Mark Bell's Power Project - Power Project EP. 290 - Phil Daru

Episode Date: November 22, 2019

Phil Daru is the head strength and conditioning coach at American Top Team in Coconut Creek, FL. He works with pro MMA champions among the likes of Dustin Poirier, Amanda Nunes, and Joanna Jedrzejczyk. He is a competitive bodybuilder, strongman, powerlifter, and former professional MMA fighter. Subscribe to the Podcast on on Platforms! ➢https://lnk.to/PowerProjectPodcast Visit our sponsors: ➢Piedmontese Beef: https://www.piedmontese.com/ Use Code "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 25% off your order plus FREE 2-Day Shipping on orders of $99 ➢Perfect Keto: http://perfectketo.com/powerproject Use Code "POWERPROJECT" at checkout for 15% off your order! ➢Quest Nutrition: https://www.questnutrition.com/ Use code "MARKSQUEST" at checkout for 20% of your order! ➢SHOP NOW: https://markbellslingshot.com/ Enter Discount code, "POWERPROJECT" at checkout and receive 15% off all Sling Shots FOLLOW Mark Bell ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/marksmellybell ➢ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MarkBellSuperTraining ➢ Twitter: https://twitter.com/marksmellybell ➢ Snapchat: marksmellybell Follow The Power Project Podcast ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/MarkBellsPowerProject Follow Nsima Inyang ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/nsimainyang/  Podcast Produced by Andrew Zaragoza ➢ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamandrewz

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enter promo code MARKSQUEST, that's all one word, at checkout for 20% off your entire order. You know, it's hard to, when you're on a ketogenic diet, if you don't really like fish, you know, if you're not a big fish, like I don't mind throwing down some salmon here and there, but to be honest, I'm not going to like eat it every single day. And we know how valuable like EPA and DHA are and perfect keto makes krill oil, which helps solve that problem. You just supplement that and you're good to go. Um, what benefits have you noticed from like EPA and DHA? Cause you're taking it and you're doing jujitsu and you're coming in here powerlifting and doing everything else, right? Yeah. So it's mainly like, especially with jujitsu, my fingers start to feel like

really, uh, like sore because of all the grabbing. And I take that stuff because like it's mainly like, especially with jujitsu, my fingers start to feel like really like sore because of all the grabbing. And I take that stuff because like it's supposed to help your joints. So collagen, krill oil, all of that stuff supposed to help out with the joints. So I love taking that stuff for it. Yeah, I like collagen a lot. And again, like I, you know, I like kind of having midnight midnight snacks. So I'll have like a yogurt, but I'll mix the collagen in there. And I have an unflavored collagen.

It doesn't change the doesn't change the flavor. It just adds almost like a little bit of a salt to it. And I really like mixing that in there. So a lot of times I'll mix that up sometimes even with the chocolate MCT powder and get kind of the best of both worlds. And I've been taking the krill oil as well. Andrew, where can people find out more about these products? All right, guys, don't let joint pain get in the way of getting jacked and tan. Head over to perfectketo.com slash power project. Use code power project and get 15% off all perfect keto products. I think all of us here really, really love meat, but the one person that loves meat more than anybody is Mark. So how much meat have you had this week, Mark? I don't know. You know, I do eat quite a bit of meat, especially like after I've fasted.

I remember one time I came home from the gym and probably just slaughtered like maybe it was a tomahawk ribeye. I think it was gigantic. But, you know, I do smash a lot of meat in a given day. I do smash a lot of meat in a given day. What I like about the Piedmontese beef, though, is for me, a lot of times I have trouble because I do love the fattier meats. And so I still might go over my calories. But with the Piedmontese, I don't know how they do it, but their steaks are a lot leaner, but they're still super tender. I don't know how they're doing it over there.

And then on top of that, they cook faster. How are they doing it over there? It's crazy. It's, but the thing is, it's so sick for people that are like having to diet and they still want to eat steak and they have to lower their fats or whatever. And they still want to eat that red meat. Well,

Pete Montes is perfect because it's not as fat. I don't understand. It's crazy. Still getting a nutrient dense food. You're getting a lot of protein. Um, the other thing that's great about this company, uh, that I think separates it out from a lot of others is the fact that they're giving you a

cook guide. And like, I don't know about you, but like, I don't know a lot about cooking, man. I just like throw stuff in a pan a lot of times. I just put salt and gun, but this is actually pretty awesome. You can actually make tasty food. I'm not too bad with the grill. Andrew, where can people find out more about Piedmontese and where can they get an awesome deal? Cool. Yeah, our friends at Piedmontese are hooking you guys up with an insane deal. Head over to piedmontese.com. That's P-I-E-D-M-O-N-T-E-S-E.com and enter promo code POWERPROJECT.

If you can't spell that, well, maybe it's not for you. Enter that promo code for 25% off your order along with free two-day shipping on all orders over $100. All right, Nsema, we're looking a little, like, at least 230 pounds lighter today. Yeah? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Are we missing something? I don't think.

Everything seems pretty normal to me. Is there anyone missing? We got Smokey. Smokey's here. Josh is here. Phil's here. You're here. I'm here.

Hmm. Yeah. Mark Bell's Power Project. Seems pretty here. Phil's here. You're here. I'm here. Hmm. Yeah. Mark Bell's Power Project. Mark Bell's Power Project seems pretty great. All right, cool. No, I'm just kidding. I'm playing. Marky Mark isn't here.

That's all right. But who is here? Phil DeRue. What's up, dude? Strength and conditioning coach. You are, dude, the guy who made our rap sheet on you. Like, you're fucking amazing. That's crazy how you did that, man.

I was like, I'm kind of worried. Yeah, Josh can find everything on the internet. I see that. Yeah. So you got to be safe. Be safe with what you post. Man, I'll be careful next time, for sure. But you said he got something wrong here.

So we were thinking you work with only 60 athletes, but you just mentioned you work with over 80 athletes at American Top Team. Yeah, I mean, we have over 150 pro fighters at ATC. So for the most part, it's me and another guy that does the strength and conditioning. I primarily work with a lot of the – he's a Brazilian, so he works with a lot of Brazilians. I work with Junior Dos Santos. I work with Antonio Carl De Zapato. So I do work with some Brazilians too as well. Amanda Nunes I've worked with.

But, again, there's so many fighters, man. And we're all at the highest level. So at the end of the day, I ended up getting at least 80, 85 right now in camp. And then I also train Olympians for judo and then boxing professionals too as well. All right. And you look really young. How old are you?

I'm 30. I'll be 31 tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So thank you for telling me. Yeah, you too. I got carded last night too, by the way. Nice on your face i know i know and how about this this guy had the same

birthday in the same year as me too it was fucking strange that's kind of creepy yeah it was a little what did he look like was he wrecked or yeah he was a little wrecked so i'm holding it down you know okay 31 man as a 31 year old like everything you've done and the people you've worked with this is it's kind of crazy to think about all the success that you've had so how'd you get here like yeah what was the path here I mean I started doing MMA well first I played college football played for Alabama State um I've always been intrigued with building my body building up you know building up strength building up power for for my sports. I've always been intrigued with building my body, building up strength, building up power for my sports that I played.

