Unpopular S&C Beliefs

[bowlie]

Absolutely.

One of my teachers didn't believe in weight lifting at all. Once a week, we did a 45 minute burn out circuit that would take me 5-6 days to recover from. I couldn't lift weights while I was taking his class.

A buddy of mine trained with us for awhile. He was a college soccer player, ran 10ks, and was in great shape. He did the workout for a month. One day I was at his house he was doing some pushups, gets up after about 45 of them, and says, "fucking shit, I feel like I'm getting weaker."

That's an extreme example, but his classes lead me to really question burn out drills.

I still burn out sometimes, like if I do 30 box jumps at the end of a workout, I'm beat. I didn't need all day to do it though.

I also feel like after a point, your not gaining anything from making yourself feel shit. If I run a 3 miler fast as I can, thats a pretty good aerobic workout. Running another 3 miles after doesnt necessarily make it better. If I have already done enough to trigger a response anything above is just junk that wont help me get better and just messes up my week like you said.

 

[bowlie]

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.

Dont think anyone disagrees with this. The point of strength and conditioning is that doing sport specific stuff all the time will break you. Strength and conditioning should be ditched as competition nears

 

[Oblivian]

Continued strength training matters very little to fighters who have established a strength base.

Every athlete does not need to squat.

 

[ripskater]

Continued strength training matters very little to fighters who have established a strength base.

Every athlete does not need to squat.

Why don't you just leave this forum now?

 

[Oblivian]

Why don't you just leave this forum now?

Spoiler

 

[redaxe]

Dont think anyone disagrees with this. The point of strength and conditioning is that doing sport specific stuff all the time will break you. Strength and conditioning should be ditched as competition nears

In this forum maybe my belief is non-controversial but among the general population (my former self included) there are a ton of people who think that the weeks leading up to a competition is the time to focus on S&C. Fighters who show up fat and out of shape to an 8-week training camp and then try to train skill and every aspect of fitness at the same time while also crash dieting and cutting weight (no wonder so many injuries happen in camps).

Hard sparring all the time will break you, but lower-intensity technique drilling you should be able to do all day with very little risk of injury or overtraining.

I saw a timely rant from a friend of a friend on Facebook last night about this after writing my original comment, so I'll share that too:

Whenever I hear or read the statement "I need to work on my cardio", its 99.99% the absolute last thing they need to work on. Most of the time they have way better "cardio" than I do and they don't rely on inhalers to get through their working day. The reason they are "gassing" is they are trying to apply the same intensity to their BJJ, wrestling, judo, striking, etc that they apply to a deadlift or a squat. And I don't care how many years they have trained, its always the same.

Rather than going jogging or doing "MMA circuits" or whatever else they had planned instead of getting fundamentally better, they need to slow down and pace themselves for the duration of the class. They should attempt to finish the class at the same pace they started it at. Drinks breaks are a waste of time as if they are dehydrated, sipping water is not going to help at all at that point. Full rehydration takes hours and hours and they should come to class rehydrated. If you really cannot continue, go home.

 

[ripskater]

You can get very athletic, strong, explosive and fast by using bodyweight and no more than 20 lbs. I know a guy that uses no more than 8lbs for years now (cause he told me), and he's a physical freak. He is a real good baseball player and ran track. He's untrained in mma and could probably walk in most gyms and literally manhandle people.

 

[Synapse]

I'll continue:

Dedicated conditioning is a waste of time and energy other than a month prior to a sports season (for most sports), and it should largely drop off in season.

For a reasonably well trained athlete, nutrition, hydration, supplementation, and relaxation/focusing techniques play a much larger role than any conditioning program.

There is a point where an athlete is strong enough. Most will never reach it, but it exists.

MMA fighters, coaches and fans as a group have possibly the worst collective understanding of how strength impacts performance. Hell, how any training variable applies to fight performance.

 

[xilliun]

There is a point where an athlete is strong enough. Most will never reach it, but it exists.

MMA fighters, coaches and fans as a group have possibly the worst collective understanding of how strength impacts performance. Hell, how any training variable applies to fight performance.

