Making the Switch from Powerlifting to Fighting
By
Jude C. Hackett
A competitive powerlifter has one goal—to get as strong as hell. We try to
perform GPP, eat healthy, and do all of the other little things to stay in
shape. However, the bottom line is if it isn’t increasing the total, it’s not
really high on the priority list. This is my mindset as a powerlifter, and most
of the successful lifters whom I’ve known have been the same way. Anyone who has
stepped on the platform has this competitive spirit. It’s the same spirit that
drove me to my other favorite sport…fighting.
I still can’t believe the progression that mixed martial arts (MMA) has made.
Not only has it evolved from an ass-whoopin’ match to a sport, but it’s really
caught on. Everywhere you turn there’s a pencil neck talking about triangle
chokes or a housewife who has the next UFC card memorized. In one sense, I feel
like my favorite underground band has been discovered by the pep squad, but on
the other hand, it’s the popularity of the sport that allowed me to live a dream
and do it myself.
I’m a guy who wasn’t very athletically gifted. However, I’ve been training my
ass off for most of my life. I remember running around the block when I was in
middle school, trying to lose baby fat. I didn’t turn my short, dumpy guy
physique into a muscular, athletic machine until I started powerlifting. To be
competitive, I had to research everything. My training regime and my diet are
still evolving, and I continue to learn how to get stronger every day. Even
while doing everything right though, I was only a mediocre powerlifter. My best
total was 1504 lbs as a chunky 198-lb guy with a 601 squat (single ply suit with
single ply briefs), 400-lb bench (single ply shirt), and 503-lb deadlift (single
ply suit). If you put all of my best gym lifts together, I’d be in the 1600s,
but 1500 lbs was the best that I ever put together in a meet.
In late 2007, I was in a position where I couldn’t train properly for a meet
because of my job and schedule. Sure, I could go to the weight room and lift,
but the shirted bench workouts with a lift-off man and spotters or the four man
makeshift monolift workouts were few and far between. I was still lifting, but I
was aimless. I needed something different.
I went to the local club where the fighters trained and started getting my
ass whooped by people instead of weights. Instead of squatting in a storage
unit, I was now wrestling and boxing in the back of a supplement store (no
hardcore jokes!). But this set up an experiment, a chance to see how much
powerlifting would help me in a different sport. I could finally answer the
question, “How much does powerlifting strength carry over into other sports?”
The simplified answer to that question is that powerlifting promotes
strength, and strength is good. However, the results are definitely worth
discussing. There were several areas that I was way ahead on when I started
because of my experience as a powerlifter.
- The strength. That’s why we do this, right? When I first started
rolling, I could nut up just by using my strength and no one could do much
with me. At first, this lasted for all of about two minutes. After that, I
was getting choked because I was tired. Despite all of the early experience
I got tapping out, it was clear that my strength was going to be an
advantage. Even after I started cutting weight, I was crazy strong for my
weight class. I can’t help but attribute most of this to powerlifting. Any
jackass can lift weights, but a powerlifter pushes strength far beyond the
normal limits. That’s something that sticks with you no matter what sport
you do.
- Training experience. Before I ever decided to do MMA, I had
already done every crazy training technique that you can think of. It wasn’t
out of the ordinary for me to do tire flips, sleds pulls, lifts with bands,
or kettlebell exercises. It’s this kind of out of the box training that has
allowed us to push up our total meet after meet. So when I designed my
lifting program for fighting, I had every option in my arsenal. I set up my
goals, and I knew how to accomplish them. I even used periodization in my
MMA training similarly to how I would use periodization before a meet. The
actual workouts are a whole other article, but it’s easy to see how a GPP
workout can become a MMA strength and conditioning workout with a few
changes.
- Diet. I finally used my diet knowledge for the forces of good
instead of evil. For the first time since I did my first box squat, I used
my diet knowledge to lose body fat instead of pack on mass. It was actually
strange and foreign at first. I started to panic when my shirt sleeves
loosened around my “huge gunz.” However, I was calmed by the sight of veins
popping out in places previously covered in “mass that helped my squat.”
I was so used to fighting for every little bit of muscle that when the time
came to lose weight, I knew exactly what to eat and how much to eat so that
I could lose fat and stay muscular. I actually cringed at some of the
cutting methods some of my buddies used to cut weight. I saw guys who had
years of wrestling experience start starving themselves a week out from
their fights. If they would have dieted correctly during the whole training
cycle (more powerlifting terminology), they would have coasted into their
weight class bigger and stronger. Instead, they were smaller and depleted.
Small and depleted is now how we (powerlifters) roll.
- Cutting water and staying strong. There are all kinds of ways to
do the last part of a cut. You diet down to get within range, and right
before you’re headed to competition, you cut water, weigh in, and
rehydrate/refuel. Then you’re ready to go. You want to do two things—make
weight and stay hydrated. The best way to do this is to stay dehydrated for
the least amount of time possible.
