The Uneducated PT Podcast - #42 Tim Green - Muay Thai Performance

Episode Date: August 13, 2024

In this episode of the Uneducated PT Podcast we speak to Muay Thai Nutritionist Tim Green. Tim helps Nak Muays hit harder, improve cardio and get ripped. Expect to learn what athletes getting wrong about their nutrition, what are the biggest challenges they face when it comes to their nutrition and what Muay Thai athletes can do to make sure they're performing their best in their sport. We also speak about making weight and what people get wrong when trying to make weight. 

Hello and welcome to the uneducated PT podcast with me, your host, Carlo Rourke. The goal of this podcast is to bring on interest and knowledgeable people from all walks of life, learn a little something from each conversation and for you, the listener, just learn something from each episode. So don't forget to subscribe to the channel, press the box below, show some support and I'll see you on the next episode. Can you tell the listeners a little bit about your background and your current profession? Yeah, so starting off with my background,

I think it sounds pretty similar to yours, I saw something on social media the other day where you spoke. I think you used the word degeneracy. And that's pretty similar for me. So it's quite normal in the UK for like six, probably 16 to say 24, lots of alcohol, parties, probably hanging around with people that I probably shouldn't have been hanging around with maybe a bit of a bad crowd,

going to a little bit of trouble. And then that probably consumed my life from say 16 to maybe 22, 23. Started training the gym, just lifting weights at that point, just because I wanted to get massive. And then I found that that really wasn't, wasn't that I didn't enjoy it,

but I wanted a little bit more. One of my friends was training Maitai and invited me along to them more Thai gym. That was around two years after I started weight training. So this is probably when I was 24, 25. fell into moitai, completely fell in love with the sport, like became completely obsessed with it.

When I first started at, I was still somewhat in the party lives, so still going out drinking and stuff like that, but I pretty quickly learned how horrible it was to get punched in the face in spot, whilst I was also the kind of nursing a hangover. So it was, that kind of was quite helpful in me moving away from all of that. At the time, I was still working, like, office jobs.

I worked in kind of recruitment, finance, and it really wasn't me. So I thought, well, I'm enjoying my training. I'm really enjoying Muay Thai and seems to be a lot of confusion around nutrition, a lot of confusion around training. So I thought, well, my passion is training. My passion is nutrition and diet and all of this kind of thing. Where can I go in terms of a career? So I started kind of mapping out how I was going to get there, really.

So I did MNU, so Matt Nutrition Union. Did you do MNU as well? I didn't do MNU. I wish I did because obviously I'm a big fan of their work and stuff like that. But now I never, I've followed a lot of the stuff. And I went to a seminar, one of the seminars when he came to Dublin. But I didn't do the actual course now. How was that?

Yeah, it was good. It was very eye-opening because my experience in nutrition was hearing from like old school moiety coaches telling you to not eat carbohydrate or not eat any red meats or avoid this vegetable and stuff like that and it was like okay so there's a lot more to it than this. They're menu. I did a PT qualification. I did that all alongside work as well.

So I remember kind of in the lunchtime in the office, I'd be everyone else would be going out and getting food and I'd be doing like studying and stuff like that. I launched into just doing PT. So I was just doing in person stuff when I first started. And by the time I'd qualified, this was around when COVID hit. So I was doing my PTs in the morning, say 5 till 7 a.m. Going and doing the office job, 9 to 5 and then doing some online stuff in the evenings. It built up to a point where I could leave my job.

So I quit my job. And then two, well, I think it was about three weeks later, we went into lockdown so there was no opportunity for me to do the in-person PTs and obviously I had financial commitments. So I had to very quickly transition online. And that was always kind of the goal anyway because I wanted some locational freedom and I didn't I don't know, I didn't like the idea of having to get up every morning at 5am to being the gym. I like the idea of having a bit more freedom and it seemed like it was easier for clients as well

because it means they don't have to be in a specific place at the specific time. So transition quite quickly online. And then initially I was helping people who worked office jobs just doing like general weight loss transformations. And then because my fighting became such a big part of my life and we kind of moved more into fighter nutrition and that side of things. And that's where we are today helping fighters and hobbyists improve their nutrition. get on top of like their training outside of the moitai so the strength and conditioning stuff

and all the other things that come alongside with that as well so like lifestyle sleep etc yeah i didn't realize that i i didn't realize that you started there my tie so late well like 24 is pretty late to be starting isn't it yes yeah so it's one of those because a lot of the people

that I'm fighting now have been doing it since they were like yeah 10 year olds or it's always been like a matter of trying to kind of outwork these people a little bit and skill for skill I'm probably not going to beat a lot of them but having good cardio and being able to push a pace you can you can kind of make up for in other

areas really I suppose in in like the UK and Ireland like people are starting this for a lot earlier now because it's a lot more popular probably than when you started. Yes yeah 100% so I think obviously we've seen the impact that I don't know if you've come across like one

championship and the more tie on there but that's raised the game a lot and we've got some really like good UK fighters at the moment as well that are really growing the sport here and people are starting a lot younger. And I think just generally people are getting more into combat sports. I think even just the increasing popularity and stuff like the UFC has seen such a massive growth in people getting into any sort of combat sport.

