Additional note before I begin to talk about the issue at hand.
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Now on to the video.
Hello lads.
Today I want to elaborate a bit on strength training and striking.
Now the question you see in the title of the video said yes and no.
It depends a bit on how you train.
So in order to understand why strength training might actually reduce power in your punches, you need to look at what a good strike is and what a bad strike is.
So when you do a bench press and if you grind the movement, boom and grind.
If you translate that into a punch, grind.
That's a bad punch.
A good punch, however, is going from point A here, your god, to point B, hopefully your opponent, as fast as possible.
Now if you tense from point A to point B, if you tense here, if you push, if you use muscle force here, you will reduce.
However, if you learn to relax, if you don't push, but if you snap as fast as possible, that's a hard punch.
So instead of thinking, if you are used to doing a lot of bench press, military press, etc.
Instead of thinking that you should push the punch, think that you should snap the punch.
So what I'm doing right now, you can't see my legs, but I have a spring in my step.
Otherwise, I'm relaxed here.
I'm not up here.
If I'm up here tensing, I can't explode.
You need to be relaxed, fluid in order to explode.
So what I want to do, instead of push my arm, I want to snap it.
So here, move around, relax, relax, boom.
Spring on my step.
So, the difference between a gym exercise where you grind, a punch, you snap, snap, and back.
So a punch, of course, a good punch, you explode with your entire body.
Basically, explode, relax.
So you don't tense here because if you tense, you reduce the speed of the movement.
Relax, relax, relax, explode, relax, and tense.
You need to tense at the end of the movement as well because otherwise you might hurt your hand.
And also if you do train a lot with wraps and boxing gloves, make sure to still aim with these two knuckles and make sure to tense at the end of the movement.
Now you ask how to get around this because of course you do want a good bench press but you also want to be able to have a good punch.
So what you want to do is either at the end of your heavy sessions you reduce the weight quite a bit and just try to explode as much as possible.
You can use maybe just the bar and do either military presses as fast as possible or bench presses as fast as possible.
That way you will train to be explosive.
So you're not only grinding.
And same thing if you want to get as strong as possible in the bench for example you can also try to explode.
Then, of course, if you are near your max, it's hard to explode through the entire movement, but it's a good mindset at least.
Second thing you can do is to just train at a heavy bag.
If you are big, bulky, you have done a lot of bench presses, just go to heavy bag, focus on explode, relax, tense.
Bum, bum, bum, bum.
Doing it as fast as possible and don't have an ego.
You don't need to punch, you don't need to feel like you're moving the bag.
You're supposed to snap the bag.
And then eventually, when you've got a good technique, it will be hard.
So then you ask, is it bad then to train in the gym if you want to be a good boxer or a good fighter?
No, absolutely not.
It's good because if you have a lot of power in your body, you can generate a momentum.
So you can look at a little clip from when I was a Bloat Max polar bear.
Look at this clip.
Boom.
So you see, in my rotation I get a lot of power just because I have so much force, I have so much...
I have so much power.
I have so much force, so much strength, so much explosiveness to twist my body.
If I had been 20 kilos lighter, I wouldn't have as much force in my rotation.
Same thing when I punch.
If I manage to get my entire body behind the punch, it's a lot more power than just the arm.
So if you have put on a lot of mass, don't feel like it's a wasted effort in regards to becoming a good striker because you will have more gunpowder, so to speak.
So it's not necessarily about having a big biceps, but if you have a lot of muscles overall and you can use that explosiveness to get that hip rotation.
Then of course also a second point when we're talking about strength training and using force in various predicaments.
If you look at an MMA fight or a boxing match there are there are a lot of things you won't see.
You will never see someone grabbing someone else's jacket because there aren't any jackets.
You probably won't see someone trying to grab a guy from here, put him there.
But if you're a bouncer, maybe you need to do exactly that.
Getting a rowdy person from point A to point B.
Then of course you have a lot of use for various rowing exercises etc.
And I've talked about judo before that judo can be absolutely brilliant in a street predicament because you have a hard pavement which is something completely different from a nice somewhat soft MMA canvas.
You have clothing you can grab etc.
So a lot of things you don't see in MMA can actually work if you have a job in security or just need to calm down a situation.
So keep that in mind as well.
Being big and bulky, it has many benefits.
The only thing if you strike you need to learn how to relax as well.
So anyway to recap teach your body how to relax, relax, relax and explode.
Do not translate a bench press into a punch because it's two completely different things.
So if you drop your ego, if you have a strong bench, if you're a strong bulky guy, drop your ego, find a good rhythm to walk in, to move in.
Spring in your step backwards, forwards to the side.
Bop, bump, bump.
Explode.
So you don't need to prove to anyone how strong you are because it's two completely different things.
So try to relax, try to explode, visualize this movement.
