Size/strength doesn't matter, and other lies you were told.

[45dotACP]

For me personally on diminishing returns, it was when I found my guard game had gone to shit after three days a week powerlifting for 2.5 years and a gain in weight of about 18 lbs of muscle. My numbers for triples in the lifts respectively were 245 bench, 405 squat, 495 deadlift at a bodyweight of 186 lbs.

I'm about 175 now and just maintain what I have which is less than what I was at when I had essentially turned myself into a strength athlete versus a combat athlete. I pulled a fairly easy triple on deadlift the other day of 425 and i'm not pushing numbers right now especially with my travel schedule.

As far as how my strength translates, no one I grapple with tosses me around or says I feel weak. That includes Alan Belcher who right now is a shredded 245 and former top ten UFC 185-er. Alan has to work technically if I'm on top to sweep or create a scramble with me, which he does fairly regularly. Alan is a black belt I'm a brown belt and Alan is twenty years younger and is 70 pounds heavier.

Recently I had John Welbourn, the founder of Crossfit football in coursework. John is 275 and was a starting offensive lineman for three different teams in the NFL and an assassin on the field. John was completely incapable of breaking my body-lock until I showed him how. Once he had a LITTLE technique he could probably get out 50% of the time. Six months of grappling and there's no way I could hold him because he's a freak athlete.

I think everyone who does the deep dive into strength will subjectively get to the point where they are satisfied with being "strong enough" if they are in tune with their body and pay attention to their performance on the mat or in the ring. At 53 and not being a professional athlete, fighter, gunslinger, whatever, I'm fairly satisfied with where I stand right now. My big thing these days is working on skill, maintaining strength, embracing the balance of frequency versus intensity, and being patient with myself on recovery and not taxing my neurological system.

Damn, and here I was thinking I was starting to get happy with my lifts now that I've finally got past 225 on the squat and deadlift. That said, my max on a good day in my early 20's was just right at 185lbs, so I do feel happy with where I am now compared to where I was.

I have found that having more powerful legs from squatting and deadlifting has been very useful for escapes from some bad positions. Bridging with correct form is good, but it's still tiring. Bridging with good form and more power is more betterer I feel like.

It's also worth noting for me, that being stronger at squat and deadlift has DEFINITELY helped to reduce my overall likelihood of injury and nearly eliminated my back pain while I'm on my feet at work all day.

My bench press is puny, but even then, I can feel my shoulder girdle growing more resistant to injury as well, which is nice, because my shoulders were always a bit fragile and I had to deal with some shoulder injuries a while ago that were fucking miserable.

[willie]

A friend of mine had a cop chew off his ear in Columbus, Georgia. My buddy had completed military training and was waiting to ship out to Vietnam. Often I have wondered if biting is taught as a technique. My inner city experience revealed that some people will bite. My post is a serious one and not presented as gag.

[feudist]

A friend of mine had a cop chew off his ear in Columbus, Georgia. My buddy had completed military training and was waiting to ship out to Vietnam. Often I have wondered if biting is taught as a technique. My inner city experience revealed that some people will bite. My post is a serious one and not presented as gag.

I sustained a total of 9 bites across my career.
I had dozens of attempts at it during restraints. My default response became "If you bite me, I'll gouge out this eye." Said with my thumb on their eye.

[Mitch]

A friend of mine had a cop chew off his ear in Columbus, Georgia. My buddy had completed military training and was waiting to ship out to Vietnam. Often I have wondered if biting is taught as a technique. My inner city experience revealed that some people will bite. My post is a serious one and not presented as gag.

If you bite someone from a disadvantaged position and they know what they’re doing, you’ll get fucked up for pissing them off. If you’re in a good position you don’t have to resort to biting them.

[P30]

Bite placement is important. I remember reading here that a chicken killed a human by biting in a varicose vein.