Yeah, yeah, I think it's huge for even just people's. Like you said, like you're like me a little bit of a degenerate when you're younger. it's like it's hard to move away from that kind of lifestyle if you don't have anything to replace it with and given kids especially young boys an outlet somewhere where they can go and they can train and they can get their frustrations out and they can you know build confidence and have a bit of purpose I think that's massive yeah I'd 100% agree I think for me the only way that I was going to really fully move away from the partying and all of that kind of thing was to fall into something that I could kind of have

as such an equally big part of my life and Moytai's definitely kind of filled that void. I think it's such a cliche thing with fighters. I think when you speak to fighters, all of them have got this background where they've maybe had a bit of a checker pass when they were younger and got into trouble and maybe hanging around with the wrong clouds or whatever

and the way they move away from it is the fighting. I mean, I've got a good friend of mine who literally a couple of years younger than me, but he went through exactly the same process just a couple of years later and I could see the stages that he was going through and now he's boxing at a good level

and that kind of thing as well. Yeah, like it teaches you discipline and say, you know, control your emotions and all of that stuff. I think all of that's huge. I think combat sports should probably be something that should be implemented

in skills from an early age. 100%. And I think one of the biggest things with combat sports as well is I think you mentioned confidence a moment ago But the ability of combat sports to kind of make other problems in life seem so much smaller.

Like if you can go in a ring in front of a crowd, a thousand people that most, that half of them wanting to see you get knocked out, like shouting all sorts of abuse at you and have a fight against someone else that knows how to fight, then like, I don't know, if you get a load of work, if you get stressed with work or something like that, or something happens in your day where your computer's not working, then problems become kind of scaled down because you're able to deal with. 100%.

If you get punched in the head all day, that angry email from a customer isn't going to seem so significant. So I wanted to go into kind of the nutrition side to start off with in terms of my time, in terms of athletes and maybe even in terms of misconceptions or past mistakes that you might have made or just for someone who might be listening, who might be just starting out training and maybe they're doing it as a hobbyist, maybe they've been doing it for a little while

and they're starting to see progressions and they want to make sure that they peak their performance. So what do you see as a common mistake that athletes make when it comes to their nutrition and when it comes to their specific sport? Yeah, so with nutrition specifically, I think the biggest one is under-eating, just simply,

not eating enough food. And I get so many people come to me saying they've got a sweet tooth or they're not able to manage their cravings. And then I look at what, ask them what they're eating in a day to day. And it's in comparison to what they're training. I mean, some of them are eating, say, 14,600 calories and training for two hours a day for just being active in their day job. So the under-eating in general, which can obviously have massive implications.

You can lead to something called low energy availability, which can obviously impact pretty much everything, energy levels, health, hormone production, the females, stuff like menstrual cycle, dysregulation as well. So making sure initially that they're just eating enough food. It's not bodybuilding, it's not a dieting contest or anything like that. Do you think that they make that mistake of like training for or eating for aesthetics and looking like an athlete rather than performing like an athlete?

Yeah, exactly. And I think it's, again, it's the culture of the sport as well. It's so ingrained into the sport that people want to make it. It's almost like people like to make it harder than what it needs to be because they like to, the hardship of it kind of adds to their kind of toughness and stuff like that. So they associate the difficulty of a fight camp or the difficulty of training and nutrition with it's almost like they wear it is a bit of a badge of honor. So they like to make it as hard as they can. And another thing that when it comes to kind of under eating is they think that if they eat less, they're going to lose more weight or, and it doesn't necessarily work like that. And it's a dynamic relationship between calories in and calories going out. So we massively reduced calories going in, training performance will suffer. And they won't burn as many calories during training. And then it kind of means that they have to keep lowering them to keep getting the same results. whereas if you give more food, the training's better.

And it also means that they'll recover quicker and they'll also perform better in their training because they're fueled. Yeah, exactly that. I mean, people always talk about injuries in combat sports, which is somewhat unavoidable at times because it's the nature of the sport. But when we look at the impact of under-eating

and how that can affect recovery and ability, and again, even just like concentration and stuff like that in combat sports, if you're under-fueled and you're feeling a little bit sluggish and someone catches you with a punch that you wouldn't normally get hit with, that could give you an injury or you could get kicked and damaging it. Like injuries are just going to be so much more common

if you're not properly fuelled up and taking it seriously. And like you said, eating for performance rather than aesthetics. And a lot of the time, people think it's either performance or aesthetics. But if you actually eat for performance, do the right strength and conditioning, you can see it with UFC fighters

and other people that, like, seeks. Yeah. So it doesn't have to be this thing where we're massively under eating to get shredded. It's not the same as a bodybuilding show or whatever. Yeah. So under eating is a big mistake you see athletes make.

Is there anything else that is a common mistake that they make or a misconception? Yeah. So, I mean, a massive one is removal of carbohydrates from the diet. It's become, because it's something that you do as part of a rapid, weight loss strategy in the last week before weighing in for a fight, you'll see fighters doing it six weeks out from their way in, and just understanding that carbohydrates are the main fuel source for high-intensity exercise, and without those in the diet, we are going to see a massive reduction in performance

and recovery and energy and all of these things. And I think it's just, again, it's become so ingrained into the culture of combat sports that people just kind of do it automatically as soon as they need to lose weight. still this idea that we see so much in like the general population that carbohydrates are bad, that's still the same in sport. Yeah, you think that translates, like what we see on social media with Gen Pop clients trying to lose weight

and thinking that carbs, you know, are the devil and they should be taken out. Do you see that translate over to athletes as well? Then, yeah, it's massive combat sports. And again, it's something that my coach told me when I first started Muay Thai. No, don't eat that. don't eat rice, don't eat oats. Do you think because Midi is probably predominantly, it's probably a poor sport.

Like if you're trying to make it in Mai Tai, I presume like you're not going to be backed with massive amounts of funds. So therefore, like you're not going to get like, it's hard to get like the, like let's say a Mai Tai club with not many funds. They're not going to have a proper nutritionist or a dietitian in there, guiding them with the right information usually. Absolutely. I mean, the pay in Moitai is,

it's, I mean, you don't get into Muay Thai for, to try and make money. So you do with the love of the sport, I mean, my fight in Thailand, I think I worked out, I got 250 pounds or something for that fight. And that was a decent level fight in Thailand. It wasn't like on a low level stadium. Like, it was one of the biggest stadiums in Thailand.

