Pavel Tsatsouline Kettlebell Strength Training Weight Lifting Workouts Exercise and Flexibility Questions & Answers.

A person's ability to do things is based on skill. Skill is developed through rehearsal. Every physical activity developes very specific traits and has very little carry over value to other physical activities. Exercise also falls into this category. One cannot develope balance for example. balance is very specific to the type of balance required. Tight rope walking would not prepare one for a balance beam. What is general fitness? It is dependent entirely upon ones lifestyle needs. A lumbar jack's general fitness would certainly be different than a librarian. The ability to run far, sprint fast, lift heavy objects, climb nimbly over obstacles, jump for great distance or height, move on the dance floor with grace and mobility, fight, wrestle, swim etc ect. are all specific skills that have to be mastered idividually and are completely independent of one another. There is not enough time in the day or ones life to develope in more than a couple areas. Pick the ones that jazz you the most and stick with it. Physical exercise will not make you more skillful at performing other activities. Physical exercise needs to be held to building the specific strength required to do the activity that you are interested in. Once the level of strength is there, then skill training can be added on. There is no exercise that will build coordination or athleticism. You will only be good at what you do. Steve Maxwell

http://www.maxercise.com 

You mention that you think that increasing your squat poundage made your guard stronger and that by being stronger you were able to submit a guy that gave you problems before. If you are relying on strength to improve your jiujitsu, you are making a serious mistake. If ones jiujitsu is strength dependent, then the second you go up against a stronger individual, all is lost. Increased skill is the answer. Squating may or may not have anything to do with it. There are far superior ways to improve ones guard attacks than heavy squats. The top BJJ blackbelts in the world do not do heavy squats as a mainstay in their programs. I know because I am one of them and I train several of the top guys. Through my affiliations, I am privy to the secret training of the grappling stars. Many have never done any squats in their entire lives and never have felt the desire or need to. What does that tell you about the importance of heavy squats for being a successful jiujitsu fighter? It tells you that for top fighters, it is of no importance. I can also list a half dozen reasons why a jiujitsu fighter should never bother with heavy squats. Steve Maxwell

http://www.maxercise.com 

'I started to squat heavier and that made me able to submit someone that I couldn't before'. That is the assumption that you are making.The two may not be related in any way. The guy could have been having a bad day. You may have been having a great day. You may have got lucky. Your jiujitsu skills may have improved that merely coinsided with the heavier squats.Or your new found strength allowed you to 'bull' a move and submitt the guy. It could be all of the above. I maintain that heavy barbell squats are not necessary or desireable for jiujitsu fighters and may be counter productive. You submitted him in spite of the squats, not because of them. Who you submit in training matches means nothing. If you are not getting subitted, you are not learning and taking risks. People whp talk about training matches in jiujitsu are thrown out of many schools for such behavior.Save it for the Mundials or the Pan-Ams. Steve Maxwell

http://www.maxercise.com 

Lifting heavier weights will not necessarily make you better. Certain types of specific strength would not be condusive to a martial artist for example. You mention training improving 'wind'. It all depends on the type of wind you are talking about. The wind required for a boxer would be different than what would be required for a hockey player or a football player. Once again, there is no magic bullet that can provide the strength or endurance needs for all activities. Steve Maxwell

http://www.maxercise.com 

They could be just another poorly conducted study used to ballyhoo a product ie; kettlebells. How come there are no US studies supporting this type of carry over effect? Is it truly the magic of kettlebells? There are only these two arcane studies that support the idea and the original research can't be read. All we get is someones translation. Steve Maxwell  

