Mark Bell's Power Project - Phil Daru How Elite Fighters Build Real Power, Speed & Fight IQ

Episode Date: May 14, 2026

Phil Daru breaks down how elite fighters build punching power, movement efficiency, sprint mechanics, foot strength, breathing control, and true fight-ready athleticism. We also get into why strength alone is not enough, how to find an athlete’s limiters, and why the best fighters learn to control chaos.Follow Phil Daru:YouTube:  ⁨@DaruStrong1⁩  Instagram: @darustrongX/Twitter: @DaruStrongFacebook: Phil Daru / @coachdaruWebsite: phildaru.comCommunity: Daru Strong Club on SkoolSpecial perks for our listeners below!🥩 HIGH QUALITY PROTEIN! 🍖 ➢ https://goodlifeproteins.com/ Code POWER to save 20% off site wide, or code POWERPROJECT to save an additional 5% off your Build a Box Subscription!🩸 Get your BLOODWORK/TRT/PEPTIDES! 🩸 ➢ https://marekhealth.com and use code "POWERPROJECT" for 10% off Self-Service Labs and Guided Optimization®.🧠 Methylene Blue: Better Focus, Sleep and Mood 🧠 Use Code POWER10 for 10% off!➢https://troscriptions.com?utm_source=affiliate&ut-m_medium=podcast&ut-m_campaign=MarkBel-I_podcastBest 5 Finger Barefoot Shoes! 👟 ➢ https://Peluva.com/PowerProject Code POWERPROJECT15 to save 15% off Peluva Shoes!Self Explanatory 🍆 ➢ Enlarging Pumps (This really works): https://bit.ly/powerproject1Pumps explained: https://youtu.be/qPG9JXjlhpM?si=JZN09-FakTjoJuaW🚨 The Best Red Light Therapy Devices and Blue Blocking Glasses On The Market! 😎➢https://emr-tek.com/Use code: POWERPROJECT to save 20% off your order!👟 BEST LOOKING AND FUNCTIONING BAREFOOT SHOES 🦶➢https://vivobarefoot.com/powerproject🥶 The Best Cold Plunge Money Can Buy 🥶 ➢ https://thecoldplunge.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save $150!!➢ https://withinyoubrand.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off supplements!➢ https://markbellslingshot.com/ Code POWERPROJECT to save 15% off all gear and apparel!Follow Mark Bell's Power Project Podcast➢ https://www.PowerProject.live➢ https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast➢ Insta: https://www.instagram.com/markbellspowerproject➢ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/markbellspowerprojectFOLLOW Mark Bell➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell➢https://www.tiktok.com/@marksmellybell➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybellFollow Nsima Inyang➢ Ropes and equipment : https://thestrongerhuman.store➢ Community & Courses: https://www.skool.com/thestrongerhuman➢ YouTube : https://www.youtube.com/c/NsimaInyang➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/?hl=e#PowerProject #Podcast #MarkBell #FitnessPodcast #markbellspowerproject

Don't live in chaos. Control that chaos. And the best fighters know how to control their emotions and block out the noise when the time counts. What is the most important punch? It's the jab. The jab sets up all the other punches. That's why it's the most important punch.

The barbell lifts are great for testing. So you have your testers and your builders. Why would we train? We can't increase power production. You can improve power production through the transverse plane, learning kinetic linkage and using the support system

all the way up to the outer extremity to produce that force. Does that carry over the competition? It may or may not. How important is like sprinting and jumping? The best athletes are gymnasts and sprinters. They're not a produce force. They're not to control their body.

They're strong in so many different ranges. It teaches you rotational power. It teaches you to produce force into the ground. It teaches you hip flexion and extension. What about some of this like rucking and stuff? I decided to do 100 mile rug. Or actually it was 150 miles. And so what ended up happening is they ended up getting wrapped on my license.

Phil DeRue, welcome to the show once again. Thank you, my brother. It feels good to be back, you know. Seeing that hair, too, that hair is amazing. Yeah, shit's going crazy over here, huh? Did you watch Invincible Ever? Do you know what that is? No, I thought so.

Omneman. It's a cartoon. I don't know. I'm just fucking around. Can we put something up so I can see? Yeah, yeah. Give me some context. Get a glimpse.

Got it. Makes sense. Perfect. The stash too. Now Omni Man, he has some unbelievable striking power. He's got some pretty good. He's got some pretty good hands. I know you were working with in Seema a little bit.

What are some common mistakes that people make when they're kind of new to striking? Like do they push too much? Are they trying too hard? Like what are the things? Let's actually pull up a really bad video on my Instagram. I'm going to use myself as the self-deprecating individual here. Go to my Instagram and then you'll see a video of me just having some fun on a bag. Cool thing about a punch is that a lot of people think.

A lot of people just always think they can throw a punch. Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Go down. Go down. Right there. Right there. I used to get that a lot too.

I used to get, I know how to bench. I don't think so. All the bad things here. I mean, the one thing that we'll talk about, right? It was you drop in your hands right after you throw. So. And the way you're slipping punches is just, it's inaccurate.

It's not really. It's wild. It's not efficient. Hey, Phil. Just please settle down a little bit over there. You suck, bro. No, no, honestly, though, when we worked yesterday, just fine-tuning the details, starting with the jab, right? When I started boxing, I don't know, it was probably 2016 when I was really into boxing.

And then even when I was in college from 2010 to 2012, the biggest thing was to identify what is the most important punch? It's the jab. So looking at the jab, fine-tuning the details, and getting there and looking at yourself on the mirror, shoot the jab, keep doing that until it feels natural, right? And relaxing the body too as well, right? We said drop the hands, trying to loosen up like you do with your general training. Yeah. If you guys seen any of the rope flows that he does, all the movement stuff, he correlates that over into him striking, which is going to be beneficial overall. But the biggest thing is just like being patient.

A lot of people aren't patient, right? So that jab, just keep working that jab, work your defense, work your footwork, and that will help all the other punches that come about. And even this morning, you know, I just, because we literally just worked a jab and a straight, right? Yeah. Yeah. And just one thing that, like one thing I've known is that just like with jujitsu and other things, when you learn a movement, you got to get the hang of that, just that one thing being fluid.

And here I was just like, you know what? I even literally said, strikers roast me. And I just, I knew this looked bad. I didn't put this up thinking it looked good. And there's a lot of good comments. But what Phil told me, tell me what you mentioned about, like, how long it took you or when you started working with the boxing coach, what he told you about how long you spent on your jab.

Really, it was just until it became natural, right? Unconscious competence. But it took me right around, I would say somewhere around six months to really identify and do it from all different angles, right? So throwing the jab from certain positions, being able to shoot the jab at the face, at the body, but doing it consistently. And then watching yourself doing it in different fashions, right? So if I'm able to like drop my hand a little bit, maybe faint, throw it up top, change rhythms. And that takes time.

But a lot of people just want to rush into sparring. They want to rush into throwing their hook or their uppercuts. And they haven't developed that natural style yet using the jab that sets up all the other punches. So we want to make sure that that's crisp That'll stop a lot of fighting Or that'll stop a lot of people coming at you when you're fighting So the jab sets up all the other punches That's why it's the most important punch

I believe in boxing Yeah, I saw Leota Machita and Bones Jones Fighting a while back And it was like every time Every time Jones was like set up for a kick Leota would hit him with like a straight right Yeah Every single time and just threw him off

He was using it almost like a jab Yeah. Even though the straight rights, you know, different than a jab. But he was using it like a jab, but it just threw off his rhythm. And it was just giving him fits. And then his coach, Bones Jones' coach was like, hey, just fake a kick, throw a left, throw a left hook. And he threw a left hook and he just knocked him right out. It was unbelievable because Leota Machita was giving him fits the entire fight.

And then just with one small adjustment, it was like. Well, with karate, see, his karate style, that that side kick or that front kick is their job. They set their punches up with their kicks. It's as opposite of with boxing or if you're a kickboxer, you would set it up with your punches. Who's got the greatest jab of all time? Is it like Larry Holmes, Thomas Hearns? Yeah, I would say probably Holmes is good. Believe it or not, believe it or not, I would say, what's his name?

Polymalanage really has a good one. as a snappy jab, you know, and he leads with his jab, right? There's a ton of them. I still think that even Floyd has a good jab, you know. I think that it depends on the style. Tyson had a great jab. Floyd had a great jab. Or I should say even, what's the name?

Yeah, I mean, Tyson had a jab. It was different. It set up all the power strikes. It's much shorter athlete compared to the other headwings. Roy Jones. Roy Jones had a great jab. He kept it loose, you know. Yeah.

But yeah, I think it just as long as it's snappy and it's long and it stops people in their tracks. And you're not really trying to move much. You're trying to throw your punch, and if you are going to have head movement, they're separate from each other a little bit, right? Like you throw a punch and then you move. No, sometimes you can throw and slip.

So you're here. That's what Tyson used to do. Right, right. So it sets up power strikes after that. So if you're here, you're offline, and they come over the top. Obviously, that's boxing. You don't want to do that with kickboxing

because you slip too hard, you get kicked in the face. Trust me, I know. Yeah, and with MMA, what's the difference? Like there's got to be some different concerns. Yeah, I mean, take downs. There's different styles. Like we were talking about what your stance was like, right? So if you're ultimately, the more bladed you are, you're, you know, you're susceptible to getting leg kicks, take downs, things like that. So you got to square up a little bit more in MMA because there's multiple things going on, right? So in boxing, that will definitely blade a lot more because they want that torque, right? They want to be able to have that

rotational power, especially for the backhand. And then you're creating that half man so you can't get punched, right? But with things like MMA or kickboxing, you want to be in a good position to strike, stop kicks, things like that. Actually, this actually brings up another thing. When you see people throwing a punch, I was watching a video with you and Frank, the guy that you do a lot of the tactical stuff with, right? And you were throwing some punches on a bag

that was like it's a smaller bag and it was upright. And Frank was... The teardrop bag. The teardrop bag, right? And you were throwing certain punches and Frank came back and I feel like he mentioned, or not even he mentioned, but you mentioned that he was throwing more power punches

when he was going around the bag. So what was the difference of intent when you guys were doing that? I wish we could pull up the video so we could see it. It's probably, I think, the most recent video on Phil's channel with Frank.

It's on YouTube. This one actually go to, keep going down. Keep going down. I think, no, come back up, back up, back up, back up, back up, back up. Right there, that one. Yes, this one, perfect. Right.