And, yeah, and then like to fight of the night bonus as well. And 250 pounds, I think, in total. Which, I mean, I wasn't complaining about it. the time but going back to your point about not having lots of money in the sports definitely the case it's a it's a working man's sport like it's uh it's not you don't see loads and loads of kind of really rich people getting into more tax they probably don't want to get in the face yeah and i think that's that's why it's a it's a really good and niche for you to be in as well because like and you don't see many then specific my Thai nutritionists who are helping give out good

information on these types of things yeah absolutely and I think it's the amount of the difference because obviously I was working before with people who were working office jobs and stuff like that and the difference in the how the content is received like the the moitai guys are so kind of thankful like I so often get message saying like thank you so much for sharing this content and we're really really helpful because there's no real good source of nutrition information out there or training information So it's definitely a crowd of people that need some support. So it's good.

You touched on making weight and then people having the misconception of, you know, cutting out carbs really early in their training camp. So obviously we know that making sure that you're eating enough during your training is important, making sure that you're getting adequate amount of carbohydrates to fuel them performances. That's important. So talk me through. then let's say, like, as someone's attempting to make way for a fight, like what is the process that that goes in behind that?

And what is some of the mistakes that people make? Yeah, so initially the process, so what I would do with anyone looking to make weight is personally create a bit of a timeline. So how long have we got between now and when the fight and the way in it? And we kind of reverse engineer the whole process. So say you need to be 70k year at a fight, we can reduce kind of 6 to 8%

body weight in the final week. We then work out where you need to be a week out from that and then work out what we need to do with the nutrition between then. So that would be the first thing we do is develop almost the timeline in terms of where you need to be at what stage and review that as we go. And then the final week is where we'd look to, so there's certain things in the body that can be manipulated to lose weight in the short term.

and the main things that we can do to do that is carbohydrate reduction so glycogen is stored in the muscle we have water attached to that glycogen so if we remove carbohydrates burn the glycogen we can release a lot of water from the body the sodium manipulation because we know salt can increase water retention so we can reduce sodium in the in the days leading up to a way in and we can also manipulate fiber as well so fiber means that we have more food. food hanging around in the gut a little bit longer. So if we remove fibre for a day or two, which I'd never normally recommend, that can also see us reduce a little bit of weight as well. So the process that we'd normally follow, about seven to ten,

depending on how much weight they have to lose, because this can all be interchangeable and we can use different strategies, depending on how much weight. Let's say if someone's got a fair amount of weight to lose, seven to ten days out would reduce carbohydrates. and then we'd start a lot of fighters do something called water loading if you ever come across that

yeah so around seven days before the way in we'd get them on a higher water intake somewhere between seven eight litres per day so it's quite a high amount of water can you explain to listeners who would know what water loading is

yeah so water loading is ultimately what we do is increase the water intake coming in which speeds up us kind of excreting the water and then we then drastically cut the water intake coming in on the last day the water keeps coming out through urine and ultimately the body weight at the end of the process is lower than what it would have been if we'd not loaded with the water in the first place you're pissing like a racehorse basically yeah ultimately i mean i remember when i used to do this at work and like i was going to the toilet literally every 10 to 15

minutes and Bosca kept looking over like what's going on kind of gallon jug of water on my desk and furiously trying to get it down and yeah waking up in the middle of the night multiple times I mean for example I mentioned a moment ago

like choosing different strategies we had to fight and make weight last week we didn't have lots of weight to lose so we didn't actually do the water load in because we valued his sleep and not intervening with his sleep in the last week because of so it's about again selecting the correct strategies in the right time and i ask you a question is there like a a a big weight cut that you would just say no you know what that's too much weight to lose

in too short of us over time and do you see that happen yeah so i've had people come to me with like so i mean it's it's a similar situation sometimes so imagine you get a client come to you call and say, I've got two stone to lose or whatever, and I'm going holidays in four weeks. Can you help me do that? It's the same here. We often get fighters message me like two weeks out, saying I've got like 11, 12 kilos to lose.

Is it possible? And I haven't worked with them prior to that. So I don't know what the habitual diet is like. I don't know what they've been doing before. And the risks are just too high. I would usually say no more than 10%. if it's more than 10% body weight that's having to be lost in that final

seven to 10 days. Yeah. With dangers, just massive, 8% really is the limit that I would prefer. What would be the dangers for people that wouldn't understand it? Yeah. So one of the first ones is the danger,

the biggest one is probably the danger of getting it when you get in the fight. So if we dehydrate too much, yeah. The body then begins to draw water from yourself. and the biggest issue is drawing water from the brain. So we see the brain actually shrink in size when you become too dehydrated.

And the reason that people always say that you're more susceptible to being knocked out when you're dehydrated or you've done a big weight cut is exactly that. So when you get hit, your brain actually rattles around in your head. And if your brain smaller, it's going to rattle around a lot more. And the risk of brain injury and being chaoed

is a lot higher if you've done that. There's then the risk of fainting, which I spoke to you actually about before. So your body will draw water from your blood, which then can reduce blood pressure, which if it reduces too low, we can see you faint. There's also overheating as well. So a lot of people will go in the bath or they'll go in the sauna for that final bit of a watercourt. And they'll get that dehydrated that their body hasn't actually got the ability to regulate it. core temperature and you can actually this is what becomes really dangerous is I mean you hear

about it in Thailand fairly often where people are actually dying from from the weight cuts because their body just gets to a point where there's no water left to actually regulate its own body temperature it the the body temperature increases and the body actually overheats and it can be fatal why why do why do why do why do athletes put themselves through these kind of extreme cuts Like what's the what's the benefit for them to do that? Yeah. So I think the benefit is, the thing is because it's so ingrained in the sport,

like a lot of the things that I've mentioned, it's kind of, it's, they know their opponent is going to do it. So the fear is for a lot of fighters that if they don't do a weight court, then they're going to meet someone in the ring who's significantly bigger than them, which can quite easily happen. I mean, for example, in Thailand, my last fight was in Thailand and I didn't put any weight at all. I literally woke up on the morning of the way in. I hadn't done any weight loss strategies or anything like that.

