Pushing & pulling heavy things ~3x p/week, need I worry about twisting?

dartstothesea

I'm trying to get stronger at muay thai (haven't gone back to classes yet though otherwise I might just try asking coach) and it has occurred to me that a lot of the power generated when striking (kicking and particularly punching) has me twisting, for want of a better word maybe, rather than / in addition to pushing (and certainly instead of pulling).

Now I can (hopefully!) already extend my legs, arms and back from bent to straight with a decent degree of power as a result of training squats, presses and deadlifts etc every week for the last few months.

But I (think I) know the difference between a poor and a good cross for example will come from throwing your shoulder into it and for a good kick will be swinging your hips around into the kick.


Could anyone recommend me lifts or exercises to help me get stronger and more powerful twisting or torque about the shoulders and hips? Just looking for examples and demonstrations etc so I can start trying them out with a good idea of right form.
I can't think of anything with a barbell to help me here, or even dumbbells could be awkward, so I'm sort of at a loss as to how to train the movements with extra weight. I've never touched a kettlebell before.

I know people will tell me I don't need to train with weights for this and should just practice the techniques (and should be in the gym right now instead of overthinking everything :rolleyes:) but my thinking is that I want to be able to move something heavy, so... yeah. I wanna use weights in the hope they can help me build power.

I did a bit of googling already and found only a little useful stuff.

I might just go to the kettlebell class in my gym (I think it has one) and hope the stuff they train works for what I'm talking about.

Big, rambling post is big and rambling, sorry. Any thoughts/advice/info appreciated, cheers.

Mellor

I think you are over complicating it and missing the obvious. "Twisting" is just a combination of many muscles, assymetricly.
Taking punches for example, very little of the power here comes from the arms, its legs, hips, abs, obligues, back, chest, shoulders etc.
I think you are confusing yourself when trying to figure out a way to add resistance to to all muscles at the same time, ie in punch form, just work out those muscles with various compounds (to get them workign strong together), and put it together with regular bag work.

Hail 2 Da Chimp

Hey there, I always found Ross Boxing very good, here is his website, he has loads of interesting training articals, videos and routines:
http://www.rosstraining.com/articles/strengthtraining.html

dartstothesea

That's useful stuff, cheers. Ha I always kind of wondered at the MMA pros who had sort of unusually 'pretty' physiques, hah. Phil Baroni looked like a fcking model or something (but bigger) I thought when I saw him get taken apart by Amir Sadollah then, haha. Not saying that was the reason or anything but it was interesting to see 'cause Amir's physique looks so different.

I may have been thinking some silly shіt with my initial question here but thanks for the info anyway. I guess I'll stick with stronglifts for weight training for the moment.

Colm_OReilly

Work on the technique of kicking/kneeing/punching in class, and keep your gym sessions for developing strength and power.

Imagine two guys with equal technique. One has a 50Kg power clean and the other 100Kg. Who is going to inflict more hurt with the kick?

Hail 2 Da Chimp

dartstothesea wrote: »

Phil Baroni looked like a fcking model or something

I think Baroni was a body builder actually... On another note - have you ever seen the video Matt Lindland created about Phil Baroni before they fought? Hilarious stuff - wouldn't advise watching it in work though...

Mellor

Colm_OReilly wrote: »

Imagine two guys with equal technique. One has a 50Kg power clean and the other 100Kg. Who is going to inflict more hurt with the kick?

I depends, they probably won't be in the same division