Barbell Shrugged - Program Design Strategies w/ MMA Coach, Darryl Christian

Episode Date: April 26, 2017

One thing that separates CrossFit from most other training systems is the fact that you are required to develop proficiency in a wide range of fitness modalities- weightlifting, gymnastics, powerlifting, etc The MMA game is very similar and unlike boxing, wrestling, or any specific martial arts, fighters are required to be generalists in all the systems. There are a lot of variables, and when it comes to coaching, that makes things a lot more challenging.  In this week’s show, we linked up with wrestling coach, Darryl Christian at RVCA headquarters to chat about how he is working with some of the top MMA fighters in the game like Dominick Cruz. We talk program design and get into the details of what he looks into when working with some of the top fighters.  If you are a fighter, a CrossFitter, or anyone who is looking to get more strategic in your training, there is a lot to take away from this episode. We dive into topics such as How to measure training volume When and why to focus on recovery vs high volume training weeks How to strategically train for strengths and weaknesses in multi fascinated sports (like CrossFit and MMA) How to work with and communicate with multiple coaches at the same time Enjoy the show, Mike   

You know what, I think it's all a piece of the pie in a sense to me. It's the same thing, all the ingredients on a pizza, I think everything's important. But it's all different stages and different amounts. Welcome to Barbell Shrugged. I'm Mike Bledsoe here with Doug Larson, Andy Galpin, and we've traveled up here to Ruka headquarters where they train a lot of MMA and a lot of other things as well. And we're here with Daryl Christian. He is one of the guys that trains a lot of MMA fighters.

He's a wrestling coach. He's got a crazy career in wrestling overall, multiple time national champ, been all over the world competing, and now you consult, coach, MMA fighters, a lot of guys in the UFC, people like Dominick Cruz. Very impressive. Yeah, it's been fun. Staying busy with everything. I think the sport's evolving so fast that the education and the little structure is behind, and that's why you're seeing a lot of different things happen within the culture. So Mike just gave you a brief intro to kind of who you are, but can you go more in depth and tell us who you are? Yeah, you know what? I started my wrestling career at University of Oregon,

and then after that, I transferred that to the Olympic training center in Colorado for seven years. So I've been a part of national teams and structure for a long time, from strength and conditioning with Jimmy Radcliffe at University of Oregon. He's a huge speed and explosive guy. If you don't know that name, Jimmy Radcliffe is high power plyometrics. Like, that's the guy. There's a reason why Oregon's been the fastest guys in the country for 30 years, and it's almost entirely because of Jimmy Radcliffe.

Just a legend in the field. Yeah, anytime you hear about jumping and explosive power, like I always hear about Jimmy Radcliffe. Just a legend in the field. Yeah, anytime you hear about jumping and explosive power, like I always hear about Jimmy Radcliffe. Right, yeah, godfather like that. Especially growing up. My strength coach loves the guy. Actually, I didn't really put that together because typically wrestlers don't spend a lot of time

doing sprinting, jumping, plyometric stuff. So that was probably a huge advantage for you guys to have him. Yeah, it was a huge advantage because he brought in a lot of that structure, and, you know, we saw so many gains from it. And then we increased the endurance portion of it. We used to do a lot of circuits out of Autzen Stadium and then coming in and doing hour-long circuits,

and then he would allow us to do other things. But, you know, this is back, you know, 95 through 99, so he had just started implementing his system because you know i'd walk into the mccoskey center there and have phil knight you know he'd be walking around i didn't know who he was and all of a sudden he was this guy with red hair these crazy nikes and i go hey coach rad what who who's like is the guy booster here or something he's like that's phil knight i'm like what he's the booster he is the guy a booster here or something? He's like, that's Phil Knight. I'm like, what? He's the booster. He is the booster.

Yeah. So is he the founder of Nike? He's actually the guy that, you know, the history is that Bowerman was at University of Oregon. He was trying to cut off time with his athletes, and, you know, he started shoe designs there. He had no means of trying to make it a commercial equity capital equipment. And he literally put that in. And, you know, Phil Knight walked onto the track team. He was a business major. He comes in.

He's got a VW bus. And he's like, hey, coach, I love these shoes. He's like, do you think I could sell them for you? So they create a contract, a 51-49 deal. He pulled him in the back of his VW van. And he, like, go to local track meets in Coos Bay, that's where Prefontaine's from, and this is same time in the, you know, the early 70s when Prefontaine was starting to make his big rise out there, and then all of a sudden, you know,

that's how Nike just exploded over time, and, you know, Phil Knight basically came in the right time. I mean, I wish I was the guy walking on the track team just participating and then launching Nike, you know. Bowerman's the guy that's famously said, if you have a body, you're an athlete. Yeah. And that's how they took Nike from a sports company to everyone on the planet wearing them. Bowerman's a super famous guy.

Yeah. Okay. So you started at the University of Oregon. You were wrestling there? Yeah, I wrestled there and wrestled with chael sun in there um through college and then uh you know it was either go the route of uh into the workforce or go to olympic training center you know randy couture and dan henderson got me more involved with the greco side of it um you know we were olympic camp i was i was rooming with uh with Dan there, and it was his last Olympics.

And then Randy was out there. That was, you know, that was the year that Rulon Gardner, who won the gold medal, I got to meet Roo and then been teammate for him for years, you know, still one of my close friends. And so I moved out to Olympic training center after that. And from 2000, 2006, I was out there competing, going around the world. And basically that's where I built the infrastructure of what I am as far as mentally, the scientific-based process. I had two Russian coaches, one from Azerbaijan, that had trained in their, you know, masters of sport type deal.

And then my other coach there was Momira Petrovic, who was an Olympic champ out of Yugoslavia. I mean, we're talking in the 70s where the guy would train out of a 10 by 10 room, there'd be world champs in a 10 by 10 room, they'd have nothing except for a small little deal. And, you know, I learned a lot of the structure from them about the science of not necessarily they didn't have the data, but more of just volume and anaerobic versus low intensity versus high intensity and development over time. Because if you're training 365 days a year, and you're trying to days a year and you're trying to get the best and you're trying to peak three or four times a year,

and then we're doing it for a four-year process. So you're looking at, you know, the overall volume and saying, how do we maximize every day without overtraining? Yeah. And that's something that I kind of, I owe them everything for that. And then once I left the Olympic movement, I won a couple of national titles in 04, 05 05 and then 06 they changed the rules on me and I was going into 08 I'd won everything and I was really excited about the career and then they changed the rules up and I was like man I you know a good year I make $25,000 and I was you know being there and once they changed the rules

on me in seven days before the world championships and I had some results I didn't appreciate at the world team trials after I was in the finals there. And I basically just walked away. And then I went into working 70 hours a week in medical device sales. And, you know, overnight, you know, there's some good money there. And then my still addiction that I have for athletics, I got into 70.3 half Ironman races. I didn't do any sprints. I went straight into it. I never really swam competitively. Yeah, my friends at Olympic Training Center, Andy Potts and Brian Fleischman, Hunter Kemper, these guys are the studs out there. And they're like, you just want to do this? I said, yeah, man, I just, I want to push myself

a little bit just for having fun. I love that grind uh you know i my first year i did uh may june july half ironman a month and then i did the world championships october um you know i was running like a 126 pace after 56 miles on the bike so i broke 430 uh it's sub 430 i was like you know 42nd in the world that year and i took some time off and then i got in not until recently about two years ago I got in coaching again so that's how I came to this point that's incredible I want to rewind a little back a little bit the um talking about the volume and the intensity of training and having having to keep up with I think in strength sports where we've spent a lot of time, we're always talking about intensity and volume and having to measure that and just hit it right on the mark.

And it actually is pretty easy in strength sports because you don't have all these other variables. So now we're training wrestlers or MMA fighters, and they have all the practice that's going on. They have wrestling. They have boxing. They have jiu-jitsu. And then now we have strength training as well.

