Mark Bell's Power Project - EP. 436 - Phil Daru & Maureen Shea

Episode Date: October 19, 2020

Phil Daru is a 3x MMA award winning Strength & Conditioning Coach, and the owner of Daru Strong Performance center in Florida. He works with pro MMA champions among the likes of Dustin Poirier, Junior Dos Santos, and Joanna Jedrzejczyk. He is a competitive bodybuilder, strongman, powerlifter, and former professional MMA fighter. Maureen Shea is a 2x Women's World Boxing Champion with a professional record of 29-2 (13 KO’s), a boxing coach, speaker and commentator. Maureen was also the primary sparring partner for Hillary Swank in preparation for the film, “Million Dollar Baby”. Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Special perks for our listeners below! ➢LMNT Electrolytes: https://drinklmnt.com/powerproject Purchase 3 boxes and receive one free, plus free shipping! No code required! ➢Freeze Sleeve: https://freezesleeve.com/ Use Code "POWER25" for 25% off plus FREE Shipping on all domestic orders! ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $99 ➢Sling Shot: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast ➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ https://www.facebook.com/markbellspowerproject ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/mbpowerproject ➢ LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/powerproject/ ➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerproject ➢TikTok: http://bit.ly/pptiktok FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell ➢Mark Bell's Daily Workouts, Nutrition and More: https://www.markbell.com/ Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/ Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz #PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell

Hey everybody, welcome to Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast. Today's episode of the podcast is brought to you by FreeSleeve. And Seema, do you remember an archaic day before we ever used FreeSleeve? Yeah man, I remember like coming home after rough sessions in terms of the gym. It was really annoying because like after a few hours if my elbows would still be a little bit achy or if my knee would be acting up, I'd have to put some ice into a plastic bag, put some paper towel over it because it would leak all over me and then I'd have to put some ice into a plastic bag, put some paper towel over it because it would leak all over me. And then I'd have to put it on my joint. And then also for some reason, it just

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malleable it's not cold anymore this one free sleeve just throw it on like you said you put it on you forget about it next thing you know you feel better you guys need to upgrade your ice packs today by heading over to freesleeve.com at checkout enter promo code power 25 for 25% off and free shipping on all domestic orders yeah we dig deep. Goddamn, four counts? Right? That's how you're going to do it to me right now? I just got here. It's easy when he's on the other side of the table

and he's got the headphones on. Listen, I'm not Chad Wesley Smith, man. I'm coming for your ankles, man. And he's got an injury over there. Yeah, you're killing me. Can't do much right now. Dude, what happened?

So last year, December, I ended up tearing my ACL. I talked about that. But I was in jujitsu and getting out of a position pretty much. It was a De La Riva guard. And so what I did was I tried to push the guy's leg down and try to turn my knee out when it happened was my knee was stuck underneath his butt so it was it was in external torque I went to turn rotate heard the pop I was like damn here we go so I knew there was a long process but the problem was is that I had Ioana and Jaycheck Dustin Portier fighting like two months

later so I knew that I couldn't get surgery then. We saw you like, I think, like right around the time you got hurt, right? Yeah. So actually, I came here in November. We did a podcast. And then in January, we did a podcast in LA. And so right after that. So I was traveling, this and that.

And then I got the surgery booked. And then all of a sudden COVID hit. So now, you know, non-emergency surgeries were, and that literally was like the week I was going to get the surgery. They were like, we have to cancel it. So I'm like, damn right. So after that, you know, I was waiting, waiting, waiting. Finally, I was like, all right, man, I'm going to figure it out later on. And a guy by the name of Dr. Abasi, a ufc cage side doctor came to my gym just to

see the gym and he walked into the gym and i was like hey man you know what i have an acl tear i need to get it fixed so we set it up finally got it done and uh now i'm six weeks out from surgery so got the full acl rupture and then i had a slight meniscus tear because I was walking on it for a year almost. But we're slowly getting back. I feel like I'm progressing faster than usual. They say I'm like roughly about a month ahead of time. So I'm about two weeks to three weeks out from doing some plyometric drills, which is really like the end all. So once I can get to get to that, then we'll be good to go.

You have somebody helping you with programming for it? I mean, I know that you know a ton about it, but it might make sense to have someone else kind of take that over just so you don't have to think about it. Have you done that? Yep. I got a young lady by the name of Dr. Christiana Marin who's out of Fort Lauderdale. And she works with a lot of my fighters, works with a lot of Miami Dolphins players, NFL players. And so we came together and just formulated the program based off of what I need. The good thing is that she knows what I know. And the great thing is that we can converse together. I don't need to go there every day. I go there once a week. And honestly, it's a

lot more of like soft tissue release just for blood flow and just to get everything working properly. Right. A lot of times people, they neglect that and they don't do the proper. They don't produce what they need to because they just stay still. Right. The goal for me, as soon as I got out of the hospital was quad sets. Right. To increase the ability to contract my quads straight on my leg as much as i can and then work on flexion and extension every day pretty much so i would say right after i got out i started doing it and then you know they put a nerve block in so i couldn't bear weight on it which was an issue but i would say about two to three days after i was able to

ditch the crutches which is crazy as soon as i had feeling in it i started walking on it so now we're in like i said six weeks out i'm feeling pretty good you know a lot of uh especially grapplers got josh over here um a lot of grapplers are really scared of that entry because like not just not just for the way it happened to you, but like heel hooks, all that nasty crap, like ACLs just go. Um,

so with that being said, I saw you doing a lot of different types of stuff that I've never seen before on your Instagram to strengthen that. Like, what are some like simple things that grapplers should be maybe adding in or athletes should be adding in to help strengthen that or make make sure it's i mean a lot of it is going to be strengthening up the surrounding muscle right so you gotta strengthen up the hamstrings quadriceps making sure your glutes and your hips are locked in strain strong you know that's that's that's the issue is the reason why i didn't tear it like and weren't able to come back as as fast as I did was because of the fact that again my hamstrings were strong so a lot of guys don't have that ability or don't really work the hamstrings

so I think the hamstrings that have the quadriceps worked on efficiently you'll be good to go also making sure that your feet are strong right and stability in your feet support system is going to definitely help you there when I when I got it torn and I knew that it was going to be a process, I started working on it before I got surgery. So there was a large amount of time there where I could prehab and work on stability and work on things from a unilateral perspective so I could strengthen up the surrounding tissue. So you brought some muscle with you this time around, huh? Yeah, yeah, yeah. What happened? Did we intimidate you too much? Did I bring a leg breaker with you?

She's definitely my bodyguard in a sense, right? So this is Maureen Shea. She's a two-time world champion boxer. Been working with her for four years now. Yeah, so we are in the process of getting this title or more title back, so it's going to be good. Maureen, you want to talk a little bit more about it? Yeah, I mean, I've been boxing a long time and, you know, it was just

amazing for me. And like I said to you earlier, a lot of boxers have this, a lot of trainers have the old school mentality of strength and conditioning. And, you know, I always loved lifting. I always loved moving weight. My brother was a bodybuilder. My brother did powerlifting and I always looked up to him. He's 10 years older than me. And I always wanted to lift. And I always felt like this empowerment with the lifting that I felt equally with the boxing but it was just not really you know accepted in the boxing and you can't you know you can't lift heavy weight you're going to get slow like all those things and i love that phil did um he did a piece on his channel about like how to lift you know what i'm saying and that it doesn't make you slow lifting slow

weights slow makes you slow you know or heavy weight slow you know we're doing it with a purpose and functional functional movement and um you know so when heavyweight slow, you know, we're doing it with a purpose and functional, functional movement. And, you know, so when I when I linked up with Phil, I was like, this is like my dream. You know, this is like everything that I've ever wanted to do and understanding injury prevention, understanding functional movement, understanding the explosive power. And, you know, I'm a little bit older now. And I'm like, man, you put me in there with a 20 year old, a 25 year old, I'm ready to go mature muscle, emotional man, you put me in there with a 20-year-old, a 25-year-old. I'm ready to go. Mature muscle, emotional maturity, you know, just overall, I feel now probably the most well-rounded fighter I've ever felt in my life. And then, you know, some tricks of the trade, too. Yeah.

You know, some shit to kind of hurt people a little bit. Just a little bit. Yeah, just those youngsters, you slow them down a little bit. Yep, yep. Do you think that in some of your training with Phil, do you feel like implementing some of that explosiveness has made a huge difference, helped you become more explosive, or were you kind of explosive to begin with? No, definitely it's made a huge difference. It's more effective. You know what I mean? I feel like now I have a purpose to it.

I understand the control of my body. effective. You know what I mean? I feel like now I have a purpose to it. I understand the control of my body. I think that was probably the biggest thing is developing the muscle and then understanding how to use it and when to use it. And also, you know, it's, you know, boxing, like I told you before, it's two minute rounds, but I need to know when to distribute that, when to not, when to do just like volume and then when to be, you know, sit on my punches and really crack to cause the damage, you know? So it definitely helped me a lot. And just being self-body awareness, I think that's another part.

A lot of the things you saw in the video, warming up and things like that and being in that controlled state and having to hold my leg and be there, working those little muscles, those stabilizer muscles and understanding what their purpose is. And the other thing with Phil that I love,

it's not just, oh, I'm just not like just this body in there moving. I'm getting an education. I want to understand and I don't know if it's just being a female, I'm just not like just this body in there moving. I'm getting an education. I want to understand. And I don't know if it's just being a female, but I find that working with females, you know, I coached it too, that if we understand, we're able to apply better. So him teaching and the way that he explains it, I understand it. And then I'm like, oh, okay. So when I'm doing this in the weight room, I know exactly how this translates to the ring.

And then i can apply it and it's more effective do you guys feel you guys feel that uh if you know if someone is um if someone's already explosive that maybe the way that they lift maybe doesn't matter quite as much or what are some of your thoughts on that because you know sometimes people will say oh you know if you if you lift heavy it might slow you down But if someone's already explosive, maybe it doesn't matter quite the same way. Yeah, I'm looking at it as where's their strengths, where their weaknesses are, right? So I got a kid, a young kid. His name's Trap Francis.

Kid is super explosive, right? Undefeated. How many knockouts does he have now? I think six. Yeah, he's going to be a world champion. Multiple times, right? So for me, I got to slow him down. Right. Because he hurts himself.

His body isn't strong enough to withstand the amount of velocity that he produces. So he has a lot of those nagging injuries because of it. So I have to slow him down and work on isometrics or some quasi isometrics, working on strength development, really, than anything. With her, it was more she, she had a good strength base, but it was increasing her awareness. Like she talked about and then increasing the stability and the movement quality, because now I can see it when she's hitting pads, when she's in the ring, she's moving more efficiently. She's distributing her weight a lot more efficiently because she knows how to move. And that's good. When I have a guy like, uh right? Now, Jake is very explosive, but he's strong, too.

So now, okay, what do I got to do? I'm looking at where the weaknesses lie. So his conditioning needs to be brought up. So now we work on the conditioning, whether it be local muscular endurance, cardiac output, increasing aerobic capacity, whatever we need to do to get him ready to go for that particular fight. Now, he's fighting bare knuckle. So it's two-minute rounds, right? Wait, bare knuckle? Yeah.

You don't know what bare knuckle is? Come on, man. You got to get with it. That's how boxing started. You got to get with it, man. The Queensborough rules? The Queensborough rules. They still have those fights, though?

Well, it came back. Yeah, it just came back around. Well, they started a league. Very bloody. They have a few. Damn. Well, it also probably never went anywhere really right like it probably has been around forever yeah it's around they're marketing it more now

yeah now they actually have rules they have it they kind of put some uh some uh you know some pizzazz behind it and now we're like oh wow yeah i honestly didn't think it was gonna go anywhere but it's looking like it's taken off so we'll see and they said you know obviously there's there's it's a lot more bloodier there's a lot more cuts lacerations that are they wearing anything on their hands or is it just wrapped up so they do have like a type of of i don't want to say like it's not a glove it's like a padding that protects um the smaller bones and then there's the wrap and then there's you know the tape and everything um the thing that they started and it's really interesting.

David Feldman, actually, his father was a boxing trainer who trained seven seven world champions. And so he said, you know, I wanted to do this. You know, the Queensbury rules, if anybody knows them, you know, the gloves were put on the hands of the fighter to protect the hands of the fighter, not the head of the opponent. And so there's actually less concussions. of the fighter, not the head of the opponent. And so there's actually less concussions. This is what they're stating with proof and there's articles out there that there's less concussions and less injury

to the brain in this because when they get hit, they go out. And it's a similar thing with MMA, with the smaller gloves. There's more deaths in boxing and brain injuries in boxing because of the repetitive punches to the head. The big thing here is they say broken hands, broken hand and the cuts. And big thing here is they say broken hands, broken hand and the

cuts. And they say they have great physicians there that take care of the guys and the girls. There's females that are doing it too. But it's definitely starting to acquire a style of its own. I feel I actually managed Jake Boswick for this and I feel like he's going to fight

in November. And I feel like when I first saw this and I met with David Feldman about it, I was, this is perfect for Jake. You know, because he's now learning how to move his head. He's learning how to, you know, that cardio, that endurance. He looks like a bare knuckle fighter. He's perfect. And he's just the marketing around him. From head to toe.

His personality. Yeah. It's perfect. It makes a lot of sense. I mean, you know, professional football, you know, they've talked about like what to do about the concussions. And they can't really go backwards at this point. They can't, like, take the pads back off. Yeah. But that could be something that would help is to actually have less equipment, not more equipment.

Because the more equipment that you have on, the less regard you have for your body. And you're just going to come flying in and charge in. And, like you said, it would be very repetitive. And that's what we're seeing in boxing and some other sports. Does this tend to be a little faster? Because it looks super erratic. Is that just because the actual fighters you see there? Because when you're watching a boxing match.

Those two fighters are very aggressive. Two fighters. Okay. You know, sometimes, I mean, you're going to see them let off on each other, no doubt. Right? But yeah, it's a smaller. Well, I mean, it's round, first close it's a smaller kit it's it's well i mean it's it's round first of all they can't play off the ropes i don't know if um you guys know who

paulie malignaggi is you know paulie malignaggi was a multi-time world champion in boxing i you know he trained from brooklyn you know he's actually a friend of mine he fought artem lobov who's an mma fighter who's just on there the ball yeah it was yeah it was artem so when you saw artem come out where mma fighters are a little bit more, you know, wild, where Paulie was like more strategic. Watch what you say. Watch what you say. Well, no. Well, the striking.

Listen. All right. But yeah, so that was the fight. And Paulie, you know, came out trying to keep him away with the jab, you know, movement, trying to be a little bit more strategic where Artem was a little bit more coming in. And I don't want to say reckless, but it was. It was like it was a little bit reckless and a little bit like whatever shot he could land. You see how Paulie jumps back. He's trying to throw the jab trying to get in, get out. Cause whatever damage

he can and Artem's trying to get him. Artem's more comfortable in the clinch. So with the rules here with Bare Knuckle FC, you're allowed to grab behind the head. So grab behind the head and throw in the punches. Now a boxer is never comfortable in that position. And it's illegal in boxing. Paulie is also more of a tactician.