So what I typically do, and I do this wrong, and I've done this because I, I usually fight taller guys, right? So I'm 5'8 on a good day. I think I'm 5'9 now. But typically at my weight class, I used to fight guys at 6 foot, 6 foot 1. I had a guy that I fought 6 foot 3. So like I had to be almost lunging up to catch them, right? So I was so used to dropping level and coming up with my hooks. What Frank told me was to sit in on that on that hook. And as I sat down on the hook, I had more more force being applied to that to that transverse plane and I could feel it throughout that punch and you could see it too. Yeah. Yeah. So I actually turned to him. I was

like yeah, that feels way better. I find this kind of fascinating though because it's so cool how much you can continue to learn even after doing something for over 15 years or you've probably been striking for over 15 years right? More than that 20. Actually yeah 25. And it's not like you don't know how to produce. power. It's not like you haven't been powerful, but like this was a small tweak. A little small tweak. It's just a second pair of eyes that are on you. Yeah. And that's what you need. You need a coach to actually look at things. Even when you're sparring, I don't care if you're the best fighter in the world, you have to have that eye to understand what you need to be doing at that

particular time. Even when I was working with world champions, right? These guys been, Robeson Ramirez been fighting since he was seven years old. He's 30 years old. He's a multi, multi-world champion two-time gold medalist but he has coaches that watch over him and give him little tips and things that he needs to do because again you can't watch yourself all the time so yeah i think you know make sure that you record i see you record yourself all the time i think watching back the recordings is definitely going to be good as you do that with lifting too as well you know i think always having that ability to like identify the limiters yeah and then fine-tuning the details through other people that have been there and done that you know got you you

been teaching people out of a tactical stuff, self-defense type stuff? I've been learning it. You know, I think that it's fun for one. You know, it's different and it ties in some of the, you know, with with the firearms too, right? Because I want to be equipped. I have kids. I have a family. You know, you want to be able to be, you know, dangerous at times when you need to. And it just came natural. Like even with the strikes that we have with the close combat, close circular combat, and then utilizing a gun at the end of it. They're like, well, why would you shoot them after you just knocked them out? Hopefully we don't have to go that route, but if it's there, we can do it.

But yeah, this is fun. I mean, this is something that I don't know if you guys know Jake Boswick, Brutal Boswick, the parinuckle fighter. Yes. So he started doing this, is executive protection. And Frank is a guy that's been teaching him. Now, Frank's been in the game forever. He's a French guy.

He's crazy. You can probably see it on some of his socials. He actually got shut down from TikTok because he was just doing too much crazy stuff. Twice, too. He had a million followers. They shut him down. Oh, shit. Yeah.

Yeah. But really good. I mean, we're probably going to bring him up. He's going to be in our facility soon. So we'll be able to train more consistently. And obviously, you know, the more you can train, the better you're going to get. Yeah. How do you train punching power?

Because, like, people sometimes say, like, you kind of habit. Yeah, they're having to. You can train rotational power a little bit, right? Yeah, then why would we train? You know, if we can. increase power production. So I've always said like, yeah, there's there's obviously natural inclinations. You have genetic predispositions or whatever limb length.

I mean, John Jones has the anthropology to actually create torque and knock somebody out. But you can improve power production through the transverse plane, learning kinetic linkage, and using the support system all the way up to the outer extremity to produce that force and produce it for the force fast. right so what I like to use like from an exercise selection standpoint I've done a lot of landmine stuff you guys seen that landmines midball throws things like that but also hitting the bag and then being more precise with your striking so you found like when we were doing the jab it started to look more powerful because you're in the right position you're actually using your legs you were staying longer you weren't tensed up in the upper body staying loose and then contracting and relaxing fast we talked about this last yesterday yeah right the best athletes know how to do that rapidly contract, relax, contract, relax. And so that comes in time. And it also comes down to you identifying where you need to be in space. So setting your feet upright, learning how to throw the punch effectively and efficiently, and then precision.

So precision will be speed at any moment, right? So if you can be precise and the timing is there, you'll knock anybody out. And that's what I think Connor had that. You know, he was very precise with his strikes. He had power, but he knew how to throw it in the right direction at the right timing. and that's how he got all those knockouts. It's like unexpected too. Like the guy's not really thinking he's going to get hit that hard.

Yeah. I think like one of the better images I can remember was Evander Holyfield knocking out Buster Douglas. He just like barely backs up out of the way of a punch and then throws a straight right and just absolutely drills him. Whereas when Buster Douglas knocked out Tyson, it was just accumulation. Yeah.

Just accumulation of a lot of shots and cuts and stuff. Yeah, Tyson was also on like a Coke bend or like. So that might have played a role in it. For sure. But yeah, it comes down to like identifying where their weak limits are. And then you take advantage of it. My last fight, my last pro fight, you know, I fought a guy was 6-3. He had a wingspan, I don't know, like a John Jones wingspan.

And they thought that me and him were just going to be striking and it was just going to be a back-and-forth battle. And I was just like, listen, this isn't going to work. So I took him down all three rounds. And then at the end, the reporter was like, well, you just took him to your strengths. And I was like, no, I took him to his weakness. And I capitalized on it. Not so much my strength, but I knew that there was a limiter there.

So I took advantage of it. That's the great thing about MMA. There's so much, you know, there's so much versatility. But, yeah, boxing is the same thing. You know, it's like figuring out, all right, if I'm a longer guy, I'm going to try to stay away. I'm going to keep my distance. I'm going to use my jab. Use my straight punches.

I'm not going to throw wild hooks because I can get in, you know, that person is going to get inside. it and then I mean hit somebody like yourself I said stay long don't make yourself short you're already taller yeah you know and that allows you to whip that punch out there and now you're less energy more efficient and you have the ability to control the fight see we can find a video of it ryan a brander holyfield knocking out buster douglas um how do you teach people reaction you know reaction it's like something that we don't normally get you can get it from the gym but you have to be specific yeah i mean obviously sparring is going to be great for that too as well as well you're focus mitts we were talking about that too yesterday and then you can use things in the gym i like

fit lights those are really good we've been using those for for years we used them with dust and porre when he was fighting max holloway and it was good just because it was it got him out of that world of like having to get punched in the face obviously so it's good to still train reactions still train the ability to react at a certain stimulus so you can use visualization you can use auditory And then also what we like to do is make sure that it's in a time domain of the actual fight. So it's simulation. You know, but yeah, I would do more things of that nature. Or you can actually cause constraints.

So maybe they close one eye or maybe they're on one foot. So now it's improving their ability to understand where they're at in space, coordination, control, balance. And then they have to react accordingly because there's never going to be a perfect timing for anything, especially in a fight. So you have to be prepared for all things. Let's check out this clip. Holyfield was so jacked. Trained with Lee Haney back in the day. I'm sure he was drug-free.

Yeah. You see how he fainted that though? See how he fainted that jab? Came over the top. That faint of that jab. I was telling you about changing up the rhythms. Yeah. And not just going jab, jab, jab.

Jab, because I can counter that, right? And I can time it. So when you can change up rhythms first, you obviously have to learn how to throw the jab efficiently and effectively. And then you can start to play around. with the rhythm. The biggest thing that I saw, unfortunately, was when Rose Namayunez fought Yoanna on J-Chic. Now, Yawanna is a very in-and-out fighter, right? And if you, I don't want to pull this up because this is near and dear to my heart. But Rose knew how to change up rhythms and patterns

where Yonah wasn't used to that. Yonah was used to, you know, I strike you strike, and I'm going to beat you to it because I'm faster, I'm more explosive. But when Rose slowed it down, it caused her to have to guess on when that punch was coming and all of a sudden, you know, she got clipped. So changing up rhythms, faints, showing different looks to as well, changing levels, right? Throwing the jab at the body, throwing it up top, right? Maybe doubling it up, causing those feints to occur because what happens when you start to throw faints and you're throwing jabs very efficiently and it's striking and like damn first jab I get hit with I don't want to get hit with them again so I'm going to hold my hands up so what does that do that opens up for the body so I can

faint to the head go to the body let me ask you this um you know you work with so many fighters and there's a lot of people who are getting into martial arts whether they're getting into grappling or getting into learning how to strike and they find it difficult to of course as you get better you get become you can learn how to relax but even so there are many people who still They just hold so much tension when they're trying to do certain things, whether grappling or fighting, and maybe they haven't figured out a way to become a more relaxed martial artist. What would some of your suggestions be to benefit them? Well, they're highly sympathetic. So when we look at that, especially guys that are very explosive, right?

Jake Boswick comes to mind with this one too as well. We want to get them in a parasympathetic state immediately. So breathwork protocols, box breathing, even have them lying 90-90 on the ground. and just relaxing and giving them less tension. Yeah. Which again, because they're already explosive, this is going to make them even more explosive. It's probably like torture for them to like try to relax.

Yeah. Yeah, it's calming them down, right? So most of my guys are very dopamine driven, right? They're A type. So like I have to control their emotions. And so we use those breathwork protocols even before the fight. So I'll rev them up with like, let's say a breath of fire type of technique. And then I will bring them down with box breathing as we go through our dynamic warmup.

as they go into actual sports specific where they're holding myths or they're grappling or whatever, they're more relaxed and it gives them the ability to really focus in on the task as opposed to just being aggressive. And we want aggression,

but we want to control aggression, right? So like, I always say like, don't live in chaos, control that chaos. And the best fighters know how to control their emotions and block out the noise when the time counts, right?

That's what makes you elite. You got good fighters, great fighters in the elite, the elite know how to block out the noise. You find that like by asking them to focus on their breathing like it's just it's not a hard task you know so like if you're asking them like you know hey show me this combination on the bag or do this thing they want to do it well they want to impress you they're trying to make certain noises and trying to be aggressive in a certain way right they're trying to have it you know they have a

they're attached to who they are right but if they say hey lay down on the ground put your feet up on a chair and just work on breathing for like 10 minutes. It's tough. It takes time. But it puts all that to the side though. Yeah. You're not asking them to do anything that has to look impressive. No, it's just simple things, right?

And so they're used to complex movement strategies, right? Especially in MMA or any combat sport. So when you have them just, we take away all that complexity in the beginning and start to build up. And then once they can do that in a 90-90 lying position, now we can start to implement that while they're standing, while they're going through footwork drills, other shadow boxing. And then you can add on the complexity and the dynamic capability once they've honed in on that ability at a baseline level. Have you seen some people have kind of like two left

feet and still be amazing? Yeah, all the time. Like uncoordinated maybe. I'll tell you this. I had a fight back in 2000, maybe 12, 2000, no, not even 2009. And I was in the back and I was cornering one of my guys. and we were in Georgia, I believe. Yeah, some off place in Georgia. We were fighting in a bar. It was a bar, yeah, back in the day. So we're in the back of the bar, and everybody's warming up,

and I'm wrapping up my guy, and I'm watching this kid hit pads, and he's missing the pad, and I'm telling you, I'm like, oh, he's going to get fucked up. I'm like, this is going to be bad. So he goes out first, and all of a sudden, you hear, you know,

obviously the music, they announce him, and within 10 seconds, you hear. everybody's screaming I'm like oh he got fucked it comes back he's got a medal in his hand I'm like what happened he just clipped the kid you know and he went out there crazy and you know it just happens it's fighting wow but yeah like you you know to be the best you have to be efficient with your movement quality but figuring out first and foremost from that baseline is having the

ability to just move with foundational patterns right gate push pull hinge rotate all of that stuff But at that point, then you have to try to tie that into specifics. So you know how to move really well. We know that. We can see it with the videos. But then the specifics of you actually throwing the jab, as you can see when you're hitting the bag, you haven't done it enough to really, I like to really hone in on the details from a specific standpoint. Once you get it, though, and you'll get it fast because you already have those movement strategies built in from a baseline perspective.

