A Deep Dive Into Israel Adesanya's Last Fight Camp w/ Bill Smart (SSOF Ep 138)

Bill Smart1:56

So not so much in that regard, but there are different stages. It's a little bit different for the guys just visiting. Volk was here, he was doing his S&C here when he was here. But for instance, for some of the other guys, we had Kai here for full camp. Didn't run his S&C, but worked with him through some of the conditioning work, as well as Renzhu, who we did run through the full S&C program. So that was a very positive time period of experience.

James de Lacey2:46

Nice, nice. So what I wanted to do, which I think would be pretty cool for the audience—if you're listening to this on the podcast audio version, you'll want to watch this on YouTube because what I want to do and take Bill through is take him through Israel Adesanya's vlog that he did about a month ago. And it was essentially covering, well, it was a training camp vlog, but it was basically like a full S&C session of the vlog.

Bill is featured in there, and it would be cool to go through this and kind of almost get a running commentary from Bill of things that he can share of what is being done and why, so then you watching this and listening to this can get a really good understanding of what is going on.

So what I'm going to do, I'm going to see if I can share this screen and share that video. Let's see. Share screen. Let's see. Window. It should be, should be this one, I think. No, it should be this one. Share that one. Okay, let me know if you can see.

I'll full screen it. Okay, I've got the sound off as well.

Bill Smart3:42

Oh yeah, I know the video. I can give you context behind this. Yeah, so this was—it was actually I think it was the 24th of December this was shot. Oh my gosh, which is actually my birthday, funny enough.

James de Lacey4:08

So was I. You know, this like they—there's a double. It's a double, it's a double trip. Well, it's a triple. Might have been this day might have been a four-training-session day. Oh wait, what does a four-training-session day look like?

Bill Smart4:08

So first session, they run through the conditioning that you're seeing here. Second session, they do their MMA technical session. That's the two in the morning. And then two in the afternoon, I believe he did a wrestling-based session with one of the coaches and then S&C to follow that.

So it was a pretty big day, to be honest. And we're sort of, you know, towards the end of the first half of camp. But yeah, so I was actually up north. If you're familiar with New Zealand, there's Auckland and then, you know, you basically can drive another seven hours up the North Island to get to the top of it.

So I was up at a place called Hehi with family. I essentially drove down to Auckland for the session in the afternoon and then drove back up to Hehi that night. So it was about five and a half hours each way, five, maybe five hours each way. And that was the session of the day, which is kind of funny. But I mean, you just got critical time periods and, yeah, you know, training doesn't stop.

James de Lacey5:04

Yeah, you got some good memory to know the date on this one as well. So I'm just going to play a little bit of—so this is the first session of the day you mentioned? Oh wait, this is a compilation of everything that's going on. So let's start going through this. So is this the first conditioning session of the day, is the one you mentioned, is this one?

Bill Smart5:54

Yeah, so this is the first conditioning session of the day. So this is—it's essentially one of the long-standing conditioning sessions that the gym's done, which essentially you could put it down to being a long interval-based conditioning session.

Yeah, so without going through exact timeframes, you're sort of looking at probably about a couple minutes on per round and a couple minutes of rest as well. So it becomes a mixture of trying to maximize—well, not maximize, but sustain high work intensity through a mixture of specific and non-specific modalities.

James de Lacey5:54

Gotcha. Is it the same circuit every time, so they all know it off by heart?

Bill Smart6:21

Yes, it is. We made some changes for this one, which I think was quite positive, just in terms of optimizing some of the exercises for these guys. So yeah, in the video you got Israel, of course, Kai, who fought Saudi, and then Renzhu, who fought Sydney the week afterwards.

James de Lacey6:21

Are you able to go into any detail on what exercises were changed and why?

Bill Smart6:52

Yeah, so essentially there's a component of this—and we've talked a little bit, me and you have talked a little bit about this outside of the podcast—in terms of conditioning effectiveness. You know, one of the modalities that probably has been performed the most, and not just here but in combat sports in general, I think is long interval training, essentially, because it's specific to the sport. So it's common because it's easy, I guess, and it probably makes sense from a coaching standpoint. And that's essentially what you see here.

I think when you think about what separates MMA from other combat sports, you know, probably one of the bigger ones is the peripheral loading, or the muscular-based loading, and sort of how that interchanges as the fight goes on. So some of the exercises were changed a little bit just to emphasize some of that.

And, you know, the way that I think about it is from a systems perspective. You know, you've got the respiratory system, cardiovascular, muscle. I was pretty happy with where things were at from a cardiac system perspective. And in the sense that I wanted to then shift some more of the focus onto the peripheral side of things, so there were a couple of the exercises—for instance, maybe some of the jumps, battle ropes in there—we shifted in a way that would just increase that demand a little bit.

James de Lacey8:26

Nice. Yeah, so almost a little more resistance in there to make it—

Bill Smart8:26

Yeah, 100%. And I think that, you know, that's a—there's always a sliding scale between those systems and components. You know, where MMA itself probably requires more on the muscular side, it's always a sliding scale for what the athlete needs specifically. And that's just something to be considered. It's very, very hard in those contexts to be able to maximize that for everyone without very specific detail.

James de Lacey8:54

Fair enough, fair enough. I'm going to skip forward here as well, because this is the technical—this is the morning technical session, I'm assuming?

