Sit-ups, crunches, etc = useless.

You are only as strong as your weakest link. THink of your abs as a hinge between your upper and lower body. Look at the hip-hop abs guy
 
Try fighting from your guard with no abdominal strength and get back to us.
 
GlassJaw said:
*face Palm Of Death*
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disappointment.gif
 
This thread made baby jesus cry
 
I don't believe that you can get away with compounds re: core work. I used to believe that I didn't need to do any specific work. Then I fucked my SI joint.

Personal favourite 'core' exercises - Medicine ball throws, holds.

In addition to compounds.
 
Vice said:
Curls have helped my punching power.
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curls have actually been proven to strenghten the whole body. thats why i spend alot of time in the curling rack. while listening to idiots come over and ask to do squats there. some people have no clue what the equiptment is designed for. if you wanna do squats go pick a bar up and put it on you back. STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM THE CURLING RACK
 
So, they're not really useless then if they help you take shots.
 
Here's what I know about core development and punching power: the more I deadlift, the harder I hit.
 
1. Tell your "physio" he's a huge, gigantic urethra.

2. Let's talk numbers here for a moment. Any sort of transfer of power where the transfer point is your hand (throwing a baseball, throwing a punch, etc), the breakdown of power looks like this:

60% from the legs and hips
25% from the hips and torso
15% from your shoulders and arms

So, if it's now on the table that 85% of the power is directly involved in your hips, guess what that means?

Don't forget to tell your "physio" that he's a huge, gigantic urethra.
 
Treadly said:
So I went to the physio today and was chatting about boxing/kickboxing/mma etc, and when I mentioned what type of training I'd been doing he said that crunches and sit-ups were essentially useless.

His reckoning went like this. Crunches build up a mass of muscles that are effective in protecting your internal organs from blows, but they are not really useful when it comes to delivering power. If you want to hit with the full force of your body weight you have to have a really strong lower back, obliques, upper back (core) and neck area so that the energy isn't dissapated and absorbed back into your body before the actual punch/kick lands.

So with that in mind, does anyone know of, or anyone do any killer lower back, core, etc exercises?
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I love these blanket statements. You should do a little critical thinking of what this guy says vs how you actually practice your sport.

I think ab work (various crunches and sit ups) is very useful in delivering power in MMA. How many times have you been in this position.....damn...what it's called....ummm....I think it's called THE GUARD!!!!:icon_twis

I think Ross does russian twists off an incline bench with plates. That's directly applicable to guard work.

JC Santana does standing snap downs with heavy duty bands for developing power in the clinch.

I think that it's all good. You have to work everything. Like many people already said here. Deadlifts and squats.

Why are you seeing this guy anyway? I feel like he's talking out of his ass. I feel like he doesn't really know the sport. When I treat other people in other sports I don't make gross general statements like that. I analyze the motion and make statements and recommendations based on what I see.

This makes me think that I can find a niche in PT with treating just MMA and grappling guys.
 
Treadly said:
His reckoning went like this. Crunches build up a mass of muscles that are effective in protecting your internal organs from blows, but they are not really useful when it comes to delivering power. If you want to hit with the full force of your body weight you have to have a really strong lower back, obliques, upper back (core) and neck area so that the energy isn't dissapated and absorbed back into your body before the actual punch/kick lands.
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Shit I can't stop thinking about this statement. Biomechanically, you definitely need your abs along with the above said muscles. You have forward momentum/force with your punch. You land your punch and there's a reaction force coming back at you. The force goes though your arm, shoulders, and starts going down the kinematic chain (i.e. your spine and into your hips and lower legs). This starts to push your spine posteriorly. What's going to absorb that impact or slow or stop your spine from arching backwards? Your abs should definitely be at the top of that list. The other muscles of course will help also.

By abs I'm assuming you mean the rectus abdominis. I also consider internal and external obliques part of the abdominal group as well as the transversus abdominis (which is the most important abdominal group for spine stabilization with daily movements).

If he has beef with doing crunches and sit ups to improve the performance of this particular movement, fine. I'll give 'em that. I guess his argument is that sit ups aren't necessarily sports specific enough for this of movement. Since you're upright, you have to have more coordination to contract above muscles together and train neuromuscular control. You're better off doing resisted punches with a heavy duty band like what you see with Ross's hardcore workouts or JCs band exercises. But to say that sit ups and crunches aren't useful in MMA.... clearly he hasn't seen an MMA match.
 
physicaltherapy said:
Shit I can't stop thinking about this statement. Biomechanically, you definitely need your abs along with the above said muscles. You have forward momentum/force with your punch. You land your punch and there's a reaction force coming back at you. The force goes though your arm, shoulders, and starts going down the kinematic chain (i.e. your spine and into your hips and lower legs). This starts to push your spine posteriorly. What's going to absorb that impact or slow or stop your spine from arching backwards? Your abs should definitely be at the top of that list. The other muscles of course will help also.

