Its a kinda stupid thing to say because its so obvious , i dont know anyone who thinks technique equals lack of strength. Like who is that quote even meant for?
Sometime ago, I read about Mike Tyson's strength training program. Allegedly, the guy did very high volume of basic but tough calisthenics like pull ups, chin ups, push ups, dips, sit ups, body weight squats, and bridging. I venture to say this was true because the guy had a very well rounded physique especially the posterior chain. He had big, powerful glutes, his legs were like tree trunks, his back and traps were solid. The high volume of pull ups would have definitely contributed to that devastating punching power he was known for.
Also consider that many old school boxers were against weightlifting. Cus may very well have been of that school if boxing. Now that's all speculation but the timeframe fits and it would lend credence. To Tyson using exclusively body weight exercises.
He did that earlier in his training...BUT I read he started lifting weights. I don’t think it’s possible to get a good posterior chain with just calisthenics
Thanks a lot man I just spent an hour down the rabbit hole of Mike Tysons training program…. No seriously thank you LOL. Me and my Shifu both agree that Mike is and accidental internal martial arts master. In that he may be a boxer, but his movements are unified, so when Mike hits you, it is his whole body that is landing in those punches. I am a Tai Chi guy that actually has a good teacher, that says things like; “You can’t let go of your strength, if you don’t have any Strength to let go of.” And “Knowing a hundred forms is useless, without sparring.” Cheers Bud👍
This is why Ramsey is a great martial artist , he breaks it down. I been saying this for years about grappling the most important fundamental skill of grappling is strength. For every martial art it can differ but the physically stronger a grappler is the more efficient he is, look at khabib he’s soo dominant because no body can OUTMUSCLE HIM . look at the tibau fight where he fought someone with similar strength. Grappling is a STRENGTH based art , and the best way to defend against is it to be stronger.
I was listening to Martial Arts Journey and one of the BJJ instructors tried to downplay strength training by saying "A few tricks and explosive power can get you to a blue or purple belt but once you get up there it's all technique" and he doesn't seem to understand that covers the overwhelming majority of scenarios you can expect to fight a person outside of high level competitive BJJ.
Every time if somebody tells me don't use your muscle to win, use technic, I lay down and try to aply any technic without moving a single muscle. Bjj is like chess. But somebody has more figures and can move more times in a row.
@@katokianimation That's just petty. Is strength importand? Of course it is but if you allways use your strength angainst weaker training partners you wont be able to work on your technique and will be worse of facing an opponent as strong as you. Now get rid of your ego, stop trying to win angaist your training partners and start learning from them.
If that was true I wouldn't be able to beat guys 20+ kilos heavier than me in jiu jitsu. The most important skill of grappling is directing force at the appropriate vectors. If you add strenght you have more force to apply, but you still need to know where to apply it in order to be successful. Khabib is not champion because of strength, he is champion for knowing how and where to use his strength. Just look at his fight with RDA, who is bigger than him and moved up in weight later but still got absolutely dominated.
@@imizaru9929 you didn't get the point. Your goal should be as fast, as heavy-duty and strong as possible and using your body in the most efficent way. That is your personal maximum. Try out muhay thai, they don't tell you don't use your speed use technic instead. Or don't punch with speed and strength, punch with technic. Because that dosen't make any sense. If I hold your wrist and pull, the stronger I'm harder will be for you to do what you want. If I'm pushing your body down, the stronger I'm the harder will be to you to sweep.
highly recommend weighted chinups. INCREDIBLE upper body strength exercise with a lot of application to martial arts, while also working the bro muscles like biceps a tonne.
GA GANG thanks Bro😪 I used to be able to do a good amount of push ups but now I can barley do 10. But I’m on my way back and then I can try doing weighted calisthenics.