Bill Smart8:54

Yes, yes, correct.

James de Lacey8:54

Okay, perfect. And then we're going to go—

I'm going to skip forward here as well because this is the morning technical session, I'm assuming?

Perfect. And then we're going to go through... let me just move this way. Where are we up to next? We've got PlayStation games. Nice.

Bill Smart9:23

I had a rugby athlete and he's one of those guys, they just all he wanted to do was train. He would just, if he's not training, he wants to go train. He would go do extras and I eventually, like bro, just go buy a PlayStation or something and just sit at home and play.

James de Lacey9:23

Bro, I got him addicted to video games.

Bill Smart9:23

He's got a full setup now. Now he just, well, I guess it's better than him going out and trying to go running and then do all this and then come to training. I'm like, damn man, just need an outlet.

James de Lacey9:50

Yeah, just needs something that was addicted to video games. So I don't know if that's good or bad now, but hey, as long as he doesn't start missing training, I reckon.

Bill Smart9:50

Exactly. It was good.

James de Lacey9:50

All right, so we're into your, this is your S&C session, right? Okay, let's get into it. What have we got?

Bill Smart9:50

So double in bag to start off with. Nothing that's too specific, but I guess when looking at sessions and the ability to maximize the session, I don't necessarily see that when you get an athlete to jump on a bike and bike for five minutes. I do like, yeah, so I like the ability just to add in different components which give me the, which further, it gives me the opportunity to work on different details.

But also it creates something that's novel and more enjoyable for the athlete to sort of start the session off the right way. I think that's valuable. So that's what you see with that with the doubling back.

James de Lacey10:12

Okay, then we're into some Network at Nick work, a nice Austin-based company here. What's the... yeah man, I've been to visit them since their very early warehouse and seen them go to different stages, done various bits and pieces with them on video. And it's a great piece of kit, it's a great piece of kit.

Bill Smart10:46

Yeah, I love it. I love it. It's one of the only ones that makes my neck feel good.

James de Lacey10:46

Okay, so what are we doing here? This is almost like an extended part of the warmup.

Bill Smart11:14

Yeah, so so this is, you're 100% right, see it was one of the end parts of the warm-ups. And a warmup, I look at a warmup as an opportunity to, obviously there's components are preparing for a session, but it's an opportunity to facilitate development in certain areas. And neck is one of those things that probably doesn't get the time that it should considering how important it is in combat sport.

The research regarding concussion prevention is not very strong. And that's probably one of those things that we definitely can't conclude as is the case, but we don't know 100% for sure. So that might be one reason to consider using something like this or training more extensively.

But probably the thing for me that's more important is, if you've ever done MMA or you've ever done grappling-based sport, one of the things that gives you the most grief is always the neck. It's always little neck injuries that happen, they make life hard, they make training hard, it's hard to focus. They impact everything.

And utilizing pieces of kit like the Iron Neck is just such a great way to train that in a way that makes it more robust and more ready for the demands that come with training.

James de Lacey12:33

Is there a specific reason you've chosen this particular variation of us in?

Bill Smart12:33

So essentially coming out, increasing the resistance, and then throwing a small combination. Yeah, so essentially, nothing super complicated. I would still periodize neck training similar to the way that I would periodize strength training, if that makes sense.

So you consider we're in Phase One of camp in this video. We've spent time previously working on more range of motion work, just general structure, working on more sort of force. So this becomes, we still have a force component, it's a little bit more reactive.

So as he comes out, there's a reasonably heavy jolt that he has to resist against. So there's isometric elements. The punch combination is part of it is novelty, but the novelty is in order to achieve that sort of just sustained isometric. I've got to react to stabilize the neck, I've got to then hold it, and then I've got to repeat. So the reactive component is something that is a bit more intentive with us.

And that was one thing that some of the work by Gavin Pratt was really helpful in terms of inspiring and sort of looking at the neck as a system. He's got some really nice work in that area, so shout out Gavin.

James de Lacey14:04

Nice, nice. If you guys want to listen to Gavin, I think it's episode seven, way back on the podcast as well. But have you tried something I've tried with the Iron Neck as well for reactive work? I think it works okay. It's, for example, getting into your wrestling or grappling stance and having a partner walk around with the band and just pulling on it different ways around.

Bill Smart14:35

It's funny, I actually, so we did that, but we didn't do it in the grappling stance. So that actually is, that's actually a massive add-on. But no, I love it. Because we essentially did the same exercise in the next phase, but the idea was to be, I wanted now those isometrics to be a lot sharper.

So the reaction time would have had to be a lot quicker, the impulse was a lot higher. But yeah, I really like that. That's a fantastic idea.

James de Lacey15:01

Yeah, yeah, I'm gonna steal that one, James. That's all good.

Bill Smart15:01

Yeah, go for it. Just tag me. I will. I will.

James de Lacey15:01

That's nice because when you're in that grappling stance too, because you're kind of semi bent over and obviously, I mean if you're, this is MMA, but if you're grappling, obviously you have people trying to snap down your neck and stuff. So you can really get positions and it's not just the neck then that gets hammered, it's your whole back. So it's actually quite a neat little thing.

Bill Smart15:30

No, I love it. One of the exercises that didn't make the take from the session was essentially a quadruped position and me just [expletive] pushing and pulling him around, just so he has to stabilize. And it's the same concept with that. I really like it. But obviously more sport-specific.

