On January 11, 1994, a well known boxing commentator stated to his television audience that he felt weight training was deleterious to fighters, adding muscle weighs more than fat." This statement is interesting in two regards. First, boxing coaches have been expressing the same opinion for years- it's just incredulous to hear such an assertion in 1994! Second, muscle does weigh more than fat, but does this mean that boxers should strive to accumulate as much fat as possible in order to become a better fighter!?

Of course, getting stronger will not in and of itself make anyone a better fighter. But it does create the potential for enhanced athletic performance, and therefore, better fighting skills. In fact, strength is a determining factor in how much speed, power, agility, cardiovascular endurance, and technical ability a fighter can attain. Of all the bio-motor abilities, strength is by far the easiest to develop, and as such, pays fantastic dividends to any athlete who pursues it diligently.

Strength Defined

If your conception of strength is more along the lines of a 500 pound clean and jerk, or a 1000 pound squat, you're in good company. But as you'll see, strength is just as important for the martial artist as it is for the competitive weightlifter. In fact, for most martial artists, strength training could be the very key that unlocks vast quantities of unimagined athletic potential! Strength can be loosely defined as the ability to apply musculo-skeletal force. But for a more precise definition, we must first consider the various types of strength expression available to athletes.

The Many Faces of Strength

Strength as a bio-motor ability has many expressions. All human movement requires strength of one type or another, and for this reason, all athletes must concern themselves with developing their strength levels to the utmost. The following list categorizes the various types of strength needed by athletes in all sports.

Limit Strength

The amount of musculoskeletal force you can generate for one all-out effort. Limit strength is your athletic "foundation." Limit strength can only be demonstrated or tested in the weight room during the performance of a maximal lift. While only powerlifters need to maximize and demonstrate this type of strength, martial artists need to develop high levels of limit strength in every muscle group.

Absolute Strength

Absolute strength is the same as limit strength with one important distinction. Limit strength is achieved while "under the influence" of some work producing aid (supplements, hypnosis, therapeutic techniques, etc.), while absolute strength is achieved through training alone- "au natural." That makes limit strength more important for your purposes.

Relative Strength

Whereas absolute strength refers to strength irrespective of bodyweight, relative strength is a term used to denote an athlete's strength per unit of bodyweight. It can be used as a modifier for other categories of strength, such as speed strength or strength endurance. Thus if two athletes of different bodyweights can squat 275 pounds, they have equal absolute strength for that lift, but the lighter athlete has greater relative strength.

All sports which have weight classes depend heavily on relative strength, as do sports where the athlete must overcome his or her bodyweight to accomplish a motor task (i.e., martial arts, long jump, sprinting, etc.). Further, sports which have aesthetic requirements (figure skating, gymnastics, etc.) rely heavily upon the development of strength without a commensurate gain in bodyweight.

It is well known that strength can be developed through two very different means- by applying stress to the muscle cells themselves, or by targeting the nervous system. The former method is accomplished through the application of bodybuilding methods (repetitions between 6 and 12), and results in strength gains through an increase in muscle cross-section. The latter is accomplished through higher intensity training (repetitions between 1 and 4), and increases in strength are the result of the body's improved ability to recruit more of its existing motor unit pool.

For athletes who need absolute strength (throwers in track and field, football linemen, etc.), both methods are used extensively. First, bodybuilding methods are used, followed by nervous system training. The result is an increase in bodyweight and absolute strength. As the athlete becomes larger, however, relative strength decreases. For martial artists and other athletes who depend upon relative strength, bodybuilding methods should be used sparingly, unless a higher weight class is desired. Most strength training is characterized by high intensity, low repetition sets, which improve strength through neural adaptations rather than increases in muscle cross section.

The Stretch-shortening Cycle (SSC)

Most human movement is characterized by an eccentric phase immediately followed by a concentric phase. This muscular action is called the stretch-shortening cycle, or SSC. Examples include throwing, jumping, and even walking. During the eccentric phase, the tendons develop and stores potential kinetic energy, similar to a stretched elastic band. Then, during the concentric phase, this potential kinetic energy is returned, resulting in greater force output than if the movement had begun concentrically. During many movements (jumping rope, for example), the muscle maintains static contraction, with movement being provided by the storing and release of elastic energy through the tendons. Since static muscular activity uses up less energy than concentric activity, making the SSC an extremely energy-efficient way of moving.

The efficiency of the SSC is easy to test: Try performing a vertical jump in a normal manner, where you first crouch, and then jump upwards as explosively as possible. Next, crouch, but pause for five seconds, and then jump upward. Measure each attempt. You'll see that the jump where the crouch (or eccentric phase) was IMMEDIATELY followed by the jump was more successful. The key to preserving as much potential kinetic energy as possible is to switch from eccentric to concentric as rapidly as possible. This switch is termed "reactive strength" by some authors.

Further evidence of the SSC can be seen in any videotaped sparring match. View the match in slow motion, and you'll see that almost all fighters "cock" their punches, be it ever so slightly. The best fighters manage to minimize this preparatory movement, because observant opponents can pick up on it.

In order to respect the principle of specificity, strength training methods should reflect the SSC nature of athletic skills. The best form of resistance training technologies to accomplish this task are constant resistance, or "free weights," and variable resistance, which utilize either cams or levers, in an attempt to "match" the resistance values to the strength curve of the muscle being trained. Of these two technologies, the former is preferred, at least in the case of advanced athletes, because machines tend to rob the synergists and stabilizers of adaptive stress.

Rate of Force Development

Many martial artists work hard to improve their absolute (or maximum) strength, without realizing that absolute strength is not the most sport specific type of strength for them. In the martial arts (as in most athletic endeavors), the problem is that the amount of time to develop maximum muscular force is extremely limited- usually only a fraction of a second. While high levels of absolute strength are a necessary prerequisite for the development of speed strength, too much time in the weight room grinding out heavy weights at slow speeds, without making the conversion to speed strength later in the training cycle, results in slow athletes.

The ability to apply muscular force rapidly is called rate of force development, or RFD. While hypertrophy training slightly improves absolute strength, it has a negligible effect on RFD. Training with heavy weights significantly improves absolute strength, but again, the RFD remains largely unchanged. Only when speed strength methods (plyometrics, ballistic training, etc.) are used, is the RFD significantly improved. Absolute strength declines during this period, however. This is considered an acceptable (and temporary) trade off, since the athlete will never have enough time to reach this level of strength. However, if absolute strength is allowed to degrade too much, RFD will suffer. For this reason, many coaches alternate between maximum strength and speed strength phases during the competitive period.

For the rest see "Strength Development Fundamentals for Martial Artists Part II"

About the Author

Charles Staley began his exploration of strength and athletic performance as a martial arts instructor and competitor in New York state during the 1980's. Charles subsequently studied and coached the sport of Olympic weightlifting, eventually producing several state and national level competitors in that sport. He is also author of Special Topics in Martial Arts Conditioning, a training textbook for combat sport coaches.