SevenStar-
Actually, light weights don’t increase power - they increase muscular endurance. Heavy weights don’t make you stiff either.
Exactly, common misconception. Although power development will depend on exaxctly how light and how heavy the load is, and what phase of strength training you are in, generally, light weights high reps increases endurance.
For once i actually agree with sevenstar. stretching is one of the keys to combining martial arts with body building. One of my students is about 6 ft tall and close to 300 lbs, and not fat. We nickname him iron ox because he is hella solid. The bad thing is that he is super tight all over. At first he couldn’t even touch his toes, he had very limited upper body mobility because of being such a strong guy. But since i have been focusing on stretching him more than anyone he has began to show major improvements, can touch his toes now his upper body even has more range of movement.
but the one thing i noticed and tell me if anyone’s experienced this is that body builders even though they are noticeably very strong, they are so caught up about how strong they are that they overpower every single gung fu technique.
i have had to tell them to slow down and not use so much power. they are already strong and most likely should start working on speed than anything.
I can’t lie as a long time martial artist, it is pretty humorous to watch some body builders try and throw long range techniques like sow choy, or even Kwa Choy.
because of the tightness in their biceps and triceps all their strikes are shortened up.
but once again, the key to bodybuilding and martial arts is stretching. it will work out in the end if the body builder works towards that.
frank
Seven star has caught the correct yet again. And I was stupid enough to show a few of these guys a little boxing. Actually they really weren’t bad guys, just guys that made stupid mistakes.
7star: yep, stretching is important for muscle guys. if you can get a vid of iska’s 2002 k-1 bout and look at this guy Mcdonald he’s a good example of what good weight training and cardio arts can do for a fighter.
here’s something that’s kinda pilotese (sp?) -ish: start with a 10 lb hex head dumbbell. go through your preforms with it until you can do each preform 30 times with the weight at full speed. then increase your weight five pounds. it may be a slow method but it will not hurt your joints as you progress or shock-damage them by starting with too much weight. after you can do your preforms at 15 lbs then switch to your first form with ten pounds. after that tai chi chuan yang-88. the fast forms combined with a slow form seem to make more of a difference with the people i have trained in the past.
do not go over 18lbs. your joints just aren’t strong enough to handle it.
they’ve conditioned their bodies for that forceful explosion required for them to throw the weight up. I think that is why this happens.
I wanted to add to this subject last week but I just didn’t get the time.
Last weekend on one of the cable channels there was a show on women body builders, I don’t know if anyone seen it. These women were competing in international competitions and a camera crew followed a couple of them and showed what it’s like to become a competitor at this level.
Anyway, the one thing surprised me here - again - is that what they said about these competitors just before they would show up for their show time: when they look the strongest, they are actually at their weekest!
The narrator explained that the competitors work so hard for months that by the time they get to show off their muscles on the stage, they are completely exhausted and unable to lift any weight yet this is the time when their muscles looks the biggest and the most easiest to flex. I thought this was very interesting.
Once again, what you see is not what you get.
-X-
PS: by the way these women all looked so ugly without their two inch make ups that it really grossed me out. They were fantastic looking on stage and on the photo shots but once all the make up came down, they looked like guys who were beaten up every weekend in a bar. From the steroid use their voices were also deep like mens’ voices; they all sounded like men when they were talking to each other. Brrrrrrrrrr :(. Why beautiful women ruin their beauty just for a few pounds of muscles?
there are a few reasons for that. Another reason is that they are dehydrated somewhat - they don’t look that defined all of the time - they need as little bodyfat and water weight as possible. extra water leads to loss of definition. What you see IS what you get though, in their case. They still have their strength. You are talking about guys that bench over 400 lbs. even at their weakest, they are stronger than pretty much everyone else.
PS: by the way these women all looked so ugly without their two inch make ups that it really grossed me out. They were fantastic looking on stage and on the photo shots but once all the make up came down, they looked like guys who were beaten up every weekend in a bar. From the steroid use their voices were also deep like mens’ voices; they all sounded like men when they were talking to each other. Brrrrrrrrrr :(. Why beautiful women ruin their beauty just for a few pounds of muscles?
This is also just during competition season. During the off season, male and female bodybuilders carry more weight on their bodies. So, during the off season, the women look softer - just like any other shapely woman.
bulking up means that you could be hollow underneath. getting big makes you move slower.
Hi,
I used to body build, and I actually found that it helped my training in wing chun kung fu, But I did streched alot between each set to maintain flexiblity.
