What is more important in a street fight- big muscles or strength?

Could bulk alone help? Or would a limber strong man have a better advantage. You always see bouncers at clubs and they have the bulky look. But would a small extremely strong man also do a good job with manhandling folks if he had to?

What is more important in a street fight- big muscles or strength?
There is a few ways to answer this, a guy with big bulky muscles is definately strong, don't get it twisted. You don't develop big muscles and be weak.





I bounce at clubs and have 2 professional MMA guys work with me, one is 155lbs the other around 145lbs. Both fairly small dudes, but they are cut and are insane athletes. They throw guys around all the time, they also have knowledge and leverage on their side, plus it is fairly easy to move a drunk person around.





However, because they are smaller guys and you can't really tell how strong or cut up they are in big red polo shirts, people try them a lot more often and question their authority more often than they do those of us who a bit bigger.





People generally hire big bulky bouncers not because of fighting ability, but because of deterrant and intimidation. I am a fairly big guy and hardly ever have to get too physical with anyone because my size is usually intimidation enough. You typically want people who can stop fights or deter fights as bouncers, not dudes who people want to fight, or guys who like to fight.





Your job is to keep the peace not cause chaos. There is a guy that comes in our bar all the time... HUGE! I mean Bob Sapp big, giant *** arms and everything. A guy like that, never has to fight as a bouncer. When he comes up and says you have to leave, you leave. He also has size and mass on his side and can easily big you up and escourt you with minimal damage to himself.





Our smaller guys, as tough and strong as they are, will have a problem physically throwing out a guy who is 250lbs or so. Simply because of body weight, if they are holding on to a guy like that and he falls, they fall with him. That is just physics unfortunately.





However they do very well, when they have to manhandle the average guy they can easily, especially because the guy is drunk.





But Bulk is strength. Large bulky muscles are developed by low rep high weight workouts. A limber strong man may have the advantage agility wise, and that does help. But a big dude with big muscles will have the strength advantage.





I do think there are a large amount of big bouncers out there that don't know how to fight, or even how to do their job for that matter. Most of them don't really have to, in most towns there is a cop at every club. Our club is outside city limits so we are the rare exception, we have no police presence and we usually have a 5 to 10 minute wait on the Sheriffs if we call them so we have to deal with more things on our own.





Most of the time at a club you want a big bouncer no one wants to mess with, if you are a smaller guy then you definately need to know what you are doing, because drunk guys will try to start things and question someone smaller or the same size as them. It's rare for them to try to pick a fight with someone larger than themselves.





So in short to your answer, big muscles equal strength, Bob Sapp is much stronger than Fedor. But having the strength advantage doesn't equal a win, having the skill does. If you have two people of around the same skill level, more than likely the bigger stronger guy is going to win. Just look at Matt Hughes vs. Royce Gracie. Matt Hughes pretty much manhandled him.





So the smaller you are, the more skill you have to have over your opponent, that and the ability to use someone's strength against them. Franky most big ol bulky bouncer usally aren't that great of fighters, but that doesn't mean they can't manhandle you if the y get a hold of you. Then of course there are large bouncers who also train, which is a whole different thing.





The best thing a bouncer has going for him going into a fight, is the fact that he is sober and the other guy is drunk. If it wasn't for that fact I may have actually gotten my butt kicked a few times by much larger stronger dudes. However my sobriety and their drunkness combined with my skill usually equals a win for me. If all else fails I call for backup on my earpeice.





Well I hope that helps somewhat. I think there is a big difference between strong, and strong enough. All you have to be is strong enough.





There is also something to be said about guys who are weight strong, and guys who are body strong. There may be a guy who has better weight lifting technique, can lift more than you on a specific exercise, or even multiple exercises, but you can manhandle because your whole body is stronger seems stronger when you tie up. That is because you know how to use more major muscle groups through technique and leverage than he does.





Probably way more information than you wanted.
Reply:The guys at clubs have big muscles so they look tough and people won't mess with them has easily. Strength is better to have because a guy could be all muscle and not be able to do anything with those muscles.
Reply:Bouncers are hired more for the look than for what they can do. Size is intimidating to many people. A strong limber guy could very well be a better fighter than the guy with the huge muscles. Fighting is more about skill and attitude than size or strength.
Reply:I think it depends on the level of skill that someone has in fighting (whether it is training or just being in numerous brawls) and I think that it also depends a great deal on strength. No I dont think that strength alone could always be good enough but once again that also depends on their opponent...
Reply:its all about knowing how to fight. muscles just intimidate an opponent. look at ufc fights, and you'll see what i mean. ive seen strong men go down and beat by an opponent who did not have big muscles. so no, muscles or strenght are not important, it's knowing how to fight.
Reply:Agility, quickness and skill will take you a lot further, a lot faster. Big muscles won't do someone any good at all if they can't catch their opponent. Big isn't always slower, but it very often is. A lot of guys who have all the big muscles spent all of their time creating them, not really learning how to use them - so I think that even a wiry little guy with little strength might come out ahead in a street fight, if he has any skill at all.
Reply:yeah, strength to a degree but speed and knowledge can kick strengths @ss everytime...





could be in a nice club...in a "roadhouse" situation it might provoke SOME losers...
Reply:Speed + Technique= power