Started really learning how to properly program and things like that right around 14, 15, because I knew what I was doing wasn't right, you know? And I just kind of grabbed the barbell, started doing floor presses and things like that. I didn't have any, like, I didn't have a bench. I had nothing. So I had to bring my teammates over to my garage, and we would just hit the weights. And I, like, I didn't have a bench, I had nothing. So I had to bring my, my, my teammates over to my garage and we would just

hit the weights. And I'm like, man, there's gotta be a different way. So I started reading Louis stuff and I started reading, you know, all the old Soviet, you know, texts and things like that. And really started to understand like proper periodization and understanding, you know, how to actually do this the right way. Then from there, you know, after I got out of college, I was actually picking, you know, all my, all my strength coaches brains about, you know, after I got out of college, I was actually picking, you know, all my strength coaches' brains about, you know, what I should actually be doing to get better. And you went to college for? Exercise science. Exercise science.

Yeah, exercise science, sports medicine. Sick. And then once I was done with that, I was like, man, I still have to compete. I feel like there's a void there. I'm 5'8", guys. You know what I mean? I'm like, I was playing guys your size. You know what I mean?

I was a gunner on the kickoff team. Like, there was a lot of concussions going on, too. And this is the kind of leads to later on down the line. I'll talk about that. But but basically, yeah. So after that, I'm like, man, I moved. I'm from South Florida. So I moved, you know, South Florida. It's, you know, synonymous for football. Right. my family moved from South Florida and obviously I lived in a not so great neighborhood in Broward County, Fort Lauderdale area. And, um, you know, try to, my,

my family kind of moved my sister, my little sister, she's like 10 years younger than me, moved her out of that situation, moved up to a small town, Port St. Lucie was just like kind of on the come up. And when I got back from Alabama,

I was like, man, there's nothing out here to do. And I was like, I have to compete. And I want to still train people, but I still have that competitive edge. I wanted to try something. And I was boxing on the off season in college. So I had a Kempo karate background. So I've done a lot of things in martial arts. I'm like, man, let me try this MMA thing out. Mostly I was trying to do boxing. I was trying to box mcgurk had a gym who is about in vero beach is

about an hour and a half away yeah man that's pretty far so i was like all right i can still do it i can make it work but i was gonna try to train two or three times a day like i'm crazy like that so i you know needless to say so i went there and um dean thomas who i know from down south he's a american top team affiliate guy he had an American Top Team affiliate gym in Port St. Lucie. So I'm like, man, I know ATT. I've been around it. You know, I went there as a kid. So I was like, man, let me go ahead and check him out, see what he's got.

And I went up to him. I remember he was opening up the gym, and I just kind of ran up on him. He's like, you know, who's this kid? And I was like, you know, I just want to train. You know, just test me out, see how it goes. He's like, yeah, come in, try a class. And from my natural ability as an athlete and then just knowing how to box, I really took to just the entire thing, you know, just training all the time and making sure that, you know, I was doing the right things all the time. So with that being said, I didn't really want to do grappling.

I didn't really want to do jujitsu in the beginning. You know, I was like, I don't really want to roll around with some dudes. Like, I'm like, I'm okay. You know what I mean? I don't the same way. Right, right. So I'm like, all right. And he was like, man, just try it, you know.

And my first time out, and I'm not bragging or anything, but the way I took to jujitsu and wrestling and catch wrestling, I was able to, you know, use my strength, use my athleticism to my advantage there. And then once I started to develop the skills and the technique, then, you know, things started to really work and click. And so I had to develop my well-roundedness there. Turn pro probably, I think it was 2011, I turned pro.

As an MMA fighter. Yeah, as an MMA fighter. Okay. My first pro fight was against kurt hollibaugh who fights in the ufc or fought in the ufc um i was he was probably 12 and 0 at the time as an amateur um big name in louisiana and just so happened that in louisiana that was like right where dustin poirier was around at that time and he was like the main guy over in louisiana so okay i actually met dust Dustin over there then.

And that was, I mean, roughly about eight years ago, nine years ago. Yeah. And he was coming back and forth from American Top Team, you know, but he still wasn't there full time. Okay. And I used to go back and forth to Coconut Creek to spar and things like that. So I honed my skills in and, you know, I did good, you know. And at that time, I'm'm like i still need to make money because my first pro fight i made 200 bucks and i think i spent that getting back home like literally

didn't make any money you know so for all you kids out there that think that you're gonna make massive amount of money now listen we're getting better right yeah yeah yeah i was one of my first uh or my second amateur fight here and uh this guy he looked like uncle fester i'm not i was like what the he don't have he had no neck whatsoever and uh the goal right here is supposed to be like a division two wrestler or something like that so i knew he was trying to trying to take me down and things like that super green here i'm still an amateur there's a lot of things i'm seeing here that's like terrible as far as like my foot placement and like my jab like definitely not a good jab um but yeah i mean this is a good fight we went uh it was crazy because back then in amateurs there was no now

you have shin pads and like there's there's a there's a lot of different rules now but in louisiana back then, you could even elbow. Like, you could elbow, you could knee. Like, it was basically a pro fight without getting paid. Yeah. You know, and those gloves that I had on probably weren't regulation, most likely. I remember my first amateur fight was in a place called Cut-Off, Louisiana. This was, like, population 300.

Like, literally. And they were all at the fights. Yeah. The whole population. The whole body population that's what the town they came by and they were it was in a barn i swear and uh yeah and i and i fought a guy from mississippi and i he's probably like 32 years old he was like a it's a tough individual right and i remember i i thought that they were gonna give us gloves to wear and I had a I had a teammate who was a heavyweight and he had the old like the UFC gloves like you get from Walmart and like I was like man I need to use those yeah yeah so he gave me the UFC gloves and they were probably like two ounces

like they weren't even and so I ended up smashing that guy's gloves man yeah so right here this is where the jiu-jitsu should have came into play right here. And at this point, you still had barely any jiu-jitsu experience? Barely any, man. I'm just stuck in half, and then I'm just trying to hold on right here. I mean, he did a good job keeping his hips low and holding me down for a little bit. Yeah. And, I mean, the problem here is that like right now i need to i need to obviously push

my head push push his hips away get full guard or try to get back up you know but by the way if you guys are listening to this you got to see the video because we have his match up on the screen so you'll have to see what's going on yeah yeah so i mean right now it's like again he's grinding his elbow into my into my face and things like that. And right now I'm just basically trying to control posture so he doesn't, you know, posture up and punch. And doing a good job of that. And then once they stand up and he kind of knew, like, there wasn't really anything he could do to me stand up-wise. So, at the end of the day, his whole goal was to try to take me down.

