Parisi Speed School Blog

Martin,

I have been wrestling for my whole life.  I am on my high school team but also a club team and wrestle for pretty much the entire year.  Because of this I dont get in the training I would like to like at your school.  What are some things that I can do at practice in addition to the wrestling to improve my strength?  I dont want to gain weight, but would like to get stronger.  Matt L.

Here is Martin Rooney showing off some bodyweight exercises with the Rutgers University Wrestling Team this offseason.   Rutgers went on to have its greatest win total ever in school history this year.

Matt,

Great to hear from you and thanks for writing in. I get questions like this a lot from both athletes and their parents because now that sports are able to be performed all year, it is often difficult to make physical improvements because there is never an offseason to do so.  Not that all year training is completely a bad thing, but I do believe that you are on to something by having the mindset of figuring out how to make improvement in addition to the constant practice.  Wrestling is still the best exercise to improve your wrestling and I do believe that this training will make you a tough, strong athlete, but working on the body is also essential to taking your game to the highest level.

As for things to do, I would suggest a great warmup before the workout at least 3-4 times per week.  The Parisi Warmup as demonstrated on our video series is a great start, but I would also recommend a number of different body weight exercises as well.   Although you have probably done your share of pushups and situps, there are still ways to increase the tension on your muscles and still keep it wrestling specific at the same time.

3 Great ideas would be:

Chinups (you can use different grips and weights)

Body Squats (you can use the weight of a partner)

Lunges (again you can use the weight of a partner)

These 3 in addition to the warmup, wrestling and pushup/situp routines would really round things out and give you that little extra you might be missing.

I would also finally say that nutrition also plays a role here too.  All too often athletes that work out as much as you might think they can get away with eating whatever they want.  When you do this, you are holding yourself back as well.  Make sure that your preworkout and post workout nutrition is solid as well as your other meals throughout the day too.  Get plenty of water and sleep too.  All of these suggestions will surely add a little more punch to your practices.

 Body Squats with a partner are a great way to work the legs and core!

I hope this helps and wish you the best in your career.

Martin

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Martin, I am a powerlifter and Ihave your dvds. The warmup DVD has really helped me and my numbers have gone up and injuries have gone down.  Do you have lifters at your gym?  I would love to see what some of those guys workouts look like.  Any ideas would be more great help.  Mark L.

Pictured is Rich Sadiv blasting up 683.5 at 198 pounds for a new PR in April of this year.  Rich has been training at the Parisi Speed School and is looking to go over 700 for sure on August 4th.

Mark,

Thanks for writing in and I am so glad that our information is helping out.  All too often, lifters think that they do not have to warmup like other athletes, but I disagree. As you are probably seeing from our warmup, your range of motion and strength in certain accessory muscles are improved.  In addition to this, more blood flow to the muscles before you start lifting is also a plus for the workout as well.

Pictured above is one of the strongest athletes pound for pound we have had grace our facility. Rich is 42 years young and in 2006 was ranked 10th overall in the country and 3rd in his age group.  That 683.5 personal best (4/21/2007) Currently ranked #1 Multi Ply 198 by Powerlifting Watch.com (http://www.powerliftingwatch.com/ ) and all of his meets are in drug tested federations.

After watching Rich for months come in and tear it up during his impressive workouts, he and I got to spend some time and talk training philosophy and theory. Rich is a real student of the iron game and has made some adjustments to his current quest for 700 involving some unilateral movements and accomodating resistance ideas. Below is a current series of workouts that he sent in for us to enjoy and learn from:

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Question for Martin about grip training. What are the best exercises you have found to improve grip strength. I see so many products and gadgets out there now focusing on grip and I dont know if lifting or bending quarters and nails is the best anymore. I look forward to your response. Paul T.

Paul,

Thanks for writing in and I share in your confusion.  Yes, there are a number of great products out there right now that focus solely on the grip, but if you just train the hands without working the rest of the body you are either wasting some training time or getting ready for the grip world championships.  Below is an post and pics that I put together some time ago on grip training:

How to Develop a Bone Crushing Grip

My father believed that a man in many ways could be measured by the strength and toughness of his hands. When I was growing up, my father and I would arm wrestle every weekend while watching sporting events like boxing, football, or the World’s Strongest Man competitions. For years, I was never able to beat him, but he was always there to help with advice on how I could someday win. A one time Olympic caliber rower, my father would brag of how thick the calluses once were across his hands and he would always impress me with feats of hand strength like driving a single finger through the lids of jars of peanuts and coffee. I also had an Uncle that was a three-star general in the Air Force who would crush my hand with his grip at every family reunion. No matter how hard or long you held his grip for, he would always wait until you released first. It was an impressive show of dominance of one man over another. These two men had powerful influence over me when it came to training my hands. I remember with joy seeing my first callus forming in my palm when I started lifting weights around 13 years old. As the years went on, my dad’s advice paid off and one Sunday evening our grips were locked in a battle and I almost beat him. Interestingly, we never arm wrestled again. Not only was he strong, he was smart too.

