Hypertrophy more "functional" for smaller grapplers than strength?

asian-glow

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Strength programs are often recommended for grapplers. I assume this is because grapplers who inquire about a strength program often compete and strength/powerlifting programs are generally designed to increase numbers without taking you up a weight class.

I don't compete so going up a weight class isn't a concern to me. Getting stronger is nice but I also feel I have enough prerequisite strength to grapple. With that said, often times I feel my smaller build (155lbs) is more susceptible to damage than larger builds. I know you can train connective tissue to strengthen as well, but my impression is that it's not as fast as the rate at which muscle grows.

TLDR - My main goal behind lifting is to build a more robust frame so that I can endure the daily wear and tear of grappling. Will a hypertrophy based program be better at achieving this goal than the typically recommended strength program?

Has anyone done this? If so, do you endure less damage?
 
This is a very complex topic. I'll say a few things as someone who's lifted a long time and done a lot of research on programming.

  • Gains to strength without hypertrophy are limited. A bigger muscle always has the potential to be stronger, and most of the powerlifting plans you see that focus on low rep/heavy weight are peaking plans designed for folks gearing up for a meet.
  • Powerlifters spend much of their time trying to get bigger because you really want to be as big as you can get for your height to maximize your numbers. There's a joke in PL circles that weight classes are actually just height classes because a slimmer tall guy isn't usually going to be stronger than a jacked short guy in the same weight division.
  • If you want to get bigger and you aren't a noob you need to lift higher volumes. You have to accumulate a lot of work to get your muscles to grow. Upper body recovery is faster, be more careful about doing tons of lower body work as it's neurologically draining and it's easy to accumulate too much fatigue. A trained lifter can get up to 150 reps/week and still recover on upper body stuff, lower body you probably don't want to go above 60-70 or so.
  • Don't bother lifting higher volumes if you aren't prepared to up your food and sleep.

If you're looking for a simple program that will get you bigger and stronger without totally wiping you out, the Boring but Big variation of 5/3/1 is a good choice. It's a nice mix of high intensity work and accumulating volume. You could also look into Greg Nuckol's free programs, he's an extremely knowledgeable guy who has a bunch of good free programs through his Stronger by Science website.

Personally, I've found that when I focus on strength without doing my hypertrophy work I get injured more often, because that sort of work means that you're operating near your neurological and muscular threshold within the gym in addition to martial arts training, so you're right on the edge of injury all the time due to accumulated fatigue. Prioritizing hypertrophy will also allow your connective tissue time to get stronger, because as you correctly note it doesn't strengthen as fast as muscle will grow (especially if you're on gear, it's one reason juiced PLers end up with more early career injuries than clean ones: their muscles grow faster than their ligaments and tendons can keep up).
 
If you're serious about weight training over the long term, then you will likely want to cycle through goals of - muscular endurance > hypertrophy > power > strength
 
You know there are two type of hypertrophy. One builds strength. Durability has nothing to do with size. Bjj is a very easy sport compared to other combat sport. You are just probably nervous or have some psychological apprehension about being a "smaller guy", no offense. I'm a "manlet" by shedog standards, but I know my worth on the mat. But the intelligence of the person/grapplers makes him a giant or manlet in my opinion.

My advice to you is consider working with a sandbag. Not one of those pussy, commercial sandbag with handles on them. A sandbag made from a canvas bag with no handles. You can adjust the weight and do all types of exercise: many variation of squats, shoulders, press, cleans, tossing the bag, bear hugs, etc. You can use it as max strength day or conditioning tool. The benefit is really unique to build grappling strength due tonits odds shape and also develop a good grip. I had a lot of "body building" friends who could lift heavy but had issues working with sandbag. They couldn't grip it to lift it. If you're body is in warrior shape all you have to worry about is rehabbing it with stretches after classes and days off. Anecdotally, I spend about 15 mins to warm up and 30 minutes after to stretch after class .I never had a major injury or durability issue as a smaller guy who as white belt went white belt retard hard.


