Post: #1

On one hand, I imagine serious weight lifting will make you feel stronger, fit, energetic, etc. but on the other, MA's give you confidence in knowing that you can beat up pretty much anyone and you're the toughest guy in the room.

In a hypothetical scenario, where you had to pick one or another, which would you choose?

Post: #2

(01-24-2018 01:27 AM)Quizzical_2 Wrote:  On one hand, I imagine serious weight lifting will make you feel stronger, fit, energetic, etc. but on the other, MA's give you confidence in knowing that you can beat up pretty much anyone and you're the toughest guy in the room.

In a hypothetical scenario, where you had to pick one or another, which would you choose?

Post: #3

(01-24-2018 01:27 AM)Quizzical_2 Wrote:  On one hand, I imagine serious weight lifting will make you feel stronger, fit, energetic, etc. but on the other, MA's give you confidence in knowing that you can beat up pretty much anyone and you're the toughest guy in the room.

In a hypothetical scenario, where you had to pick one or another, which would you choose?

This doesn't sound quite serious. I'm training bjj for more than three years, and lately also MT, but I don't know who could I handle. I'm definitely more confident, but it's not that I'm in some godmode.

In short term if you are skinny (and you probably are) weight lifting will do much more - you will be visibly bigger after half of a year. In martial arts classes during the same time you will just get your ass handed. Of course, there are small guys who are very good at some martial art, and maybe possibly kick somebody's ass, but they usually don't look like they could. From my experience, nobody noticed any change when I was just doing MA, but after a half of a year at a gym I gained attention, complements, etc.

But of course you should do both. lifting x2, MA x2 a week. And in this case, you should also remember about stretching/rolling.

Post: #4

OP, if you have to choose, take the MA class.

I'm talking about one where you actually spare with partners (like MMA), not one where you practice moves in the air (I practiced karate for 10 years, useless shit for real combat).
It'll wake up your fighting instincts, you'll reconnect to your core masculinity.
Knowing you can beat the shit out of men around you won't happen (except if you have a delusionnal personnality with an inferiority complex).
On the contrary, you'll learn that many men can KICK YOUR ASS in a matter of seconds, because they trained for years, while you didn't.
You'll learn humility.

On top of that, many classes make you practice some muscle reinforcement exercices (after or before the lesson, 20 minutes), so your body will still become (a bit) larger if you're skinny (don't forget to eat meat).

Please report after making your decision, and going to one or the other.

Post: #5

Weight lifting

Post: #6

I boxed for 20 years and while it may have made me confident in confrontations with men, it did nothing for my confidence with women. Getting bigger helped my confidence with women because I get complimented all the time (and I'm not even particularly big). Nothing is a substitute for game though.

Post: #7

They both improve your confidence, and both can be complementary of each other.

The 250 pounds anabolyzed lifter who can't throw a punch or the skinny 100 pounds bjj black belt will both get their asses kicked by a in shape 150/175 pounds MA trained guy...

Side note: Knowing Martial arts mooves does not make you automatically the biggest fish in the pond. You will loose that perception once you start to get your ass kicked in sparring

Post: #8

What combat sports do for you is confirm in your own mind that you have the courage and confidence to fight when you find yourself in that situation. That's a good subliminal dynamic for inter-male relations. Inter-personal violence is too complicated to assume that having done a combat sport means you can beat up anyone you come across. People have more or less to lose, and consequently may be more or less prone to using weapons.

I've boxed to a reasonable level of competency. I also train with weights. I liked boxing, and I liked the people that did it. It confirmed to me that I like the company of rough, tough men, and am comfortable in it. It did nothing for me with girls whatsoever. Weightlifting is great for your health, posture and aesthetics (done properly) and can help you look better in clothes and make more of an impression/take up more space - all of which is good for the confidence. Weightlifting will do more to improve your success with girls than combat sports will, and it will do more to help you enjoy all the other aspects of your life.

Lifting weights makes me fit, strong, healthy, and libidinous, and a good healthy body keeps my mind functioning optimally. Boxing was great fun, but the main reason I gave it up is that it was detracting from my enjoyment of my day to day life. This is because after a hard sparring session with high level fighters, which I'd have a couple of times a week, I would wake up the next day feeling like I had a hangover. I guess it was a combination of the trauma and the adrenaline from the night before. I felt lousy all the next day after a hard night's sparring.

My advice to most people would be to stick to lifting weights. Every day life has very little call for being a tough guy, thank god.

Post: #9

In the modern world, being the toughest guy in the room has little to no sexual value to women unless you can communicate it properly.

Weight lifting would probably improve your physique faster than martial arts so I would go for that. Nobody cares about your martial arts skills unless you can show them off in a competition somewhere. Both would improve your confidence but ideally you want to be as efficient as possible with your time.

Post: #10

Why not both. I don't believe you can achieve your true potential as a fighter without some time under the weights. If you're a 130 pound, 5'2 guy, I'd go so far as to say you should put on 20 pounds of muscle so you're strong enough to be a fighter.

I did martial arts for a small period of my life and It didn't improve my confidence as much as weight lifting.