There were many years of training that went by following that time of my life when I was convinced that grip training was essential not just to being an athlete, but to being a man. When I began training jiu jitsu in 1998, I was again reminded not only that grip training was important, but also that my grip was not as strong as I thought. Training with the gi was tough on my hands at first, and although I had strong hands in the gym, I quickly learned that there was more work to be done before my hands could be considered battle tested. In addition to this, I started training and working with ADCC medalist and UFC veteran Sean Alvarez around this time. Sean was helping me with no gi takedowns one training session and he clamped down with both hands on my left wrist like a bear trap. Not only did I know I wasn’t getting my hand back, but I was also worried he was actually going to break my arm with the sheer power of his hands. This event was the final straw that made sure that grip work became a staple in my training with fighters. Since that time, many of the fighters may have cursed me for what we have done to our hands, but their grips have never let them down in competition.

Simply put, if you have a strong grip, you have an advantage. If you have a weak grip, you have a liability. Regardless of what you might like to believe if you fear training the hands hard, a vice-like grip can be the difference between getting the takedown or not, finishing the submission or not, or ultimately winning or losing. Without a strong grip, your hands become the weak link in the chain of the entire body. The deadlift is a great example of this statement. Imagine that you are trying to deadlift 450 pounds from the floor and you have the arms, back and legs that are strong enough to do it. The only problem is that your hands can only hold 300 pounds. Do you see that the heavy lift is now impossible and that the entire body will be limited in how much it can perform? Now take that same concept and apply it to your fight game. The last thing that you want is holes like this in your game holding you back.

Now that I have your attention, this post is designed to show you new ways for training the grip that you may never have either seen or tried before. The great news is that training the grip does not require expensive equipment. Most of the training we do is with simple pieces that you already probably have, or can get rather easily.

Grip Training Exercises

There are a number of different ways to train your grip. I have found over the years that taking advantage of a number of different methods is the only way to develop a bone crushing grip. Finding the time to fit grip training into your session is also critical to getting the most out of the training in an economical fashion. The last thing we want to do is simply tire the fighter out working solely on the grip. Listed are a few exercises that I feel give you the biggest gains for the time spent and also work other areas of the body in concert as well. Every one of these exercises can and should be worked into your training routine on the appropriate day.

Bar Grip Exercises

1. Band Deadlifts

This exercise is a real challenge for the grip. By using elastic bands connected to the bar, as the athlete lifts up the bar gets heavier and tries to rip from the athlete’s hands. We do sets of 5 reps and hold the first 4 reps for 5 seconds at the top and the last rep for 10. This way we are building leg and back strength in addition to a powerful isometric grip.

2. Weighted Chin Ups

This lift is a classic in our program. We do sets of 5 reps and keep raising the weight until there is one man standing. Each time you release the bar you will have to grab each hand and straighten the fingers it is so tough on the grip.

3. Fat Bar Holds

We use a fat bar to challenge the grip. If you don’t have a fat bar, you can place tape or clothes around the bar to make it thicker. At that point, each athlete lifts a certain amount of weight (we usually use 225-275) and see who can hold it the longest. This is a killer on the forearms.

4. Farmer’s Walks

This is an old time strongman lift that we have added to our program. Not only is this great for the grip, it is also a total body strength and endurance exercise as well. You can use heavy dumbbells if you don’t have the farmer’s walk bars. This exercise is performed by picking up the dumbbells (we use 150 pound each hand) and walking either a prescribed distance for sets, or seeing who can walk the farthest. Either way, it is a test of the grip and the mind.

Canvas Bag Grip Exercises 

1. Sandbag Lifts

A sandbag is an easy tool to make and a great tool to challenge the grip and the rest fo the body. All you need is a big canvas duffel bag or two, some sand and some duct tape and you are ready to rock. I fill one duffel bag with a certain amount of sand, tape the bag shut and then place that bag inside another bag and tape that one shut. This way, there is no mess and you have a great training tool. We use a 120 pound bag for bag lifts. During this lift you grab the bag with the grip and lift with the legs and place it up on a high box. We do sets of 5.

Rope Exercises

1. Rope Climbs

If you have somewhere safe to hang the ropes, rope climbs are also a great exercise for the fighter. Although I like standing more for function and safety, this is another demanding exercise that is a must if you want a strong grip. Depending on the height fo the rope, that will determine how many sets and climbs you do.