I’m not a fighter but I get on physical confrontations almost daily and I believe using the gymnastic rings for my upper body training and doing heavy deadlifts are the 2 biggest factors for giving me a huge edge over my opponents I’ve literally picked up and carried grown men with ease and easily over power them on the ground because due to the instability of the rings I have strength and leverage on any plain and any angle
Preparing for my first muay thai fight and been trying to rethink my training schedule to get the most out of the time I get in the gym. This video was incredibly valuable, thank you!
hey, iam not a fighter of any sort, i started 3 years ago with physical training. starting from less than couch potato level with the age of 36. thin body type, no muscles at all but lots of fat. the first year was terrible, almost no visual progress and a single training day could destroy my muscles for an entire week. today i can run 5km in a half hour and while iam still thin, there is probably 66% less fat on my body and i didnt lose weight in the progress, so there is some actual visible muscle gain. your videos helped me a lot to find the right way (for me) to do it. especially that one video where you said stuff like "doing something , anything is better than doing nothing. doing it on a regular schedule is better than doing a lot for a short period of time and then experiencing a loss of morale" and so on. most things you said in this video also align with my experience. except one thing. lifting heavy weights vs training based on your own body weight. in my experience there is a pretty high chance for any sorts of injuries when training with weights. its probably because of my low fitness level and that i am not 20 anymore or missing training knowledge, but it feels like there is almost no downtime when doing body weight based training. sore muscles regenerate much faster, usually within a day. never hurting tendons or hurting joints. overall my impression is that the progress is higher and more consistent when training without weights. lifting something slightly too heavy one time or lifting it wrong can make training impossible for weeks. that works against the "do something and do it often" rule.
I understand what you say about risk of injury when using weight. But I disagree, at least compared with my own experience. I started weight lifting after watching Ramsey video about that few months ago. I just wanted to give it a try, after about 8 years of cardio/calisthenic. After only a few months of inconsistent training (only once every two or three weeks) based on deadlifts, pullups, rowing, my strength drastically raised. I did not get injuries at all since I started with low weights, about 40 kg for the deadlift to get confortable with the technic. Now I lift 80 for 5 sets of 12 reps. As in body weight exercice technic is really important before considering the amount of weight to avoid injury. In my opinion now, their is no more risks of injury with weights. And maybe less because the rapid and solig gains of strength with lifting weight training allow me to have less back pain and exhaustion in martial arts training and everyday life. Hope you'll consider to give it a try as well !
Good advice. Everyone’s goals and recovery are different. At 56 yo, and with no more desire to compete, I focus on recovery. Squats and deadlifts are great, but they tend to dig really deep into recovery of both muscle and the central nervous system. That said, if you find the right frequency and intensity, they are great. For most people , not pros, one session a week of squatting or deadlifting can be sufficient, along with your martial arts training. Recovery dominated training is something not talked about enough. Also, remember, if you are competing, and tend to get bigger when you strength train, you may bump your weight class up. This might be ok if you were weak at a certain weight, but if you end up facing an opponent who is a natural heavyweight at 6’1 and you are a 5’10” natural middle who bulked up, you are a a disadvantage.
Gymnastics rings are king for the upper body. Squats and deadlifts to go along with it. I agree with this video. Haven't seen your stuff since the Mr Wong beef. Forgot how insightful you were, thanks for sharing! 👌🏼
"Technique is the intelligent application of strength and power", I would replace "intelligent" with "efficient", but this is a very good definition of technique. Well done! Nice video, as usual.
Lots of great exercises to choose from. Squats, deads, weightlifting (c+J and snatches), calisthenics, etc. Lots of fun stuff that will benefit you as a fighter and just overall. Tire flips, sled pushes, sled pulls, and farmer's walks will get you really strong, too. Can you imagine grappling against a guy who knows what he is doing and has that insane strongman grip strength? That'd be crazy.
Haha, he gave the answer I would give. Leg and back strength> all. Just to be a contrarian, if you get big enough from bodybuilding and powerlifting, you probably don't have to fight at all, most people will be too scared to fight.
@@ianstiehl1994 Bouncers are usually bigger and can use their strenght without knowing how to fight + they are in group. Most of them can't fight, and if you put an average dude that wasn't drunk, good chance he could win, but then again, bonucer is more than one person. Strenght and size has a deffo impact on handling things, but you see a lot of bouncers getting beat up by people as well. A group of people beating up a group of bouncers. But then again, this is more of street, so if you're a bouncer you might get a chair on your head.
@@aurelianspodarec2629 Yup. Pretty much. A dogpile of big guys, possibly wearing body armor, will beat even a well-trained drunk guy pretty much any day.
