Unpopular S&C Beliefs

[Stargazer Rex]

Girls don't care about big legs, they want huge arms and chesticles.

 

[golvmopp]

Pretty much every single MMA S&C programme I've seen at the professional level is horseshit, with exercise clusters that could be replaced with much more time and energy efficient drilling and exercise choices.

 

[Seriously-Dead]

This is arguably going to be one of the most valuable threads in this forum. Already is.

Mine:
1) Non-athlete beginners do infinitely better with high volume programs that get them working out +5 days a week with a variety of exercises (all the basics and more). SS, SL, 5x5, 5/3/1 are very sub-par programs for most people - although some of them can be properly adapted to people in the right circumstance in athletes with other training obligations. Something like Mike's Beginner Program is so much better for something like weight training.

2) Nutrition doesn't matter as much as people think, in the physiological sense. Nutrition matters much more in relation to psychology and behavior than people credit it for. 90% of questions in nutrition seem to focus around optimal physiology rather than where they should -- optimal behavior and psychological questions.

3) Resting a lot between sets is often a waste of time and just an indication that a person is poorly conditioned.

 

[redaxe]

Unless you're already training near full-time and very highly skilled, the marginal utility of an hour of sport specific training vastly outweighs that of an hour of S&C training, in terms of performance improvement in that same sport. This applies to sports with a significant skill component, i.e. not powerlifting or marathon running.

In other words, if you want to get better at a sport, the answer is almost always to just practice that sport more. Lifting weights and doing cardio or HIIT doesn't hurt (as long as you don't hurt yourself doing it), but it also doesn't help as much as people think it does, and it is probably not the best use of your time if you could be spending it practicing your sport more. S&C just gives you an edge after you've already hit the point of diminishing returns on skill training.

 

[Tosa]

The front squat or rack pull aren't necessarily safer. For example, the front squat puts more stress on the knees, which for many individuals is more problematic than stress on the back. The rack pull is only safer if the individual lacks the mobility or skill to pull from the ground, both of which are things that should be addressed. The problem isn't the lifts, it's the lack of ability to get an individual to the point where they can do them properly.

 

[redaxe]

Pretty much every single MMA S&C programme I've seen at the professional level is horseshit, with exercise clusters that could be replaced with much more time and energy efficient drilling and exercise choices.

I agree with this.

If I were training an MMA fighter I would go through their workout plan and replace almost all the random crap S&C in it with more drilling and sparring.

Being bigger/faster/stronger/better conditioned than your opponent is great, but being *better* than your opponent is so much more important.

 

[golvmopp]

Being bigger/faster/stronger/better conditioned than your opponent is great, but being *better* than your opponent is so much more important.

Where I was getting at was that their programmes are entire counterintuitive for the bolded part. You might get nicer beach muscles doing timed battleropes and medicine ball throws to failure, but exactly what part does the Cindy-circuit train, that couldn't have been trained better with say... a pair of 5-minute rounds with nothing but takedowns against the cage? The latter teaches you to hone technique and work efficiently under fatigue while training anaerobic endurance. The former.... gives you a nice burn.

 

[redaxe]

Where I was getting at was that their programmes are entire counterintuitive for the bolded part. You might get nicer beach muscles doing timed battleropes and medicine ball throws to failure, but exactly what part does the Cindy-circuit train, that couldn't have been trained better with say... a pair of 5-minute rounds with nothing but takedowns against the cage? The latter teaches you to hone technique and work efficiently while training anaerobic endurance. The former.... gives you a nice burn.

Yeah, that too. A lot of times I think the drilling and sparring itself also accomplishes the conditioning goal better than the dedicated conditioning exercises people are coming up with. They're perhaps a little harder to measure, though.

 

[MASShole]

my reasoning behind frontsquat > backsquat is that it's much safer, and it's also much more strenous for your core, it also promotes better flexibility.

rackpulls work the same exact muscles, only you can go heavier for a better glute/upper back workout, i suppose your erectors will get less work. but the injury rate going to zero is worth it.

I pulled my back out doing rack pulls many years ago. The injury rate doesn't go to zero, and you're missing hamstrings from your "less work" category.

 

[gspieler]

Bench press is, albeit a decent lift, highly overrated, at least in terms of practical application to anything relevant. If anything, overhead work should be emphasized in leu of it.

Hex bar deads are an effective method of building strength and musculature. For all intents and purposes, they can generally be considered equivalent to barbell deads.

Low bar squat > high bar > front > all other variants.

Almost all athletes, or human beings for that matter, can benefit from some LISS.

 

[LZD]

Getting stronger in any Squatting, Pressing, Pulling from the floor variant is fine for S&C. The specific variations don't really matter.

You'll add mass and strength either way.

 

[gspieler]

Getting stronger in any Squatting, Pressing, Pulling from the floor variant is fine for S&C. The specific variations don't really matter.

You'll add mass and strength either way.

For the most part, sure, anybody will get stronger doing any sort of heavy squat, pull, or press, but there are nuances that apply. For instance, would you consider an OH squat as effective at building strength as a back squat? Or a SL dead as effective as conventional? They all definitely have the capacity to increase a lifter's strength, but there is also somewhat of a hierarchy to them in terms of effectiveness.