James de Lacey15:30

Yeah, that's a classic rugby one too, that one. That's a nice one.

Bill Smart15:30

Yeah, it's a great... there's some, I mean, nothing's new, is it? I think that it's all about, if it's new, there's a potential for it to be complete [expletive] or cutting edge. So I'm always trying new stuff to try to sift between, but everything has to fall into the umbrella in terms of the system that you operate in.

I think as an experienced coach, that's probably the difference, as you sort of, I guess, between coaches with less experience, coaches with more experience, is that you're able to identify exactly how something fits into a specific system and the... because that's where effectiveness comes from.

James de Lacey16:44

Yeah, I definitely agree with you then. Anyway, I guess I have to, the extended warmup we've gone on to, I guess, the main lower body movement. So heavy high box, I see you've got the linear position transducer on there too. And I think you're pairing it with a vertical jump with the contact mat, so almost like a knowledge of results, quote unquote, if we want to get fancy on there to drive intent.

But maybe I'll let you just go through kind of what, okay, then the start was, why these two together? Why specifically this exercise variation? And then what are you trying to get out of the, or get the linear position transducer data for, for anyone listening who's not familiar with what that's giving you?

Bill Smart17:15

Yeah, so essentially what we're looking at is it's force production is what we're after. So lower body force production. We know that the lower body, in terms of the ability to contribute towards impact forces, is based on research the highest predictor of impact forces. So this is something that is, it's essentially one exercise that plugs the requirement to increase lower body forces.

Within camp, there's always going to be differences in terms of what the target of that is. For instance, I probably am not going to be doing Max effort squats within a camp. And the velocity that I use might shift depending on the specific athlete, that targets that the athlete has in terms of his physical profile or his testing data versus say another athlete.

So what I really, we use the VBT weighing gym in this. Essentially what the gym we does is it gives us data on how fast is probably the easiest one. So generally we look at velocity-based metrics, main velocity for this.

Also look at things like power if we want to start looking at the power produced at different loadings as well. What I like about this for combat sport athletes, all athletes but combat sport athletes specifically, is that they're very competitive. What you notice when you leave a combat athlete alone with a gym program, they're always going to try to chase more weight because they always want to be and feel better.

What I like about adding the VBT is it provides an opportunity to get better in a different way. So instead of necessarily feeling like you need to progress by using more weight, you can progress by being faster. So that's something that I really like, that sort of paradigm shift into the way that we think about things. There are specific velocity zones that are going to be more appropriate, say, in a camp, as we sort of touched on before.

Essentially, generally we have a velocity threshold that we'll try to meet within a session, and then that becomes more of the target than the load. And then the loading is simply to match that target.

James de Lacey19:58

Gotcha. What kind of velocity? So you're looking at a velocity loss threshold, or just much velocity?

Bill Smart19:58

Yeah, I do look at velocity loss, but in this I'm generally not. It's sort of more about, well I guess it is, it's more about can we maintain this set range, which for this session it might have something between say 65 and 75 in terms of a squat.

But then there's the other benefit to it, branching off what we talked about before: I want to get the most out of an athlete in a given training session. So it's very important that we get as much as we can to somebody, and feedback for most athletes drives intent, and intent will drive better adaptation.

James de Lacey21:03

Same with the jump. What I find with MMA athletes especially is because the training volume is so high, the ability to sort of tap into the neuromuscular system at the high end becomes compromised. So I could imagine this is the fourth session of the day, right?

Bill Smart21:03

100%. 100%. So it's definitely not ideal, as well, to be honest. But also the context is you have to understand that this is the least important session of the day as well. So that's sort of the balance that you need to operate in.

But what I find is when we use that sort of contrast approach, you find that MMA athletes probably gain more doing something maximal first and then jumping than typical athletes would, because their ability to sort of touch that higher end in terms of motor units is not as well ingrained as it is in other sports.

James de Lacey22:05

Gotcha, that makes sense. And is the reduced range of motion on the high box—is that a variation within the cycle? Because, I guess for the people listening, often coaches will reduce range of motion, especially as you're going through the fight period, because it helps reduce overall work and load, so it can be easier on the body. But you can still load it heavy, you can get a lot out of it, and just the reduced range of motion honestly just feels pretty good and can be quite more specific if you wanted to go into jump sprint transfer stuff like that.

But is there a specific reason that you decided to do a high box squat variation?

Bill Smart22:30

Definitely. So I think one thing to note is that within, I guess, for this session, generally in camp we'd run two sessions per week, four weeks for the first half of camp. Generally they have—the goal is to have enough variation but have enough consistency at the same time so we can maximize that adaptation response. So it's not always going to be higher.

But also there's large benefits to the high box position versus low box positions, especially as you start to get into a training camp. One, we can get more force with velocity, which is going to be more sport specific in terms of what we're trying to get. Still a bias towards force—I want to be strong, but I also don't want to compromise speed too much as well, because we already know that speed is being compromised as a part of training camp.

Two, as you mentioned before, the range of motion is more specific to striking-based sports. So in terms of transfer of training, I would definitely suggest that a high box position would have the ability to transfer to a greater degree to the sport than a low box position.