And then one of the things I've noticed is a lot of times, especially with guys that are not at the top, the coaches aren't talking to each other. So how do you even periodize? How do you keep up with that? You know, I think that's a million-dollar question, that a lot of these big gyms have a lot of money, and some of them don't have a lot of money.

And you see the sport has moved so fast that the old-school ways of even weightlifting, obviously there's different systems, the Russian system, the Bulgarian system, and what we have adopted. But as things move so fast, without without the education you start seeing injury rates just going through the roof and then now that yasada has been a part of this thing you see people changing their regiments yeah and uh you know it's a big deal i was part of yasada for seven half years and uh i mean guys were getting popped for 15 grams of 15 nanograms of marijuana and two year ban then you have guys as oh and the thing is is you saw how else are you supposed to recover well exactly for sure and so you get

this guy i mean i had a teammate of mine joe warren he was a world champ he would have won the olympics he got tested positive 15 nanograms and the average just the legal limit is 150 right now yeah and we're talking a olympic gold medal that you your whole life start versus these they'll take a tainted supplement and then all of a sudden it's like nine months oh i didn't know yeah and i think it's crazy because that whole supplement industry is a is undocumented too but yeah but anyways like the variables you talked about is huge i think that my experiences with the big gyms the coaches are amazing that their hearts are in it they want the guys to do the best but a lot of times like i mean if you're making you if you come

together at the table every night everyone's kind of aware of what what we need to do is like if we have business everyone's got a business plan say hey this is your role this is our role we're cool with it what's the mission statement and then in the mma community whatever athlete you're working with that's the mission statement that that's like for instance jeremy stevens i work with he's ko productions that's his that's his full like uh s corp right so that's his whole thing what's the what's the mission uh to get him as powerful as he can be in cardio shape and get him front and get him ready but a lot of times if most of these coaches don't talk a lot and a lot of times it's either from their busy schedules or choices it is so all of a sudden you're getting mixed results all the time

is there a single coach managing that usually or is it or is there no no head coach that's managing other coaches no so the thing is is we're all independent contractors and they're all independent plumbers there's no union together that we all follow the same footprint so you'll have a head coach because he runs the gym he owns the gym he's getting his percentage and a lot of these guys not every time that you know just like anywhere else you guys all get your haircuts you all go to all different people so you don't necessarily adopt the same person so sometimes you have a different wrestling coach, a different striking coach, but you might go to the same gym, but you don't have that. Everything's about trust in this sport.

And a lot of it is like sometimes it's by you have acquaintances, like I'll work with that guy, but most of the time it's like, hey, it doesn't really vibe with me. It's like a chemistry in a relationship. I mean, you guys are probably, besides your guys, obviously married or what have you. A lot of times chemistry doesn't work for some people. So what I've found is that the head coach might be a head coach, but a lot of times they won't talk to the other coach until the night of the fight.

I mean, this is just like that show, you know, a lot of the reality TV shows. It's a married at first sight. I mean, basically we're together in a ring, and we're trying to get, we're on the corner trying to get the guy to do the best he can we this first time we see each other maybe once out of eight weeks yeah so the conversation of periodization doesn't sound like it's something that really comes up that much no not at all and a lot of it is because i know how to train the guys a lot of times i just try to hey look you know i make myself accountable on a ride out of program and i'll say here's your weights and this what it's going to be in this week.

This is how you're going to fit. Here's your taper weeks. Here's your peaking weeks. Here's recovery. Here's your strength weeks and all these bases. You know, you're building these things. You guys know it from the strength industry, like what you guys have built yourself. But also, that's one variable that you guys can control.

But when you're having to get multiple people together and say, hey, this week we're going to keep it light. Like, no, dude, I bang them out. And a lot of times you get these guys overtraining, cortisol levels to the roof, they didn't lose the weight this time, or the hormone levels are off the charts. Yeah. Are you using HRV and things like that to help teach the fighter, the athlete, to monitor their own stress levels? Well, this is the thing.

It's cost. These guys are fighting sometimes for 20 and 20. It's $20,000, and if they win, they get an extra 20. But if they lose their 20, then they've got to pay all the coaches. So you get usually 10%, 15% of the gym. Sometimes it's outside coaches that are paying taxes, travel. And all of a sudden they're like, hey, do I want to? I mean, most of the time you have to.

There's only particular athletes that are really into, you know, a lot of it goes down to some expertise and trust because they're like, oh, does that really work? Does it help me? And a lot of the other coaches like, hey, I only need six weeks with you. We'll bang it out. The problem is, is by that time they get there there they're either they over train them and then their cortisol levels through the roof and they're just they're basically their bodies just zapped and they're producing more estrogen they stop the testosterone and all of a sudden their body you see these guys in these crappy weight cuts as well as performances and but the thing is is the hrv and

all that kind of stuff i mean for 150 a, you can pay an independent source, like, you know, a place like the training lab. Phase 4 is another scientific-based training place. The extra hundred and some dollars is, you know, it's just like having, like, insurance. Some people are like, I don't need insurance, you know, for my car. I'll just take care of it if it happens. But, as you know, it can be catastrophic. And same thing with health insurance, you know.

But it's very important, the guys that do do the hiv because now we're getting a fingerprint to every athlete and these are individual sports so they need a fingerprint because everyone's rmr the rest of metabolic rate it's different um their their vo2 is different and what they're burning for substrates of fats carbs is different so all of a sudden you can't train everybody in a team practice the same so that's something that i think is the next evolution when they say hey i'm going to put off six hundred dollars for this because sometimes just the individual test alone are a couple hundred bucks but to start it but that gives you good platform where you're at and a good baseline and that's some of the reason why with some of the guys um i've gone to and

have come to me to work with them because i keep up metrics at the beginning and what's real. Because as you guys know, there's so many people can tell you you're doing great, you're doing great, but you're never getting the results. And so what we do is I try to look at punch count in a fight. So I took their last seven fights, last five fights. Hey, what's your punch count? And I look up the metrics on these metrics.com. You're able to see all that he throws. Like, for instance, Jeremy Stevens, I started doing his cardio program and mainly low base here's a guy that is a hard hard and he's

anaerobic through the roof i mean he is going crazy but he would always lose to point fighters so they'll point them out because they're afraid and they'll win by just points and not they won't ever hurt him but what i did is i said look when i started with you a year and a half ago you're doing 60 to 70 punches. He's like, all right. These last two fights you fought Henner Brow, who is one of the best ever for a long time. He won like 27 fights in a row. And then all of a sudden you lose to Dillashaw.

He's too big for the weight class, goes up. Jeremy smashes him, and he hits like 156 strikes in that fight. And that's doubling your punch output. And this is like seven years into your career so how do you do that is it because he just had a better boxing coach but his cardio is through the roof then he fights frankie edgar come again frankie edgar averages 190 punches every three rounds he only averaged 60 punches in this fight he was from the ground jeremy adler is 158 so all of a sudden cardio comes in there and that's something the next

piece we'll talk about a little bit but yeah like i said the periodization and everything hrv heart rate technology um you know i think recovery is huge because now you're able to see where you're out on the mega wave anywhere you're at on on recovery is huge because now i basically think of as like you know pulling up the stoplight is a red green or yellow you know how do you work and that's kind of next stage what are the what are the top three things you're looking at like if you could if you could pick three things three measurements that you're looking at an athlete so say there's an athlete they're not looking at anything what are the first three things you want them doing you know i think the first thing is first is get a scope of what their day what their

average normal week is you know how many days a week you train and overall volume and you say oh i do 16 hours a week i do three three times a day all right well um what's that intensity and i mean if they don't know and you just give them a one to the ten and then kind of base it at that and then give a couple weeks this is just kind of like doing a food diary log you know like hey what are you eating and then kind of give a baseline and then you can kind of give a little bit of a ballpark, but that's the first starting the full, full on base, the overall volume. And then, um, and then from there, I think it's, uh, we'll do, um, I go from the overall volume of the week. And then I start to add like, okay, what, what's most important to you? Well, is it striking or this and what coaches involved? And then from there, like, what's most important to you? Well, is it striking or this and what coach is involved?

