(article that i wrote for http://www.fightingfitmagazine.com/)
Strongman training for Combat sports
Any strength and conditioning program must follow a certain set of rules to be effective. The program must prioritise the strength qualities that are dominant in the sport, address the time frames in which the sport allows movements to occur, address the planes of movement and the speed at which movements are executed and on the conditioning side , mimic the specific movements under appropriate work dynamics (work : rest).
For a Strongman training program to be effective as a strength training tool for mma, it must either increase force production, power output or velocity output at the joint angles appropriate to the sport. My suggestion is that if the strongman training consists of the ‘events’ that are used at competition then I think it may well be a bit misplaced. It is also worth bearing in mind that the strongman competition that are seen on TV are only the competitions, the athletes competing in these events have training programs that underpin their competition performance. In a sense it would be like watching rugby and assuming that the players only do rugby as their training. The likelihood is that the strongmen will have based their strength training around the classic strength training methologies but added in their ‘skill’ aspect, which in this case would be the practising of the event they are likely to come up against.
MMA is multi planar sport
It is essential that fighters develop strength through a range of joint angles and planes of movement, the nature of the wrestling and jiu jitsu components mean that fighters need to be able to apply force at multiple angles. As well as this they need to be able to apply force through multiple planes, for example a traditional ‘shot’ in wrestling is a horizontal movement but up against a cage there are times when a fighter is required to lift in a vertical plane to execute a takedown. Does the strongman events allow for maximal recruitment in these aspects ? For example, to develop peak force over a full range in the vertical plane, is a stone lift and better than a barbell back squat ? Or are there so many grip, stability and technique issues that maximal recruitment of the key lower limb musculature is unlikely to occur.
Parts of MMA a velocity dominant
As we know strength and force development is only part of the story, the striking aspect of mma is clearly a velocity dominant action and therefore needs to be trained as such. In order to evoke a increase in the recruitment that will transfer to punching speed and power, fighters need to be able progressively overload an action that can be executed at <200m/s. This is where strongman is not going to be useful as a training tool. Tools such as light med balls or other types of implements that can be released at the terminal end of the movement will be more appropriate. This is particularly useful if they can be attached to a linear coder that enables a velocity reading to be taken.
Strongman as conditioning
To be effective for sports performance, conditioning programs need to include the movements of the sports matched with the work to rest periods likely to occur during competition. Once these are established, the rest periods can be manipulated while the work is maintained, to ensure overload and therefore progression. This essentially means that a fighter can perform ‘work’ specific to his sport but needs less and less rest to be able to maintain his output. Unfortunately if strongman is used for conditioning it fails to address one of the fundamental principles of strength and conditioning which is ‘specificity’. In my opinion, apart from the point below, conditioning using the strongman event will essentially condition an athlete to be good at doing the strongman events, the cross over will be minimal.
The nature of the strongman event also means that the conditioning will be executed at lower speeds of movement than will be required at competition, fighters need to be able to produce fast explosive movements under fatigue, strongman is not dynamic enough to help with that quality.
On the flipside
Having said all of the above, I do believe adapted strongman training is probably the best way to train core stability and core strength. Essentially by using the strongman techniques the core musculature is receiving a very significant exposure to high load strength endurance. This type of exposure will always translate better to sport when compared to traditional ‘core’ work like crunches, bridges etc, as it mimics how the core muscles will be recruited in sporting situation. To be functional for sport the core needs to be able to stabilise under high levels of force repeatidly and often under metabolic fatigue. Strongman carrying event like the farmers walk are ideal tools to achieve this, especially if they are completed unilaterally and with set / rep schemes that evoke the correct metabolic response. These methods expose the core to very high recruitment levels and force them to stabilise under high levels of fatigue.
Checkout the documentary below...... eye opening !