But this is where sort of programming and periodization becomes important. You really do create bottlenecks if you don't already have foundational strength in those lower positions. So that's sort of how we mix things up a little bit. But I would preference more range of motion out of camp and less in camp, and if I was doing more range of motion in camp, it's got to be for specific strength or adaptation for something that I identify within the fight to be of importance.

James de Lacey24:29

Gotcha. Well, the internet, the internet police or fitness police would disagree with you because the squat is not below parallel.

Bill Smart24:29

So it's funny. I think what people end up—I think we've talked a bit about the general landscape for training, especially gym training on the internet—comes from a frame of bodybuilding and powerlifting, in which case essentially the target adaptations are muscle size and neural output. So you're essentially looking at the neuromuscular system as, well, more so target size, and the other one becomes more powerlifting-based. You're essentially looking at this one, maybe two systems.

But there are many systems within the body that we need to train to optimize performance. Even suggesting that those systems are the most important ones is questionable. They're definitely big rocks, but from an athlete-to-athlete basis, within the demands of a specific sport and task specific, we really need to look at what we're training and why we're training it.

Because regardless of what exercise we use, all these different systems are at play. Depending on whether it's a concentric-based squat movement or if it's a repeat squat jump, the difference becomes the system that we're using. The ratio just changes—one thing goes down, one thing goes up.

Similar to what we understand about energy systems. Initially the thought process was we use one energy system, then the next, to the next. That's what you learned in undergrad, right? And then you go on to study after that, and all of a sudden you find out that's wrong, and everything is used at the same time. It's no different for the physical structures of the body when it comes to the strength and power component.

So I think that when prescribing exercises, it's super important to understand where does that ratio shift, and how does that influence what we're training, and is that achieving the target that I set out to achieve. That's a good framework for people listening.

James de Lacey27:18

Because I can't see the chats of this video full thing, Dr. Andrew Aser messaged me saying high box squats awesome, and he says he likes the higher box also, dependent on the skill set—what a predominantly striker or grappler, et cetera.

Bill Smart27:18

Yeah, 100%. I'm a fan of a game that's easy to pick up. Other advantages is that there's less cost associated with it as well. So it's not going to disrupt the athlete's training as much, which is a factor. Generally, as we go through a camp, I'm thinking about—I'm okay with disrupting the training more at the start, obviously less than if we were off camp, but I'm aware that that needs to be managed and it needs to be down-regulated as we get closer to fighting.

But I don't like the idea as well, and this is where I think most people operate—it's all about the sport in terms of trying to do minimal, have minimal negative influence on the sport. Maybe an example is athlete feels a little bit bad, okay, we'll just phone it in and not train. I think that's an extreme example, but I think the common conception around S&C is we don't want to negatively influence the sport at all, so we do what we need to to manage around that.

And which is, for the most part, it's the right framework of an idea, but the reality is it's impossible to maximize training that way. And we're not just talking about the S&C; we're talking about the training process as a whole.

So generally what happens is that's the limitation when you're not integrated with what's happening in the training room in terms of the specific training. Because when you understand what's happening in the specific training and you have the ability to manipulate what's happening overall, then you—

Have the ability to maximize everything, and that's the part that we aim for now, but is also very difficult even at this level.

James de Lacey29:19

I love that. I love these partial, one of my favorites, off the pin in a split squat position and almost driving through that front leg and then bringing that back leg forward so they end up being next to each other. So it's almost like a pseudo acceleration split squat step thing.

I really like stuff like that. Obviously when you get to these partial lifts you have so much variation, and if you set it up well it can all bleed into each other. As you mentioned, for this obviously he was doing probably some full range squats before this, it just leads perfectly into going into something like this because it just naturally progresses through, versus maybe someone being like, "Okay, we're doing deadlifts now," and then suddenly we're going to do something like this and it's a completely different stimulus.

I wish I could see you on the screen too because I'm trying to figure out when you stop talking, but I'm doing my best. All right, now you're good.

All right, so now we're into some, we talked about this in the previous episode, so this will be a cool one to go through. So you got a couple, you got three different things going on here. So we'll start with this one here. So we've got, for the people listening, oh sorry, for the people only listening and not watching, this is the side bend hang isometric. Do you have a name for this yet, the Bill Smart or something?

Bill Smart30:37

Well honestly, I stole this one from Gus, so I can't claim it. I just, an offset single arm hang. All my names are pretty boring and straightforward.

James de Lacey30:37

Basically, for anyone listening, is just hanging off one arm and then having your, okay, hanging on one arm, so your right hand on the rack and then your feet are angled towards the left side of the rack, so you have this present shape. Do you want to go into detail into what you're doing here?

Bill Smart31:03

Essentially, this is just context around the sessions as well. For the whole camp there's obviously different physical targets that we have. There's overall targets for the block in terms of what we want to prioritize, but there's also sub-targets during the weeks of the block.

For instance, what we see here, I think this is three or four weeks out, this week was we had a bit more emphasis on the long duration isometrics, more so than the weeks before. Essentially, the way I periodize them as I'll push them for a period of time, I'll maintain them, and then I'll sort of redose them, but they always stay in.

Essentially, what I like about this one is you get the lengthening through the lat and through the trunk as well, in terms of areas of importance for combat sport. I think that's quite a large one. We talked a little bit about the fascial length stuff on the last podcast. Essentially this is that concept applied.

