Bodyweight Gama the Wrestler Training?

[Kev]

Here’s the thing though. Gama wrestled for 5 hours everyday which is hellish by any measure of physical exertion and he also lifted weights. Don Draeger I think was the first person to write about dands and Baithaks and no one payed them any notice. Bruce Lee had illustrations of them among his effects which were found after he died. As for Furey critics have pointed out his physique on the front of his book which eschews all weight training was from when he was a committed iron head. Subsequent claims by the author and courses he has sold claiming you can become as strong as a chimpanzee by doing chin-ups all day go beyond hyperbole and into the realms of complete ignorance of the differences in chimpanzee physiology and anatomy. I like high rep bodyweight stuff. A Kushti wrestler recently squatted 600lbs and only did Baithaks according to Jamie Lewis on Chaos and Pain blog. But again I haven’t met a grappler whether he was a sambo practitioner, Judoka or whatever style you care to mention who wasn’t a complete bear due to grappling. I experience this every week as a judoka. Guys with pure python strength and they really only grapple. I’m pretty sure Geoff Neupert has talked about this too with his own experience training grapplers.

 

[Kev]

Thank you, I will check this out.

What about Combat Conditioning by Matt Furey as well? He does a lot of Hindu push ups and squats.

And eschews all weight training while posing on the front cover of his book in front of a waterfall sporting a physique from when he lifted weights.

 

[bluejeff]

And eschews all weight training while posing on the front cover of his book in front of a waterfall sporting a physique from when he lifted weights.

I mean that strategy is basically standard practice for any fitness personality these days ….

 

[Kev]

I mean that strategy is basically standard practice for any fitness personality these days ….

Yeah but the “ringer” inside the book where an incredibly overweight and out of shape person before and after and they didn’t even look like the same person was another example. The book is now one of those rare books that now cost a fortune that I have loaned out to someone and lost contact with.

 

[silveraw]

You can build strength by high rep training but only when you do sets to failure or close to failure but I recommend to failure, because you will activate your fast twitch fibers more than when close to failure.. and only then you activate your fast twitch fibers. Without failure or close to failure, you will activate only slow twitch fibers and not build strength unless you use some tension techniques and activate fast twitch fibers

Funny enough, this popped up in my feed today. A study where two groups tested strength and hypertrophy gains. One group increased load and kept the reps the same, the other kept the load the same and increased volume. At the end both had very similar hypertrophy and strength increases.

Progressive overload without progressing load? The effects of load or repetition progression on muscular adaptations

Progressive overload is a principle of resistance training exercise program design that typically relies on increasing load to increase neuromuscular demand to facilitate further adaptations. However, little attention has been given to another way of ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Gives a lot of credibility to those old school plans that focus on volume before increasing load like RoP.

 

[jozko]

I like incorporating high rep bodyweight training periods to my schedule, but I do not rely exclusively on it. I do it 1-2 times a year, each 4-8 weeks. IMHO it' good for joints, muscular endurance, fat burning and it also prepares a ground for subsequent heavy strength training.
I used it as well during my barbell days to bust plateau, but busting 110kg bench press of high school student is different bussiness than busting 250kg bench press of elite powerlifter, that's why elite powerlifters do not use this approach...
You can build respectable strength, but if you seek maximal strength, heavy triples are just heavy triples.
And as for Gama, I love stories about him! But he did way more in his training than hindu pushups and squats. He did heavy macebell exercises and, well, a lot of wrestling with other powerful guys.

 

[Kev]

What about combining heavy strongman sandbag training compounds at low repetitions with high repetitions of hindu push ups, hindu squats, and back bridges?

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Bear squats, shouldering, carries, etc?
I don’t think any gyms will be open for months to come and weights are inflated due to the lockdown but these sandbags haven’t inflated yet.

Thank you.

Kind regards.

An army duffel bag, sand, plastic rubble sacks and duct tape is even cheaper.

 

[pet']

Hello,

Gives a lot of credibility to those old school plans that focus on volume before increasing load like RoP.

+1 to this.

As far as bodyweight exercises are concerned, in general, the difficult thing is to know when we have to increase the weight (or using a harder variation). For instance: 100 push ups a day ? 300 ? 1000 ?

Obviously, we can go by feel: when it gets very easy, we increase the volume. However, at some point, it gets very time consuming. It may also need to add some variation here and there to avoid overuse injury (IMHO).

Kind regards,

Pet'

 

[Kev]

If you want Gama strength take up a grappling style. I think the case for Dands and Baithaks is pure hyperbole. Wrestlers lift weights whether it’s maces, sandbags, barbells not to mention grappling. I have lifted for years and I’ve known Highland games competitors, powerlifters, strongmen and weightlifters and none of them impress me the way the guys at my judo club do. Even my coach who is 57 and claims he’s a shadow of his former self has scary animal strength. Again I’m a lover of high rep bodyweight movements but there is nothing magical about these 2 moves and people claiming they made Gama such a good wrestler are kinda ignoring his 5 mile runs, the fact he lifted weights and fought every wrestler in his Ankara one after the other for 5 hours a day. It’s like that old fable about the beggar who enters the village and no one likes him. So he claims he has a stone that makes soup. All the villagers need to do is supply water, carrots and other vegetables. Sure enough the stone went in the pot and made soup. Lol

 

[3letterslong]

If you want Gama strength take up a grappling style. I think the case for Dands and Baithaks is pure hyperbole. Wrestlers lift weights whether it’s maces, sandbags, barbells not to mention grappling. I have lifted for years and I’ve known Highland games competitors, powerlifters, strongmen and weightlifters and none of them impress me the way the guys at my judo club do. Even my coach who is 57 and claims he’s a shadow of his former self has scary animal strength. Again I’m a lover of high rep bodyweight movements but there is nothing magical about these 2 moves and people claiming they made Gama such a good wrestler are kinda ignoring his 5 mile runs, the fact he lifted weights and fought every wrestler in his Ankara one after the other for 5 hours a day. It’s like that old fable about the beggar who enters the village and no one likes him. So he claims he has a stone that makes soup. All the villagers need to do is supply water, carrots and other vegetables. Sure enough the stone went in the pot and made soup. Lol

I believe this 100%. Marcelo Garcia is famous for not doing any strength training, but the people I know who rolled with him said he's phenomenally strong. A friend of mine said just having him grab your wrists felt a vice being closed. These weren't little guys or grappling noobs.

 

[3letterslong]

Also, here's Karl Gotch (a legit catchwrestler who believed in high rep calisthenics) exerting some ridiculous strength against Antonio Inoki (the guy who fought Muhammad Ali in an early MMA match).

https://i.imgflip.com/6pxla7.gif

 

[Stefan Olsson]

I found this a while back. Some interesting training stuff on the subject