Post: #1

My two main activities are Aikido and salsa dance. The way I go about doing it require a lot of fitness.

Disclaimer: Please do not side track this into a discussion of how aikido/dance are worthless

First, I do a lot of backflip and breakfalls in Aikido. Example in the first min in the vid. As you can see this put a lot of shock on the back and the side of your body when you land. Even a well executed breakfall will still put some blunt force.





Then, I like to lift girls a lot in dancing. Something like this:





I still regularly lift girls heavier than me, but I won't lie that sometimes it put strain on the back. And some heavier chicks still make me use a bit of muscle

I figure in order to reinforce my body for these types of activities I should focus a lot on a strong core, specifically my back? What exercises help reinforcing spinal strength, build girth around the lower back and helps supporting heavy weight? I already do a lot of squat.

When lifting and carrying a human body, like in dance (and sometimes in wrestling/judo) what muscles are the most important? I think strong arms help but I still feel like the core is doing a lot of the work. If I want to lift girls easier what exercises are good?

What about the legs? Are they more important than arms and core?

Obviously I should train all but my time is limited ATM (I'm already bulking my chest) so I need to focus on what's most important.

Post: #2

Olympic lifting is your best bet really.

Functional strength.

Post: #3

Buy an old army bergen, fill it with sand or dirt or gravel. Shoulder it, bear hug it and walk with it, front squat it, clean it, press it, do getups with it. It won't build pretty muscles but it will build throw-motherfuckers-around strength in a way that linear movements with barbells won't (do as well). If you're serious about being strong in a 'functional' way, the sandbag should have an important place in your training.

I like barbells, and train with them a lot, but sandbag training builds the kind of strength that lets you ragdoll people, and it's a part of every session for me.

Post: #4

Squat heavy: the more weight you can squat, the better you will be at carrying things. Deadlift, it's the staple back exercise for a reason. Do lots of upper back exercises: rows, pull-ups, face-pulls, shrugs, etc.

Post: #5

(02-22-2015 04:24 PM)H1N1 Wrote:  Buy an old army bergen, fill it with sand or dirt or gravel. Shoulder it, bear hug it and walk with it, front squat it, clean it, press it, do getups with it. It won't build pretty muscles but it will build throw-motherfuckers-around strength in a way that linear movements with barbells won't (do as well). If you're serious about being strong in a 'functional' way, the sandbag should have an important place in your training.

I like barbells, and train with them a lot, but sandbag training builds the kind of strength that lets you ragdoll people, and it's a part of every session for me.

I've heard of this before. A serious boxer I know caries his boxing punching bag from home to the gym walking, then back after every session. The guy can wrestle bear on mountains.

Can I expect to be stronger and able to lift people both bigger and heavier than me relatively easy. Obviously I'm not dating a girl bigger/heavier than me but being able to throw any girl to the sky and catch her afterwards is fucking awesome. Did this with a cute tiny blonde before and she loved it

Post: #6

(02-22-2015 04:52 PM)Dalaran1991 Wrote:  

(02-22-2015 04:24 PM)H1N1 Wrote:  Buy an old army bergen, fill it with sand or dirt or gravel. Shoulder it, bear hug it and walk with it, front squat it, clean it, press it, do getups with it. It won't build pretty muscles but it will build throw-motherfuckers-around strength in a way that linear movements with barbells won't (do as well). If you're serious about being strong in a 'functional' way, the sandbag should have an important place in your training.

I like barbells, and train with them a lot, but sandbag training builds the kind of strength that lets you ragdoll people, and it's a part of every session for me.

I've heard of this before. A serious boxer I know caries his boxing punching bag from home to the gym walking, then back after every session. The guy can wrestle bear on mountains.

Can I expect to be stronger and able to lift people both bigger and heavier than me relatively easy. Obviously I'm not dating a girl bigger/heavier than me but being able to throw any girl to the sky and catch her afterwards is fucking awesome. Did this with a cute tiny blonde before and she loved it

Like anything, it depends how hard and smart you train. I found it helpful to me in boxing, in the clinch and in close, as it is good for a rugged physicality that other types of training don't necessarily develop as well.

When it comes to lifting people bigger and heavier than you, the answer is yes and no. You have to bare in mind that bigger stronger blokes are going to resist as well, so it isn't as simple as lift a few sandbags and ragdoll all comers. Your performance in combat will largely be determined by your mindset and your resolve, not by the lifts you do. That said, if you are capable of applying force effectively and aggressively, the kind of strength and physicality you gain from sandbag/odd object training will be more usefully applied to a resisting opponent than conventional barbell training, in my experience.