Yes, he's a boxer. He's not really a puncher. So you get to use your fingers and hands a little bit because you don't have a glove. Right? So you can kind of grab the guy a little bit. Behind the head. Behind the head and you can strike. Dirty boxing.

For sure. There's no on the elbow or on the waist or anything. It's more behind the head. But in this fight in particular, he knew, Artem knew, that Pauly was not comfortable inside. So if you see Pauly using his feints, using his bounces, using his timing, which a boxer is going to do more of, an MMA fighter is more comfortable on the inside because they know they can do it for the takedown. But they also have to be careful because they're used to getting the knees. So it's really interesting.

And when they make contact with each other every single time they're feeling it you know you can tell it looks a lot different than definitely unforgiving yeah it looks a lot different than boxing yeah the thing with uh one of our fighters like we talked about with jake is that he's he's super aggressive super aggressive i took him i've cornered him for three fights and and every fight he's super aggressive. So this should play to what he does. It's play to his strengths. So we'll see. As far as strength and conditioning is concerned, I feel like you're a little bit older of an ox right now,

but you said you're killing young cats. And I feel like it's probably just because strength and conditioning is, I don't know, more people are utilizing it more as athletes. I'm just wondering, how do you feel about that? Because you see a guy like LeBron James is 35 years old, just winning another championship, looking like he's, again, 25. You're killing it. How do you guys feel it's making a difference for older athletes? Well, I feel for me, a lot of it is more, um you know i've been in my body for a long time

and i kind of understand that and now i think injury prevention for sure and then also just being able to trust my movement and trust more of that like uh you know sitting on my punches more my legs are there they carry me throughout the whole fight because now i have the development in my legs and the strength to be able to have the stability. So I think that that's been huge for me. And it's good for the mind. I think mentally it's been huge because, I mean, there's only so much boxing you can do. And especially, like I said, I've been doing it for 15 years as a professional. I mean, I can always sharpen my skills and learning something here and there, but I'm pretty much already teaching old dog new tricks.

It's a little bit hard. So for me, I enjoy, sometimes I need a little bit hard so for me i enjoy sometimes i need a break from the boxing and i enjoy being in the weight room and i enjoy um i can visualize what i'm going to do in the boxing but i'm applying it in the weight room so i think mentally it's it's a good break too for the athlete to not always be you know like lebron always be on on the court you know because it gets monotonous when you've been doing it for so long and you're so good at what you do yeah you know so but in in i think for me too also setting the goals in the weight room you know if i have if in, in, I think for me too, also setting the goals in the weight room, you know, if I have, if I don't have a fight coming up, I know I can always be in the weight

room, bettering my body and strengthening my body for when that camp starts. And then, um, you know, I'm able to still stay in that mind state of setting those small goals and achieving. Cause I think any elite athlete needs to have those small goals. You know, like I told you before, you know, you're not going to keep a fighter, a lot of fighters after a fight, they want to go back to the gym and they're, you know, you're not going to keep a fighter. A lot of fighters after a fight, they want to go back to the gym. Are they like, oh, I'm right,

especially after a win. And then a lot of trainers have been like, no, you need a break. You need to stay home. It's like, why would you do that? They need to exercise this. It's more the mind than the body, you know? So being able to go into the weight room with Bill

and doing some restorative work, but still feeling like I'm achieving those goals, you know, has been really helpful mentally. So I think that's a big part of it as well that people don't really talk about. I think just learning how to flex your muscles is like so massively important and it's not really ever talked about. And I think when it comes to, you know, kind of sports specific type training or some of the drills that we see that you guys are doing, I mean, that's really what it's teaching you.

Essentially, I went through a posing session yesterday. We had a bodybuilder in the house, and he was showing me some stuff. And I'm very green. I don't know how to do it very well. So to try to keep everything, like, flexed all at the same time, you know, it's like, oh, you know, get your calves. And you're like, okay, calves, okay, got that part. And then it's like, okay, flex your quad, you know.

And then it's like try to do, like, a double bicep and then try to hold it and then you know try to yeah try to squeeze it a smile too yeah try to try to look jacked and then try to you know also not look like you're shitting your pants you know like kind of you got all these things going on at one time and you like let off one muscle and you kind of forget. But I found that just even with just learning how to flex from the time I was a kid, just in, you know, flexing your biceps and stuff has been really beneficial. And it had a great carryover into, you know, when I did a curl, then it would be more effective. If I learned how to flex my chest and learn how to flex my back, it made it a lot more effective when I went to do a bench press.

And so I think that it's interesting because someone's like, hey, I'm going to teach you how to run, that they never really talk about, hey, this is how you flex your hamstring. And it's like, how come we're not starting there? Yeah, yeah. It's intermuscular coordination, so it's like the starting point of what we want to do, right? We want to make sure that they have that balance, that coordination. The ability to contract and relax too is very important whereas like with the fighters they need to have that ability to have that rate of force development put in and the baseline of it all would be again being able

to contract first so we start them off like that and then we can enhance their ability to relax be movable you know be mobile and then contract on demand, which is really good. And I think that that's one of the things that's funny that you talk about that because I know for me with my deadlift, like my lats, I mean, when I'm boxing, I'm relaxed. I only turn it on for a second. So to have to stay in that position of keeping my lats on, I noticed even with my bench, I would always lose my lats because I'm always rounding forward. So by strengthening my posterior chain and being aware of having my lats on, you know,

even with my punches, you know, it really helps because we have to know, like Bill said, when to contract and when to relax. But if you don't know how to contract, then what's the point? You can maybe have better posture. Oh, yeah. Overall. Standing and just boxing in the different positions that you get into, period, right? Yeah, you get dysfunctional patterns built in through fighting, unfortunately.

So we have to make sure we balance out the body accordingly. And that's why I put a huge emphasis on posterior chain development, making sure that they're balanced out, not taking away from their game, right? You got to ride that fine line, but again, still making sure that they are appropriately working on the things that they need to,

especially from a muscular standpoint. And a lot of it's going to be coming from the hamstrings, the glutes, the lats, everything there. Because, again, you're going to balance out the body more. Maureen, has some of this surprised you, like where you started training with Phil and you're like, holy fuck. 100%. Like you felt like a superhero, like you knocked a bag down off the chains. 100%. It's so funny because every time I post like a new PR, you know,

and then when I went and I actually, when I got your belt and I was just like, this is like, so like, I'm so excited because I love hitting those. I never thought that I'd be, you know, deadlifting 295 pounds or, you know, trap bar deadlifting 305 or yeah, this is weird to have your body do that, right? Well, you know what it is? It's the control. And like here, I love when I remember when i first was squatting with phil or first dead lifting the grind the grind when i first pull and i have everything on and everything that we've worked on is on and i'm pulling and he's like you've got to grind through

that you can't try to lift it fast because in boxing it's speed you know i'm saying speed power like speed power the turn of the punch but here i'm like holding it and i'm like lifting and that moment of that grind it's like i got this and it's like i said the mental it's it's powerful it's kind of funny too because you're like i'm fucking trying and it's not moving anywhere or it's just barely moving you're like but he's like keep doing it how long is this gonna take yeah and that was one thing that i that i seen with the boxers were that if it wasn't coming up fast it wasn't coming up you know so we had to get there we had to back them off a little bit because some of them are going to be more explosive and powerful than they are strong.

So that's why when we look at weaknesses, I'm looking at that too. How well can they strain? And again, that's going to set the baseline to increase their power production going further. When did you discover your legs? Because before the podcast, you were saying you had eight knockouts before you were actually punching using your legs so you know i think i think when i started olympic lifting i i was using because i was doing um i was snatching and i you know and i think um that's when i did i worked with the strength and conditioning coach um vincent sullivan who's out of mount vernon uh new york and he did a lot with football players so he used a lot of his

strength and conditioning like he didn't know like how to just programmed for me for boxing, but he didn't train fighters. So he was like, alright, let me think about it from a standpoint of what do you guys use? Strength, power. And I think that's when I realized when I had to squeeze my glutes and kind of come up. That was a big part of it. I trained with him for a couple years. I think I was too young and immature to really understand.

But immediately when I got with Phil, I was like, oh my gosh, I remember this. But now we're developing more of my glutes and I know that I have to, you know, my core. That's another thing too. Like the core was so important. And the only reason I had a strong core was because I give body shots and I want to be able to take what I could give. So I want to make sure that my core was strong. I didn't know about stability or like, I didn't know my core was tied to brace. I didn't even think about that. Or even when I was fighting, i was fighting it just came naturally and i just said okay i don't want to have to take this punch because i've been hit to the body once and i froze my legs froze i mean it was inspiring

and i literally just stopped and i was like oh my god i can't move my brain's like move my body's like no we're gonna stay right here so um that those body shots it's like a four or five second delay to yeah guys know what i'm talking about when they get hit the nuts it's like a four or five second delay, too. Guys know what I'm talking about when they get hit in the nuts. It's like you got hit, you know it's bad news, and then it's like one, two, and then you're like, oh. It just all of a sudden kills you. Body shots are the same way. It's like four seconds later where you're just like, oh, my God, that fucking hurt really bad. Your body shuts down.

Can't do anything. But if you saw the movement, that bounce and stuff like that like knowing because I used to bounce with no purpose I'd bounce because it would set my rhythm now I bounce with a purpose and I'm able to pivot I'm able to step to the

you know like a quick step demonstrate on him and see my form I'll clear out yeah so it helped with angles and all that stuff so but discovering my legs it just changed my game

and it made me like I said the mental aspect of it so much more confident going into a fight, knowing that if my arms got tired, I still got my legs. And I use my legs a lot. I'm a boxer puncher, so I'm very comfortable on the inside. But now I can move around, and then I can sit and bang if I want to, and then I can go back out. So it gives me that freedom to say, oh, I'm in control at all times. Is that something you see in boxing often?

Athletes not being able to use their legs and just throwing from the body? I think females, there's a lot of that with the females. Because, you know, you understand, like, again, boxing, you know, females are just now coming onto the scene and understanding. And women weren't introduced until the Olympics, until 2013 in boxing. Yes, a lot of people don't know that. So I didn't have the opportunity to go to the Olympics. I turned pro in 2005. So, you know, now seeing the development and it's still a little bit different, but they're

starting to, and I love that they understand the importance of strength and seeing the legs and women like myself, when they see me do a deadlift and lift 295 and then they see me, you know, boxing and moving and they're like, oh, you're not slow. I'm like, no, I'm not. Because I'm, it's like functional training. And they're like, oh. And then a lot of these women now are like, hey, she does this. I want to do this.

Because they see the progression. And I'm glad that I can kind of open the eyes a little bit of a lot of these, hopefully, trainers and these female fighters to want that. You know, and even just for the longevity of sport. You know, because I'm 39 years old i'm not embarrassed to say that you know what i mean and i'm in the best shape it's like oh you look great i'm like yeah well i take care of myself but now i know i can take care of my body you know yeah and this looks terrible you're in a belt squat while hitting pads let me tell you something i i wanted to throw up so bad this looks insane so i was like is this mental i'm like did i do

something wrong you know um i love i you know the bell squat the reverse hyper and the ghr are probably my favorite pieces of of machine and i guess he's taught me well because those are my favorite and i'm like oh whenever the reverse hyper like i was like whenever something's hard i'm like i'm gonna get this so with the reverse hyper i'm doing like three or i've done like three plates six plates total and some of the guys are struggling the fighters the boxers and i'm like plates on the reverse hyper. I'm doing like three or, I've done like three plates, six plates total and some of the guys are struggling, the fighters,

the boxers. And I'm like, Six plates on the reverse hyper? Yeah, I do three and three. Jesus! And I do it for 20 reps. Yeah,

so 100 total. But I understand how to use my body and I don't even know because I, until the fighters, because like I said, I was one of his first,

you know, boxers to, well I was his first to be able to, like, consistent fighter. And then the boxers. Well, I was his first to be able to be a consistent fighter. And then the boxers would come in, the guys that are bigger than me. And they're like, one of the guys is like, how is Maureen? He's like a cruiserweight. He's like, how is she lifting more than me?

And I'm like, this is great. Finally, the girl can do what the guy can't do. You know, yet. Now he's doing more than me. I talk shit to him all the time. Come on, man. Like, look at her. Fucking 190 pounds.

Let's get it going. How does someone keep their explosiveness? You know, if you are training heavy, you know, we do hear it all the time. But she's training heavy and she's able to still keep it. Is it because you're practicing both? You know, is it because you're working on speed and strength kind of together, I guess? Mark, you know this, right? You already know the question or the answer to the question.

We work conjugate and we work dynamic effort mixed in there. So, again, I put an emphasis on the focus points of what they need at that particular time, especially if they're getting closer to the fight, then we're obviously going to be more along the line of velocity. So we're going to be working more explosive strength, speed strength. And then throughout the year, you know, depending on if they do have a fight, if they're off camp, if we're working GPP, I'm still going to do some type of explosive movements. So it is going to, we're still going to be doing med ball throws. We're still going to be doing jumps. If they have that base of GPP, we're going to be doing that so i start off that you know depends

on who i have like maureen she's been with me for a long time so now we can just get her going throughout the years so we run the conjugate pretty much all year round until she has a fight then i'll go into a transition phase where she'll be doing some gpp is uh max effort stuff straight up max effort stuff is it for them for the boxers, because they've been with me so frequently. Yeah. So we'll go even with the max singles. She hits PRs every week, you know. But, you know, it does depend on the individual.

Like my MMA guys aren't as frequent with me. So we'll do threes and fives. Sometimes I'll even just do a standard block. We'll do juggernaut pretty much. I've worked that with them. And I'm actually transitioning a lot of that over to the MMA guys guys because i am seeing that i'm now because i have my own spot i'm able to put out you know bring who i want in to be honest with you and work with the people that i want and so now i have an understanding of their schedule where before it was like 60 fighters

guys coming in i got to be ready at all times and a lot of these guys are taking fights on short notice so that's why the conjugate was so beneficial for me now with them i know that they're strong they have that base now we can go ahead and push the envelope a little bit more obviously in a safe manner making sure that they are appropriately in the right position and making sure that they have the structural integrity to withstand that load. And it'll take a while to adapt, right? Like at first when they start doing some of the max effort stuff, maybe they are kind of fatigued in their training. Maybe their training is off for a week or two. How long does that usually take some of these fighters?

What do you mean, after a fight? Just to kind of start to adapt to the program that you start to put them on. I mean, it does take a minute. It does, I would say, at least a couple months for them to really understand it. So I'll start off doing those threes and fives, working on some AMRAP sets. And then again, we're just increasing the technical efficiency of the lift. So I choose usually four to six lifts that we can alternate throughout the time frame. Sometimes if I'm doing threes and fives, I'll keep keep that week by week and i won't vary it all the time now if i have uh somebody

like maureen i can vary it every every week so again we'll be doing box squats we'll be doing rack pulls we'll be doing sumo deadlifts we'll be doing trap bar deadlifts you know anything that's going in with switch bars anything that's going to enhance the force production that we need to but i would say about two months is really when we get to see them start to come into their own and I can really push the envelope a little bit more. And I think that's scary for a lot of fighters because I know it was scary for me when I was like, this is not good for me. I can't box. I can't move my leg. Not that I can't move, but it was like, I feel this, I feel that.