And honestly, right here, I do feel it should have been stood up there's nothing really going on there's no damage going on we're trying to stop like like nothing landing see what i'm saying yeah yeah so anyways but yeah i ended up winning that fight um i ended up kicking him in the face um like i think at the end it's kind of coming up close maybe right maybe right there at the end of that but i ended up kicking him in the face and i didn't know how he didn't go down man it's no neck yeah that's what it was i was kind of like damn why in this why didn't this not why didn't he go down like i'm crazy but yeah yeah that's how it was i just i love that the uh like it was filmed on probably like a mini dv camcorder it's still that was definitely on the phone somehow that one was yeah i think i think it was my like

my ex-girlfriend was like taping it she was like cornering me she's actually a brown belt in jiu-jitsu at the time oh dang she was like cornering me like push his hips i'm like yeah it's not happening dean was in my corner there too as well but yeah i mean it was a it was a good fight for me it was a good fight for me because the first fight was easier you know and i didn't really learn much i kind of just smashed the kid and then my third fight we didn't get it on video but i went into um it was north carolina and the kid was a um a duke division wrestler, hometown kid. We were the main event. They brought me in the loose, basically, and it was for a title. And I remember it was the same day wins.

I remember cutting weight in a park and in the sun in North Carolina, and I just turned the heat on and put my sweats on, put my sauna suit on, and put the heat on in the car and try to sweat it out there. We did the same day wins. And then we went there. I remember him like being like just making it a show like this is the guy I'm fighting. So I was already pissed that he did that. You know, went in there first round, hit him with an overhand, stunned him, dropped to his knees.

And then I guillotined him, put him to sleep in front of his whole crowd which is cool well it's not like a two minute fight probably yeah about two and a half minutes okay let me ask you this what do you think or from from all of your experience and obviously working with all these top fighters when you see a lot of other strength and conditioning coaches and what they're doing with fighters what seems to be missing because like when you think of snc you're like get this person big and jacked and strong but what what do you think they're missing well they have to know the individual right they have to know how fighters think they have to know the exact schedules that the fighters go through right there's a lot of demands that go through you know a fighter schedule inside the week inside the training day yeah you know so understanding the bioenergetic demands of

the sport understanding what they're doing on a constant basis you, that's the big thing is communication between skills coaches. A lot of times the strength and conditioning coaches are distant from the skills coaches. And a lot of times there's a disconnect when it comes down to preparation. Most of the SEC guys want to smash them, want to get them in condition and put them through the ringer. Well, so does the wrestling coach. So does the BJJ coach. So does the boxing coach. They all want to do the same thing.

So having constant communication between coaches is always key. And then obviously you want to make sure that the schedule is down pat. And then you have to know how to manage that fatigue. And you do that through subjective and objective indicators, whether it be an HRV monitor, whether that, you know, just monitoring their heart rate in the morning, grip test, things like that. And then obviously you always want to keep lines of communication open between you and the fighter yeah so every time that my guys come in i know exactly what they did that day but i also want to ask them how they're feeling because you never know like it could

be a hard day especially at att they're always training hard right they're always smashing each other the sparring that they go through you got guys that are super high level elite level so every day they're sparring it's it's it's 110 percent yeah you know i mean there's no real okay we're just gonna play around here a lot of times especially the the older guys we try to taper them off a little bit earlier because they've just been training for so long so i'm out as like as far as they're lifting and strength everything we try to do everything like as far as because again i can taper them off of the weight training, but if they're going to do a hard rolling session or a hard grappling session or a hard sparring session, it doesn't matter.

You know what I mean? So stress is systemic. So we want to make sure that everything is calculated. Okay. And now, because I'm going to be a little bit selfish here, there's a lot of listeners that, let let's say they want to get into boxing, right. Or they want to get into jujitsu,

jujitsu. Um, but they're built and they want to maintain muscle. I know a lot of people who are scared of losing muscle and losing a little bit of strength, getting into a different type of martial art. Yeah. So thinking into that person's kind of brain, what do they need to think about it?

Or what kind of considerations do they need to take while like to handle their strength and conditioning so they don't lose too much strength as they do either jujitsu or boxing and as they really try and progress in either no we're talking about making a weight class or just in general just in general because a lot of listeners aren't necessarily getting into mma but they want to get into like i know a lot of people that are getting into jujitsu maybe can sure want to compete in it or learn it or they want to get into like boxing and compete and learn it a little bit. But they don't want to like get small. Like I've seen pictures of you on your Instagram. You're jacked.

You can still move. That's good coming from you, man. Yeah, yeah. But you can still move and obviously you can still fight. So what type of considerations do they need to think about when structuring their lifting protocol? Well, definitely you want to work through full ranges of motion, right? You want to increase your ability to move well. and that's doing mobility type work, right? I do a lot of FRC training like we're going to do today.

But primarily what I want to do is I want to make sure that I have control of my body in all ranges. So, again, I have to make sure that I can put myself in a position and basically explore those ranges in all movements. Base compound movements are always going to be good, right? You got the squat, bench, deadlift, all that stuff too. You want to hinge, you want to carry, you want to pull, you want to do some rotation, right? And then obviously from there, we want to do some more higher dynamic movement patterns, right? Because you have to still be explosive, right? You have to be explosive, but you have to be in control.

I always say, you know, power means nothing without control. So we have to make sure that our body is in a capable position to produce force and redirect force. So we do things from a full spectrum and I use a conjugate style of an approach, especially when it comes down to like my grapplers, but also my MMA guys.

Yeah. Because we have so much limited time to train. So we have to make sure that we're getting everything all in one, you know? Yeah. So what kind of movements like for that specifically so that people can have some ideas of some like of these dynamic movements you're talking about? So low level plyometrics.

So, you know, hops, bounds, jumps like that. Box jumps are always going to be key. I rarely do depth jumps just because of the force impact, you know, and they're getting smashed all the time, you know, and with my jujitsu guys, they barely can jump anyways. No offense guys. No offense. Right. Right. Because one, you're in a fixed position all the time, you know, and with my jujitsu guys, they barely can jump anyways. No offense guys. No offense. Right. Right. Because one, you're in a fixed position all the time, especially if you play on bottom guard, you know what I mean? So things start to happen. You know, you're in the

kyphotic posture, you're drawn in tight psoas, tight hip flexors, things like that. So what we want to do is we want to balance out the body too, as well. So we work a lot of posterior chain work. We work a lot of oblique sling work. We work a lot of posterior chain work we work a lot of oblique sling work we work a lot of lateral chain that's going to go ahead and enhance their ability to do work on the mats but also you know reduce the risk of injury and that's the main thing what i like to make sure that everybody does is one we have to make sure that they are performing well but we also have to make sure that they're sustaining their ability to progress now when you talk about like postural movements because i do notice a lot of jujitsu guys, they're like this all the time or they're, so you, you think that, or you, what you do is you have them do a lot of back work to

even things out. Right. Yeah. I mean, back glutes, hamstrings, you know, um, we just do a lot of extension work, you know, good mornings, you know, um, reverse hypers, a lot of those. And honestly, you have restorative work there too as well. We do a lot of work on the belt squat. So we'll do some traction on that, sled marches, things like that, you know, just to get more functionality in the entire body. What I've seen lately, especially if you are a guard player, right, is lower back is a little bit weaker because they're rounded forward, right? They barely use that.