When it comes to striking, I think that lat complex is very valuable. I think that it is the case with the lateral trunk, but I think for me there's more of a movement-based optimization that we can get from that if that makes sense. Of course we've talked about force, power, speed and whatnot, but movement quality is always a really important value that we're trying to change. I want people to move well and be athletic, and I don't necessarily think that just traditional-based training is enough to do that. So this is one of the sub-goals within the exercise.

James de Lacey33:06

Nice. Okay, and then we're into a, this is an Ancore, this is an Austin-based company too, by the way.

Bill Smart33:06

Yeah, it is. They're bloody great, honestly. They're bloody great. I got one for this camp specifically because I wanted to be doing more work like this, and more rotational stuff. There's cables, cables are awesome, but I don't love general gym cables, but I really like the Kaiser. Kaiser is one of my favorite pieces of equipment. I would have Kaiser everything if I had a bunch of money to spend on a gym, but honestly this is maybe the closest.

In terms of something that's, it's expensive for what it is, but it's quite inexpensive when you compare it to something like Kaiser. The resistance is probably the most Kaiser-like that I've had.

James de Lacey33:39

For people listening, I guess what it means is because the cables typically have slack and where these ones don't.

Bill Smart34:10

So it's similar to a band in the sense that when you, the further out you get, the more resistance there is. You could ask, "Why don't you use a band?" It's different in a way that I feel like you can optimize the contraction time while being athletic, while still applying force and getting that RFD and power stimulus as well. Anyways, big fan, really big.

James de Lacey34:10

So is this variation, did you complex these? Oh sorry, was it just one of that?

Bill Smart34:34

These were complexed, yeah, I did. Essentially, this is just, the main reason is that we're creating that lengthening through the lat, we may as well use it through something that has an active component as well. It's essentially, this is targeted more towards, it's not quite just an overhead pull down, it's a little bit more based around using the lateral trunk to generate force as well. So there's a component of lengthening on the first exercise, but then having some force generation on the second. But I don't necessarily feel like those need to be paired, like that's just how things worked for the session.

James de Lacey35:07

For someone listening only, it's like a half-kneeling single arm row pull down crunch combination. That's another Gus-inspired exercise. Just regarding, have you read any of his spinal engine work or just any spinal engine-based?

Bill Smart35:38

I don't think I have. You have to send me some after this.

James de Lacey35:38

Essentially it's the concept that, well, and I'm going to butcher this, I'm not crazy familiar with how it operates, but you can sit down and not use your limbs and you have the ability to locomote. So you can move forward based on, primarily the primary driver being your trunk.

When you look at Gus, he has some pretty cool work in terms of how this can apply to a sprinting context within 100-meter sprint and how some athletes have utilized more flexion within their stride to generate more speed, which is quite interesting. From a fight context, you look at Mike Tyson in terms of his movement, and he's a great example of a spinal engine guy. In terms of the ability or the transfer of the concept of this lateral trunk to contribute to striking forces, I think that it's definitely something that makes sense, but I'm still developing that idea.

I think that makes sense regardless of your striking style. I don't think you need to move and punch like Mike Tyson, but it does highlight the ability to generate force in a way that's perhaps slightly different. The question is on that, how much is that similar to just the idea of, say, upper-lower dissociation? If we're talking, say, Bosch concepts, in terms of the ability to separate what's happening with the upper body with the lower body?

And two, how far can we go too far with the spinal engine? Because obviously there are some, like, followings that have taken spinal engine to the nth degree where that's the be-all end-all.

Bill Smart37:40

Honestly, you might need to explain the Bosch concept to me. I'm not 100% familiar.

James de Lacey37:40

It's basically from a robust running context, because that I guess that's where it's mostly applied. It's essentially being able to maintain or build speed while doing something else with the upper body. And rugby is a really easy example, because if I have the ball in two hands and I'm running at the line, I need to be able to make a pass or kick or have the option, step to do something, but while maintaining my speed, because if I slow down then I'm essentially easier to tackle.

So if you break the line, you're one-on-one with the fullback, are you able to move the ball from one hand to the other, maintain your speed, swerve?

And there are different ways you can train it. For example, you'll see people do sprint drills or sprinting with, say, sticks on the back and they're rotating different ways. I don't know if you've seen videos like that, or holding plates and pushing plates out different sides while they're sprinting. And it's just this idea of that you can maintain that lower body position.

And maintain the performance while the upper body is doing something else, which gives you options while you're playing. And I guess within combat sports you've got the idea of the whipping action of striking where the hip's moving and then the upper body's following. You had that when you see a rigid lifter that comes into to start striking and everything moves at once versus having sling—I guess that would be the combat sports equivalent in terms of upper dissociation.

Bill Smart39:30

Yeah, that's awesome. I like that. I need to look into that with more detail because what you're discussing is hugely relevant for combat sports. And based on my observations, I think athletes that dissociate better, the better athletes.

James de Lacey39:30

Yeah, I did an Instagram reel on that I think last week, literally saying exactly that. But that's exactly my observation.

Bill Smart39:30

So I think for me, this is great because you I think about this quite a lot. I think that there's a structural benefit to being able to connect well across the body and upper body to lower body. I think that's really valuable. But also doing that at the expense of the natural movement and what you're talking about in terms of the dissociation, then that would be a negative adaptation.

