Strength Training: Rethinking Everything We Thought We Knew?

[SOTTREADER]

I was going to say that looking at boxing champions is also interesting as they are strong but also fit.

You get them in all styles:

• Mexicans e.g. Julio César Chávez & Canelo Alvarez
• Ukrainian e.g. Klitschko brothers, Alexander Usyk, Vasily Lomachenko
• British e.g. Lennox Lewis, Joe Calzaghe, Tyson Fury, Antony Joshua, Chris Eubank etc
• Americans - too many to name but notable ones Sugar Ray Leonard, Floyd Mayweather, Terence Crawford etc
• Russians e.g. Dmitry Bivol, Artur Beterbiev
• Japanese e.g. Naoya Inoue
• Philippines - Manny Pacquiao

Etc

So I'm not sure we can say only one thing works when at least in this one sport we've had champions from all corners of the globe.

 

[Il Matto]

"greasing the groove", it's nothing new or unique and it has a proven track record. The military uses this method for PT conditioning tests, and it was also popularized by Pavel Tsatsouline I believe

Yes! Pavel Tsatsouline is the name that came quickly to mind when I was reading through this thread. He has written some books that have some good information in them (if you can stomach all the uses of the word 'comrade'!):
Some years ago, I started with The Naked Warrior, where he lays out the 'Grease the Groove' method. This is the way I approach most of my strength training (with kettlebells and calisthenics), but I also like to throw in some sprints and kettlebell lifts 'to failure' now and again for some variety.

Maybe there is an exercise that incorporates not only the push-ups but other crucial movements in one go/movement, while at the same time you don't run the risk of getting tired in each set while being able to improve like described above, not only at push-ups but other things at the same time? A possible idea would be to find an "all-encompassing" movement that you can do in one set that "improves all major aspects" with the principles mentioned above while not needing to spend more time each day for each set. Would that be possible?

That would be nice wouldn't it! As a fan of kettlebells (endlessly versatile), I would say that something like the Turkish Get-Up as an exercise might come close, but if you wanted to not have to spend more time each day on a set you would have to be steadily increasing the weight of the kettlebell..

Just some thoughts..

 

[Turgon]

What many don’t realize is that functional strength is very different from raw strength or muscle size. World-class bodybuilders like Ronnie Coleman or Dorian Yates are incredibly strong in lifting heavy weights, but that doesn’t automatically translate to explosive, coordinated, sport-specific movement under dynamic conditions — which is what functional strength really is.

This brings to mind the Korean TV show, Physical: 100. They took 100 people from all different walks of sports and athletics. Bodybuilders, martial artists, Olympians, wrestlers, power lifters, crossfitters, etc. In both seasons, it was a Crossfitter who won, I think in part because of how different and varied the exercises are from day to day. The bodybuilders and powerlifters were impressive at sheer strength in short bursts, but struggled with stamina and endurance, due in part to how much muscle they were carrying.

 

[Cosmos]

Yes! Pavel Tsatsouline is the name that came quickly to mind when I was reading through this thread. He has written some books that have some good information in them (if you can stomach all the uses of the word 'comrade'!):
Some years ago, I started with The Naked Warrior, where he lays out the 'Grease the Groove' method. This is the way I approach most of my strength training (with kettlebells and calisthenics), but I also like to throw in some sprints and kettlebell lifts 'to failure' now and again for some variety.


That would be nice wouldn't it! As a fan of kettlebells (endlessly versatile), I would say that something like the Turkish Get-Up as an exercise might come close, but if you wanted to not have to spend more time each day on a set you would have to be steadily increasing the weight of the kettlebell..
View attachment 115335

Just some thoughts..

I‘ve played around with Grok a couple of days ago to create and/or find such an all encompassing movement that works purely with your own body weight. In theory after a serious of prompts it came up with a number of movements and all seemed to be based on burpees:

https://x.com/i/grok/share/075755daf6f34cdca7c7e91e93a62a63

I’m not so sure though if what Grok says is true: that it would fatigue/engage all the major body/muscle parts in the same intensity level based on one rep. Seems unlikely to me. Especially the pulling motion would seem to me to be hard to achieve in such a theoretical perfect body movement that covers all basics.

 

[Cosmos]

From a not so knowledgeable viewpoint it would seem to me that there could be at least one negative for an approach like the one that is described in the mentioned video in the first post:

I don’t know how joint friendly it would be (even if it were true that you can make joints better able/capable with certain method’s) to have lets say 10-50 or even up to 100 easy reps in one set 10 times a day? I mean, strictly mechanically speaking, your joints would then move anywhere between 100 and 1000 times a day!? That would mean in just one such proposed workout week, anywhere between 600 and 6000 joint movements!?

I dunno what wear that could cause on joints and if that is desirable?

On the other extreme you now have possibilities of smart but pretty hard short HITT type workouts in split routine fashion in which a LOT less joint movement is happening every day/week but with quite a lot more pressure force exerted on the joints.

Dunno what’s better, or if a combination might be good too?