@@ianstiehl1994 Yeah of course. What kind of bouncers wear bodyarmor tho? Maybe in the US lol That would be beneficial if it was steal plate with absorbtion, but that'd be costly. Plus I see a lot of pepople or the police being kicked in the head and going to the sleep, but it still good to not have bones broken on your chest xd Tho I barery see body armor on the police here : p and even less a body armor thats suitable for hand to hand combat.
@@aurelianspodarec2629 Yup. Welcome to America, shooting gallery extraordinaire. Every officer on patrol: Level 2-3A soft body armor. The bouncers in the suburban nightclub down the street: level 2-3A soft body armor. And yeah, body armor doesn't stop a concussion, but it adds a level of intimidation factor, and protects against knives pretty well. But yeah, to get into the club just near my house, you're gonna get patted down by a 215 (minimum) to 300lb guy in armor. Granted, I've sparred with a few of them (I'm about 5'11" and 200lbs myself, but quite lean and former military), and most aren't great fighters. But they will ALL pile on you. Still though, if you ever see a small bouncer at a club...he's the one you don't wanna fuck with. He's not there because he looks intimidating. He's the guy who is there purely on the merits of his ability to handle a muthafucka.
As a longtime coach, and lifetime martial artist, I agree with this. The only thing I would add, is organize a periodization schedule to maximize your potential in your weakest aspect of development. Much love Coach Ramsey!
Regarding calisthenics, Ive been playing with resistance bands. It can cut your workout time in half. Man, the bands and floor sliderz, thats all you need! I love these things.
You can use bands for barbells as well. Buzzfeed did that MMA video and the guys trainer attached them to the bench to better simulate the strain of punches. He's trained world champion boxers and you see it on other trainers so I think it's fairly common.
Altering the strength curve of conventional barbell movements with bands and reverse bands to be more explosive/more applicable to the exact point in the movement you need the strength most for your sport or the area you are weaker in the movement is some very S+C nerdy stuff and I'm glad to see it being mentioned among a world that usually approaches S+C with a lot of hoodoo.
I feel that they all are important. I base this more off my experience in as a US Army infantry soldier then actual combative sports. Here's why: 1. Wieght lifting / power lifters that had no other physical background could bench 110% of their wieght 25-35 times straight. When doing a push up they were lucky to get 8 or 10 good reps with perfect form off. Not knocking powerlifting, but alone it does not determine true physical performance. Strongman - while a rarity in service, these power houses seem to suffer most when flexibility was required to complete the course. Which can be corrected for with training. The third does develop flexibility, but as a stand alone, you won't make it without building the muscles to go beyond average physical strength. While almost everyone sucked, training for combat we needed our bodies to work in unison; we needed have the strength, flexibility, coordination, a d endurance to survive.
@@hahadasitmane yes, bench pressing does help preform push ups. However, when you don't preform pushs-up or any push-ups for that matter to US Army standards: hands no more/less then shoulder width apart, head and eyes straight forward (no looking straight at the ground or lowering your head down), body form straight and in unison (no sagging or arching of the back/mid section), elbows breaking the plain (pretty much bouncing your chest off the ground) and must return to the up position in unison for a single rep to count. Your body is a network of muscles. A push up at most is 60-70% of your body weight. However, doing just a weight lifting will not train your muscles the coordination to preform such a precise rep. Muscle memory will revert to trying to bench press weights will mess the form up. A reason solution to the problem is simple. Do the exercise the way it's graded. Weight lifting alone will not build the coordination, endurance, and flexibility needed for real world combat or a graded exercise. Think of it like a person who has only done body weight training going to the gym. Chances of that dude lifting anything over 150% over their own bodyweight is laughable at best. While the prior training isn't useless, they need to train to become better. The physical fitness shock from going from infantry basic training to actual line units is no less extreme. Running with gas masks, full weighed kit obstacle courses and physical training, and developing specific martial arts for fighting with a M4 that mirrors the development of sword/Lance specific arts of Europe and Asia. Another example is fighting skills. With a M4 all I have is week one striking and grappling skills. Nothing to go to my MMA gym and talk smack. That's a sad joke and known it. With a M4, I am pretty leathal in close quarters next to the same guys at the MMA gym in close quarters fighting. The context, and situation matter a lot. No one is getting into gun fights at high noon. So my fight art is pretty damn useless except in rare occasions. Just because a weight lifter can not do a push up due to having little/no prior experience doing the exercise does not mean they are unable. It just means they have to apply themselves to correct the fault or be defeated.