And then I weighed in and I fought and the guy was quite a bit bigger than me. So it can happen. So that's probably the biggest thing is people just are quite worried that their opponent's going to be bigger than them. And everyone wants to have the advantage. So it's about cutting it as fine as they can. can have the biggest advantage when they get in the ring. Is there any advantage to not opt-in-for-the-wayco?

Yeah, so one of the biggest things is kind of having that. So people will make the weight and it comes back to that just because they can make the way, it doesn't mean they should make the weight. Because, yes, you might be able to get there. But someone that's done, I mean, I think I noticed it

with someone like Colin McGregor in his fights, he got gassed out very, very early in his fights. and people are like, oh, but his cardio is so bad? He literally has a team of probably the world's best people around him. There's no way it's just a cardio issue. And I think probably cutting weight is having that impact on performance in the ring as well. So it can have a really big impact on your cardio and you can see people gas out very, very quickly.

But in terms of an actual benefit to not putting weight, like I said, the psychological benefit, not having to kind of starve yourself for weeks on end going into, camp and yeah better better performance in the ring as well and less likely to be to be knocked out or suffer brain injuries yeah so let's say an athlete um is going to cut weight maybe they have you know seven kilos to lose or something like that what it what would what would be your recommendations or your your advice to ensure that they cut weight successfully and safely yeah so using so one of the big mistakes that athletes use

use when cutting weight is they rely too heavily on just the dehydration element in a putting weight. So they won't do a lot with their diet in the lead up. They'll just wait until the night before the fight and getting a sauna and just stay in there until they sweat out and up to make weight. And so using all of the tools available. So like I mentioned earlier, the removal of carbohydrates around 7 to 10 days out. There's not too much risk from that because ultimately it's just removing the carbohydrates and the attached water, so that's intramuscular water that we're losing. We've then got the water loading process, which can be quite a dangerous process, if not done

correctly. So when you're drinking this heightened amount of water, there's seven or eight liters per day. It's important to also keep your sodium intake relatively high because it happens in, you see it in marathons with hyponetremia where people drink actually too much water and they end up diluting the electrolytes in their body and that that can be just as dangerous as dehydration. So doing the water load and then around three days out from the way and would generally remove fibre and reduce sodium as well. And then we'd reduce the water intake in the final day. And then usually that following all of that process would do most of the weight cut and then

a bath the hot bath is probably the preferred method of dehydration of removing water just because we can monitor the temperature of the bath so what I get to do with some of the athletes is get them to actually get two

thermometers put that in the bath and monitor the temperature of the water because it doesn't need to be super hot for them to actually drop water weight and start is that better than using like a sauna suit yes just because because one, what we can do is we can tightly regulate the conditions of the back. So in a sauna and get it, you don't know exactly how hot the sauna is going to be.

And we can almost help the athlete as well with heat acclamation during the camp. So we can actually get them to do a back or to a week at that temperature. So the body's more used to it when it comes around. And it's a lot more replicable in terms of the conditions we can replicate that quite easy and monitor it. Is there a case where an athlete is supposed to like stick to their diet to lose a certain amount of body fat before they actually go into that weight cut and they don't lose the body fat and then it's like, listen, you obviously weren't sticking to your diet.

You're not going to be able to make this weight. Yeah, I mean, I've never had that situation myself. No, in all of the time that I've been working with fighters, we've actually never had someone miss, which is good. But for sure, there's been instances where people have, maybe misreported, their food intake. But generally, the good thing about fighting is they, when you kind of put more food in,

you tend to get more performance out as well. So it has that a little bit more. It's not as maybe consequences, maybe someone doing that if they were just purely looking to lose body fat. There's more output there to handle the additional food. And that relates back to your first point of not under-eaten because if you eat more, you have more energy to expend more.

and to put more into your performance, which gives you that byproduct of losing body fat if you get the balance right. Yeah, absolutely. And it can be a lot of fighters, naturally outside of camp, they put on quite a lot of weight after the fight. It's almost like a post-show rebound in bodybuilding.

The same thing happens with fighters. They'll gain quite a lot of weight. I mean, I think Ricky Hatton was quite famous for doing that between fights. So something that I do myself and something that I would, suggest that other fighters do is outside of their camp is monitoring that body weight as well. So my kind of upper limit of where I'll go is 10 kilo above my fight weight. So that whatever happens, I'm never too far away. So something for anyone who listen to this, if you're thinking about fighting or you're in a camp,

or you're outside of camp at the moment, sorry, is just keeping yourself within that range because you don't want to spend your entire fight camp starving yourself and then arrive. at the final week have to starve yourself even more and your whole camp becomes focused around losing weight rather than actually winning a fight. It becomes weight centric rather than performance centric. That makes perfect

sense. I suppose the bigger the fluctuations the more dangerous, the more effort, the more draining. You can take that even in with like Gen Pop clients. It's like if you're yo-yo dieting there's something wrong with the behaviours here. Yes, 100%.

