First step is to decide what you want to develop.Quote:
Originally Posted by xinyidizi
Strength
Strength and size
Strength and muscular endurance
Strength and speed
Printable View
First step is to decide what you want to develop.Quote:
Originally Posted by xinyidizi
Strength
Strength and size
Strength and muscular endurance
Strength and speed
Well size is not important at all as I do this to help me with my MA training. What kind of regimen would for example an MMA fighter choose?
@David Jamieson: Thanks for the link. Seems like a great place to start.
And let me just jump in and tell xinyidizi that none of those is mutually exclusive.Quote:
Originally Posted by sanjuro_ronin
In other words, size doesn't make you slow.
Don't be afraid to want to gain some size because you think it will make you slow or inflexible. It won't.
What makes you slow is not practicing.
What makes you inflexible is not stretching.
Plenty of Olympic gymnasts (who are bigger and stronger than us) can do the splits.
There are even some pro-level bodybuilders who can do the splits.
Plenty of pro football players can run faster than us.
Plenty of heavyweight MMA fighters who are bigger than us can punch faster than us.
Etc.
And the other thing to keep in mind is that, all else being equal, a bigger muscle has more strength potential.
You can get a lot stronger without gaining any size, and in fact there are specific ways to train to do this. A smaller guy can even be stronger than a bigger guy. But the strongest people on the planet are big guys.
Are you a car guy? If so, think of muscle size as engine displacement and strength as engine modification.
Take a 2 liter 150hp engine -- that's like a small guy. Now have that small guy train specifically for strength. He won't gain much size, but he will get a lot stronger. That's like turbo charging the engine. It's still 2 liters but now it's 300hp, and it's now faster than most of the other cars on the road (and he's stronger than most of his friends and athletes who don't train specifically for strength, and he will even be stronger than some of the bodybuilders at his gym even though his muscles aren't as big).
Now take a 6 liter V12. It has much more potential. Turbo charge it and tune it up and you might be making 600-800hp. Big and strong.
In real life, strength is a function of the neurological efficiency of your muscles. How well can your body use them? A bigger muscle has more potential. But a smaller, highly trained, efficient muscle can be stronger than a bigger, less-fully trained muscle.
I've probably both over-simplified this AND managed to confuse you with that analogy that sounded better in my head than it did when I wrote it out :o
Cliffs Notes:
- big muscles don't make you slow or inflexible
- you can get strong without getting big
- all else being equal, bigger muscles have more strength potential
I had put ankle weight for my running. After I realized that it hurt my knee joint, I stopped using it. Weight and speed don't go together very well.
When I was in high school and early college, I used to wear 5lbs of ankle weights on each leg all day long, every day. I took them off when I exercised or ran, but otherwise I had them on while I walked everywhere. I even wore them to sleep.
Just wearing them, and going back and forth across campus every hour or so, and going up and down stairs, made my kicks really fast. When I took off the weights, it felt like my legs wanted to float up on their own. Felt like no effort at all to kick. I aways tell people to do ankle weights to develop relaxed fast kicks.
True.Quote:
Originally Posted by YouKnowWho
A weighted vest is better for running than putting weights below the moving joints.
Compression they can handle more than separation and weights at the ankle are not a good idea because they pull and separate the joint at the ankle and the knee.
As an aside, in the case of rings used in sets, the rings move along the limb and don't pull at the joints.
there is a big problem with your thinking.
1. weight vest is found in traditional kung fu training, but it is not appropriate to do forms with them. you will hurt yourself.
2. chinese kung fu uses heavy weight vest up to 100 pounds. forearm and shin weights are added when its impossible to increase the weight of the vest any higher. in other words, there is no short cut, only tough, bitter training. wearing 5 pound baby bracelets will increase your power by 5 pounds.
3. you choose your remaining time to do forms over (weight) training. forms is not training. if you just want the crisp snappy punches that looks good, not weights is neccesarry. all you have to do is punch in horse stance 100 times a day.
you have to learn to make sacrifices, to choose what is more important to you. there is no short cut. if you dont have the time to train, you will not have kung fu.
1. who said anything about forms. Weight added when running or jogging isn't a bad thing. It increases stamina and endurance over time of use.Quote:
Originally Posted by bawang
2. what are baby bracelets? lol
3. training should be balanced out so that all things can get proper development.
We all have time to train. We all have individual learning styles. Some take 2 years to learn, others take 5 but we all get to spend the rest of our lives training because we enjoy it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by David Jamieson
the guy started the thread asking if doing forms with ankle weights will give him power. i said no
Yes, agreed 100%.Quote:
Originally Posted by IronFist
I didn't want to go there yet, but hey, you went there, LOL !
I use wrist weights in addition to weight lifting. They CAN be quite effective but they don't substitute for weights.Quote:
Originally Posted by xinyidizi
The wrist weights are substantially lighter than conventional bar bells / bars / kettlebells / etc. They are also used in a really different manner from how you use weights. They'll make your forms more tiring and will help develop your striking speed - but do be careful of your joints; using the wrist weights wrong can be very harmful to them.
Just my $0.02
I agree with you on this. The weight pulley is my favor one when I go to gym 3 times a week. I usually use 60 lb and pull it 340 times (13 different ways of pulling) as my 1st work out before I move to others. There were 2 times that I used 80 lb weight and I hurt my elbow joint in both and I had to stop doing that for 3 months. The way that I pull my weight pulley, I would pull in with maximum speed and then suddently relase it with maximum speed. This way there will be a delay when the weight drop back down and that drop will pull my body forward. I can use this to develop my body resistence against outside pulling force (an important ability in grappling). The problem happen when I use too much weight (80 lb). That fast speed downward dropping had hurt my elbow joint big time.Quote:
Originally Posted by sanjuro_ronin
When I work on the
- "weight pulley", my goal is to "develop body respond against outside pulling force" (plus few others goals). My goal is not to develop big muscle and arm strength.
- "bench press", I work on strength 100%.
So to decide what you want to develop is important. Again too much weight and fast speed don't go well with each other.
@Ironfist
That was actually a pretty good analogy. :)
I just wanted to stop this from turning into a "I don't want to get big because it will make me slow and inflexible" discussion.Quote:
Originally Posted by sanjuro_ronin
I don't think the weights would hurt to use just do the form slow, it might build some power but weight lifting would be more effective obviously. But you can't just focus on lifting and expect to be able to throw a fast good punch or kick either. If you're just looking to build muscle then you should be fine but improving your m.a will take more than just that, but I'm sure you knew that :p