I know this is subjective, but I think it has to do with how "visible" your bodybuilding results will be. Your dad will see you and go "hmm, you don't look weak anymore" and coworkers who used to clown you will tap your arms and go "you got bigger. You doing roids?" That sorta stuff creates a positive feedback loop of confidence and aggression.

Post: #11

Not sure if this is a serious question, but if it is, you actually need to do both.

This is what pisses me of about kids karate schools. You'll have a 40 lb 9 year old with a brown belt. lol. She couldn't hurt a fly, but she's a master martial artist.
You gotta be able to push/carry/throw some weight if you want to fight people. Also, the physical conditioning of weightlifting wil reduce you from being prone to injuries.

Post: #12

(01-24-2018 01:27 AM)Quizzical_2 Wrote:  On one hand, I imagine serious weight lifting will make you feel stronger, fit, energetic, etc. but on the other, MA's give you confidence in knowing that you can beat up pretty much anyone and you're the toughest guy in the room.

In a hypothetical scenario, where you had to pick one or another, which would you choose?

Yes, every activity will boost your self esteem and confidence, also photography can do, indeed some activities in particular sports will help more.

Now I play both MMA and weightlifting/crossfit, and sometime swimming.

I played kick boxing, boxe, and BJJ.

Not all martial arts or combat sport are the same, they will develop different areas of your personality.

From my experience I can say kick boxing develops more aggressiveness, boxe aggressiveness too but also resistance and strategy. Kick boxing has less strategy than boxing.

Grappling or BJJ develop a strong mental resistance, since fighting like that is a torture, is like playing a chess game while suffering a lot. Roosh wrote my same considerations in his blogs...

As the other user wrote, boxing, MMA, kick boxing are very funny but while sprarring you may get a lot of head trauma, and yeah you can feel like after an hangover. With BJJ no head trauma, just a lot of body injuries... I can say they all make you feel stronger, 80% of combat sport is mental. A good fighter doesn't quit, I mean fighter like Joe Calzaghe (one of the best) or Tyson in his early years. I read the 2 books from Tyson, before becoming a champion he was a weak and low self esteem guy that was bullied, at the begging of his carrer he used to cry a lot before going in the ring. He made the same before his first professional boxing match, 1 year later he would win the world title... seems funny to imagine but was like that ..... so these sports with a good trainer can make you mentally stronger.

Post: #13

Martial arts gave me confidece to face my bullies. Then I practiced for 20 years. It did nothing for my confidence with woman. Night game did. On the other hand lifting, if you get in some good shape that can help you to attract, but did nothing directly for my interaction with woman either.

Post: #14

(01-24-2018 01:27 AM)Quizzical_2 Wrote:  On one hand, I imagine serious weight lifting will make you feel stronger, fit, energetic, etc. but on the other, MA's give you confidence in knowing that you can beat up pretty much anyone and you're the toughest guy in the room.

In a hypothetical scenario, where you had to pick one or another, which would you choose?

"Guys like you confuses word with action..."
Howard Silk

Post: #15

There are a limited number of hours in the day and in some cases "one or the other" is a reality.

In which case lifting wins hand's down by my measure.

Not only does it give you a major boost to your game but a large humble man will find himself above many fights that a skinny martial artist may have to suffer, the results of which are not guaranteed regardless.

Beyond that it doesn't rely on logistics. Even a homeless man with nothing in his wallet can do it.

Post: #16

If you're doing martial arts its hard to get bigger.

Training time is easy because you are basically doing gpp work with some amount of resistance thrown in (how much resistance would vary on the art you choose), as far as stimulating hypertrophy intelligent programing with a serious bodyweight program added on (hspu,front lever pulls,weighted pullups,weighted dips,planche pushups,ring rows,arch holds,hollow holds),some necessary band facepulls would save you from the shoulder injuries everyone gets in this type of shit and round out the delts,and a barbell row or loaded carry with good posture depending on whats available to you(again if you do those consistently you won't get the shoulder issues most guys get)
All that could be done around training times if you showed up a little early and stayed a little late. I'm just saying that you wouldn't have to make this choice because with some bodyweight exercises,1 band exercise, and possibly 1-2 weighted movements you could develop a damn beastly upperbody that makes you noticeably athletically built while wearing clothes without having to pay for 2 gym memberships.

The only hard part would be eating enough to grow with the martial arts training.


As far as confidence from any one I'd say learning and fighting molds your character more so than resistance training in a deep way and is more worth it. As far as getting girls goes getting bigger helps more.

If anything If you're training really hard you might start to become disgusted by the weakness of most people,and not respect others around you as much because every bone in your body hurts like a motherfucker and its painfull to open a door but they're just not doing so being around girls nonsense might just to far away from your current reality during that initial adaptation period....

Post: #17

For all people here who say that is important being bigger in combat sport or MMA are bullshit!! In my gym there is a 61 kg pro guy who can beats 80-90 kg pro guys, they are physically stronger than him but he is stronger mentally, if he fight a 90 kg mentally stronger than him, he would die... but he can easily beats stronger guys... I admire him since he hasn't fear, he can go KO in gym he doesn't care.

Another example that being huge doesn't matter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PkenYHDfpOc