And this is something that was quite keen to probably touch on a little bit with this is that I think sometimes fighters and athletes are viewed as like being slightly different to the population in that sense. But a lot of disordered eating and behaviours around weight. I mean, some of the stories that I've heard and some of the things that I've done myself in the past, I look back on and think that was kind of ridiculously disordered behaviour. And you know what I would say it's probably even more prevalent with athletes because they're so hyper-focused on doing whatever they can to get that result that like and sometimes that can come in the form of desperation so they'll try

desperate measures in order to you know they might they might see something online say oh they're doing that and they are achieving this so i need to to do that and i suppose that goes into relating to training then so like what are what are athletes what are might-athletes what kind of mistakes they're making in terms of their training and the gym outside of sparring. Yeah. So, I mean, in terms of their training, so their strength and condition initially, one, one of the big mistakes is just not having any structure with it. Yeah.

So not having a set routine that they can progress over time and kind of replicate and make sure they're making improvements on. So a lot of athletes will view it as a secondary thing. to their sport, which it kind of is, because the sport is always the most important thing, but it needs to be kind of scheduled appropriately and not just kind of done as and when they kind of feel like it. Looking at TikTok workout for my diet athletes following that one this week and another one next week kind of thing. Yeah. So having that structure plan, what else are, what other

mistakes are they making? Yeah, and training too much like, someone whose goal is purely aesthetic, so like a bodybuilding kind of training split for fighters. There's a lot of fighters I know. They'll end up doing something quite athletic for a couple of exercises, and then they'll probably just switch to bicep curls. Just want to get big. So again, it's about picking exercises that have a transfer over into sports performance as well.

And also like the way that you lift as well. So a lot of the time with bodybuilding, it's quite slow and controlled movements to ensure like maximum muscle contraction whereas we want different outcomes when it comes to training for a fight so you'd maybe move with more speed and a bit more explosion in those movements

rather than specifically like everything super slow and controlled and if you were doing a bench press it would be explosive on the way up rather than like a five second tempo that you're never going to be moving like that in a fight. Exactly and one of the movements I actually quite like to use It's like a ballistic bench fest on the Smith machine

where you actually let go of the bar and then it comes back down. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That kind of thing. And so slight tweaks to the current exercises that are going to make that massive difference. What mistakes did you make start now in your training and when it came to training from I-Tai?

Yeah, I think the biggest mistake for me that I personally made was probably running too much and not. So I was just running probably for four or five times a week but quite long distances rather than, so we've got different energy systems, right? So you've got your aerobic system, your anaerobic, and then kind of your creatine phosphate system.

So you need to work those over the course of your training week and make sure you're hitting all of those energy systems. So your aerobic system would be kind of very low intensity, but longer duration cardio, so some steady states off. Your next one would be kind of mid-heart rate range, a little bit higher intensity and then you've also got at the higher end

your creatine phosphate system which is going to be used by more like maximal stuff like sprints and things like that one of the mistakes I made was just doing really long runs all the time rather than mixing up those intensities over the course of the week

that's probably an education thing not knowing what to do so just deciding we're going to go out for long runs yeah 100% another one was probably training too much for aesthetics as well is maybe because you do get drawn into it just as much as anyone else everyone wants to look good and feel good so everyone wants that and that kind of good physique so that was something that i probably focused on too much in my earlier days so if there was a if there was let's say like a

a hobbyist train and now who maybe you know trains in my tie let's say three or four times a week what would do you what do you think would be a good recommendation in terms of like a balance of between doing some strength and condition and stuff and practicing the skill of their sport and also going to and doing some long distance running for cardio or maybe doing some. Yeah, it's a tough one. So obviously a lot of people have limited time. So it's about you have to be quite intentional with the programming of it. Yeah. For example, he's probably identifying the key areas that would need to improve.

So is their cardio struggling? Did they struggle for power? Did they struggle for strength? So kind of distinguishing that to start with? Now, I generally get athletes or clients to do maybe two to three, 45 to 60 minute wait sessions a week, depending on how much time they have. Yeah. And then in terms of cardio, we'll tend to do one to two longer, steady state.

So 45 to 60 minutes, whether that's on like an exercise bike or a very slow run. Yeah, that's like zone two, cardio kind of. Yeah. So around 60 minutes a week. week. But again, it's so, it can varies quite a lot. So, and then two to three, like, mid-range cardio, so maybe like some five pays. And then one or two bouts of, of some sprint. So that would maybe be 10, and that tend to do 10 to 15 sprints in each sprint session, of around, say, 10 to 15 seconds of maximum sprint with a couple of minutes rest in between.

Yeah. So, so, but so more or less, you, you, you, you speak. with each athlete you just have that kind of conversation of okay where am i lacking now is it that you know i gas out early do i need to get my cardiovascular fitness is it that you know i don't have enough power in my punches or whatever it is and then it's you know programming according to what the weaknesses that are and creating that kind of 12 week block for them and then it might spin off into something else after that absolutely so what we do so say a client sounds up with myself what we tend to do is we do some assessments at the start so would you like a fitness assessment strength mobility that kind of thing assess where they need the most improvement because if you try

and focus on everything at the same time you never really see and again it's it comes down to having enough three time as well yeah you can only do so many sessions per week and recover from it especially if you're working alongside training so putting our using the resources that we have the time that we have on the things that need the most. So we assess what they need, find out where the key areas are. And then they'll be like, oh, my cardio's improved, but I feel like I'm not really hitting as hard on the pads

or something like, okay, so we'll go into a more strength and power development phase and build from that. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, it's never going to be optimal. But, okay, what is the big rocks that are going to move me forward right now? I just want to talk about you. I just want to ask you a little bit about your time in Thailand. Like what do, what, in your opinion, what's the difference between training and fighting in the UK and training and fighting in Thailand?

Yeah, so it's a different world in Thailand, really, when it comes to training. So over here, there's a bit more, what's the word, I say a bit more thought around kind of sport science and that kind of thing. Whereas in Thailand, it's very much you do as they will work you to, to, to, the kind of to the bone really. The training volume is just insane, the amount of training that you have to do. And don't get me wrong, it gets results because the best fighters we see in the world are from Thailand.