If you play on top, if that's your game, now you need to have a strong posture, right? Because you don't want them to break your posture. So again, we work a lot, no matter where their game is, we want to make sure that the posterior chain is strong. And then the adductors, hip flexors, things like that, obviously that's going to come into play too. But again, like I talked about before with you off air,

is that it's good to be flexible, but you also have to have control in end ranges and you have to be strong in those ranges. It's one thing to get in a position, it's another to be strong in that end range position. Okay. And how are you like managing or like, yeah, how are you balancing like not overtraining some of these athletes?? Cause you know, like you said, they have the BJJ

coach, the wrestling coach, the strength coach and it, yeah, just like, how do you manage all that? Yeah. I mean, well, mostly it's understanding the schedule, right. Understanding the demands of the sport, understanding the skills training. And then from there you need to have some type of objective measure, right. Whether that be, like I said, a heart rate variability monitor, what's going to measure the variance of the heart rate. And then from there we can kind of dictate, okay, how well or how hard are we going to go that day? A lot of things also is that I have so many fighters, a lot of them can't just get an HRV monitor. You know what I mean? So what I'll end up doing is, you know, I'll watch them, you know, as they go through their movements, as they go through the dynamic movements. And if their coordination's off or, you know, if they're not talkative or,

you know, they're kind of down, you can see it in their eyes, then I may just go and ask them, you know, what did you do today and how hard was it? And usually sometimes I'll even go to the training and I'll be there in the gym. So that helped me out a lot. Don't get me wrong. But if you're another strength and conditioning coach that just doesn't have the ability to be inside the MMA gym, you need to make sure that you're communicating with the skills coaches and then from there they could be like yeah and the skills coaches are going to tell you like yeah we kind of pushed them today let's let's back it off a little bit now we're getting to the point where before everybody was trying to smash the fighter right now we're getting to the point

at least in my opinion that everybody's communicating very well and we're trying to keep to keep a solid progression going and we're not trying to smash them every day. You know, it's funny because we had Andy Galpin on and he echoed the exact same thing you said. He does more than nutrition stuff. But he's like, like all these coaches are smashing these fighters and everyone can just communicate together. They can just they can get to the fight safe. Exactly. That's got to be. I mean, you have like you said over 80 athletes

Yeah, yeah roughly so like how do you personally like keep tabs on like everybody like that's got to be damn near impossible at this point Yeah, I mean I do have some help. I have an assistant coach that helps me out with that You know one assistant and he's been with me for three years now So he kind of takes it like right now He's working with the guys today, you know. But, I mean, always having numbers on them and making sure that we know the schedules at hand. And then from there, I would get a full assessment, you know, full physical, physiological assessment, understanding, you know, their strengths, their weaknesses, things like that. And then I want to see exactly like, okay, what's the overall training load?

What's the workload throughout the week? And a lot of times i only may see them two times a week in the weight room other than that they're doing their conditioning and they're always doing their skills training yeah so you know with that the proper programming is put into place and then i make sure that either we run off prillipin's chart where we can manage out okay the overall fatigue if i don't know their maximum recoverable volume based off of the test that we've done let's say for instance i got a guy i got guys coming from like dagestan and you know in poland and things like that where i don't know much about them so when they come in

and they're six weeks out well you know that's not a whole lot of time we're good we're good i was getting i was getting nervous what's going on i know we're not in trouble sure dagestan had done a bunch of beeps that's it as soon as i said that i'm like oh shit they're coming for me dustin no because we have this this timer issue and we finally got a timer that works and i forgot to set it so i was fast forwarding I'm used to timers, man. It runs around the gym all the time, so it's all good. You're like, yeah, some PTSD. Like, ah, it's time to go. Change rounds.

Let's go. Get some water. But, yeah, and then, like, well, for a lot of my guys will wear heart rate monitors, too, as well. And I want to make sure I'm gauging the intensities based off the heart rate monitor, you know, especially with the conditioning. And then also do it with the skills training too especially when they're sparring I want to see how how much they can push it and where they're going to be when it comes down to a lot of times their threshold is usually sitting around 175 180 and that's really when they're pushing it you know in sparring and a lot of my guys have maximal heart rates up in the 210s 215s yeah my Dustin VO2 max is up in the 60s you know so i mean his heart is his ability to manage stress

is high and that if you make it to that level you have to have that ability you know mentally and physically you have to be able to cope with the stresses put upon you so with that we don't want to smash them even more in a controlled environment i want to make sure that they're getting the optimal amount of training not the maximal amount on that note I want to make sure that they're getting the optimal amount of training, not the maximum amount. On that note, I want to ask you this, and this is kind of going to, there's going to be two parts to this.

I know that all the fighters you work with, you probably have different cardio protocols for them because they're, they all have different demands with all their different coaches. But with the example I gave you for like someone who is getting into some boxing or they're getting into some jujitsu or some kind of martial art and they're lifting, but they want to become more conditioned for their sport, for that sport, right? And they don't want to lose a lot of strength or anything.

What can they add into their weekly protocol to help their cardio out? It really just depends on their weaknesses. Okay. You know, that you have to see through an assessment. You know, a lot of times you either have, there's a respiratory issue, whether it be, you be you know they just need to increase the vo2 max and that just could be just aerobic capacity work and i know that i know a lot of times the guys don't want to do long distance running and lsd work or something like that you can do tempo runs you know you can do things with you know you can do things with the prowler that i like to do a lot um when it comes down to let's say local

muscular endurance right you're looking at it more from a tempo method perspective. So if my guys are good as far as their breathing and they have a good respiratory rate, but they're fatiguing in their, let's say, their legs, right? So then we're going to have to go ahead and we're going to have to work the legs through a specific time frame. So what we'll do is we'll do tempo method off of camp before they start camp. Can you explain the tempo method just a little bit? Yeah, sure. So let's say, for instance, you're doing a squat, right? We'll go ahead and do a tempo of a 3-0-3.

Okay. Right? So three seconds eccentric, zero seconds isometric, three seconds concentric. And they'll just run through that movement throughout time. And I either do a time-based, whether it be a minute, two minutes, something along the lines of that, very long in duration, but you're going to build a little bit of hypertrophy there. But for the most part, you're just driving lactate into the muscle. Yeah.

Right? So you're having the ability to buffer that lactate going further because you're putting the stress upon it. And then another thing we do is lactate retention. So I'll do a tempo method, and then I'll go ahead and I'll superset that with the lactate retention, basically meaning I trap the lactate into the working muscle that allows it to buffer it in the long run, right? So again, we're putting that stress into that particular body part. It's able to cope with

those stresses and then from further on down the line, it'll be able to buffer it out a little bit more efficiently. So as an example, how would that look with the squat? So you did the squat 303 for a minute to two minutes. What is the movement afterwards to trap that lactate all you got to do just do a low squat sit down into a position you don't have to like sit in a like let's say just a isometric squat you can actually sit into a low squat hold on to the wall especially if you have mobility issues and you just trap that lactate into the muscle caldeeds does this a lot too as well yeah yeah it sucks don't we and i'll do it a lot i also do it um with uh sled marches or prowler marches um and they'll we'll put we'll put a suspension substantial amount of weight on the prowler and then have them work through that range in a

concentric motion so they're having to push you know how it is with the prowler yeah so they'll have the push when every step is a is a dynamic movement step so you're actually getting that fast twitch muscle capacity and every step is the start step so they're explosive right and they have to do that for a longer duration and we'll do that off of camp primarily just to get the body ready to go and get a base of that athletic and that strength you know going further into camp you know you you did mention athletes having problems with their breathing i really wanted to ask you about this because we had um patrick mckeown he's the you know okay so yeah he's the i'm patrick i'm i'm uh oxygen certified i'm so happy you said that bro that's perfect no dude i'm so happy you said that because okay um so after we had him on

be a little bit before that i started focusing on nasal breathing and that helped me so much with my endurance. Our boy, Josh was settled over here. Who's done wrestling for years. Yeah. I can see the ears.

