Bulking Up & the Epic Two-Hander. So I've been working out a lot more ever since the Fall- vaguely out of desire to improve my health, but mainly more out of boredom than anything else (especially in Plano, before ppl started coming back for the holidays). I mean, working out's alright, I guess... I don't mind doing it so much, and when I don't, I feel like I should, but it's not really FUN in the true sense of the word... Just a way of killing the time. On the plus side though, I guess I'm arguably in the best shape of my life (until the holidays rolled around, hahah).
Anyways, so back in Austin, my muay thai instructor Randy commented on how I was more beefed up than before, but also how I was slower and swung my punches more wildly. And that got me thinking a bit about how muscle mass factors into fighting ability. Bulking up is really kind of a tradeoff, cuz the sheer physics of it say that more mass = more inertia = slower, but also = more force.
So to make a gaming analogy, bulking up is like opting for a two-handed weapon as opposed to say, dual wielding: you hit slower and fewer times, but when you do, you deal a lot more damage. Damage up, attack speed down. And in a fight, it's often worthwhile to trade taking two or three weaker blows to get in one good shot of your own. But also, in real life, slower/stronger blows are easier to dodge but harder to block: opponent obtains increased dodge but decreased block percentage. In addition, having more bulk on you also acts as an increase in hp (hit points) and AC (armor class): you can take more damage and are harder to knock out. (Actually, I would argue that armor class in a fist fight really amounts more to pain tolerance than anything else.)
And when working out to get bigger, I guess you just kinda gotta gauge the relative gains/losses, and see if the increases in dps (damage per second) and hp/AC are worth the decrease in dexterity and speed. You know in Kungfu Hustle, where the bad guy is like "in fighting... speed is EVERYTHING." Well, I suppose there's some degree of truth to that: if you can incapacitate your opponent before he can react (like a pounce/backstab in WoW), you're golden. But in practice, one-hit knockouts are rare, and you should probably expect them to put up at least a little fight. I'll tell you this though: all other things (e.g. level of training) equal, the bigger guy usually wins in a fight, hands down. (That's why they bother with the weight classes in boxing, wrestling, UFC, etc.) Though I guess slimmer guys also have increased success rates for running away, ahaha.
*On a related note: how many pounds do you think a year's worth of training is worth in a fight? I'd say the first year is worth maybe 20 or 30 pounds over a complete noob. (Like if you were 150 lbs and trained for a year, I think you could probably beat a 180 lbs guy with no training.) Successive years are worth maybe like 10 pounds or so a pop, with diminishing returns. So yea, averaged out, maybe like 1 year ~= 15 lbs?
Anyways, so back in Austin, my muay thai instructor Randy commented on how I was more beefed up than before, but also how I was slower and swung my punches more wildly. And that got me thinking a bit about how muscle mass factors into fighting ability. Bulking up is really kind of a tradeoff, cuz the sheer physics of it say that more mass = more inertia = slower, but also = more force.
So to make a gaming analogy, bulking up is like opting for a two-handed weapon as opposed to say, dual wielding: you hit slower and fewer times, but when you do, you deal a lot more damage. Damage up, attack speed down. And in a fight, it's often worthwhile to trade taking two or three weaker blows to get in one good shot of your own. But also, in real life, slower/stronger blows are easier to dodge but harder to block: opponent obtains increased dodge but decreased block percentage. In addition, having more bulk on you also acts as an increase in hp (hit points) and AC (armor class): you can take more damage and are harder to knock out. (Actually, I would argue that armor class in a fist fight really amounts more to pain tolerance than anything else.)
And when working out to get bigger, I guess you just kinda gotta gauge the relative gains/losses, and see if the increases in dps (damage per second) and hp/AC are worth the decrease in dexterity and speed. You know in Kungfu Hustle, where the bad guy is like "in fighting... speed is EVERYTHING." Well, I suppose there's some degree of truth to that: if you can incapacitate your opponent before he can react (like a pounce/backstab in WoW), you're golden. But in practice, one-hit knockouts are rare, and you should probably expect them to put up at least a little fight. I'll tell you this though: all other things (e.g. level of training) equal, the bigger guy usually wins in a fight, hands down. (That's why they bother with the weight classes in boxing, wrestling, UFC, etc.) Though I guess slimmer guys also have increased success rates for running away, ahaha.
*On a related note: how many pounds do you think a year's worth of training is worth in a fight? I'd say the first year is worth maybe 20 or 30 pounds over a complete noob. (Like if you were 150 lbs and trained for a year, I think you could probably beat a 180 lbs guy with no training.) Successive years are worth maybe like 10 pounds or so a pop, with diminishing returns. So yea, averaged out, maybe like 1 year ~= 15 lbs?
posted by Dear Daniel at 12:00 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home