And then from there, like, what are your expectations of what you're doing? And then after that, most of the time the expectation is, well, I want to win, but, you know, then it goes, how do we get there? Right. Yeah. I know you always use the hashtag cardio is king, so it seems like you're very cardio heavy, and I don't imagine that means that you discount doing normal strength training and explosive power training but um tell us more about that like how how important do you think cardio is relative to other uh performance measurement or performance

training like like lifting weights to get stronger you know what i think the all it's it's uh it's all a piece of the pie in a sense to me you know it's the same thing all the ingredients on a pizza i think everything's important i think but it's all different stages in different amounts i think that at the beginning you know getting base and structure um joint stability and all that kind of work um and then all of a sudden you're looking into your power and your strength and the power plays in the explosive phase i think all that stuff important but i think that the the big thing that i've you know working with the training lab and working with phase four and then doing my own um um, that I've done through my career. Cause I've always been known for cardio and that's the, just the thing I've always bred because after everything breaks down

and everything's even the cardio is what shines. And I think that that's something that people talk about power and these guys knock out power, but remember that, you know, uh, MMA is more like triathlon than anyone really wants to respect it. You know, the Diaz brothers for a long time, I remember racing with Nate and Nick. At times, I didn't really know them very well, but I saw them at races up at Vine Man up in Northern California. And the thing is, is the cardio component is so big outside of it, the low base. We build these athletes from the roof down majority of the time in MMA because you're going so hard all the time.

And you're flatlining at the top for so long. By the time you get to the fight, their baseline is less than when they started, where they're at, you know. But the cardio for me is so big outside of the training. So you can do all your, like, periodization and stuff within, you know, different phases within the strength and stuff like that. But also it over time so you're not doing strength the whole time you're doing base and then you do some strength build power build explosiveness and then all of a sudden more agility speed work a lot of footwork is what i found um for me anyways is getting more footwork

forward for movement in a sense these guys their feet move it's almost like a wide receiver defensive back for footwork for for striking for wrestling wrestling, for kicks, all the different things. And then as we get closer, you're doing more just straight speed stuff. And then all of a sudden we have sprints and stuff like that, but everything fades out accordingly and the pieces of the puzzle come together. But the cardio component that I found is outside of everything and they're like well how do you do that i only have so many hours i mean i've added another 20 20 hours a month um in uh almost almost almost 16 to 20 hours a month in most of my guys programs in running when you say cardio are you saying just long slow distance i'll do different distances then i'll do

like more more threshold stuff at a particular time as we build into it so they'll you know they do these 30 second sprints minute sprints to these crazy inclines and people have nasty injuries and plantar fasciitis injuries and you know like glutes and all these different uh issues and tight muscles from these inclines they're doing these crazy sprints like it's you know going into the drago like old days that we see these you know the old rocky movies these going crazy on these treadmills but a lot of the times what i try to do is i'll build them with their thresholds so they'll do high the high pace for a long period of time and as we get closer we'll reduce it and then i go straight to sprints after that just to top them off because usually the last five weeks of the camp um they're

already prepped and then now it's just you know topping them off with sprints getting comfortable with it and then reducing volume with the closer increasing intensity and most of the time the quarter total levels and and they're peaking properly we i have worked with a lot of high level athletes a lot of the mf fighters a lot of the same fighters yeah we've shared for sure yep one of the things you almost never find with these guys is a willingness to do the hard stuff like they're gonna find the high intensity intervals they're gonna do the hard rounds it's just we don't find them at this level people not wanting to do that stuff motivation factor no and so i see a lot of crossover carryover too with the

crossfit community a lot of people like it because you get to go in there and you get to red line yeah but the problem is if all you do is redline, that's when we end up breaking, whether we're CrossFit or MMA. Yeah. So this other piece or this other component of it is really important. And sometimes what I've found with the MMA guys, that's the harder thing to get them to do is, and we've got some exceptions like, you know,

Pat will do that jerk and he'll ride for his bike for hours. He doesn't care. But the other ones were like, how do we convince the people to do it? How do we motivate them? And then how do we control it so that they don't end up running for seven hours a day or something like that? So how do we put brackets on it? Yeah, a lot of times what I do is I'll have them start easy.

So if they do mitts or they do wrestling or they do even sparring, I'll have them do like another 20 minutes of low base afterwards. A lot of it's recovery. What I'm trying to do is I just want them to think about it as just burning fat. So a lot of times the guys are like, oh, I'm in shape. I'm lean. And I'm like, okay, well, let's just keep building this road. So you get more oxygen, you get more blood, you're burning more fat for energy.

Because a lot of times you throw some information out to to them they're just like what'd you say yeah like i don't know what i just tell me what to do and a lot of times like you know talking to some guys like you know uh they never really ran before and uh they're you know when they do sprints they don't have to think about it right because they're just like oh i gotta get through it gotta get through it got through it but when you're running a slow pace it's boring as hell yeah people don't want to do it i mean they're just like i mean how do i do this like but a lot of times it starts getting you in that mindset of grinding and grinding grinding keeping going through i mean the crossfit guys i see a lot of people going through the stuff and

like how do they do that they're doing the same shit over and over and over again for time. Like, how is that? Like I'd get bored. Yeah. But all of a sudden they're just getting into it and getting into it more. They're thinking, they're just driving, grinding, and they get used to that uncomfortable pace. They're getting used to that uncomfortable weight because they're focusing on each rep and all of a sudden, same thing, each step.

And they're looking at, and all of a sudden, you just start to be able to daydream. Then you can start enjoying these runs because you start getting in your head. You start thinking because when you, after a period of time, it's not easy to do. Like, I mean, Jeremy Stevens and I, you know, here's a guy that, you know, couldn't last two rounds in the middle of his camp because he was so exhausted before when I first started working with him because he cuts from, you know, 170. When I first started working with him with him was 177 to 145

and most of the time he'd be 163 like 165 a week of yeah and so when i started working we'd be three weeks out from a fight we run for an hour and a half easy pace and he's just dude this is easy all of a sudden you keep the threshold in your legs and these guys now recovering faster you know there's some there was a good study out there that there was a study but also an article that came out from marathon runners how their body will secrete a hormone and sense over time because all of a sudden the pounding and then they they get almost numb to it they get numb to pain and so the same thing you look at these guys like diaz brothers who have done all low base training they do all triathlons running swim they don't lift they don't do an explosive training.

And the thing is you look at their fights and their volume is consistent over time, but also the fact they've taken some major punches and they don't get hurt because their bodies just keep producing this hormone at some point. But, yeah, the cardio base, it has to be a separate key outside of everything. Yeah. One thing I would say is if you're going to adopt something like this, be careful. If you haven't done any running besides intervals, don't jump in and run an hour and a half tomorrow. Correct. You got to build to it.

Yeah. So barefoot run on concrete. Exactly. That's the way to go. We use this a lot prior to Rio. We just started it last week getting ready for trials because some of the Olympic trials is in about three more weeks, right? We start with walking. All right. Can you walk for an hour? And it sounds really easy, but if you haven't walked for an hour,

you're going to get like 30 minutes in and you're going to be like, oh, I'm so bored, this is awful. Or whatever you want to do, rower, mitts, you can use your thing, but really make sure you progress to these things if you want to start adding some of this stuff in. And don't go from zero to 20 miles this week. Like you've got to build that stuff up uh in an intelligent fashion or you're going to break your knees are going to get shot back something's going to happen

bad yeah uh in mma certainly and then also in crossfit and other sports as the competition is approaching you know people are pretty beat up they got injuries that their joints are achy or hurting but at the same time they might know that they have more weight to cut in the case of mma or they just their their fitness is just not where it needs to be. So they need to do more volume, but at the same time, they don't want to show up, you know, excessively injured. Not most people show up to a fight somewhat injured. It's just a reality of the sport. But, um, but of course you're trying to minimize that. How do you keep people healthy as the competition approaches, but still keep them training? So that's the thing that, I mean, that is, um, a lot of these, there's some great coaches out there that kind of know their

athletes, right? So they're like, Hey, you're kind of like, that is a lot of these, there's some great coaches out there that kind of know their athletes, right? So they're like, hey, you're kind of like you look fatigued. A lot of people, a lot of guys that hold mitts are, hey, you're not hitting as hard as you usually do. I kind of know where you're at. But that's also the same thing is like sometimes it's hard because, you know, these athletes are super tough. They're in a combat sport. I mean, how do you know? You're rocked.