I usually took some time off from kung fu while I was wieght training, about 6 month to a year. when I hit a plateu in weight training I would get bored and return to kung fu training. when I did I usually feel stronger but had to retrain my muscles to work in a more fine tune way. I am not quite sure if it’s because I didn’t train kung fu for a while and therefore loss some coordintaion, or it had to do with different types of muscle memory.
From my understanding power lifting is much more complimentarly to kung fu or martial arts training than body building. It’s based on being relaxed and on coordination of the joints by using structural power as opposed to just pumping your muscle with blood like bodybuilding. Also it develops more densely packed muscle fibers for functional strength as oppose to the pumped effect that can be seen in bodybuilding.
In olden days in china alot of traditional kung fu styles used weight training in their curiculam. White crane and SPM used cement wieghts, jar grip training, even some of the two man exercises or chi sao uses the resistance of a training partner.
If you take a look at any recent boxing or NHB event you would clearly see that pretty much all the fighters train with weights, and they shure as hell are not slow or uncoordinated. I think trianing with weights can definately help with any athletics, it can improve speed, power, coordination, stamina as well as mental focus is done in the right way.
Kung Fu fighter
You’re correct kung fu fighter, weight training is important in martial arts as well, I was trying to point out the different ways body builders train from martial artists.
As we all know body builders train with heavy weights and with few reps, this increases their strenght and power, and the ‘look’ or size of their muscles, which is the main point of body building. This kind of muscle, however, makes you stiff and slows you down in your movements.
Martial artists train with leight weights and more reps which doesn’t increases but rather condenses muscles and creates a different, more fluid, flexible and exploding power. You are still strong but your powers are ‘packed’ or hidden more.
I recall an incident when one body builder guy came to our school, I was instructing the new students. Greated him and put him in with the other beginners. I was probably about half of his size, he had huge muscles and I could see he was proud of them. When I got to him again and asked him if he had any questions he asked me how I would block one of his punches - I just knew he was going to that :). I told him to throw a punch at me, which he did. I redirected his power which made him very nearly fell over towards his punch.
At this time I was shocked because this was the first time I tried a body builder and just with the touch of my fingers I could redirect his power, and he was shocked because he didn’t think this little skinny guy could do that to him. Too bad he never came back after his first class; I think he just realized he was too far into heavy weight training and didn’t want to put in the time to correct it to use it for defense.
In other cases I’ve seen other instructors separating these guys from the others to work with them. They were just so stiff and unable to execute the techniques. Then they all leave in a few months, too bad they all gave up so quickly. They could have learned how to use their great powers, just none of them wanted to put in the time and effort.
It’s all in the ability how to use power, not so much how much power you have. It’s the martial arts way.
Sorry guys for the long answer.
-X-
Judging from most of the responses in this thread, most of you have terrible misconceptions regarding bodybuilding and bodybuilders’ abilities to successfully participate in martial arts (MA) training.
I am a national level competitive bodybuilder and a northern shaolin practitioner. I have had no problems training in both disciplines. In fact, i know numerous persons who train in both bodybuilding and MA or even MMA. Check out www.ronharrismuscle.com, www.teamflexwheeler, and www.jermaineandre.com. These three are only a few of the many, many people who successfully combine MA and bodybuilding.
Also, as some have noted, weightlifting does not make one “slow”, just as being a non-weightlifter does not make one “fast”. Velocity of a punch, kick, duck, bob, weave, etc, is dependent upon many factors. At 5’ 7" and 205 lbs, my sifu says i am one of the quickest students in our school, but i am also the most “muscular”. The two attributes are not mutually exclusive.
Lastly, on another note, the TLC program referenced earlier is called “Supersize She” and it was a documentary following English female bodybuilder, Joanne Thomas. The observance that most competitive bodybuilders, including myself, are weakest as a contest approaches is due to two main facts. One, a drastic decrease in caloric intake obviously saps strength and two, weight loss associated with competition preparation invariably involves muscle tissue loss. Though bodybuilders’ muscles are actually smaller when we’re competing on stage than in the off-season, because of very low bodyfat levels, the illusion is created that we’re bigger than usual.
Anyway, the point of this post is to dispel the myth that bodybuilders are incapable of or have great difficulty excelling in MA.
X-Warrior-
As we all know body builders train with heavy weights and with few reps, this increases their strenght and power, and the ‘look’ or size of their muscles, which is the main point of body building. This kind of muscle, however, makes you stiff and slows you down in your movements.