Yet, there are guys who don't even do strength and are durable as fuck. They just stay flexibe and pratice bjj instead of investing time in strength and conditioning with supplemental work. They argue sport specific work > supplement work. Check out Ross
Enamit infinite intensity book or his website. You could probably pick it up for a few dollars. It's aim at strength and conditioning with combat athletes in mind. Don't put on weight, just focus on your bjj and becoming more technical which actually makes you more durable if that makes sense. BTW fighters back in the days fought every month because e
they always stayed in fighting shape by doing skill related work. Remember to stretch man that shit is underated. Rotations to warm up and static after practice.
 
You know there are two type of hypertrophy. One builds strength. Durability has nothing to do with size. Bjj is a very easy sport compared to other combat sport. You are just probably nervous or have some psychological apprehension about being a "smaller guy", no offense. I'm a "manlet" by shedog standards, but I know my worth on the mat. But the intelligence of the person/grapplers makes him a giant or manlet in my opinion.

My advice to you is consider working with a sandbag. Not one of those pussy, commercial sandbag with handles on them. A sandbag made from a canvas bag with no handles. You can adjust the weight and do all types of exercise: many variation of squats, shoulders, press, cleans, tossing the bag, bear hugs, etc. You can use it as max strength day or conditioning tool. The benefit is really unique to build grappling strength due tonits odds shape and also develop a good grip. I had a lot of "body building" friends who could lift heavy but had issues working with sandbag. They couldn't grip it to lift it. If you're body is in warrior shape all you have to worry about is rehabbing it with stretches after classes and days off. Anecdotally, I spend about 15 mins to warm up and 30 minutes after to stretch after class .I never had a major injury or durability issue as a smaller guy who as white belt went white belt retard hard.


Yet, there are guys who don't even do strength and are durable as fuck. They just stay flexibe and pratice bjj instead of investing time in strength and conditioning with supplemental work. They argue sport specific work > supplement work. Check out Ross
Enamit infinite intensity book or his website. You could probably pick it up for a few dollars. It's aim at strength and conditioning with combat athletes in mind. Don't put on weight, just focus on your bjj and becoming more technical which actually makes you more durable if that makes sense. BTW fighters back in the days fought every month because e
they always stayed in fighting shape by doing skill related work. Remember to stretch man that shit is underated. Rotations to warm up and static after practice.
I usually stretch more than the rest and many in the class give looks like if is not worth it.
 
This is a very complex topic. I'll say a few things as someone who's lifted a long time and done a lot of research on programming.

  • Gains to strength without hypertrophy are limited. A bigger muscle always has the potential to be stronger, and most of the powerlifting plans you see that focus on low rep/heavy weight are peaking plans designed for folks gearing up for a meet.
  • Powerlifters spend much of their time trying to get bigger because you really want to be as big as you can get for your height to maximize your numbers. There's a joke in PL circles that weight classes are actually just height classes because a slimmer tall guy isn't usually going to be stronger than a jacked short guy in the same weight division.
  • If you want to get bigger and you aren't a noob you need to lift higher volumes. You have to accumulate a lot of work to get your muscles to grow. Upper body recovery is faster, be more careful about doing tons of lower body work as it's neurologically draining and it's easy to accumulate too much fatigue. A trained lifter can get up to 150 reps/week and still recover on upper body stuff, lower body you probably don't want to go above 60-70 or so.
  • Don't bother lifting higher volumes if you aren't prepared to up your food and sleep.

If you're looking for a simple program that will get you bigger and stronger without totally wiping you out, the Boring but Big variation of 5/3/1 is a good choice. It's a nice mix of high intensity work and accumulating volume. You could also look into Greg Nuckol's free programs, he's an extremely knowledgeable guy who has a bunch of good free programs through his Stronger by Science website.