You just got hit hard in the face five times in a row, and you like and i'm good coach keep me in yeah so i mean just even with patrick this last week and cummings like you know he was out there got rocked first round bad like he i was like sitting in the back and i was like are you kidding me like the and all of a sudden i'm like here we go like dude you got to recover and then he recovered but he he's like no i'm good and i'm like dude he's still probably like still half concussed you know he's got some like he's hurting and then he got through it you know just mentally pushing through but you know a lot of the times with the athletes i try to a lot of um you know doing a lot of and it sounds crazy but a lot of the rolfing stuff it helps with joint mobility stuff is huge i try to get these guys to do a

lot of tissue work once a week at least even if it's just massage just get tissue work um you know i got i bought a set of those nomadic boots for my guys so whenever i have them use them for compression a lot of times for recovery like a norma tech yeah norma tech boot yeah and then um i also do a lot of different uh like active release stuff for them. They go do it themselves. But just I think a lot of the stuff is just keeping maintenance. You know, a lot of these guys will pay, you know, they'd rather get broken versus, like, maintain. And that's this other thing, too, is just more of accountability.

I mean, a lot of this sport is about accountability. And a lot of times the missing weight is accountability. You can't be, I mean, it's a professional sport if you show up. I mean, how many times have you guys been at work and dealing with people even coming here and you're an hour late like it doesn't matter it's just like missing weight like you just have to be accountable you know and i think that's something that within this sport a lot of times coaches will push guys and they're just like they'll crush them in the first two days you know they're three weeks out from a fight and i've seen it where they'll they'll go hard because they're pushing right they want to push them that edge and that's great but all of a sudden the guy's gone for three days that including just you know his body's just upside

down he's like oh it takes some time off then the guy's like missing other practices mentally he's like oh i'm not strong enough you know yeah that's why it's so important to have a plan yeah so you plan the workouts but you got to plan the recovery stuff Right. Because that gets out of the loop if you don't. You don't just go hard and then when I start feeling crappy, I'll just start backing off because the back off ends up being who the hell knows how long. So you need to plan both aspects of that. When are we going to go hard? When are we going to go light?

When are we going to go medium? Whatever your plan is. Right. It's all got to be there, and that's got to be done before you start. Yeah. Right. Making it up on the fly. You need to adjust on the fly, but something has to be laid out.

So having a plan is better than no plan at all, but the plan will evolve as you go. Yeah, for sure. Let's take a break real quick. I want to get into recovery when we get back. Okay. Welcome back to Technique Quad. I'm Doug Larson. I'm here with former UFC heavyweight champion Boss Rudin, and he's going to teach us how to win a bar fight.

Woo! Love it! So in a bar fight, if someone comes up to you and they get right up in your face like this, what do you do? The thing is you have to make sure, understand first, if this is going to be serious. If you say, okay, his friends are backing up in the back, this guy needs to be canceled out really fast, really violently, so his friends are going to be intimidated. Headbutt is the best weapon for that. I just need a little bit of this.

So if he stands close, the only thing I need to do is create a little distance by stepping back, bang, and right away hit to the face, and then just keep going and drop the guy down. Be crazy. I told my daughters, I said, just headbutt him in the face and be crazy. Beat the crazy bitch because then you will never fight again. And that's what you do when you are in a power fight. Somebody comes up close to you

not forward to forehead though you're going forward to the nose forehead to the nose it's very important if he was if i i'm standing here normally i would always stand like this talking you know i listen because this is my defense if you would do something with a headbutt coming i start can't stop him you know so the trick is to hit him like this on purpose yeah yeah just like i'm talking to you you know like know, like I'm defending myself now. But I'm just, you know, what's going on? Once he comes close, you want to hit the nose. If he loads up for a headbutt for me, load up and give me one, I do this.

I lean forward and I let him hit his face into my head. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Okay, so what if someone comes up to you and they're pointing you on the chest? Okay, what you do then, you say, don't do that again. And what if you say that, of course they're going to do it again. And they do the same thing. It's a stupid thing.

So he does it. I said, no, no, no, don't do that again. As soon as they do it again, grab the finger, go all the way back. They shouldn't have pushed you against the chest. Okay, so maybe you're in an argument with somebody else and one of his buddies runs Go all the way back. They shouldn't have pushed you against the chest Okay, so you're maybe you're in a argument with somebody else and one of his buddies runs up behind you and starts starts grabbing He starts choking it once you start choking what you want to do You want to make sure that he doesn't pulls his shoulder back and put you against his back So why the way what you want to do is step to the side step behind him now

Whoop, I can lift him and I can drop him or I can drop on him and on the street that's not going to be fun for him all right three ways to keep yourself out of a bar fight thanks boss you're very welcome you bet godspeed cool party on oh yeah we're back oh yeah oh there you go the audio was uh you're digging yourself a hole. It's just getting worse. It's just getting worse. Let's just get into it. Darrell, can you tell us about the taper, the elusive taper that no one seems to understand?

I hear a lot of conflicting information about. You know, a taper is a two-week process in the programs that I run and be a part of. I think it's important to understand that, you know, the last two weeks, especially with weight cutting, any other sports may be a little different, but the weight cutting cortisol levels are a problem. And, you know, I try to stretch it out about 72 hours of workouts. Usually the second week out, it might be a little less. And I try to get them to be done sparring either the Wednesday or the Friday of the week before. So no sparring the week of?

Yeah, the week of, no sparring at all. You're done usually the week out, so that's about 10 days, depending on how they feel and where they're at. At that point, like I said, two weeks prior to that, we already had two peak weeks for me. My guys will do two peak weeks and two weeks of taper. And usually they're tapped, and then you're recovering the first half of the first part of the taper week and um and get them come down and then all of a sudden they're they're ramping up a little bit but we're we're at that point we're only designated

like uh like a tuesday like a monday thursday type deal or a wednesday saturday um type expression of where they're at um on a hard workouts everything else is going to be low 50 to 60 threshold in a sense and then that way these guys are able to recover i want full recovery the last two weeks so they can really just blow it out and then recover and then that way the cortisol will come up and then we drop it back down within a couple days come up and then the same thing um you know the last week recover usually on mondays are sprints in the morning and then some pad work uh for speed and then also just uh you know blowing it out and then you know the week of the fight's different as far as the next number of days when they have to travel a lot of times

it comes into a water retainment sense in their water loading at that time but you know when they're traveling and stuff uh it's it kind of adds another component but at that point um you know the whole camp that what i do differently with the taper weeks is that these guys are losing weight faster and faster because i get them to be uh to burn more fat during the camp that's where all the low base training the cardio outside of it allowed that when we start tapering down they're doing less volume less intensity their body's actually just just running through there it's like a furnace and then we take out the carbs about seven days out um and mainly just through water-based vegetables that they're getting it so so you can drop the drop the volume and then drop the carbs and then they're just burning more fat correct and a lot of times you're saying well that just kind of because before they just grind grind

grind grind these these long workouts. But, you know, if I get their body working for them and it's working with them, it's a lot easier than anything else. Because most of the time their weight cut in their program of their cardio or not even just their overall program is separate. They just meet up at the end. And that's something that's our issue. That's why we're seeing these guys miss weight. You know know when they can't take diuretics anymore they're getting tested um you you see these people in a completely different stage and then plus the the residual effect over time of these hot bass um that we haven't even really studied in a sense what it

does to organs cerebral cerebral spinal fluid. And that's why you see guys cut a massive amount of weight. They look great on the scale, but all of a sudden they get clipped by just like barely get hit and they're knocked out. And that's something that I think these hot baths at a certain point, they're losing a massive amount of weight. They're heating them up. They start at like 105 degrees or 110 degrees or 115 degrees or whatever it is. Some guys are using thermometers and seeing how long they're going to be in there but a lot of times you know it's uh the residual effect two three fights down the road that their bodies are just not going to

cut the weight yeah it works this time but as time goes on it's it's not a long-term yeah for sure exactly yeah so today uh you got a fighter coming in about 45 minutes. Jake, the guy we're both friends with. He's about 10 days or so out. Correct. So what are you going to have him do today? What's it going to look like without giving us important information? You know what?