I think that you can go too much one way or the other way. For instance, I'll use Sangu when he came into the gym. Before, basically he was here for 12 weeks before UFC Sydney, and we ran over everything with him. We ran through the process for that. We ran through the physical testing at where he was for that. And then we looked at him, we looked at his—we did some movement-based analysis. Some was general like movement screen stuff. One was observation of him shadow boxing, the observation of him sparring.

So then using this information and bringing things together, he was a guy who was reasonably coordinated, but his ability to connect upper and lower body was what I consider to be too disassociated in the sense that he wasn't able to connect from the ground up very well. And it was very evident with his striking.

James de Lacey41:35

Would you say then he was an upper body puncher? Is that what you're kind of—

Bill Smart41:35

So when we tested him, basically his lower body numbers were more of a—weren't amazing. So I was, Mike was there, he was one of the coaches for kickboxing. He said to me, "He punches hard." And like, "What are the numbers say?" And we do the jump testing. I'm like, well, it's not from lower body power. Anyways, okay. You can't carry—anyways.

So we went through it. The testing's comprehensive because it's like I'm essentially just trying to—how people operate. And when we went through RSI, we went through isometric squat, so maximal lower body strength, and it wasn't quite working out. And then we did the—we do a rotational power test on the Kaiser, and he smashed it. Like interesting, I think one of the—I think it was the highest score that we had relative to body weight out of anyone. And I was like, there it is, Mike.

So that sort of highlighted, man, the guy's got really great puzzle pieces, but they all, they weren't put together. So when we talk about S&C effectiveness, a big part of his S&C was just trying to get the pieces together a little bit better.

James de Lacey43:05

But that's more technical, right? How much of that can you really influence?

Bill Smart43:05

No, no, so 100%, but I think that what you find is that from a technical standpoint you find fighters, experienced fighters who aren't the most coordinated, but they'll, they won't necessarily have the ability to change it within a fight context, right? So essentially what's happening is the hardware that they have is outdated and it's limiting their ability to produce movements in a certain way.

So this is where being, having the ability to be in the gym with the coaches and the athletes become so important. So Mike and I work together to put to structure his training in a way where we could try to change some of this. So for me it was, we worked on some structural work in terms of his body to try to develop that hardware. Within the technical room, Mike spent more time from bringing things back a little bit and working on general movement principles, movement, padding, stripping things back a little bit so we could start to rewire.

And essentially once you start to bring that process together and then you start to intensify it, then it becomes transferred to your more intense training, sparring, pad work, whatever it is. Then you have the ability or you have the recipe to start to then bring things together in a way that does create change. And his change that he made within eight weeks was amazing, genuinely amazing. Interesting.

James de Lacey44:35

I was going to ask before you say last bit, is that something technically that you would want to try change for someone who's already at that level doing it that way? Obviously ended up working.

Bill Smart45:08

So I guess technically it's something you're looking to do? Well, I think that's a great question. You got to question whether or not the change you're making are going to be positive, and that is a general concern. I think that what's really important with that is when it comes to these types of changes—these might be my thought processes in terms of what I think we need to do, but it needs to be filtered through the coaches and it needs to filter through what they need from him and whether or not it fits the model that they want. And if it does, then that's positive.

But I think if you were a coach who works separate to the athlete in the gym, you would have to be careful. You would have to be careful if that makes sense.

James de Lacey45:37

Yeah, in terms like you could definitely make appropriate changes, but yeah, you have to be careful when it comes to changing fundamentals.

Bill Smart46:07

But I do think that what allowed that to be successful was we were simultaneously working on it technically and physically. And if you go back and watch his fight before that one, you can really see the difference in terms of movement and control and how that allows him to be positionally able to produce power really well. And there were other work on that he had that we worked on that contributed to that as well.

But for me in terms of what was the biggest magnitude of change—because Rongu has been in the UFC for a long time. He's been the UFC since he was 19, he's I think 24 now. He's had about six fights, he's had around six UFC fights, but he's had over 30 pro MMA fights. So actually when you consider changing fundamental aspects of someone who's that experienced, that's quite difficult.

So I think that breaking down what people need, and we go back to the S&C framework around muscle strength and all these other components, it's important to base those aspects of training targets based on what's the—what's going to have the biggest magnitude effect, what becomes one of the higher priorities. And that becomes based on what do you need specifically, what do the coaches need, and then your general time frame and whatnot.

James de Lacey47:40

No, that's awesome. I want to come back to this clip as well with Israel were doing this half-kneeling row. Asha was asking if you've done this with flywheels for the eccentric component.

Bill Smart47:40

Not yet, not yet. But I like the idea. I think that, yeah, it would be—well, it'd just be a, I mean, it wouldn't be that hard to strap it up, being prone to it over and over again. You've got a rack mount, don't you anyway?

James de Lacey48:11

Yeah, we do.

Bill Smart48:11

I think that's a fantastic idea. I need to play around with it. I really like the—I think that the trick at the turnaround position from an exercise like that would be really, really nice. Be brutal. It'll be seriously brutal.

James de Lacey48:11

And obviously now we're actually looking at some more flywheel stuff.

Bill Smart48:11

I watched this clip, I was like, holy [expletive], man, he's got brakes.

James de Lacey48:40

Oh, there's your rack out there.