It's almost like a GPP. Yeah, it is. Got like a preparedness for it. Exactly. done a bunch of other things. Yeah, that's why we do the 90-90 breathing. That's why we do those cross-connect walks, what I was showing you.

Because I want them to understand how to rotate throughout the entire kinetic chain, right? So we tie in the oblique sling, anterior, posterior. Because at the end of the day, I want you to be able to have that torque, but be able to be based and supported on the ground. There's a lot of times when you were throwing your punch, what was happening?

Foot was coming off, right? So you lose your base. And then there's power leakages that happen when you lose your base. So being rooted. That's frustrating when you're trying to do it. And you're like, I'm not doing that. But like the coach keeps telling you that you're,

you're kind of like, you know, messing up your footwork. And it's, it can be hard, you know. Or are you trying to step in with a jab or you're trying to like back up with a jab? Yeah. And that's very complex. It gets to be hard. Yeah. Well, we were working on the jab and then stepping to the side.

And when you step to the side, obviously you want to step with the same side leg that you're stepping to. So if I'm stepping to the right, I'm going to first step with. my right foot right if you cross the feet and then you're in a bad position if you get clipped you're going to get knocked out or you can get knocked over so when we were doing those bag drills it was jab step jab step but it was always rotating around the opponent we're not walking back we're not going straight forward can never do that in a fight because you will get clipped or you'll get backed up into the ring or the cage or a wall if you're in the street or something like that so always having the

circular motion that's actually what we did with frank too as well around those tires right so that circular allows us to still stay in the fight, but have an advantage on a direction of where we can strike. So as you can see, I'm moving around, absolutely throwing, and then moving. And then moving them out the way, boom, circular motion. He comes forward. I get out the way.

But I'm always in a good position to strike again. I'm never outside the fight. That's crazy because it looks like you're floating. Yeah. You know, it's kind of hard to identify unless you've done some of these things before on like which your leg is almost moving first because it just looks like you're kind of like bouncing.

Yeah, when you get to a point where like you understand movement, then you can start to play around with the complexities of that movement, right? But the goal is to make sure that, again, I'm getting in a particular angle where he can't punch me or strike me and I can strike them, right? So why does Frank have you guys jumping on the tire? The tire thing is more of a conditioning tool, right? So it's a little bit of plow metric, right?

It gets the heart rate up. and then I still have to be technically sound, right? I still have to be able to draw, shoot, move around and still stay in the fight, like he said. Yeah. With the jumping, and we did this for like five rounds. So typically this is just to get the heart rate moving to increase power production through the legs.

We're on the tires, so it's not as demanding on the joints, right? And I can have that stretch reflex built in. Using the knees tucked up is just more of a, of a stimulus to just get the heart rate up and just move. And I did this before. So if you go back, go to the, because everybody talks about this, go to the one where I'm hitting the bat

on the hood. I think go up a little bit, go up a little bit. Go up, go up, go up. Right. Right there. Go over and down. That one. So everybody's like, why is he doing that?

Right? Well, first of all, it got a lot of use. So that's one thing. But the biggest thing there, wait, when it comes down to a tree, training stimulus, I'm hitting a metal bat, an aluminum bat against a hood. So you had that reverberation throughout the body, right? So my hands are shaking now.

And then I have to be in control, draw, and then shoot the target. So as your hands are shaking, you have to control your, your emotion and control your body. And there's obviously other things here. But that biggest thing was like, one, you got the sound of the bat hitting the hood. So that's ringing in your ears. You got the vibration of the bat hitting the hood. Now I have to control that. The problem that I was doing was I was going crazy.

I used to draw and then my shots were all over the place. So he said, calm down. Take it from where it is and then focus in on the target. And that's life. A lot of times we have these chaotic things going on. We've got to be able to hone in on the target. And that's just focus. And that's like a life lesson in a lot of ways because you have so much

chaos going on in your world. Yeah. But if you have a focus, you have a plan of action, you know how to attack it. Stay with the strategy. Don't deviate. When it comes to like training this explosiveness and rotational power, it's something I think that you're awesome at, especially with seeing all the clips of you being exposed for yourself, but all your athletes too. What are some of the key exercises that you like to introduce for like rotational power and like maybe just maybe where should someone start start off by doing it less dynamic so we would go either on tall kneeling position we would do like a med ball throw and i would teach them first and foremost how to truly rotate through the thoracic spine sometimes they don't have that actual mobility you're saying take it slow because you can

hurt yourself doing this stuff yeah if you haven't done any rotational stuff and you just go into the gym and you chuck a 15 pound med ball as fast as you can you might hurt your back exactly so So anti-rotation has been key for us to as well to stimulate the muscle that helps with rotation, right? So we can do, let's just say, mobility work in long-level isometrics in rotation. So if I'm, let's say, I like to use a lot of FRC, function range conditioning. So I'll do some long-lever isometrics holding or yielding isometric in rotation, have them hold that for about 30 seconds to control that motion and gain more range. The more range we have, the more force we can produce.

And if we have control in those end ranges, now we're safer. We're not going to hurt ourselves. You control that position and now we can produce force from that position. Then once we have that range of motion set in, now we can start to dynamically put more dynamics into it. And so with that, I'll start with the med ball throws. We'll go to a half kneeling. Now we're really starting to work more dynamic. Then we'll go to tall or actually go to standing, both feet.

Then we'll start working the footwork into it. So it's all a progression. And it depends on the person how fast we progress. So at first you might kind of do some of these activities sort of flat foot. Yeah. And then work your way into moving the feet around a little bit more. Yeah, seated even. Okay.

Because I want to isolate before I integrate. Right. So once I found a way to really identify, okay, he has that range of motion or she has that range of motion, now we can produce more force from that range. Now let's increase the complexity by getting them on their two feet, teaching them how to create force from the ground up. with the support system and now we can start to maybe change up maybe do multi-directional we start with a slam then we throw it to the wall whatever have you is some of what you're saying based off

of like the potential for someone to still force themselves in a particular positions because of the dynamics of the movement and that's not really what you want them to do you want them to be able to express it without leverage without a lot of velocity I guess you'd say yeah we're giving them constraints Right. So what I do is I will allow them to put themselves in a position, a base position, and then see where they have it naturally. What type of range do they have naturally? And then we want to improve that range actively. So you can have passive range of motion, which is good, but active range of motion is they're actually going to make you dangerous. So let's say, for instance, if you're getting into a stretch, yeah, you can use a passive stretch to improve that range, but then what can you do from that range? So then we're going to increase the strength of the muscles that allow that rotation to a stretch. occur in like an isometric contraction or an overcoming and then we can start to work on the dynamic capability. As far as isometrics are concerned, you know, for athletes at home, how would you how would you tell them about the importance of isometrics and then how could they maybe apply some of it to their training? I mean, I think like when we talk about baseline work, right,

it's going to set up a foundation of your ability to move with good quality. So if we did some type of base positioning, right, maybe it's a 99 or an S guard, right? They lack internal external rotation of the hip. We're going to start working on the antagonist and agonist muscles to improve that range of motion with the muscle that they have that surrounds the joint. So I'm increasing the strength. I'm increasing the capacity to contract those muscles in those positions. Yeah. And then we can start the free flow around it.

Maybe doing like a 9090 to a bear sit rolling through, but they have to have that range and there should be no deviations. of the kinetic chain. So if they're rounding their back to try to get into internal rotation, that's a problem. So we have to give them maybe something to start with, maybe put them on a block,

right, have them have their hands out so they can still maintain their posture. Yeah. Right. And then when we start to increase that range of motion, now we can start to flow through it.

Yeah. If I'm in like a 90-90, I can't hold myself up. Yeah. I have to like have my hand there. You know, and then I have, you know,

the one leg bent this way and the other leg. Yeah. Just my wife and I've been watching my friends, twins lately. And, you know, they're, they're not even one years old yet. So I watch them on the floor and I tell my wife, I'm like, I'm going to get on the

floor like Sadie or I'm going to get on the floor like Simon. And I try to do it and I try to mimic and it's so hard. I mean, they're little balls of jello. So they kind of, they're cheating at this point. But we think about that when we're little, we're able to do so much. Yeah. You know, they have so many options. Yeah.

And we lose those options because we get stuck in these fixed positions. You're sitting all the time. You're standing all the time. you're laying in bed. So we never explore ranges of motion that are conducive to everyday living. And we lose it. All those things that you mentioned, they're all the same, basically, standing, sitting, lying down. They're not too different from each other. We don't do enough, especially busy parents, just adults in general. We don't do enough of working through multiple planes of motion, right? It's all sagittal plane, going front, going back. There's no side to side motion. There's no

rotation. So we have to improve that. And even watching what Encema does throughout the rope flows, throughout all these things that he's doing to move his body in all directions and then getting stronger in these weird contorted positions. That's why he's so good at Jiu Jitsu. I would say that. Plus obviously the technical efficiency. But if you can move really well, let's see some stuff. Can you have any Jiu Jitsu stuff? It's rare. He doesn't really post anything on Jiu Jitsu. Don't pose yesterday Don't do that There's probably some jiu jitzy stuff somewhere

What do you think that movement efficiency does For somebody like in SEMA Oh for anybody but especially him on the mats You're improving your coordination Your core control Right your body positioning He doesn't have to like fight against himself Right there's no it's less effort

Right we talked about less effort More efficiency than you can do more right And a lot of the times like For instance the most elite fighters because they become so efficient, right? They may not have, they may not even be in great condition. Maybe they're coming off the couch. It's an offseason. They're coming in. They can spar though five to ten rounds because they're efficient with sparring. They know when they're going to be in a bad position. So they try to maneuver their body

in the right way so they don't have to do so much, right? Or exude so much energy. And so that allows them to still keep sparring even though they're not in the greatest shape. Now, you improve the conditioning now they become super dangerous. And that's where you want to peak them for that particular fight. But you're always ready. And again, you know, like yesterday, let's say, for instance, you weren't gassed at all when you were rolling. But you were rolling.

