How important is fitness/strength

How important is fitness/strength? If you could have a hypothetical match up between two guys where one was a fitness/strength monster in incredible shape and really strong but had no training at all in MMA/RBSD/martial arts nor a huge amount of street experience such as a being a bouncer/doorman etc - and the other was not in great shape but practiced some sort of RBSD for a few hours a week again without a huge amount of "street" experience. Everything else being equal (ie both agressive, similar weight/size etc), who would prevail? Assuming we are past the pre-empt stage and its "on"?

Obviously, as are most hypotheticals, its a silly question in a way, but I really want to get an idea of just how important strength and fitness are in the estimation of the more experienced guys here?

In some respects i'd go for the fit strong guy if the other person is only doing a couple of hours a weeks training. You don't have to train a martial art or RBSD to look after yourself in a fight (though it helps).

On the other hand from a personal perspective i know a couple of people who have quite a lot bigger arms than me and can lift some good weight but they can't punch for toffee so you can still be a big lad and get your arse handed to you if you don't know how to look after yourself.

I'm neither super strong/fit or super skilled so i'd probably get beat up by both of them

The person who wants to win the most will win.

Well, he did say all things being equal so we have to assume they both want to win in equal amounts.

I'm going to have to go with the trained guy. Martial artists (well trained ones) have been dropping people of superior physical size and numbers for donkey's years.

Remember Gracie in the UFC...1/4 of the size of bunches of behemoths and he tied them up in knots.

Gary Spiers wasn't in great shape but Terry O'Neill told me once he didn't think there was anyone on the planet who could beat him in a thirty second steamer...and let's face it, very few street fights will last longer than that.

I do know fitter, physically in shape guys are harder to knock out than the average beer swilling, pork pie chomping, telly watching fatso who thinks he's hard but I'd still, personally, have to go with the training. I've seen too many 20 inch armed steroid head bouncers beaten to a pulp by guys half their size who knew how to do the business.

Nick

Nick Hughes wrote:Well, he did say all things being equal so we have to assume they both want to win in equal amounts.

I'm going to have to go with the trained guy. Martial artists (well trained ones) have been dropping people of superior physical size and numbers for donkey's years.


Nick

Good point, I missed out the quality of the training. So just to make my silly hypothetical even sillier:-) Assume both guys are doing 5 hours per week of top quality training (one concentrating on functional fitness/strength and the other in martial arts/MMA/RBSD), as before everything else is equal size, mindset etc who would prevail?

From my own limited experience I have seen examples from both sides - seen a guy win against a bouncer who did martial arts and had a huge local reputation (and belly) but was definitely not in shape, the fitter (and smaller) guy (whom I happen to know never trained in any martial art or combatives etc but was incredibly fit) just kept coming forward and attacking, even though knocked down a couple of times, he just popped back up firing on all cylinders, he was like one of those duracell bunnies that just keeps going and going! Although it has to be said this was a "step outside straightener" type thing as opposed to the more typical ambush and was quite an epic in street fight terms lasting about 40-50 seconds or so full on.

Have also seen a guy take out two others outside a nightclub in seconds who was obviously well versed in "something", first guy went down with some sort of face grab/neck twist? type thing and the second I didnt see exactly what happened but he went down hard too, both down and out in seconds and they looked like fit, strong guys, whereas the guy that dropped them looked "average"

if you had 2 guys both doing 5hrs serious training a week. one was doing cooking, one was doing knitting. Then they both went head to head in a cake making contest....... who would be triumphant?

Obviously it would be the guy training in cookery, doesn't this theory work with the scenario you give?

the guy who would win would be the person training for the final outcome, just like if the final test was a bench pressing contest then the guy who is training in the bench press would win

With your updated post Jake, I'm going to say the martial artist/RBSD fellow.

I think MickeyBJ hit the nail on the head...

Nick

PS: Bastid, I thought I was the analogy King.

mickeybluejeans wrote:if you had 2 guys both doing 5hrs serious training a week. one was doing cooking, one was doing knitting. Then they both went head to head in a cake making contest....... who would be triumphant?

Obviously it would be the guy training in cookery, doesn't this theory work with the scenario you give?

the guy who would win would be the person training for the final outcome, just like if the final test was a bench pressing contest then the guy who is training in the bench press would win

I know what you are saying - but training in self protection (even if a decent system) is not the SAME as rolling around the pavements outside the kebab shop on Friday night. To use your analogy one guy would be doing actual knitting while the other guy would be simulating baking a cake:-)

You can get an awful lot out of realistic self defence training but how far do you think we should go Jake? Live blades? Real guns with real rounds in them? Real machetes?

If we trained this way we'd all be dead!.....Or a few lost limbs.

No matter how many analogies people make, the nature of the self protection game is to train as close to reality as possible. Real life simply creates too many variables for us to cover every eventuality so we attempt to cover the most likely ones and which can be transferable to other situations not trained for and which may occur in reality.