There's no secrets. We're not the first one to invent the wheel here. A lot of it is just he's doing all of his strength and conditioning with Sam Calavita at the training lab. wheel here um a lot of it is just you know he's doing all of his strength and conditioning with sam calavita at the train late training lab he looks at works with nick herson as well a lot of the stuff is just tapering now of short intervals and getting full recovery short intervals and now it's just peaking for the fight um with him with jake especially he's such a explosive guy it's mainly just keeping you know at a minimal, get him to fully recover,

because he's really crushed it the last three weeks. They do a lot of different training, a threshold training over with Sam Calavita. There's a lot of that cardio stuff you're talking about, a lot of stuff he hasn't done in a long time. So he's going to get all the way through onay the week of uh is it one workout a day is it a bunch of them in your ideal it doesn't matter if it's jesus but what's an ideal last four or five days before i compete you know what the fourth the the monday usually is a run uh in the morning a lot of fasted running uh if it's a sprint on the morning of and then at night it's about an hour so you're looking at close to about

two hours that day half of it's going to be low intensity at 50 percent uh tuesday is going to be like a short run 30 40 minutes and then they'll do a sauna workout when they get there like three 10 minute goes with about five minutes in between cold shower in between just to kind of they'll still sweat it's not really hard uh wednesday is going to be a short run in the morning again 40 fasted um and then at night um mainly it'll be like a 15 20 minute uh a pad session and then they'll do uh like again a little bit of a sauna not too bad just super easy they're still drinking because they're they're still about about a gallon and a half that day about it wednesday about a gallon um and then on thursday it's going to be uh depending on

where you're at most of my guys will run in the morning again because their blakes are sustained for it through the camp and then uh then they'll do a sauna that night and usually they're within i try to get the guys down to about three pounds the night of anything less than that i have them rehydrate drink again back up again so they're not retained because of the fact they're holding that because now with the new weigh-ins the weigh-ins are like 9 a.m so these guys are getting up at 6 a.m a lot of times they go east coast that's like 3 a.m so there's a lot of time change there and so what i try to do is with that in hand um i try to get them down about three the night before they'll

float especially our guys float about a pound and a half of fat off uh with the cardio program i mean these guys like for instance this last week i worked with miles jury for the first time this last seven weeks he uh he went from 172 to 145 and he didn't use plastics he didn't use a hot bath um he's dialed in he felt great he delivered this last week and just dominated and he had been off for about a year and a half. There's something to be said about just getting your body to work for you. That's basic. If you can get fresh, the big thing is about being fresh in this business. If these guys go on in at 50%, they can't take the performance-enhancing drugs like we did before

where I would say that 90%, if you're not tested for it, then I guess you should be taking it at that time. People are wondering why there's such a weight problem there and why people are missing it. That's because a lot of people were getting away with things before without a real understanding of what they're doing and then using those now illegal substances. Yeah. And so you're like, wow, there's all this random problem. No, it's because they now made, you had to filter out, do you really understand this process or not? Yeah.

And the ones that didn't are falling off fast. Yeah. You see guys that used to be incredible and look at the body I mean the body will speak for you. If you look at these guys and you see drastic issues. You're like Like is it because he stopped lifting or you know, why is it that guy's completely different saggy skin? And all it messes with your psyche too i mean yeah i mean you i mean it doesn't even matter if it's certain things that you guys drink before pre-workout like oh maybe i'm not gonna have it i mean it's a lot of it's placebo effect in some sense but there is something to be said if you can take something that's going to make you stronger faster

and recover i mean you don't have to be the same athletes as someone else at all i mean you guys even for a while a long time ago in CrossFit, you used to be like, how are these guys grinding like this? And obviously some supplements help, but obviously they're not all taking certain things. But it's like saying, you know, Mr. Olympia is totally clean. Yeah. I mean, how do you do that? I know.

You just mentioned the psychological piece, you know. I mean, fighting, of all things, is an enormous mental game like many sports are um you know how do you manage the psychology of a fighter in the weeks leading up to a fight and then the day of you know right before they go into the cage and then you know also win or lose you know there's going to be there's going to be you know head games how do you get ready for you know the next fight and and especially if you lose how to get ready for the next fight and have that not derail you. Yeah, you know what? This sport, any one-on-one sport is so psychological. I don't think there's a key to everybody.

Everybody's got a different way they set themselves up to basically get away from the stress. Get away from that, you know, I'm walking in front of 17,000 people. And then people worldwide, you know, now that in front of 17 000 people and then people worldwide you know that now that fox sports the last number of years and they've made this thing monster um there's so much more press because they they got media stuff they instagram twitter snapchat whatever and they they are just a microscope man people look at everything they do and i think the the big thing is you know i found with the with the structure i guess it's kind of like moving you know when you guys move and you just kind of wing it and like we're going to move a five-bedroom house or three-bedroom

house even a one-bedroom apartment like how do we do it well i'll just get it done let's do it and then you're like completely stressed you don't't know where to start, right? Versus like what we talked about with Andy there. He was talking about a plan. You know, once we set out the plan, you have so much more security when you're sitting in this moving. You're moving a house. You're like, hey, you know what? The movers are here. They're going to be here at 9 o'clock.

The boxes are here. They're going to pack this. This is all check, check check check so when we do these programs a lot of times what i've found is that they find so much value and confidence and just knowing that hey dude we did 13 hours this week hey uh you know you're here to do this and they see these they're just checking off these these weeks and then when you start hey i always i'm really big from the Olympic arena is the daily things. Hey, dude, we've got 93 days out. You know, I'm starting to work with TJ Dillashaw now.

And he had like, at one point I text him after the Ultimate Fighter. We filmed it and I was out there from three, four times. And I was like, hey, dude, we got 109 days left. He's like, what? 109 days, man. July 8th, you're fighting. He's like, oh, I'm like, well, we've got to make every day count by the minutes. And he's just taking that approach and taking that macro to a micro approach

and just seeing where you're at and we're making everything count. And then all of a sudden they start, you know, they're putting hay in the barn and they realize that, man, I got it. Like I've done everything I possibly can. I feel great. And that's where that confidence drives. A lot of times, you know, you guys know from going to college or taking any tests, like, you know, if you're going in there and you just cram the night before, you're like, oh, I hope I get it.

Oh, yeah. I mean, seriously. We all know that one really well. My students never do that. Yeah. Never. They're all fully prepared. Yeah, exactly.

And that's how it goes with these camps, man. These guys, like, as long as they can get, they have the value they're like i did the runs i did this like they see it and all of a sudden when you put the footprint out there and say hey this is what we started with here's your expectations here's what we end up with here you are and then all of a sudden they see the gains then they're just like having fun out there do you uh do you encourage them to get really psyched up before they walk out do you want them to be calm? How do you approach that? Should they be like, rah, like right before the fight or dead?

What's your approach? You know, my approach is going to be different from everybody. Every fighter I work with is different. It's the same thing as clothing style. Everyone's got a different approach. I mean, some guys like grungy clothes. Some people like super nice clothes. Some people don't like clothes at all.