im sorry but I find it unlikely your first point is real. Bench Press Strength is directly coorelated to push uo strength. In push ups you push around 63% of your bodyweight. If you can bench your bodyweight for 20 reps, you can do over 30 push ups. I dont know why you would lie about this or youre just plainly missinformed.
When it comes to resistance training, don't limit yourself. In the 20th Century many fighters did calisthenics alone and did brilliantly. In ancient Greece fighters would train like strongmen and were legendary for their grappling strength. Bruce Lee worked under the barbell 3 times a week and he was the definition of a beast. It all works, and the differences are so nuanced that they barely matter when it comes to fighting as there are too many other factors to consider.
All the basic compound barbell patterns (Squat, Bench, Deadlift, OHP, Row) plus weighted chinups and pullups are the tried and true best strength gainers for your time. Big agree on training grip specifically being important for grapplers. Would also add preventative training like face pulls for shoulder health and finger extensors for injury/overtraining prevention for grip. Finger tendon training, rock climber style would be worthwhile over the very long-term for anybody who participates in a gi sport.
I always come away from your videos with a fresh perspective on my training routine. Constantly tweaking and experimenting. Evolving. Thank you for your articulate and thought provoking advice 💪💣
Agree! For my Sanda students 60% mobylity/bodyweight and 40% weightlifting/kettlebells, etc... "Posture" great point there! Posterior chain and core training 👌👌👌
Turning 54 I would say lifting to max will take its toll on your body as you age. I would train mid weight and multiple exercise for whole body workout with the benefit of conditioning and stamina. Lifting this way reduced the stress on my joints and increased my cardio. I like the idea of lower stress but high volume to exhaust the muscle. Get creative and push your body to increase your heart rate to withstand higher loads of stress in the cardio department.
Thank you so very much for this! For some time, I too have been trying to find what strength exercises I must work on that's functional to martial arts (now that I know it's *mainly* squats, deads and pullups). Your 90 mins of strength/conditioning + 90 minutes of technique/sparring would be optimal!
Excellent breakdown of the popular strength training styles mixing in with MMA style. I'm from the bodybuilding / powerlifting world myself, last week I officially decided to jump into the Muay Thai world. Total beginner, nothing competitive. I'm going to start off with a 3-day split of Mon. Wed. Fri. Resistance training Tues . Thurs. (And Sat ) Muay Thai sessions. I think that's an even balance ⚡
I love Ramsey Dewey he's a great man. He's also the exact same size as me. But he's still got more muscle than I do seeing as hes been at it for years longer than me
Wait a minute that my question ! Ramsey thank you so much for answering my question you are always very helpful !!! i will focus on your tips and do the same thing still apply for someone who wants to move up a weight class? from (70KG to 77KG) or do you have to just eat on a calorie surplus and keep improving on your exercises? i know you have personal experience with this going from 100lb to 187lb while staying lean!
I practiced that guillotine defense you showed in the video with a couple of my training buddies. Worked like a charm. I found it easy to target my elbow into the femoral nerve. Even light pressure and strikes had them repositioning their legs in such a way that made transitioning into half guard very easy. It probably wouldn't have worked as well if they had focused more on controlling my legs or rolling me over. Regardless, it beats getting choked! Thanks Ramsey.
I'm looking at the book on Amazon due to you mentioning it. I will most likely buy it because it's Smokin Joe's book. Out of curiosity on the boxers workout that it outlines, is it all calisthenics?
@@fortitudinemethonorem4088 Yup, it's all the normal boxing exercises like bagwork, jumping rope, sparring and shadow boxing with sit ups, push ups and pull ups at end of every session. Old timers didn't believe in weights. This book isn't some amazing piece of insight like Jack Dempsey's book on boxing, I'd even call it a bit basic, but it's definitely worth a read if you're a fan of Joe (and want to read him give tips on defense while simultaneously talking shit about Ali catching hooks).