3. Tug of War Holds

This is another favorite exercise of the group. Not only does it involve competition, strength and strategy, but the hands get an unreal workout. You can either do a true tug of war with another athlete or a team of athletes, or you can also just do isometric holds with each other for a prescribed time.

The grip is an area of the body that is often overlooked and undertrained. When I hear talk of some legendary fighters like Mark Kerr and current stars like Minotauro, I hear a common thread that athletes that have competed against them say: they had an iron grip! Until you have appreciated a competitor’s grip that could not be broken, you may not take this article as serious as it is, but I hope this post is a wake up call. Now get to work on that grip!

Train Hard,

Martin

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Martin Rooney- Strength.  I noticed on the 4/10 post that much of the pictures from the grapplers like Roger and Rolles Gracie were working on both grip and pulling strength. besides regular chin up work and rope pulls and farmers walks, are there any other exercises you would recommend to get ready for an event.  I feel I am now looking for more challenging exercises.  Thank you.  Casey G.

Pictured is multiple time world champion and ADCC medalist Braulio "cacara" Estima working on inverse pullups at the facility in preparation for this year's ADCC World Grappling Championships next month.

This exercise is very challenging and not recommended for the beginner that cannot do 10-15 quality pullups on their own.  To perform the exercise, the athlete first hangs from the bar as seen below:

From this position, the athlete then pulls the knees to the chest and prepares to invert the body to then bring the legs up and over the bar as seen in the original picture above.  This next stage is pictured below:

Then after the athlete has inverted completely as in the original position, then the athlete straightens the legs and lowers the body under control as much as possible.

Keep this exercise to 5 good slow reps and start with 1-2 sets.  After a week or two then move to 3-4 sets.  This is a tremendous exercise that involves not only the grip and the back for pulling strength, but also incorporates complete abdominal and hip flexor control too.

Try this out and see if it is not challenging enough.

Martin Rooney

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Martin, I was wondering if you are training any fighters for the upcoming ADCC Grappling World Championships for this year. I know they are being held in New Jersey this edition and that you train there.  Roger Gracie's 8 submissions at the last ADCC was unreal and I saw him on your dvd training there. Now with Jacare out and Lister out too, should be an interesting year.  My question is about training for this event.  What do you see as most important to work on and how do you do it?  Thanks in advance, John Boll

Pictured is arguably the best grappler on the planet Roger Gracie busting out some forearm and back work on the rope here in New Jersey last week.  Roger is fighting in the Super Fight at the World Championships at the beginning of next month and training is right on schedule.

John,

Thanks for writing in and yes, Roger, as well as 8 other athletes (Rolles Gracie, Kyra Gracie, Celita Schutz, Delson Heleno, Braulio Estima, Flavio Almeida, Marcio Feitosa, Jamal Patterson) have been in training for the event.  In addition to this, 3 other athletes that have spent time training here in the past (Alexandre Soca, Nelson Montiero and Renzo Gracie) are also in the Worlds as well and we have a few other athletes that are waiting to hear if they are in too (Romulo Barreto and Leonardo "Tunicu").  So that is a large portion of the athletes that will be competing overall and we have had some real exciting and killer sessions here over the last few weeks as the athletes are getting ramped up.

In terms of most important aspects of training to work on, every athlete is different and has different needs and injuries to work around, but if I had to nail down one characteristic for this event, it would be endurance.  Since you may have as many as 8 matches over 2 days (like in the case of all the wars Roger had at the last event) you need to be able to work hard, recover and do it again.

When you ask what is the best way to address this, it is obviously grappling itself that is the best training, but if you can build strength endurance and cardiovascular endurance in the gym to complement this training, it is a must.  All too often I see people making the mistake of trying too hard to simulate a fight in the gym at the expense of real training.  Then you are not really fighting in the gym and not really training in the dojo, so you are then really never nowhere. Moral:  Fight in the dojo, train in the gym and make sure that there is enough recovery and that they are both helping to improve each other.

Below are some great shots of some of the training over the last few weeks.  The key for these weeks has been to improve heart rate recovery with cycles of training that we are doing.  Each athlete is monitoring heart rate and we are tracking this every session.  The improvement are amazing in that recovery is improved, strength is up, and no one is injured.  In the end, that is what training is all about.

Romulo and Roger cranking out 5 sets of Bar Complexes for time

Rolles Gracie banging out 60 yard sets of Farmer's Walks

Delson Heleno "Pe de Chumbo" ripping off sets of ten with the sandbag lift

Kyra and Gregor Gracie working sets of forward and backward resisted sprints for time

Roger, Igor Gracie, Rolles and Romulo hitting another 5 minute round of ladder drills.

I hope this helps give a small view into just the training that these warriors are doing.

Martin Rooney

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