But I think like for any fighters that are listening, that, that are going to, that are contemplating or wanting to go in, I say do it and trust the process because i found so much um it's just great you know and it wanted me to stay kind of like in the weight room and stay strengthening those things because not only is it good for my fighting but it's good for my overall well-being you know physically you know and and i you know i have less injuries you know i mean i've only been injured um you know once in boxing really and had to have a surgery that was it it. And, you know, I had like 33 fights, you know, and only one serious injury. You know, so I feel that like being consistent, you know, with the strength and conditioning and understanding the importance of body awareness and working those muscles, I think has really helped me to stay injury free and being smart.

Are you at all, because because you've had 33 fights, you fight a lot, are you worried at all about getting hit in the head too much, or is it just because you're so strong, you're able to like... She's got good defense. She's got good defense? I think that was, yeah,

my head movement has been something that I've been complimented on since the beginning, and I watched a fighter by the name of Arturo Gatti, and even though Arturo was still a warrior inside there, his head movement and his, you know, we talked a little bit about that, like with Mike Tyson, how it was just so unique. And I learned to take, I watched male fighters coming up because there weren't many females and the females didn't move the way that I felt I could move. So I watched Roy Jones, you know, I watched, you know, you know, even Tyson, you know, throwing his left

hooks. My left hook was always my best punch because I knew I could come around, you know, even Tyson, you know, throwing his left hooks. My left hook was always my best punch because I knew I could come around, you know, and come around and then rip it from the floor. You know, but I think watching Arturo or watching even like older fighters, Pernell Whitaker, you know, that movement and making their styles kind of my own. So I'll do things where I'll sit on the ropes and I'll swing on the ropes because people forget the ropes are there for a purpose. They're loose for a reason. So why don't you use them? So I'll lean on them and I'll lure an opponent on. And I'm okay because a lot of girls fall for it anyway. Even my sparring partners that know,

oh, I'll literally put myself on the ropes and I'll just stay there. I'll be like, all right, come on. And then when I do it, I'll sit, I'll swing, and then I'll snap. And they always get hit with the left hook. And then I pivot them, I pivot out, or I'll turn them and put them on the ropes.

Learning how to be present in the moment and just set up your punches. So I think the defense part of it, you know, but obviously, listen, I knew going into the sport, maybe not when I was younger, but I understand now, especially at my age and knowing that I don't have to do this, I want to do this, and really owning my why. And people ask, like, why do you do this?

I'm like, because I can and I'm good at it and I'll stop when I'm ready. And that's a big thing with fighters i think that you know they kind of like oh they don't they don't stop when they're supposed to and i don't want to be plus i have amazing people around me between my boxing coach derrick santos i've got you know with phil and i'm very grateful that i have um these people around me that and my manager too who i've been with since i was 21 i know that that's going to be um... This is a good fight because she was an MMA fighter. She was very awkward, so she threw punches and I was kind of like,

I had to use my timing. This was actually when I was training in Oxnard, California. This was before Phil. See, I leaned into that right hand and I stayed there. Doing the ball slams, he has a left hook. The ball slams now are throwing the balls. I pivot right back. I don't leave my right hand out there.

See, I'm leaving that hip. That's my hips. How old were you in this one? I was 34. 34, I think. Yeah, that was in Oxnard, California. I'll show you later. Huh?

I'll show you later. Yeah. Because then I came. Well, it's ironic because I also, I was injured. I got injured. And then I met Phil. And I said, and then coming back from that injury. Because like I said, I was injured. I got injured. And then I met Phil. And I said, and then coming back from that injury, because like I said, I had one injury my whole career.

So now I'm like sitting here going, I don't know. And I was told by the surgeon that did my surgery that I'd never box again. Yeah. Oh, yeah. He said, that's it. I'll tell you, that's a whole other podcast. Because that was like, I was mentally completely screwed at that point. Because I'm sitting there going, he's like, well, what level are you?

And as a female, I'm like, what do you mean, what level am I? Like, I'm a two-time world champion. So long story short, with my mental resilience and my self-belief and faith that I have, and I know God has a purpose in my life, I'm like, nope, I'm supposed to be here. And meeting him was a gift. And then going forward, I'm like,

all right, I'm just with the wrong people. Or it's time for me to move on. Not the wrong people, but it's time for me to move on not the wrong people but it's time for me to move on from where i was and that's when i i moved to florida yeah even in this fight like especially in the later rounds you can see your head movement is still like it's insane even before you met phil but like she can't really touch you even in the later rounds yeah yeah i i got her timing plus i kind of use my used my movement to kind of deter them. They're like, where's she going to come with? Now, I use more of my angles.

But this was a... I think this fight went... I think it was eight rounds. I think, yeah, but it was... She was a tough girl, very tough. Like I said, has an MMA background along with a boxing background. She trained with Holly Holm.

Holly Holm was a very decorated fighter. Noheme Dennison, I had a lot of respect for her after the fight. I said to her, I was like, you're a warrior, but those are the girls that I want to fight. See, she did the little shake like Holly. She came out, I was like, oh, here we go. Because you don't know with the rhythm change where the punches are going to come from.

Phil, have you found it easier now that you have your own spot and then you have some other fighters doing really well? Have you found the mental side of it, like trying to convince people and maybe someone like Maureen, she's in there doing something and they see her doing it

and they kind of just mimic her and you don't have to explain as much. Do you feel like that side of it has maybe gotten a little easier for you maybe? Definitely. That culture. Yeah. Well, I have my own equipment now.

I have my own space. And I'm able to take my time with the athletes that I have. Instead of me back-to-back-to-back with hours on hours of training, now I set the time up to where I need to. That's a wild amount. I remember you saying you had like 60 fighters. Yeah. We looked at the roster the other day because I was like taking some off and putting some on.

I had like 62 at one point. So I'm like, okay. Now we dropped it down. We have 23. So it's not as bad. But I can group them up according to what they need, you know, or according to where they're at in camp or if they're off camp. So now I have guys coming in. They're off camp.

They're in the off camp group. When they're in camp, they're in the in camp group. When they're in camp, they're in the in camp group. And then for the boxers, we mix it up. So we'll go boxers, have their own group, and they got a pretty significant group there. This is my MMA crew here.

And so these two are actually fighting in a couple of weeks. So that's Brendan, he fights for the UFC, and then Phil Hoffs, who just got a knockout win in the Contender Series. He just got a contract with the UFC. He's fighting next week.

And these guys are fucking insane. Like, this dude here, he could play in the NFL if he wanted to. But, super strong, jacked, you know. Humble, sweet guy. Like, killer. But just a sweet, like, really, really nice guy. What was he doing right there? Just push-ups?

Yeah, right. He's pushing the earth down. So that was potentiation clusters, triphasic method. So I'll utilize that. You guys had Cal on. So basically what we'll do is we'll do a four-week triphasic block of potentiation clusters. All these people are moving really well. Yeah, not bad for

mma guys yeah you just mentioned cal do you guys uh implement rpr methods for training um i did a while back uh i'm more so deeper into frc and then also doing some pri stuff too as well where we're increasing respiratory rate making sure that they can breathe efficiently and then that's going to set up their postural alignment. But as far as that goes, not so much. Obviously, I use a lot of oxygen advantage when it comes down to getting the body ready for whatever stresses when it comes to conditioning.

I think that that's helped us a lot with the breath holds. You can probably attest to that. We did that pre-fight. We had a video. He did it. So for me, going into a fight, that first round, you're always you know but doing the breath holds i felt like i was able to ease in to the fight so much easier because my body was already primed with i didn't have to go into that like oh god

the first round even just my anxiety all of it you know i'm saying like i just went that for me the mental was so like because you know you feel that that feeling before the fight because you're doing the breath holds and i understand the importance of really pushing that to the point of like all right i really have to do this right because then when i went in that was the first time i experienced it like literally minutes before getting in the ring and i'm like these are amazing i'm like i wish i've had these you know but now knowing going forward i have that because it i was just so much more relaxed in the fight because once it started and she came at me I'm like oh my body reaction didn't affect my mind they worked more together if that makes sense can we please talk about that

because I remember before my fight with Chad I was texting I'm like a Phil tell me exactly what I need to do right now in terms of breathing yeah once that match I wasn't tired at yeah yeah it was crazy yeah I mean essentially you're trying to make your body cope with CO2 buildup. Right. So we're increasing the ability to take in oxygen, utilize it efficiently. And then from there, from a physiological standpoint, you're driving blood flow to the working tissue alongside the mental side of it where you're like, OK, I can cope with not having a lot of air. So, again, you got the physical, physiological and then the psychological aspect of it whereas basically what i'll do is i'll do five or i'll do two sets of five breath

holds right and i'll do it maximally with paces so you blow breathe in blow all your air out hold your nose hold your breath walk for as long as you can and honestly you want to get up to a large number what'd you get up to when you did it in In terms of paces? Yeah. I think like 50 or 60. Okay, so I got a guy by the name of Jared Gordon, and this guy is phenomenal, and he's got a crazy past. I'll talk about that later, but yeah. But he fights in the UFC. He's got 110 paces. Yeah.

God dang. I didn't know that. Yeah, 110. He's got the record. He did it yesterday. Oh, wow. He did it the other day. Wow.

Yeah, so I i mean you can see that okay he can go he can move efficiently because he's walking efficiently with the proper gait obviously you know it's different when you're shadow boxing or moving but again he still is able to cope with that air hunger which is very important especially when you're getting you know when you're in grappling situations and you know how it is and fucking chad's probably big shit trying to lay on top of you or something like that right yep so you have to be calm in those situations right and and practicing that and adapting to that particular stimulus is going to enhance the quality of outputs long long term and and we do it i like to do it pre-training and also pre-fight.

So that's something you implement often with all your fighters, not just before a fight, but like before training sessions. Yeah, yeah, we'll do it. I know people like, so we're being a little vague here, but maybe this is something we can give to the people. Exactly what does somebody do to do that? As far as the procedure? Yeah, the procedure of the breath holds. So I'll start off, well, first we'll do breath of fire which is basically one second in one second out and that's to stimulate the sympathetic nervous system so we're trying to increase the the ability to have

energy right for the for the training itself and then after that we would do our breath hold so you would take like i said a normal breath in a normal breath out hold your nose hold your breath walk for paces again try to increase your paces over time you're going to do that as soon as you cannot hold it enough blow all the air out do it again repeat it five times then we take about a minute to two minute break they'll shadow box nasal breathing only so now we're increasing again we're bringing down that stimulus bringing them back down to parasympathetic so it's a rise and fall right in a sense and they're still able to be functional they're still able to be technical even when they have that that limited air supply right and then again we repeat it five more times and then studies have shown and then through my experience we've increased the ability to have that energy output to repeat every time.

And again, you're looking, like I said, from a physiological side, we're trying to increase the blood flow, trying to increase oxygen utilization, bringing ATP to the working tissue. And Maureen, what have you noticed as a fighter? Because when I started learning about some nasal breathing stuff, and I don't probably know as much as you guys but when i started doing that it made a big difference mentally for me so for you yeah like were you did you have dysfunctional breathing before you started doing this stuff and how did it change for you i have a deviated septum oh 20 breathing capacity like barely in this nostril so the fact that i can still do that and have to breathe like the control and going into the fight with this still like this. And this happened in a sparring session when I was like, I don't know, before I turned pro.

I got headbutted and my nose went to the right. And then repeatedly in fights and stuff like that. Even after that fight that you saw there, I had to go the next day and get it adjusted. And it's like, okay, it's still there. I'll get a new nose when I'm done. But how do I cope with that? You know, while I'm still, you know, and I think that the nasal, like doing those kinds of breath holes and forcing it in a non-pressured situation.

So practicing them in the gym and knowing that I can mentally when I go into the fight, I'm like, no, no, I know what this is. But I wanted to say, I think I felt it in the fight, but I think when we did stadiums and we did breath holes, because stadiums, I mean, they suck, but I love them. But when we did up and down at the FAU stadiums that we do it, he'd have us do breath holes between our sets of stair runs. And that really like, and only nasal breathing. And I'm like, oh my God, because it's your whole body.

And you're trying to focus on stepping and not falling and all this stuff. But being able to control the breath and calming my mind, really, I think that's the biggest part. The anxiety part of it where I'm just like, you're here, you're in control, you have oxygen, you're not going to die. There's oxygen everywhere. You know, I think that helped too with the anxiety aspect and the mental part of it for a fight. What's PRI? You mentioned PRI. I don't know what that is. help too with the anxiety aspect and the mental part of it um for a fight what's pri you mentioned pri i don't know what that is the postural restoration institute is basically for me i'm just starting out in it so i'm not gonna go deep like i'm an expert in it so i'm actually getting

certified in it as soon as i'm done with the certification yeah but we'll talk more about that next time but for the most part i'm not gonna go oh yeah i know everything no i got you but yeah definitely i'm learning it i think it's something that was brought to me by christiana marion my my physical therapist and she was like you know this is definitely going to help your your athletes out if you can teach them how to breathe into the diaphragm appropriately and we're talking more deep into detail right this is more from a from a uh not from a physiological, but more for like biomechanical. So enhancing that ability, like I said, I have a couple of fighters that have that dysfunctional breathing pattern built in because just of years of trauma and not knowing how to breathe properly. So if I can do that, if I can get that done, not from just the the physiological side but from the biomechanical side

then we're going to be in a good good position to just be more successful down the line is that some of the stuff where you're like blowing up balloons and stuff like that yeah yeah i have uh well christiana she'll do that so i think it's like late 90 90 and blow into the i mean it's it's good because you get to understand to breathe and utilize that diaphragm appropriately. I had my wife do it because she has spinal althesis, which is the same thing that Sean has. So I was like, okay, when I work with Sean, I'm like, this is perfect because I'm dealing with it every day with my wife. So we work on that type of breathing. I think it's a good tactile cue for sure to increase the ability to breathe diaphragmatically.

Yeah, I know Coach House is a big fan of it. I don't know if you, do you know Coach House? Yeah, he's a big fan of it. And he was doing a super training like a couple years back. And I was just kind of looking at him funny. And he's like, Bell, he's like, don't even give me that shit. He's like, everyone's going to be doing this soon enough. He's like, everyone's always a couple years behind you know yeah and here we are talking about it right now

he's definitely a legend in the strength and conditioning he's amazing man i would like to meet him if i could man it'd be great but and he's close to me too he's in carolina so yeah he wouldn't be too far yeah i have greg hardy who worked with him i always ask greg like how was he's like he's just like you he like, he's trying to kill me. This fighter you mentioned with the crazy paces, you mentioned something about his past. You said he wants to go, so I'm curious. I mean, I'll let him, I actually want,

maybe we can get him on the podcast. He's got a great story. Right now, they're doing a documentary on him. I think it's going to be on ESPN 30 for 30. So we'll see, hopefully. I don't want to speak out of and I think it's going to be on ESPN 30 for 30. So we'll see. Hopefully, I'm not, I don't want to speak out of turn,

but that's where we're going to. And again, just when you're talking about triumph and overcoming obstacles, this kid has done that, you know,

and then some, you know, so I'll let him speak on it more. I didn't want to go too crazy on it, but just say, to see where he's at,

just like with this young lady here, to see where they're at, you know, same me i've been through my past you guys know you've done your research right i look at it i'm like yesterday listen listen yesterday i was able to get my whole crew to go first class to fly out first so you know like it's it's a great feeling so i'm like i'm sitting there and I'm like, I'm looking. There's only one problem, though. Go ahead.