Just wanted to add that strength can be beneficial to endurance as any force you produce is a lower % of you maximum exertion and therefore can be done more times(a point taken from mark Rippetoe). I allso watched a video on a few studies where scientists took elite endurance runners and cyclists, put them on 4 weeks( I think) of some sord of pure strenght program (like 3×3 or 3×4 half squats) and their race times went down( I think it's Pavel Tsatsoulines video). P.S. literarly continued watching the video and 10 seconds in Ramsey touches on it...
I love Atlas stones, tire flips and sledgehammering the tire. Atlas stones are insanely good for post chain and hip extension, explosive power , just recently made my own, epic. Also love calisthenics, mastering your own bodyweight is a great implement in mma, and powerlifting is just as it sounds, power. Great content man.
I'm so glad i came across this. I had juat gotten out of bjj and I was kind of struggling today. I was landing my sweeps, but the guya were just much faster and stronger than I and would scramble out before i could get the dominant position like from scissor sweep or I would just get smashed to the point where i was stuck on bottom and fighting subs until I was exhausted. My muscles(especially forearms ) were just fatigued to the point where I couldn't explode out of them. I realized that i need to go back to my roots a little bit with just basic training. Thanks for reaffirming that.
This is purely anecdotal, but I used to be into barbell training until I sparred a guy who was a state champion power lifter. I could hardly feel his strength at all when sparring. I was really baffled. I weighed 150 lb at the time and he could bench literally 3x me, but I would never have guessed it. On the other hand, there was another guy at the gym only a little bigger than me that would just steam roll everyone. It was absurd. When I asked about his supplementary training he told me sled drags, and lifting, throwing, and carrying heavy sandbags. The first time I tried one of his workouts I almost died. Crazy hard cardio and muscular endurance. Whole body was sore for a week. No wonder he was kicking our asses. I became a big believer in this kind of training after that experience.
You are refreshing. It seems like there is a rule in martial arts were saying strength helps in a fight is forbidden. In fact, it seems like its a requirement to adamantly deny that it helps at all. Meanwhile, super strong wrestlers (with no striking or submission experience) who convert over to MMA seem to do really well for some reason right out of the gate and also the UFC decided to use weight classes, I guess just for fun? Meanwhile, fighters are constantly trying to get a measly 10lbs weight advantage for each of their fights by doing dangerous water cutting. Seems pretty extreme if they didn't feel that extra 10lbs mattered.
I am a really tiny person, 164cm and 50kg now - 21 yo but I can really relate to this issue. I remember how I felt confident because of my strength (I was deadlifting 3x my weight at the age of 15... benching 160% my body weight and so on and even some adults couldn’t lift what I did despite a significant size difference and I remember how it made me feel confident. I trained martial arts so I was easily whooping the other kids and could even train with older guys (20-25) then I turned like 19 and I started doing properly with adults and I see what you’re talking about. It is about being good where you need to and at the same time it could mislead you. Very very tough one to do. Thank you for another great content!
Have never done martial arts in my life but am pretty strong for a 120~ pound guy, can attest that it has been a saving grace for when fights actually happen
By the end of the video, I subscribed. Your wisdom is of a rare type. You are a role model for many of us who wish to learn martial arts and your honesty on technique and many other related fields is a notable element that makes you stand out in the martial arts RU-vid community. It is very much appreciated. Keep it up.
Very interesting channel you have here. Before I found your channel, I watched a lot of MindSmash but I can only take so much because he talks so fast and is sometimes incoherent. I like how you actually face the camera and answer questions very deliberately and patiently. You really know how yo break it down.
Unsurprisingly enough, that thing that you said about punches being about pulling the opposite part of your body have improved my punches by a LOT. The difference between pushing the same side or pulling the opposite is insane!