Like you did six, I don't know, six rounds or whatever. Yeah. It wasn't a hard day for him because he was just so efficient, you know. And he was going against, I just going against me and a couple of other guys, but like he controls his own positioning. He controls his body. So now he doesn't have to create so much energy to. to hold his own.

Recover faster from the workouts and so on. I don't know why we're showing this. This is like stressful. Just a game. Well, no, it's exploring. It's exploring movement. It's exploring movement capabilities, right? And you're doing it with load now, right?

Now, obviously, you wouldn't have somebody do that to start, right? You would have them just move and give them constraints to start with because if you can constrain them, then they can go segment my segment, and then you can put it together. What type of constraints would you put on? like getting someone to be able to sprint. Well, let's talk about this. Like we're talking about rotation, right?

So a lot of times people rotate throughout their entire body. They try to rotate maybe they're not just rotating from the thoracic spine, rotating through the lumbar spine through the hips. So I'll use something like a block, a yoga block or a roller. And I'll sit in a basic, just 90-90 position, have them squeeze the roller, control their hips, control their pelvis as they rotate through the thoracic spine. Now they're understanding that, oh, I'm using too much to try to rotate.

Then once they gain that positioning and they understand how to rotate just through the thoracic spine, now we can start to integrate everything else. And we do that with the upper body too. I may constrain the upper body and have them work through hip range of motion, right? Internal external external rotation, notation, nutation, you're looking at a lot of people are anterior pelvic tilted, right? So getting them in a seated position, I do this with Smokey all the time because these all extended, right? So getting him to posteriorly, pelvicly tilt and then work through planes of motion, maybe it's a pressing motion.

Smoky and I are providing a two-day seminar on mobility coming up soon. I like to be there for that one. I like to be there for that one. Anti-mobility. Yeah, that's it. That's it. So, you know, in lifting, when you're a power lifter,

right, you want to gain the most leverage possible, right, to lift the most weight. But then that gets you out of position to really move your, all the muscles and the joints that are, that should be moving at that particular time with a press or a push. All right, Mark, you're getting leaner and leaner,

but you always enjoy the food you're eating. So how are you doing it? I got a secret, man. It's called Good Life Protein. Okay, tell me about that. I've been doing some Good Life Protein. You know, we've been talking on the show for a really long time of certified Piedmontese beef,

and you can get that under the umbrella of Good Life Proteins, which also has chicken breast, chicken thighs, sausage, shrimp, scallops, all kinds of different fish, salmon, tilapia. The website has nearly any kind of meat that you can think of lamb. There's another one that comes of mind. And so I've been utilizing and kind of using some different strategy,

kind of depending on the way that I'm eating. So if I'm doing a keto diet, I'll eat more fat, and that's where I might get the sausage, and I might get their 80-20, grass-fed, grass-finish, ground beef. I might get bacon. And there's other days where I kind of do a little bit more bodybuilder style, where the fat is, you know, might be like 40, grams or something like that.

And then I'll have some of the leaner cuts of the certified Piedmontese beef. This is one of the reasons why neither of us find it hard to stay in shape because we're always enjoying the food we're eating. And protein, you talk about protein leverage it all the time. It's satiating and helps you feel full. I look forward to every meal. And I can surf and turf, you know? I could cook up some, you know, chicken thighs or something like that and have some shrimp

with it or I could have some steak. I would say, you know, the steak, it keeps going back and forth for me on my favorite. So it's hard for me to lock one down, but I really love the bovette steaks. Yeah. And then I also love the rib-eyes as well. You can't go wrong with the rib-ies. So guys, if you guys want to get your hands

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best meat in the world. Because now you're taking yourself out of mechanical advantages and you're using all those joints effectively and efficiently. So let's say for instance if you're going to do a big bench, right, you hit your PR, whatever, let's get you now in a hook lying position, right? We'll keep the spine in a good postural position, make sure that you're flat and then work through protraction, retraction, and work the joint while you're in a good, stable position. right because I want to stack the pelvis and I want to stack the rib cage over the pelvis so now I have good diaphragmatic breathing right I'm not extended I'm not going to have any injuries and it's just more of like it's not actually improving the strength but it has the ability to help with strength building because now you have the efficiency of movement and you have the muscles that can contract in the right positions I'm curious about you know we're talking about diaphragmatic breathing right now we're only with so many people and especially uh

lifters, I notice certain breathing patterns that when people put out of pressure, they tend to breathe a little bit high or they tend to stop breathing, right? How do you help people learn how to breathe diaphragmatically, learn how to breathe in a, almost in a relaxed way in stressful situations? Because if you don't end up putting yourself in those types of situations, you won't even realize what you're missing. Yeah. You know, it depends on what they have available, right? So a lot of my guys have deviated septum, right?

So it's hard for them to breathe through their nose. But the goal is to at least at that point, try to teach them how to breathe 360 degrees through their lumbar spine, right? Which is basically diaphragmatic breathing. A lot of times they'll tend to breathe upper chest, upper shoulders, whatever, and they don't get that expansion. So again, back to that 90-90 breathing or crocodile breathing, right?

You can use a load, you can use a tactile cue, maybe it's thumbs, push out. You have the, what's the sticks called? The body lever. Body lever, right? So using a tactile cue like you do to breathe into those sticks, right, to breathe into that load. So now they can conceptualize actually pushing towards it. And now you can also learn how to breathe into different sections. Yeah, right?

Which is what we did yesterday. You know, so I like that. I like the tactile queuing. I like to get them in that base position and then slow down the breathing, right? A lot of people overbreath or they tend to stop breathing, right? Or tense up when they need, when they don't need to tense up.

Yeah. And like I said before, is the ability to tense but relax fast, right? Bruce Lee did this tremendously. And that's why he was so explosive. But when he hit you, you felt it. Yeah. Right.

So, yeah, I think those are going to be the prime, I would say tools and, keys that we like to utilize, tactile queuing, basic box breathing, and then using base positions so that they have no complexity first in a baseline like GPP. And then once they start to move, now let's say we're shadow boxing. Breathe like you did on the floor. Right. Breathe. If you can breathe through your nose, perfect. Put your tongue on the roof of the mouth and prove on that diaphragmatic breathing. And that will bring down, obviously, bring down your stress levels, get you to a parasympathetic state. How much deadlifting and squatting have you utilized with your athletes and

do they do different types of deadlifts and squats other than just regular barbell? Depends on the joint prerequisites. If the individual has that ability to get in those positions, a risk to reward, I would say I like to put them more into, again, a constraint or maybe even a rack pull or something of that nature, especially if they don't have that range of motion. I do like sumos too as well because of the hip dexterity we're driving lateral force you're pushing away right spreading the floor apart that's good i use trap bars a lot right puts the puts the bar in the midline of the body but you know what we tend to do is a lot of overcoming isometrics because it eliminates the risk of injury especially getting closer to the fight but we can we can we can increase force production right

right you look at force force times you know let's put it like this the highest amount of force is zero velocity. So if I'm going to improve their force production, I want to get them in the best position or their, let's just say the weakest position that they have, their mini max. And I will produce an overcoming isometric into contrast set into something explosive. So that's what we do when we get closer to a fight. Now with a basic position, I also like to do unilateral. So I'll do a B stance or I'll do something split stance, something like that because I want them to be strong in both sides of the body. We never really do anything, especially in a combat sport, with just your both feet planted bilateral.

So I want them to be strong in both sides equally. So I'll get them in maybe a rear foot elevated split squat, or maybe we'll do a B stance, maybe we'll do the same thing in a zircher position. We play around with these exercises based upon their limitations. I want to, you know, you mentioned the risk to reward. I think if some coaches are listening, there's going to be massive disagreement in terms of risk.

An idea is like, you know, if you teach an athlete how to deadlift, well or squat well there's no risk of course load being taken out of the picture right so what when you've mentioned risk what should these people start thinking well let's let's think about this right if they're athletes they're not just working in the weight room right so it's an accumulation of fatigue if i'm going in rolling or if i'm going to spar that's more stress on the body so if i add that stress to let's say a deadlift and they're not prepared for that or let's say for instance they got hit to the body. And now they can't control their motion because there's, there's pain there's

no subsection. Now I'm putting them in a disadvantage. So I'd rather use exercises that are going to at least elicit some type of response that is going to be conducive to the sport. Not because it is the lift that you should be doing. Yeah. That's the problem with a lot of new, let's say, coaches that come in. They're like, no, we have to squat bench deadlift. We have to do these compound movements. We have to do these foundational movements. But they're not taking it to affect all the other stresses that go a part of an athlete's daily routine. And let's just talk about it from a general perspective. Look at people in general, right?

There's daily stresses. And stress is systemic. So you have emotional stress. You have physical stress. Now you're accumulating all that. So you have to be more of a holistic approach. You have to have more of a holistic approach to the programming too as well. Can't just throw things there just because it's supposed to be there.

You always have to auto-regulate. You always have to look at the body and what it's capable of doing that particular day. Yeah. And then the second thing. thing is you also mentioned this idea of unilateral versus bilateral. Now what should coaches, because like, you know, this isn't, this is pretty much any sport outside of lifting sports is going to, is not going to be bilateral. So with that being said, what should some coaches think about when looking at some of these types of movements? Because, again, a limitation they're

going to say is like you can't load that that much. You can't put as much external load on the system to get musculoskeletal adaptations. What would you have them think about there? Again, it's going to depend upon their abilities, right? And we would start with something very basic, right? And I would also tend to lean towards more the triphasic training model where we would start with eccentrics, isometrics, and concentrics. So they can build them up to understanding how to move load efficiently.

So taking them through those sections. And it may take two, three, four weeks at that particular phase of, of the lift to improve the coordination, the balance, the control, and then once we can get them to that position, now we can start to be more dynamic. Now, this is the third question on top of all of this. And I think this is one thing that I'm curious

how you think about how much load is actually necessary for this given athlete. True. Because when people, when athletes, when coaches think of an athlete progressing, especially when we look at strength training, the progression is very, it is, We have clear progressions in what we're trying to do. Like, for example, you're asking me, well,

and SEMA, how would you progress some of this? Yeah. Some of this is skill-based progression. It's not just about load. For sure. But when we look at some of this, a lot of people are just thinking, if I'm stronger, I'm better, right?

