenario, not relevant to the discussion.

**Teh El Macho** · Posted On: 10/08/2007 8:35am

Nice post NoMan.

To the OP, weight training should not be your predominant form of training. I mean, if that's what you want, more power to you, but weight training should not be a substitute to MA training.

However, you will most likely need some form of weight training at some point in your MA training. It is just not for strenght, but also for injury prevention. Assuming you also train for flexibility (which anyone should), stronger musculature and muscular balance (which doesn't necessarily imply being big) will produce stronger bones, but most importantly, stronger ligaments that can withstand the rigors of your training, minimizing your risk of injury, thus increasing your time devoted for MA training on the long run.

I'd like cross-reference this with the following two related discussions we have had in the PT forums:

Being muscular makes you gas?
http://www.bullshido.net/forums/showthread.php?t=60938

Cutting out MA in favour of weights... to improve MA?
http://www.bullshido.net/forums/showthread.php?t=59988

In particular, see the following posts made on the second thread (as well as LI GUY 1 and GIJoe6186's):

(quoting Rhadi Ferguson)
http://www.bullshido.net/forums/show...62&postcount=8

(quoting Yrkoon9 on strenght training for injury prevention)
http://www.bullshido.net/forums/show...76&postcount=9

(quotes from different fighters regarding weight training for MA)
http://www.bullshido.net/forums/show...1&postcount=26

**yodaman** · Posted On: 10/08/2007 12:53pm

Well I think they got everything covered here, but yeah, it's important. Rule of thumb is to stick with free weight exercises over machines and similar apparatuses.

**Emevas** · Posted On: 10/08/2007 3:13pm

Originally Posted by LI GUY 1

"Weightlifting" is not that important. Weight Lifting is. Weightlifting is Olympic style lifting. Weightl lifting is the general term that includes anything really such as weightlifting, powerlifting, bodybuilding etc.

I'm in love with you dude. It always annoys me when people call all manner of weight training "Weightlifting", from bodybuilding to powerlifting to bench/curls.

**meataxe** · Posted On: 10/08/2007 6:34pm

Some good answers... Just on general principals, I'd say that weight lifting is essential for someone who wants to compete... BUT for someone just starting out, I think it is not that important. I have seen cases where strength actually gets in the way of learning a skill. Not for all people and not necessarily for *you*, but it is a risk.

**Cullion** · Posted On: 10/08/2007 7:20pm

I think it depends whether your class has partners of equal or greater strength. In a class where the people you're trying to pull off techniques on also lift for functional strength I don't think getting sloppy by getting away with muscling through would be such an issue.

**Emevas** · Posted On: 10/08/2007 7:37pm

*cries over functional strength*

**Raining_Blood** · Posted On: 10/09/2007 5:12am

I agree with what has been said previously that lifting weights can be very beneficial to your sport performance. Keep in mind however that all the sample workout structures follow a modified western (linear) periodization scheme and while I will not go into the merits of this scheme just remember there are others, which potentially could be more beneficial. Examples of these include undulating periodization and conjugated periodization. However a linear periodization system is very good for beginners and allows for quick and safe progress but later down the track just be aware that there are other options.