Thanks for the upload bro. Good recommendation there bro. Squats work the posterior & anterior chain but tend to favour the anterior more especially if you have the high bar on top of the traps so that you lean forward a bit. Deadlifts are posterior chain dominant which is used in every strike & most takedown techniques. Pull-ups again requires full body dynamic tension ergo great for posture and wrestling strength. Strongman events differ a lot you have static such as deadlifts and mobility based evens such a axle carries & yodels. As you touched upon such events are great for recruiting more muscle fibres in a different manner: also; they have direct application imagine it was not a 150 -200 kg stone you had to bear hug & carry for as long as you can maintain a grip; but it was a mere 90 kg human being, their struggling would not deter you much. Putting together a relevant training regime needs requires planning & understanding which is why professional athletes have more than one coach. As an example pre camp you would be c.v. dominant along with strength work and applications (zero hard sparring) then at start of camp you might do: 2 weeks focus on aerobic conditioning alongside weights ( e.g. bodyweight) exercises designed to work on lactic capacity, and so on. Checkout Phil Daru for more fighter focused training advice & AthleneX for greater understanding of body mechanics & Shredded Sports Science for up to date health & fitness science information. Peace & Love.
Basic Full Body Program 1) Some kind of Squat 2) Some kind of Deadlift 3) A Horizontal Press (Bench, Dips, etc.) 4) A Horizontal Pull (Rows) 5) A Vertical Press (Military Press, Push Press, etc.) 6) A Vertical Pull (Pull-ups, Pull-downs, etc.) To this one might add some explosive movements (Cleans, Snatches, Swings, Box Jumps, etc), Carrys, Core Work (Overhead Squats, Turkish get-ups, etc.) and/or other assistance work (Rear Delt Rows, Bent-over Laterals, etc.). PS) Of course, you don't need to perform every exercise in your program every time you strength train. Nor is it generally best to use bodybuilding style splits (chest and triceps, back and biceps, etc.). Instead I'd suggest something like upper/lower, legs/push/pull, or just doing two or three different full-body workouts like Squat/Bench/Row on a Monday and Press/Pull-up Deadlift later in the week.
absolutely love the explanation on proper posture and how it can have great affect on your stance and movements, ive recently started watching your videos and like a good book i cant seem to put them down. I once knew a guy who trained alot into Ninjutsu. which seems to have alot of techniques that run parallel to other disciplines, i would just love to hear your thoughts on the practice, and if you've encountered many people who are involved with it.
I'm no good at pull ups or chin ups right now but i'm hoping to improve them. I acknowledge that they're a very important upper body exercise that is also heavily underused. Your video on "How to Do Pull-Ups When You Can't" was a great video and i'd recommend it to anyone who hasn't watched it.
Couch warrior says: calistenics in the morning (healthy repetitions :D), high intensity interval training for endurance with weights, plyometrics for speed and power. For specific movements - "greasing the groove" during the day.
In my opinion, a mix of Strongman and hypertrophy training mixed with Calisthenics is fine along with MMA. But if you are working out 5 days a week and doing MMA 3-5 days a week. (Workout in the morning, MMA in the evening). At some point, maybe 2 weeks or 2 months later, you are going to start feeling the effects of that training. No matter how much rest you have and how well you eat, that type of training is way too intense. You then also need to add in extra body healing mechanics like Ice Baths, massages, chiropractic adjustments and physiotherapy to stay on track. Training that much has a huge effect on your time, finances and energy. Unless you are looking to become a professional fighter don't go that hard. Just train 3x a week in the gym (Monday, Wednesday, Friday). And MMA 3x a week as well. (Monday, Wednesday, Friday). And allow your body Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday and Sunday to rest with good sleeping habits and good eating habits.
You might like Westside barbell's workouts for fighters, they focus on a mix of maximal weight training and explosive training in order to build strength without putting on a lot of size and then focusing on conditioning
1) Proper Steroid Cycling 2) Celebrity Status > any performance based ranking system. 3) Skill and Physical development if time permits. And last but not least, some words of wisdom by NFL analyst Chris Carter. 4) "Just in case y'all not going to decide to do the right thing, if y'all got a crew, you got to have a 'fall guy' in the crew,"
Ramsey, thank you for making the point about brute strength vs technique. I tried making this point a billion times and a lot of people think an armbar will work on somebody that can deadlift 3 or 4 times your bodyweight. The match I used to make the point was John Cena vs Brock Lesnar at Extreme Rules 2012. Long story short, Lesnar locks in the Kimura and Cena has enough brute strength to not only straighten his arm but lift Lesnar up like a toddler using that same arm. I make the point about brute strength because some people train to the point where they have a freakish level of strength and it literally becomes impossible to bring them down without hitting a natural weak spot that every human has.
