well i agree with you on some things you said, but here are a few points 1.weight training, espically bodybuilding style is very good for injury recover, and injury prevention. this is something many people forget. having done many years of boxing and grappling, one thing that i always noticed, guys who lift weights get injuried like 5 times less then guys that dont. 2. the high rep,low intensity comment ahh while i can what your saying but these guys do train hard and push a lot of weight so i dont think a guy squatting 450 pounds for 8 reps is low intensity but yes if you a lot of "bodybuilding style training" you will be a bit stiff that is for sure but all these explosive jumping quick movements with weights how are they gonna keep for getting injuried, i think if a muscle gets bigger and stronger its less likely to give out on you
They are great, building explosive power under load. There's pretty much nothing better for an athlete to do.
1. Strength has been proven to be the number one thing for preventing injuries, and is highly correlated to performance. If you're training to not get injured then you shouldn't train at all, you train for performance. Bodybuilding isn't strength training, and it causes hypertrophy of primarily slow twitch fibres. So you're heavier and relatively weaker, while not having the same neural drive and coordination you get from strength/power training. Body builders have a greater proportion of slow twitch fibres compared to a sedentary person. They do some good heavy training at times sure but the majority of their work is high volume and low intensity. You can't judge intensity on the amount of weight lifted, it's relative to the individuals size and training experience. Nothing is objectively heavy, it's relative. What you think is heavy might be 50% for someone else, so it's light for them. You talk about muscles but what about connective tissue and neuromuscular factors, motor learning? They are more relevant to the issue of injury prevention than CSA is. Body builders also have low force per fibre of muscle, weightlifters have high force per fibre of muscle. Muscle can be built and perform in completely different ways for the same size, it's far too simplistic to say CSA = strength and injury protection. There is sarcoplasmic hypertrophy and myofibril hypertrophy, type I and Type II hypertrophy. Those explosive jumping movements with weights are certainly going to prevent injury, eccentric movements in sport are where most injuries occur. You lack strength eccentrically then you're going to be slower, weaker and more injury prone. SSC activities with weights (plyos, Olympic lifts) develop that yielding (eccentric) strength better than anything, prevents injuries and improves agility. That power training is very specific to the demands on the body during competition. It is important to have enough strength before performing power training, the higher your strength the higher your potential to develop power and the less likely you are to get injured. When you train for performance you decrease injury risk at the same time. As I said before if your goal is to not get injured.. Then don't train.
again you made good points actually when you compared bodybuilders and weightlifters and it seems you know the science part of weight training very well that being said here are a few problems 1. being a former bouncer, i know quite a few guys who compete in powerlifting and strongman and 1 guy who does weightlifting, and i have trained with them and guess who they all do quite a bit of "bodybuilding style training"(1 or 2 body parts a day, high amount of reps) and not just their sport specific training. my 2 professional strongman friends who taught me most of what i know about training basically told they do this training for injury prevention and looks. and if you do a hard sport people get everyone gets injuried, much like i did before i was doing weight training. 2."I said before if your goal is to not get injured.. Then don't train" to be honest this is kind of an annoying statement because any guy who has done any real sports, has had injuries and doesnt want them to happen again, so i dont know what sports you have done but if you ever had a severe injury, you would not say this. myself, i didnt do any weights and just did bodyweight excerises when i was younger because "i didnt want to be bulky and slow" lol this lead to my shoulder dislocated 6 times before i had shoulder surgery after which i started training weights....actually my doctor recommended this guess what now i am compete in boxing once again and do bjj on the side as a hobby. so as someone who has been there trust me you would perfer to be stiff over being injured and the way i train weights is now mixed between proformance and bodybuilding stuff. the first 6 mouths after my surgery it was all bodybuilding style and it slowly changed as i got back into sports
