For those who say upper body strength is somehow unimportant for fighting...

[RexChapmanFan]

I have consistently heard throughout these forums that upper body strength is no indicator of fighting ability. So I'm told, a skinny guy with average or below strength will allegedly be at no disadvantage fighting a guy with above average strength, all else equal.

But in my somewhat limited experience this seems false. When I've trained clinch-work in a thai boxing setting, I can literally feel when my training partner is physically weaker than I am. I've been paired up with guys who have a good amount more experience training than I do and I have easily dealt with them in the clinch basically because they were weaker in the back/shoulders/chest area.

I don't think this can be attributed to my superior technique, for, as I said they have more experience than I do and their technique doesn't look bad (and mine is nothing spectacular). Can anyone else testify that strength does matter at least in some cases or what am I missing here?

 

[RR010V]

Depends, when I was sparring with some weaker friends of mine with the same amount of experience I didnt notice alotof diffrence with boxing. but when it came to wrestling and bjj I had an advantage because I had more strength and was abled to get them down quicker even though we have the same amount of experience. This is just personal experience

 

[Reyesnuthugr]

You are right in your way--

The more grappling-oriented the fighting, the more raw strength is vital to the equation, especially in the upper body.


In pure striking, the weak looking rail thin skinny guys are some of the hardest hitters. When Teddy Atlas was coaching youth and matching them up with opponents, he would purposely avoid matching his kids up with kids from other gyms in the same weight division who were long + thin, because he said they almost always (in his experience) were able to hit like a freight train. (From his AutoBio, which I highly recommend, very fun and insightful book by Teddy Atlas)

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[RexChapmanFan]

You are right in your way--

The more grappling-oriented the fighting, the more raw strength is vital to the equation, especially in the upper body.


In pure striking, the weak looking rail thin skinny guys are some of the hardest hitters. When Teddy Atlas was coaching youth and matching them up with opponents, he would purposely avoid matching his kids up with kids from other gyms in the same weight division who were long + thin, because he said they almost always (in his experience) were able to hit like a freight train. (From his AutoBio, which I highly recommend, very fun and insightful book by Teddy Atlas)

Amazon product ASIN B001PO6AJA

Thanks, man. Great to hear from you again. I am going to check out that book.

And, yes, your perspective makes sense in a pure striking scenario. But I've seen people say this about brute strength even in MMA matches and other martial arts where clinching is allowed in the stand up, as if it didn't matter at all. Now that I'm training in clinch, I think I disagree with them.

 

[Paradigm]

I don't know about upper body strength in general not being important but it doesn't seem like having huge pecs is really crucial for anything in fighting (maybe for trying to muscle someone off you when you're on the bottom or something).

 

[RexChapmanFan]

I don't know about upper body strength in general not being important but it doesn't seem like having huge pecs is really crucial for anything in fighting (maybe for trying to muscle someone off you when you're on the bottom or something).

I don't know about huge pecs, but I'm saying raw strength seems to matter at least in a stand-up clinching situation. This despite my always hearing that upper body strength was irrelevant.

 

[Big_Chief_Stove]

I have consistently heard throughout these forums that upper body strength is no indicator of fighting ability. So I'm told, a skinny guy with average or below strength will allegedly be at no disadvantage fighting a guy with above average strength, all else equal.

But in my somewhat limited experience this seems false. When I've trained clinch-work in a thai boxing setting, I can literally feel when my training partner is physically weaker than I am. I've been paired up with guys who have a good amount more experience training than I do and I have easily dealt with them in the clinch basically because they were weaker in the back/shoulders/chest area.

I don't think this can be attributed to my superior technique, for, as I said they have more experience than I do and their technique doesn't look bad (and mine is nothing spectacular). Can anyone else testify that strength does matter at least in some cases or what am I missing here?

Some of that is crappy body mechanics. Not understanding how to optimize leverage and energy output.

 

[RexChapmanFan]

Some of that is crappy body mechanics. Not understanding how to optimize leverage and energy output.

Probably so, but my body mechanics are not that good either at this point, so those inefficiencies might've offset in this case.

 

[Vergilius]

I guess it depends on what you are doing. Like you say in terms of clinching and grappling, of course upper body strength is an advantage. In pure striking it matters less, though I have to say I'm one of the few guys at my dojo to do a bit of s&c consistently and I do feel it helps me against my faster, more experienced training partner even in pure striking (he's much faster, more agile and more technical, I'm longer, stronger and have got long arms - even though we don't throw with full force I can walk through his punches better than he can with mine and I feel that's somewhat down to core strength).

 

[Kanka]

Of course strenght matters.

But i'm willing to bet the guys that you spar aren't high level in the clinch. When i went to thailand i got tossed around by guys much weaker than me and im not bad in the clinch and can easily clinch guys much stronger than me with no trouble in my home gym

 

[Kanka]

And in think the important thing to know is that if you try to "muscle" your opponent in the clinch you will just get tired quick. With technique you can last alot longer.

Body weight matters aswell as its harder to throw a heavy guy

 

[StopDucking]

I've literally never seen anybody saying upper-body strength was unimportant for fighting.

 

[RexChapmanFan]

I've literally never seen anybody saying upper-body strength was unimportant for fighting.

Oh I've seen it a ton of times on Sherdog forums. Maybe it's more a "Heavyweights" forum thing, but I've heard it a lot.

 

[RexChapmanFan]

Of course strenght matters.

But i'm willing to bet the guys that you spar aren't high level in the clinch. When i went to thailand i got tossed around by guys much weaker than me and im not bad in the clinch and can easily clinch guys much stronger than me with no trouble in my home gym

No, they're not high level, but nor am I. All else equal, it seemed physical strength really helped.

 

[GalegoREB]

Oh I've seen it a ton of times on Sherdog forums. Maybe it's more a "Heavyweights" forum thing, but I've heard it a lot.

People that watch combat sports and people who do combat sports are two different things. Don't take advice from the former.

 

[j123]

I've literally never seen anybody saying upper-body strength was unimportant for fighting.

Not directly like that, but once in awhile in f13 someone would come along and say bench press or OHP, etc provides no benefits to fighting. The topics of the thread where it was posted in would be in stuff like strength training for MMA / BJJ / MT / whatever

 

[Kanka]

Weights are very useful but technique>strenght so dont compromise technique training for lifting weights

 

[n.diazismylife1999]

This just in: strength matters in fighting. Someone call the media.

 

[RexChapmanFan]

This just in: strength matters in fighting. Someone call the media.

Again, you'd be surprised how many people say it's irrelevant. I never understood that sentiment totally.

 

[rmongler]

Some people say the word 'strength' but honestly I don't think they even know what they mean when they say it.

I will tell you one thing, the number one factor of conditioning for combat sport performance, whether its throwing punches or throwing bodies, is anti-rotation.

If your core is not rock solid and can't hold your spine rigid in place, your kinetic chain is fucked, every bit of squish means power lost in transmission.

(Yes, this does mean that sit ups are a terrible exercise and in fact can be actively harmful).