Bill Smart48:40

Yeah, yeah. So I had everybody, I had to hold it on. He actually snapped one of the middle rings doing that this camp, which was—I mean, those things are not—it was actually crazy. So what I ended up doing—so that rack mount I didn't have it, I didn't have—

It connected up to the app. I was having a few issues getting it on. I grabbed a small dynamometer and I was using it actually for the anchor so I could measure the forces per things like the rotations and whatnot. So that became, all of a sudden, my ankle became my budget Kaiser.

But I put it on that and the dude almost, it was almost like 200 kg of force at the end of the movement. He snapped, he snapped a full metal ring, not one of the Chinese ones, one that came with the anchor.

James de Lacey49:33

Damn, it was insane. Damn, damn. Yeah, I remember seeing this. There was another one, I don't, it must not have been in this video, but there was another clip showing from the back view.

Bill Smart49:33

And I was like, different, different, yeah, different day, different.

James de Lacey50:01

Holy [expletive] man, the way he put the brakes on that, I was like, that's, that's what I think, that's when I messaged you asking what eccentric overload he had and you were like, "none." I was like, damn.

Bill Smart50:01

Yeah, that was a little bit latest. I was really like, this is something that we do basically all the way through camp. The Exxentric, it's a fantastic piece of kit. You've got to be, like we've talked a bit about, you got to be aware of how you use it and you genuinely can do more harm than good if you don't use it appropriately. But if you do use it appropriately, there's like, so...

James de Lacey50:01

Wait, what's appropriately? What's appropriately versus not appropriately?

Bill Smart50:23

Well, I think when it comes to anything that has an eccentric overload, and I guess, I'm not sure what your thoughts on this are, but there's a question mark if non-motorized is an eccentric overload. You could argue that it isn't because you're getting out what you put into it, but then you could also argue, to me it is, if depending on how you're doing the eccentric.

James de Lacey50:53

Me too. Me too.

Bill Smart50:53

I think you could argue that if you take the full range and you apply it to this shorter range of motion, there's going to be an overload in a specific range of motion area. But essentially, it's training that makes it, it will suppress the hell out of you. You could reduce someone, you could reduce someone from a performance perspective by 10-20% in one to two weeks if you apply too much volume at the wrong times. So it's just something to be aware of.

What I really like about it is the braking ability, or training the brakes is how we point it to athletes, is genuinely I think one such an important physical quality. I mean, when you want people to move well, be elusive, but then be able to be fast when they need to be, the common analogy I use with athletes, a pretty typical one, is the car going around tracks.

Formula One cars have exceptional brakes because they're not fast if they go very slowly around corners. Then they're not fast.

James de Lacey52:24

Unless you're NASCAR.

Bill Smart52:24

Unless you're, yeah, that's it, that's it. But so that's the principle behind it, is that if it comes to whenever there's a muscle contraction, if I need to decelerate before I can accelerate again, my deceleration time is longer, then even if my acceleration time's really quick, I'm still slow. And it's pretty common in terms of literature that higher-performing athletes, they spend less time decelerating.

James de Lacey52:54

No. Yeah, this is almost a concentric-assisted one too to get the overload on top of it because of the way he's pushing up on the bar. So it's like, that's a brutal variation. Anyone just listening, it's basically quarter squats with the flywheel and then using the bar of the rack for stability, but he's pushing up with his hands. So you're getting a little more speed at the top, which is...

Bill Smart52:54

100%, that's a killer move.

James de Lacey53:24

And Ash is saying that eccentric comes down to the breaking endpoint and acceleration back up. We're working on a research paper on this. We should all collab on it.

Bill Smart53:24

So I've already said that'd be awesome. Yeah, I'm pretty sure too. So everyone watch the space.

James de Lacey53:24

Then you've got a basically the same thing but rotational now with the flywheel. And I know this is killer. This complex, it's just two separate?

Bill Smart53:24

No, separate. Yeah, it's just too much to complex. Give a bit of time.

But yeah, I think essentially there's got to be a prioritization when it comes to the eccentric stuff within a certain block or especially within a session. So these are the areas I put the most emphasis on: the lower body. Obviously, I want the ability to have good movement from the lower limbs, the ability to change directions well. I want the ability to reload to kick faster. And I want the ability to have the same qualities with the trunk.

Obviously, when it comes to striking, rotation is hugely important. So I want the ability, I think the trunk is probably one of the most key areas, especially from a deceleration standpoint. If you can't decelerate your trunk, you just keep going, and I mean, you've seen many fights with how that goes.

James de Lacey54:49

I love this. And so the exercise order in the session, because you went from, say, your highest force movement with some jumps as a complex, you did some of the back work, the lever isometrics and rows, and then you attacked the eccentric, I guess, your eccentric-focused component of the session kind of midway through near to the end. Is there a specific reason it's placed there versus early in the session, later in the session, etc.?

Bill Smart55:15

Yeah, I think a lot of it just comes down to priorities in terms of what you're trying to get out of the session. For me, this was, for this session, this was just a bit of maintenance essentially for the eccentric stuff. So the priority was more around the force production.

James de Lacey55:15

And would this have come first if the eccentric stuff was the main priority? And then those squats would have come after?

Bill Smart55:15

Honestly, the only time the eccentric would be the main priority is probably off-camp. But even when it's, so, for instance, for the start of camp when it is more of a priority, it's still not the main priority. So it'll still be, it'll be bumped up one, if that makes sense.

