Powerlifters in BJJ competitions

[ens189]

Moving weight is about general strength, but a lot of it is about technique as well. Deadlifting a lot has to do with good positioning, same with Squats, Bench, etc. Most strong people that feel weak wrestling or in judo are probably not positioned well at all. Similarly, you can have a really strong grappler go to do a Deadlift and have trouble budging lightweight. My guess is that if you work with him on form and understanding the positioning, he'll put up better numbers fairly quickly.

This is very true. Lot's of strong Bench guys like to try to pin people down using their arms/shoulders, that is a recipe for disaster obviously.

The point is to train the two together. Technique first always, but supplement it with strength.

 

[Daniel Fox]

Doesn't lifting weight help a lot more in wrestling as it actually helps you lift guys up?

Yes and no. Lifting a body is different than lifting a weight, you learn to use your hips. The best form of weight lifting for wrestling/ grappling would be a lift where you use your whole body to lift the weight rather than isolating the muscle, like Olympic lifts or dead lifts.

 

[ArtemV]

I like going to the gym and just increasing my strength. A lot of guys don't even do that, and focus solely bjj, or whatever grappling. It makes a big difference to your game.

 

[Clinchster]

Agreed. Powerlifters are a bitch to roll with. However, if all they do is lift, then they typically don't have the grappling endurance of someone who trains 3-5x a week. You gotta learn to ride the bull, tire'em out, make him move your entire body for every inch of ground he wants to gain. It can be done......That said, once they actually start learning?.....Pffffft. Fuhgetta bout it! What little technique I have, is not better than their strength. (atleast, not yet.) So, I can't really help ya.

 

[sb413197]

Strength is good and all but it's far from the end-all; I've competed in powerlifting and when I started all that strength just made me gas faster - I couldn't even roll 30 seconds at first. IMO it's not even the most important physical attribute - that would be speed, followed by cardio - guys who wrestled have those two in spades which makes them hard to deal with. Maybe strength in 3rd, or possibly flexiblity, depending upon what kind of game you play.

 

[rmongler]

There's no speed without strength.

 

[Obscure Terror]

The best thing about not strength training is it's easy. Even better when you can come up with broscience about how it doesn't work on the mats so you can feel smug and justified.

Lifting is the best thing I have ever done for my grappling, second only to actually starting BJJ.

 

[TheeFaulted]

Strength is good and all but it's far from the end-all; I've competed in powerlifting and when I started all that strength just made me gas faster - I couldn't even roll 30 seconds at first. IMO it's not even the most important physical attribute - that would be speed, followed by cardio - guys who wrestled have those two in spades which makes them hard to deal with. Maybe strength in 3rd, or possibly flexiblity, depending upon what kind of game you play.

It wasn't your strength that made you gas. It was your lack of muscular endurance combined with your poor technique.

 

[TheeFaulted]

From my experience in wrestling, there is a different kind of wrestling strength that you only get through wrestling (or grappling), I have wrestled many people who could lift much more than I can, but they did not really seem that strong to me, and I have also wrestled guys who look like 90 pound weaklings yet they felt unbelievably strong.

You're confusing strength with technique. They didn't "seem" strong because they didn't have the technique to know when and how to apply that strength. The wrestlers did. And if the 90lb "weakling" who had the wrestling chops got stronger, you'd feel that too.

 

[Bubblun]

You're confusing strength with technique. They didn't "seem" strong because they didn't have the technique to know when and how to apply that strength. The wrestlers did. And if the 90lb "weakling" who had the wrestling chops got stronger, you'd feel that too.

No no, it is strength.
Technique and strength are actually the same thing because when you are used to do a movement over and over again, in the case of grapplers pushing, pulling, twisting another man's body, in the case of powerlifting lifting a barbell in a set range of motion, you get a lot stronger in said movement.

A famous quote of powerlifters i know is "strength is a skill", it is also true the opposite, doing proper skill training makes you more efficient, faster and stronger in the movements you practice.

 

[Uchi Mata]

You're confusing strength with technique. They didn't "seem" strong because they didn't have the technique to know when and how to apply that strength. The wrestlers did. And if the 90lb "weakling" who had the wrestling chops got stronger, you'd feel that too.

Strength can only be measured in its application, whether that's squatting or suplexing someone. You can certainly make the argument that squatting is a better measure of pure strength than suplexing someone since squatting will have more general carryover to a wide varieties of other strength metrics, but at the same time if what you're measuring is the ability to pick someone up and throw them down then the best measure of how strong someone is in that particular skill is simply their ability to do it. There is no way to measure strength absent of technique, so it's silly to try and say restrict the measures of strength to a particular set of techniques, in this case the big lifts.

 

[TheeFaulted]

Strength can only be measured in its application, whether that's squatting or suplexing someone. You can certainly make the argument that squatting is a better measure of pure strength than suplexing someone since squatting will have more general carryover to a wide varieties of other strength metrics, but at the same time if what you're measuring is the ability to pick someone up and throw them down then the best measure of how strong someone is in that particular skill is simply their ability to do it. There is no way to measure strength absent of technique, so it's silly to try and say restrict the measures of strength to a particular set of techniques, in this case the big lifts.

Strength is best going to be measured with a simple movement over a complicated one. Suplexing a resisting opponent is going to take much more technique than a squat.

You are correct in that we cannot completely remove technique from a test of strength, but we can sure mitigate it's effects by focusing on a movement that takes less technique to complete.