By abs I'm assuming you mean the rectus abdominis. I also consider internal and external obliques part of the abdominal group as well as the transversus abdominis (which is the most important abdominal group for spine stabilization with daily movements).

If he has beef with doing crunches and sit ups to improve the performance of this particular movement, fine. I'll give 'em that. I guess his argument is that sit ups aren't necessarily sports specific enough for this of movement. Since you're upright, you have to have more coordination to contract above muscles together and train neuromuscular control. You're better off doing resisted punches with a heavy duty band like what you see with Ross's hardcore workouts or JCs band exercises. But to say that sit ups and crunches aren't useful in MMA.... clearly he hasn't seen an MMA match.
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Hey, let me clarify a bit.
chatting about boxing/kickboxing/mma
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We were talking about these sports in general. His hypothesis, however, was refrerring just to the delivery of power through strikes.

Crunches...not really useful when it comes to delivering power. If you want to hit with the full force of your body weight you have to have a really strong lower back, obliques, upper back (core)
Click to expand...

So to everyone who was getting all upset about the Guard and ground fighting etc, this theory just relates to striking.

However I am glad that it has seen some considered responses.

So, if it's now on the table that 85% of the power is directly involved in your hips, guess what that means?
Click to expand...
Curious to know where you got this info. I'm not disagreeing. Just trying to find out more info.

Why are you seeing this guy anyway?
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Torn calf muscle

What's going to absorb that impact or slow or stop your spine from arching backwards? Your abs should definitely be at the top of that list. The other muscles of course will help also.
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This is a good point and I'm glad to hear another opinon on it. But I think he was talking specifically about delivering power, not the stabilization required when feeling the repurcusions of a strike.

You're better off doing resisted punches with a heavy duty band
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I'll look into that.

But to say that sit ups and crunches aren't useful in MMA
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Clearly these are useful in MMA, the theory was just relating to strikes.

For what it's worth, this guy claimed to have competed in a few amateur boxing matches. I doubt he'd have any reason to take something like that up, but who knows. I'm not taking his word as gospel so I was just curious to see what other people thought.
 
Sit-ups work. There is a reason everyone does a shit load of them in basic training in the armed forces.
 
Read through the S&P faq thoroughly. Check out some of the threads. Right now I'm training strictly Muay Thai, since I've started doing deadlifts, squats and other various exercises listed in the faq I've seriously noticed a change in how much easier my kicks come and how much power I can generate for strikes in general. I'm not sure how well crunches transfer to striking power, BUT they are completely essential for developing muscle to surround your internals so you can take hits to the body and not drop like a sack of shit. Decline Russian Twists, standing cable torso rotations, ect. are very good for gaining more rotational power for punching...but like Revok said, train your body as a whole, neglect anything and you're just asking for injury.
 
Treadly said:
Hey, let me clarify a bit.


We were talking about these sports in general. His hypothesis, however, was refrerring just to the delivery of power through strikes.



So to everyone who was getting all upset about the Guard and ground fighting etc, this theory just relates to striking.

However I am glad that it has seen some considered responses.


Curious to know where you got this info. I'm not disagreeing. Just trying to find out more info.


Torn calf muscle


This is a good point and I'm glad to hear another opinon on it. But I think he was talking specifically about delivering power, not the stabilization required when feeling the repurcusions of a strike.


I'll look into that.


Clearly these are useful in MMA, the theory was just relating to strikes.

For what it's worth, this guy claimed to have competed in a few amateur boxing matches. I doubt he'd have any reason to take something like that up, but who knows. I'm not taking his word as gospel so I was just curious to see what other people thought.
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Sorry I got fired up about nothing. :redface:

Here's some of ross's stuff:

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a lot of the guys that post in this sub forum are familiar with him.
 
above video.........DAMN!

as for the abs.......guess what you CANT do when you are laying on the ground in pain because your internal organs just got turned into jelly.......STRIKE!

work the abs along with everything else, and good luck in your recovery
 
read ross's book, but i've never seen that video. :eek: oh shit, i think i just crapped my pants.
 
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