That's all well and good but the scientific literature is very clear in what works for what, your friends would've all been better powerlifters/weightlifters if they focused on their functional lifts and hypertrophy of high frequency motor units. As you say high volume training is for bodybuilders and for people concerned about their appearance primarily. For sports performance, especially with weightclass sports and sports dependant on power, then strength to weight ratio is extremely important. Nervous system adaptations are the biggest benefit from strength training and you simply don't get that with body part training, done in high volume. You need to create the right foundation/motor for your sport, high volume training targets slow twitch fibres so if you want to be as strong and explosive as possible for your size, with less injury risk you need to lift heavy. Bodybuilding style training is also far more fatiguing peripherally, higher cortisol levels in general which can be an issue with concurrent training. Of course no one wants an injury, as I said being strong is the number one preventative measure you can take. Weights don't make your muscles stiff either if you stretch and balance exercises appropriately. Heavy weight training does make tendons stiffer though, which is generally very good for strength/power performance. Training for rehab is something completely different, not related at all to performance. Bodybuilding training is never appropriate for an athlete unless they just need to be big for the sake of being big. And still, larger, more functional movements with heavy weight result in greater hypertrophy over time of the appropriate fibres for greater performance. With simple movements like a bicep curl you see hypertrophy sooner, because there isn't much of a motor learning component. With larger more complicated exercises the time course for hypertrophy is longer, but just as great in the end. The results aren't as immediate. I'm not saying hypertrophy is a bad thing at all (unless you're struggling to make a weight division), I'm saying that the type of hypertrophy is the important issue for performance. Traditional bodybuilding training (high volume, low intensity, low velocity) is not what you want if your goal is to be strong and powerful. I'm also not saying that you shouldn't have lighter days, but they should functional/more sports specific exercises and not done in high volume to fatigue (then it's not really a light day at all). I make my living off training athletes (Rugby, various track athletes) btw, just so you know that I'm not talking out of my ass or basing things on what somebody told me.
A few pages back some of the comments made me snicker, especially concerning the gymnast/circus performer thing. My ex-wife's father owned a circus. Lots of jugglers, handstand artists, guys transitioning from the planche to the handstand, etc. They had a kind of back/complete body strength, but they really didn't "lift" very much. I also assumed the jugglers would have excellent coordination for fighting, so I would spar them. I humiliated them easily - sports specific training is what matters - the guy who knows how to throw a punch and has timing can nullify all kinds of other disadvantages. I looked like an uncoordinated idiot when I tried to juggle, but I could push those gymnasts around because they had no idea how to use their strength against another human being. weightlifting and strength training is great, but sports specific training is always always always way more important. Erik Morales, when you see him messing around with weights in training for the third Pacquiao fight, looks like a wimp in terms of his strength/weight ratio. Adrien Broner's "bench" effort is pathetic on video. But Erik will tear your head off because he has all the intangibles he needs to destroy someone and the skills to apply his traits. Broner is functionally strong, though his lift is average at best.
:deal Excellent. The way I look at it, ANY time I spend doing strength training is time I should be working on boxing (or anaerobic conditioning). Just more bang for your buck, unless you need to worry about specific injury prevention. It hit plenty hard enough to knock people out, and I'm strong enough to hold my own in functional strength with people who are MUCH stronger than me, and do all sorts of combat strength/power conditioning. I'm not talking football players who come in to try boxing, I'm talking competitive boxers who feel like they're gaining an advantage by enhancing their physical attributes. I got that ability from judo training (and doing similar catch-wrestling/throwing stuff against other kids in school for years....don't laugh, I'm from the country), not from weight lifting. You aren't gaining an advantage. The advantage is with the guy who spent his time with a trainer, sparring, hitting mitts, working drills, shadowboxing, hitting the bags, etc. while you were in the weight room (or running 3-6 miles, for you old-school types). Even if what you're doing is functional training, not bodybuilding or just powerlifting or whatever, you aren't able to translate this stuff to a fight for a loooong time (years, not months). Like I said: You already hit hard enough and are strong enough if you're even remotely athletic. The whole science of boxing is learning to transfer those physical abilities to the ring. I have knocked people out and was known as the "puncher" in the gym from day 1, but even hurting someone bad enough for an 8-count in sparring is rare for me. This tells me that I need to work on my skills more so I can land the shots cleanly without the other guy knowing it's coming. Being able to hit harder won't help me, but being able to land my shots on a capable, resisting opponent using the power I already have definitely will.
