Which Is Harder: Striking or Grappling?

Within the world of martial arts there has been an extended disagreement revolving around which type of martial art is harder: striking or grappling? Seth Adams, who creates content for YouTube under the name Sensei Seth, went to Hometown Martial Arts in Raleigh, N.C., to see if he could find out. As noted in the video below, Seth chose Hometown because the gym regularly has multiple classes running at the same time. On the day that Seth arrived, there were two classes taking place: a jiu-jitsu class and a Muay Thai class.

What Do You Mean by “Harder?”

The question of which one is “harder” is not straightforward and it’s not meant to be. “Harder” can mean any number of things, and Seth wants to consider them all, including: how tough it is to learn, how hard is it to do in an actual fight, how hard it is on fighters’ bodies, how much mental toughness is required, and how intense the workout for each is.

Starting Out

Seth starts by asking a student from the Muay Thai class who has never seriously grappled to try out jiu-jitsu and for a jiu-jitsu student who has never trained in a striking-dominant discipline to try out Muay Thai. This was meant to test how hard it is for a total newbie to learn the basic theory and form of the martial art.

For the Muay Thai student who was thrown into a jiu-jitsu class, he found it hard to get his posture right and to remain conscious of things like weight distribution and balance while also trying to execute techniques. Meanwhile, he said the theory behind grappling is a little hazy when you’re just starting out. It’s not totally clear how leverage works and how you can use it against your opponent.

For the jiu-jitsu student who had to put on the gloves and train Muay Thai, balance was also an issue. He found it hard to coordinate his arms and legs while throwing punches. These movements were simply not intuitive and they made him feel off balance. Staying centered and maintaining the right posture was also difficult, especially when transitioning from strikes to a defensive position. Finally, the student said that he struggled to remember to keep his joints and muscles aligned when striking, as this is how you avoid injury. “If you’re good at dancing you’ll probably be good at striking,” the student said after trying it out.

Live Fighting

While it seems like a bit of a wash with respect to how difficult it is to initially learn a grappling art or a striking art, the next question is how hard is it to do either in a live setting?

Tony Jeffries, a boxer who won a bronze medal at the Olympics and has been crowned national champion seven times, is currently learning grappling. He says he’s having some difficulties picking it up, but he still finds boxing (and striking in general) to be harder because someone else is constantly striking while you’re fighting.

His difficulties with respect to grappling are about breathing. When he’s boxing, he has a rhythm and he understands when to breathe, when to rest, when to strike. When he’s grappling, he finds himself constantly holding his breath and using too much of his strength early on. He ends up getting exhausted, which is what makes it difficult.

For Seth, when he grappled and kickboxed with Jeff Chen, he felt that both were hard. However, striking is a little bit harder because of how even a really good fighter can be upset by someone with less experience. If an inexperienced fighter manages to connect with a roundhouse kick, even an experienced fighter is not going to recover.

While grappling is very chaotic, Seth feels as though being experienced and understanding fight dynamics in grappling makes it far easier to manage the chaos. Therefore, you’re less likely to suddenly get taken by surprise.

As a result, Seth agrees with Tony and thinks striking in a live scenario is harder.

Wear and Tear

Comparing how hard grappling and striking are on your body is a bit like comparing apples to oranges.

With striking, you can really easily get an injury because there are limbs flying at you. However, most of those injuries are bruises or, at worst, a concussion. With striking, you’re out for a few days unless you break a bone in the face or the hand.

Grappling is more about wear and tear in the day-to-day training, which can cause a different kind of soreness, especially in the shoulders and neck. Moreover, when a bad injury happens in grappling, it’s typically accidental and happens to a joint. These injuries can take fighters off the mat for months. In some cases, they can even end careers.

The final verdict is that you’re more likely to get injured striking. However, if you do get severely injured while grappling, it will likely be worse than an injury from striking.

Heart Rate

Finally, Seth jumped into the ring and onto the mat to see which discipline gets your cardio up more.

With striking, Seth felt that all pistons were firing at all times because you are constantly moving, you are constantly on your feet, and you are constantly either defending or attacking.

With no gi jiu-jitsu, the pace is far faster than jiu-jitsu with a gi, where fighters tend to be more patient and utilize more long-term strategies. However, even without a gi, the pace was far slower than striking and Seth’s heart rate did not get as high as when he was sparring.

While this would seem to push the scale in favor of striking, it’s important to note that the rounds are longer when you’re grappling, which means you need to have some serious endurance. All in all, it’s a bit of a toss up because striking is more of a sprint, whereas grappling is more of a marathon.

Final Verdict

As Seth notes, there are two things that are the same in either grappling or striking. You are trying to do what you want to do and you are trying to stop your opponent from doing what they want to do. Either one is going to take a lot of energy, it’s going to be hard on the body, and it is going to demand a lot of mental toughness from the fighters.

While Seth feels like grappling is a little bit harder for normal people, that distinction falls away when you’re dealing with people who are among the best of the best. At that point, it’s a tie because both demand an extremely high level of fitness, mental toughness, and endurance.