There's no turning back. There's no turning back. There's no turning back again. I can't go back downhill. You can't sit with the peasants ever again. That's true, right? Oh, we're going to get hate after this one. But again, I guess I put it in my mind like, oh, my knee, though.

My knee. I need a lot of space. I remember when I was booking the flight, I was like, so this is the problem. And he's like, no. I put it in my mind like, oh, my knee, though, my knee. I need a lot of space. I remember when I was booking the flight, I was like, so this is the, and he's like, no. I'm like, okay. I was, but it's good to have that ability to do that, you know. And that was part of the reason why I do what I do, you know. And it's not just to help myself. It's to help everybody around me that truly look to me to help them.

I just want to say something about Phil, too. Like you said, I've overcome stuff, but people that appreciate that. I appreciate. We tell each other all the time how grateful. I'm so grateful for you. Thank you for including me in your journey and in your life because I don't take that lightly. I've had people, the same thing. That's when you know you have the right people around you when they show gratitude.

And I think that's something important that a lot of people forget that, you know, I'm, you know, everything's happening and we're doing so great. And the gym's going good and everything's growing and building. And I always knew that was going to happen working with somebody like Phil. But now it's like you have to stop and realize like what it took for him to get here and why you're here. Why am I? Because I deserve that. And I'm worthy of that, too. But I'm grateful. Like I'm always grateful for every opportunity and especially even at my age and still being able to be in boxing and where women are going.

I'm grateful. And Maureen, before we actually got on the podcast, you were mentioning how and Mark was even mentioning how like men get into boxing for a different reason. Like you said that you noticed something about women getting into boxing. What was that exactly? So, like I said, I think anybody that gets into combat sports, there's something inside because I said, we're a little crazy. You know, we're a little crazy. I'm like, I punch people in the face for a living and I enjoy it.

Like, that's a little crazy. I'm definitely off. I definitely, you know, but I embrace it. And I think with women, it's so we're so much more emotionally charged, you know, that it's so not common um especially when i first started there was like a handful of female boxers and not many and we were considered an attraction i'm like how come nobody can just see us they don't just get it you know what i mean we're not seen we're just like considered just like a sideshow you know and um you know i think that comes with the

overcoming and maybe personalities and i know for me me, I actually was in an abusive relationship when I found boxing. I went to the gym to better myself for my abuser. I thought I was fat and ugly and all the time. And I posted about it today, my low self-esteem. And I went to a fitness gym and then I went to the back and there was a boxing ring. And right there, I was like, oh, wow.

Like I told you, I only saw Tyson and Holyfield. And when Tyson bit Holyfield's ear, what resonated with that was not the boxing. It was the emotion that Tyson had. So I connected with the emotion, not so much the skill, you know, or the athleticism. It was like, oh, my gosh, like not that I've ever wanted to bite somebody's ear, but I felt that uncontrolled rage and that anger and that just displaced emotion. And so when I went back there and I found it, it just helped me so much to kind of channel my energies because boxing is very unforgiving. And, you know, boxing literally became the architect that rebuilt me and taught me things that my parents couldn't teach me, you know, and it was it was tough lessons. But I value that. And I see now a lot of women are starting to gravitate to the sport for similar reasons, you know, but women are also developed starting to accept their athleticism and their abilities. And we are created different, men and women. But there's things that women have that are special and that the men can't do.

And men have things that women can't do. And that's okay. And I think embracing our individuality as human beings is so important. And learning how to apply that and make it exciting and learn and grow and heal. I think healing is a big part of it. And I know some people are like, how do you heal from like, unless you've been in combat sports,

I'm sure you can, you know, there's things you go through and overcoming those moments and discovering the true self in those moments where you're in a dark place or you're in a low place. And I just literally posted this morning about self-worth and self-esteem on my Instagram about that moment.

And it was a picture of me at the track and you could see it on my face and you could see there's actually sweat dripping from my skin, my, my, my chin. And I'm like looking and I don't, I mean, I know I was like, man, like I got to do this. I can do this. And finding that, that digging deep inside of you to say you're good, you know, and you know, sharing that with people and discovering within myself, it just made me so much stronger and able to tackle anything in life.

It's hard to exercise your mind without doing what you've mentioned, you know, without, you know, putting yourself through something physically. And then you mentioned physical abuse. And then it's interesting that you choose another form of controlled physical abuse, you know, kind of on your own will. And sometimes with a coach, it's just, it's kind of interesting the way that that sort of balances itself out. But I always find a lot of this to be really interesting because I think as people that do stuff physically, we don't have the ability to say, hey, I think maybe you can get the same thing from music or I think you get the same thing from reading or I think you get the same thing from writing.

But I would say that I would be open to that idea because people just might love that as much as we love getting punched in the face or punching somebody else in the head or whatever whatever it might be you know so I think that you know for I would love to see everyone do something physical because I don't think they maybe can comprehend what it can actually do for your mind and there's a lot of science behind that and stuff like that, too However, I think that you know, you might be able to get there through some other means but you need to find you need to Have something you have something that you really love something that you that feels like it gives you purpose

I think stepping out of your comfort zone is a big part of it I was definitely uncomfortable walking to the back of a gym with all these male killers in an abusive relationship And there was something that pushed me to do that you know it's the same thing i think just stepping out of your comfort zone and just saying you know what just show up just show up and see what happens you know and you'll know once you learn how to trust yourself and understand the signs and then i mean i was very fortunate and i've trained with high level um men and i've discovered and and built relations with a lot of strong women who I can relate to. I just had a conversation yesterday with a young lady who we just met

but we have so much commonality. She's younger than me. She's 27. We had so much commonality in sharing our stories of overcoming and she asked me questions and I asked her questions and just growing together and the same thing with men. Phil and I have had such in-depth conversations about life and living and how we apply sport or whatever our passion is, business, you know, to that.

And it's just it's a beautiful thing when you can communicate that and be able to be vulnerable in those moments and grow. You mentioned sparring. And I'm curious, like when you started, you started. How old are you when you started boxing? I found boxing at 17. So I walked to the back of that gym when I was like 17, 18 years old. And the sports obviously continue to grow in terms of women's boxing. But did you have struggle finding sparring partners?

Like, I feel like you probably had to spar with some dudes for a while. Oh, still does. Still is. Yes. I remember it was very difficult. And I used to spar my coach back then. And then it was hard. And, you know, and I also had some run-ins where some guys didn't have the control.

I've worked with some real great guys that really worked with me. And I had to remember, you're not going to knock them out, Maureen. Just because they're men. And it wasn't that I wanted to. It was just learning how to control and how to be. But the guys were so good with the guys I worked with. But then I definitely had that side of the guys that I hit them with a good shot. And they're like, oh, no. And now, I i i mean i got hit that's the body shot i took was

from a guy oh and i froze my soul oh right my soul plex it was a good shot and i was like and i literally was like but he didn't capitalize on it thank you know but i was like all right i got you now yeah but then like you know ego played because this is a gleason's gym in brooklyn you know where i trained for like eight years and I'm just like, I'm just like frozen. I was like, all right, don't,

don't, again, like I said, ego, I'm like, don't go down. You're good. Just try to walk.

And I'm like, I mean, I looked physically like I was like hobbling, trying to like, I'm like, no, I got this. My jab was like this.

I'm like, I'm throwing it. But, um, you know, but then there were guys that, you know, they just,

they don't know, you know what I'm saying? I don't want to say that a lot of them, maybe some of them wanted to show me something, you know, but maybe, but I think some of them just didn't have the control and don't know you know i'm saying i i don't want to say that a lot of them maybe some of them wanted to show me something you know but maybe but i think some of them just didn't have the control and didn't know but that's probably another reason why i have such a good head movement um i don't i was like you know what i'll just move my head but i've also had females in there that i've sparred with that i'm like we're not fighting this is a sparring session like you're not gonna get paid you're not getting paid for this you're not gonna win you know what i'm saying

and that's where you have to kind of have that like emotional maturity to be like you know i've sparred at wild card i've gone through that where it's like a show and i'm like all right as long as i know what i'm walking into but it definitely was hard um now i've worked with some really great sparring partners and and mma fighters uh tricia cesaro who's going to be fighting she fights for invicta she's been a sparring partner of mine you know i've sparred with a lot of uh females valerie letourneau is a friend of mine from before she was in Brooklyn with me. We were in our early 20s. And then I came out to,

you know, I came out to Florida and she was getting ready to fight Joanna. And I sparred her for boxing. And it was great to be able to help

and to see how far we've come. You know, so that was awesome for me to do. Because a lot of these females, they've been around the gyms, you know, whether it's kickboxing or boxing or something.

But now it's just so nice to see even, you know, we're in the gym. It's like nice to see a balance of females, males. So the, the sports definitely evolved. And now that I can get that work,

but I still spar the guys. I fight like a guy. A lot of people have said that to me. Um, so the style of female fighters has evolving still, but I studied the men coming up and it's not a knock to the women, but I definitely like to look more like a Mike Tyson,

like a Roy Jones, like a Miguel Cotto, things like that. So I've watched their styles. Man, you definitely move. And I think it was more the head movement and the body shots. You don't see a lot of women. I know for a fact that there aren't many women that move like me. Head movement, but I have to attribute that to studying the men. I mean, I'm a student of women i know for a fact that there aren't many women that move like me head

movement but i have to attribute that to studying the men i mean i'm a student of the game i would go home and fernando vargas i would watch him you know i would watch all these guys bernard hopkins and i'm and i got to meet them and talk to them and i'm like yeah i watched you guys you know and arturo was a big one for me you know i was at his fight with mickey ward the first one and they had a huge trilogy but arturo was just a blood and guts warrior but when he boxed he boxed beautifully and i was like i want to do that like i can do that when you started did you have someone uh tell you like you're not going to be able to do this you're not going to learn this or were they more invite like you know were they were they like hey like you know this isn't for chicks there's not a lot of

there's another girls here like did they tell you, hey, shut down this idea. This is a really bad idea. 100%. I went to Mars Park Boxing Gym, and I'll say this. He was a matchmaker, and he ran the gym. I remember going there. Call his ass out. Yeah, I'm not going to say his name.

But you know what? We're cool today. But I went to the gym, and I knocked on the door, and I was dressed in normal clothes. I said, hi, I'm a boxer. I'm looking for a gym. He's like, you don't look like a fighter. He's like, we don't have anything for you here. Literally closed the door on my face. And four years later, he's matchmaking

my fights in the garden. Was he a little bit like that with everybody or was it maybe because you were a fighter? It's definitely the female thing. And I try not to be like, but it's a fact. I had a guy, he's actually, I'm going to call this guy out, Joey Gamache. He's actually training Tiafimo Lopez for the Loma Chico fight.

Joey Gamache. But God bless him. Joey Gamache. It's funny. Well, he was a former world champion and, I mean, a very good fighter. I'm going to end up at the bottom of the river now because I talked about, I said Gamache. But Joey's a great name. Yeah, he's either in the mob or he totally just made that name.

His name's Tom Smith. But it's funny because I love, it's a funny story because now everybody's like talking about Tiafimo Lopez fighting Lomachenko and Joey's training him and I'm like, oh, I got a story about Joey. It's like, be careful the females you cross because we always got a story. So I said, T said to me in the gym, and this is way in the beginning, I was in my early 20s, and he said, you know, kid, you don't look like you belong boxing. You look like you belong in the kitchen

baking pies. And I looked at him, and thank God, I credit this to my father and his slick mind, and I said, oh, really? I said, well, I don't know how to bake pies. And he goes, no, you know what I'm saying. Like, you know, people from fighting, you know, they got a rough life, they've been in jail, they've done stress. I said, how do you know

I'm not a cold-blooded killer? I said, how do you know I'm not a cold-blooded killer? I said, how do you know I haven't done time? But I said it like, and he just like, looked at me, he was like, okay,

you gotta show them you're equally as crazy, that's the key. Like, I'm like, no, I'm just as nuts. Like,

if I act extra crazy, then they're like, all right, I'm gonna say that to her again. And he didn't, but God bless him, Joey, he became a supporter of mine

and his wife as well, like, they're great people, so it's just a funny story in how you come up so yeah i've to get your question i've definitely had that part of it but it's you know i have a purpose and i have a belief and i every time i i've tried to leave boxing because it's wearing you know especially as a female and it's just like an older female and i'm self-promoted you know i've done a lot of it on my own me and my manager who was my first coach that took me seriously when I was 21 years

old. Luigi. Luigi El Chessé. I got them all. The names keep getting better. We got all Mario brothers. Meanwhile, I'm Maureen Shea and I speak fluent Spanish. People are like, wait, I don't understand any of this. But yeah, so it's been such a blessing for me now to be able

to have the people that support me and it's I mean I could tell you stories for days I have stories it's just you wouldn't believe it fighting in Mexico

just the things that happen in the corners you know the things you experience in fights and fighting in Mexico is a whole other and I'm half Mexican

I love fighting in Mexico but things are different in Mexico really different you know so it's a different experience how so? I'm sorry I feel like your face I was like I'm real curious it's a different experience how so? I'm sorry

I feel like your face I was like I'm real curious it's just I mean I've had fights I'm not going to Mexico there's nothing like that

if she wants me to go I don't know if I want to you'll go we just won't drink Andrew knows some people down there yeah all you have to do is just mention my name

you don't have to pay for a drink or for a meal that's it I don't know what you I don't want to know what you did to get that to happen but okay

our boy Smokey was in Mexico and Mark was like hey you gotta tell him this I'm like yeah ever. That's it? Ever, yeah. I don't know what you, I don't want to know what you did to get that to happen, but okay. No, our boy Smokey was in Mexico and Mark was like, hey, you got to tell them this. I'm like, yeah,

that's actually pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, it's funny, all those names that you were mentioning, they're definitely not

from Northern California. No, no, yeah, no, not at all. Yeah. But in Mexico, you know, it's just a different, it's a different game.

That's their culture. That's their life. Right. You know, so it's very similar to like, you know, even in Ireland, it's like that. In other countries, it's just a different game. That's their culture. That's their life. So it's very similar to, even in Ireland, it's like that. In other countries, it's very much like that. So in Mexico, soccer and boxing. Is it kind of like Muay Thai in Thailand? Yeah, of course.