Yeah. You see the ears, right? He started Josh. Yeah. He also started doing nasal breathing. Like I don't, how long ago was it?

Josh? Eight months ago. Eight months ago. So he has a lot of experience in grappling and he even noticed a big difference in how calm he is and all that. So can you talk to us about like, I guess how you help what, first off, why nasal breathing might be important for anyone doing this type of work and then how you like help athletes get better at that? Well, Patrick talks a lot about the nasal breathing to increase the parasympathetic response,

right? So increase the diaphragmatic breathing, right? So if you can breathe through the diaphragm, it's more optimal breathing than mouth breathing. When you bring down the parasympathetic response up, you bring down the heart rate. So it allows you to do more things without having to bring that heart rate up. So you're actually decreasing your stress as you're

going through the movement. Again, we do a lot of breath holds for high intensity intervals, especially getting closer to camp. But outside of camp, we'll do nasal breathing through an aerobic work. So let's say, for instance, they're doing some low-level aerobic plyometrics, right? We'll have them nasal breathe or I'll even tape their mouth shut and have them work through that. Again, like you said, with everything, increasing the nasal cavity, you're increasing that parasympathetic response.

Like the cavity is actually getting bigger? It should, yeah. I mean, a lot of my guys have like deviated septum, so it's not as optimal as we want. But at the end of the day, we still want them to be able to do that. Again, when you're talking about fighting too, you don't want to have your mouth open. You know, you get caught that way, you know, knockouts become more prevalent there. You know, so we want to make sure that the mouth is closed and we're breathing optimally and that's the that's the main thing is nasal breathing has been shown to that's going to increase optimal

breathing patterns which is going to help with diaphragmatic breathing which is going to help with bringing down that that stress response and get you to do more throughout the fight how can someone start like it because because I know a lot of people who have a problem with that. They feel like they just can't keep their mouth shut when they're exercising or doing that type of work.

What's the best way to start implementing that and bring that into your training? So a lot of times, like with the deviated septum, that's going to be hard. You know, mostly I'll level with them.

I'll say, you know, try to breathe in through your nose and breathe out through your mouth. The first one. Right. We do it all the time. But it's hard when, you know, you start to really push the pace. You don't do it. You don't know you're doing it. Right. It's just it's just, you know, it's a response that you do. Right. The goal really is to one is you want to do it in an aerobic way first so that you're not bringing the heart rate up maximally okay and then you can get used to it and i usually say you know patrick does say you

know you want to do it first while you're just doing your daily activity then you want to try to increase it by you know doing it while you sleep if you if you wake up and your mouth is dry and things like that obviously you know you're you're doing some type of mouth breathing at night that means you're not getting adequate amount of sleep too. That's going to hinder your performance. It's going to hinder, you know, your energy output, things like that. So first and foremost, I would say, start doing nasal breathing while you're just doing your daily activity, right? Could be, you know, cleaning the house, whatever, you know, walking, you know, going for a light walk. Then from there, you can start to increase it. Now, again,

you have to do your bolt score, which is your body oxygen level test, right? If your body oxygen level test is higher than 20 seconds, then you can start to work into, let's say some more higher aerobic work or doing your strength and conditioning with a nasal breathing. Yeah. Now I'm not saying do a nasal breathe when you're doing max load, right? You know, obviously you have to create maximal intra-abdominal pressure and things like that. That's going to take your mouth. That's going to take everything. But when you're doing that lower level aerobic work, let's say for instance, you're drilling right on the mats. This is perfect to do,

right? Because it's lower level aerobic work. Yeah. You're doing something technical and you're increasing your ability one to bring up the nasal cavity and you're, you're doing something technical and you're increasing your ability one to bring up the nasal cavity and you're you're giving yourself the ability to start to understand how to properly breathe through those stress situations you know so it just goes in progressions there okay that makes sense yeah man no i'm so happy like i'm so happy that we're not crazy right when we tell people that we tape our mouth shut to go to sleep people do think we were we are weird yeah um i can't remember what uh patrick said but he like we asked him like straight up like what percentage do you tell like do you make

your athletes train you know through nasal breathing like i know you said like for the heavier stuff but like if you had a percentage that you can put on it like do you think you would have one um man it's a lot i would say i would say at least 50 to 60 percent okay cool see it's good just to put a number on it like for sure especially off camp when we're trying to build a base of aerobic capacity definitely we'll try to do the nasal breathing and then from there i do a lot of breath holds especially in camp when we're doing the higher intensity work like uh for instance we'll have uh like a protocol for me would be a prowler push we use the prowler for a lot of things but we'll do a lactic capacity training where basically is increasing the ability to reproduce power for a long duration that's

that's the fight game so what i'll do is i'll have them sprint with the prowler down i'll have them breathe in they'll blow all the air out as they're pushing it about 20 yards. Then they'll hold their breath once they hit the turn and come back 20 yards with their breath held with the air out. You do that for 10 rounds. You get a 20 second break. You want to breathe. But the catch here is that you want to be able to catch your breath between five or six seconds, right? And they're actually, they're doing active recovery by shadow boxing or pummeling or whatever the case. But they're nasal breathing as they recover. So what we've seen there is their ability, one, is to bring down their heart rate faster,

which is going to help with increased ability to produce power for a long duration. So the goal for that is to obviously making sure that they can cope with the stresses put upon them, especially inside a fight when you're getting smashed and you know, you might have somebody laying down on you, you know how it is when you do jujitsu and the same thing. So we have to one saturate the body with that carbon dioxide, right?

Have the ability to, you know, sustain that amount of stress, produce air hunger. And then from there they can cope with that stress. It's the same thing we do with the lactate retention. So I'm putting all these stresses on them so that they can deal with it later on.

Has any of the fighters just had some insane, crazy bolt score? Not really, man. Oh, really? No, not really. I guess the highest one, even Dustin, with his VO2 being in the 60s, I think it was around 25. So it's not like up in the 30s or 40s.

I don't know, Josh, what's yours? Let's do it right now. Let's do it right now. That bolt, like doing that bolt test, it's difficult. It's like you exhale everything. It's funny. Then you hold, right? Yeah, I was doing it.