Personally, I've found that when I focus on strength without doing my hypertrophy work I get injured more often, because that sort of work means that you're operating near your neurological and muscular threshold within the gym in addition to martial arts training, so you're right on the edge of injury all the time due to accumulated fatigue. Prioritizing hypertrophy will also allow your connective tissue time to get stronger, because as you correctly note it doesn't strengthen as fast as muscle will grow (especially if you're on gear, it's one reason juiced PLers end up with more early career injuries than clean ones: their muscles grow faster than their ligaments and tendons can keep up).

It is very complex. I'm actually surprised I even got any answers to begin with.

Right now I'm doing a PPL routine, which is very close to the rep range for upper body; I'll probably drop a lower body day just so I have more time to recover. I also know how much everyone on the internet loves the squat and deadlift but I don't do them because I feel like I increase my chances of injury and they tax my CNS too much to grapple properly (which also increases chance of injury).

To put on my tinfoil hat, I also subscribe to the belief that unilateral work is better for muscle imbalances, which bjj will build plenty of. A lot of athletic movement, particularly in grappling, also involve using my limbs in isolation. I know the main problem with these is that they are hard to load as you get stronger but I'm already weak so even with DB's I feel I can get pretty far with stuff like RFESS's.

This isn't to say that I don't believe in compound lifts. I still think they should form the core of your lifts. I choose to just focus on compounds that are harder to injure yourself; I basically do weighted variations of BW movements like pushups, pullups, dips, etc. while adding in a lot of BB'ing accessory work.

I'm not really familiar with the strength community at large but I know the recent successes of the Chinese weightlifting team has a lot to do with the resurgence of bodybuilding/hypertrophy programs. They do a ton of accessory lifts to support the surrounding musculature that are required during the contested lifts. Granted, they are pro athletes and do this shit all day. My point is hypertrophy work is indeed functional and not just for show. To speak to your point, the idea that some have divorced muscle size from strength is also bizarre.

As always, your input is always appreciated.
 
You know there are two type of hypertrophy. One builds strength. Durability has nothing to do with size. Bjj is a very easy sport compared to other combat sport. You are just probably nervous or have some psychological apprehension about being a "smaller guy", no offense. I'm a "manlet" by shedog standards, but I know my worth on the mat. But the intelligence of the person/grapplers makes him a giant or manlet in my opinion.

My advice to you is consider working with a sandbag. Not one of those pussy, commercial sandbag with handles on them. A sandbag made from a canvas bag with no handles. You can adjust the weight and do all types of exercise: many variation of squats, shoulders, press, cleans, tossing the bag, bear hugs, etc. You can use it as max strength day or conditioning tool. The benefit is really unique to build grappling strength due tonits odds shape and also develop a good grip. I had a lot of "body building" friends who could lift heavy but had issues working with sandbag. They couldn't grip it to lift it. If you're body is in warrior shape all you have to worry about is rehabbing it with stretches after classes and days off. Anecdotally, I spend about 15 mins to warm up and 30 minutes after to stretch after class .I never had a major injury or durability issue as a smaller guy who as white belt went white belt retard hard.


Yet, there are guys who don't even do strength and are durable as fuck. They just stay flexibe and pratice bjj instead of investing time in strength and conditioning with supplemental work. They argue sport specific work > supplement work. Check out Ross
Enamit infinite intensity book or his website. You could probably pick it up for a few dollars. It's aim at strength and conditioning with combat athletes in mind. Don't put on weight, just focus on your bjj and becoming more technical which actually makes you more durable if that makes sense. BTW fighters back in the days fought every month because e
they always stayed in fighting shape by doing skill related work. Remember to stretch man that shit is underated. Rotations to warm up and static after practice.

I don't have any qualms about being my weight. I do, however, have qualms about preventable injuries that I could mitigate through more intelligent lifting. I'm not lifting to keep myself safe against people slightly above my weight or below. I'm lifting to keep myself safe against people who are 40+lbs heavier than me.

I'm familiar with Ross Emanit's work - he's got a lot of good stuff on his site I appreciate his message. I've even seen his tutorial for constructing his sand bags but truth be told, it's not feasible given where I live. That man is a monster though and I love that he's about working quietly but hard with whatever you have at your disposal.

