No Gi P4P great Gordon Ryan recently shared a photo of himself training with UFC heavyweight champion Jon Jones, which made an Instagram fan to ask him if Jones was the strongest (strength wise) grappler he had ever rolled with.
Ryan responded that John Jones was not the strongest person he had ever trained with. Instead, he said that his teammate “Big” Dan Manasoiu was the strongest.
Ryan has trained for the past few years with Manasoiu, also known as “Jiu Jitsu giant” in the grappling community who towers at 6 ft 5 and comes from Romania, a country known for having very strong athletes.
Gordon Ryan has trained with very strong athletes. Last year he posted a video of him rolling with Strongman legend Thor but there is a big difference between powerlifting strength and real grappling strength.Have you ever grappled with a seemingly unassuming training partner that seemed to be extremely strong and dish out tons of pressure?
“It’s important to realize in MMA and Jiu-Jitsu a great deal of your strength in sport comes from technique itself. Learning how to use your bodyweight properly, to manipulate leverage as if it were a weapon, to use your opponent’s momentum against him, has the ability to exponentially increase how strong you feel to your opponent in MMA. This is why someone can appear relatively weak if you ever watch them lift weights or workout but feel very strong and overpowering on the mat.”
– @coachjoeljamieson
What many people call “Mat strength” is actually high levels of isometric strength. An isometric contraction is where a muscle produces force however there is no change in length.
Ryan is himself very big and strong, but the imposing Manasoiu dwarfs him.
Ryan stated:
“No, that’s Dan Manasoiu by a landslide. No one on the mat feels nearly as strong as him.”
This revelation is very promising for Manasoiu’s future success in the sport, with his strength and size. He has already qualified for the next ADCC, and trains under the guidance of John Danaher. The sky is the limit for the big man.
