Why Wrestlers Have Knockout Power...

 

It isn't uncommon to see a fighter with a wrestling background knock out a striking specialist. Chuck Liddell was known for his devastating stand-up even though his background was wrestling. King Mo, Josh Koscheck, Jimmy Hendricks, Jose Aldo, Jon Jones and a whole lot of other Top 10 Fighters came from a grappling background.

It could be because striking came naturally to these fighters allowing them to excel at a rapid pace. Or that small gloves and takedowns/clinch change the standup game in MMA completely. But it could be because grappling-based martial arts have a huge strength component which increases their potential to produce power when they began to practice striking techniques.

When training with weights, strength is the most important fitness parameter for beginners. When practicing sport, power is the dominant fitness parameter. The law of specificity says something is wrong. Why are we trying to develop strength, when our sport calls on huge amounts of force to be developed rapidly (strength is the ability to produce force regardless of movement velocity). Strength is a component of power and when you increase an athletes absolute strength, their power producing ability also increases. It doesn't necessarily mean they will be more powerful, but when they begin power training, they have more power to unleash.

Grappling based martial arts have a huge strength component. Holding your opponent down while he tries to escape, grabbing a leg while your opponent tries to sprawl or squeezing onto a choke requires huge amounts of muscle activation. It is also common for coaches in wrestling to prescribe strength training to their athletes. They have done this for years. In contrast, striking is mostly about speed and power. Being able to deliver a forceful blow with speed is the ultimate goal. This is combined with most coaches advocating their fighters don't lift weights because it makes them slow (which is wrong).

For fighters whose origin lies in grappling based martial arts, there has been a huge amount of strength developed. When they begin to integrate striking into their training schedule, they have so much power to unlock because there strength levels will be higher to fighters with a striking background. Some bias exists because my personal background is Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, but it does explain why so many grapplers pack a heavy punch!

RT Origins: Athletics, Not Aesthetics

Movie prequels seem to be the ‘in thing’ in Hollywood at the moment, so I thought I would follow suit. 

Being involved in some form of coaching for professional fighters was a goal of mine since I was sixteen. I followed two things religiously from a relatively early age: MMA and Fitness Training. My global awareness was poor and I had limited general knowledge, but I did know fitness. Every bit of free time I had was invested into training, reading about training or thinking about training. 

When I reached the age of twenty, I decided to open the door of the fitness industry and take my first step. I had adopted a training philosophy focused on objective results. I was interested in developing specific fitness parameters, rather than focusing on my physical appearance. This eventually became the backbone of RT: ‘Athletics, Not Aesthetics’. 

I remember talking with a gym junkie friend, and explained the slogan I had planned to use: ‘Athletics, Not Aesthetics’. He wasn’t impressed. He insisted that the majority of people want to train to look better, and aren’t concerned with their physical ability. He predicted our RT jingle would be a deterrent.

Aware that I was targeting a niche market, I was willing to do whatever it took to make it work. Those who trained in the ‘shed era’ can vouch that equipment we had was far from sophisticated, but we still made great strides. Had I modified RT’s philosophy and settled for a training system to build the ultimate beach body, things would be a lot different. 

Some clarification… we don’t want our athletes to look like Roy Nelson - a good physique is great for self-confidence, attracting the opposite sex, etc.  We are simply guiding our clients in unleashing their athletic ability (enhanced aesthetics are typically a by-product). We don’t want our clients to just look like athletes. We want to make them athletes.

Are Heavy Hands Genetic?

 

No, we aren’t talking about gigantism. For anyone who is a fan of combat sports, you will often here the expression ‘heavy hands’ given to fighters who possess dangerous knockout power. Along with this term is the general acceptance by most coaches that some people are born with it, and some people are born without it. Is there truth to being born with heavy hands? Science says yes.

There are two types of muscle fibres: Type I and Type II (not really, it is a continuum, but identifying each end of the spectrum simplifies things a lot). Type II muscle fibres contract quickly and have the ability to generate large amounts of power. This is in contrast to Type I fibres which contract slower and cannot produce power like their Type II counterparts.

Evidence suggests that the proportion of slow/fast twitch fibres is determined by genetics - that some people are born with a predisposition to succeed as a sprinter, and some to succeed as a marathon runner. Similarly, some people are born with heavy hands, and some are not. 

Wait, you may not be doomed…

-       Everybody has Type II fibres. These are also called high threshold motor units because they are only activated when muscles have to produce a high amount of force. Learning to activate these high threshold motor units is done via strength/power training

-       Some evidence suggests that performing exercises that require large amounts of force can cause a transformation from Type I to Type II fibres

-       If you do have more Type I fibres, your muscle is more fatigue resistant so you will probably be able to outlast your heavy handed opponent.

-       Taking the fitness component of punching out, developing good technique and focusing on your accuracy may make you more dangerous than someone born with heavy hands.

Even with a genetic disadvantage, everybody can improve their power output. The key is training with the correct training protocol. Using strength and power exercises is critical for any combat athlete!

Learn by... Watching? The Lazy Way of Learning New Skills

During a Saturday afternoon training session with boxing guru, Eddy Kaliboti, we were asked to stand in a circle and observe the technique of everybody participating in the seminar. Eddy made an interesting point that watching the technique of others is useful in helping fine-tune our own technique.
 

Italian scientists observed a strange phenomenon in monkeys. When a monkey would see a human bring a peanut to their mouth, the monkey’s brain would fire as if they were bringing a peanut to their own mouth. Through observation alone, the monkey had activated this mental process in their brain for the task they just witnessed. The overseeing scientists suggested that humans have a similar ability to subconsciously imitate what we see. 

Whether or not Eddy was one of the scientists involved in observing the mental processes of the monkeys, they both had suggested a similar idea - that we can learn by watching.

This helps support the training methods of mental rehearsal and visualisation in refining your skills without physically performing them. It also suggests that by watching footage of the sport you are participating in, you may be picking things up without even realizing. More importantly, it provides a method to prevent detraining when you are injured. Serious injuries usually result in the athlete disappearing off the face of the earth until they are fully rehabilitated. If you are injured, keep rocking up to the gym – just by watching you can help stimulate the motor networks linked to the skills you are observing and reduce the loss of your skills through inactivity.

Strength and Conditioning is like a marriage, not a one-night stand (by Owen)

I've been with the boys from RT for about 4-5 years now. Over that time I've seen other athletes come and go. Some stay for a period trying to get ready for an event like a fight or a tournament, others just try it for a while, never to be seen again. However there's a core group of guys and girls who are there every week, week in and week out. Their reasons for staying vary, but the comforting thing is that their results keep improving as does their general and overall health. I can tell you that my body shape and lift numbers are changing all the time (usually for the better if I've had no sport injuries).

Ive also noticed other athletes who come back for just a specific time period preparing for an event train pretty hard too, whilst they have some great numbers relating to lifts and other parameters, I often wonder why they stop after their fights/events and don't come back till just before the next one?

The goal of strength and conditioning is to increase athletic performance, and cycling through the strength, power and endurance cycles mean that over time your parameters for each should improve too. Using a strength and conditioning coach to get you back to a place you have been already seems to me to be a waste. While you still may perform well, the added benefits of being more athletic than last time would mean a huge difference year on year. I can easily say that I'm a much better athlete this year than last year and this is a significant improvement on 2 years ago etc. Compared to when I was 20 I'm stronger, faster and much better built for combat sports now. If only I could recover from heavy workloads like I did back then....