I believe in sport specific work as well. I do neck and core work as well. Thing is I can't be that guy who only does bjj and stretches - I still get hurt. I also do the whole dynamic stretches before and static stretches after thing.

Honestly, I think most of the problem is that I train at least 5-6 times a week, which is a lot for me. BJJ also has no off season.
 
It is very complex. I'm actually surprised I even got any answers to begin with.

Right now I'm doing a PPL routine, which is very close to the rep range for upper body; I'll probably drop a lower body day just so I have more time to recover. I also know how much everyone on the internet loves the squat and deadlift but I don't do them because I feel like I increase my chances of injury and they tax my CNS too much to grapple properly (which also increases chance of injury).

To put on my tinfoil hat, I also subscribe to the belief that unilateral work is better for muscle imbalances, which bjj will build plenty of. A lot of athletic movement, particularly in grappling, also involve using my limbs in isolation. I know the main problem with these is that they are hard to load as you get stronger but I'm already weak so even with DB's I feel I can get pretty far with stuff like RFESS's.

This isn't to say that I don't believe in compound lifts. I still think they should form the core of your lifts. I choose to just focus on compounds that are harder to injure yourself; I basically do weighted variations of BW movements like pushups, pullups, dips, etc. while adding in a lot of BB'ing accessory work.

I'm not really familiar with the strength community at large but I know the recent successes of the Chinese weightlifting team has a lot to do with the resurgence of bodybuilding/hypertrophy programs. They do a ton of accessory lifts to support the surrounding musculature that are required during the contested lifts. Granted, they are pro athletes and do this shit all day. My point is hypertrophy work is indeed functional and not just for show. To speak to your point, the idea that some have divorced muscle size from strength is also bizarre.

As always, your input is always appreciated.

Man, I would not exclude the squat and DL from your program. Even if you do lighter weights, those are super important exercises for building total body strength. Build slowly and do more sets of fewer reps rather than the converse, that should keep your CNS fatigue low. You won't need heavy weights to see results at first, and the time you spend ramping up the weight will give you a chance to get the technique down. But I wouldn't drop them.
 
Even Powerlifters have started to see the benefit of hypertrophy training. Elite lifters like Wendler, Smith, Lily etc include a significant amount of hypertrophy work in their programs.
 
have a look around the internet for a book called power to the people by pavel


ive done a lot of lifting and a lot of times i would always feel sore or kinda broken down, from the time ive been 25 or so (34) now it has mostly been 531 or some variation

after reading power to the people i just started following along with that, 2x5 on deadlift and a press, every day

usually ill add in some pullups and i switch out my press exercise every couple weeks, but other than that i feel a lot stronger than i have in a long time and im never sore anymore
 
Even Powerlifters have started to see the benefit of hypertrophy training. Elite lifters like Wendler, Smith, Lily etc include a significant amount of hypertrophy work in their programs.

This is true. It seems the pendulum is swinging. Lots of top guys are now advocating hypertrophy blocks (Smith's Juggarnaut, for example) or lots of BB-style accessory movements. In the past it seems like anything more than 3x3 and they'd accuse you of being a bodybuilder.
 
This is true. It seems the pendulum is swinging. Lots of top guys are now advocating hypertrophy blocks (Smith's Juggarnaut, for example) or lots of BB-style accessory movements. In the past it seems like anything more than 3x3 and they'd accuse you of being a bodybuilder.

Indeed. The old Powerlifting joke used to be, "Cardio? You mean do more than 5 reps?" Hypertrophy had a bad reputation because it was regarded as being the same as Bodybuilding. Which is as stupid as saying that doing a short, low intensity jog a couple of times a week will eat all your Gains and turn you into a skinny-fat Marathon runner:rolleyes:

Hypertrophy, when performed correctly as part of a good program, will make you stronger and more resistant to injury.

That it also gives you Pecs and Guns that turn on Nuns is just a nice bonus;)
 
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