Strength and Fighting with Nick Delgadillo | Starting Strength Radio #14

[Nick Delgadillo]

That was a fantastic listen. The only problem that I see is that with most sports you aren't going to want to train heavy around competition and baseball, basketball, soccer it is kind of tough to train for strength and doing so may compromise your performance. At least that is what has been said here over the years. Honestly though I play a lot of basketball and I'm a relatively strong intermediate and I've notices that if my sleep and nutrition is on point that if I lift heavy in the morning im literally ready to kill shit on the court that night after a few hours recovery from lifting.

I also play baseball and it is often said that an athlete should not lift heavy prior to a game but even Eric Cressey has mentioned that sometimes even baseball players will lift relatively heavy even on a game day.

Logically it would seem counterintuitive to try to progress strength during a sporadic competition season in sports like that but im just wondering your thought Coach Delgadillo?

I'll give you myself as an example. I'm not planning on doing any competing in the next 3 months or so, so lifting takes priority. I still train BJJ, but if I'm feeling beat up, I take it easier on the mat, not in the gym. The minute I sign up for a competition, I'll plan my training backwards from the day of the competition, tapering my lifting down and increasing my mat time and the calculation will flip for gym vs mat leading up to the competition.

[Johnsonville_meat]

If a guy is strong how can he be weak on the mat? May be that he's either not strong or that the opponent's technique is much better. Strength helps, but it's not a substitute for mat time, especially when going against those more skilled. To be clear, a guy who is technically good will beat a strong guy. But that's not the question. The questions are whether a guy who's good will be better if he's stronger, what's the best use of training time off the mats, and what will keep you healthy. Barbell training checks all those boxes.

As far as you're training goes, get to the gym three days a week. HLM should work fine. Go easier on the mats around your heavy day. Go harder around your light days if that's what you're into. If you're competing, treat it like any athlete would. Lift heavy and hard further away from competition, back off on strength training and train harder on the mat as you get nearer to competition.

I see what you mean and you are right it is a technique issue, but I do think these assistance exercises may have more carryover than you’re giving them credit for. I’m just thinking out loud, but maybe loaded carries, getups, etc force the trainee to really understand how to use leverage and balance in order to perform them. I understand a heavy ass squat does that as well, but putting it through your full range of motion and in a compromised position may force you
to have perfect technique to succeed. And I do think a getup with a 100lb sandbag is way more appropriate than swinging a heavy ass bat or punching with weights.

A quick antidotal example of this and how barbell training helps everything is I switched from barbell training to kettlebell training two years ago, and did simple and sinister. After maybe two weeks I was able to accomplish “sinister” which is the benchmark for the program and something these guys needed six months to achieve. It was brutal for the first week and I was not even close to being able to do the program at first. I switched back to barbell eventually and a year later picked up my old kettlebells and was able to do “sinister”after maybe three days kb training. The thing is that I “feel” the movements in simple and sinister much more during grappling or in Muay Thai than my barbell lifts. The other thing that was obvious was the better I got at barbell lifting the better I got at kettlebell lifting, but the opposite did not apply. And thank you for the hlm advice!

[Johnsonville_meat]

I searched martial arts and self defense near me. All 7 of them appear to be karate/dojo/sensei/aikido stuff, which is obviously a no-go.

I know I'd like to learn some self defense, but I want practice with someone who knows their shit. But that's hard to find.
If I could do it on my own, I would, like I did with strength training. But you obviously need others to practice with if you're doing bjj or muay thai.
Anything I can do? Maybe someone here has been in this situation.

I’d assume you could find a bjj or mma place somewhat near you. I wouldn’t get too caught up in specifically avoiding the dojo thing as long as they are explicit about their lineage and credentials. Things to look for are the spelling of jiu jitsu, which is as I wrote for Brazilian, and ju jitsu for Japanese which is in my and most other people’s opinion not as good. Furthermore any bjj instructor who’s worth a damn will explicitly show their lineage, which is who they were taught and promoted by and who their instructor was promoted by. Other good grappling arts are luta livre and catch wrestling.

[Mark E. Hurling]

I searched martial arts and self defense near me. All 7 of them appear to be karate/dojo/sensei/aikido stuff, which is obviously a no-go.

I know I'd like to learn some self defense, but I want practice with someone who knows their shit. But that's hard to find.
If I could do it on my own, I would, like I did with strength training. But you obviously need others to practice with if you're doing bjj or muay thai.
Anything I can do? Maybe someone here has been in this situation.

If you can wean yourself from your case of the ass over cosmetics factors like them Asian words and wearing gi pajamas, you might consider Hapkido. It's a pretty well rounded Korean martial art comprised of striking with the hands and feet as well as teaching throws, strangles, and joint locks. Beware of thinly disguised TKD studios or for that matter any dojo that has lots of trophies in the window. Refereed competition and saving your ass from getting a mudhole stomped in it in an alley are not the same thing.

