Bigger, Stronger, Faster (the BSB).

These are the primal advantages. If you got ‘em you may not even need to use ‘em. The intimidation factor is so large. It’s a common strategy to fake them to, many animals puff themselves up to psyche out a rival or predator. Winning or surviving without the risk of violence is a good strategy. It’s also a fantasy that distracts and inspires as the modern super hero genre continues from the ancient gods and animal spirits of old.

So question number 1 is how do you get them. How to become the BSB. Yes it’s obvious train. Resistance training commonly with weights is a common method as a fitness method but previously as part of manual labour. Mistakes are made first is not persevering with training. Most strong people have had several years practice. Now with intelligent training much can be gained reasonably quickly. But a tip is to start training like you are going to train for a number of years not achieve all in 6 weeks. Body-builders specialise, well in building the body and they have specialised so that very large defined people might not be that strong as the training needs are different. The strong ones are the power-lifters. Who aim for max. strength in three lifts. Olympic weightlifters also go for strength in some other lifts. If you want basic strength development one or both of these will fill out a 3 year plan easily with steady gains. A good coach will help you with technique as injury does not strengthen you! They also can help round problems and plateaus in progress. Powerlifting and weightlifting are also related to speed development to produce power where force is used quicker. Here less force is used, but quicker increasing the impact. Other methods can use only bodyweight training where resistance is built up by changing angles and creating a harder position to work which is higher resistance as opposed to a larger weight. Gymnastics is a classic example using apparatus as wel as the floor.

Sports are full of strength, speed and power methods related to general and specific actions. Finding a good guide is key to develop a good plan of exercises progression and results. An alternative approach is to better use what you have. This is included in developing good skills and technique having the body correctly aligned and coordinated can double strength and power to start with giving competitive performance. Still the time spent on technique is best high to gain consistent higher level skills. Basic ideas of using the body more effectively is joint position. Shoulders on the ears is not a strong position for the shoulders and will decrease force produced and increase injury. Shoulders need to be down in their socket. Arms are stronger closer to the body, heads need to be in line with a straight back. Knees and toes need to be in line. Joints need to be not too bent or too straight. These ideas are true for almost all skills and actions from sport and the physical world (see mechanics). After time methods such as Tai chi and others have learnt this potential performance is best aimed for straight away and time is spent on aligning the body and relaxing unnecessary muscle action to produce ‘internal’ power which allows the chi to flow and the mechanical lines of force to be all lined up. The same pattern is found in Immersion swimming and the Pose method of running and Tai chi running of course. Most top coaches also have come to rediscover or have been taught the technique essentials to performance. A key tip is to get the technique right first then build up your physical abilities (strength and speed) to reduce injury and improve performance. Very good technique may be all you need and lasts much longer (to old age).

So you’ve done your preparation or you have found yourself in a situation where your opponent is bigger, stronger and/or faster than you! Now this is the big challenge. You still want to win (survive), so to how beat this intimidating, fear provoking, pressure filled situation? Well if you are not the biggest, strongest or fastest then you have to use something new in the physical world it’s a brain. The words for this method are tactics and strategy. The glamour, emotion and hormone fueled, jump in and get stuck in is not totally wrong but the brain is the difference between destruction and regular success. Now the brain is here emotion is also directed so what we’re after. The cortex the outside part of the brain that separates us from other species.

So thinking starts with the question how do we get a better result against a BSB. The aim is to not play their game that is to their strengths. It is intimidating to stand in front of a BSB and perform a thought out plan so steady progression of practice of a plan is needed. The plan needs to be to avoid their strengths and attack their weaknesses. Now if they are just bigger or stronger the trick is to remember where you are strongest if your limbs are stretched out or closed up they are weaker than in the middle. So you need to position’ (see previous post) yourself close or far away. Also we are strong in front of us, it takes practice to get strong at any other angle so get to their side or back (there is still some danger so investigate and compensate). So get the opponent into a position of low strength with too much or not enough space, outside their effectiveness (running away is better then being pummeled!) or close inside their strength and to their side. From here keep them off balance and/or attack their week areas (same as yours).

The faster opponent is slightly different their advantage works better with the space to ambush or to reach or move in and out. The trick is to control the space and opponent keeping them under control stopping them getting started. A common phrase is to keep them off balance so they cannot use their speed (or strength). This decreases how effective your opponent is. Another is to bait or feign, too draw an action that is predictable, this is a classic hunting trap where you guide your prey into a disadvantages position so you can attack from a position of advantage.

So I hope you can see the problem of beating the BSB (sorry Big Son of a B...) is older than humanity and has been achieved in many ways. Nature is full of bigger stronger and faster creatures that use their advantages. But the key for the others is to have superior thinking with tactics and strategies to avoid the others advantages. You can look at nature to copy some ideas but also much has been written down in advice for specific situations of competition such as hunting, war and sport. Hopefully the above is general so that you can transfer the ideas to any field where it’s you against another what ever the form. It can be individual or group (e.g. team) situations, only your imagination limits you well there are some laws of nature perhaps. Just work out how cooperative or competitive the situation is and look for a weakness of the opponent or a situation that gives you massive advantage and then how to set that up.

Another approach may be to be indirect and to work where the larger opponent cannot. Seth Godin in the bootstrappers guide attempts to point out that large organisations have their weaknesses that means they are less able to react and adapt to change where a smaller operator can be first and/or fast. The mistake is as a small guy to take on a big guy head on. Do not meet force with force. Use your strengths against weaknesses.