Oh, for sure. Like everybody's boxed. Even the young girls, believe it or not, women's boxing was bigger in Mexico, and they had bigger sales. I mean, the money that women make in boxing today, it's better but it was terrible you know like we got paid peanuts i mean and still still do compared to what we we deserve but um the women in mexico were getting tv time they and you would think like in such a machismo country where it's more like that the women were so respected you know and and they were you know they proved it and there were some great champions out there um you know and and fighters that I actually, you know, going out there and fighting on the same undercards.

But as far as the difference, I think, you know, they changed the rounds in between a fight because there was miscommunication. So I'll give you one example. So I'm at the fight and I go out and it's supposed to be a six rounder. I get to the ring and my coach is like, all right, it's a four rounder. They changed it because of TV. I'm like, all right, that happens. I'm ready for a six rounder i get to the ring and my coach is like all right it's a four rounder they changed it because of tv i'm like all right that happens i'm ready for a six rounder so i go out and then in the third round the ref said touch gloves and then we touch gloves and then we i fight the last round like okay and then i come back and he's like what are you doing he's like we got one more round

they changed it i was like so i had to go out and fight another three rounds i mean another two rounds like that so it was it was interesting. So you definitely have to be able to adapt, which is something I also learned with Phil. Adapting under the adversity and the challenges. And he's done the same thing. It's time to get boxing. Yeah, pretty much. We're going to have to go two-minute break right now. And then we're going to go 30 seconds.

Yeah, they change it. I've had times where I get in the corner and the chair is rusted so they couldn't open it. So I had to stand up between rounds. They've moved my fight. I fought 11 o'clock at night after not eating since 1 o'clock because I didn't. Yeah. I could go for days, but I definitely have withstood the challenges. I'm like, all right, I'm good.

The confidence is there. But it happens sometimes, you know, and it happens in the sports. And it just you have to sit there and you can't fight it because the more you fight and get emotional about it, the more it's going to take away from your performance. So I think having that focus and that drive is did you utilize uh some of the girl stuff as like fuel or did you just fucking ignore it and just say i'm just going to go to work put my head down and just and just work for it i'm not gonna i'm not gonna um kind of claim this girl power type of thing what did you do with it i actually was like i never looked at it like a female male thing. I'm like, there's no feminine

or masculine in the word boxer. So I'm like, I'm just going to do it. And what I noticed was this. So when I was training out in Oxnard with Lomachenko's team or any of the teams, I trained with Victor Ortiz's team out there too. I'm like, okay, they may be faster, stronger, younger, but they can't outwork me. And I'm going to prove myself in the work. So I would show up and I would work and I was a focused worker. And they had to respect me because I made them step their game up. Because you know, as sometimes the guys are kind of like, but they're like, they can't let the woman beat them. So I just use that, I think. But I think when I was younger, I just didn't understand. I'm like, well, I can do that. I think I was so much like, I belong here. You know, it wasn't so much being a female, it was just being a person. And I'm like, well, I'm just gonna do what I got to do. And yeah,

there's times where I'd go in there with like a bubble around me and just focus on the work. And a lot of that came and I give that a lot to, you know, my dad, the way my dad raised me. You know, he's a retired detective, old Irish Catholic. He was a Marine and he's a lot older. My brother's 10 years older than me. So my dad kind of treated me like a boy, you know, and it was always like there was nothing extra because i was a female so i think that not understanding the difference i just did and i said because my father he always said that to me he's like if this happens this is the consequence male or female and this is what you have to do and i just developed that and just applied that to my boxing where i'm like okay well i just they can't deny me if i show up and i work

and even if they do i'm just gonna keep showing up and work and then I'm annoying and then they like all right it's almost like million dollar baby you know the movie I worked on the movie and it was funny because when I saw the movie I worked with Larry Swank for the movie and you know it was that's exactly what it was she just showed up and she got so annoying that he was like all right I got a trainer she's here what am I gonna do and I felt the same way and I think females do that now but I think it's more of an open mind from the male trainers. And it takes a very special man to be able to work with a woman too, you know,

because we're different and then that's, that's okay. No, I'm just saying that's, that's definitely how it is. Honestly, I'm not going to lie. Females do push it a little bit harder. They do have a chip on her shoulder in a sense because they feel like they

have to prove more. Yeah, for sure. but like every female that i've worked with has had that work ethic she kind of takes it to the next level in a sense just because you could tell that she wants to achieve more every day um she holds a lot of people accountable to even the young kids she takes them under her wing if you know where you at what are you doing you know so i i don't really have to do much now i just go in there and train them you know and at the end of the day like i i can motivate i can inspire i can you know get you guys going but um you need to be self-motivated too as well and that's something as a fighter you definitely have to have because you don't have a you have a team but you can't rely on that team when the cage door closes or when you step into the ring got it yeah what's something a female

fighter should be looking you know looking at when joining a new gym or maybe even a new coach like any tall tale signs that like okay this is going to be a good fit or maybe that's a red flag oh i think respect and the first thing is respect um I've, I've, and I'm not gonna, I mean, it's, it's, it's not, it's no secret, but I've dealt with sexual harassment. I've dealt with, you know, I just, I never like went out. I just had to like figure out how to work it. And, you know, I'm grateful that I, I was, I've been in therapy since I was seven. I think, I think every, especially fighters should be in therapy. I'm a huge advocate for therapy, you know? So I think, you know, me having that ability or having people around you that you're like,

okay, how would the men that you respect and how would they treat you? You know, and a lot, a lot of women like for myself, you know, I had daddy issues growing up, which is how I ended up in the abusive relationship, you know, because my dad was really hard on me. And I thought that was love, you know, and it was love. It's his type of love, you know, but it's not the kind of love that I want in a relationship. So I think a lot of women going into a gym, just knowing that, you know, okay, but you got to respect yourself first. I say, you got to, you got to take ownership of yourself. So go into a gym just knowing that you know okay but you got to respect yourself first I say you got to you got to take

ownership of yourself so go into the gym know your purpose don't go in there to try to hit on somebody try to find a relationship go in there with a purpose you know if that develops later on great but go in there for you first and then just watch how the men treat you and set set boundaries if you have to you know definitely set boundaries I remember I would hit the

speed bag and I had one of the guys talking to me and he actually sent me a message he's like I remember you in the speed bag and I had one of the guys talking to me and he actually sent me a message. He's like, I remember you hitting the speed bag and I came over and talked to you and you were like, I'm focused on boxing right now. I'm not focused on men. And he would just look to me. At first he thought I was gay, which I'm not, but it's okay. He just looked at me and he was like, but I was that focused and that into what I was doing.

So I think just go in there with your purpose and also when it comes to being able to communicate with your coach is very important. There were times where I had coaches that i couldn't communicate with and i'm learning but learning how to communicate with them and i feel like i i really learned how men think you know um in boxing because i was around you guys so much that i had to kind of think like a man to a degree because of adjust my thinking so that i was able to communicate because men are more black and white women are more detail-oriented.

And we're all colorful. Some guys, it's like, I have to just be more specific, more blunt. And say, I feel this. Okay, why? And then just say this. And not, oh, well, this happened and that happened. Because then you're like, you guys check out. You know what I mean?

I know. I know. Trust me. So it's like, it goes there. Yeah. Yeah. I know, I know, trust me. So it's like, you know, it goes there. Yeah.

I remember the first time, I was like, you ask a lot of questions. Oh, yeah. She goes, I'm going to ask you a lot of questions. I said, okay. And then I really didn't know how many questions she was really going to ask me. And then I was like, oh, yeah, you really do ask a fuck ton of questions. But you know what's funny with you? I think when we train sometimes, I'll go into my female questions, and then he'll be like, just shut the fuck up and do it.

Just stop thinking. And I'm like, okay. And that's not abusive. It's like, I need to hear that. And I'm just like, okay, stop thinking so much. Just fucking lift it. I'm like, okay. And I just do it.

And I love him for it. Yeah, females are analytical. Overly sometimes. Yeah. So it's good to have the man to say, I think it's a good compliment, you know, and I work with females too. You know, I actually started working with Stephanie Cohen a little bit with her boxing and that's been great because

she also works with a guy, you know, but I know that it's just a different kind of approach. So I can say things to her in more of a photographic way or a visual way, but she also understands the mind of the men too because she's in her sport, which she's done. You know, so it's fun to kind of like have another female that gets it and i'm just like oh god you know when they do this and they do that and she's like oh not to knock you guys

but it's different you know but um but it's it's uh yeah it's been great and i think like i said i think it's a it's a yin and a yang it's a balance and then i love it and are you working with uh page van zant right now um i actually i was i was i i did uh take her on are you working with Paige Van Zandt right now? Actually, I was. I did take her on. I was working with her, and we were going to do that. But Paige is still very much involved in her MMA. And for me, as a boxing coach, I take it for me, it's work. And I don't think sometimes it's different when an MMA fighter comes into the gym

and just does the boxing as an extra thing for their, for their MMA twice a week. But with her, you know, I have to stay true to who I am and how I am as a coach. And I, and I didn't feel it was conducive for either one of us to, for her to be able to still do her MMA and learn boxing. So we, we, I told her that and she, she, she, you know, she, she understood that, you know, and then it just, I can that. I can't fake it. You know what I mean? It's going to make it harder for me working with multiple coaches because I already see it with the MMA in general and I see how they have to really be present in the art that they're doing.

So when it comes to the bare knuckle and the boxing, which is what it is, you've got to be really present. But she's got a lot of experience. She turned pro at 19. I have a huge amount of respect for her but i just couldn't do my job i couldn't do it the real way and honestly and and and uh you know give her the best of me if that was the conditions so so we we um we just let that go you know but i'm i support her as a woman as an athlete and i'll always be there for her but i just i just couldn't i couldn't do that for myself and to her

yeah i was surprised when she actually signed up to do uh bare knuckle fighting as well and to her yeah i was surprised when she actually signed up to do uh bare knuckle fighting as well right yeah i was i was too um but you know i mean it's it's interesting and um david actually approached me to do it to fight bare knuckle but for me where i'm at in my career i mean and again i'm the level athlete where like i went to the fights because i was like well let me see my manager was like no my coach was like no everybody was like you're not doing it i'm like i do something called whatever i want first of all second of all let me go there and put myself there and just so from my own ego to say i can do this but i'm gonna choose not to do it it's more it's more about my choice what's going on man she's not doing it

no i'm not but it's not because it's because i chose not to do it listen you gotta give me my but it's like we're gonna win the title we're gonna unify that's it yeah that's it yeah that's the plan that's that's the plan but no i and i appreciate that and i know they love me but again i'm the kind of person that you know the reason i started boxing i stayed boxing so my father told me i couldn't i boxed for different reasons like it was like my father said in this house you have to work and go to school you can't do all three you know what i said watch me that's exactly what i did and i've always been that to a degree stubborn but that stubbornness has gotten me it's gotten me you know into some tough situations but it's also gotten me a lot of success so i think it's how you approach it

yeah but um but no i i mean you know i was i was surprised too but i think it's an interesting thing too but but you know page is very much she's a brand uh she's you know and um i think i think she's very athletic where people are like oh but she's a brand. And I think she's very athletic, where people are like, oh, but she's not. I mean, people make compliments about her. I'm like, has anybody seen her dance? She's a pretty phenomenal dancer. I mean, she was on Dancing with the Stars. Because I watched her MMA fights, and I'm like, oh, all right.

I saw some strength, but I didn't see a lot. But then when I watched her dance, I was blown away by her athleticism and her ability. And I said, okay, my approach for her was going to be because i dance as well you know i dance salsa and i said okay and this helped me a lot with my boxing so i'm like all right i need to take her dance and apply it to the boxing but first i have to break her down and make her stay basic because she's got too much rhythm she throws she threw punches with no purpose and everything was like a bounce she's too rhythmic so i had to literally make her walk.

I mean, and that was hard. So I was breaking her down. I wouldn't let her bounce. You know, I was ready to put weights on her legs, you know, just to remind you as a cue to stay. Just step, just step. You know, understand the purpose of this movement and the purpose of the angle.

And that's what I do with anybody that I coach, which, you know, it's more of a passion project for me working and I'll help, I'll assist Derek sometime, my boxing coach with that. But it's more, I passion project for me working, and I'll assist Derek sometime, my boxing coach, with that. But it's more I love to break them down because that's what I had to do for myself. I had to figure it out because a lot of coaches didn't really want to teach me.

So I was like, all right, how do I do this? You know what I mean? How do I figure this out? And I learned a lot from a lot of coaches, but I also had to go back to the fundamentals. And I think a lot of people abandon that. And I'm sure with lifting too. They're like, oh, they want to lift this weight.

But it's like, well, you got to learn how to do this before you do that. Same thing with boxing. lifting too. They're like, oh, they want to lift this weight, but it's like, well, you got to learn how to do this before you do that. Same thing with boxing. Phil, did the pandemic slow you down to just throw off a lot of fights and scheduling and a lot of things like that? No, because it's MMA and they just don't give a damn.

Obviously. Right. And I'm in Florida, which they don't give a damn either. Right. So now we were, we were going, I had guys fighting the UFC.

I had guys, boxing was a little bit on the back burner. Like a lot of guys didn't have their fights lined up where they had their fights lined up got canceled um but yeah mma was going no non-stop so dana white did the fight island or whatever fighter island yeah he's he's gonna be back there next weekend i got two guys fighting on that card i got three guys fighting the next week so i mean it's it's constant you know and that's that's good it's it's constant you know and that's that's good for them they need that you know a lot of guys in that in that world especially in the ufc and they're coming up and you know they they get paid only when they fight you know

and that's and that's one thing whereas like when i was coming up fighting like i had to have i had to open up my own gym because i knew that i wasn't going to have money coming in consistently you know and that takes away from your focus a little bit, which is an issue. So I try to make sure like a lot of my fighters, most of them are trainers in my gym, you know, she, she works with me too in the gym. So I want to make sure that they still have the ability to work inside of where they need to and, and still get the, the training out of it too, as well. And now you have, it seems like, a good amount of people kind of working under you. And it seems like you work with a lot of people in addition to you training people.

It seems like you have connections with other coaches that you're collaborative with. And then it seems like you also have people under you as well. Is that right? How did you kind of get to that point? Like how did you make a decision like, should I better start kind of hiring some people? Yeah, well, it was actually at the gym that I was at, at American Top Team, when I was like, man,

there's a lot of guys that need that, like I need to make sure that I'm watching them appropriately. And for that, I developed a system. And that that system I can teach that over to my coaches. I've had interns now, too, as well. I can teach them. They come in every month or every three months. And we have guys that can obviously take the the load off of my shoulders a little bit. a little bit. And I have guys that are ex-fighters. So they know the game. They understand it. So the fighters that come in,

even though that they look at me for the programming, look at me for the coaching, that's my son right there. Yeah, he's great. He's not playing around. He wants to be a fighter.

Throwing some bombs, man. Every day. Super serious, too. He was in a barbershop and I seen him around the corner and he was like shadowboxing. Didn't tell him what to do. He just started shadowboxing. That's great. So i captured that um but yeah so and he's growing up

in a good environment with the rest of the fighters so it's funny but yeah i mean the great thing again like i said i can delegate as much as i need to to make sure that everybody's getting what they need and what they deserve you know you said florida and florida doesn't give a damn about corona right now but you you train all these athletes. Right. And are you did you have to try to take any type of precaution? Did you have to tell your athletes, hey, I don't want you doing this or this or you just like training them? No, I mean, we did. Obviously, we still do take the proper precautions. We're cleaning up every day. We're making sure that when they step in, we have to take their temperature and everything there.