But I think something you have to be prepared for when you go over there. It's just the amount of training volume is so much more than over here. I mean, run 4 to 8K run every morning, padwork afterwards, sometimes hill sprints, back in the afternoon for 10 rounds of sparring every day, padwork again and another like 4 to 5K run at the end. And that's six days a week. So like the training volume is a massive one.

And other things to heat. It's an obvious one, obviously, but the climate makes things so much harder as well. So you can feel very fit in the UK, but that humidity and with the heat, we know that heat increases the RPE or the rate of perceived exertion during exercise. So we need to kind of need to go over there with the fact that it's going to feel harder.

But yeah, just the implications on on fueling and hydration and stuff like that from the heat, it makes such a huge difference. Do you think that it's better or worse in terms of your progression in your training? I think definitely the progression is better just because of the sheer amount. of hours that you put in. So obviously sparring every single day with and the level of people that are around you as well, like the gym that I was at, like, quite like legitimate world champions that are fighting in the best promotions in the world, people from one championship in there, like one championship

world champions, sparring with them every day, obviously you're going to get better. And I think as well in Thailand, one of the biggest differences is like the lifestyle change so in the UK, you've got so many other things to deal with. But as soon as you're in Thailand, like, everything in your life is so centered around training, you don't have to cook because it's so cheap and easy to eat out. I was in Thailand for 11 weeks. I don't think I've cooked one meal the entire time I was there because it's, what, two, three pounds to get a really good meal out.

You can get all your laundry done by somebody who's super cheap. So, like, all of these tasks and other things that you need to consider when you're in the UK that detract a little bit from your training. It's all so focused around that. And everything you're only sleeping in between sessions. You're going to bed early because you've got to be up in your whole life become so much more centered around the training. That's what I was going to ask for next.

I was what's your thoughts on Thailand in general as a culture? I suppose it probably simplifies life a little bit more. Yeah. So as a culture, I mean, it's so different to over here. It feels like a different, just a completely different world. I think some of the, like I said, some of the stresses over here and some of the, not necessarily rules because I don't want to sound like, I'm going to get a bit, but like, yeah, it seems a lot more free.

The people are very, very happy. And, yeah, the respect and the, even like people talk about Thailand being unsafe. I mean, I, or in some aspects or people trying to scam you. And I've been to Thailand now four times. And I think I probably feel more unsafe, especially with everything going on at the minute in the UK. But even in general, like I feel so much more safe. Even walking around the middle of the night in Thailand,

like, I've never experienced any issues like that there. Yeah, do you think they're more aggravated in the UK than probably in Thailand even? 100%. I mean, one of the biggest eye-openerers was there's something in Thailand called Songkran, which is the Thai New Year. and the whole country just turned into a huge water fight. Like literally,

like when they say, like people are renting out like pickup trucks and his tent is on the back of a pickup truck with water guns that's driving around. And I thought if this was happening in the UK, like one per the wrong person. Yeah, it would end up in it. I mean,

especially in somewhere like London or something, maybe someone end up getting staff. For sure, for sure. There's no way. But like there's people like kids on the back of their parents' motorbikes and people were still shooting them with the water guns. when they were driving the motorbike and for water balloons in their face

and they're just laughing and carrying on as if it's fine. It's so much more relaxed and a lot more of a community kind of aspect where people are looking at each other and everyone knows each other and everyone's super friendly.

That's a huge part of it as well. I think that's something that we've lost in the West, isn't it? It's that community aspect because everyone's, you know, no one lives with their families anymore, no one lives with their neighbours anymore or that's where they were brought up.

everyone just works on their computer, looks on their phone, doesn't talk to each other, where like over there you could have like three generations living together, like the mum, the daughter, the grandchild. And like that's... Yeah, absolutely. I mean, and they're so like welcoming as well. So first time I went to Thailand, no, sorry, the second time, I end up staying with like a family of ties for a couple of days.

Like I, there was a few days between where I booked and when I was flying home and I was going to book somewhere. and I just come and stay with us and let you into their home and just, yeah, completely different. It's more of like a, like you said, a community rather than everyone's kind of getting on with their own thing and so focused on their own lives. Everyone's more kind of concerned about bringing the whole community up and supporting each other there. I've just a few more questions to ask you. So what do you think are the skills and traits that are needed to work with athletes to coach athletes to make them better? Yeah, so the skills and traits to work with athletes,

I think you've got to have kind of skin in the game a little bit. I think you've got to be someone that's either done the sport or been very, very close to the sport. I think it's, I've had so many people that have signed up with me and come with me because they're saying, oh, it's nice to know that you've gone through the same things. Like when your weight cut in, I think it's only something you can really understand as if you've been through it yourself.

Yeah. It's like learning about it and saying, go and do this, go and do that. but the practicality and the real life implications of having to do a weight court. It's that the weak completely sucks. Like it's it's it. So again, then knowing that I've been through that,

I think compassion is something that's, that's probably not spoken about enough in terms of athlete coaching, is understanding that their troubles and the things that they go through. I mean, the pressure of making weight is so, weighs so heavily on some athletes. So sometimes just having that, compassionate approach which you may not think about with fighting but having like some of the

stuff that i do isn't even related to nutrition and training i'll be on the phone to athletes a couple of days before their fight just talking things through like it and it's nothing that i've learned in a nutrition textbook or course or pt course it's just being a human being and communicating and and listening to them and having that almost yeah them having that ability to kind of vent some of their worries around the fight as well. I think there's a misconception that like athletes and especially fighters are robotic and probably don't go through all these emotions

that they go through and need someone on the other end to be able to, you know, decompress what's going on. 100%. I think sometimes their teammates in the gym or their Muay Thai coach, not to kind of speak badly on anybody, but I think they probably aren't as approachable. they maybe don't feel they could go to

so say if they're having some disordered eating or something like that they can't be to go to an old school moir Thai coach and say that they'd probably just say like mate man up you know this kind of like kind of approach that we have to that kind of thing especially within combat sports they'd be like now

just eat it just do it there'd be no kind of compassion there and I think like you said that you think that a lot of the public would maybe think that fighters and athletes are robotic and I think in a sense they are and they will continually kind of do the things that you ask of them. I'll take the back to eat and relationships with the scale and body image and stuff like that happens within fighting and I come across it quite a lot with with athletes.