Is there any point where that the return starts to diminish or it just starts to become unnecessary? Yeah. I mean, there's guys that have the strength, but they lack certain mobility, right? They have the strength, but they lack the ability to produce it fast. So I'm looking at limiters from that position like you have a lot of guys that are strong, but they can't produce it fast, right? And in a sport where time is everything, we need to improve on that speed. So then now we're not working maximal effort. Now we're working purely dynamic effort. Yeah. Right. Or maybe we need to bring up certain body parts. So now we're working repetition effort in certain ranges. Right. But we're working full range of motion so that we don't cause any stiffness. Yeah. Particularly in the posterior chain, right? Adductors, glute me,

Right, things that are going to help with rotation, things are going to help with lateral movement and change a direction. And also absorbing force too as well. A lot of people like produce force, but how do you absorb and hold that position? Let's say dropping off a box and holding that position. So now we're getting tended stiffness, tissue remodeling, which is going to reduce the risk of injury and then also help them produce that force fast in a rapid fashion over a given amount of time. it's tough to mix in barbell stuff because a lot of times you can lift the most amount of weight with a barbell that's what makes a barbell great but it's a double-edged sword because if you got somebody that you need to push and they can deadlift 365 405 range it's quite a bit of weight

for someone that has all these other activities are responsible for a lot of other activities so by having a trap bar or by having the weight elevated um you can still allow for an overload and maybe that's at an appropriate time. It's not like, you know, the week before the fight, depending on the coach, what they're looking for. But you can overload at particular times if the person needs that. But that's basically what the barbell is for. The barbell is for overloading. Whenever I used to do seminars, I would say, hey, you know, who in here has lifted 400 pounds, 500 pounds, so on, put your hands up. And it was always in a deadlift or squat. You know, it wasn't in like a, you know, overhead kettlebell, you know, squat or something like that.

Because those movements are more challenging and they don't allow, they put a governor on how much weight you can use. Well, they can strain you. And so I think the barbell lifts are great for testing. So you have your testers and your builders, right? So if I use a barbell, it gives me the best opportunity to see true force production in some type of base position. But does that carry over to the fight or does that carry over to competition? It may or may not, but they also have to have the coordination, the balance, and the core control to do other things. So it's funny because I have guys that come in that are power lifters and they're strong.

They're lifting over 700 pounds. You know, they can lift. But then you have them do a kettle about windmill and they're shaky, right? So now we see a weak link, especially if they're trying to do some type of grappling sport. So you've seen it a lot with these guys that are strong. They come into the jitza room and they're getting tossed around by guys that's like a lot. 135 pounds. They know how to be strong in these weird contorted positions. So where is your limiter? Who's the stronger guy at that point? Just because you can maybe push a barbell at a certain

weight, that's great, especially if you are a strength sport athlete. But when you start to tailor them into something that is more multidirectional, multi-patterned, now we have to improve their ability to be strong in these weird contorted positions. That was one thing that I saw when I was at ATT was our limiters were, yeah, they knew how to strike, they knew how to move, but they just didn't have the mobility to have that extra 1%. And we're talking about the elite of the elite. So if that's the limiter, then that's what we're focusing on. And I'd rather focus on your limbers because we have so little time in the wait room, at least, to get them better. So I have to streamline the limiter's after plug the gaps per se. And that's in anybody now. So like, sometimes it's just they don't have

a solid routine, right? They don't have a great schedule. They don't have the ability to recover. Some of them are just not even sleeping right. So that's the limiter. Okay, we're going to focus on that. And then everything else can be maintained. I want to, you know, one cool thing about, you know, you see even on your page, you know, you have sandbags, you have kettlebells, you have all these different tools that you use with different people. I think a tool that continues to kind of be a mean somewhat in certain sectors of combat sports conditioning is the kettlebell. Yeah. And I'm curious the weaknesses that you notice from that implement, but the strains, because

we understand that different tools have their strengths and weaknesses. So when you look at something like a kettlebell, what's the benefits and what's the limiting, the limiters of that tool? The limiters is if you don't have coordination, then it looks, then you're just using your shoulders or you're using your back or something like that. So it does teach the body how to actually efficiently produce force with less effort, right? Because you are having to use momentum in a lot of ways. Now I have a band here, but that's just accommodated resistance and it gives me an over speed eccentric.

So now I have absorption of force and then redirection. But again, I'm also looking at postural alignment. So if their arms are bent, their shoulders around forward and they don't get full hip extension, well that's a limiter. Okay, fine, now what do we got to do? We back off, we reverse periodize, and now we start to work on hip extension. Yeah.

But if you can't do hip extension, and you probably have weak glutes, right? So now I'm going, okay, what can I do to improve the glute strength for hip extension? So I will start to give them more of those constraints. Yeah. Now I'll start to isolate. Then we can go back into it and say,

okay, that was the limiter. We controlled it. We filled the gap. Now let's go back into the movement and see if that changed. If it does change, when we found the limiter. Nice.

How do you get some of these guys, some of these athletes to sprint and how important is like sprinting and jumping? I think, we talked about this yesterday in Seema. I think the best athletes are gymnasts and sprinters, right? Because they're not a produce force. They're not to control their body. They're strong in so many different ranges.

But the biggest thing is when you get fixed in these, like let's say, jiu jih Teletu, hip flexes are tight, external rotation. So they lack the ability to maintain this solid range of motion and then be able to produce force in a straight line pattern. Now, is it conducive to a fight? No, you're not running straightforward. but it teaches you rotational power. It teaches you to produce force into the ground.

It teaches you hip flexion and extension in a rapid fashion. So I do like to utilize sprinting, especially from a movement quality standpoint that allows them to identify, okay, this is how I should be moving in all things throughout my life. So even walking, people walk wrong. When they come into the gym, my assessment process is you actually getting out of your car,

your vehicle, and coming into the gym. So before they even talk to me, I'm assessing them. And then I will look at their postural alignment. I'll see if they have some compression and expansion. And typically people have more compressed right sides because people are more right side dominant. There's more stuff on the right side. There's more organs and everything else.

Then from there, I go, okay, what's stopping or hindering that movement to be explosive? So, okay, there's tightness here. There's tightness there. When you have fat, like, I've seen fascia's just like sarin wrap around the body. If you have an injury that's going to dictate or cause some type of issue downstream or upstream, depending on where the injury is. So now I'm looking at, I like to look from the ground up, but like, let's say, for instance,

I start with the support system, big toe flexion and big toe extension. If you lack the ability to drive the toe and be able to produce force and roll through that, what's going to happen is going to have an upstream effect. So now if I have limited range of motion and dors deflection, big toe dorsiflection is going to go up the chain. So now you have knee valgus. now that's a problem. So you have stiff ankles, you're gonna have more mobile knees,

which is not gonna be great for when you're doing rotation or trying to produce force. Yeah, right? So now I'm working on, okay, and how can we get more range of motion in the ankle? How can we get more range of motion in the hip?

Now, I had an ACL tear, I think, 20-20. It was in jiu-jitsu. It was from trauma. So it was like, I got stuck in the Delahiva Guard. I went to peek out, and it got stuck in the ground, and then it popped, right? But because,

we've gained so much strength and tissue strength around that, that actual joint, I was able to recover faster. The biggest thing that I wanted to do right from there was improve my range of motion in my hip and in my ankle. Hamstring strength, quad strength, and so on, so on, so with gastrox strength, everything. So when I'm looking at an individual, I'm going to look at gait, I'm going to look at rotation, I'm going to look at certain limitations in their movement quality, and then I'll start to implement a program from that. So my framework is assess. We're going to assess the situation, we're going to indicate the problem, the limiter, we're going to formulate the plan, and then we're going to execute accordingly. But with that execution comes auto regulation,

because not every day is going to be perfect. You know, some people are a little nuts about the big toe. What have you noticed, you know, like in helping someone improve some of the movement of their big toe, have you noticed them being able to unlock other muscles upstream? Yeah, well, if you have, and I think Cal Dietz talks about this too, is like that big toe pressure allows for the glute to activate better. But I also look at it when I'm doing those cross-connect walks and I'm having to stand on that single leg, typically if they don't have the ability to press down on the ball of the big toe, they can't extend their hip enough. So then they start to valgus or start to roll out. And the goal is to make sure that you have that stability there

on that single leg so then now you can start to rotate through. So it's funny because a lot of guys can't control the big toe. They have a neuromuscular inhibition. So it's a lot of the same thing. So it's Is it really a functioning issue or is it a structural issue? So I look at that first and foremost. Now, if they have passive range of motion, we know that's not a structural issue. It's more of a functional issue. So now I'm going to start working on using just the big toe and doing taps on the floor so that they can control that range. And then we'll start to work on strengthening in the end range.

So you do a passive stretch. Then they control it. End range lift off. They hold that position. So now they're strengthening up the intrinsic muscles of the feet, which is again going to help with the support system and allowed them to move freely up the kinetic chain. Be able to move your toe a little bit away from your, yeah, like move your big toe away from your other toes.

You remember the toe vice, right? Yeah. With, what would Chris? Chris used to do, Chris Duffin? Yeah, you like crank it. Well, no, so you get your fingers, interlocked, and then you do the twist. Oh, yeah, yeah. So if they lack the ability to spread the toes out, create more circumference area, like more space.

Yeah, the hand glove or a hand foot glove. And that hurts, too. If you haven't done it. But let's say, for instance, they're just tightly bound up, like they're walking in more of those narrow tow box shoes, right? We want to increase the space that you have there. So you have more of a base, right? So increasing that, you can use, you know, the, was it, the toe spreaders as well?

Like the turtles? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You can use that, but I also like to make sure that they're able to move it independently of another. So toe waves, toe taps, things like that. And then once they can get the function of the. toes now we can go up the ankle right i want to see them be i want to see a good uh arch on the foot so we'll do like short foot exercises increasing the arch strength and then from there i'm going to go up the knee to the hip it's weird how many muscles there are that are involved because you're like

so many you know you say like shorten your foot it's like usually what people will do is they'll torque their knee outward yeah you're like that actually came from your hip try to shorten your foot and they're like and they can't figure out but it takes it takes time to like kind of figure these things out. And when we're young, you kind of just start automatically doing some of this stuff. Yeah. So these are, toe walks. Yeah, these are my base support prep. So I got this one from Pete Bomarito. And what he did was, sounds like a made up name. Yeah, really. Bomerito. Italian guy. Works with a lot NFL guys. So you'll do heel, toe walks. You're walking on the heels. So you're working on doors of flexion. As you come down, you got to maintain that position. So it's a static dynamic type of

movement. Right. As you come down, you're going to automatically want to drop the foot. They have to maintain that position. So you're working Tevallis interior, you know, peronials, things like that. Then you go to your ball of your feet. Now you're working the gastrox, working all maintaining the heel position in the upright position. Now you can go inverted, right? You can go expert, whatever you want to do. Like so if I want to go supinated, pronated, and walk in that side, if that feel like they're walking too much on the outside of feet. Towel curls there? Yeah. Yeah, man. Shit's hard. Especially walking on your heels like that. It's actually pretty hard. Okay. Towel curls are great. Tile girls or marble pickups.