Mr Nobody wrote:You can get an awful lot out of realistic self defence training but how far do you think we should go Jake? Live blades? Real guns with real rounds in them? Real machetes?

If we trained this way we'd all be dead!.....Or a few lost limbs.

No matter how many analogies people make, the nature of the self protection game is to train as close to reality as possible. Real life simply creates too many variables for us to cover every eventuality so we attempt to cover the most likely ones and which can be transferable to other situations not trained for and which may occur in reality.

Yes thats all true, wasnt making that point, just saying the analogy given was not really fair in this context- although obviously correct in itself. The real question I am asking is just how important is being strong and fit in a real situation, not really trying to get into the whole "reality" in training question, although that is an interesting topic too!

The way training is delivered is key to how effective it is on the street. All things being 'equal' the person who trains. At the least they're training the mind-body connection in some sort of physical engagement, exposing themselves (hopefully if it's reality training, to the real stresses, and how to recover from mistakes, type training). Though, if the beefcake is a steroid guy or something, agression can be a great key in training. 'Can be'? Heck it IS..hehe.

warmest wishes
Wayne

Jake331 wrote:

Mr Nobody wrote:You can get an awful lot out of realistic self defence training but how far do you think we should go Jake? Live blades? Real guns with real rounds in them? Real machetes?

If we trained this way we'd all be dead!.....Or a few lost limbs.

No matter how many analogies people make, the nature of the self protection game is to train as close to reality as possible. Real life simply creates too many variables for us to cover every eventuality so we attempt to cover the most likely ones and which can be transferable to other situations not trained for and which may occur in reality.

Yes thats all true, wasnt making that point, just saying the analogy given was not really fair in this context- although obviously correct in itself. The real question I am asking is just how important is being strong and fit in a real situation, not really trying to get into the whole "reality" in training question, although that is an interesting topic too!

Being fit and strong is very important, but having the desire and will to survive is more important. A good fitness regime will push you mentally and should make your will stronger as a crossover.

Too many variables I think I dunno. In a sweepling generalization I would say the bloke who trained to fight would win the fight...

Fitnesswise though I find it hard to believe that there's a RBSD club that doesn't do a fair bit of fitness so I think most reality blokes are of reasonable fitness, though obviously I know what the greater purpose of the question was.

I do recall though now that it comes up. There was an old Capoeira Mestre that I met in Brazil, I can't spell his name but he was 58 and had been doing capoeira 45 years. He had stopped training then apart from coming down for half an hour at the end of the training day (every day) and playing a few games.

For this I used to call him the 'tourist killer' as it was a famous escola and many people from all over the world came to training there on holidays. He obviously wasn't in he shape he used to be in but we used to say 'If you last the first thirty seconds you're find after that, but the trick is lasting the first thirty seconds.'

He used to maul a few young lads every night just so they could see how it was done and he cared not a joy who it was. The first time I saw him he nearly dislocated my shoulder with a spin kick and then laughed at me (good naturedly I hasten to add) .

On the last day I spent there he resort to the dirty trick of plying me with Brazilian Moonshine, belly laughing a lot and complimenting me on my improvement. He was in fact a likeable bloke. He could still do the advanced forms that required hand springs off someone's shoulder and was strong but stamina was lacking, and all us fit young lads who fancied ourselves spend thirty seconds a night trying to keep out of his way lol

I know what you mean Jagunco but, from what others have said, we're assuming all things are equal between the two combatants including intent and desire to win.

Going by that rationale, I still say the trained fighter but let's be honest here, this ideal scenario is never going to happen so it will always be speculative.

If the fit/strong individual is "only" fit and strong, with little fighting experience and no combative training, I would give it to the combatively trained individual every time.

If the fitness buff were also a fighter with some experience, I would probably make it a closer contest. But fitness and strength wouldn't be much use if the individual in question didn't know how to utilise these atributes in an optimum manner. Attributes are essential for effective technique. But for fighting, you need to actually know how to fight.

Someone with good technique will be "stronger" in a sense anyway, as correct technique is the correct usage of the body. Be using the body correctly, one is putting more strength or power into a move without necessarily having more absolute strength than the adversary.

Anyone can just flail away, and pretty much everyone thinks they can fight. But I would think that the gulf between the average person (whether they are a gym rat or not) and someone who really know how to do the business, is pretty wide in reality.

The guy who has trained specifically for the event has the advantage.

everything else is subjective and a correlation of attributes that would be harder to work out than Chinese Algebra.

Yo BN. What up my homie?

I'm perfectly adequate old fruit.

I hope you are also quite well, and I trust everything is going spiffingly at the Gentlemen's club and all that. Shame about the Titanic sinking and such , but can't be helped and so forth.

I myself am equally satisfactory.

Everything is going swimingly at the Gentlemens Club. We have recently received a new batch of servants from Africa and they are warming to the task with great gusto!