I mean one thing that I had actually made a few notes before we spoke was like when I used to make weight one of the things that this was before. I qualified as nutritionists. This was purely when I was just kind of fighting and stuff like that. I didn't want some, I mean, how disordered is this, is that I didn't want to drink water sometimes in an evening because I knew I'd weigh more in the morning because I drank the water. And I've heard of other fighters doing similar things where they don't even want to drink water

eight weeks out from a fight camp because they want to be able to go into the gym the next day and say to coach, I'm this weight or whatever. So it seems like they're more kind of on track with their weight than what they are. Yeah, you don't think about that with fighters, but it makes complete sense because, again, you are hyper-focused on your weight. It is something that you're pressurised to be hyper-focused on because there's a result at the end of it to be able to fight. And so if you are hyper-focused on that, that can come with a lot of disordered eating, tinkin. Yeah, for sure. I mean, another thing that I remember used to do all the time was what all like the competitive eaters on.

YouTube. In the run-up to a fight, I'd be there watching like 10,000 calorie challenges and stuff like this and planning out what I was going to eat after the fight and stuff like that. Like I'd have a box of treats ready to go as soon as I'd finish the fight. Similar to what you see with bodybuilders where they've all got like cookies or brownies or something ready to go as soon as they step off stage. Same thing with fighters. I mean, I know fighters that have literally mapped out the week of what they're going to eat after their fight camps ended.

and when you think about it, that is quite a disordered way of doing it. It's dressed up, binging, essentially. Yeah, ultimately, yeah. So it's starvation binge, which is, it's this kind of similarities with, it's just dressed up in a sexy sense because it's a competition, essentially. Yeah, exactly. And this is where you see these massive post-show, post-fight rebounds of weight, and weight really, really spike up.

and they do like the first dieting in bodybuilding where they gradually bring someone out of it and that's something that we're seeing in combat sports nutrition now quite often is people are doing these reverse diets now if they're working for a good coach they'll take them generally through these reverse diets to limit that weight gain afterwards do you think that's what gave you the passion to want to really like dive deep into the nutrition space was even kind of this disordered behaviour that was almost going on with yourself and seeing how nutrition impacts people. 100%. And I think once I started seeing the impact of the knowledge and the different approach

that I was taking once, I was quite like, it makes such a difference when you've got everything set up and you've got a structured plan to make the way it takes such of that worry away. and I actually worked with a coach before I qualified and they were fantastic and having that that change and that structure made such a difference and I thought that that's something that I could really do. What is the most important things

that young athletes need to know if they want to make a good career out of Mai Tai? Yeah, so it's a good question. So in terms of, firstly is try, like as a young athlete especially, don't try and fall into this routine of cutting loads and loads of weight. It will shorten.

Firstly, when you're young and when you start out and when you can recover probably a little bit better, it's fighting quite often is super important. So if you're always really, really far away from your weight class, then it's going to be difficult for you to take short notice fights or take opportunities or fight quite often. So first is trying not to cut too much weight.

I mean, it's so ingrained in the culture that that doesn't really matter too much what I say. There's going to always be an element of that, but definitely trying to stay close to your weight. Another thing to consider is injuries, so avoiding injuries through proper nutrition and proper strength and condition and mobility. I don't neglect that side of it. What are some general advice you could give, let's say, a young athlete now who doesn't understand what proper nutrition looks like? Yes. So when I say proper nutrition, good amount of protein in your diet, good amount of carbohydrates and whole grains, some mono-unsaturated and polyunsaturated sources of fat. So avocados, nuts, olive oils, like don't skimp on.

these things. A good variety of fruit and vegetables in the diet. So different colours is a great way to kind of distinguish different vitamins in foods and different minerals and things like that. So a good colourful plate each time you eat and varying that throughout the day. And just the things that you generally see as good nutrition for anybody would be the things here, but maybe just slightly more specified, so more carbohydrates, maybe. But whole grain carbohydrates, good lean protein sources, mixture of fruit and vegetables in the diet, and a good balance of hydration as well.

You wouldn't recommend them doing any of these kind of fads that you see online, whether it's skipping breakfast, doing intermittent fasting or following the carnivore diet or any of that stuff? No, so I think you've seen a few things you posted about the carnivore diet. I think you posted something actually about the Olympics and how funny it would be that for some of the athletes on there

if they were doing the carnivore diet, which they're obviously not. So carnival diet for athletes, I mean, it's just a non-starter for me. Any diet that completely excludes carbohydrates and vegetables, it just isn't going to be sufficient for an athlete. Intimate and fasting is a little bit different.

Depending on your training schedule, that could potentially be a way to reduce energy intake, but it's not anything that I've ever really used with an athlete. But I wouldn't, if an athlete said to me, look, I really don't like eating in the morning. I don't feel hungry. We need to drop some weight. Then intimate and fasting could work. I've got a lot of fighters who come to me after taking a lot of Eddie Abbey, who's advice.

