Are you truly ready to go? Well Ready or not, here we go! We are talking all types of preparation and your ability to take on the day in this podcast. A slight bit of terminology to start off but we dig into how to really be ready, prepared, and robust. We, as strength and conditioning coaches, have great opportunities to make sure athletes are ready to take on the day, prepared for the next competition, and robust to any challenge they might see. If we fall short on accomplishing those tasks, we can at least be aware of their state of readiness, preparedness, and robustness. Questionnaires, performance tests, and random challenges are great measures of these variables. So listen in, then analyze yourself and your athletes on their three measures of ability to accomplish the workout you have planned. Keep forging ahead and doing better for our combat sports! 

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Message Building a Fighter directly at [email protected]

@buildingafighter on Instagram

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbnU40nTDk17_7m614Njakw 

Alex: IG @strong_a.f  email: [email protected]

Austin: IG  @warriorsportswellness  email: [email protected]

Creating a winning environment. How can we cohesively piece together all of the aspects of training so that the atmosphere is a positive one. Home life, training life, strength and conditioning, and wellness, each of these aspects add up to create a situation where you are getting better or you are getting worse. Finding good people and good facilities is key. The right people can make consistent training seem a bit easier. Good training partners are crucial as well. Then create winning habits. Find value in what you are doing, even if it means paying money to hold yourself accountable. The intangibles of good partners, an easy commute, and eliminating unnecessary stresses can change the dynamic of your training environment, and even make it a winning environment. 

Visit our Website at buildingafighter.com

Message Building a Fighter directly at [email protected]

@buildingafighter on Instagram

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbnU40nTDk17_7m614Njakw 

Alex: IG @strong_a.f  email: [email protected]

Austin: IG  @warriorsportswellness  email: [email protected]

I know I should be lifting and going to the gym, but what should I do? Create a plan, based around a couple of variables. The variables that we should address first is changing your loading, amount of reps, and exercise selection. Doing the same thing day in and day out will not benefit you as much as adding variety into your workouts. Once we dig into how we change these variables, we can target certain adaptations: more power, stronger, better shape. All of these adaptations can be planned for in workouts. Start by planning one day, and then try to be more consistent in your planning. Lastly organize your workout by most energy demanding thing first, then taper down from there. We hope that this information can help you to organize yourself at the gym and get you started into some type of performance training. As always we are here to help if you run into roadblocks or need help crafting your program. Or if you want a template to start planning from, our programs are always available on our website. We hope to hear from you soon! 

Visit our Website at buildingafighter.com

Message Building a Fighter directly at [email protected]

@buildingafighter on Instagram

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbnU40nTDk17_7m614Njakw 

Alex: IG @strong_a.f email: [email protected]

Austin: IG  @warriorsportswellness email: [email protected]

Mentorship, What's it worth? We both agree that mentorship and having a person to guide you/rely on is super beneficial. It's a relationship, both mentor and mentee have to put in quality work and effort which defines the relationship. Should professional athletes be looked at as mentors by default? Should they act accordingly and carry this weight? This is a key question we dig into with this episode. Accountability, establishing morals, and leading by example are many methods of mentoring. Let us know how you have experienced and explored this topic! 

Visit our Website at buildingafighter.com

Message Building a Fighter directly at [email protected]

@buildingafighter on Instagram

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbnU40nTDk17_7m614Njakw 

Alex: IG @strong_a.f  email: [email protected]

Austin: IG  @warriorsportswellness  email: [email protected]

Apologies for Austin being so cringy. Odds are, if you grapple your lower back and neck have and still hurt. We have created some continuing care protocols for these areas of pain. Here we talk about the causes, symptoms, and rehabilitation processes you can go through to address these specific problems. Austin, Building a Fighter’s very own Chiropractor, spits his wisdom for general spine wellness, and potential mechanisms for pain. Those potential mechanisms are very common in grappling based sports. We finish with some daily maintenance protocols that can help to bulletproof your spine for prolonged health. Our low back continued health course is readily available on our website or through the link HERE. Our neck course will be available soon as this is also an area of concern in grappling! We hope this information helps you in your continued pursuit of grappling excellence. Take care of your spine! 