I, okay, so no, I, I love those, and I love those movements. I've been doing those for a while, but, you know, Phil, I love that you do these things, and I love that you share these things, because, again, there's just, like,

certain sectors of coaching within, like, within martial coaching, where this is a meme. And I'm just curious, because you've applied this to athletes, just like the kind of the before and after with what you see happen for these athletes' performance. Because I think when some coaches look at this,

you know, they're like, this is such a small mover. I get what you're saying. I get what you're saying. But you got to remember who I'm working with. I'm working with the elite fighters. I'm working with the elite guys. I'm looking at people that already have that movement capability.

So yes, if these coaches are working with high school kids, maybe it is just get them underneath a barbell and have them understand how to move low. Okay. At the same time, Jim etiquette too as well, by the way. Don't break 45s on the floor.

When you get to a position where like, okay, what is going to make them better? It's that 1%, right? So I'm very, it's an intuitive thinking process where I have to look at each individual detail. And you become more detail-orientated when you become better. Right? It's just like lifters, right?

They're the strongest they can be. What's going to make them stronger? Well, now we have to throw some things at them. we've got to throw some bands, some chains, something like that, right? Or put them in different positions to be able to produce force. But honestly, like, you know, the stuff with the feat, I wouldn't call that just one percent because that can affect global force production. That can affect global movement capacity.

Yeah. So it's like the fact that some people do look at that as just one percent is still shocking to me. I know, I know. No, I believe that that, I mean, obviously, like I said, that's your support system. Yeah. So it's important for me, just in general. rule, I do want to make sure that we're working it in. But again, if they just, they have no ability to understand how to even squat. Yeah. Right. So, okay, let's, again, I want to isolate

before I integrate. So if I isolate, first and foremost, I can teach somebody how to squat better just by giving them some type of queuing technique, right? Spread the floor, create torque, whatever it is, and then automatically their squat looks better. Yeah. If that is the case, then good, it's just a queuing thing. But if that's not the case, then maybe it's a structural issue, Well, now we'll have to go a little bit more detailed, right? So maybe spreading the floor isn't the problem, right? They don't, it's not a conceptualization issue. It's an actual structural issue.

Gotcha. And actually, you know, on this topic, too, since we're talking about the feet, you know, I think when it comes to footwear, shoes, all that type of stuff, do you think that athletes who are good at what they do should really think about what the passive footwear that they wear? or is that athlete to athlete? Because I know some people, you know, you see some athletes, they're wearing barefoot shoes,

they take care of that stuff, or they pay attention to that stuff. Some just don't give a, they don't get a damn, right? So how would you have an athlete think about that? Well, you know, I would start to try to make them conceptualize what is missing, right? And so if they feel like, if they want to get better, right, they will listen, right? Because again, if you're somebody that wants to learn

and you want to be the best at what you do, you're going to take every detail and try to implement that in. Some people that are closed-minded, those individuals typically don't make it to the high level, right? They're close-minded, they're stuck in their ways, and they stay in that position. So the ones that I know that have taken the advice, they are at that elite level.

They are world champions. You know, I can tell you how many times that Dustin was like, what are we doing this hippie shit for? but he still did it, right? And it improved his ability. And now he talks about it. Now he gives me a hard time about it for sure. Yeah.

But he's still going to do it. I got to. So you just got to take it for what it is, you know. The biggest thing is having a relationship with the athlete or the person that you're working with because they have to trust you, right? And again, you got to show that you care. Right. So they're not going to do anything if you don't care for their well-being.

So how do you show that? Well, one, you get to know them better. Right. So we do a, I would say probably somewhere around a 90, 90 minute to two hour, just conversation. When they get into the gym, I'm actually trying to see who they are as a person. So to run them through maybe a personality trade exam, maybe we'll do a Braverman's test. We'll do like a hexaco or something like that. They're heard of hexaco.

Yeah, so hexaco, big five factor analysis. Oh. Ocean, right? And it just kind of gives me an understanding of how I can communicate with them and who they are as an individual. Now, it's just a test. Things can change based upon, you know, them growing and what they want to accomplish. But then it also gives me the ability to push them, inspire them, right, based on what drives them. We talked about our wise.

You're talking about competing, right? And what's the most important thing? Well, I think we've been put on this earth. Our main purpose is to help people, right? And that's why we do what we do. We get the most satisfaction out of that. People may say otherwise, but truly that's what it is. Yeah.

And you should live your life like that. So as a coach, my goal is to make sure that they understand that I'm not just here for my own self You know accolates I want to make sure that you're getting those goals accomplished because that's gonna also make me feel good Don't don't get me wrong I will be satisfied with my coaching ability because I got you to that level So once they understand that now they're like okay. I trust this guy and I know he knows what he's doing Because there's a track record there he's telling me all the things that are improving me now once you get that buy in then it's you know it's all go see but it does take time yeah took me a few years and then when you start to get results then what happens people go oh he knows what he's talking about how do you

end up managing like sprints and jumps and things like that I'm sure it's dependent upon the athlete where they're at and everything but with their them being asked to do so many different things how do you kind of modulate sprints do you say like hey like let's keep these in this range so we're safe or do you need the athlete to to go and run like hell. Definitely not run like hell. The biggest thing first, I want to see how they can control their body in space, right?

So we start them in an isometric fashion. I also want to see if they can absorb force, right? So if they can't absorb force, you see valgus off a drop down, let's say a box drop down or something like that. We're typically not going to have them run dynamically, right? So I want to improve the tissue, the tendon strength. I want to increase the strength in those end ranges.

So first it's going to be mobility. then it's going to be controlling that motion under high dynamic capabilities, absorbing force, and then redirecting it. So I will start off primarily. Maybe it's a maybe a 10 to 20 meter sprint, but not all out. So it would be like 50%. I want to see how they move. Then when I can see, okay, they have good range of motion.

There's no overstride, right? We're not slamming down on the heel. They're able to cycle efficiently. They have better front side mechanics. now we start to increase maybe the distance, right? But if we're talking about efficiency, it's not a conditioning thing, right? So I don't want them doing, you know, 100-yard sprints 10 times, you know, 30-second rest, whatever. That's not the goal.

The goal is to improve neuromuscular efficiency, right? The ability to contract and relax fast and then have that cycling effect so that, again, you're still strengthening up the tissue, but you're also improving coordination at a high dynamic capability. something to help them get quicker. Yeah, yeah. That connection to the central nervous system. And then when you're jumping, I've seen other coaches do this and stuff, but why are you jumping like forward and then sideways and then forward?

And then why are you sometimes jumping and throwing a med ball and twisting? Yeah, so now you increase the complexities through multidirectional patterns. So if they get good at just jumping up and down or maybe they get good at side jumps or, you know, lateral jumps or whatever, okay, so how do we do this? to make it more sports specific, right? So in a sport like MMA, maybe they're getting into a blast double. They're forcing themselves to get that takedown.

Or maybe, you know, the guy gets his hips out. Now you have to maybe pick up, get some type of body lock and then go into the triple extension. So that's what it is. It's more sports specific. And we improve that through these multidirectional patterns, right? I'm just changing up the complexities to make them a better athlete.

It looks fun. It is fun. It is fun. It's different, right? It's better than just, you know, getting a barbell and doing whatever. Another thing is it makes your mind think. It's kind of funny when you mess these things up.

You're like, wait, what? Yeah, yeah. Oh, I see it all the time. They're like, damn, you know. So again, you're stimulating the brain, right? And there's some cognition there too as well. But I would say the biggest thing is identifying where their body is in space

and being able to control their movement. Yeah. Right? In a fast dynamic fashion. Yeah. 15 years ago or so, would you say, like, if you watched video, this guy would you be like why isn't this guy just have people lift well you got to look at or do you

know about like this kind of sport type stuff being important the whole time yeah so it's all context specific right so they know like okay so jake bostwick is right here right jake obviously is strong right if you ever seen him lift he can lift three times four times his body weight so there's no reason to me reason for me to really hone in on that anymore but having him do these really complex movement strategies right, it improves his athletic capability. So now when he's in a fight, he's able to do this more officially officially and effectively,

especially when he has a skill acquisition built in. Yeah, right? You know, actually, I'm curious because the other day, Mark and I, we did a show about the idea of potentially some people are in a situation where a little bit of muscle loss could be helpful in them being better athletes,

just sometimes. Because, you know, Well, Jake, I mean, who knows if he lost a little bit of muscle as he stopped focusing so much on all of those things. Yeah. But overall, he's a better athlete because he shifted his focus into some other realms. So what are your thoughts there? You know, because of course it's context dependent, right? But whenever people think about the idea of losing tissue, losing muscle, it's like, why would I lose this thing?

I spent so much time working so hard to gain that we know is great for longevity. Like what should people maybe think about their if they're in that type of situation? Well, if they're have muscle that hinders movement or hinders range of motion and they're doing a sport that requires that range of motion, then I would say that's going to be a benefit, right? Even weight in general, right? If you gain more weight and you notice, Mark, you have better leverages to push a bench press.

Absolutely. You start losing that weight, then your bench press goes down, but what did you gain? You probably gain more weight. range of motion, maybe your shoulders don't hurt as much, so you're able to do more. So I think it just depends on that individual, obviously, and that's always going to be the case. But if I would have to say, yeah, you're going to have to lose 10 pounds of muscle.

I remember when I first started fighting, my coach said, you know, you're going to have to get down to 155. And I was 205 pounds coming out of college. I'm like, I haven't been 155 pounds since middle school. Yeah. So that right there was a shock. Right. I'm like, oh, damn, how am I going to do this?

But when you can do it in a controlled fashion, And now, obviously, I'm not going to go 155 and walk around at that weight. It was just the weight that I fought at. So I'd have to get down to like 178, 180 for it to be an actual healthy weight cut. So, okay, dieted it down, but I still maintain neuromuscular strength through isometrics, through these other positions and being able to control my positioning, but also produce force from that position. I know I've been talking about that a lot, but that's important. Right.

So it doesn't matter. Like if you need to gain muscle just to fill a weight class, let's say it's a weight class sport, just don't lose the mobility. Don't lose your function, right? And then if you need more strength, then there's so many ways to improve strength without building muscle. Now, yes, you obviously have the ability to be stronger if you have a bigger muscle, more cross-sectional area, space, things like that.