No no, it is strength.
Technique and strength are actually the same thing because when you are used to do a movement over and over again, in the case of grapplers pushing, pulling, twisting another man's body, in the case of powerlifting lifting a barbell in a set range of motion, you get a lot stronger in said movement.

Nope. Technique and strength are not the same thing. This is so obvious it's hard to even comprehend someone not knowing this. If you have a wrestler with great technique in a movement, and over the off season he gets much stronger, not by doing the movement but by spending time in the weight room, he's going to get stronger even though his technique hasn't improved.

A famous quote of powerlifters i know is "strength is a skill", it is also true the opposite, doing proper skill training makes you more efficient, faster and stronger in the movements you practice.

To compete at a high level in powerlifting you'll have to master the skill of the powerlifts as well as develop the brute strength. That however doesn't invalidate anything I've said. Any proper strength training program is going to be periodized to included sport specific training to teach the motor patterns to properly apply that brute strength

 

[Uchi Mata]

Strength is best going to be measured with a simple movement over a complicated one. Suplexing a resisting opponent is going to take much more technique than a squat.

You are correct in that we cannot completely remove technique from a test of strength, but we can sure mitigate it's effects by focusing on a movement that takes less technique to complete.

My point wasn't that general strength can't be better measured through compound lifts than it can technical applications like suplexing someone. My point was that if what you're interested in is suplexing people, it's not wrong to talk about someone being stronger with respect to that activity than someone else with less skill at suplexing people but better weight room numbers. Which is what I think @Daniel Fox was talking about, and which we've all experienced if we've been grappling a while. Part of it is just pure technique, but part of it is also actual strength built through repetition as the motions of grappling are very, very different from the motions of powerlifting and build a very different type of muscular strength. For example, how much rotational strength is involved in any of the power lifts? Not really much of any IMO. Are the hips and abs made strong from powerlifting? Yes, of course, but the CNS adaptations which as you probably know account for a significant amount of demonstrable strrength are not going to be there the same way they are for a Judoka who has been twisting people over his hips for years. Big compound lifts are the best way to develop general strength, especially in the prime movers, but the ability to apply strength is limited by the weakest link and if that link is something you don't really train in the weight room but train on the mat all the time it's entirely possible for someone with somewhat lower lifting numbers to actually be stronger in grappling movements.

 

[TheeFaulted]

I'm with you on all of that except for that first point. The squat or the deadlift will be a better measurement of general strength than performing a suplex against a resisting opponent. The suplex is just far too technical to be a measure of strength.

 

[EGDM]

the ability to apply strength is limited by the weakest link

This is the secret to "old man strength". Guys that have been performing a physical activity for decades develop significant power and endurance in niche muscle groups (obliques, forearms, neck, etc.) that allow them to have a higher strength floor over a wide range of motion. Younger, "stronger" opponents are then surprised when they're physically bested despite having a much higher strength ceiling in more standard positions.

 

[Uchi Mata]

I'm with you on all of that except for that first point. The squat or the deadlift will be a better measurement of general strength than performing a suplex against a resisting opponent. The suplex is just far too technical to be a measure of strength.

I was actually agreeing with you that the squat or deadlift are much better measures of general strength than a suplex. They clearly are. However, this being a grappling forum, when we talk about strength we're talking about strength primarily for grappling, not general strength, so in that context things like ability to suplex are pretty useful measures. That's what I was trying to say.

 

[Mcmoon]

I was actually agreeing with you that the squat or deadlift are much better measures of general strength than a suplex. They clearly are. However, this being a grappling forum, when we talk about strength we're talking about strength primarily for grappling, not general strength, so in that context things like ability to suplex are pretty useful measures. That's what I was trying to say.

I understand what your saying but if you take 2 complete novices that are of similar height and weight the person who is stronger will almost definitely have an easier time suplexing someone. General strength is directly applicable to grappling.

 

[sb413197]

It wasn't your strength that made you gas. It was your lack of muscular endurance combined with your poor technique.

Weeelllll....yes, that is true as well of course, since I'm just as strong now and do better in that regard (always a struggle still nonetheless)...but I do think that having strength on top of a lack of cardio and poor technique makes you gas that much faster - this seems to be the case in others as well, for extreme examples you can see when strongmen start doing MMA - they have the world's worst gas tanks. It certainly seems to be the case in general. It's like a forumula-1 race car vs a Honda Civic or something - if you put an unskilled driver in both the race car will burn through its fuel and shred its tires faster. Or something like that.

I'm glad I have the strength now though, of course. Particularly as a bit older practicioner it really is nice.

 

[sb413197]

To compete at a high level in powerlifting you'll have to master the skill of the powerlifts as well as develop the brute strength. That however doesn't invalidate anything I've said. Any proper strength training program is going to be periodized to included sport specific training to teach the motor patterns to properly apply that brute strength

This is a never-ending debate in strength forums for years and years - "skill" of a motion vs "strength" of a muscle. I don't think you can separate the two personally - the body is a unit and there are many factors that lead to ability to output force, from cognitively learning a technique, to gaining skill in it, muscular hypertrophy, and so on and so forth.

 

[jack36767]

This is the secret to "old man strength". Guys that have been performing a physical activity for decades develop significant power and endurance in niche muscle groups (obliques, forearms, neck, etc.) that allow them to have a higher strength floor over a wide range of motion. Younger, "stronger" opponents are then surprised when they're physically bested despite having a much higher strength ceiling in more standard positions.

This, oblique, clenching core, and grip are so underrated for "grappling" strength it's not funny