You can have all the muscle in the world, but if you dont know how to properly throw a punch and you are slow, it would be more of a pushing motion rather than a solid snap, like a punch should be.
Reply:Braus and strength are just a couple of factors. When we get into a life threatining situation, our body dumps a huge amount of adrenaline in our system giving us super human strength and speed for a brief moment. During this, cognitive thinking and fine motor movements are disabled beacause more blood is sent to the "fighting" body parts. Even a martial arts expert with twelves years of experience can forget most of his moves because of this. Strength or Muscle? Experience. That's more important.
Reply:if you want to just manhandle them as in jsut hold them down and throw them around?then yes,bulk muslce will help. if your talking about just whooping people, then no, it'll slow you down. .muscles can help, because intimidation helps with the outcome. my experiences tell me that it is half a mind game and half skill. chances are that if even if they are willingly going to fight you, if they have the slightest chance of thinking they'll lose...they'll lose, becasue now they're a little scared. i've seen smaller guys finishing up bigger guys plenty of time to determine that brute strength and quickness matters more than bulky heavy weight muscle heads in tight t-shirts. don't get me wrong, you do need some strength and muscle, but not like no bouncer or wwe wrestlers.
Reply:neither... its speed... if you can pack a good punch and get it in there quick your size will not matter. The bulky guys are about 85% show... they dont expect to get hit because their size is so intimidating... Ive actually heard of a bouncer that got laid out by a really short scrawny guy.... ( of course he was too drunk to notice the size of the bouncer... ) non-the-less it caught him off gaurd and it knocked him out...
Reply:Bulk can provide an advantage but strength is more valuable. Bulk is a great deterrent. Most people will choose a smaller person to attack given a choice.


The bouncers are visual deterrents, that is why they are huge.


I think the combination of size and strength is a distinct advantage in a bouncer's line of work. please remember bouncer's are not in street fights. They are simply there to physically remove people from the property, this is not a fight. It is a tug of war in which they must worry about not getting hit in. In a tug of war size is an advantage.





Personally, given a choice between size and strength. I would choose size. ( I would take speed over all of these.)
Reply:Neither-TECHNIQUE IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING.
Reply:strength
Reply:Neither !


Mentality makes the difference !


"Mind over Matter" !
Reply:in a street fight anything goes muscle slows u down .
Reply:The bouncers at club are definitely hired for their looks. I train with few people who are bouncer and they all are huge and intimidating even if they can't fight their way out of wet paper bag.





Muscles CAN help if you know what you're doing! If you lift weights all day and never stretches, work on stamina, or train then my bet is you will go down after throwing two or three sloppy wild punch and gas out. If you work out and stretch and train but you're not huge you are still a serious force to be reckon with beause you have power, speed, and other things to back you up.





Let make a example, you can easily build a rocket car that go up to 700 mph. However do you think you can really turn car that goes this fast? NO! That's why Nascar car doesn't go faster than 220 or 230 mph most of the time. So basically the faster car goes, the harder it's to turn and control the car. Same can be say about musclar man. They may can lift a lot of weight and be very srtong, but that doesn't mean they can fight well.
Reply:The bulk is for intimidation factor only.





It's better to have developed, but lean muscles when you're fighting....especially if you're training in a style that requires suppleness or quickness in movement.





If you're just looking to manhandle someone....sure, slow-twitch muscle fibre bulk helps.





Now, I'm well built, but I'm not Hulk-like....it's good to be halfway there. Strength to do what's neccescary, but flexible enough to move out of the way and keep a flow going.





Being TOO big screws your flexibility....not to mention, it slows your movement as you're dynamically carrying more weight through space = basic physics.





Be strong, but flexible. You don't need bulk to win a fight.
Reply:Anyone who is put in a situation that is a bad one if he has the spirit to win the challenge is likely to become victorious. Muscle has a little to do with it. Skill has about 10 percent.
Reply:Smaller men have an advantage at man handling people. There swing is reduceable to the larger person so if you have a skinny man with strong arms with common sense you can deduce that the smaller man with more strength would crush a brute. But.. you must remember that brute will always scare the opponent, and have a weight advantage. well any one that has ever fought in a tournament wouldn't be scared of a bigger man but most people aren't martial artists especially at a bar so all they have to do is hire guys that look big. Bouncers arn't that tough, compared to martial artists. My parents own bars and i could wreck there bouncers they look big and i look not small but decievingly average. So you would see me fighting a bigger person you think i'm going to lose... wrong. If he gets a hold of me and knows how to use his weight he may get and advantage... but he won't i'm to fast ide strike him in armpit most likely dislocating his arm or breaking his shoulder or collar bone depends on how angry he makes me. Than ide fall through with a palm to the solar plexus making him realease himself in his pants. So me the smaller man would win in this situation.





But there are occasions where say a russian man thats a master at sambo... so probably three years of training in a russian school. 3years=Much A$$ kicking... ok i find a bouncer in a bigger city than mine he looks big so i take him on little do i know hes russian immigrant with 10 years, 10 beign the same amount as me, i go for the same moves he would break my arm discreatly than take me out back and put me in an arm bar, by arm bar i mean break my arm right thna and than kick me in the kidney so hard i spit out my splean.





So in both situations its goes to say if you have more experince you win. But i believe if you have trained harder and are more muscular with the same amount of experince the person who has trained harder will win. And to defeat that, muscle doesn't always win some one that has weight lifted for 10 years can not beat a martial artist that has been trainign for 10 years. Hope i cleared things up, have a nice day,evening!

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