Before I ever thought about cutting weight for a fight, I already knew how
to do so from powerlifting. I had never cut to make a weight class for a
meet. I lifted at 198 lbs at my heaviest. I was a little small and a bit fat
to be in the 198-lb class so I had been researching how to cut weight to
make my debut a class or two down. Truth be told, I should have been in the
165-lb class. I’d read many articles about cutting weight for a meet, and I
didn’t see why the same methods shouldn’t be used for fighting.
Results
I started losing weight pretty much as soon as I started fighting. My
original goal was to be in the 170-lb weight class. I kept getting leaner and
leaner, and by the time I had abs, I was closer to the 155-lb class. Once I got
into fight shape, I was walking around at 150–160 lbs. I know that all of the
meathead bells and whistles are going off right about now. Anyone below 200 lbs
could be choke-slammed with little to know effort by any self-respecting 242-lb
guy. Before you say, “Holy shit! You became a pencil neck,” let me stop you.
I’m 5’6” and a small framed guy. I was over 20 percent body fat at 190–200
lbs if that gives you any idea. I’ve never been more muscular than I was at 155
lbs. I had visible abs, and I had veins and striations that I’d never seen
before. Initially, my raw strength fell off, which was one of the hardest things
for me to get over mentally.
My raw bench dropped below 300 lbs for the first time in a long time, and my
warm up weight started to feel heavy to me on squat days. It would be naïve of
me to think that I didn’t lose some muscle after losing almost 50 lbs, but I
really do think that most of the decline was because of the way I was training
in the weight room. I rarely lifted heavy sets like I did preparing for a meet.
As a matter of fact, I think I could lift heavy for three months and return to
my previous level of strength at a much lighter weight. When I compared my new,
raw lifts with my new body weight to my old, raw lifts at my old weight, I was
actually stronger pound for pound!
I have to take into account the carryover strength for the sport that I was
training for. In the 185-lb weight class, I was strong. When I dropped to 155
lbs, I was just as strong. So for a light weight, I was strong to the point that
I felt it wasn’t fair when I wrestled someone my weight. There were guys who had
better wrestling moves than me and could still pull me down. However, my
strength always came into play in my favor. Strength and athleticism have been
winning fights ever since cavemen fought over the biggest buffalo leg.
After dieting to cut down to 150–155 lbs, one of my training partners talked me
into stepping in the cage. The funny thing is I never planned on actually
fighting, even from the beginning. I’m 28-years-old, I have a family and a
career, and I really don’t have any business or time for that matter to try to
be a fighter. That being said, it didn’t take very much prodding to talk me into
it. Hell, my brother told me that he knew that I was going to fight the first
day I called him and told him that I was “just training.” He knew that I would
take it to the extreme as much as possible like I have every other thing in my
life. Sound familiar powerlifters?
At 150 lbs, it was most logical for me to sweat out a little water and fight
at 145 lbs. I used what I call the “Matt K” method. I read an article that he
wrote about driving to a meet and turning the heater on in the car instead of
sitting in a sauna. Like I mentioned earlier, I’d never cut weight before. I
just knew a little about it. So, I put on some sweats and a skull cap and sat in
my little truck with the heater on in the Alabama summer heat. The weigh-in was
the day before (which is a whole article in itself). I overshot on cutting my
water and weighed in at 142 lbs! It was no big deal though because I wasn’t
dehydrated for many hours, and I used yet another skill that I had learned via
powerlifting—eating big! I started feeding my face and drinking fluids
immediately after stepping off the scale and was back up to 152 lbs by fight
time.
I fought, went about a round and a half, and won by TKO. My opponent’s corner
threw in the towel. He was a tough bastard. I was dropping bombs on him, and he
didn’t have any quitting in him. He had experience as a professional boxer so I
took the fight to the ground immediately and used ground and pound the entire
time. I could tell that the guy was skilled, but he simply had no answer for my
strength. I even got put on my back by being overly aggressive, but I swept and
got back on top. This wasn’t because of my good technique. It was simply because
he had no answer for my strength. I have to give a lot of credit to the time and
experience spent powerlifting.
This is just an overview of a powerlifter who decided to fight. There could be
four or five separate articles written on the specifics of my experience. The
changes I made in the weight room, the different strength and conditioning
workouts I used, the specifics of my diet, and everything I went through
mentally all merit their own discussions. There is no question in my mind that
powerlifting has a significant carryover to other sports. You must train
specifically for your sport, but the strength from powerlifting will give you an
X-factor in anything. And what’s the best way to get as strong as humanly
possible? You guessed it.
Jude Hackett is the co-founder of the Auburn Power Club in Auburn, Alabama.
He is a powerlifter and amateur MMA fighter and competed in the APF. He lives in
Auburn, Alabama, and is a proud father and husband.
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