Answering Your Combat Sports/MMA Strength & Conditioning Questions 

I'm still laughing at this 🤣

that was 2 years ago maybe even 3

literally just watched it today as a fan of both sports was cool to see

Their physiques definitely have nothing to do with BJJ being full of Saucy Bois.

Me too. I find it’s a good way to get volume for my quads without any axial loading

@@leftphilange69 yup. Just load up the quads with a shit ton of blood at the end of your session. Feels great

@@dmhunter15 yeah for sure. I just can’t get that burn on squats without doing like a 20 rep set that absolutely destroys me… My theory is that quads respond better to higher rep ranges because we use them so often for walking that they naturally have a lot of endurance, like wrist, ankle, and shoulder musculature which people often say the same about. I don’t know if there’s any scholarly articles delving into this topic tho - this is purely an anecdotal assessment

@@leftphilange69 sounds logical

I think it makes sense to focus on strength for your strength work and then do supplementary grip work.

@@armedjoy3045 yeah I normally just do DOH for my deads until I can't then I swap to mixed. Axle comes in during back down work. I was just disagreeing with them saying they don't think it transfers well

I don't think you're disagreeing with them at all. They are arguing that you should train your grip on the specific diameter you want to get better at i.e. if you want to grip a pullup bar better, hang from something with the same diameter as it. You're saying the same thing: your axle bar improved your grip on things with a similar diameter to the axle, like wrists and thick rope. You're both agreeing specificity is king. They aren't saying gripping thick stuff is useless. They're saying don't grip thick stuff to get better at gripping thin stuff, or vice versa.

Lets see if they will answer this but I think it is simply more mass = more fatigue. Especially if it is dead weight, fat. If body fat percentage is too low, this will of course affect performance negatively even with secret sauce to compensate. Having fat doesn’t mean you are not fit with good capacity, you are likely just eating too many calories. In the fight I think Fury was in part able to tire out Wilder by leaning on him and using close to 20kg? Weight difference

@@horizonforevergold I would tend to believe that as well, but it seems to be more than just "more mass." It's specifically more muscle mass. That seems pretty counter-intuitive to me, because you don't have to use 100% of your muscle strength in every movement. In my mind the formula would be something like fatigue incriment=intensity of movement*mass moved, so a leaner lighter boxer should (on average) tire out less (assuming the intensity of their movements are comparable), but that didn't seem to happen with Wilder/Fury. It's a common Boxing/MMA thing to worry about getting "too muscular" which sounds like nonsense in the heavyweight ranks, but it does play out that way pretty often. Maybe it's a metabolism thing? 1st store of energy is ATP, then newly digested carbs, then...? Fat?

@@drewe51 I think it has a lot to do with how they throw their punches. Wilder puts 100% max effort or very close to it into every attempt at a knockout blow (look at how Wilder literally flies through the air with the effort he puts into some of his punches). No matter how good your cardio is if you go 100% at every shot you will tire very quickly. Fury on the other hand never really puts 100% into a shot. He uses volume and positioning. Even his knockout shots aren't 100%. Think GSP vs someone like Tyron Woodley. They're both very muscular at the same weight class but their endurance and volume are opposites partially because of the way they fight. Another aspect is just conditioning. Muscle or lack of muscle does not always indicate endurance. Size is just one aspect of what can make someone tire out. Strategy and being put in uncomfortable positions can have a much bigger effect. How many people did Khabib drown on the ground that had amazing cardio? Gaethje was done after one round despite him being a machine in every other fight he's had.

Interesting question. Two of the three boxing/kickboxing gyms I’ve been at had us do this regularly, and I would say that it definitely strengthened my wrist strength, especially in extension which helps keep the fist tight when you hit the corner of the hand or on an awkward angle, or very hard or whatever. but I don’t know if it had any effect on the bone density/integrity of the bones of the hand. It did get less painful over time so there was a bit of a numbing effect.

They have a training program for combat sports on their website, if you want to check that out.

A lot of martial artists swear by this. I do it myself and find it strengthens my feet and ankle musculature better than in shoes. As well, I feel like I have a better “anchoring” in the ground when I have my bare feet on the ground - more proprioceptive feedback and easier to grip with the toes, which is especially important for striking and even more so with grappling where you need to use your feet as hands, essentially

Squat high bar

With your feet together

Have a look at throwing core development, especially shot and disc as they follow the resist, brace, and rotate classification of core exercises within the execution of the sport so their training is definitely highly relevant for you it seems

There's a bit here: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-_HHJqMwA9kg.html

I suppose that was too vague, I'm interested on the topic of strength work eroding rotational ability and how to mitigate that risk.

@@danielghesquiere2011 I wouldn't see how strength work would decrease the athletes ability to rotate, if anything it would be net neutral at worst assuming they're still doing the rest of their training whatever that is, in the case of fighting it being kicking and striking

@@electivirethrows4298 likely motor learning among other things. Go to your local powerlifting gym and have some laughs at their rotational competency. Less worried about improving rotation, more interested in not losing it as an attribute during long strength blocks.

He's not here yet, I'm worried.

I have a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. Daire coaches and has coached athletes in martial arts for S&C. We help athletes of all sports. However sound information is sound information. Use it or not at your own discretion. It'll only effect you.

From some of their comments elsewhere I’m pretty confident they’ve done S&C for combat sport athletes, but don’t have much personal experience. I know for a fact they train powerlifters and crossfitters as well as oly lifters.

Awareness. You heard what you wanted 🤣