wgbjeff

ive been doing kickboxing for about half a year

im 67.5 inches tall (5'7.5") and have a 72.5 inch reach. I wanted to know what other martial arts may make the best combination. because of my reach I'm guessing anything striking apart from kickboxing, and maybe some grapling because of my height? i'm really not sure. wrestling or some brazilian jiu jitsu?

any thoughts?
thanks

wgbjeff

anyone?

Rauno

Depends on what your planning to do, or go from now on. What are the plans?

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wgbjeff

Well in general I bodybuild (gym 4x a week) now that I have stopped kickboxing. I want to have a good mma background for my physique. The new martial arts ill get into will probably put me on lifting 3x a week only. But yeah I don't know if that helps?

Life B Ez

You need to stop hitting the gym as much, it ruins your flexibility. Do more functional training. Apart from that, it depends on if you want to be a fighter or just be in shape.

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"Discipline Hurts Less Than Regret"

wgbjeff

yeah ive heard that, but the gym is my life. right now gaining strength and mass is more important for me than mma. but its hard to explain because im bulkling up FOR mma.

Voiceless

Not necessarily. You will lose some flexibility due to the higher tone in your muscles, but not necessarily to an extend where it really ruins it for fighting purposes. The key is to properly stretch after your weight exercises. Most bodybuilders are too lazy to stretch and don't do it, that's why they become so stiff. But with enough stretching even a bodybuilder can stay reasonable flexible:



As Life B Ez suggested, concentrate on functional training. So don't do too much muscle isolating training, but exercises that aim for intermuscular strength (i.e. BWE). Pure bulking won't help you that much in MMA. If you do a lot of hypertrophy training, you will just gass earlier, because you have lots of muscle mass that consumes oxygen/energy without really working in order to support your fighting movements. So the best thing is to start MMA training, feel what kind of muscles you are using most and ask your trainer to help you making a training plan that focusses on functional muscle endurance exercises.

wgbjeff

well i do mostly compound exercises like squats, deadlifts, bench, press, chinups, etc

i keep isolations to a minimum as it is

the thing is that i used to be really skinny when i started kickboxing and it effected me a lot (weak punches, blocks, dropping arms, etc). so i started with strength training then mixed in a little hypertrophy

if i were to do another martial arts, i would probably go 3 times a week squatting one day, bench pressing the other, and deadlifting the last with a few more exercises

Life B Ez

I know this is going to sound completely insane, but muscle does not mean power puncher. It simply doesn't, if you throw arm punches, you throw arm punches. Technique over size is what makes KOs. There are only a handful of huge guys that have KO power, most are pretty unassuming.

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"Discipline Hurts Less Than Regret"

wgbjeff

I know I know. But when I say I was small, I mean SMALL. Like hardly any muscle mass. I am still not that massive, just a bit more muscular.