Good point, there's definitely diminishing returns at the upper level where training time could be better spent elsewhere. I've noticed it with involvement in AFL teams (Australian football) where at the amateur level a lot of people will spend a lot of time in the weight room during the preseason and sacrifice aerobic or anaerobic conditioning. Fairly counter intuitive since it's easy to run 8-10km, or more, over the course of a game.

 

[NurseKnuckles]

There's no such thing as "I'm strong enough." But there is a point of diminished returns.

 

[Synapse]

There's no such thing as "I'm strong enough." But there is a point of diminished returns.

I probably should have added more. I specifically meant "strong enough that I should stop pursuing strength gains and work on something else"

 

[RafailNadull]

Some of the most cherished S&C community dogmas have little evidential support.

Many S&Cers believe, with remarkably conviction, what they've been told on forums in posts that cited no evidence whatsoever.

 

[Tosa]

Unless you're a strength athlete. Which are athletes too. On the flipside, most endurance athletes should easily be able to be strong enough for their sport.

 

[Synapse]

Some of the most cherished S&C community dogmas have little evidential support.

Many S&Cers believe, with remarkably conviction, what they've been told on forums in posts that cited no evidence whatsoever.

Do you have any examples?

 

[bowlie]

Do you have any examples?

the shit most people spout on a daily basis?

 

[gspieler]

Some of the most cherished S&C community dogmas have little evidential support.

Many S&Cers believe, with remarkably conviction, what they've been told on forums in posts that cited no evidence whatsoever.

Which is merely an e-version of what goes on in gyms across the world every day. If a given athlete/exerciser wants to take everything on faith alone, without doing any research of their on the matter, that's their prerogative.

 

[selfcritical]

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.

Exception to the rule. Over the last weekend I got to spend a LOT of time talking to Ivan Denisov and Aleksander Khovostov. Most of you probably have no reason to know who they are.

To give context, Khovostov is a world champion in his weight class, and Denisov is the absolute world record holder in every single competitive kettlebell sport event, has a 600+ lb DL without ever training DL, and runs marathons without any specific preparation.

They showed us a lot of their programing, and one thing they both had in common is that the volume of GPP and assistance lifts vastly exceed that of sport practice, which is completely at odds with what i know of other high-level athletes.

Denisov does incredibly high volume of barbell squat jumps, unilateral box jumps, rowing/sking, bodybuilding tempo squats, and other assistance exercises where he never touches a kettlebell. Both when asked said "Competitive event is only 10 minutes long. Training more than 20 minutes of total work with lift make no sense. But I have several hours I can train each day"

By contrast, Valery Federanko, who is better known, but not nearly as well accomplished, does sport practice with the competitive lifts nearly every day.

 

[selfcritical]

Continued strength training matters very little to fighters who have established a strength base.

Every athlete does not need to squat.

I'm a 160lb recreational BJJ player and kind of good KB sport guy.

I've met a Heavyweight olympic bronze medalist in boxing who's squat was in the same range as mine....after he specifically tried to put on weight.

 

[miaou]

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

Usually, when referring to basic motor patterns when it comes to basic strength training, people refer to the following:
- concurrent knee/hip extension
- hip extension
- vertical push
- vertical pull
- horizontal push
- horizontal pull


For most sports, you generally need to strengthen the concurrent knee/hip extension motor pattern (because it's a basic motor pattern used in pretty much everything, from acceleration, to jumping, to changing direction, and greater strength can help with better performance and lower risk of injury). Beyond that, if you want to use the high-bar squat, the low-bar squat, the front squat, or even bulgarian split squats or loaded step ups, as long as you can perform them safely and produce measurable strength improvements, you are on the right track.


On the same token, I agree with Oblivian's statement that every athlete does not need to squat. There are alternatives and no one particular exercise variant is irreplaceable.

 

[Was Exiled]

I'm a 160lb recreational BJJ player and kind of good KB sport guy.

I've met a Heavyweight olympic bronze medalist in boxing who's squat was in the same range as mine....after he specifically tried to put on weight.

What's your squat?