 

[Tosa]

Often enough, the specific variations do matter. Whether it's because it's more advantageous for a person of specific proportions, for specific goals, or because of joint issues, past injuries, etc.

Sure, for some individuals, whether a front squat, high bar, low bar, may not really matter too much, but for some individuals it does. So it's best to avoid generalizations, and it's also important to recognize when a specific variation is more beneficial, and teach it, if the person is some sort of coach.

For example, training the sumo deadlift, rather than conventional, is just fine for a powerlifter, or a causal strength trainee, or if someone wants to put less stress on the back, but if someone wants to focus more on hip extension, or load the back more, then it's not a good choice. Likewise, if someone participates in an explosive sport, like say, a thrower, then variants of the olympic lifts would generally make more sense as a pull than a deadlift. And in a lot of cases, multiple kinds of pulls will be used in the same program, for different reasons.

 

[Eric Brown]

my reasoning behind frontsquat > backsquat is that it's much safer, and it's also much more strenous for your core, it also promotes better flexibility.

Stats to support claims?

rackpulls work the same exact muscles, only you can go heavier for a better glute/upper back workout, i suppose your erectors will get less work. but the injury rate going to zero is worth it.

Stats to support injury rate of zero.

 

[magick]

This is arguably going to be one of the most valuable threads in this forum. Already is.

Mine:
1) Non-athlete beginners do infinitely better with high volume programs that get them working out +5 days a week with a variety of exercises (all the basics and more). SS, SL, 5x5, 5/3/1 are very sub-par programs for most people - although some of them can be properly adapted to people in the right circumstance in athletes with other training obligations. Something like Mike's Beginner Program is so much better for something like weight training.

I agree with this.

I think SS and the like aren't useful for people who didn't play sports in their youth and were sedentary until they decided to just start doing physical shit in their 20s+.

The volume is too low and the intensity is too high. I think they would benefit far more from doing high volume with appropriate load for the volume.

 

[LZD]

What is Mike's Beginner Program?

 

[monkeyrhythm]

What is Mike's Beginner Program?

I was thinking the same?

Mike Burgener?
Mike Gill?
Mike O'Hearn?
Mike Chang?
Mike Hunt (see above^)?

 

[Seriously-Dead]

What is Mike's Beginner Program?

It's pretty much just a BB split. Mike Gill, an amateur strongman who use to write for Chasingkaz.com, wrote it years ago. The site closed down a long time ago. I've seen a few guys run this program for a year+ with no signs of stalling (mainly because the progression is incredibly sane).

Day 1:
Bench for warm up
Bench
Dips
Shoulder Press/Military Press

Day 2:
Front Squat warm up
Front Squat
Dumbbell Straight Leg Dead-Lift
Seated Row/Face pulls

Day 3:
Pull downs for warm up
Pull Ups
Bent over Row
Biceps

Day 4:
Dumb Bell incline Bench Press
Dips
DB Seated Shoulder
Push ups

Day 5:
Squats
Deads

It follows a 3 week cycle.
Week 1: 10-12 reps
Week 2: 7-10 reps
Week 3: 3-5 reps
Most exercises should be done for 3-6 sets, but mileage can vary. Weights or sets are normally increased after every cycle, but this is up to the person's discretion.

And then it's recommended to throw a bit of cardio on top of this as well.

 

[xilliun]

#1: Most people who are critical of exercise science as well as strength and conditioning often know very little about it.
#2. Most people look for stupid ass excuses as to why they should not do shit. Currently, CNS fatigue is all the rage. It was very big in Europe.
#3. Most people do not spend enough time on the basics.

Agreed. I think there's only 1 person who I've come across in the last 4 years that has actually overtrained to the point where they had "CNS fatigue". I really don't know where the popularity of the term picked up, was there a popular sports figure who'd had those symptoms recently?

 

[bowlie]

A great part (possibly the majority) of "strength and conditioning research" appearing in scientific journals is BS. Same goes for nutrition research, btw.

Different people respond extremely differently to exercise. For example, some kids will stretch for a couple weeks and have noticeable improvements in flexibility; some kids will stretch for months with very small results that will be lost almost immediately when they stop stretching. The range of how much people respond to different types of exercise is pretty big.

There is a huge genetic component in athletic performance. Huge. Most coaches tend to overlook that fact because it's not politically correct and it also doesn't benefit their "business". Basically, the best way to "create champions" is good scouting.

Unless you are in a strength sport (power lifting, weightlifting, etc.) max strength development is an extremely simple concept. Arguing about "squat or deadlift", or "front squat or back squat", or even "uni-lateral or bi-lateral strength exercises" completely misses the big picture. For each athlete, find a way, any way, to build a strength base that involves basic motor patterns, is measurable and the athlete can perform in a safe way and do the work to produce improvement. That's all there is to it.

Similar to my last point, how do you define what is a basic motor pattern and what isnt?

ITT: common sense

People new to training in general should be started with bodyweight exercises(gymnastics basics) and TONS of mobility.

Why bodyweight? For example a very overweight and weak person cant do a decent pressup, but can bench light weights with good form. Whats going to help them more? flopping around on the floor or actual lifting?