I was doing breath holds on the way out here on the plane. So I do like breath holds like periodically. Yeah, I even do it while I'm driving. I don't I don't I don't I don't want to tell you guys to do that. Don't do a fucking max breath hold. But yeah, I'll do, I'll do them periodically throughout the day. And then I'll, and I'll also measure out how many times I breathe in a minute. You want to make sure that you're breathing at least, well, at the most five or six breaths a minute. I mean, you can get there. Then you're, then you're breathing optimally at that point. Got it. It's for the breath holds just so people can have an idea of what this is. And if you guys haven't gotten or haven't gotten that book, the oxygen advantage, just go grab it. But can you tell them about breath holds real quick? Yeah, I mean, well, for the most part,

you're looking at it from, you're trying to increase, again, that carbon dioxide saturation. You're trying to increase the ability to take in oxygen and utilize it. So what you're doing is, again, you're increasing hemoglobin inside the blood. So it's activating or giving your body oxygen to the working tissue, wherever it may Yeah. So what you're doing is again, you're increasing hemoglobin inside the blood. So it's activating or giving your body oxygen to the working tissue, wherever it may be.

For instance, for us, like I said, with the Prowler push, you're increasing the oxygen utilization. So again, I'm actually increasing VO2 per se, right? And that's the best way we can do it from a high altitude standpoint. You're actually imitating high altitude training, right? You're not going to do it. I mean, it's not fully there. You're not going to go in like, it's not like Colorado, but at the end of the day, if you're living at sea level, like I am, right? The goal is to make sure that we can get the most out of that particular response. So we do the breath holds to simulate high altitude, to increase that ability to take in and utilize oxygen, right? And then also, you know, that, that co2 saturation is going to be key

too because it helps you increase your ability to not have air hunger got it right do this don't buy masks a lot of people those training masks patrick has mass that it actually yeah i know so i was like oh man this guy's got a fucking training mask so the the whole thing behind that is obviously it's not going to simulate high altitude there. What it is going to do is going to help with the diaphragm. It's going to strengthen up the diaphragm. Okay. It's going to enhance nasal breathing because the goal is to breathe through the nose when you have that mask on.

If you go to oxygenadvantage.com, Patrick, I better get some money. Man. But if you go there they have the mask there too as well and they have the and they have the uh the strips for the mouth to close mouth up i didn't know that okay cool let me ask you this because uh we were talking about this a bit before and you mentioned it a little bit here mobility um functional mobility all of that how can or what should people be doing to bring that in? Because you don't only just do static stretching. No, no.

For the most part, functional range conditioning is what I use the most. Basically what that is is that's increasing movement control, active range of motion, and then getting you strong in those ranges. So again, like I said, flexibility is just passive range of motion. That's passive flexibility, right? Mobility is the ability to move and be flexible, but be strong in those end ranges. So we are trying to enhance the ability to be strong in all types of ranges and all types of movements.

And so what we do is we'll do things like pails and rails, which is progressive and regressive angular isometrics, in just an isometric tension, right? So you're basically exploring those ranges and getting strong in the ranges of where you're stuck at, right? A lot of times when your body isn't capable of being in a position, it shuts down. It's like walking on ice, right? When you walk on ice and you're not stable, your body freezes up, right? We're given the ability to walk on ice. And what I mean by that is we're giving stability and strength in ranges that aren't really there yet.

And then we can enhance the strength in those ranges. And then that'll give you that optimal mobility, which will allow you to get in those flexibility issues. Like let's say, for instance, it's one thing to get into a split. It's another to actually bring your leg up to your head. Yeah. Right. Because you're activating those muscles that allow for that movement to happen. So we're trying to get those muscles strong and we're trying to make sure they're strong

through isometrics. Got it. Can you give us like an example of like what that would look like with a few movements? Yeah, so he does a lot of base position movements. I use a lot of like 90-90 bear sit to like, let's say for instance, an S guard, right? Okay.

So basically what that means is you have external internal rotation of your hip and you're sitting into position with your obviously a good posture. Then from there, you're going to do what's called progressive or pales, progressive angular isometrics. You're going to actually push down with the antagonistic muscle on the in the external externally rotated front leg. You'll push down into the floor. You'll ramp up from about 30 percent all the way up to 100 percent.

Then from there, we'll back it down, 80, 60, 30. Then from there, we'll do what's called regressive angular isometrics, which is rails. We'll use the muscle, like let's say the adductors, right? And we'll use the muscle of the adductors to actually pull the leg up in that passive end range that you have while you're sitting on the floor, right? Or when you're stuck on the floor. So you get into a passive end range, then you work actively to increase the passive end range. So that becomes your new passive end range. Okay.

Does that make sense? A little bit. You'll have to see it too. I just can't wait for it. Yeah, we're about to do this on video. So it's going to be, oh, is this some of the stuff you're talking about? So yeah, this is controlled articular rotations. Junior right here is, believe it or not not is super tight in his hips right but um but yeah so this is what we call

controlled articular rotations this is just basically movement prep so here is where i'm getting them comfortable getting in ranges usually using their muscles to activate movement control in the joint capsule so right here we're doing some ankle rotations. We're just trying to basically disassociate the ankle from the knee joint, right? So I'm having them lock down their knee right here. If you're looking at it, we have, this is just a butterfly sit. So it's another base position that I use. And this is what we call, this is a eccentric loading. So what you're doing is when you come down, they're actually pushing down their knees with, let's say, their abductors. And as they come up, they're pulling into their elbows.

So they're activating their abductors. They're activating their abductors as they come up and down. And they're doing a passive range of motion. And then they're working into active range of motion. So they're going through a flow here, but they're using their muscles to pull their body into position and then pull away from the position. Got it. Let me ask you this. Cause I know that a lot of people, you know, you're answering a lot of questions here, but they want to be able to get like, I guess some of these resources. So for like some FRC stuff and then also, you know, in terms of like, I guess,

like books or something that you learned a lot of this stuff from, because I know a lot of this isn't just book knowledge. There's a lot of obviously practical experience here. Where can somebody start to learn some of this stuff? Well, the functional range conditioning you can get online, I believe it's a functional range conditioning seminars.com. Sick. Yeah. So that, online, I believe it's a functional range conditioning seminars.com. Sick. Yeah. So that, that you can do. Um, Dr. Andre Ospina is a guy that I've learned from. He's actually a martial artist. Um, and then, um, another, another, obviously you got the oxygen advantage that I utilize too, as well. The things that I teach, I do seminars around the world right now. So I do kind of like a, a basic introduction to frc well we'll do controlled

articulate rotations we'll probably do a base position there they'll understand it they'll learn it and then they'll go ahead into the certification i'm also have an online course for coaching that i use uh for coaches around the world so if you want to get involved with all my methodologies all my protocols that i use there's an online course that you can take we do a weekly uh console call with all the coaches I have about 45 coaches right now around the world. So they get all my methods out. Yeah, man, I got you. Don't worry. Um, uh, yeah. So they get all my methods. They get all my protocols. They get all the new articles that I write up. Um, they'll get some stuff that I've learned some, some new studies. I'll, I'll send them over to them, you know? So, I mean, it's a, it's a, it's a community

of coaches and they're all very sharp guys and girls. The good thing is that they're all willing to learn. It's not just for combat sports, though. It's for everything. I got guys and girls that coach rugby. I got a guy who coaches, I think, gymnastics, believe it or not. So it all comes into play because at the end of the day, it's just getting the body ready and capable, getting the physiology ready and capable to do work. And that's the goal, you know.