Mike. Exactly. Right. Exactly. They't like clothes at all. Mike. Exactly. Right. Exactly. They make me put them on. Yeah, we have to be semi-presentable, I guess, if you're on film, I guess. YouTube doesn't like the naked. Yeah, exactly.

We could be in that. There's a dating show and there's other different like life in the Amazon or survival thing that you have to be naked with a partner or something. Oh, the naked one? Yeah. That is great. Naked or Afraid. That's a crazy show right there Oh, the naked one? Yeah. Naked and afraid. That is great. Naked and afraid. That's a crazy show right there. Go sign up, Mike.

I'm not watching TV. I didn't even know this was a thing. I got to sign up. So that is a huge thing with a psychological piece because these guys are all different. But the only thing you can do is kind of like embrace what they're doing. But the main thing is just get them uh to uh just think about just i try to uh you know i had a that kind of makes me remember i was sitting at chael son's house he's getting ready to fight anderson silver the second time and we've been friends forever he's like hey you know what

uh how do you do it i'm like what do you mean he's like he because he had a history for a long time beating these guys up and they get armbarred or triangled every time. Like he doesn't get knocked down. Like the first Anderson fight. Yeah. I mean, all the time. He'll go through three rounds of beating someone up or two rounds of beating someone up,

and then all of a sudden he gets triangled. And you're like, where did that come from? Here are great grapplers. You know what's going on. You know this is coming. And, you know, I sat there with him, and he's like, I don't know how you do it. I said, do what?

He's like, you just compete without fear. I'm like, what do you mean? I said, you know what, Chael, that's a good question. I was thinking about it. He's like, you know, I always think the guy's going to do it. Here he is. He's going to do it. He's strong.

Here he's going to do it. He's going to get me. He's going to get me. And I'm like, well, I just try to focus. You know, my Olympic coaches are like, hey, man, just worry about what you can control and try not to stress about things man there's a guy ken raviza that was like i'll say fullerton that was my first ever psychology coach and he's like hey you're one pitch at a time you know he's like when the

shit hits the fan what are you gonna do you know like the basketball player that just gets it knocked away from there or stolen you're gonna sit there and sulk or you're gonna run back and defend and that's something that um that that stuck with me for a long time, the way of a piece of worry. One of his friends, you know, he wrote that book. And then going back with my Olympic coaches, like, hey, you know what? Things are going to go against you, but I need you to focus on what you can control, position.

And so my answer to Chael and my other fighters, hey, look, we're going to go position by position, breath by breath. And all of a sudden they start thinking, it's like going up the stairs, like, okay, I've going to go position by position, breath by breath. And all of a sudden, they start thinking. It's like going up the stairs. Like, okay, I've got to go to the top of the Empire State Building. How am I going to get there? Like, oh, I've got all these stairs. Like, no, I just one foot in front of the other.

And that's the same thing with the psychological piece. I don't know how they psych themselves up. If they have a particular song, they have to go super hard. But the main thing is it's like, hey, be you today. Just be you. That's it. All I need you to do is step up and be you. You don't have to go super hard. But the main thing is it's like, hey, be you today. Just be you. That's it. All I need you to do is step up and be you. You don't have to be extraordinary.

Be you and relax and focus on what you can control. And, you know, most of the time it's punch by punch. Yeah. One of the things that Ken would talk about is if you're not the rah-rah guy, don't be the rah-rah guy. Correct. If you are the rah-rah guy, be the guy. Don't be afraid. Don't, you know, go in that direction.

And the other big lesson was if you, prior to the situation, acknowledge the worst case scenario. Yeah. And then you can think through it. It's all of a sudden not nearly as scary when it happens. So if you think about, okay, worst possible case scenario. Yeah. This happened to me my first national weightlifting meet is I missed my first snatch. And then I had to follow myself and then follow myself again.

Wow. And I wasn't mentally prepared for it, and so I bombed all three. The next time I was completely prepared for it because the whole training camp for that next meet was, what's going to happen if I miss my first snatch? Okay, I'm ready now to snatch the heaviest weight I can possibly snatch after a two-minute rest. I remember you were training to follow yourself after that. And before that, you were taking minutes between.

I would take 10 minutes between each repetition, and now it was, okay, I am physically ready. So when I walked into the platform, I didn't miss it, but I was totally confident, oh, if I miss this here, I know I'll be ready to go again in two minutes. So in Shale's case, the same thing. Like, okay, this guy's going to go for a triangle. I know he's going to go for a triangle.

What's the worst-case scenario? He gets me close. I'm still a good enough grappler. I know how to defend a triangle or get out of it. That's going to go for a triangle. I know he's going to go for a triangle. What's the worst-case scenario? He gets me close. I'm still a good enough grappler. I know how to defend a triangle or get out of it. Correct. That's what we need to approach ourselves. So worst-case scenario, I fall or I lose my grip here or what's going to happen?

Acknowledge it and have a plan of attack, and then if it does happen, you're in a much better position. Yeah, no, I think that's important, just putting yourself there. And, you know, like I said, it doesn't matter what happens. It's how you're going to respond to it. I mean, that's another thing. And I. And, you know, like I said, it doesn't matter what happens. It's how you're going to respond to it. I mean, that's another thing. And I think that, you know, with my guys, it's always like weekly affirmations, daily affirmations, doing the right thing, how you feel.

You know, these things are normal. You know, if it's a good day or a bad day, tomorrow we still have to put our boots on and hat on and go to work. I mean, I don't care if you win a title or you don't win a title. Remember, that was as good as it was yesterday. Anything, if you make all this money, tomorrow is still another day. And that's something that I took from my coaches at Olympic Training Center, Steve Frazier, Olympic champ for the U.S., first-ever Greco champ.

You've got to just keep grinding and do it on a daily basis. You know, this blue collar work attitude is something that I take, you know, because a lot of times, you know, we're given talent. Some of us are not. I mean, I'm not a person that ever really had much growing up, but a lot of times it was just putting the work in because at the end of the day, is only goes so far and i guarantee you majority of all athletics especially combat sports any other thing the guys that work hard are usually probably i would say 90 of the time better than the talented people in high school or growing up but the people that are extraordinary that are the people that had that athletic talent

but also were humble enough to work their ass off and then all of a sudden they just explode and that's why we see particularly like the Michael Jordans the bronze of the world Kobe Bryant's I mean you see certain talented and you guys all know them and seen them before certain talented weightlifters certain talent athletes here oh man they're so talented it's just a waste yeah and you know that's something that you know I try to instill these guys hey look it doesn't matter what you are you got to work every day you're not entitled to anything you know life's a gift you know yeah and you're not competing anymore but you you still work pretty damn hard like you're one of the few

coaches that actually trains right there alongside with his athletes yeah you feel like that that helps with having like a special connection or a bond with your athletes as they are prepping for their fights? Yeah, you know what? This last January I turned 41, and I work out with these guys, and I try to keep up with them, and I do their sprints. I try to be in with them. I thought a lot of it, that's trust. I can do it as long as I can, but I think that there's something,

there really is something about someone being next to you you know picking up that shovel and digging with you you know someone to help you up you know someone for them to help you up type thing and so that brotherhood creates a bond and also a sense of confidence like hey man this guy's doing with me like he's not just telling me hey i'm i'm a nutritionist and i'm 300 pounds, telling you, hey, you got skinny. I've never done it myself, but I've seen it on YouTube. So there is something with that for sure.

I love your Instagram account because you'll post a lot of the videos and stuff you're doing, and it's always you soaking wet, doing some really awesome drill. It's not like, hey, here's a video I'm filming. Now watch my athlete go do it. It's you dripping with sweat or red marks all over your face or whatever and dumping somebody or flipping somebody around. And it's always really interesting stuff.

But one of the things that I noticed really quickly on your Instagram stuff is you focus a lot on, in MMA, it's called the transition game. Uh-huh. Right? So Doug and I were talking earlier. You can't wrestle in MMA the same way you wrestle in the Olympic trials. Correct. And you can't weightlift in CrossFit the same way you weightlift in weightlifting.