But the neuromuscular efficiency, the ability to produce force fast is more important when it comes down to a sport that is obviously speed dependent and multidirectional. Yeah. What do you think of, I mean, there's so much stuff being thrown around these days about, you know, fascial training. These different gurus have these particular answers. Is that stuff like annoy you or you just stay away from it or like, well, this seems like you're in your own thing and you're just focused on what you do, it seems like.

I mean, everybody's got their thing. You know, I don't like to, I don't like to. I don't like to say anything that I'm not really in. So like if somebody's talking about a certain method or protocol, I'm not going to jump to conclusions based off of what I see on the internet. I'd rather go have a conversation with them, maybe do a training session with them, and see where they're coming from.

It's all context specific. Because just seeing one clip isn't fair, even if someone's doing that to you, right? And as me being who I am, I'm like, I'm not a person that is going to bastardize somebody because of their view on something, right? But I'm going to go off of what I see from an experience standpoint. Now, the fascial training or like these ranges that they put themselves in or these positions or these movements, they do have some validity.

There's obviously some context to it too as well as far as like, okay, maybe you do need to work the facial line and you need to make sure that you're doing these movements in these particular fashions because it is going to be conducive to whatever they're doing. but again i don't know as much maybe as they do with what they're talking about so i'm not going to jump to conclusions and i never do when people look at what i do they go well this may make sense depending on the person right i'm looking at it like okay these are my athletes these are what i this is what i know works for them so you have to look at that and i think everybody in the industry should take that into consideration like stop jumping to conclusions based off a two-minute you know

whatever, Instagram real or something like that. Really go find out, right? Go ask the questions. Go do a course with them, right? Or spend a weekend with them. And then, you know, you come to the conclusion of if it's right or wrong. I know you said you're not here for the accolades. You're here for the people and you're trying to help people.

But you have received some accolades, coach of the year a couple times in a row, I believe. And then also now your performance coach for Merrick Health. that's got to feel good. I love it. That's got to feel good to get recognition because it's like a lot of times you're not looking for recognition but it feels good.

Yeah, I mean I would be lying if I said I wasn't happy and satisfied of that but at the same time I'm always going to put myself in a position to learn. I think when people get to these accolades and most people if they're only in it for themselves they stop learning and so they stop growing

and the thing that we're doing with Ameri-Health is great because it allows me to work with so many different types of people, right? And these are just general people that want to get in shape and want to live longer. I will never go to a doctor ever again about my general health. All they want to do is put you on pills. Really well said there by Dana White. Couldn't agree with them more. A lot of us are trying to get jacked and tan. A lot of us just want to look good, feel good. And a lot of the symptoms that we might acquire as we get older, some of the things that we might have high cholesterol or these various things, it's amazing to have somebody looking at, you know, you know, you know,

your blood work as you're going through the process, as you're trying to become a better athlete, somebody that knows what they're doing. They can look at your cholesterol. They can look at the various markers that you have and they can kind of see where you're at and they can help guide you through that. And there's a few aspects too where it's like, yes, I mean, no, no shades of doctors, but a lot of times they do want to just stick you on medication. A lot of times there is supplementation that can help with this. Merrick Health, these patient care coordinators are going to also look at the way you're living your lifestyle because there's a lot of things you might be doing that if you just adjust that boom you could be at the right levels including working with your testosterone and there's

so many people that I know that are looking for they're like hey should I do that they're very curious um and they think that testosterone is going to all of a sudden kind of turn them into the hole but that's not really what happens it can be something that can be really great for your health because uh you can just basically live your life a little stronger just like you were maybe in your 20s and 30s and And this is the last thing to keep in mind, guys. When you get your blood work done at a hospital, they're just looking at like these minimum levels. At Merrick Health, they try to bring you up to ideal levels

for everything you're working with. Whereas if you go into a hospital and you have 300 nanograms per deciliter of test, you're good, bro. Even though you're probably feeling like shit. At Merrick Health, they're going to try to figure out what's like things you can do in terms of your lifestyle. And if you're a candidate, potentially TRT.

So these are things to pay attention. to get you to your best self. And what I love about it is a little bit of the back and forth that you get with the patient care coordinator. They're dissecting your blood work. It's not like if you just get this email back and it's just like, hey, try these five things. Somebody's actually on the phone with you going over every step and what you should do. Sometimes it's supplementation.

Sometimes it's TRT. And sometimes it's simply just some lifestyle habit changes. All right, guys, if you want to get your blood work checked and also get professional help from people who are going to be able to get you towards your best levels. That's Merrickhealth.com and use code power project for 10% off any panel of your choice. So my goal is to take what I've learned working with athletes and put that in a position to help these individuals succeed. I'm excited by that.

I think that's cool with all the stuff that he's doing, like the focus on the big toe and the feet and like all the other things that we've been talking, all the crazy shit we've been talking about forever. I think that's cool for more people to have more access to that. Yeah, we just try to improve. on everything that is possible to help them just live a better life, right? And so a lot of times, yeah, you can talk about movement quality, but we can also talk about just fatigue management, stress management, right?

And then organizing your schedule, having a solid routine, so they maintain progression. Right. A lot of people get stuck in these, okay, I have to do this. I have, like you were saying, right, I'm just moving. Right. And I'll take time out my day just to practice the movement. But at the same time, you're creating a stimulus. So they're always doing things that are going to improve them as a person.

Right. So like when people go, I'm going to go train, right? There's different between workout and training. Training is to gain an adaptation, right? To go to a spot where you know that you need to get better at. Working out is maybe just moving the body. So then you practice movement continuously throughout the day. Instead of being stuck in these positions or sitting down or standing or whatever have you,

start to explore new ranges. Start to explore patterns. that way you can always be ready to do whatever you want to do especially if you have kids you still want to work you know still want to play with them i still do you know i play manhunt with my kids all the time you know and the goal is to just be capable to maintain health longevity movement quality so that i can live a healthy and fulfilling life right that's what i want to do for people now that's my goal right i've worked with fighters that cause damage to a degree now i'm trying to do something a a little bit more on a higher level.

What about some of this, like, rucking and stuff? Have you seen any of this in Seema? Yeah. You seen some of the crazy shit that he's been doing? Yeah. So what are some of these things you got yourself tied up in? Well, two years ago, I don't think it was three years ago now, I decided to do 100-mile ruck, or actually it was 150 miles.

And I didn't prepare accordingly, obviously. I just jumped right into it. And so what ended up happening, I ended up getting wrapped on my license. I was, my feet were torn apart. I ended up going into the hospital about 51 miles in. I was probably 60 miles on, 60 miles or sorry, 60 hours no sleep, 30 hours, 31 hours on my feet with a 70 pound ruck. Damn. The problem that I had was I had no strategy.

I had no plan. I didn't train the proper way and put myself in a hospital and damage myself in the meantime. So as I'm sitting in the hospital bit, I go, well, I failed, but I need to fail forward. I need to learn from this process, just like anything in life. So then from there, I go, okay, I'm going to take a year, I'm going to reorganize, I'm going to re-stratage, I'm going to train effectively and efficiently. I'm going to put weight on that makes sense.

So then I said, okay, I'm going to drop from 70 pounds to 50 pounds, right? Not too much of a difference, but enough. I'm going to get proper footwear. I'm going to have medical oversight. That's when I started to get with Merrick. and we started to implement a plan from a supplementation standpoint so I can maintain tissue strength. And so my body didn't break down enough.

So I was able to now put together a strategy instead of going 100 miles all out the bat, I'm doing 20 miles a day. And I'm going to plan the route so that I can just get the job done and lay the bricks just one step at a time. The problem that I had was I was just thinking about the 150 miles. I was thinking about the end.

I wasn't thinking about the process each day. So I started to break it down and I go, listen, all I'm going to focus on is one step at a time. I'm going to focus on 10 miles, rest for an hour, then do another 10 miles. And I'm going to do that continuously until I get to 100 miles. And when I did that, it allowed me to still stay focused on the task. Instead of thinking about the end reward. A lot of people do that. They just think about the reward.

They don't think about the execution and the process. So we ended up finishing. Actually, Mike and those guys came down. It was great. I think Mike did 20 miles with me or 30, something like that. It was great. And then we had a community that built from it. Now, the reason why I did it wasn't just because of me.

I couldn't do it just because of me because it wouldn't allow me to do what I was doing. I needed to have a bigger why. I needed to do this for other people because, again, that gives me fulfillment in life. So we ended up raising about 25,000 for our military veterans, right, through Team RWB. We had sponsors that helped out to as well. Merrick donated, Go Ruck donated.

So I had go Ruck bags. So it helped a lot when it came down to weight distribution. Because the go Ruck bags, you can put weight inside and it doesn't shift around. So it was more efficient for me. I had good footwear. I had great. I had the understanding now how to take care of my feet before I. I didn't. So I had blisters like crazy. What did you do to take care of your feet this time?

Yeah. So we had toe socks for one. You would put glide on there so it doesn't shift and doesn't cause any friction. Then I would put wool socks over that to maintain just dryness. Then I would put on shoes that were a size bigger and wider. Right. So I had more space because your feet are going to inflame. Yeah. Right. Now, I still had blisters and I still had some. some, you know, obviously beat up feet, lost like eight toenails. But the pain wasn't bad. Pain wasn't unbearable. It was manageable.

Yeah. And obviously your back, your shoulders, all that stuff. I can take that. That's fine. But it was the fear of not being able to come back from that. Right? And everybody feels like, okay, I think the biggest problem with people is when they get to a level of fear, they feel like they can't come back from it. So a fear of dying is the biggest fear.

You could say otherwise, but really at the end of the day, that's what stops a lot of people. But when you have an idea of how much you can push and you're still in a safe space, it's just managing pain at that point. So I just managed the pain until we got to the finish line. So I took care of my feet. I was able to utilize peptides from Merrick Health.

I was the BPC 157, TB 500, stop the inflammation. We did, I did sauna sessions every night Right after I got done Take, I took care of my feet Kept them dry Switched out the shoes if necessary Switched out the socks if necessary How long does it take to go 150 miles?

So we did 100 miles Took me five days, 20 miles a day Yeah Yeah finished the I finished it Friday night In my hometown You're in Florida? Yeah

The humidity and everything Yeah Yeah, that was the biggest problem That I had the first time Was humidity it was raining so I stepped in some puddles so that didn't that didn't help a lot your feet all wet and everything yeah so we ended up coming back

strong and finishing which was a testament to understanding okay if you fail just come back learn from that process create a strategy have a better team around you and then you can execute and win if you do all those things damn dude yeah it was it was fun it was fun listen at the end of the day though it's just like we're talking about is that you know, you have this anti-climactic feeling at the end of it. It's just like when an athlete retires or a CEO sells his company.

