"It's All Relative"
(originally published at Atlantic MMA.com)

My dad was a hot rodder back in the '60s. It was a good time to be a car nut, then. Gas was cheap, rock and roll was on the radio, and Detroit was pumping out factory muscle cars. Hot rodding and going fast was sort of a different animal then than it is today. Today, you've got computerized fuel injection and ignition, high-revving small blocks, and amazingly researched aftermarket engine products. Then, the name of the game was big blocks engines with a lot of cubic inches. The best way to go fast was to find the biggest, most powerful motor you could find (either out of a large sedan or maybe out of a wrecked factory muscle car) and figure out a way to shoehorn it into the smallest, lightest car you could. It was what my dad did. He had a '57 Thunderbird that he crammed a tri-power 406 into. Big cubic inches + small, light car = good power to weight ratio. Good power to weight ratio = go fast.

There is a large lesson to be learned from the old hot rodding game that can be used in the strength & conditioning world - especially as it applies to MMA - today. And that's the idea of Relative Strength.

There are several kinds of strength talked about these days - starting strength, speed-strength, strength-speed, reactive strength, etc. I hate all this complexity, but I just want to talk about Relative Strength right now. Relative Strength is basically a measure of how much force one can produce at a given body size. Or, in other words, given your current bodyweight, how strong are you? Increase your strength while keeping your bodyweight the same, and you've just increased your relative strength. Keep your strength the same and decrease your bodyweight, and your relative strength has gone up again.

Relative strength is probably one of the most important types of strength in MMA, as MMA (as well are all combat sports) is contested in weight classes. Given that you and your opponent weigh the same, if you're stronger than he is, you have an advantage.

With many strength training styles, gaining strength means gaining muscle. For the MMAist, this isn't a good thing. First of all, there is the aforementioned weight classes. Most fighters want to continue to fight in the class they're in. Second of all, most fighters will end up losing speed if they gain a bunch of weight. Even if they are strong, and have good command over their bodies, big guys just can't move as fast a smaller guys. Third of all, gaining weight means one of two things - either he's going to have to do some drastic weight cutting (which can be dangerous) to stay in the same class, or he'll have to fight one class up. Usually this will mean that he's at the small/light end of that class, and might be fighting guys at the top/heavy end of that class (and cutting weight to make it at that). For a middleweight that gains too much muscle, that could mean walking into the cage as a light heavyweight. He might weigh 190-195, while his opponent (who cut weight to make 205) walks in at 215-220. That's a heckuva difference. And if the fighter keeps a little extra "bulk" (i.e. - fat) on to diminish the possible weight difference, then he's just cut his speed down.

All in all, gaining weight - even if it's muscle due to a good strength program - can mean bad things for fighters.

But that's where relative strength comes in.

To gain relative strength, you have to focus more on not gaining weight, rather than just gaining strength. The best way to do this is to just keep your diet in check. It doesn't matter what kind of program you go on, if you don't take in more calories, you're not going to gain more weight (fat or muscle). Work on a good strength-building program, and you should be set. It will generally take a little longer to gain the strength, but that's Ok - it'll come.

Another thing that a fighter can do is improve body-composition. Sometimes a fighter just needs to gain a little muscle, and that' Ok. If you can lose some extra chub, and put on some extra muscle, your relative strength will still go up, because your bodyweight is staying (roughly) the same. You're just altering what it's made up of, giving it more muscle and less fat.

There are several good types of strength programs a fighter could use to increase his relative strength - you can check out my site (http://www.workingclassfitness.com) for examples. Just be sure that they're full of compound movements, heavy weights, and moderate amounts of rest.

Most of all, though - and this is the key thing to take away from this, keep your diet in check. Like I said, you won't gain any extra weight without extra calories. And more strength at the same weight means more relative strength. More relative strength means a bigger advantage for you in the cage.

Train Hard, Rest Hard, Play Hard.