Visit our Website at buildingafighter.com

Message Building a Fighter directly at [email protected]

@buildingafighter on Instagram

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbnU40nTDk17_7m614Njakw 

Alex: IG @strong_a.f  email: [email protected]

Austin: IG  @warriorsportswellness  email: [email protected]

Aligning your goals. How does your style in MMA or training match your exercise protocol? Through training we look at three factors to lead to high level performance Sport Demands, Individual needs, and Overall Health and Wellness. We address the Individual needs part heavily in this podcast. Your physical demands will change drastically based on your game plan for a fight. This means that we need to alter the physical preparation for that gameplan. Which also works in our reverse engineering program. I.e. What does the end product of performance look like? What are the individual needs to perform like that? Now lets make our training geared toward those end goals. 

Visit our Website at buildingafighter.com

Message Building a Fighter directly at [email protected]

@buildingafighter on Instagram

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbnU40nTDk17_7m614Njakw 

Alex: IG @strong_a.f email: [email protected]

Austin: IG  @warriorsportswellness email: [email protected]

Fitness Technology that is actually worth the $$$. What tracking do I need and what actually matters from biotech? We argue that something that tracks your heart rate is the most important and most affordable avenue to objective measurement. Heart rate straps do great to measure cardiovascular exercise, but are not great to measure strength qualities. To measure strength qualities (speed, power, strength, hypertrophy etc.) We recommend a velocity based trainer that tracks the barspeed of your movement. The speed of movement is a more accurate way to measure intensity than percent of one rep max. This velocity measurement gives you a lot of value, now you have to learn how to use it but its a more accurate scale. Lastly, invest in someone who knows how to interpret your data. Talk to a knowledgeable individual about what these numbers actually mean! (Not a salesman…) 

Visit our Website at buildingafighter.com

Message Building a Fighter directly at [email protected]

@buildingafighter on Instagram

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbnU40nTDk17_7m614Njakw 

Alex: IG @strong_a.f  email: [email protected]

Austin: IG  @warriorsportswellness  email: [email protected]

Top 5 grappling mistakes made by mixed martial artists. As wrestling coaches we go over our top 5 ways to improve your grappling efficacy in mixed martial arts. We dive into the technical pieces of cage wrestling, timing and spacing for shots, grappling feints and movements, and how to align these for ultimate MMA grappling. The other pieces we really dig into are wrestling frequency and practice. There is no replacement for reps and time put in to get better at technical skills. We must rep correct technique, then we move to the context and tactics. Grappling is a hugely complex problem in MMA, and we love it, so dig in with us to analyze the top mistakes we see today. 

Visit our Website at buildingafighter.com

Message Building a Fighter directly at [email protected]

@buildingafighter on Instagram

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbnU40nTDk17_7m614Njakw 

Alex: IG @strong_a.f  email: [email protected]

Austin: IG  @warriorsportswellness  email: [email protected]

Apologies for the intro y’all. We are talking about trunk training misconceptions. *Having a six pack does not mean you have a strong core!* The ability to expand and create pressure through your trunk is more important than the outward appearance. A Power Barrel to us means that you can expand your trunk and that you are getting 360 degree activation. This total expansion is hugely important for proper movement patterns. We cover a lot of core training principles in our trunk training series here. Today we explicitly describe the use of the trunk and how it appears in training. Tap in to learn the most important tip in training the trunk. 

Visit our Website at buildingafighter.com

Message Building a Fighter directly at [email protected]

@buildingafighter on Instagram

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbnU40nTDk17_7m614Njakw 

Alex: IG @strong_a.f  email: [email protected]

Austin: IG  @warriorsportswellness  email: [email protected]

DNS Strength Training 1. What did Building a Fighter learn through this course? We took away many key principles of movement, such as uprighting of the spine, joint centration, and breathing and bracing. This in depth look at movement can help us be more efficient in our use of energy. This was another principle called functional capacity vs absolute capacity. Through this lens of movement we can apply a more efficient movement practice through life. Specifically the application to MMA is huge because of how many dynamic degrees of movement are used. Efficiency and techniques are so key in MMA, so this aligns with DNS’s vision of movement. It was a great continuing ed weekend for the Building a Fighter team. We hope you enjoy our recap. 

See our DNS instructor’s podcast and page by checking our our podcast from a few weeks back! Building a Fighter Podcast: Special Guest Rich Ulm

Visit our Website at buildingafighter.com

Message Building a Fighter directly at [email protected]

@buildingafighter on Instagram

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbnU40nTDk17_7m614Njakw 

Alex: IG @strong_a.f  email: [email protected]

Austin: IG  @warriorsportswellness  email: [email protected]