And that's primarily what I'm trying to do in the long run is to coach coaches. Wow. Sick. Andrew, you got anything over there? Yeah, dude. Anytime, like, I see anybody that's associated with, like, anything UFC, I just become such a fangirl, like straight up. Like I'm not even going to lie to you. I'm just like straight up groupie.

Yeah. What was it like working with the baddest chick on the planet, dude? Fuck, Amanda Nunez. Yeah. I mean, Amanda is a sweetheart, man. Yeah. She's a different breed, man. I think people don't see it because they see like oh man you know she's just killing people in

the right right amanda's um she's actually one of my favorite people you know as far as just being with fighters they're all different right and i and i love all my don't don't get me wrong i love all my fighters like they're my kids and even some of them are older than me like king mo is fucking ancient you know i mean he's fucking ancient um you know i had andre olofsky he's still like a kid to me you know what i mean but but you know i mean with her she just she's always willing to have she's she has fun in training which is very important you know um she's always willing to try new things and she doesn't really she beats her own drum you know what i mean she kind of does what she needs to do she knows what she needs to do she's a true professional and you can see it when she you know

when she goes about her daily training you know she dictates i don't want to say she dictates the training but she knows what she needs you know at this point in time with a lot of the guys and girls that we have at american top team they've been in it they know what they need they know what they don't need and the good thing is that when they know what they don't where they know what they don't need and the good thing is that when they know what they don't where they know what they need they go out and get it i didn't even know that thing had a timer eventually we'll figure out this damn shot clock situation yeah uh and then uh so opening up like you know like news apps and whatnot uh dana why is talking about yoana facing zhang for the title right do you know anything about that do you get her bobblehead yet i gotta get her oh my god dude that'll sit right there on the table i'll make it happen that'd be sick

dude yeah yeah yeah um i think that's the best matchup for her believe it or not she you know she has proven this last fight that she's back and i believe in a major way you know um she brought up you know um she brought up her strength she brought up her power you can see physically she's bigger you know um luke thomas said something on his podcast you guys you guys know who luke thomas is i don't big big name josh yeah so bigger than he's one of my he's actually he's like a lifter he like likes lifting a lot so that's cool but he's he's a a major journalist in in the mma world okay right works with ariel hawani and he came on he was like man look how you know she looks substantially bigger from when she started like

the first four fights in the ufc to now and you know obviously the weight cut is an issue there she's getting bigger that is what it is a lot of these guys, like Dustin is never going to make 145 again, ever in his life. We got to cut a limb. You know what I mean? It's just, you know, fighters get bigger. It is what it is. You know, and they grow. They, you know, they expand and things like that.

And it's harder for them to lose the weight. I think if she has the chance to regain the title, it's against this girl. And I know that Zayn is a phenomenal fighter. Don't get me wrong. But styles make fights. And that style right there is perfect for Ioana. And we've changed some things as far as her ability to move. And we're changing the rhythms.

The thing that happened with Rose was that Rose already had the blueprint of what Ioana does. When you're at the top want to does when you're at the top right when you're at the top of the mountain everybody's looking at you Rose was training for you wanna way before you want to even know who Rose was so when you get there and you're at the top you're only trying to increase your abilities you're not working towards getting to that that degree of of of competition right now we know we needed to change some things and now she's changing her rhythm she's moving a lot more efficiently she's she's not just forward and back you know you could see that she's like she's really working her angles she's working her rhythm

and now putting it all together i feel like this is the best opportunity to get that strap back yeah and it's kind of like uh you hear all, right? Like you have to take a step back in order to, like, you know, step forward, obviously. But, like, that loss, like you just said, is going to propel her to get that strap back. In the strawweight division, how the hell do you maintain size and muscle and strength while cutting down to such a light weight? Yeah, the weight cut is a science behind itself. You know, we have George Lockhart, you know, that works with a lot of the guys there. You guys know George.

Yeah, he's been on here. Yeah. So, I mean, George is a good friend of mine. You know, he does a phenomenal job. He has great protocol. I follow it also, you know, when it comes to the fighters that we have here. And, you know, at the end of the day, it's really about just trying to manage a certain percentage off the camp. Right?

You don't want to get, off a camp right you don't want to get especially for females you don't want them anywhere higher than about 15 from scale weight that's year that's year round because again some of them will take fights on short notice things like that when they start camp you want them about 12 from scale weight if they're anywhere higher than that's gonna be a hard cut you know um but it is tough what i'll do when we especially when we start camp you know we'll do a lot of uh we'll do a lot of isometrics we'll do a lot of quasi isometrics um overcoming isometrics so we're getting them strong in those ranges like i said um but we're not putting on any added muscle mass now again you do want to careful not to let them like gain muscle during that period yeah very

careful especially especially you wanna Like that really depends. Like some of the guys need to put on some body mass just to make sure that they're not going to get injured. Yeah. You know, but for her, it's very tough. She walks around probably now about 138, you know, and she's a big girl. She's like 5'7", you know, 5'6".

Damn, I didn't know she was that tall. Yeah, and her legs are big. She's like how big is zhang then i think zhang's shorter way shorter yeah she's like five four i'm not too sure but i think i think she's i think she's shorter for sure oh i didn't know she was that tall though man yeah you want to start yeah for sure like i mean if you look she's like probably you know i can probably she's probably her top of her head's probably about my my nose height so i'm 5'8 you know what i mean so at that point you know she's up there

and and on top of that she's thick you know she's a thick girl legs her upper body obviously stays lean so that's another thing and then what i'm seeing and when when she came into camp this time she was doing the off-camp training she was primarily just working out, just doing weight training because she doesn't have a whole lot of skills training she could do in Poland. And she does, like, all these little things around the world. So she does, like, you know, guest appearances and all that stuff. So she was just trying to find just weight training around other places she was traveling to. So she would do the training that I had for her.

And, yes, it's going to put on some muscle mass. When she came into camp, she was already super lean. I could see abs on her at 135 pounds. So at that point, I'm like, okay, we only got a little bit left. We only got a little bit left here. So I'm like, okay, George, we got to figure this out, man. But yeah, and then, you know. Starting a water cut at the beginning of camp.

Yeah, like, and then it's also the diet has to be monitored a lot, you know, on a daily basis. And that's going to dictate the training too. Getting closer to the fight, you know, we bring down the strength and conditioning, you know, substantially. You know, a lot of times she'll do some conditioning. A lot of that from about four weeks out is just maintenance in a way, you know a lot of times she'll do some some conditioning um a lot of that from about four weeks out is just maintenance in a way you know um i may only have her one day a week in the weight room and that's just for maintenance right and and a lot of it because of the fact that she's just doing so much and she's trying to bring down the weight and she's calorie deprived and you know

that's that's just the way it is you know yeah so i'd like to see her at 125 to be honest i'd like to see her get this title back and then go to 125 yeah yeah so if if like let's say she is walking around 125 or she's at 15 percent whatever that may be um ideally like how long should the camp be like in your opinion i mean usually it's six to eight weeks yeah for sure yes i. Eight weeks is optimal. And I know because of the fact that everything has to come into play. She has to get her wrestling on point. She has to get her grappling on point. She has to get her sparring but also get timing down.