PS:
pistol-forum.com/showthread.php?38377-Woman-dies-in-rooster-attack

[Clusterfrack]

If you bite someone from a disadvantaged position and they know what they’re doing, you’ll get fucked up for pissing them off. If you’re in a good position you don’t have to resort to biting them.

On the other hand, let’s consider a female who is never going to be in a good position while being assaulted by a much larger male. I would encourage her to use all her tools to fight back, break contact, and escape. For example, bite his hand to free one of hers so she can deploy her knife.

The last thing she should be worried about is pissing her attacker off.

[Mercworx]

I’m certainly no expert (wrestled in HS and that’s basically it) or even novice but I heard a very compelling argument on a BJJ podcast awhile back. The hosts argued that it might be more beneficial for the average person to be strong and fit rather than learn a martial art. Their logic was the average person is untrained anyways and it might be more useful to be much stronger and conditioned than the person trying to assault you rather than have minimal BJJ training.



I was morbidly obese at the time so it struck a cord.

[45dotACP]

I’m certainly no expert (wrestled in HS and that’s basically it) or even novice but I heard a very compelling argument on a BJJ podcast awhile back. The hosts argued that it might be more beneficial for the average person to be strong and fit rather than learn a martial art. Their logic was the average person is untrained anyways and it might be more useful to be much stronger and conditioned than the person trying to assault you rather than have minimal BJJ training.



I was morbidly obese at the time so it struck a cord.

That's an interesting thought. But then I wonder if the average person isn't more likely to be someone who is very strong...rather than someone who is trained to fight.

I expect that there are more dudes who can squat 315 than there are dudes who are BJJ black belts.

That's pretty strong. But I'd bet that it'd be easier to learn how to fight than it would to be significantly stronger than that person.

Granted it would be even better to be a BJJ black belt with a 405 squat, a 500 deadlift and a 315 bench who can also do the splits, throw a headkick and run a mile in 6 minutes.

But of two equally sized or similarly sized people, the one who's a blue belt in BJJ or the high school wrestler can probably whoop ass on the one who doesn't train anything but weightlifting.

As for biting...I mean I should train with thought that someone might bite me or try to poke my eye. But that's just gonna make some grapplers turn the violence WAY up.

Lots of BJJ guys like BJJ because you can hold back and still succeed. It only needs to be as violent as it needs to be to end. For most untrained folks, that's not really that violent.

But if someone tries to blind them then that means they read the terms of service and agreed to what happens next. Slams? Yes. Wrist/fingerlocks? Yep. Twisting leglocks? Sure enough. Kimuras cranked at the speed of sound? Sold.

Sure, maybe they'll eventually end it with a strangle and disengage...but if someone pokes their eye they might make said person long for the blessing of unconsciousness.

As a primary, secondary or even tertiary strategy there is no goddamn way am I gonna take a mouthful of someone who may be using IV drugs or having unprotected sex. Fuck that noise entirely.

If I'm losing a fight and I expect I might die, then maybe I'll think about it.

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[Totem Polar]

If we are talking conditioning/strength vs skill, porque no los dos? All things being equal, I’d prefer to be a MUCH better grappler, but I have to deal with age and injury. I do what I can, and part of that doing what I can is staying in shape. And learning tools. I like the message on Mark Luell’s cool T-shirt graphic enough that I’m on my second one. This is the way, IMHO.

[Bolt_Overide]

Is there is a possibly a loosely defined “threshold” of adequate size that once surpassed, size differences are much less important than they are under the threshold? Essentially being big enough.

Mike Tyson and Fedor Emelianenko were both relatively small heavyweights, who often overcame substantial size differences that might be likely with lighter weight fighters should they be matched against equivalently larger opponents. Or maybe it’s just a matter of once reaching a certain size(approximately heavyweight), there are simply a lot less people of that size who are in shape and highly skilled.

I don't know if that threshold can be quantified, as there are too many variables. Training, pain tolerance, strength, speed, and probably most importantly heart and affinity for violence. There are plenty of street fighters out there that have zero training but tons of experience and mean.