Actually bodybuilding, which is about promoting max. size (hypertrophy) and definition of muscles, uses a sub-maximum weight and reps to exhaustion, usually performed at a moderate to slow pace. Therefore, reps can range up to 15, maybe even 18 reps, depending on the individual, which may not seem that low. But you are right in the sense that this type of training does slow your nerve muscle fiber connection.
However, the use of maximum weight and very low reps (1-5) that I THINK you are referring to, does not promote size as much as strength. This type of training lays the foundation for power oriented feats, such as martial arts, boxing, sprints, gymnastics, etc.
I am not sure what you mean by “condensing” muscles, but depeding on how light the weight is and how many reps and how you perform it, the blanket statement of just using light weight high rep does not increase exploding power. Light weight high reps, usually increase endurance.
Weight training can definately help martial arts ability, but it must be done right, it is not as simple as high reps low weights, size training slows you down…etc
I would assume that at national level competition, bodybuilder’s such as fitdoc would usually accumulate enough knowledge to know the difference between training to strike a pose and training to strike someone. Hence the difference between him and your local gym jock like the one you encountered X-Warrior.
Hi all
Just adding my 2 cents
I started training with weights when I was Fifteen yrs old, My friends sister was in college studing sport science. she had a program for a paper she was doing for her final grade I was her subject. How to obtain mass and strength Using Amino acids for supplements I use to take these horse pills(amino acids that she provided. the first 3 months I lost all of my Baby fat (so to speak), and noticed some improvements in speed, and strength. In six months I was developing my chest, arms, back, legs, delts,neck, after 1 year I stopped taking the supplement so the rest of my training was natural
in three years I was 235 with 11 percent body fat. I continued on my own after her paper was done Just a note she recieved and A for the Class A+ on her paper. I also found certain methods worked on other people and some other methods didn’t
The Method I used to increase strength was every six weeks I would pyaramid on a machine what ever muscle I was focusing on; how that worked was I would start the heaviest weight I could do in one repition Then I would do the next lowest weight on the stack and do 2 reps then third lowest plate I would do Three reps and so on until the I went through the stack then I would go back up the stack the same way my Strength increase to the point that I could not find a Machine that had enough weight in the stack This is only one way but I was able to increase my strength on each of my exercises by 5 to 10 pounds
I had studied martial arts And had kept on Stretching But I lost alot of speed in punches and especially inward type blocks as My tricepts and chest were so big that they would rub a rash under my arms Drove me crazy Because I didn’t like to walk like body builder walks and decided to stop building muscle mass to persue my martial arts again.
At that time I started training Kenpo from a private master ( Lived with him for 3 years) I had quit doing the weights so heavily. and focused on ability What I did notice Is that my training After losing the muscle mass Is that My speed is much faster than most, I have learned to use, and Isolate my Tagonistic and Antogonist muscles with more precision (start and End of twitch)mostly because I Isolated the muscle and gave me more control later In my More advanced training and coordination my strength doesn’t seem to have diminished too much. Yes body builders do lose the Speed and expect a lot of hard work to gain it back or even maintain it. This is my experience take it as you will
I am 6’3’’ 200lbs I have 12% body fat and I can bench a decent amount. Im not a body builder but I paly football and we work out every day for 3-4hours. I have been doing martial arts longer than football maybe thats why but I have no trouble with it. MA takes patience and relaxation alot of people dont have it wether they are body builders or regular people. I have seen many people fail HUGE, small, fat, tall, skinny very different varietys. I think that every person can do a MA just one that fits them. A body builder would be better of in BJJ (maybe), TKD< Muai Thai, Wing Chun, ect…
It’s because of how you were training. You stated that you were doing machine exercises. This tells me right off the bat that you were doing isolation exercises. Also, you don’t get full use of the stabilizing muscles as you do with free weights.
I am 5’10, 230, bench close to 300 and squat over 400. I can do high kicks, spinning kicks, jump spinning kicks, etc. When I was training in longfist, I was able to do a tornado kick and land on the same leg I kicked with… It’s all in how you train.
I am 6’1 240lbs. right now and Still as flexible (Full split when cold) when I was in my prime
I agree about the stabilizing with free weight
every six weeks I did the Machines the remainder of my time was free weights and or body weight exercises.