And then we have to monitor it and dictate it towards the opponent. So she has to get her sparring in with the opponent or with the sparring partner that's going to obviously mimic the right right so it's going to be about eight weeks for sure that's exciting man i can't wait for that fight yeah and we're looking i'm hoping it's like going to be at the same time that dustin fights oh okay so like we're looking at probably march does he who does he has somebody coming up no i mean there's there's there's there's options there you know you could fight gagey again you could fight he could he could fight cowboy he could fight connor josh who do you want to fight everybody yeah yeah yeah i know mcgregor keeps talking shit like he's gonna fight cowboy coming up but i think he just he just gets so bored right like he's like nobody's talking

about me i want to say something i don't have no problems with connor man yeah i actually i mean george lock george lock yeah absolutely i've i've spoken with him before he's all right we get all fired up anytime somebody that we have a connection with that's been on the podcast yeah so like yeah you know yeah no i hear you listen dustin is like a brother to me so like when that happens like if connor fights dustin then obviously right right now yeah i'm saying? And I'll be the first there to back him up, especially on Twitter. Fucking Twitter. That's terrible.

All right. You got anything else coming up? Real quick. Oh, go for it. Real quick. Do you have, because obviously with all these athletes, do you have a tier list in terms of recovery that people can think about dealing with? Because we talk about sleep so much, so we know that's a big thing.

Yeah, sleep is important. Nutrition is important nutrition is important yeah um ice baths i feel like ice baths and contrast baths are are number one you know um ice baths in general in my opinion especially in camp maybe not so much off camp especially they're trying to put on size you know obviously that's going to hinder the strength and the hypertrophy um but, you know, for the most part, especially in camp, especially like after sparring, after grappling, definitely a go-to for me. A lot of the guys like to use CBD. Not too familiar with CBD in that perspective, like turmeric, like ginger, you know, things like that.

Any anti-inflammatory can be good. We use like a mix of ginger and turmeric. And then after that, we do some recovery type of restoration exercises or workouts that we'll do. Long distance running actually helps, believe it or not. Like slow paced long distance running. Slow paced, super slow paced, 120 beats per minute at the most, you know, or swimming if you don't want to bang the joints, especially the heavyweight guys. And then some lower, like lower, lower intensity, way lower, like 30, 40%.

So just some pump work, you know, just in the gym. Especially for accessory work, you know. A lot of the guys like to do shoulders and triceps and things like that. And that's honestly just a feel-good thing. And it's just to get blood flow, you know, and to drive nutrients into the muscle. Okay.

And as far as the ginger and turmeric is concerned, what is that supposed to be beneficial for? Because I've heard a lot about turmeric. Yeah, it's anti-inflammatory, man. Okay. It just brings down the muscle. Okay. And as far as the ginger and turmeric is concerned, what is that supposed to be beneficial for? Cause I've heard a lot about turmeric. Yeah. It's anti-inflammatory, man. Okay. It just brings down the inflammation.

Turmeric has been known to bring down inflammation. Ginger has been known to bring down inflammation. You put those two together. It's been helpful for us at least. And then when you're talking about like a traumatic brain injury and things like that, the onset of that, we've,

you know, studies have been shown now that creatine monohydrate also helps the onset of traumatic brain injury as if we needed another excuse so dustin we found this out right we got the study from issn and issn is a is a close partner with me um i work closely with those guys they were like yeah man you get them doing this amount it's like 2.5 before sparring and 2.5 after this is similar to like weight training right and um he's like all right cool because he's sponsored by on it so he's got this this drink that he does that he drinks before and it has about five grams of creatine then he'll drink something after has five grams of creatine and Then he'll drink something after, has five grams of creatine.

And then he has another, you know, he has regular creatine that he bought because of the fact. I go, he came in one day, he goes, man, I'm like seven pounds up from like last week. And I go, well, what changed, man? Are you stressing? What's the problem? And this was like six weeks from the fight. And he went from like, I think he went from like 172 and he shot up to like 183 dang like it was like and it was all water you could tell i'm like bro are you are you stressed like because sometimes he does get

stressed he gets he gets sick closer to the fight that's just a mandatory thing for him i'm like bro what's going on he's like i don't know man maybe maybe i'm just eating too much carbs and i'm like you don't eat carbs like Like he doesn't, I don't know. He works well off fats. I mean, it is what it is. And he holds a lot of water too. So I'm like, okay. So then he goes, he goes, Phil, man, I know what it was.

He was like, I was taking 15 grams of creatine a day. And I was like, well, that makes fucking sense. No wonder. So yeah, we had to kick it back and things like that. But, yeah, we found out what that was. So don't do 15 grams of creatine, by the way. That'll not work out well for you. Just sold all the creatine out.

People trying to gain. That's sick. That's it. Yeah. All right. Now, just saying, what you got coming up next, Phil? Next, I go to Italy. I have a three-city tour seminar in Italy. So I go to Rome. Alessio Sacaracity tour seminar in Italy. So I go to Rome.

Alessio Sacara, if you guys know who that is, he's a Bellator fighter. He set that up for me, and I'll be doing those. And then just the online stuff, you know what I mean? The programs that I have out, ground control, fight ready, heavy hitter, boxing program, MMA program, and BJJ program. Doing really well, helping a lot of people out. So that's really good.

The goal really for that is just to, I can't coach everybody, you know, and I want to reach and help everybody else the most amount I can. So with these programs, it allows me to do so. And we've been seeing tremendous results with those programs. And then coaching course, you know, the mentorship is something that's big for me now. The 45 coaches that we have, everybody's getting good results with their athletes it's good because then i get to you know again my goal is to make sure that i can help as many people as possible and if i can help the coaches that help those people that's a win-win for me you know so um with that being said other

than that hopefully we'll have some fights coming up i have a ksw champ uh scott asking me he's fighting um pretty soon um you know a bunch of other fighters obviously every every weekend is a big fight for me so i mean this weekend we have three guys fighting next week i have two guys fighting following weekend i think i have four or five and then we have you know um amanda's fighting you know for the title um kobe's fighting so damn damn where can people find out more information about everything uh you go i mean instagram i'm always you know doing things on instagram so at the root Kobe's fighting. Damn. Damn. Where can people find out more information about everything? You can go,

I mean, Instagram, I'm always, you know, doing things on Instagram. So at Daru Strong is my Instagram, my YouTube channel, Phil Daru Strong,

and then my website, DaruStrong.com. Cool. And SEMA, where can people find you? At SEMA Eang on Instagram and YouTube. Cool. I am at,

I am Andrew Z. I'll do the first part. You do the second part. Okay. Strength is never a weakness. What's the second? No, I'm joking. We am at IamAndrewZ. I'll do the first part. You do the second part. Okay. Strength is never a weakness. What's the second? No, I'm joking. Weakness is never a strength.

Catch y'all later. Peace. Nice.