A parable: In India and China, people wanted to get better at sex. India invented the Kama Sutra, which by my understanding is the art of tying you and your lover into complex knotlike positions hereunto undiscovered by humankind, while China gave us the practice of lifting weights with your little Chinese dick to make it bigger and longer-lasting. Draw from this what wisdom ye will, my disciples.
When you understand biomechanics you can see how many weighttifting movements are very sports specific. What do you mean by 'functionally strong'? A bench press isn't a movement that has any real transfer to boxing. And of course a gymnast who doesn't box isn't just going to be able to box without training for it, the point is that they already have a good base of strength/coordination to work from so everything else being equal their gymnastic work is going to give them an advantage. Look at Hamed, he could move around like a gymnast, he had his mass/muscle in the right place (his legs) and had the upper body of a skinny guy who drinks beer. Boxing doesn't require you to be particularly strong in the upper body; contrary to the big upper body, chicken legs physique that most boxers aspire to for some reason. And of course nobody in the world is going to claim that strength training is more important than training for your sport, I don't understand how you jump to that. Training the different links of the kinetic chain to get stronger/more powerful will result in a stronger/more powerful athlete. KillSomething might be satisfied with being the 'puncher' in his gym but when he comes across the Russian fighter who has been nurturing his physical advantages ALONG with his boxing game then he's at a disadvantage.
When you make gains in power/strength they are immediate, I don't understand what you mean by taking years to translate to a fight. You also can't spend all your time boxing or you'll burn out, and your skills will decrease. There is always time to add in strength training. When you're stronger your motor learning is improved, there is less diffusion in your CNS, it takes less effort and less brain power for any given movement. Not to mention the increases in tendon stiffness resulting in more economical movement. You are stronger and there is less of a metabolic cost in every movement. Being stronger will reduce fatigue, and it will enhance your ability to learn and adapt to new skills. And those things will help you land that knockout punch. Your body needs variation to adapt, spending all your time boxing is going to be detrimental to your boxing game.
I don't know man. I've played some sports over the years and boxing is the only one where I haven't thought I'd do better if I got stronger. Lifted for soccer, lifted for basketball, lifted for throwing, lifted for track, and initially lifted for boxing. In all the other sports, guys that did well were guys that put in work in the gym (or possibly were just developing quicker than the other guys). In boxing I've seen guys try to do it all and they just fail hard despite being in great shape, strong, fast, and athletic. imo until you've mastered the sport, which takes years, all that stuff won't do you much good. You're better off learning to box, moving up the ranks by fighting, and then after you're a decently classy boxer with a good amount of experience, maybe it would make sense to work on that stuff. But there's so much to learn in boxing. I stopped lifting because I needed more energy for the skill and cardio work we do in the gym. Basically, guys that box the most tend to be the best boxers. It's an experience game; in other sports your physical attributes can carry you a long way, but not in boxing. Now if you're Mayweather or a high-level pro or amateur looking to move your game to the next level, sure, lift all you want. It'll be beneficial because you've already put in your repetitions and have essentially mastered the game. I just think lifting and a lot of the combat conditioning low-level fighters do is a distraction/detractor from skill work.
What you say has truth to it, but what d/w says also has. Bottom line in all this is Balance, thats the Tricky Bit and understanding it. I for what its worth, have found that twice a week doing something away from Boxing techniques, using different motor skills, but with simular motor adaptions, has improved skills. Weights, over the years ive drifted away from them, simply because most of it is done of the Heel, the Brake. I feel athletically its not a good response, as regards feel response, in most sports as its constant, and doesnt correct your dominant, stabilizing issue of the preferred side.
Weight lifting was good for Holyfield. Vlad does some weight lifting, but the right way...............