What lifts were you doing?
my bench at that time was 350-375
my squat was 425-450 (Iwould hack squat 710lbs)
at that time I was obcessed with the pump I got. it was funny my friends were all lifters of their high School power lifting team I would go to their school to workout their coach always asked me every time I walked into the door “so when are you going to compete for me” I was just into working out I NEVER HAD A DAY OFF! I look back now and I probably should have, I would of done pretty good but I didn’t All I know every time I lifted people gathered I was just there to work out No Ego JUST ENJOYED IT
If you are weight training for size you use heavy weight with 6-10 reps max and 3-4 sets. If you are training for definition you use lighter weight and more reps (12-15), 3-5 sets. Endurance is increased either way, but real endurance comes from smart and moderate aerobic exercise.
If you were flexible to begin with, meaning if you had natural ligamentous laxity (flexible ligaments) even before lifting, you’ll still be flexible after the muscle hypertophy. Trust me.
This myth about training with heavy weights and low reps that you’re spouting shows your lack of real scientific knowledge. Have you seen most American football running backs and linebackers? They have very large muscles, are flexible, fast and resilient. Extra muscle is like armor too.
My youngest brother is 73" and about 165 pounds. He uses 50 lb. dumbells for his biceps curls and 185 lbs. free-weight for his flat bench sets. He is fast, flexible and just naturally strong. He doesn’t even work out regularly, but he has to lift heavier weight to get any feel or result out of it. My other brother who is a spine surgeon, played starting fullback for S.W. Tex. State Univ. (now Tx. State Univ.) and at the time could run a 4.45 40 yd. sprint, flat bench 415 pounds 5 times, used 120 lb. dumbells for “light” chest flies, and 80 pound dumbells for biceps curls (sets). He is still pretty much that strong some 10+ years later. He is also a BB in Shorin Ryu with no real grappling background and once handled a BJJ purple belt who weighed about 270 (he’s like 225 lbs.) with ease. He is so flexible that even without stretching for years he can still do full-chinese splits. Muscles are an advantage not a disadvantage, especially if you are already flexible, SMART and fast.
What this rant means is that there are folks out there who are just genetically superior to most. They are not the norm, but there are more than just a few. They can be of any race or ethnicity and the masses’ ideas of things are usually based on themselves, not the whole. You could be one and not even know your full potential because you play into the lifting myth. If you have the propensity to get big with lifting that doesn’t mean that it will hamper you in any way. It might, but it’s always better to have muscle when doing physical activities, like fighting or sports, than to have none or very little. There is a reason that even baseball guys want to get big (so they sometimes juice to enhance what nature failed to give them).
The big muscles thing is a matter of physics and physiques. You can’t make linear statements, blanket generalizations based on some made up stuff. I can say that a lot of powerlifters I’ve known suffered from muscle stiffness due to their jerky or limited range of motion training, but there are a lot of bodybuilder types who are very flexible and fast. In fact Flex Wheeler is a TKD BB, who can do the full splits, and he was Mr. Olympia caliber at one time.
Just stretch between sets instead of staring at the second hand on some clock, don’t rest for more than 30 secs. between sets (60 secs. max), and keep doing your MA. Watch how much things change for the positive in every respect.
BTW most trainers ain’t jack! Just look at them. You’d be better off to ask the resident gym rat about what to do to get big or strong. They are there to make you spend more money at the gym, and their techniques are not only downright silly and unscientific, but also possibly injurious or even dangerous (like balancing on a giant ball while doing chest presses or supposed plyometric jump/twist training for the non-athlete). Don’t believe the hype.
Safe training to you all!
7th gen yang-
Iam not sure why you address your statements to me specifically, beacuse iam not disagreeing with what you say.
Bodybuilding weight training methods does slow a person down, or maybe I should say are not ideal for power oriented sports. Strength training for sports is a different animal, and information on the subject is certainly not as prolific; with bodybuilding weight training dominating most of the media. In fact some countries use to even keep these things rather secret, because these are the methods used by most competitive sports, ie track and field, gymnastics,…
The pyramid you described, a sort of inverted scheme, is more for bodybuiding (hypertrophy) than increase in strength or power. I mean look at the amount of reps you would do using that method, how many total going up and down the stack? 30, 40, 50,…? Your own results tell you, you are working on hypertrophy
( THE PUMP).
Strength of course increases, becasue with size comes extra strength, but it is not ideal for power development. In fact in hinders you, that is why strectching is so emphasized by everyone here.
And of course genetics plays a very important role, next to the amount of steriods used in competitive sports. 