I'd advise that you look for schools or teachers who teach a stand up art rather than a ground emphasis art. Unless of course you think you might enjoy the prospect of rolling on the pavement of a broken glass and gravel strewn surface while maybe dodging the footwear of multiple assailants. Once you go to the ground, you lose most of your mobility to ge the Hell out of Dodge expeditiously. Which is not to say knowing some ground defense is useless. It's one skill, just not the main or only skill to acquire.

Despite what you may have heard about the Pacific Northwest in terms of it's touchy feeliness on the coast, there are some good practitioners and teachers of self defense there. Rory Miller in Portland, along with Loren Christensen and Lawrence Kane all come from a law enforcement/corrections/security background, and as such, had the occasion to have to proof test what they learned on the tatami (another one of them Japanese words) in the real world. Their books provide some very good background and application of what to do and not to do in terms of avoiding trouble with bad guys and the law after you have dealt with some ash and trash.

[Mark Rippetoe]

You seem to know something about the Martial Arts, Mark. Have you had a lot of experience?

[Mark E. Hurling]

You seem to know something about the Martial Arts, Mark. Have you had a lot of experience?

You seem obsessed with me on this subject. Perhaps you missed my last response to you when you asked a variation of this question. If so, are you genuinely interested or just talking smack?

[Nick Delgadillo]

If you can wean yourself from your case of the ass over cosmetics factors like them Asian words and wearing gi pajamas, you might consider Hapkido. It's a pretty well rounded Korean martial art comprised of striking with the hands and feet as well as teaching throws, strangles, and joint locks. Beware of thinly disguised TKD studios or for that matter any dojo that has lots of trophies in the window. Refereed competition and saving your ass from getting a mudhole stomped in it in an alley are not the same thing.

I'd advise that you look for schools or teachers who teach a stand up art rather than a ground emphasis art. Unless of course you think you might enjoy the prospect of rolling on the pavement of a broken glass and gravel strewn surface while maybe dodging the footwear of multiple assailants. Once you go to the ground, you lose most of your mobility to ge the Hell out of Dodge expeditiously. Which is not to say knowing some ground defense is useless. It's one skill, just not the main or only skill to acquire.

Despite what you may have heard about the Pacific Northwest in terms of it's touchy feeliness on the coast, there are some good practitioners and teachers of self defense there. Rory Miller in Portland, along with Loren Christensen and Lawrence Kane all come from a law enforcement/corrections/security background, and as such, had the occasion to have to proof test what they learned on the tatami (another one of them Japanese words) in the real world. Their books provide some very good background and application of what to do and not to do in terms of avoiding trouble with bad guys and the law after you have dealt with some ash and trash.

I really like grappling for self defense. I started training with striking based systems - Muay Thai, Bas Rutten MMA, Krav Maga - and did those and taught them for lots of years. I'm a firm believer at this point, though, that I can teach a grappler how to strike effectively very quickly, but teaching a striker an effective clinch, wrestling, takedowns, and comfort being on the ground takes a VERY LONG TIME. And I'm also a firm believer at this point in my teaching career that actual fighting happens at clinch range almost exclusively and as such, most training time for self defense purposes should be done at clinch range, including learning to strike from clinch range. Clinch fighting and grappling can be done against a resisting opponent from day 1.

I've taught LOTS of people krav maga, boxing, and muay thai. I firmly believe that the only benefit they got out of that was the dynamic nature of the stress drills especially when it comes to krav maga. Otherwise, it's mostly bullshit that only seems effective. If I were to do it again, I'd teach them how to handle themselves when tied up with another person. Much more valuable for everyone.

[crc]

I searched martial arts and self defense near me. All 7 of them appear to be karate/dojo/sensei/aikido stuff, which is obviously a no-go.

I know I'd like to learn some self defense, but I want practice with someone who knows their shit. But that's hard to find.
If I could do it on my own, I would, like I did with strength training. But you obviously need others to practice with if you're doing bjj or muay thai.
Anything I can do? Maybe someone here has been in this situation.

If your profile is correct and you're in Pullman, it looks like this place has an actual BJJ brown belt (under Pedro Sauer) teaching:

About Us – Mantis Training Academy

Silly name, but you could probably get some real grappling training there.

[Jdcuth]

I’ve got a question I’ve been dying to get answered for ages and if this forum isn’t the place then nowhere is.Say you had a buddy who was untrained in both strength and fighting. A bad dude has threatened him physically but he’s managed to postpone the fight for 3 months (like Daniel Larusso in the karate kid). If you could train him would you advise running the starting strength NLP or a 3 month intense martial arts program?

[k_kws]

Thanks for the feedback guys. I've got a lot to work with now.
Though I suppose I'll have to learn to be ok with some bowing.