Correct. So how do you put that together mentally of saying, okay, I actually have to modify this for the different sport now, and how do you communicate that with your athlete between saying, yeah, I know we used to do it this way for this thing, but we actually have to do it differently here? So that's something. You know, it's also just trying to put together you know like when you guys write and do a bunch of stuff like how do you put enough information so it flows all together so you get the same hypothesis or your

overall value content of it so it's got to be seamless in a transition right so what i do with the guys and i'm starting to, you know, I'm creating something that transitions are where you're going to score your biggest opportunities. And a lot of the times, if you don't have something or know how to sequence it together, make a seamless transition, you know, basically I'm trying to save time, energy, and money in a way where if I can do one efficient process, then all of a sudden they're getting the most bang

for their buck in that position as far as energy expenditure, as well as opportunity to get take or to take someone down or to finish a strike or kick. So the big thing I have to do that I started doing is not just be a wrestling coach. Um, a lot of wrestling is bent over. You're like, you're, you're reaching for something. Um, and in a fight game fight game if you do that a lot of guys are gonna you know kick you in the face you know so a lot of times 90% of the fights on your feet standing straight up and what I try to do is transition I went to watch all these top coaches when I was coaching their athletes and just I'd go in the practice where I didn't need to be there I didn't need to be to Spartan I didn't need to

be there but I needed to watch the footwork i needed to be where the positions are at so they have more of a neutral spine where they're at how do we defend from here and not sprawling because there's a lot of like just gravity in general of defending takedowns because you see all the time strikers getting taken down but a lot of it's footwork they try to sprawl they're underneath their core is not engaged their footwork's is not engaged. And as you know, your trunk, like from Olympic lifting, like everything happens from your hips. So you have the bars and extension of your hips in a way. So you're keeping as close as possible, pulling up tight. You don't want to be more than, you know, if you're every inch or half an inch, that adds another 5, 10, 15 pounds, whatever it may be.

So what I try to do is like I try to take everything from what they're comfortable with. You know, I'm not changing anything. So if they're comfortable in their orthodox or southpaw stance, then I'm adjusting that. So all my positions and footwork is from there, offensive wrestling and defense. So it's striking. So, you know, like a guy like T.J. Dillashaw that throws a ton of strikes, and he's moving all the time. I mean, you know, he's a Cal State 4-10 guy too and so these guys are moving all the time and so how does he get to

his strike because he he had been a major guy that does a ton of strikes and kicks he's moving but his takedown game was off like he would shoot straight on and get stuffed so I'm like dude if once we start doing this I started looking at footwork and how he switches his step and how he does kicks and then i started incorporating that into takedowns so he fought john leniker just recently phenomenal and he took it down four times he's on top of the guy that hits harder than anybody in that division heavy heavy handed like he's anthony johnson that division and i basically said dude i need you to rock i need to step over one step and get to his hip and drop him from the back,

not go in front and try to where the muscle is. He took him down four times, five times. He was on top seven minutes of it. Broke the guy's jaw. He's never been hit like that. And a lot of it was just from his footwork because adjusting a switch step. And it wasn't necessarily because if he can hit him with a punch or he can hit him with a kick he can do a takedown and vice versa so all of a sudden there becomes a seamless transition of it's unpredictable and as you've seen in certain

fights the guys get predictable because oh he's only has a right hand or stay off this side or defend the takedown he can't do anything so what i try to do is take what they do great that foundation i'm not breaking it up yeah and i'm keeping it there and i'm going to add one or two sequences from there to say here here's a defense here's the trigger points because i basically funnel everything down to one or two things then that's it's in it's like a true false test yeah before they do these multiple choice tests so like oh am i going to do this i'm going to do that and all of a sudden get taken down they get knocked out and so i try to funnel everything down to them so i'm like hey you know

what from this position just go to here to here that's it all of a sudden they're like really that's it i'm like yeah because i'm going to neutralize i'm going to give him one opportunity it's like you know a cattle coming down the chute there's not four or five different ways and i'm trying to block this cattle off i'm just basically here's the chute i'm just going to open it and this is the only opportunity they have this is where this cow is coming through so that's the thing it's it's i think what the biggest thing in mma and and is the thing is is a lot of the striking coaches don't go to wrestling practices striking coaches don't go to jujitsu or vice versa and so what i was trying to say hey you know what if i'm going to learn the whole game i'm not a i'm not a striking

coach by by no means these guys are amazing what they at what they do. I need to blend into the system and be my spoke in the wheel. But if I can do that and it makes everything else better, then all of a sudden these guys are now more confident on their feet. They're throwing at will because they can defend and they know if I'm getting taken down, I need to have my position here. And I only work on a couple things. So all of a sudden, because in camp you can only work on so much. Everyone talks about I'm going to get you stronger, faster, fitter, more technical.

But the problem is, is that majority of the time, these guys are not year-round training on a daily basis. They'll take three months off, and they'll train for seven weeks. And then now they have to lose 25 pounds. They're taking in 1,000 calories at a time. And then they're over-trained. They're doing all these rounds thinking they could do this. And then they show up as a byproduct of a system that most of the time there's no plan they all do it they're amazing fighters and amazing athletes and coaches are amazing

but the problem is is that you're cramming for graduating from college every three four weeks five weeks and taking three months off and all of a sudden you're like why am i getting the same score like because i'm not improving right yeah i was i was at a wrestling clinic that brandon slay was putting on like maybe 10 years ago yeah you know brandon slay yeah he's amazing guy yeah he's an olympic gold medalist in wrestling yeah went to penn yeah i spent a lot of time with olympic training center with him okay he's a great guy yeah yeah one thing that he said that i that i have remembered you know to this day and that i I've tried to apply over the years is that when he's coaching somebody, he recommends they spend about 75% of their time on their strengths,

the things they're really, really good at, because those are the things that are actually going to win the competition or win the match or win the fight, and about 20% on things they're kind of good at and then only really 5% of their time on things that they're just never, ever, ever going to be good at. Right. Taking someone who's just never going to be um you know in mma they're never going to be a world

class wrestler if you spend all your time wrestling all you're just going to turn into a mediocre wrestler and then you're still going to get taken down yeah the good wrestlers are still going to dominate you might as well get really really really good at you know if you're kickboxer or whatever at your striking because that's how you're going to win your fights you know um do you do you agree with those points not not agree with them? What are your thoughts on how much time to allocate towards your strengths versus your weaknesses? Yeah, you know what?

Brandon, you know, his lineage, I mean, the guy went to University of Pennsylvania. I mean, important school of business out there. So if you think about it, like he's a smart guy. A lot of times if you look at that, that just like a typical a top salesman type deal you take 80 percent of your your core value but your core uh money that's coming in you spend majority of that time there another 15 percent or so on just on new stuff you want to try to incorporate to cultivate and five percent on stuff that you maybe you'll never get that are just that are out of this atmosphere so when it comes into mma or even anything else i think that's important i think that you still got to keep who you are i don't

care if the media or anybody's trying to change you need to be a knockout person you need to be a submission person you need to be a wrestler if you go in there being a karate person or krav maga or whatever your background is you keep that i mean it's uh you can't change your identity the more you change your identity then you're going to have a point that you forget who you are at a certain point. And then you start lacking confidence in everything you do. I think that's the most important thing to stick to who you are. I think you make tweaks. I don't think you change anything up.

But, I mean, if you're winning doing one thing, yeah, it's not as extravagant as someone else getting knockouts. But you're winning. We all have different ways to win. We all have different ways that we survive and we're successful. I think that is like we're spot on. I mean, I think that the biggest thing we try to do is try to change up and be other people. And the more that we're ourselves, the more that we're confident in that

and we know what we can do and what we can't do. And the extra stuff is adding elements to enhance who we are, not to change. I've never gone through an eight-week camp getting ready for a UFC fight myself, personally. Turns out I've never fought in the UFC. You'd be surprised. He's still got some knockouts out there, I imagine. It's not too late, though. Right.