For the most part, these guys are always together. We're always together. It's not like we go and then it's like I go here and then I go here. They're going to one gym and then they're coming to me. So again, we're always together. We know what's going on. They're always getting tested. So I'm always getting tested and making sure that everybody is safe.

And they don't want to get it. They want to fight. Yeah. You know what I mean? They're being extra precaution. They're taking extra precaution because they're like, well, shoot. So it's definitely a lot. I had a guy that stayed out of the gym for like 10 days before his fight because he was afraid.

He didn't want to catch it just going to the store or something. But he did the smart thing because he was able to fight and win in a first round knockout so it was good oh damn and how big is your space because it looks pretty big yeah right now we have uh 10 000 square feet hell yeah and uh we're looking to expand to an extra 5 000 square feet where i'm going to put our boxing coach in there together with a wrestling mat and then again all of our equipment's going to go in there too as well, which is going to be good. Because then we'll have a space for – we train baseball players. Primarily I work with Mo Vaughn, who's an ex-baseball player,

played for the Red Sox. He's my partner. And so that'll be the baseball side, and then I have the sports performance side. Mo Vaughn was pretty big from what I remember, right? Yeah, he was back there. He was sitting down pitching balls. Yeah, he was back there pitching balls to his son. Yeah, he was pretty – from what I remember, he was pretty thick, right? Yeah, he was back there. He was sitting down pitching balls. Yeah, he was back there pitching balls to his son. Yeah, he was pretty,

like, from what I remember, he was pretty thick, right? Yeah, yeah. I mean, but he's never strength trained. Really? Yeah, he never did it. He walked in.

Holy shit. Yeah, he walked into American Top Team. Yeah, so you can pull up a picture. I mean, yeah, he's thick, man. He's a thick dude, yeah. And he's knocking the balls out.

You know, that's one thing. He's a specialist, and it's good to be around other specialists in other fields. You know, I'm always around fighters fighters but to be around baseball in that in that perspective like i don't really know shit about baseball to be honest with you my dad is from boston so when i told him i was like yeah i work with mo vaughn he's like get

the fuck out of here like yeah look at him man do the picture on the neck the next picture man which one that was right this one that one there dude never never lifted weights never get crazy yeah when i see people like this and i'm just like they never lifted and i like it's just like god damn you did he's a big dude yeah and it's funny because when he came to the gym like we i started working with him before we were partners so when i started working with him i didn't know who he was like i I said. And then he told me, and then I asked my dad. He was like, yeah, man, he's big. And I was like, oh, he was like Big Papi before Big Papi. You know what I mean?

And he goes, man, if I would have done this before, I wouldn't have so many injuries and I would have had a longer career. And so we still talk about it to this day. And that's why he brought me in and tried to, you know, with all the young kids, we're developing that base, right? He's like, man, these kids are going to have longevity in the sport because of that strength and conditioning background, because we're understanding how to move efficiently and get that strength built in right from the get-go. So, yeah, it's been good, you know, and I think that, yeah, here he goes trying to teach me how to hit a baseball. Well, learning how to, you know, swing a bat and learning how bat and learning how to throw a ball the way that these guys can, I would imagine that there's some crossover between that and what you're trying to do with your hips when you're throwing punches and stuff, right?

When you're grappling and stuff. It's funny because we talk about it in this video. There's got to be a lot of parallels to it, right? Yeah, creating that internal torque is very important. And then through the transverse plane. God damn! He's huge. He's great. He's so funny. It's like, I would

watch his, like, he throws to his son, and I just watch his son effortlessly. I mean, how old is Lee? He's like nine, right? Or is he eight or nine? I would just, I'm like, look at him, and it's like a punch. It's like that turn. Just effortless, and I'm just like so in awe. I mean, baseball look at him. It's like a punch. It's like that turn. Just effortless. And I'm just like, so in awe.

Baseball was my first love. And being a Yankee fan was an easy part of me moving on, having to see him across me. The boys at Red Sox every day. But talking to him, it's like, you know, he's a legend. They don't have any inhibition at all. Their swing is so smooth.

There's nothing stuck their hips aren't stuck they can just they can rotate really really well they swing like every day every day multiple times throughout the day the only thing i would say is the issue that ain't bad are you left-handed uh yeah i'm southpaw so you're doing pretty good i think bro I smashed that shit afterwards he was like oh my god you got it and he was like yeah there we go

there's the swing there it is when he told me to and he's good at coaching it because he tells me distribute the weight you know

in his own terms and then from there so funny you know rotate through and he talks like where's she from connecticut oh yeah yeah yeah so he's going over it and then i was you know with the with the the only thing with the

baseball players is that i do see is there is a lot of back issues a lot of hip issues obviously going to be a lot of shoulder issues for the pitchers so again we're looking at balancing out the body again right and increasing range of motion and increasing the strength and stability of the trunk is very important phil was he not scared that you would hit the ball at him because like i'm looking at where he yeah yeah i'm like bro they do that shit and i'm like i would never do that even the little kids like and they're throwing the balls back and forth and i'm like man one of my guys almost got hit by a baseball and it was it was an intern so it didn't matter but yeah so i'm going over exactly what we would do like you're throwing your back in same thing creating that torque and uh when i got that it made sense to me so what else do you have at your

place because you got a batting cage we got four you got four bedding cages what else anything else outside of well we're looking obviously i'm when we go to the next next room over which is basically going to drop down the wall and there's 5 000 square feet there we have clinicians in there now so i have a massage therapist i have a neurokinetic therapist really she does pdtr um post was it post-tendent something reflex i don't know it's, but it looks like voodoo to be honest with you. And she can go more into detail, but I would say that that has helped us out a lot. Just being able to reference over to those clinicians and then I can get the assessments that I need to. And then obviously I take them over to Christiana, but we have that. And then

we're looking to, I want to get a sauna in there. I definitely want to get either just a cold tub or something along the lines of that. I'm not too big into the cryo thing, but we could get that if they need it. A lot of my guys don't like to get into the fucking cold tub, so cryo's a little bit more better for them, at least. But yeah, we're looking for that. And then, again, boxing ring, boxing bags, full gym yeah we're looking for that and then again boxing ring boxing bags full gym and then turf space and then a mat and also got a gymnastics guy coming in too as well two days a week that's awesome with the guys sick yeah and this is this open for like anybody or is

it specifically so right now it's private yeah only by invite um but i am gonna probably opening it up to a membership and again again, it's going to be, it's going to be, we definitely don't want them inside the ring, fuck around in the ring. So that'll be closed off for the general public, but they can hit the bags, you know, according to what she wants them not to hit.

We'll go ahead and block those off because there's bags that you got to learn, learn how to hit, you know? And, uh, but after that, pretty much the gym is going to be open 24 hours. Is it a wrestling ring a wrestling ring we can make that happen too probably tighten up the yeah yeah the ropes a

little bit yeah come off the top rope that's it yeah maureen you said you uh you've worked a little bit with stephy cohen and obviously seeing how freak of an athlete she is yeah right was there anything either of you guys noticed when she just started throwing punches like was she super powerful like what what do you see from stuffy right now um for me it was more um everybody looks at her right away like oh my god she must be but it's learning how to snap your punches and how to be explosive with it and i think the rotation because she's been in a position with her deadlift in this like tight like we talked about before where i had issues with tightening my lats and keeping them on hers are like always on because that's what she's used to. Also, I had a problem with her stance in the beginning because it was very wide, which makes sense.

Her strongest position is a sumo. So I said, well, this is why you don't want that because you're already small. So if you're going to fight and you fight girls that are 125, that was my weight class. And I had her spar one of my girls, Kessie Estevez, who's been with me for about six months. And Kessie's like, what is Kessie, like 5'6", 5'7"? She's tall. Yeah, she's tall. And she's long. had her spar one of my girls um kesi estevez who's been with me for about six months and uh kesi's like what is kesi like five six five seven she's tall yeah she's tall and um and she's long so i had them work together but what i love about my girls is that they work with each other you know what i'm saying so yeah could steffi come in and just powerfully go through her but it's about

taking the punches you know everybody's got a plan till they get punched in the face i can quote mike tyson so um for her it's more about learning the head movement and learning the rotation but she's such a humble athlete when she came in. And I tell her all the time, like, I'm so like, I'm it's awesome that you come in here because having the achievements that she's had outside the gym and in everything as a female and then coming in and being completely like, okay, like she listens and she applies and she's smart, you know, so having that background of being such a freak athlete but also her doctor you know being a doctor and understanding the recovery and all of that it makes my job so much easier and and showing her why but her understanding like i said with women i said this is why like i see some things she does i'm like okay try doing it like this and this is why and then she's like okay because if you just tell her just do this and she's like well i'm like because she's supposed to. That's not enough.

It wouldn't be enough for me. So I tell him, like, well, this is why and this is how. And head movement is something that I'm working on, the rotation stuff. You know, she'll be coming into the gym to work more. She came to the track. I mean, but she's like. Yeah, we got a video of that one. Dude, she's sprinting. But it's so funny because I see her stuff now.

She's like, oh, my God, the cardio part of it. Yeah. You know, we did two-minute rounds, you rounds, and she sparred with Kessie. Kessie can say, hey, I felt like you felt too until I learned how to use my legs and use my movement and use my reach. So Stephanie's coming,

and she's very tense, but she relaxed, and then she started to apply and understand. But I told her, be proud of yourself, and she is. I was like, because this ain't easy.

Everybody thinks we make it look easy, but then when you're doing it, it's like, oh, and there's a lot of this going on. So if you can maintain the thinking and the analytical part of it, and also with the physical, it says a lot. It's a discipline. It's a different kind of discipline. And it's not disrespect to the movement of the weight, but you're not just lifting weight and putting it down.

You know what I mean? And doing all that. It's like a multitude of movement. Yeah. In this video, we have Olympian judo, professional boxers, and a UFC fighter. That was one of my. Yeah. Yeah. In this video, we have Olympian judo, professional boxers, and a UFC fighter. That was one of my UFC fighters.

So she came out to the track, very humble. She's a sweetheart. And she wanted to get some conditioning. And now, right now, we're doing cardiac power work. So it's very high,

highly intense, I should say. Right? We're 400 meter runs, one to two minute break, trying to get down the track as fast and as explosive as you can. And repeat that. And I was going to go until I seen a breakdown, whether it be time, getting it done, and then their ability to recover. We were getting to about five reps in, right?

And I was going to shut it down, on top of the fact that it starts to pour out, right? It's raining in Florida. That happens, right? She goes, but we said we were going to do eight. And I was like, you're right. Everybody back on the line. So she has that in her.

You know, it was good. She pushed a lot of the guys. And these two guys right here are judo Olympians. One there. Damn. Right? And the other one. And she outran them in a couple of the runs, too, as well.

Shit. But, I mean, it was good to see. You know, it was good to see a person step out of their comfort zone. My son's trying to get it. Almost tripped over Maureen. Yeah. What distance are those runs you're having? That's 400 meter runs.

That's a lot. They're trying to get it done in less than 90 seconds every round. They did. Everyone did. Then we were resting for two minutes. I see it, especially in the first lap. I've done these with Phil before. I know how to pace

myself because I fight 10 rounds. So I know my breathing. So I think for Angie and Steffi, it was a little bit different for them because they got to get to understanding that breath work. So I think that's going to be a big part in her conditioning as well. Yeah, the judo girl there, she's going to Pan Ams on November 20th.

So we're working until the Olympics. Looks like everybody's working maybe on a scale of 1 to 10, maybe at like a 7 or a 6. It gets to about an 8 or a 9. It just gets there. You feel like you want to die, for sure. Between those two minutes, is it two minute rest you gave us? Two minutes. Yeah, that's like the fastest two minutes of your life.

Yeah. You either want to just get back on there to get it over with, or you're like, all right, I need this time. The goal is to push it to max heart rate. Get it up to max heart rate, then bring it down as efficiently as possible. You want to get them down to at least 130 beats per minute, and then repeat it. And then we'll see how long they can go.

And the goal is to increase the reps. So this week, actually, today, they're going to go go and then the goal is to increase the reps so this week actually today they're going to go there and do nine instead of eight i really think that's interesting too because i think that bodybuilding is that way a lot like where somebody might do a bodybuilding workout with somebody and they might say well that you know the weight just felt way too light it's like well that's just the first set you know like we're first set. We're going to do a bunch of sets. We're going to do a bunch of reps. And we're not going to rest that long.

And so by the time you get to the third, fourth, or fifth set, a lot of times that's where that fatigue starts to settle in. And you're contracting the muscle as if you were using a more intense weight. For sure. Yeah, yeah. It's accumulation of that fatigue is what's important. And again, you have to make sure that you can get the optimal amount. We can't go overboard because they have to do other things. So I was going to shut it down, and then I seen that it was just mental for a lot of them.

Believe it or not. And these guys are high level. So when that little girl, that powerlifts, comes in, and all these fighters are like, oh, hell no, we're not going to let this little girl do that. And so, but, you know, she was able to push these guys, which was cool to see. She definitely has the mentality. And I love that when she comes in with the boxing, you know, but then it's like the same thing. I'm like, right, that's enough for today.

The mind can only take on so much, you know, and then it's like, OK. How's it when somebody does take a boxing at like because she's not like super young she hasn't been boxing since she was a kid but have you guys seen people come in like later that don't have that type of experience and progress pretty damn quickly or is it kind of rare i've seen i've seen guys and girls that have that athletic background that's been very i said i would say successful you know you have a great card who's been in the NFL forever, who's being successful. He's understanding it a little bit more. They have the work ethic built in, obviously,

because they made it to the next level or to the highest level of that particular sport. It's the same thing with Steffi, where she has 25 world records. She's the strongest female in the world. So then that carries over. I think it has a lot to do with the coaching. I think the coach needs to understand that. I think for myself, like I said with Paige, where think the coach needs to understand that I think for myself like I said with Paige

Where I looked at her strengths and I saw her strongest suit was for dancing So I had to figure out how to apply that to her boxing Same thing with Steffi I'm like okay what is her strongest Where is she strong and she's got a lot of power But now we have to work on speed And it's got to be explosive because she didn't really have that before Because she's lifting she's grinding slow

She's not doing repetitive speed work Like what we were doing Explosive power type stuff. And the cardio. So knowing that, knowing that's their weakness. But like Phil, I've learned a lot of this. He's made me a better boxing coach. Because now I understand where any of my fighters, where they're weak in.

