Squats for Mma

[HitmanNO.1]

I would say heavy squats will just tax your CNS and body to a point it will impact your MMA training. I have seen it a lot on the BJJ mat. You should get all of your work from your MMA training, but for targeted leg work... you honestly should just pick movements that are directly targeting the muscles while being safe. Why load your spine to squat when you should be working on all the balance, coordination and specific strength in your drilling? If you think of it, a barbell loaded squat has little carryover to real fighting. I will get flamed for saying this... but the OPTIMAL way to work the quads and hams are leg curls and leg extensions. Aside from that just do body weight squats at various intensities... aka what you will be doing in your training and fighting.

 

[belph]

I would say heavy squats will just tax your CNS and body to a point it will impact your MMA training. I have seen it a lot on the BJJ mat. You should get all of your work from your MMA training, but for targeted leg work... you honestly should just pick movements that are directly targeting the muscles while being safe. Why load your spine to squat when you should be working on all the balance, coordination and specific strength in your drilling? If you think of it, a barbell loaded squat has little carryover to real fighting. I will get flamed for saying this... but the OPTIMAL way to work the quads and hams are leg curls and leg extensions. Aside from that just do body weight squats at various intensities... aka what you will be doing in your training and fighting.

Lord knows you can't write a program with combat sports in mind. Mah cns is too fragile.

Now before this gets twisted, do you need squatting? No. Is it probably the quickest and easiest way to get stronger legs? Yeah. Anyways I'm guessing you're just trolling based on recommending leg extensions and leg curls.

 

[HitmanNO.1]

Lord knows you can't write a program with combat sports in mind. Mah cns is too fragile.

Now before this gets twisted, do you need squatting? No. Is it probably the quickest and easiest way to get stronger legs? Yeah. Anyways I'm guessing you're just trolling based on recommending leg extensions and leg curls.

Nope not trolling at all. WAY better ways to work legs if your main goal is MMA... you dont need to load your spine and do a very form specific movement. If you want to squat to get better at moving weight in that way, for sure got for it. And yea... I only mentioned Leg extensions and curls if someone's goal was simply size in those two areas. I wouldn't those are ideal for MMA, but neither are traditional barbell squats... heck bodyweight squats, bulgarian split squats maybe or ideally hip belt squats. I dunno, I dont see a point in pre taxing you legs, lower back, upper back and glutes and risking injury when you dont need to that's all

 

[belph]

Nope not trolling at all. WAY better ways to work legs if your main goal is MMA... you dont need to load your spine and do a very form specific movement. If you want to squat to get better at moving weight in that way, for sure got for it. And yea... I only mentioned Leg extensions and curls if someone's goal was simply size in those two areas. I wouldn't those are ideal for MMA, but neither are traditional barbell squats... heck bodyweight squats, bulgarian split squats maybe or ideally hip belt squats. I dunno, I dont see a point in pre taxing you legs, lower back, upper back and glutes and risking injury when you dont need to that's all

So we're cool with a variety of other squats but as soon as barbell comes out in front they're not worthwhile? You're saying for MMA they're not ideal, but if the goal is to increase leg strength I'd argue otherwise. You can negate a lot of the issues you bring up with proper programming and coaching.

 

[HitmanNO.1]

I get what youre saying, agree to disagree. More than one way to skin a cat. I just have seen way too many folks who get injured or cannot train optimally because of thinking the "big three" is the be all, end all of getting stronger. Actually yea... front squats are from what I have read probably the better choice vs back squats, but everyone has their preference

 

[LuKeg]

I would say heavy squats will just tax your CNS and body to a point it will impact your MMA training. I have seen it a lot on the BJJ mat. You should get all of your work from your MMA training, but for targeted leg work... you honestly should just pick movements that are directly targeting the muscles while being safe. Why load your spine to squat when you should be working on all the balance, coordination and specific strength in your drilling? If you think of it, a barbell loaded squat has little carryover to real fighting. I will get flamed for saying this... but the OPTIMAL way to work the quads and hams are leg curls and leg extensions. Aside from that just do body weight squats at various intensities... aka what you will be doing in your training and fighting.

If you know what to look for, heavy back squats can expose imbalances and give cues to possible injuries in the future that you probably would never notice if you were to do calisthenics. Then again, those unilateral style exercises that you suggested can do the same. I wouldn't completely discount them though. There isn't a whole lot of exercises that can cover the wide range of results that loaded squats can accomplish especially once you start looking into variations and rep/set ranges. Don't get me wrong, they are not the be all and end all of leg exercises especially with sport specific training, they are just an easy default when you couldn't be bothered to be more creative in the gym that day.

 

[Gmork]

If I were to do it all over again I’d do starting strength novice lp as long as I could, especially during the time off for the pandemic, then switch to hlm. But that includes buying the books and doing them as written, not some half assed internet variation. Stronglifts 5x5 is stupid and a shit program by the way, but the guy who made the webpage is an excellent marketer and web designer

Why and how is 5x5 a shit program? Basic strength/hypertrophy rep ranges, the most basic and essential lifts, linear (novice) programming. What's the issue?

 

[Smato_rules]

Why and how is 5x5 a shit program? Basic strength/hypertrophy rep ranges, the most basic and essential lifts, linear (novice) programming. What's the issue?

5x5 sets across is a tonnnnn if volume, usually too much for a beginner. It makes recovery a lot harder than it needs to be and I was talking about the programming of stronglifts 5x5 specifically. As a beginner lifter increases in strength on the program they lower volume too much for decent progression. It’s written that you go from 5x5 all the way down to 1 set of 5. I like the starting strength progression better and have done both, as it has you start at 3 sets of 5 which is more than enough work to drive progress, and is sustainable much longer. As the lifters progress slows they don’t reduce volume to the degree of stronglifts, but instead a last ditch effort is to do one work set of five then two sets of 95% of the first set. This lasts a very short time then they move to an intermediate program such as a heavy light medium program, Texas method, or 5/3/1.

Long story short, for a pure novice 5 sets across of 5 is way too much volume, they don’t have that kind of work capacity, is unnecessary, and stronglifts has a dog shit progression into intermediate programming. I know from first hand experience and it’s common sense