Do the Work. How you feel, is a lie. It is what it is. Cliché central in this podcast! Sometimes it truly is about how hard you work. We need a standard of movement and to avoid unnecessary risk, but we can’t do this at the complete expense of training effects. Often we err on the side of caution in the weight room, but this can have a detrimental effect on our athletes. Sometimes we need to just work hard. As coaches we can play with this by addressing exercise selection, then putting seemingly hard, but low cost exercises into our athletes’ programs. At the end of the day we need to do the work and work to optimize training effects and risk mitigation. Be careful of staying too safe in your athlete’s programs. 

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

Austin: IG  @warriorsportswellness  email: [email protected]

Post Competition Plan. How should we carry on with training after a fight, or season. We talk about good mental and physical training strategies when you’re fresh off a fight in this podcast. So many times there are high emotions and a lot of adrenaline dumping after a competition, and while you have earned the right to relax a bit and enjoy the fruits of labor, we shouldn’t take too much time. Training is a 365 day per year endeavor. Now we should be smart about that and take time to heal and optimize our body for more hard training. Take a strategic approach, and know that too much time off is a bad thing. We finish with some practical approaches to re-entering high intensity training and addressing the wear and tear on your body. As a signing off not Dr. Austin would like everyone to remember #nomorefatcamps. 

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Message Building a Fighter directly at [email protected]

@buildingafighter on Instagram

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

Austin: IG  @warriorsportswellness email: [email protected]

Building a Fighter Ep.147 

March Freestyle! We talk a lot about coaching in this one, Alex has started coaching a high school wrestling team in the last two years and makes many reflections on that experience. We talk about building a program, then warming up, and creating a good culture on a team. Not just a hardo culture, but one of valuing winning the right way. Then we talk about stress cycles through a season and brainstorm periodization across many different disciplines. We have a bunch of fun digging into some wrestling and theory in this one! Let us know what you think! 

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Message Building a Fighter directly at [email protected]

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

Austin: IG  @warriorsportswellness  email: [email protected]

Rotation is a pivotal piece of movement! (See what I did there??) Especially sports that involve max power output, a rotational movement is typically the main movement. We can correlate MMA and baseball in this sense. Both are rotational sports with different energetic demands. In this podcast we give rotation its due. Rotation is one of the 7 primal movement patterns we have identified countless times on the podcast. We talk about how to train rotation through and through in this podcast. Progressing it from the ground up and throughout the force/velocity curve. So let it be known that rotation is rotation is rotation, and you should train it regularly. 

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Message Building a Fighter directly at [email protected]

@buildingafighter on Instagram

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

Austin: IG  @warriorsportswellness  email: [email protected]

Let’s talk about how to be in peak condition when competition is at its highest. This is a common topic for track and field and other more controlled sports, but as with all good training principles we can apply it to wrestling and MMA. A taper is a limit in volume of training, measured in sets/reps, or time at practice. While a peak is a change in the intent and intensity behind the work. Peaking typically means training more similar to competition whether that's higher weight, faster pace, or technical specificity. The peak and taper compliment each other and lead to a primed athlete who is ready to be at their best. Explaining this process and having confidence in it is huge for the athlete and coach. Executed well this process can improve performance hugely vs a typical just keep working type of mentality. 

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]

Having hard conversations. We talk a lot about the leadership aspect of being a coach, business partner, husband, athlete, and quite frankly a person. What makes anyone reliable and accountable to their job? For a lot of athletes accountability comes down to a coach. As a coach there is a good way to hold athletes accountable and a more toxic way. It's the classic argument of leading with fear or love. Holding athletes accountable in a high performance setting and meaningful relationship is not “100 burpees per minute that you are late.” Having a harder conversation of punctuality and the impact that in life and your schedule is a better way to lead. One golden nugget in this episode is when Austin points out that you should “ Impose Values but you should not set rules.” 

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]

Yoga, pilates, and organizing your supplemental training methods. As an MMA athlete should I be doing yoga? Or cycling? Or add pilates? Or add anything? In a sport where more training always seems better, we talk about navigating these extra workouts and truly finding what is best for you. OVerall adding these workouts may not make or break you, however to get the most benefit from them we should be selective in what type of workout we add in, and where we add it in. As we state constantly, it is important to be aware of your training schedule, and adding supplemental workouts is a part of that. Listen in to our reviews of how additional workouts can help or hurt your training schedule, we focus in on yoga and pilates in this episode. 

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]

We hit the ground running on this edition of our Building a Fighter Freestyle. Talking about holistic wellness vs going all in for a goal. Are they one in the same, or is one approach better than the other? How can we function best as humans, and how can we balance all of our priorities? We explore so many facets of living your best life in martial arts and training. We talk about setting a plan, but chronically and dynamically adjusting that plan. Austin comes from a stance of pursuing excellence and there are necessary sacrifices that must be made for that. Alex fights for the side of balance and negotiating your efforts for the long term trade off and wellness. One of our favorite aspects of this episode and this podcast are the constant dualities that Austin and Alex negotiate. This is a great podcast to see functional debate and exploration of ideas. 

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]

What's your goal? Define your goal then train for it. We talk about two different common training goals in this podcast. First is training for a championship, and second is training for a healthy long life. We debate whether you can chase both of these goals at once, or if you must isolate one goal or not. Different times in your career you will train for each of these goals but the problem persists when there is no one to check in and transition between the two, that is where injury or underperformance happen. This is the true job of good coaching. Helping give you what you need in the time that you need it. So should you train for longevity and vitality, or for performance? Listen in for the pros and cons, and when you should train for both or either. 

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]

What is a training age? Quite simply we explain the difference in chronological age, and your experience level in any athletic endeavor. In the weight room, we like to quantify everything so we are quantifying your “age” based on your experience level and ability to execute. Every sport does this, whether it's with belts, specific equipment (think metal baseball bats vs wooden only in the MLB), or in the weightroom with exercise selection and teaching drills. This is such a hot topic because even though athletes may be a black belt in BJJ, they might be a white belt in the weightroom. We explain how and why we find this training age, and then what adaptations and effects happen because of that. So think what your training age is based on ability and knowledge. 

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]