Or even if I'm working alongside Derek, because I do it myself. I kind of say, okay, I think this is what he needs to do. Or maybe he should go see Phil or whatever. Because I'm like, oh, I had that issue. okay, I think this is what he needs to do, or maybe he should go see Phil or whatever, because I'm like, oh, I had that issue, or I've seen this fighter have that issue, and then I saw this helped it, or how to apply it. So I think, yeah, but there's, especially women, though, because a lot of women are like, oh my gosh, I wish I

could have. One of my girls, like I said, Kessie, Kessie's 39 now, and she just started boxing. She did it for fitness, and yeah, I don't know if you saw it, there's a picture on my Instagram of her and um stephy doing a face-off and it's significantly height difference and everything but um it's not just because stephy's younger it's her level but kessie is this like a bucket list thing for her which i'm like super impressed with because she's like you know what i just want to have a fight like an amateur fight you know and i said okay

and i'll match her with the right person where it's another i don't like to call her a weekend warrior because this girl trains but you know having her come in and she's i'll set her up with another uh amateur a girl who wants to do the same thing so they can both experience it together there's obviously gonna be a winner and a loser but it's like whoever applies what they've learned and how they've learned it you know the best so uh so for her you know coming in at that age and saying like i want to do this i'm like yeah if you want to do it you can but knowing that you're around the right people and if somebody says you know for her the biggest part was taking a punch and learning how to move her head because i can't be having you do this or do this you know you have to learn to move your head or maintain

your distance with your jab so cassie's learned that and she doesn't turn away from punches at all anymore she's really like no i'm not going to do that i'm gonna i'm gonna learn because when you turn away you're not looking at the person you have to see anything yeah there's only so much of that you can do. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. So how do you work with somebody that comes to you that, you know, maybe they naturally have a skill to throw a punch or something,

but they're still very green, but they are fluid, but maybe they're just not strong yet. How do you approach training somebody like that? I'd send them to Phil first, and I'd get them a foundation in strength and understanding body awareness I would for sure say you'd have to do some strength and conditioning and then coming back to me

and then we can work on I can implement some stuff but I think the partnership between myself and a coach like Phil is very important and the communication which is what I loved when I started working with Phil Derek and Phil talk all the time and i think that that communication amongst the team which it and now i'm you know working with eric pena too with my nutrition i worked with melissa deweese who's

my best friend she was my diet coach for a long time they i always had people that made sure they all communicated they all got along and they're all of similar mindset because at the end of the day it's really the five believe it's the fighter's responsibility about who you put around you. You can't just say, oh, you do this, you do that, and then there's no talk. I'm like, you're going to end up in a really bad place

because I've had that where there was no communication. Again, the boxing coach doesn't talk to the strength coach because he doesn't think you should be strength training and I suffered because of it. Having the old school mentality.

But having the cohesiveness of the team now and how everybody works together, it makes my life so much easier and success is inevitable. Because they all want, they're all going for the same goal. Earlier, you mentioned Lomachenko. You mean Vasily Lomachenko? Vasily.

That camp? Vasily? Yeah. No, I'm curious about this because he talks a lot about dancing when he was younger. And you see clips of this guy and it's just, it's magic. It's literally like, it's crazy. But you mentioned that you did salsa so i'm wondering did did do you think that made a difference for you too in terms

of the way you box absolutely so for me i i noticed right away what my problem was when i started salsa dancing so i did it um actually i was raising money for a non-profit um for transitional living facility and a non-government funded transitional living facility in oxnard where i lived in california where lomacheno trains and um i was so uncomfortable because everybody's like oh put this outfit on the girls like you look great i'm like dude i weigh in to fight a chick i don't wear this and shake my butt like i was like so and then what you look awesome like yeah but i don't look i don't have this body to look good i do it because it's a purpose for it so um but it helped me really tap into my femininity, I think, a lot more.

And also to relax. Because every time I danced with the guys, they were like, they'd come like, relax. I'm like, I am relaxed. They're like, no, you're not. And I'm like, all right. So I had to learn to shake my shoulders and relax. So now it's really, if you saw my last fight, I wore a salsa inspired outfit. Actually, a world champion, Fran Sean Cruz, she's a world champion now.

She's actually a designer. She's really, really good. And she designed my outfit, and it was salsa-inspired. Because she asked me, what do you want? And I'm like, I come out to salsa music, and it brings me that joy and that happiness of the dancing. And I dance in the ring because it's so similar. But it helped me a lot with my rhythm and to have fun. To remember to have fun and not to be so like, er. Because, you know, I have the Mexican, and as much as that a lot with my rhythm and to have fun to remember to have fun and not to be so like er because you know i have the mexican and as much as that can help with my rhythm i got that

er and the irish where i'm like i'm gonna bear down i'm just gonna stand here and i'm gonna give you and i'm gonna take and you know but the salsa kind of relaxed me and helped me relax my shoulders but also and like with phil's training come back to where I need to be strong and apply what we learn and then go back to my dancing. Can you imagine how much she drinks? She's Irish. I did it at a press conference. They said, oh, being Mexican-Irish, how do you feel about it? I'm like, well, I'll either beat the hell out of you or I'll drink you under the table.

But I chose to fight, so the boxing is definitely a part of it. Phil, so what can you tell us about your boy dustin is that fight happening with mcgregor i haven't heard from him about it so i'm not gonna 100% say yeah but uh i mean it's a great fight for him yeah i think it's a way better fight for him than any other fight right now um he's definitely on another level when it comes down to his striking, his mental game, you know, his tactics. And he's at another level than he was when he first fought him. So it's going to be definitely different. And I know he'll be successful in that fight.

I don't know how much drive, you know, I would say Conor has right now. I mean, he's got a lot of money, you know. So, at the end of the day, you don't get as hungry. And I know Dustin, he just loves to fight. So, I mean, I don't know Conor personally, but I do know Dustin personally. And I know that if anybody loves to fight, that kid is, he's bred to fight. Like, born to do this stuff. So, we'll see what happens um when he you know

sends me a text i've talked to him recently just about my knee and stuff just small talk but he's in florida now so we'll see nice yeah because mcgregor was talking about even doing that dallas stadium or cowboy stadium was like oh shit i mean he's got to make it make it happen with the big boss though first right you know so he could say all that if he wants to and he was like great you know talking about his own promotion and stuff too so that's you know that's kind of where i was like ah okay maybe not but we'll see hopefully yeah no i think it's a definite fight to make especially if you are dana you're looking at it like man that's a that's a huge payday for everybody so and i know that dustin wanted a little bit more money he felt disrespected in a way because he's been with Zufa for over 10 years.

You know, so the kid's been fighting. Man, I think he's been fighting since he was 17, 18. And now he's 29. No, he's actually 30. So he's been with the company for a long time. You know, I think he's only had, and you count the WEC. That's a long time being in that same company. So he just felt like he deserved a little bit more money just for being a veteran and giving them tremendous fights over the years back to back to back and being successful only you know only loss we've had in the past five years or I would say

four years was to arguably the best fighter in the world right now you know so I think that he deserves that that ability to get more money money and to fight at the highest level. Maureen, I have a question for you. After LeBron won the championship, he was like, I want my damn respect. That's what he said, right? Well, you're a two-time world champion. And women's boxing, you said it's something that's growing. But I feel like I assume that right now when you say you're a two-time world champion to someone, they't realize what the fuck you're saying until like they think about it like oh shit actually she's

a two-time world champion do you feel like you're getting the respect you deserve or do you feel like there's still there's still just like a distance because it's women's boxing it's funny because phil and i say this and he's like you know you got that chip and you know and i'm like and i and i i say that but i mean i do but at the time, I have to kind of go back to myself and say, you know, I know what I've done, you know, and I can't I don't. It's hard to kind of like always like I'm reaching for that. I'm reaching for that. You know, it's starting to. But, you know, it was hard.

The Olympics were great for female boxing, but it also hurt women like myself who, you know, we have all this experience. But then these Olympians were signed by the promoters and they came first because they were already made and they already had the sponsorships and we had to do it all by ourselves you know the the veterans and it's like as much as happy as i am i'm saying i'm like but those girls aren't polished they're coming from the amateurs and they don't have like and i almost felt like i mean they're getting better like even like clarissa shields you know i mean i mean she's getting better but she's not quite there yet you know she can't be because in the amateur is a different game very different you know so um you know you've got some

girls where they're fighting for world titles when they have six fights i'm like and then so i feel like it's what it's doing to the public is it's it's misleading the public and thinking that's what women look like when they fight and they're missing out on the women like myself, because there's a couple of quite a few of us that are still in it that have so much more skill. And I'm not knocking those women again. People like, oh, you're hating. I'm like, OK, no, it's fact. It's fact. You can't be that good if you haven't done it for that long.

So it's like, come on, let's take the experience, take the lessons and apply that, you know. So for me, I take the emotion out of it. I try to anyway. And I try to apply the logic. And it's also just accepting that, you know what, I know? So for me, I take the emotion out of it. I try to anyway, and I try to apply the logic. And it's also just accepting that, you know what, I'm doing this for me. It's about me. And I respect myself. I have the respect of my peers and a lot of people too, even with the TV stuff. Like if social media was as big as it is now, when I worked on Million Dollar Baby and I was all over TV, because I was, I was, people don't know too about,

I was the first female to, in over a decade, to co People don't know too about, I was the first female in over a decade to co-feature a male fight which was Shane Mosley versus Ricardo Mayorga too. He put me as his co-feature on pay-per-view. The last female was Layla Ali. I didn't have a father who was, not to knock Layla because she was in it and I appreciate what she's done for the women too, but

I had to do this on my own. So for women like myself that got to that level and i feel sometimes you know i look at it my responsibility and it's it's not i was somebody said oh you like to talk about yourself i'm like no i feel like it's a responsibility to educate the public because if i don't educate you on who i am and what i've achieved you wouldn't come up with these questions and then i have opportunities on being on a podcast like this and then having somebody like ph Phil who respects me and he sees what goes on behind the scenes. And he's like, you know what? He wants to give me the opportunity

to share, you know, for myself. So that I think makes me feel more like, you know what? The respect is there. It's my time. And like I said, I have a faith in God. And Jeremiah 29, 11 is my life verse. And I just have a firm belief

in like he has a purpose for my life because there's no reason I should be in this sport. I should be dead about four times and i'm here you know for a number of reasons and i'm here and i'm like okay so i just need to keep and he's always revealing god is always revealing things to me especially coaching because phil said to me like you know you want to be a coach i'm like no i want to be in the office because i have a business background i like to use my brain in that way yeah and i want to be in there and i'm organized and all that and

the next thing i know i've got like a group of six women that I'm training and I'm like okay some want to fight some just do it because it's more motivation they're finding something they love it and I get these messages and I'm like okay this is what you want me to do alright I'm going to do this I'm not going to deny that but you know I think it's starting to come along and I believe you know

what's meant to be will be I can't put so much focus on it's got to happen I got to make it happen because you know what all I can do is show up every day and give a hundred percent of whatever i have that day and that's something that i learned to be in my experience is to be patient with myself you know but the hunger is there yeah because i i will dominate like that's the thing that people don't don't underestimate me and i think that's another reason why i might be having problems getting some fights because um they see my social media and they're like this girl doesn't stop and she's getting stronger and she's getting better and she's and then the politics play a role and i get it you know i mean and it's hard to explain

it sometimes because i do have my moments where i'm just like this is bullshit you know what i mean but then i'm just like you know what i can't i don't live my i don't i don't live my life for boxing i was like oh you gotta eat bleed breathe and sleep and shit it i'm like not really i'm like that's really not healthy i mean my therapist would disagree with that and what i've learned is that's probably not the best thing to do you know what i mean because actually it makes me want to box more the fact that i don't need it but i choose to do it and i fought for a promoter um he actually worked with evander holyfield maran muhammad who actually discovered manny pacquiao oh Oh, yeah.

I got stories for days. But when he met me, he looked at me. And this is the first time where he looked at my femininity and the way that I am. And I don't look like a fighter. And he was like, that's how I know you're special. Because you don't need this. He's like, I see so many other things that you can do. But you want to do this.

That makes me want to put you on. And I fought on evander holyfield's undercard at the alamo dome in front of a trillion people like it was huge and um and i beat a hometown girl out there and it was it was a tough fight and again it was if you i mean i don't know if i have the picture on my instagram but there's a girl she was a big tall she's very very tall you know very strong um african-american girl standing there and here i am with my hair blown out looking super like, you know, like I'm wearing these pink boxer shorts

with a sports bra and I'm just like this. I'm like, oh, you have no idea the fight that I have inside of me. You guys were the same weight class? Oh yeah, yeah. Yeah, we fought, oh yeah. Because she was tall. She was tall, she was lean, you know,

but she was tough, very tough. She was probably heavy handed. Tammy Frank, probably the heaviest puncher that I, yep, there you go. The heaviest puncher that I ever fought. And there's Murad Muhammad right in the middle. And Evander's there. He's on the stage.

And everybody's just looking at us like, and this was when, this was in 2006, I think. And, you know, you see my quote. It's not the size of the dog in the fight. It's the size of the fight in the dog. And everybody looking at me like, I'm like, you have no idea what's inside of me. And that's what you want. You know, if you look, because I fought girls that were super muscular, super ripped. I'm like, but if they don't know how to throw a punch, they don't have heart, and they don't have this.

You know, and I could tell at the weigh-in. I mean, I looked her down. Like, I look through my opponents. I don't look at them. I look through them. And then I get in the ring, and they see how I look in the ring. They're like, is that the same girl? And it's almost

like an alter ego but it's like no that's my fight and it comes out you know and i love what i do and and i still have that in me and i think i always will um but i i fight to win no matter if there's a title or no title i fight to win and to execute the plan and to make my coaches proud on the work we've done yeah i'll say this when someone's looking through you it feels different yeah feels kind of creepy well i've seen girls break you know, at weigh-ins where I'm like, okay, I know what kind of fight this is. I don't underestimate anybody, but I kind of know because then I get to the weigh-in, they're looking at me.

They turn first, away first. Then we get to the fight and I do the same look when I'm in the middle of the ring. And sometimes they look away or sometimes they don't look at me. They look down or sometimes they look right at me and I'm like, mm-mm. I'm like, okay. I'm like, okay. I'm like, good. I'm up for the challenge. Let's go.

Gotcha, bitch. And then you know. It's over. All over. But again, it's not personal. Listen, I'm a very loving, compassionate, empathetic person. And I embrace my opponents after every fight. Win, lose, or draw.

You know what I mean? I always have the utmost respect. But when I go in there, you're a target. And I'm going to execute what I have to execute always, I have the utmost respect, but when I go in there, you're a target, you know, and I have to, you know, I'm going to execute what I have to execute and I'm going to win. And I think that's the healthy mentality to have. You know, there's no human, it's not humanistic to me. It's just, it's just physical dominance. Yeah.

