Do we put too much emphasis on heavy lifting?

[Eagle26]

Honest question and I’m not sure the answer, but I get the impression that maybe we are focusing too much on heavy strength training? We see athletes with a lot of mass, and I’m wondering if that’s part of the conditioning issues? Those huge muscles take up a lot of oxygen. Look at guys like Taz, Amouzad, all of the Japanese wrestlers and you can tell they are strong but don’t have the mass like Snyder, Brooks, Lee, Parris, and Zain. Dake is probably the exception, but we know he does more “functional” training. I have no idea how these other train, so it’s just a theory, but does anyone else think this could be an issue?

[Scouts Honor]

taz looks like a weak lanky heavyweight

 

but man.

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

Brooks doesn’t even lift, bro. 

[PAFAN01]

2 minutes ago, Interviewed_at_Weehawken said:

Brooks doesn’t even lift, bro. 

I thought the Bulgarian that beat Brook out muscled him.

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

15 minutes ago, Eagle26 said:

Honest question and I’m not sure the answer, but I get the impression that maybe we are focusing too much on heavy strength training? We see athletes with a lot of mass, and I’m wondering if that’s part of the conditioning issues? Those huge muscles take up a lot of oxygen. Look at guys like Taz, Amouzad, all of the Japanese wrestlers and you can tell they are strong but don’t have the mass like Snyder, Brooks, Lee, Parris, and Zain. Dake is probably the exception, but we know he does more “functional” training. I have no idea how these other train, so it’s just a theory, but does anyone else think this could be an issue?

Also, Dake has a bottom three gas tank on the team, is built like a gorilla, and his fictional patterns training  is pseudo -science. Dake built all of his mass with conventional lifting, there are videos of him doing squats, benching, etc at Cornell. 
 

Snyder never gasses, despite being extremely muscular and strong. 

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

Just now, PAFAN01 said:

I thought the Bulgarian that beat Brook out muscled him.

He was big for sure. 

[wrestle87]

9 minutes ago, Interviewed_at_Weehawken said:

Also, Dake has a bottom three gas tank on the team, is built like a gorilla, and his fictional patterns training  is pseudo -science. Dake built all of his mass with conventional lifting, there are videos of him doing squats, benching, etc at Cornell. 
 

Snyder never gasses, despite being extremely muscular and strong. 

This is an awful lot of nonsense.  Dake, and snyder, and all these other guys built their muscle by wrestling monsters.  Dake is a beast bc he used to rag doll gabe dean...and oh btw, genetics.  

Barbells build barbell strength, wrestling builds wrestling strength, they are completely different neurological patterns.  Why do you think wrestlers are always able to manhandle the random lineman who shows up and asks to scrap.  The lineman have ENORMOUS barbell numbers, they have zero grappling strength. 

America and American performance has been distracted by bodybuilding and powerlifting for a long time.  Our college team ran westside in the offseason.  We all got enormous...and guess what...all that meant was that we had harder cuts the next year.  Nobody was magically able to outmuscle guys in a new way because they spent time with their hands on a bar.

NOW...there were other guys who just went and spent their entire summers wrestling and in wrestling practices.  Guess which guys came back stronger and just impossible to handle?

Wrestling is as unique a phyiscal activity as swimming, the systemic neurological adaptations are key to success, refined patterning for real touch in wrestling moves, etc.  Wrestling strength comes from wrestling, there's no way around it.  

If anything, we as a team could probably use better chemists.  Whatever cycles we were running didn't get it done.

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

1 minute ago, wrestle87 said:

This is an awful lot of nonsense.  Dake, and snyder, and all these other guys built their muscle by wrestling monsters.  Dake is a beast bc he used to rag doll gabe dean...and oh btw, genetics.  

Barbells build barbell strength, wrestling builds wrestling strength, they are completely different neurological patterns.  Why do you think wrestlers are always able to manhandle the random lineman who shows up and asks to scrap.  The lineman have ENORMOUS barbell numbers, they have zero grappling strength. 

America and American performance has been distracted by bodybuilding and powerlifting for a long time.  Our college team ran westside in the offseason.  We all got enormous...and guess what...all that meant was that we had harder cuts the next year.  Nobody was magically able to outmuscle guys in a new way because they spent time with their hands on a bar.

NOW...there were other guys who just went and spent their entire summers wrestling and in wrestling practices.  Guess which guys came back stronger and just impossible to handle?

Wrestling is as unique a phyiscal activity as swimming, the systemic neurological adaptations are key to success, refined patterning for real touch in wrestling moves, etc.  Wrestling strength comes from wrestling, there's no way around it.  

If anything, we as a team could probably use better chemists.  Whatever cycles we were running didn't get it done.

Absolutely scientifically untrue. You dieted your strength and muscle mass off that’s all. If you run west side and then catabolize and dehydrate all your gains away you wasted your time. Louie Simmons would tell you the exact same thing. 
 

The optimal would be a combination of strength training and sport training. Heavy lifting and wrestling combined. 

[wrestle87]

2 minutes ago, Interviewed_at_Weehawken said:

Absolutely scientifically untrue. You dieted your strength and muscle mass off that’s all. If you run west side and then catabolize and dehydrate all your gains away you wasted your time. Louie Simmons would tell you the exact same thing. 
 

The optimal would be a combination of strength training and sport training. Heavy lifting and wrestling combined. 