Proper technique it's directly affected by strength and size, BJJ it's cool because you can modify the techniques and adapt them to your body size, weight and strength. As an example... there's a guy in my gym that's fucking huge, i tried to do a kimura to him and... didn't even bend the fucking arm... and im big too but just didn't work... a triangle was almost impossible because of the size of his back and the amount of preassure he was doing was amazing... obviously there are other techniques that work very well with this type of people (Such as: armbars, omoplata, gogoplata, leg locks, etc...) but some of the most common techniques are almost impossible.
I do powerlifting 3 times a week and running in between. What I try to focus on is having 1 week dedicated to power, 1 to strength, one to muscular endurance. In reps it looks like this: Week 1 rep range 2-5 Week 2 rep range 6-12 Week 3 rep range 13-20. I was thinking of doing calisthenics as I have an elite gymnastics background and want to emphasise my body weight/pound for pound strength Edit: this is all with mma training as well everyday (hard to manage at the moment with HSC for school and such)
Mid and lower trap and lower back oriented exercises are essential for good posture you can hybrydize some of the major lifts to do that (e.g. shoulderblade squeezes - whatever it's called - after every rep or as a superset with pull ups). Also include the "weird neck exercises nobody does", those muscles are super responsive to even minimal volume and are gonna help you with stabilizing head when you get punched a lot. Check out Jeff Nippard's videos on the topic (he's approaching it from bodybuilding perspective but provides actual research). PS Disclaimer: This comment does not provide professional advice and shouldn't be considered as such. Consult your coach and random physiology (and similar courses) graduates on the internet to make sure you won't harm yourself :v
Hey Ramsey have you read Eric Helms- The Muscle and Strength Pyramid If you haven’t I highly recommend it for powerlifting because it goes into depth about it with a lot of research backing it up the book.
I've always been a huge fan of Bruce Lee, so it was pretty cool to see that guy get so much gains with only body weights -- since Bruce Lee also believed a lot in bodyweight training for fighting. He had some cool exercises with immovable objects too. Like a handle on a metal chain attached to the floor. Btw, beard's lookin awesome, man. Kinda jealous, not gonna lie. haha Thanks for another great vid.
Yes, Bruce Lee did a lot of body weight exercise, but he also lifted weights regularly. Mr Lee is usually remembered as the guy with the idea of hybrid martial arts, but I personally think his most important contribution to martial arts was his emphasis on strength and conditioning- which is something a great deal of martial artists have been ignoring entirely for decades.
@@RamseyDewey Agreed. He truly was an inspirational man. A modern day Renaissance man. Not the "Legendary Bruce Lee" that the myths and One-Inch Punch videos make him out to be, but still a legend. And definitely not the first to mix styles or borrow from other styles by any means, but he definitely sparked interest in martial arts around the world. You're right. It's amazing to see the things he was doing, it's even more amazing when you realize how little was known about nutrition and conditioning then. I wonder if any fighters still put egg shell powder in their shakes though? haha
that is the part that most people dont wanna understand if you are smallar it does not matter much that u have skill. However most people are normal sized so there will be always some dude who beats more muscular guy with relatively same height
Just punch Brian’s liver or places with not a lot of muscle and tire him out this is why you should train both strongman and martial arts to be nearly unstoppable
Calisthenics rule, especially weighted variations. I would also highly recommend gymnastic rings. They will get you stronger, faster than anything else you've ever done. They're not in the Olympics for nothing.
