Strength Standards for MA

[I-mon]

Great stuff.

[Bhassler]

.

[Bhassler]

.

[Bhassler]

.

[Bhassler]

.

[I-mon]

Great to have you back Bruce! Always love what you have to say.

I just re-read this great article which has been shared a few times by Steve Morris, and which is extremely applicable to this conversation. It's well worth reading in its entirety, probably a few times over.

http://coachsci.sdsu.edu/swim/ccf/ccf0802.htm

The final summary:

If an individual is poorly conditioned and skilled, any activity that is remotely associated with swimming will enhance swimming performances. This supports the generality of sporting experiences for beginners.
Once an individual is reasonably conditioned and skilled, general transfer no longer applies and actually retards further development in the sport. At this higher level, the principle of specificity becomes relevant with increasing severity as the standard of athlete ascends.

[Patrick]

Very cool article! Maybe another point, that there is no real way of practicing just "movement"

[windwalker]

Each style or method has strength standards inherent in the training itself.
It may take awhile before one figures out which ones are useful
and which ones actually work against it.

I really like this as a starting point. How does one identify/articulate which is which?

The short answer is to try it and explore it, one must be clear in what skill they'er pursuing.

I didn’t teach this myself until a little while ago. I waited for my students to discover this for themselves. “Kitaeru” or “train” means that you must train in a manner that allows you to affect the opponent with minimal effort.

If you used 100% of your ability (zenryoku) then it means you haven’t really trained. The body must be trained until it is a veritable fortress, then should you body-check (tai atari) another person bigger than yourself, they will be sent flying.
However, if you train too much before you grasp the concept of Aiki, then this is no good.

http://transparentpower.com/

a good read which reflects a lot of what I've felt from my own teacher with taiji.

[middleway]

Right, so the question is what's the minimal amount or standard of this specialized conditioning, and what's the optimal?

Thats what i am researching. For me training is entirely about finding personal optimums and I like to think of myself as a human guinea pig in this regard. Then when i find things that work for me I will test use them with others I coach but everyone is different and what may work for me may not for another. A coach should be adaptable in their approach to training someone, I think this is where prescriptive or syllabus based coaching ideas fall down.

I guess this is similar to Ian's mindset about Morris' methods. Even though he himself may represent an outlier, and his method doesn't have much evidence supporting its utility in the larger scale, If it works for you, it works for you. I have seen his Isometrics DVDs too and they have solid information.

Hi Chris, what do you do for strength? Would you care to share?

This is ever changing to be honest. Like i said above i test, check results and adjust so I dont have a set plan for much more than a couple of months at a time.

I went through a period of doing olympic lifting, but i actually found it slowed me down and i lost my ability to use my 'weight' in grappling. it was noticeable with the training partners so i have stopped that now. I think it was related to tension but am not sure why that change occurred.

Currently I do a lot of a type of isometric stretching which i would term 'pulling which is part of my Internal arts training every day.
I work with heavy kettlebells once a week. I am also working on the small muscle groups of the shoulders and hips a lot at the moment trying to get high levels of protection/development wrapping the joints. I use cable machines, ropes etc for this. I have noticed marked improvement in strength from this work.

Soon i plan to start some speedofsport style training and further increase my proprioception and air sense with some gymnastic type work. which i have seen yield results for active competitors i know.

The Internal training of pulling, winding, softening etc is a constant in addition to the above however and whenever i drop it my 'pressure' and apparent strength drops off according to my grappling partners. I have noticed everything 'thickening' up after now doing this work for a while and thats translating to grappling well.

Cheers
Chris

[Lu da]

I think the concept of using weight to determine a strength standard as it relates to mass is unnecessary and misguided. Force= mass X acceleration. Most people lack th ability to successfully measure the average acceleration of a squat so they will instead assume that the acceleration remains unchanged while the mass varies, thereby giving them a rough estimate of force. The problem is that for most people an 80% 1RM squat may be dramatically faster than a 1RM squat to the point where more force may have been generated with the 80% squat.

As a martial artist force and speed are most critical and measurement of these is more important. Get an accelerometer.

[David Boxen]

I think the concept of using weight to determine a strength standard as it relates to mass is unnecessary and misguided. Force= mass X acceleration. Most people lack th ability to successfully measure the average acceleration of a squat so they will instead assume that the acceleration remains unchanged while the mass varies, thereby giving them a rough estimate of force. The problem is that for most people an 80% 1RM squat may be dramatically faster than a 1RM squat to the point where more force may have been generated with the 80% squat.

As a martial artist force and speed are most critical and measurement of these is more important. Get an accelerometer.

What's the problem

Someone with a max squat of 100 kg cannot exert as much force against the earth with their legs as someone with a max squat of 200 kg. Squatting is not a test of speed. You want to know about how "fast" someone can exert force against the earth? Look at a clean.

[Lu da]

I think the concept of using weight to determine a strength standard as it relates to mass is unnecessary and misguided. Force= mass X acceleration. Most people lack th ability to successfully measure the average acceleration of a squat so they will instead assume that the acceleration remains unchanged while the mass varies, thereby giving them a rough estimate of force. The problem is that for most people an 80% 1RM squat may be dramatically faster than a 1RM squat to the point where more force may have been generated with the 80% squat.

As a martial artist force and speed are most critical and measurement of these is more important. Get an accelerometer.

What's the problem

Someone with a max squat of 100 kg cannot exert as much force against the earth with their legs as someone with a max squat of 200 kg. Squatting is not a test of speed. You want to know about how "fast" someone can exert force against the earth? Look at a clean.

Of course a person with a max squat of 100kg can possibly exert more force than someone with a max squat of 200kg.

Let's say person A has a max squat of 100kg and completes the movement in one second.

Person B completed his (or her) max squat of 200kg in 2.5 seconds (a real grinder).

Who has generated more average Forcd throughout the entire movement? Person A.

Of course this assumes that both individuals travel the same distance.

My point is that mass is only one part of understanding total force generation with weight training, even cleans. The only way to know beyond a doubt if a person is generating more force is to measure the average velocity of the bar.

[Bhassler]

.

[Bhassler]

.

[yeniseri]

As I think back, none of my teachers ever mentioned strength training of any kind. One did mention that in shuaijiao they had these "utensils' that were part of conditioning but never beyond that.