And that one has been a difficult one to unpack because he's almost brainwashed a legion of fans, like completely. He's a genius. I'm saying something true and caveat. something false. Yeah, exactly. And the thing, the thing is as well is like,

he, because he completely did, it's so hard to debaum, Eddie Abu, because he just completely denounces, like, doesn't listen to science at all. So when you're like,

oh, but this study says this and he's like, oh, but we don't trust science. It's like, so what are you doing? Just cooking ideas out of thin air, like, he only trust science when it suits his Laredo and then when it's, that kind of stuff creeps into fighting nutrition as well

and having to kind of up. I'd imagine so especially with young kids who are just like on TikTok and they're just seeing this and then just taking them and being like, oh yeah. So you recommend making sure to have, like not even if they're dropping weight, but just say they're continuously training and preparing like making sure that they have carbohydrates at every meal,

making sure they have protein at every meal, some healthy fats and not doing anything. extreme essentially. Absolutely. What I would say for most people is if you can get your calories, your protein and your carbohydrates in the right place, then you're 90% of the way there with your nutrition. And then it's just about the specifics of your own schedule

and what you need as an individual. But as a general recommendation, if you're getting kind of 2 grams per kilogram of your body weight of protein, three to five grams per kilogram of carbohydrate, rates per day and your calories are in a good place we've got in relation to whether you want to lose weight gain weight or maintain then you're you're 90% at the way there deadly what's one thing you wished someone would have told you before getting into my tie yeah I think I think I think this is a good one it's I'm

trying to not say something I've already said but I think I massively under eight when I tie so just knowing that just because you're going to going to eat more, it doesn't necessarily mean you're not going to lose the weight. Because as I said, it's that dynamic relationship between calories in versus calories out that can drastically change when you change how much you eat or how much exercise you're doing. So it's, and that's very, very different for each person. So finding that balance between being in a calorie deficit, but also being able to perform. Yeah.

You're reducing your food a little bit, but not too much because you still need enough to be able to. to try. Exactly. And I think athletes as well they don't realize how much energy they expend during training sessions. I think it's very

much, again, they always err on the side of just eating too little. I mean, for example, I used to eat like 1600 calories a day. I'd be training for two or three hours. And it's like, no wonder I was watching 10,000 calorie challenges on YouTube every day because I was obsessed with field

on the brain. Absolutely upset. Watching cooking pro. I mean, I think there was a, which, was it the, is it the Minasota Starvation Studio where they did, where all the guys afterwards became like, like chefs and they're obsessed with food and all of this. And you see this behavior when I actually,

when I read that study, there was so many parallels between the behaviors of the people in that and the behaviors of people who are caught in a massive amount of weight. And some of the things I was doing, like constantly weighing myself and watching food programs that I'd never watched before. Countless hours of Gordon Ramsey kitchen nightmares and stuff like. One last question I have for you. So do you have any coaches who made a lasting impression on you?

And if so, what were the kind of traits and characteristics that they had that made them a good coach or a positive impact on your life? Yeah, so you're talking about like a moiety coach or... Any it can be any walks of life. Yeah, I mean, so I think the coach that I work with at the moment, a guy called Wayne at Fourth Dimmentioned, he's been massively, massively helpful with me because I was at a gym before.

There's some... I moved over to his gym and just the culture that he's got there. Friendly and open, he's been at the gym. and just his passion constantly being there and constantly his dedication to the people in the gym is just inspiring. Yeah, definitely, definitely him. And the traits that he has is just,

I think he's more than necessarily a more type coach. He has so many people that go, just people that go in and just talk to him as a member of the community and just wants, as like a, again, like someone to lend an ear to somebody to, so the convent and stuff like that. He just has so many people. And it's like, that's, that's, kind of the example that I want to have is yes I'll help people with their nutrition and their training but also

the problems that they're having in their life or the thoughts and worries that they have around competing is just offering that extra bit of support well it's like you said it's it's about it's not just about coaching it's about being human and you know when you know that someone is listening and someone actually cares and can actually validate what you're going through like you're you're not going to take advice of someone who you don't think cares about you or has your best interest at heart. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the way that I try and always say it to clients is like imagine we're almost like a team. I always use the words, whenever describe anything, we need to do this.

We need to make these changes. So they feel supported and that is definitely, Wayne, my coach at the moment, definitely had a big impact on the way that I coach with my clients as well. That's huge. Okay, so to wrap this up, if anyone who's listening to this is training my Thai at the moment and wants to get a better handle on their nutrition, wants to, you know, get a bit more guidance, maybe wants to take that stress off them and get you to do up their plans and to, you know, coach them through the process. Where can they find you? How can they reach out to you, all that stuff? Yeah, so best place is probably Instagram, to be honest. So my Instagram

handle is Natmoy nutritionist. So if anyone doing that, Natmoy is just someone who is a student or someone learning Muay. What's the knack? Yeah, so Nakmoi is basically the words for someone who is a student of Muay. Ah, okay. That moi is, can be described as anyone from the best fighters in the word. Anyone who's basically practicing Muay can be described as a Nakmoy.

So that's quite specific. But Natmoi nutritionist on Instagram. That's probably the best place to contact me, to be honest. I do have TikTok, but it's not really my, it's not really my, I don't really use it too much, but Instagram for sure would be the best place. Instagram and just reach out and be like, all right, let's talk. Yeah, so I've got two different services. I've got specifically Fight Camp Nutrition.

Then I've also got a program called the Natsmoi Fight Camp, which is basically a 16-week program to get someone to the point of when they'd be ready to fight from a physical standpoint. So they're fit enough, they're strong enough. Their nutrition's in a good place and their schedule's all set up. Unreal. Yeah, I'll put all that in the show notes. But Tim, unbelievable.

Thank you very much for today. I really appreciate it. No, thank you so much for having me on, Carl. It's been a pleasure. Thanks for watching. If you like that episode and you want to see more content like this, make sure you're subscribed and I'll see you on the next one.