Not entirely. Olympic weightlifting will make you far more explosive than anything in calisthenics. Calisthenics requires stability and, for most moves, slow, controlled strength. But powerlifting will strengthen you posterior chain and core the best. Assistance bodybuilding exercises like facepulls can be great for shoulder stability and injury prevention. Calisthenics and gymnastics can improve flexibility, and your ability to generate power in unorthodox positions
Callisthenics are incredibly inefficient for strength and conditioning due to the extreme levels of skill and balance required to get to anything that provides enough resistance to build strength and muscle. The less skill dependant something is and the heavier something can be loaded, the quicker the strength gained. Compound barbell movements (powerlifting style) and the power variants of Olympic lifts are by far the quickest way to gain strength which is why this is what all S&C coaches prescribe to athletes.
Last time I was doing light spar with hard grappling - I was STRONG for other people 220lbs and under ---- when I went against 250 lb'ers and etc --- my strengths backfired from lack of stamina and bottom game - especially flexibility
Specifically for combat sports? I'd honestly recommend Indian pushup/squat combo along with a good kettlebell for Turkish getups, a lot of cardio, and yes absolutely pullups!
Take it from me an old school boxer from the old school, take it back to nature… chopping wood will improve knockout power and make you strong as you like swimming throwing big rocks, up hill sprints etc even my uncles from the Joe Louis era always taught me that.
Recently started doing dips again(tricep dips) along with pullups with my 3 compounds,feels much better than just doing accessories for those parts of the body.
8/22/20 at age 59, after five months of consistent kettlebell training, upping my game by starting Pavel's Power to the People strength-oriented barbell program. I think between KB swings, KB goblet squats, and now barbell deadlifts, I have both quads and posterior chain covered.
Where you mentioned your friend who built his physique solely with calisthenics.. body weight exercises are great to some degree, but doing f ex 1000 pushups daily will definitely have a worse impact on your joints and ligaments than some weight training combined with bodyweight exercies
Cro cop had a nice quote about strength. Essentially something like "strength is the most important skill." I think about it often because most people I've done well against in BJJ have honestly been weaker than me and most people who've beat me were somewhat stronger. I'm still a white belt though and I've never had a purplebelt or better in a truly bad spot so the strength variable is probably expected to be the main factor for beginners. In my experience there are a lot of spots (when the technique isn't applied great for whatever reason) where it almost becomes a question of should I try to fix my technique (prob better for the long term) or just step on the gas? I can remember never having submissions on plenty of people around my skill level until I just started actually putting force into things so it's been a question of mine if I'm actually giving BJJ the right approach. I've been criticized by multiple coaches for opposite reasons. Going too lightly against weaker people (giving them a chance) and going too hard against the same group (not giving them a chance), so idk anymore.
Master the mechanical part of the techniques then you start applying more force to them. It's what Ramsey said in this video, if the guy is much stronger than you, some techniques will fail unless your mastery of different techniques is superior than that of said opponent.
Within the fundamentals, one thing I like to do that I believe transfers heavily to martial arts - speed days. Maximal strength is great, but you gotta have that lightning bolt feeling of explosive strength in your hips, and you get that from lifting submaximal weights with good bar speed - throw in some jumping and sprinting, some hitting stuff. Other than that, my favorites are deadlifts, front squats, pull ups, barbell and dumbbell bench and overhead presses, farmer walks or whatever else I can do on the fly for a mean grip.
Absolutely love your answer and agree with everything you say. Two small points I'd like to add: 1) Recovery is VERY individual specific. Like with everything, volume/intensity has to be carefully balanced, especially with martial arts sparring/training. Yes you can sleep well, eat well, minimize stress (possibly), and maybe take supplements, but really there's not a whole lot you can to do to change your recovery capacity. 2) Maybe others disagree, but I think HIIT is fantastic for endurance under pressure. Muscularly and CNS wise it's not very "intense" so it's easy to recover from (compared to something brutally taxing like 5 heavy sets of squats for 5 reps) and besides improving your conditioning immensely you learn to not give up or panic under fatigue if you're mindful and push yourself very hard. And when I say HIIT I mean "easy" stuff like bodyweight squats (or with light weights), pushups, lunges, etc. Anything heavier (like crossfit stuff, even taking out the technical lifts) needs to be done with care, taking point 1) into consideration.
There’s another way to practice strength for a snapdown. I don’t know the name of the machine, but it’s the one where you pull down and the weights go up. With that you add the double rope attachment, get into your stance for grappling and snapdown it’s good for snapdowns.