It's like, what next? So I crossed the finish line. I was satisfied, but I was like, you feel as big as I thought it would be. Right. You know, but then what happens? You go, oh, I got another idea. So now I'm going to do a marathon a day. Why not?

Explain. So I did 20 miles a day. Yeah. Just up at the 26 point, whatever it is. and 26.13 and they go from me. We'll do seven days. You're going to run it or walk it? Both.

With a with a ruck. Yeah. So that's next. So that's next. So to be safe, I'll go 50, 50 pounds. We can definitely do 50 pounds. That's a lot of weight. It's a lot of weight.

You guys want to come out? Nope. I'll come out and support. Support. I'll come out and walk these minutes. Support. We'll still. Well, here's another thing.

So again, the donations, that re-raised, we're amazing, right? I was able to showcase that if I can get up and do 20 miles a day, you can do 30 minutes on a treadmill. Right? So if I'm doing this and you're stuck on the couch, look what I'm doing. Hopefully I inspired some people to just move. Right. And then you know me as a Catholic male, it was to, you know, glorify God at the end of the day because I couldn't do without him. So there was three main wives that had nothing really to do with me. Because if it was just for me, I'd be like, man, I could just go do something hard on my own, right? But I wanted to create some type of understanding for people to go, listen, you can fail and still get up,

create another strategy, have a game plan that's effective, and then execute accordingly. And then go through some pain, go through some discomfort, because it's going to make you stronger for it. And if I think that, I think if I can get somebody to do that, just to identify there's going to be pain through the process and you create fortitude from that pain and increase your virtue, well, then I did my job by going through this arduous task. Let me ask you this. So now let's just like take it back to like a tactical thing. For how long have you been to rucking? What have you found to be beneficial as for yourself? And then you have probably got people rucking after this. So what have other people noticed from

the practice? Well, the reason why I got started in rucking was after I tore my ACL. I was like I couldn't run so the process was just walking yeah and i started walking for 10 20 miles at a time and i'm like all right this is too easy now i got to start increasing the load it's like okay let's do let's do some type of like weighted vest right and i was like okay cool this distributes the weight evenly i'm like how can i make it harder now okay now we're just going to put it on my back and not have to maintain posture so then i started working in three mile increments then i had the ideal I can do 150 miles. I don't recommend that, obviously.

After three miles? Yeah, yeah, right, right, right? So you could say I'm a little overzealous and confident in my abilities. That's my downfall or strength, either way you look at it. But if somebody's just looking to utilize it as something to do, right, for GPP, right? This is a good way to increase your conditioning, increase your endurance, but also get some strength adaptation too as well. So I throw this in at least three times a week. So you can do your runs, but then if you want to just go for your 10 minute walk,

throw a bag on your bag and go for that 10 minute walk right after you eat. And I do this consistently. You can break it up too. You can microdose it. Yeah. Right. Maybe in the morning, afternoon, nighttime. Just throw a bag on your back.

It doesn't have to be a lot of weight. It could be 10, 15, 20 pounds. But then you slowly increase it, progressive overload, right? Increase the distance. Increase the speed of where you're going, right? So like, let's say, for instance, I'll do three miles. 30 minutes, right, at 30 pound pack. Do that for three weeks, then increase the load, 35 pounds.

Keep the same distance, same time frame. Try to maintain 30 minutes at three miles with 35 pounds, then 40 pounds, then 50 pounds. Once you get to a certain weight, then you want to start to increase maybe the distance, or you want to speed up your pace. So instead of going 17 minute per mile paces, now you're doing 15, right? And that's how you can progress it. Yeah. Or you can undulate it and do some type of conjugate if you wanted to.

Right. You go heavy load, right? Let's say a hundred pound ruck. Maybe it's 15 minutes. That's going to be your max effort. Right. Then you go fast. You go dynamic effort. Maybe you'll put a 15 pound weight on there. And now you're going fast. Now you're going 12 minute per mile paces. Yeah. But maybe you're only doing it for 20 minutes. Right. And if you just want to go volume. Well, throw a, what is say, 30, 35 pound pack on. Go for 60 minutes and see how you feel. If you can recover within 24 to 48 hours, good. You're in a good position to keep progressing. right there seems to also be like there's a metabolic effect with rucking and weighted vests there's a study done with like two groups of people one lost weight with just you know diet alone and one lost weight with vests on or rucking vests and they also track these people six months post those who were doing it with a vest managed to also have a higher metabolic rate post because of something called like gravito stat that their body can tell how much weight you're holding and when you artificially add more weight to your structure when you are or when you uh post diet it's going to be much harder for you to gain that weight back yeah so it's that's like that's a really

cool phenomenon just by adding a little bit of weight onto your structure i believe it yeah i mean it's just an another added benefit to what you're doing already i even do it with lifting right so now if i'm doing like a zircher i'll throw a bag on my back oh right so now you have this added load and extra weight yeah yeah it's it's perfect or sled racks right right so now you just play around with it even doing your rings yeah throw a bag on your back on the rings that's your that's your progressive overload but now it's you have to distribute your weight evenly right it's just more complexity to change it up and to keep it interesting yeah I throw a vest on quite a bit probably for maybe like maybe like half my walks or so but it's only like 15 pounds yeah but

it makes it makes it easy for make some it's I don't have to like talk myself into it if it's 50, which I have heavier ones. I got to probably convince myself more to throw those heavier ones on. Let's get you a go rook bag. Maybe. Maybe. Maybe. People, be careful with your feet. Oh, yeah. Because what, like,

if you try to put on a rucksack and you have, like, barefoot shoes on, I do it now. Yeah. Yeah. But because I've conditioned my feet. Exactly. So if I have VVos on or something like that, right, I'll make sure that it's not a long distance. It'll be like a 15-minute sprint. But I'm conditioning my feet, the intrinsic muscles of my feet and also the tissue, right? So I had to, I had to strengthen them up. I had to callous the bottoms of my feet because I knew that no matter

what, 100 miles, you're still going to get blisters and I'm susceptible to them, no matter what. So people say, how did you get so many blisters? I don't know. I did everything right and I still got them. It's okay, if I'm going to get them, I better prepare accordingly. There's a dude that did a six-minute mile wearing a hundred pound weighted vest. I'm not sure if you can find a video of it, Ryan, somewhere. Go ahead. I'm sorry. No, you got, I was going to mention like And like this is coming from someone who's like, you're strong, you take care of your feet, you pay attention to your gate. And even so, like, that's why it's like people really got to be careful when they,

when they start rucking, you know, to, because if you, now you're going to be hitting the ground a little bit harder without realizing it. So, yeah, I wanted to talk about this because a lot of the military vets will, will tell you they use. And first of all, they, they didn't condone this, by the way. I talked to a lot of tier one guys, a lot of my military guys. And they were like, why are you doing this? We don't need you to do any donations.

We're good, bro. You do a lot. Hats off to them, by the way. And they said, you know, when we rugged, it was a punishment. We didn't want to do this. And I don't want to do it with you. So good luck, brother. And I was like, all right.

Thanks. Thank for the support. Oh, man. No, but we had some guys come out, which was cool. But, you know, I think that if you have a good enough cushion with some stability, right? We're not talking about, you know, maybe, you know, Alpha flies or something like that, right? You want something that is stable, but also gives you some cushion.

Like barefoot boots, Vivo boots. Vivo boots are good. Actually, one of my guys said that he did a 25-mile ruck with the Vivo boots on. It was a little bit more protection on the bottom. Yeah, a little bit more. What's the speed this guy did this in? 621. That's a go-rug bag, too.

He said it's the hardest thing he's ever done. This guy's done a bunch of things that were pretty hard. Yeah, he does a lot of these things, though. Six-minute, yeah, six-minute. 21 second mile with 100 pounds I don't know what he weighs 6 minute 21 that's ridiculous so He's running

So he's probably doing like an 11 10 minute per mile pace Somewhere around there No he's running No it's six minutes Yeah he's damn okay so So now you're sprinting right So how much weight was in the back 100? That's crazy

100 pounds yeah this guy's nuts Yeah that's crazy I mean he looks He looks muscular doesn't say his weight there by any chance It does not say his weight I mean, whatever. Who cares, I guess? It doesn't look like he weighs 140.

He's moving. That's tough. And, you know, listen, the bag, you had that reverb. What's his name? Let's give him a shout out. Michael Miraglia. There we go. I got to hit him up.

Let's see what's going on. Crazy bastards. Yeah, that's crazy. Who else did the, they did Murph with a hundred pounds best. Oh, yeah. That was crazy. Oh, no. He did it in first form at the, at the gym.

What's his name? He's a CrossFit Games champion. Yeah. Get that up. It's not Froning or Kalipa. No, it was... Or Matt Frazier. Well, none of them.

It's like, I think he was, he came in like third or fourth. Oh, okay. I'm trying to think of who's strong enough to handle that. A hundred, I think it was like somewhere around a hundred pound weight base. Oh, shit. There's the guy that looks like he's on juice who's pretty jacked. That always gets accused of, but he's smaller. He's actually kind of...

I mean, he's jacked, but he's not super, super... super yeah Dan Bailey he did that's who it is yeah it's probably on YouTube yeah Dan Bailey's jacked and he was doing the pull-ups I was like damn bro that's crazy how many like what is murph again man I think it's it's it's a mile run after doing like pull-ups and push-ups or something it's a mile run then it's like I believe it's 100 squats I think it's 50 it's 100 pull-ups 200 push-ups and 300 air squats and then another mile run And how much weight did he have on there? 100 pounds.

100 pounds. And he probably weighs 180. Yeah. 170. Yeah. He's a monster. He's always been a monster. He's been doing this for a long time too.

Which is crazy. So he had a go rock and he had a weight vest on. Dying, bro. I know that that feels like that. It gives you an idea how hard it is because if he's dying, then no one's making it through that very. And how many times has he ever, like he's done Murph every year? Yeah. You know, for years.

So, yeah, maybe. that's the next thing I do. Where can people find you? Hey, Instagram. DeRoo Strong. My YouTube is Phil Daru Strong. And the website is PhilDrew.com. You can find me at Merrick Health too as well.

Awesome, man. Did you digest all that steak we ate last night? Brother, ask Mike. He had a little bit of a problem. I loved it, though. I appreciate you, brother. Matter of fact, thank you so much. Yeah.

That was so good. Yeah, we had like six or seven different types of steak. Yeah, I don't even know how much it was. Delicious. Definitely crazy, yeah. And the mac and cheese, I know that Encema knocked that out. He kind of ate everybody else's food, though, at the end, you know. I wish I took more home.

I wish I took any home. Marco said, just give it to Encema. It's good. He cleaned it up. Yeah, he was just smoking right through it. Yep. Strength is never weakness. Weakness never strength.

Catch you guys later. Bye.