I spent 6 months doing the 50/20 routine, with sandbag shouldering as one of the movements. I got up to being able to shoulder a 213lb sandbag 50 times in the 20 minute timeframe. For all the other lifting milestones I've reached with barbells, that is still the point in my training that I would look at and say 'that's when I became strong'. I still do lower rep/higher weight sandbag shouldering to build on that strength, and for me personally, and my goals, it is invaluable.

Post: #7

One reason I started doing the powerlifts in the first place was to be strong enough to flip girls around in dancing (I was in a dance troupe).

So there you go: 3 powerlifts, and/or the Olympic lifts. Most important for me was squat. Throw in some hard abs exercises like ab wheel rollouts and hollow body, because you need to be the strong pole for her to fly around.

And for dancing in general: glute activation and glute strengthening exercises. Gotta have that hip control.

I can flip girls very easily, including the bigger ones. That became a problem though because they kept giving me bigger and bigger girls to work with...

Post: #8

Kettlebell swings: good for building

(a) a strong bridge in wrestling/grappling

(b) the 'whiplash' in your muay thai roundhouse kick

Post: #9

I'd say stay with your gym routine and start wrestling. The whole point of the sport is to throw around people. It made wonders with my strength. Add kettle bells too

Post: #10

Everything good has already been said, but I would definitely recommend some sandbag training. You can buy a good sandbag off the internet (like Brute Force) or you can make your own.

The heavy barbell lifts will give you strength, however, you can do a lot of conditioning with the sandbag because it does a great job emulating dead weight. I'm talking about doing shit like shouldering it and dropping it to the floor as many times as you possibly can in 30 minutes, or doing clean and press or some other complex. Weighted carries would also be a great option to develop that level of conditioning and familiarity with odd objects.

If there's a particular dance move (I know jack shit about dancing) that you want to get good at, you might be able to get something close with the sandbag and then practice it at least twice a week.

There is no replacement for building a base level of strength with the barbells. If you want a good resource on sandbags, look up Matt Palfrey or Ross Enamait and you'll find what you want.

Post: #11

Yeah I reckon I can practice throwing/lifting a sandbag around just like I lift a girl. Damn thing is that girl doesn't stay down during a lift. They just have to scream and screech and kick like a fish out of water. That's the fun though

Strikeback lifting heavy girl. Sorry I can't help it

Post: #12

I forgot to recommend: strongman training. Awesome for strength-endurance. Clean and press, deadlifting, carries.

Post: #13

Have you ever heard of an L-sit? I've been training to do L-sits for about a week and I can already feel my core muscles becoming way more stable. I'm one of those weird guys who gets nothing from crunches or sit ups. The only exercises that really put any sort of thinkness on my core are the squat and deadlift, but I feel like the squat and deadlift don't train core stability in a way that was noticeable for me.

I decided to start working on the L-sit because I realized I couldn't hold onto the pull up bar and put my legs at a 90 degree angle with my body for more than a few seconds. Even now, if I hold that position for too long my core is ON FIRE. Naturally, I decided to try and get stronger on this exercise. It's typically a short person technique, but I think it has some real benefits that anyone can reap by training it.

Check out this tutorial for it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HO0csykBkho

So far I can now hold my L sit (while holding a pull-up bar) for 15 seconds.

Post: #14

(02-24-2015 07:25 AM)Dalaran1991 Wrote:  Strikeback lifting heavy girl. Sorry I can't help it

True story...

We had an aerial workshop for our dance troupe once. There's a token fat girl in the group, maybe a kaiju cat 3 vs the cat 4 in that picture. She's never done any aerial before, for good reasons. Unbeknownst to us, the bitches in the troupe were egging her on to try flying once, and she signed up for the workshop, and others sweet-talked the instructors into swapping my regular partner with her (without my knowledge), because I was the only jaeger in the group strong enough to flip kaijus.

I think I managed about 3 flips before I was spent, and she was a happy as a kaiju in mud.

The only positive part of the story was that this white knight paired up with us (he and his partner were spotters) was giving me heaps of shit for not being able to do more than just a few complete flips with her. I got sick of it so I asked him to show me how's it done. He got put on the spot, so had to go in to demonstrate. The bastard managed one flip and that was the end of his back and dancing career. I haven't seen him since (years ago now).

So be careful, you may get heavier partners as a result...

From my observations, most of the dance instructors who are great at aerials aren't really strong and can't lift shit, but they have petite partners who can hold their own weights and jump really high, and they're excellent with timing.

Post: #15

Heavy barbell training.