I have been weight lighting since the summer, and my goal is to be a body builder. Not a pro one, but just for my own benefit. I'm 16. 5'7". Before wrestling started, I was 155 lbs. No I've sucked down to 143. It's interfering with my body building. I can tell I'm losing muscle. Now the question is, stick with wrestling or not?

I'm inclined to drop it and go back to my beloved brazilian jiu jitsu, which I temporarily dropped to concentrate on wrestling .

So body building and jiu jitsu, or wrestling and losing weight...

I'm thinking the choice is obvious but I just don't want to disappoint my coaches.

What is your natural body weight and what weight class are your wrestling in? I assume you cut down to 143 to satisfy weight requirements?

If you're lifting weights during the season your should probably just stick with Olympic style explosive lifts. If you want to bulk up do that when the season ends and plan on wrestling in a higher class next year. Furthermore if you've already committed yourself to the program you should at least ride it through till the end.

How can you do lifting with jiu jitsu? Would have thought you would need lean muscle for a combat sport. Also what TC said about bulking up and going to the next weight class is what I think you should do. Not jiu jitsu.

You really don't need to lift if you are seriously training in a combat sport.

Wrestling should help your JJ game.

Are you fucking stupid?

What the fuck do you think I'm weight lifting for?

Lean muscle.

What do you think body builders have?

Also, why not jiu jitsu? I'd rather that than wrestling. Wrestling teaches you how to pin someones shoulders to the ground. Put a pure wrestler against a pure bjjer in a fight. The wrestler will end up with a broken limb or choked unconscious within seconds.

Body builders have large generally useless muscles, which just look good and help lift more weight. Having muscles like that will not help you in Jiu Jitsu atall. In a combat sport you need to have a mix of slow twitch and fast twitch musles. So you're endurance and power are both high. Also you cant be too big either because it will impaire you're movements.

I'm training for strength and size. Like I said I'm 5'7" right now and my regular weight is 150. I'm training legs twice a week and have a seperate day for chest, back, and shoulders as well as core and cardio. My training goal is overall being the ultimate I can be. Fulfilling my genetic potential in all areas of fitness. Goal weight is about 180 of pure muscle by the time I'm 22. I don't want to be a bulky body builder. Power is my goal, but not sacrificing other areas of fitness such ass cardio and speed ya dig? Overall health. It's just a tough decision. I miss jiu jitsu.

Bodybuilders can have just as much lean muscle as fighters. Lean muscle has to do with your diet more so than the way you train. The muscle built by bodybuilding (high volume x low weight) can be lean depending on your carb/calorie/protein intake regardless of whether it is practical or aesthetic. It is true that anyone involved in a fight sport would be better off with fast twitch movements (see plyometrics) and explosive power. However to add mass many wrestlers and fighters a like will adopt a bodybuilding routine in the off season.

With that being said it is kinda hard to train for hypertrophy and strength/explosiveness at the same time. In my experience it is better to focus primarily on one and let the other develop ipso facto. That is bodybuilders don't get bigger by lifting the same weight, however they aren't necessarily the strongest people in the gym. Likewise purely strength trainers may not have the biggest muscles but they don't move more plates by staying at the same body weight.

At 143 I think it is fairly safe to say that you can add a large amount of practical muscle mass doing a primarily strength / explosive routine. I can't stress enough how crucial eating is though. If you want to gain more muscle you need to be ingesting more calories then your a burning! It's really that easy. You can gain mass by lifting and throwing rocks if your diet is right

Then you should be staying around you're natural weight, just toning up. If you put alot of muscle wieght on it will sacrifice you're speed and cardio.

If you're willing to wrestle at a heavier weight, you can keep building mass.
If you have good coaching, your wrestling experience will come in handy later in ground fighting.