I don't disagree about the optimal combination part.  The wild thing for us is that no, we didn't catabolize anything away.  Most of the dudes who ran westside settled at a different physical set point (and D3, I never ran gear, I don't know about the other tbh though).  For my whole wrestling career high 180's was my natural set point.  That year, it was high 190's.  Made the cut to 174 an absolute blast.  I wasn't the only one.  

This sort of thing would have been way better. 

 

[Scouts Honor]

28 minutes ago, Interviewed_at_Weehawken said:

Also, Dake has a bottom three gas tank on the team, is built like a gorilla, and his fictional patterns training  is pseudo -science. Dake built all of his mass with conventional lifting, there are videos of him doing squats, benching, etc at Cornell. 
 

Snyder never gasses, despite being extremely muscular and strong. 

nah nah nah

JB was saying dake used a scientific approach

lol

[gimpeltf]

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

Just now, wrestle87 said:

I don't disagree about the optimal combination part.  The wild thing for us is that no, we didn't catabolize anything away.  Most of the dudes who ran westside settled at a different physical set point (and D3, I never ran gear, I don't know about the other tbh though).  For my whole wrestling career high 180's was my natural set point.  That year, it was high 190's.  Made the cut to 174 an absolute blast.  I wasn't the only one.  

This sort of thing would have been way better. 

 

Thanks for acknowledging the “combination “ approach.
 

I disagree with a lot of this video . I actually had conversations with noted eastern bloc exercise scientist Tudor Bompa and he would also disagree. 

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

3 minutes ago, wrestle87 said:

I don't disagree about the optimal combination part.  The wild thing for us is that no, we didn't catabolize anything away.  Most of the dudes who ran westside settled at a different physical set point (and D3, I never ran gear, I don't know about the other tbh though).  For my whole wrestling career high 180's was my natural set point.  That year, it was high 190's.  Made the cut to 174 an absolute blast.  I wasn't the only one.  

This sort of thing would have been way better. 

 

And you literally say you had to cut more weight. That drains strength. You would have felt much stronger at 184 or 197. 

[Rassling]

3 minutes ago, gimpeltf said:

Anatoly!!! Been watching his videos lately. 

[ChickenWing]

Could the strength issues be related to the reduced number of weight classes resulting in some serious weight cuts with the accompanying loss of strength? 

 

I don't see anyone past the novice wrestler getting "stronger" simply by wrestling. They do get more efficient at using the strength they possess but you don't get stronger without an overload stimulus (more weight on the bar) followed by recovery and adaptation.

[wrestle87]

10 minutes ago, Interviewed_at_Weehawken said:

And you literally say you had to cut more weight. That drains strength. You would have felt much stronger at 184 or 197. 

Obviously that's not 100% the case.  If it were so...then nobody in any weight class sport would bother cutting weight.

[wrestle87]

I'm getting the impression that the people having this discussion have never spent time in a college room.  The notion that wrestling doesn't make you stronger is insane.  

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

2 minutes ago, wrestle87 said:

Obviously that's not 100% the case.  If it were so...then nobody in any weight class sport would bother cutting weight.

Try this out: Do a max bench this week fully hydrated. 
In a month cut 20 lbs. See how much you can lift. 
 

Maybe do a similar test with a one mile run. 

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

2 minutes ago, wrestle87 said:

I'm getting the impression that the people having this discussion have never spent time in a college room.  The notion that wrestling doesn't make you stronger is insane.  

Says the guy who claims that lifting doesn’t make one stronger. 

[GrandOlm]

It's not true to the Russian/Soviet wrestlers do not lift weights. A couple individuals Russian reps' quotes notwithstanding. 

Yarygin loved weight lifting so much that he would train with the Olympic Team on occasions. 

[WrestlingRasta]

Yes, look at how all the Russians do their strength training. Kettlebells, ropes, and boxes. 

[ChickenWing]

15 minutes ago, wrestle87 said:

I'm getting the impression that the people having this discussion have never spent time in a college room.  The notion that wrestling doesn't make you stronger is insane.  

4 years in the college room for me. 

Wrestling makes you stronger than non-wrestlers but the strength ceiling is low if you are counting on only wrestling to make you stronger.

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

15 minutes ago, WrestlingRasta said:

Yes, look at how all the Russians do their strength training. Kettlebells, ropes, and boxes. 

Russians!

[pokemonster]

2 minutes ago, Interviewed_at_Weehawken said:

Russians!

Pavel Tsatsouline has some pretty interesting strength training programs geared solely around bodyweight, kettlebells, and pull-ups. I think these functional lifts would be better suited towards wrestling than chest presses and curls but I was never in a college room. 

[Interviewed_at_Weehawken]

2 minutes ago, pokemonster said:

Pavel Tsatsouline has some pretty interesting strength training programs geared solely around bodyweight, kettlebells, and pull-ups. I think these functional lifts would be better suited towards wrestling than chest presses and curls but I was never in a college room. 

What is a functional lift? The term is used often, but I’m not sure of a scientific definition  

Despite there not being much “shoving” in wrestling, you need to build up the pectorals and other muscle groups to 

1) Prevent muscle imbalances 

2) Build up strength to resist gut wrenches, arm bars, half Nelson’s, etc.  Having strong pecs is a foundation of solid defense against turns.