What indicator lifts do you use for combat sports?

Example: judo, BJJ, etc.

The indicator lifts I use, first and foremost, I’m a big proponent of leg strength and for leg strength, what we use is front squat and back squat, but the King of the leg strength is back squat. And the number one predictor or indicator for us is getting our athletes to double bodyweight back squat.

You have to understand, even though in grappling sports, your torso and your arms, your limbs, and so forth are very important to manipulate the opponent. But what people tend to forget is that your base of support is tremendous. Get people trying to throw you, move you, manipulate you, the stronger base you stand on, the harder it is. So the athletes who have actually tremendous leg strength or bigger legs, for example, are hard to deal with and hard to move.

Think of a pyramid. A pyramid with a big white base is hard to move. Flip that pyramid upside down with a narrow base and weaker, it’s easy to top over. So I like to get my athletes to understand that. Because typically when the BJJ or MMA athletes come in, they’re pretty strong or relatively strong in terms of the upper body, but they forget to train their legs. So we attack the legs, get that to an optimal double bodyweight. Then we move on to upper bodywork. For us, the mother lift—close grip bench, you should be benching at least 1.5 times your bodyweight. We take that number 1.5 times, your body weight, whatever that is, and then we utilize that in dips.

Dips, we like our athletes to dip for one single rep, 117% of the mother lift—the bench. Then we take that number and we utilize the chin-ups. I love supinated chin-ups. An athlete must do one chin-up 87% of their bench press.

So those are the mathematical formulas I strive to push my athletes to get to optimal performance or optimal strength in the gym. And then from that, they utilize that strength and take that onto the mat or wherever. It’s very important for you to train your athletes with whatever predictors of numbers that make sense.

To understand, I come from the Charles Paloquin staple. I’ve been exposed to these numbers and putting them into practice has done tremendous for my athletes in terms of their performance.

Work towards those goals, those numbers. Back squat, double bodyweight. Dip, 117%. So to be clear, that’s including your body weight plus the extra weight strapped onto you. Chin-up, 87% of your bench. So again, your body weight plus the extra load.

Obviously, you want your wrestlers to be anywhere at least 6 to 8% of body fat, as lean and as strong as possible so the extra load that they’re lifting is not fat, it’s weight and muscle.

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