And I've never competed at the CrossFit Games, but I would imagine going through that eight-week camp, at some point you're going to not want to do it anymore. Yeah. So how do you keep it fun? Anything you do to make the athletes like, oh, this is fun again today, when you get to that lull point of like, oh, I really don't want to work out today. Yeah, I mean, getting punched in the face is not an easy thing on a weekly basis.

Right. So, you know, a lot of the time it's trying to that's where the whole periodization thing goes into. You've got to make it enough where they're in the red threshold, but they just don't want to, you don't want to overcook them. It's just the same thing like

cooking meat and stuff. I know you guys deal with different people within the nutrition industry and the guy out in, where is he out in Alabama now. Who's that? The other, is it Meal Fit? Oh, yeah. Thomas Cox in Tennessee.

Yeah, Thomas, a great guy, but also comes into, how do you get all his meat to be tender and over time? So how does too much heat, too much this to make it happen? So what we try to do is when you overcook these guys when too much training, then that's where it becomes unfun. That's where it becomes like, hey, man, I don't want to get up and do this. But if you get it in the right balance, and that's where the whole program comes in. They're fresh enough, but they're not.

And then all of a sudden they start enjoying it more. They get more enjoyment out of it because they're enjoying the process. I always really stress the fact that this is bound to happen. But the big thing is that you're going to snap back. And then all of a sudden, because as you guys know, like with anything else, when you're tired and depleted, you don't want to do anything and you hate it. The process sucks. Versus like, you know, you're putting it there, you're recovering, getting it.

Then you're starting to see gains. And that's the thing. It slowly gains every three weeks. And then we have a recovery week is what I kind of do um and so they're four week blocks so all of a sudden they're like they're really yeah man i'm starting to feel it i'm like hey the next couple days you're gonna start feeling this is where the end of stage is to end building and then all of a sudden they're like man i'm starting to feel it man i feel amazing yeah so all of a sudden you have these highs and lows again and that's where the periodization i

think is the biggest aspect of keeping guy fresh keeping him motivated because he's starting to see incremental gains and over time he's getting leaner he's getting faster and all of a sudden he's just like man i love this i can really think and enjoy this book you know i'm reading it i'm not just reading a front to book front to back and i don't remember what happened in it right yeah i'd imagine it helps knowing that this is supposed to be a high volume week i'm supposed to be tired i'm supposed to be be beaten down it's supposed to be a little bit beyond what i would want to do every single week and then because the high volume week knowing that the next week is going to be recovery week they can they can push through a little bit harder on

that high volume week knowing that they're going to be able to back off soon correct yeah and that like i said the same thing with the plan i mean if we're driving out to north dakota and i have a we have a plan that in place through map quest we know we're hey we're only like 50 miles away and before we're just we're like okay great we're almost there problem is is we have no map quest and we're just you know winging it i don't know how far that is is it three days from now or is that two hours from now so i think that's the cool thing is that when you give them the footprint and you give them where we're at and where we're going to finish, then they can see the timeline, hey, man, we have 12 days left. I mean, on a daily basis, most of the time I send them a picture of themselves

as well as a daily countdown of it's, you know, five days, 13 hours, 45 minutes, X amount of seconds, so it becomes reality. And it brings them back to present. I think the more that we're present with our training, the more we're present with people, all of a sudden we're in the moment and we're not worrying about things we can't control two days from now. We're not stressed and that extra stuff, our mind doesn't wander. You know, it's basically if I can see my hand, that's what I need. I like that method, a picture.

Yeah. Send a picture of them. Yeah, because it's – They're going to, like, wake you up and go, oh, fuck. Yeah, man. That's what I need. I like that method, a picture. Yeah. Send a picture of them. That's – Yeah, because – They're going to, like, wake you up and go, oh, fuck. Yeah, man. That's for me. I send a picture of themselves in a fighting thing or whatever, like, you know, of Jeremy Stevens of, like, he's in it and this is his game face.

He's in it, like – and then I'll be, like, down as I count down. It's, like, UFC Kansas City, four days or five days, X, Y, and Z, and all of a sudden it brings them back to saying, okay, I got today. First they're like, oh, I'll get there, what's going on? And now, you know, they're today, they're ready, you know. Anyways, this is like a daily thing I try to do because, you know, I drive in the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs and they would have like days to X Olympics.

And it makes, even if it's like 900, you're like, wow, it's there. It's not just out there, but yeah. Right. I like that countdown. Yeah. That's the thing that comes to everything else because it gives you a presence of mind. It gives you to refocus again. Because as you know, like, you know, if you don't have any goals and you don't have anything

in your face to stimulate, you don't really know where you're going. You don't even know why you're doing it sometimes. And then you get bored. And then you're like, no, I'll just get there when i'll crunch time like no man today's a gift it's gonna be gone the clock's ticking regardless of whatever you do in your life yeah you know daryl i think we'll end there thanks man thanks for coming on the show yeah thanks for having me yeah i appreciate it is there anything i thought you're gonna enter i was gonna jump in and be like where can people see you? Yeah.

What's your social media? Your websites? Anything like that? You know, Instagram is DarylCH, D-A-R-Y-L-C-H. And I'm at Studio 540 in Solana Beach. I'm there with Joel Tudor and, again, Rob Zeps that started that thing. I'm also at Physical Culture. You guys know. I'm also at Physical Culture. You guys know. I've seen you guys there.

A great group of guys with Tommy and all the crew there. And then I come up to Ruka here. Today at 10 o'clock, you'll see some different guys. I'm working with Tiffany Van Soos behind me. She's a glory world champ right now. She's one of the best strikers on the planet. So fun to watch her kick box. Oh, yeah.

She's unreal. This cute little mouse-looking girl, and she just blows things to pieces. Yeah. So we'll have Kylan in here a little later today. Usually I work with Bisman sometimes here. Like I said, you know, it's funny. This whole place, this whole side of this place was not here. Austin Armour, like, helped push this thing out.

He does all the advocate stuff. You've got Bryce over there doing a lot of pad work. He works with Cyborg. He's been out in thailand long time a long career muay thai but you know in 2004 um i had bj penn come out to olympic training center and uh first time i ever met the guy he was fighting matt hughes like a month later yeah and uh you know he came out we just beat we beat him up i mean we're wrestling he's not used to it but also the altitude he's coming from helo and we're out him up. I mean, we're wrestling. He's not used to it, but also the altitude. He's coming from Hilo, and we're out there just killers. I mean, our room was, he was, like, behind poles.

He said, man, I'm exhausted. I'm like, get over here, man. He's super quiet, super respectful. I love the guy. And, man, I worked with him, and then he submitted Matt Hughes. And, you know, my Olympic coach told him, Mo Mirpetrovic, he's a no-bullshit guy. I mean, you're late a minute you're gone you're like hey leave it you might be number one in the country you know one in the world he's like hey i'm sorry out here and it's funny he's uh

after he won you know he's like hey i just want to thank momir petrovic and momir's like what i don't know anybody and all of a sudden he's like you know he just told me he's like you got to be one crazy son of a bitch to do this fighting stuff you know and i think you know going from that and what pat tenori's done here at ruka you know i'm so blessed and thankful to be able to come in here um and they developed this stuff and also mckenzie and stuff you know is you know put in a good you know his whole system in there and he's doing a lot of art of breath stuff and that's another guy brian kenzie you guys and you've been around i have most respect for another crazy guy like myself but uh yeah man this place is awesome and this is what i spend a lot of my time here and um during the week uh come up here so yeah

that said thank you to ruka for for hosting us today uh we like doing shows here yeah no ruka sports great man they're doing they're they're really doing a human technology thing of development here but it's awesome. Yeah, awesome. Thanks, Darrell. Yeah, thanks for having me, guys. You bet.