Strength training for grappling

[Scrofula]

This isn't slow, it's glacial. Slow is 1lb/week. You've gained -1lb in 3 weeks.

True; I've screwed up my eating and sleeping for the past couple of weeks, as stated above. 1lb/week is what I'm going for.

[cervicornis]

I don't understand how sitting at a desk is hurting your recovery. If anything, this should be helping your recovery because it means you're not doing physical things, which would get in the way of recovery.

Your first post says you want to gain strength to help with your grappling game, but in the month since you've started, you've lost body weight and you've lost strength on your lifts. I'm not trying to be a dick, but you're definitely doing something wrong, and it goes beyond rusty technique or working longer hours than normal. Just eat more, deload the weights, and start a proper linear progression.

As far as your size and its impact on grappling is concerned, I'm not overestimating it's importance at all. But you won't realize this until you gain size.

[Scrofula]

I'm not trying to be a dick, but you're definitely doing something wrong, and it goes beyond rusty technique or working longer hours than normal.

Well, yes. The main problem is a lack of food and sleep. I've said this in several posts. I've already worked my way up from the ~150 region two or three times, and don't see why doing this again would be any use if I'm not eating enough to get any further.

And sitting at a desk isn't a problem in its own right; the problem is that I was doing that instead of exercising and sleeping. Missed workouts make technique rusty.

As for the size thing, we'll just have to wait and see. I've been at this (grappling) for a few years. I'm not great, but I've been holding my own against the larger guys.

[Scrofula]

Press:
105lb: 5,3(F)
100lb: 5

Squat:
200lb: 5,5,5

Deadlift:
250lb: 5
Experimented with narrower stance and toes pointed out more. Back angle and tightness feel better, but there's still work to do here.

Roman chair sit ups:
BW: 8
25lb: 20,20

BW hammer-grip chins: 13,5

BW: 135.6lb

In spite of the bad presses, this felt like a decent workout. Came in feeling fresh and energetic for a change, even though I grappled yesterday.

[ZKP]

Why would you want to grapple? Or grapple and not be willing to undergo drastic physical change to handle it better.

It would be like my 240 lb ass wanting to be a distance runner but not be willing to cut weight, drastically.

Think about it. Rolling around on the ground favors the big and strong....and 160 is big compared to where you're at now...and small compared to big.

I hope this is not taken as me being an ass or some critical prick. I really am just giving you something to think about. Good Luck

[Scrofula]

No, you aren't coming across as a prick, and I appreciate you folks' feedback. But I don't agree with you about the optimal body type for grappling. All things being equal, being squirrelly and wiry is far more helpful than being big, particularly in ground work. Several of the most successful judoka and BJJ folks have been smaller guys (though there have only been a few who won open weight class contests). Different sports have different ideal builds at a given height -- you wouldn't advise a powerlifter to adopt a marathon runner's proportions, or vice versa -- and I think the ideal build for grappling is different from the powerlifter proportions generally recommended at this website.

I come from a standup (throwing) background, so when I switched to my current groundwork-heavy club, I'd assumed the larger guys would just squish me, though I might hold my own in standup with footsweeps etc. What I found was quite counterintuitive -- my disadvantage was much smaller on the ground, because my smaller size and greater mobility made it hard for them to control me. Turns out this is one of those things where speculation doesn't match practical observations.

Now, being strong is useful, and it's hard to get strong without putting on a bit of weight, which is why I'm currently trying that. But if it were possible to gain a large amount of strength without gaining much weight, I'd have preferred to go that route. I do think I have quite a bit of room to grow before extra size becomes a disadvantage, but I know several damn good grapplers who are proportionally my size or smaller (scaling by height). Can't say the same about 240lb runners or 130lb powerlifters.

[Rorschach]

Weight categories are a legitimate concern, but wanting to be small and wirey to improve your performance is kinda counter-intuitive. There's a reason why professional fighters go over weight limits then cut for the weigh-in.

The Gracie family is a good example of your argument. Small guys who do very little strength work, massive amounts of technique work, and quite a lot of conditioning.
The Royce vs Kimo fight is often quoted by people with your argument as an example of how technique > strength.
However, I see it as being the opposite. Sure, Royce won, kudos to him, but it was a very close fight. Look how wiped out Royce was by the end, and in my opinion, I think Kimo would have won if he'd cut his damn hair.
Now consider the levels of technique the two fighters had. Kimo is without doubt a good fighter, but Royce is on another level. Trained by the Gracie family from god-knows how young, and lives breathes and eats Jiu-Jitsu. Now imagine if he did strength training too.
Man, I can't believe I'm giving Royce Gracie advice on training. Oh well, that's what internet forums are for, eh?

After a years strength training, I'm much more confident in my fighting ability than I was when I was doing kyokushin/jiu-jitsu three times a week and with better conditioning back in the day.

Anyway, good luck with your training, and sorry for the derail.

[Scrofula]

See, what I got from that video is that the Gracies need to work their throws more . But yeah, I don't need to be sold on the value of strength training; I'm already here. The only question I have is, to what extent should one specialize in strength at the cost of other physical attributes? This sounds like a strange question, because all things being equal, strength helps most of the attributes that we care about. But all else being equal, size is harmful to mobility and conditioning. It's a question of balancing these two opposing things that generally come hand in hand.

I'm not making an effort to stay small. In fact, I'm currently trying to fix my eating and gain a few more pounds (I started at ~130). But I don't feel the need to get to the '70s big' proportions most people here seem quite keen on, because I think that's a step too far in that direction for my purposes.

[Rorschach]

Fair enough. As to how much strength training is optimal, you'd have to ask someone with more experience than myself with a couple of years of primarily striking training (the forum on sherdog.com might be worth a look).
I would still argue though, that while strength training may take time away from technique and conditioning training, it's not going to detract from them (unless you go full power-lifting on us ). The idea of increased strength slowing you down is pretty old-fashioned.

Fedor is pretty strong and not exactly slow.

[Scrofula]

I agree; in fact, I think that the stronger you are at a given weight, the faster and better conditioned you are. The 'at a given weight' clause is key here, though.

I've been talking to other people at my gym about how much and what sort of training they recommend. The more experienced guys seem to approve of what I'm doing, even though their own training is different because of different body types and experience levels.