JT, The supposed studies reporting this massive carry over from kettlebell training to dissimilar activities has yet to be duplicated.There were only two studies cited and no one that I know has ever seen or read the original work. There fore the results that were reported are questionable. For all we know, it may have been a poorly designed, improperly conducted study. In motor learning studies in this country, decades of research indicate that there is very little carry over from one activity to another. One is good at what they practise and not good at what they do not practise. Attempting to get good at to many things at the same time causes motor learning confusion and retards learning. The body will only allow so many adaptations to occur at one time. Exercise is an induced stress that breaks the body down. During rest, the body recovers to a slightly higher level than before. Working out to often or on too many things causes a shut down of the bodies ability to adapt. At best, one becomes mediocre in everything and master of nothing. Mediocrity is not a bad thing. This is not a value judgement. If one is training for health and fitness and enjoys doing many activities, then why not? Realize that if you have higher aspirations and would like to reach championship levels or at least be competitive, then your training must be directed toward that end. As far as carry over from one activity to another, increasing muscular strength through progressive over load will help in any sport or activity.KB's certainly fit the bill here. Once again, each sport has a different type of strength and energy requirement. One must indentify what energy system and strength requirements are needed. Obviously a stronger grip would help in almost anything requiring strength and improved tolerance to high blood lactate levels during intense anaerobic bout with the KB's would improve tolerance for similar activities like wrestling. Just don't expect miracles. I've been training for a long time (42 plus years) and been working with people in the field for 35 years. I have yet to see this carry over effect increased muscular strength in basic movements helps all activities, but there is little carry over from one muscle group to another. If something sounds to good to be true, then it usually is. Steve Maxwell

http://www.maxercise.com 

Being in shape to run a 10km is different than being in shape to swim 1000 1km. Being in power lifting shape would not help much in a century bike ride. Put a boxer on the wrestling mat and he is exhausted in two minutes. Reverse the roles and the wrestler would be tired after one round of boxing. What I am saying is that there is no state of being in 'general shape'. Many years back, I had been doing a fairly wide variety of aerobic, anerobic and strength/endurance based stuff. I wasn't outstanding in any of the activities, but was fairly decent at all of them (mountain biking, trail running, swimming, body weight calesthenics, some weights). I didn;t care how good that I was because I was enjoying myself. I liked the idea of being 'well rounded'. On one of my favorite running, mountain bike trails there had been a couple of large trees that had fallen over the trail during a storm. I went to the trails with a sharpened axe and decided to chop up the trees and clear the trail. I was shocked at how tiring the chopping was. I had chopped wood before, but was unpractised. I was exhausted when I finished. The next day my muscles were screaming. I couldn't believe how sore I was. Now if I hadn't been doing anything, I couldn't have even done the job in the first place. My training had enough carry over to allow me to do it. But specificity ruled that day and the next couple and I realized that one cannot be 'in shape' for everything.I don't find this discouraging, but empowering. Steve Maxwell

http://www.maxercise.com 

Power lifting and MMA are almost diametrically opposite. Strength /endurance is key to the fighting sports as is power endurance. MMA is a high skills dependent sport. That means that skill is the most important factor. The second is anerobic conditioning. Put those two together and you have a winner. One thing to keep in mind, there is not one successful MMA champ that wasn't a master of some martial art before becomming a MMA fighter. Every highly successful competitor was either a crack kick boxer, karate man, jiujitsu expert or great wrestler. They first mastered one martial art before trying to do it all as MMA requires. Your best base would be the jiujitsu submission game for a few years first.Then you can add wrestling takedowns and basic boxing into the mix. If you try and rush it and do all the different sports first, you will always be a mediocre fighter. Steve Maxwell

http://www.maxercise.com 

My collar chokes were great and my ability to hold the jacket and sleeves was always good. I found that additional kettlebell training was making my hands weak.I was losing chokes and partners were able to break my grips. This was because my hands were not getting a break and were quickly being over trained. It was a choice, did I want to be better at my chokes and grip fighting, or be better at kettlebell lifting. I chose choking people out. I minimized my grip fatigue by limiting the kettlebell training and gave my hands a break. Now my chokes are working well again and I can retain my grips. Grip training for the gi is very specialized and is best built by training jiujitsu. Of course it all depends on how often one gets on the mat. For me it is every day. Steve Maxwell

http://www.maxercise.com 

After the break from the grippers, the rock climbing maintained your grip strength, but your hands caught a break and recovered at a higher level of strength. It may have been the break, not the rock climbing. I have several dozen rock jocks at Maxercise who are famous in local climbing circles. None of them could close the #1 and struggled with the trainer. Obviously being an elite or even good rock climber does not build the specific crushing power needed to close the heavy grippers. Your ability to pull yourself up the balcony in full gear is not surprizing. Your pullup ability with the 24kg is the same movement. Now had you specialized in chinups, it may have been different.I see no WTH effect in the two. Steve Maxwell