I want to know this because, uh, has that, I guess that mental side of things, did it come natural to you? Cause like Israel Adesanya was talking about that with his whole thing with paulo costa before the fight and he was talking about how costa was reacting and when you hear that you're like is this bullshit but then you see it you see the clips and you you see exactly what he's talking about like that girl the girl turning away from you did someone like tell you about that or were you just like i know how to break someone mentally so i come from the bronx so i got into some fights in the bronx and um and in my neighborhood it was very much about respect um and you know i had

girls that would challenge me and i've been in face-offs i was in a face-off with a female and you know her friends were egging her on and i looked at her and i was like get hit me get hit me i don't encourage this but you know i think that's when i knew because once she hit me that was it i mean i blocked out and i just went after her but i knew i had it so i definitely was born with a killer instinct and also like like i said that that misplaced rage when i was younger and i couldn't communicate what i felt and i didn't have my emotions kind of in check i would react i've i mean i've broken things in my house i punched walls very young i had a lot of issues i mean i and i a lot of people like man you're crazy i'm like no i had

issues and i used to slam my head against the wall when i was a kid because i couldn't express myself verbally so i reacted in physical violence or physical you know and learning how to do it in boxing and it'd be okay to you don't you're not it's not that you're crazy you know i'm saying you just you know where to apply it and how to apply it so't, you're not, it's not that you're crazy, you know what I'm saying? You just, you know where to apply it and how to apply it. So I think I've always kind of had that inside. I mean,

not to say that you can't be a fighter if you don't have that, but at least if you do have that, understanding that there's a healthy way to, you know, to get that out, you know,

calculated and real and you can actually make a career out of it, you know, but the balance is so important. The emotional health is so important to understand why,

what's triggering because you can't, if I get hit hit in a fight i can't react off an emotional trigger i can't like or a physical or emotional trigger really it's like physical then it's emotional it's like no you get hit it's got to be strategic i'd be like all right i took that and before a fight i would read a book i don't know if any of you've heard of it well you know who paulo coelho is yeah okay so i read a book called warrior of the light okay and i would read it before every fight actually one of the ring announcers came in he's like i heard you read before you fight and i'm like yeah i mean i was an english major you know so that was it was a big thing for me and i would read and it would calm my mind down and warrior of the light talks about how a warrior it's actually strong to retreat you know the vulnerabilities to retreat

and reassess and then and then go out again that it's not that you're weak because you know when you i was always this person like go go go but learning. That it's not that you're weak. Because, you know, I was always this person. Like, go, go, go. But learning how to step back. Yeah, that was my self-inspired outfit. Actually, you know, I didn't read in this fight. But Phil saw how calm. I mean, I was happy.

Yeah. It's probably the calmest I've ever seen any fighter before a fight, to be honest with you. And I've been around the game for quite a while. Yeah, yeah. A little bit. But she, it was like another day like honestly and i was like damn this is kind of weird almost but i knew that she's a veteran i knew that she was comfortable in there she went out there and dominated that girl like it wasn't

anything and the good thing is that like with her you gotta dustin says this a lot as a fighter you have you have to have a special type of crazy you know and that's and that's kind of how you can see like this is fun for for her you know it's fun for these guys and girls they go in there and fight and if it's not fun you're not gonna have a great career you know so you gotta kind of figure that out in the beginning and you you will if you get in there and actually fight and you'll get tested because did. It stopped being fun for me. And I started getting hit more. And my manager.

I stopped. Actually my stoppages started. And he was like you're not having fun. I'm like you're right. Something's got to change. And it wasn't so much. So much about like the trainers. I just knew I needed something.

Because I know a lot of fighters move trainers. And they get slack for it. And I used to be one of those people that gave the fighter. Like you're so not. You're not loyal. But you know. I think if you do it respectfully. And you're like you know what. This is longer serving me i reached a point i appreciate everything

you've done for me but now i need to move on and i've had some great coaches throughout my career and i appreciate them very much and i've learned from them you know and and i've learned to apply and i've learned to not take things so personal which is it's tough you know but you're like okay you know i just got to do this for me it's got to be what's right for me and what serves me and i think that's where the mental health comes into play and understanding your true self and what your purpose is and not not trying to get validation from everybody around you, which is what I did for a long time. I felt like, you know, oh, that validates me. No, I validate me. Like I choose what I want to do.

Like I said, I do something called whatever I want. You know what I mean? And that was something that was people like either like, yeah, they're like, oh, you're one of those. And I'm like, no, it's not that. It's like really, listen, I'm in a sport, which is like, you know, it's really tough and we don't get paid a lot of money. I clearly don't do it for the money, you know? So for me, I know my why. And I think anybody in anything in life needs to know their why.

And then once you discover your why and then you have a goal and then everything makes sense. Phil, what you doing here what am i doing yeah you're uh helping out my buddy sean right and you're um and with eric right yeah so eric pena who's uh gonna do a quick little video about and uh she was mentioning that uh eric's your coach right yes eric does my yeah i just i just started working with eric i'm the kind of person like you know he's he came on. I've known Eric for a long time. And I had Melissa, you know, who I worked with for a long time. And again, you know, I said to Melissa, I said, yeah, I'm going to try out Eric because I know he's been working with the fighters in the gym.

And in order for me to, I have to experience it in order to talk about it. Otherwise, I can say, oh, yeah, Eric's a nice guy. What do you think about his nutrition? I don't know. I don't work with him. I'm honest. You know what I mean? I have to be very transparent.

So I started working with him. And it's been great. It's a good change up you know him and melissa are very similar in their approach but i'll tell you like my my my i mean i'm just getting leaner and leaner and he upped my fat like tremendously for me that i noticed and but it's been an adjustment because i don't have a gallbladder so i had to start taking bile salts yeah that's a that's another story i lost that when i was 17. High pain tolerance. Yeah. Wow. Yeah, I'm a little crazy. But that was scary for me with the fat because I was like, oh, am I going to start getting, you know, my ALT went up because I was developing a fatty liver and all this stuff.

But I'm very much about getting my numbers checked and everything. And I started taking bile salts. So it doesn't really, I'm good. So now the fat, I'm like, man, I'm getting leaner and I feel good. And I think for women too, right? I mean, high fat diets sometimes are older older women you know hormonal yeah right yeah yeah and 39 we got some hormone stuff going on so i mean it's about it's a good balance to be honest with you he doesn't take it into the extremes in a sense and it was a lot for fighters it's important

you know and so eric is there working with Sean now as a Dutch bros. Shout out the Dutch bros. Our boy Sean Provost. That's it. And so I actually Eric got a hold of me because he has spondylolisthesis, which is basically the vertebrae. One vertebrae sits in front of the other, which causes obviously pain, discomfort, and it can eventually fuse. which causes obviously pain, discomfort, and then it can eventually fuse. So, and then obviously you'll have from the nerves that are there can get pinched and then you'll have nerve damage and some discomfort when doing things.

So with that, it was out of Eric's scope of practice. So he called me up, you know, I've been working with Eric forever now. You know, he actually was one of my interns. And so now brought him out there. I got ahold of Sean, talked to him a little bit. And then we went through what I would say, uh, a phone call to assess what's going on. Give me some information so that I know I'm not just walking here blind. The great thing is that again, like I said, my, my wife does have the same issue. So I've been dealing with this for a while. So I went in there yesterday, I ran through a quick assessment, put them through some, uh, some basic movement

patterns, worked on some stability, enhancing and contracting those muscles that support the back. And what I've seen was that, yes, he does have an inhibition to contract the glutes and he does have weakness in his hamstrings so there's some major supporters there um so yesterday we worked on that i worked on his ability to move and understand how to stay tight in certain positions and also be loose in certain positions working on controlled articular rotations of each joint capsule to increase the space the working space of each joint so that he can move more efficiently then i was just working on his ability to create torque into the ground so foot strengthening glute strengthening core and trunk strengthening and then mobility of all the other uh joints that need to be you

know mobile but from what i've seen he's he's strong like definitely strong he almost pushed my hands like you know all the way out but But yeah, just little things, you know, taking in to a point the details, which is very important and being able to understand how to contract those muscles that are going to stabilize the body. And then from there, we're going to get him a belt squat. We're going to get him a reverse hyper. He's looking like George Clooney with that hair. Dude, you trained George Clooney?

I guess so, man. Is it helpful that he's... Sean's pretty mobile. Is that helpful or does that kind of make things worse in the beginning? As far as what, though? As far as his back. As far as rehabilitating the back. Would it be better if he

was almost stiffer? Because I know he can move really well. Yeah, he's not bad. I mean, he does have limits in internal and external rotation of the hip so like there's some issues there he does have a hip shift uh one hip is higher than the other and that that's that's normal for what he has a little bit of uh scoliosis build up in the t-spine that's also normal right because again years of compensating through that particular pattern so increasing his gait understanding how to move efficiently. Again, like I said, trunk stiffening is going to be important.

And I'm talking more so from the lumbar. Stabilizing. Stabilizing the lumbar spine and increasing the mobility of the T-spine. So at the end, we're working some book openers, working some controlled articulate rotations of the shoulder. openers working some control articulate rotations of the shoulder just because i do want him to have that mobility of the upper back but also understand how to contract and increase his intra-abdominal pressure now another thing is that he has stomach issues in some ways and he also passes or he also throws up during workouts and you know that because you made him throw up a bunch of times what i've heard right so again increasing his ability to learn how to breathe properly

through these patterns right because i found that's the reason that that's happening i think so i think so i think it's i think it's a diet issue and i also think it's it's a breathing issue too as well so again maybe trying to brace too hard and not bracing the proper way and then increasing his ability to exhale appropriately in those different positions. He's doing pretty good on some of these exercises, it looks like. Yeah, he's doing well. He's doing well. He did better than I expected, to be honest with you.

He's very mentally tough, is what I noticed. Because we do a lot of these things that I know how hard they are. And I was talking to his assistant, Alex, and Alexandra. And I was just like, I feel for him right now. But he's got a lot of, well, you know, I mean, he's got a lot of fortitude. He's very much like, I'm going to do this and I'm going to get it. And he does walk a lot of, well, you know, he's got a lot of fortitude. He's very much like, I'm going to do this and I'm going to get it. And he does walk a lot. He's 30 minutes, I believe, something like that.

And that's good. That usually is an indication that there is no nerve damage to as well. There's nothing going down or shooting down his back or his leg. So that's a good thing. And then from there, again, I'm just going to slowly progress him. He's going to go from the ground. He's going to be working primarily stability strength mobility movement

patterns you know functional movements that are going to enhance other things and then from there we can load him with the belt squat we can load him with a reverse hyper i definitely want to do a lot of sled drag variations you know and then from there as long as we're building up strength in the in the safest manner with the most simplest movement patterns, and then we can work on increasing his ability to brace and have that movement control, that's going to help him go further on. I'm not going to obviously put a barbell on his back for a minute, but he's going to do these very methodical, very monotonous things. But it's going to increase his overall performance down the line and his overall health down the line nearly anybody can drag a sled that's it right i have

kids do that when we start off i got seven-year-olds that drag sleds for for distances and that's that's kind of kind of our like our a rule of three right louis talks about that a lot the rule of three has a book on it um but the old soviets they used to have the kids just basically do everything in the gym you know walk run crawl climb everything that's going to set up a base of movement quality so anybody can yes pull a sled now you still have to teach them the proper muscles to produce force through the ground so that you can move forward because a lot of guys do it differently and there's different variations and if you have like seven plates on there you're leaning forward a lot maybe not getting your heel into it and it's starting to train different muscles and stuff like that you got to humble yourself a little bit you got to make sure that you back off and make and you know

understand heel toe and understand you know moving and producing force through the hamstring and propelling yourself forward with that now that's going to be the upright position. Now there is some positions that we will go 45 and we will drop through the ground and get some acceleration out of that because these kids, especially the athletes, I want them to produce force into the ground so that they can produce themselves going forward. Right. And then we'll do lateral variations. We'll do crossover variations.

We'll do back pedals. You know, I'm doing a lot of those now. we'll do cross-over variations we'll do back pedals you know i'm doing a lot of those now um i'm doing i've done them you know a week out from from surgery because i know that one i'm not gonna hurt myself i have the strength to do it and it's very efficient you know and i can build up the strength there to enhance the other qualities of what i need to do going down the line so you're helping sean uh physically with the training and then Eric's helping with the nutrition, right? And then when you're more remote, like when you're not here, how do your clients, you know, when you work with any client remotely, how do they, how do they know,

how do they remember the exercise? Do you have a exercise index on your website or something like that? Yeah, I'll have a, I have several. So you can go to YouTube. We have a basic page there where you can go see all the exercises. When I put the program together, I'm going to attach the links so that they can actually see it. Then they'll send me over a video. Then I can break down the video. If I see it's, if there's a little bit of a compensation there, then I'll go ahead and tell them, what they need to do. But it's so easy to forget. You're like, he said to do that.

You're like, shit, man, I got it wrong wrong and i honestly don't like doing a whole lot of online coaching because of that and i can't really call it coaching it's online programming i'm giving you some advice there um but yeah i mean we try to do it as as much as we can obviously sean's out here i'm in florida but we'll make it work and then we got guys like yourself josh can help out you know and eric can definitely help out too as and eric can definitely help out too as well but again i just want to make sure that he's getting what he needs and if i can do that in a little bit of a time span like that i have here i'm gonna go back tomorrow and and still solidify some of the movements so he has it but again it's gonna

take time to understand it as long as he can put the connection together as far as where he needs to put the force down into the ground where he needs to properly brace and there's little things it's right like when he was doing the the glute bridges there was some compensation there where he wasn't paying attention to his lats he wasn't paying attention to the engagement of pressing down with his big toe right so then again you can't contract the glutes efficiently if you don't squeeze the big toe so i'll and that's those are little things that we have to take care of but other than that the movements he's he's got pretty down pat awesome man well uh i hope it really works out you know well for him because uh i know that that's like one thing that he really wants to

kind of nail down is this is his fitness and uh i think i originally put him in contact with george lockhart but you guys are all you guys all work work together yeah i mean george me and george is his fitness. And I think I originally put him in contact with George Lockhart, but you guys all work together. Yeah, I mean, me and George have been working together longer than Eric has been working with me. George worked with Yoni and Jay checked us in Poirier, so we've always had that connection. Yeah, it was good.

Andrew, want to take us on out of here? I will. Thank you, everybody, for checking out today's episode, especially those of you on the uh on the live stream it was really cool seeing you guys real bright and early on the west coast um thank you to free sleeve for sponsoring today's episode uh head over to free sleeve.com use code power 25 or 25 off your order and please make sure you follow the podcast at mark bell's power project and actually something happened in the last three consecutive episodes that has never

happened before on the podcast when i put when i put this post up i want somebody to guess what it is or get the answer right and i'll send you something from slingshot you don't even have to pay for it mark i'll do it if somebody can get it by the end of friday this episode goes up on monday whatever it is that unique thing that happened if you guys can hit me up first i'll send you something dope. Uh, anyways, please make sure to follow the podcast at MB power project on Twitter.

And my Instagram is at, I am Andrew Z and SEMA. Where are you at? And SEMA, any on Instagram and YouTube and see me union on Twitter. Mark, where can people follow along for you guys? Um,

at, at Maureen Shay at Maureen underscore Shay on Instagram and a Facebook is Maureen Shay, Twitter and Maureen Shay. Daru strong on Instagram and Twitter and DaruStrong.com. Check out my website and the YouTube channel. Phil Daru Strong. I'm at Mark Smelly Bell.

Strength is never a weakness. Weakness is never a strength. Catch you all later.