Energy Systems and Stamina in Combat Sports

Yeah. I mean, that's, that's the thing, right? We've got different categories of what we're trying to build and what you need to be looking at is what am I the weakest at? Okay. So if, if let's look at like strength, let's look at speed and power, let's look at conditioning aerobically, let's look at anaerobic conditioning. So we can section that off as force. We can section that off as velocity. We can section that off as your aerobic reserve. And then we can section that off or VO2 max. And then we can section that off as lactate threshold. Those four things are inherently incredibly important, especially for MMA and fighting arts. You know, you walk into any jiu-jitsu club and you talk to every single person in there and they're going to say, oh, jiu-jitsu is anaerobic. You don't need to be aerobic. Well, I hate to tell you this, but once you exceed two minutes of activity, it's massively aerobic at that point. And this is why you're getting gassed when you're training. If we think about a match, it's going to be at minimum probably five minutes. What happens if you don't have the stamina to go past two or three minutes? And that's kind of at my last jiu-jitsu tournament, um i went into it saying okay i'm going to be the strongest fastest most well-conditioned fighter and i'm also going to be the the best well-fed because i'm going to plan appropriately um and i dominated it not because my technique's great because it's not my technique i i i'm very i'm a pressure player i don't know a lot of jokes i'm not good at setting things up i don't i'm not good at submissions but what i'm good at is if i get on top of you you're screwed because i can get real fucking heavy and I can wear you down until you make a mistake and I'll just score points until the time I'll run the timeout I'm a I'm one of those shady dudes it'll ramp up 21 points on you and then I'll just lay on your ass until the time goes out because you're you're breathing so hard you can't do anything anymore right I love it it is you've got to play on your strengths and I know my strength is strength and conditioning and and nutrition my strength is not my technique um So, you know, now going forward, when we can start doing jujitsu again, my next thing will be getting better at actual jujitsu instead of just using my physical abilities to grind people down, right? But that's one thing I see, too, with a lot of the MMA guys. They're very strong on the mat, but then you take them in the weight room and they're really fucking weak. Like imagine what would happen if you were actually decently strong in the gym and how much that would translate onto the mat, especially if we think about strength being the mother quality for power and speed. Well, if you're the type of fighter that's a very proactive fighter, speed and power is to your benefit. You're not going to be able to produce a lot of speed and power without building a base level of strength. and then you're not going to be able to repeat that strength, power, and speed over and over and over

You don't have the conditioning to survive that. So if you've got eight fights in a day, you might have two or three really good fights. And then you're destroyed if your conditioning and your nutrition isn't up to par. You're going to have a horrible end of the day fights, which is what I observed at the last tournament I went to. All of these guys were doing massive weight cuts to try to cut down into their category. I actually planned my weight cut six months out. And so I cut down for six months and I cut down below where I needed to be. And then I fed up into my tournament, which was a massive benefit for me. You know, and that's kind of what they need to start. That's what they need to start thinking about. Like the MMA strength conditioning industry is just horrendous. Like you've got a couple of people that actually know what they're doing, but the majority of it's still really old school. And, you know, they're still standing on BOSU balls and, you know, throwing around a fucking band instead of just getting very good at the basic foundational lifts and then throw the silly shit in there once you're, once you're decently strong. So it sounds like you're kind of the value in S and C for combat athletes would be building that aerobic base, building that max in strength and then, you know, where, where appropriate or where time appropriate using, uh, building some power. Um, and those three things probably being your, you know, where you're going to get the most return for your investment really. Yeah, I feel that way. And I mean, And that's my competition coach is really about, you know, he's really a very proactive fighter. And kind of his method of how he coaches us to fight is to at whatever level your competitor is at, you stay just a little bit higher than that. And when you see them fade out, then you just turn it up because they're done. Like you've ground them into the ground. So if I'm walking into a fight and I'm well conditioned and I can maintain just a little bit more energy than the other person, the minute they start to falter, they're going to start making mistakes. And I'm going to capitalize on that. And then you have to think. Sorry. So just, just to go back to your condition, like looking at someone being well conditioned, what are your markets for being well conditioned? You know, what are you looking at when, when you sort of get someone in front of you?