http://www.maxercise.com 

Most shoulder problem stem from over-use, muscle imbalances and poor form while perfroming chest, shoulder and upper back exercises. Any imbalances must be addressed before any progress can be made in pain free shoulders. Improper form can result in residual tension and decreased range of motion. Injuries create the same scenario. The muscle will shorten, tension remains and chronic pain and inflamation occurs. People try and suppress the inflamation with anti-inflamatories as if the inflamation is the source of the problem. Inflamation is the bodies attempt at healing itself and pain is a warning to stop. For all exercises, including post surgery rehabilitation, use a ten point scale for pain management. 10 represents the worst pain you ever had. Keep all movements at a manageble 3. Never try to drive through pain. I am not talking about exercise fatigue or systemic discomfort from intense bouts of exercise.Nor am I talking about active release techniques performed by proffessional therapists. I am talking about specific pain in the joints or tendon attachments during exercise. Post surgery, I would immediately embark on a joint mobility, range of motion program performed in high reps while adhering to the above pain guide. I would make all attempts at getting back total ROM as quickly as possible. Pain would be my guide. Steve Maxwell

http://www.maxercise.com 

Brad, Try to keep the knee pain very minimal during all strecthes. The clicking and catching that you descibe was caused by a medial menicus tear. Because the tear was on the outside edge, there was enough blood supply to allow it to heal. During the stretch that you mention and all stretches for that matter, the knees should not hurt. Sometimes it is simply adjusting the position slightly. Just dorsi flexing the foot or pointing the toes can make a difference in knee discomfort. Definitely do not drive through the knee pain and force it. I injured my meniscus doing that very thing in a yoga pose one time. keep the discomfort level in the muscle, not the joints. Steve

http://www.maxercise.com 

I have been exploring the various yogic systems for over 20 years. I think that yoga has a lot to offer the BJJ player. There are many different systems or styles and one has to experiment with what what meets their needs. I have extensively studied the Hindu and Persian exercise systems used to condition wrestlers. These systems were the original yoga. The ancients considered yoga an extension of wrestling. The modern yoga systems have a lot to offer the BJJ player. Check out some of the ashtanga stuff and Sonnons Prasara Body Flow. I would advise not getting caught up in the yoga politics. As in martial arts, fitness etc. yoga has its own in fighting and fueds. It all comes down to money and control. Purchase some DVD's that look interesting and try it out. I would caution that while yoga is good, it still important to do some other forms of strength training to balance it out. At the very least, add plenty of pulling movem,ents to any yoga routine, as yoga does not develope this ability. Steve Maxwell

http://www.maxercise.com 

I never had the opportunity to try the exact programs that you refered to. I do like pulley work for the low back and core. I especially like all the twisting and 'wood chop' type motions.The few times that I did these movements, they felt really great and very useful. I don't have ant cablemachines in my gym, but I occassionally use rubber bands. Andre Brenner, 5x Ukraine national wrestling champ showed me somecool exercises that the Russian ans eastern block wrestlers use for SPP. Do a search for his AB band workout. I really like it and have adapted it to jiujitsu and submission wrestling. Steve Maxwell

http://www.maxercise.com 

are like those governing the gravitational laws of the universe. Another words, metabolism can only be altered by the slightest bit. Your metabolism refers to your energy production and utilization processes. This is set at the cellular level and is mediated by enzymatic pathways. Human cells use energy at a certain rate, period.Some peoples bodies utilize energy at slightly different rates, but it depends on the efficiency of their body. This is due to several factors such as physical activity, amount and frequensy of caloric intake, sleep and muscle mass. Many skinny guys that claim to have fast metabolisms are actually suffering from inefficent digestion. Because of poor food choices or organic problems, their digestive tracks cannot absorb the nutrients needed for growth and repair. The act of digestion itself is one of the greatest stimulators of the metabolic processes.One burns a large amount of energy digesting their food. The 'fast metabolism' is an urban legend. Steve Maxwell

http://www.maxercise.com 

I liked Matt's ideas on exercise and he had a lot of information that was realatively new at the time; this was about 5 or 6 years ago.Some of the catch stuff was also different at the time. I like to adapt and learn many different styles of wrestling to my jiujitsu game. When he started going over the top with his marketing schemes and prices, we had an amiable parting of the ways. Much of his original material was quite good and priced a little high, but not completely so. He also was a good teacher and I liked his sense of humor. Steve Maxwell

http://www.maxercise.com