James de Lacey55:15

Yeah, no, perfect. That makes sense.

Then we've got a side-to-side rotation. What do you call this exercise?

Bill Smart56:06

That's a great question, James. This is the Bill exercise. All right, this is, what, great, that's a great question. So essentially, what I want is, it comes back to some of the elastic qualities or fascial quality from a movement and athletic standpoint. So I want the ability to have that flow-based effect.

And this was a part of the strategy. Of course, there's different ratios between parts of camp of trying to maximize movement potential. So I see movement, especially in combat sports, as a weapon. And I think it was something that I wanted to get more out of, and this is one of the ways of doing that.

James de Lacey56:37

So I'm tying into the spinal engine idea that you talked about earlier. Is that it?

Bill Smart56:37

It is, but it's a little bit different. Spinal engine is going to be more of a force contributor, where this is more systematic. You're bringing the body together systematically to produce movement in a way that more represents flow, if that makes sense. And I like this because we get the range of motion at shoulders, we get the range of motion at the thoracic spine. I think those areas are, especially for him, when you look at how he moves, the ability to move freely through the trunk is actually quite specific for him and important.

So you want to enable what, you want to enable athletes to do what they do well. And this was a part of that. So I'm not saying this is something that everyone needs to do, but from, when you look at it...

James de Lacey57:32

Everyone should do it. I really like it.

Bill Smart57:32

But from a specific standpoint, this is more specific for him. You look at his fight against Whittaker and sort of some of those counters and movements, and it's like, all of a sudden, force production in these out-of-position positions is actually important, right? So this is developing the start of that before we start to make that more of a priority later on.

James de Lacey57:59

Interesting. Yeah, it's funny.

Bill Smart57:59

Kind of [expletive], I sound like a [expletive] boss.

Nut hugger whenever I read parts, bits and pieces, and I really love the concept. I listened to one of his podcasts a while ago too and it just makes a lot of sense to me and it aligns really well with my own philosophies around coaching. I've actually had one of his books sitting in a drawer for the last three years and I'm going to pull it out.

James de Lacey58:46

Which one? Is it the strength training coordination one?

Bill Smart58:46

No, it's not that one. I don't think running—I think it's the other one.

James de Lacey58:46

It must be the strength one.

Bill Smart58:46

It must be the strength one. Yeah, that was really good. Obviously people hate on it and you don't have to take everything on a bloody face value, but in terms like this, he does a lot of—I guess you could say he's really focused on kind of optimum length, which, I don't know if there's much to it, but regardless, optimum length and also exploring in ranges of motion with trunk work as well.

So he actually has a few different exercises in there that he likes to use, almost like a sit-up position but having the plate go over your head so you're kind of training that trunk in that brace and whole idea of the co-contraction around the trunk, which is a little different. It's movement, and that's kind of more keep everything tight and brace.

But he's got some really cool rotational stuff. I posted on Instagram a little while ago because his philosophy is very much around the integration, coordination, integration, right, with everything else. It's so important, to be honest.

I just think that especially when you look at mixed martial arts, the diversity of movement, the complexity of movement, I think when you if you were to rule out things like that as being beneficial, that's insane to be honest. I really like it.

James de Lacey59:56

And the final—I didn't realize we're going to spend over an hour on this. I didn't think it was going to take that long. So this is—do you have a hard stop time or?

Bill Smart59:56

Well, I'm pretty good. I've got my battery is actually running low on my laptop, so I probably got a good 15 minutes, I reckon.

James de Lacey59:56

Okay, cool. Last exercise here anyway, but it's another long duration isometric. I will say, okay, before we go, before your battery runs out, the thing I wanted to—we're going to go into this. I think long duration isometric, we kind of talked about already in terms of what's going on. Let me stop sharing this.

I can actually see why I talked about this. What would the session, the second session of this training week look like? Because in this session there was no pressing. No pressing decision.

Bill Smart1:00:48

I could pull it up.

James de Lacey1:00:48

So how much does it change for that second session?

Bill Smart1:00:48

I think generally there's just a balance of targets, right? So there's obviously the qualities I want to push, then there's the qualities that I want to maintain. So generally the maintenance might not all get in one session. That's okay.

If I'm honest, I'm not massive on pushing movement or comp. I mean, it's not my main priority. Pulling movements are significantly more prioritized. But you will find that I think in the second session there was some push. I think there was a press from a rack as the main pushing movement.

James de Lacey1:01:20

Does that change at all for wrestling, grappling based? Or maybe just wrestlers and grappling?

Bill Smart1:01:20

Yeah, definitely. I think it's way more important. I think we talked a bit about last time, when you go through the literature, there's almost no research at all that correlates upper body strength and power to combat sport performance. But there's a lot that displays lower body.

Unless you look at the one jiu-jitsu paper from 10 plus years ago that has their fighters benching more than they squat—that one, the Brazilian paper, the old one. That's the only one with strength standards. But what I'll say is the research is quite limited, but what's almost always the case when it comes to these, and it just gets categorized as upper body, they almost always bench press or it's always a press movement.

There's very little from a pulling standpoint. I could tell you based on experience that high level boxers will pull a lot more than they press, in the sense that to me that has become more of a highlighter that pulling strength is quite valuable. And that would make sense because of the contributor of the lats in rotation.

So I really like pulling strength. I manage upper body push strength—it's important, but it's less important at different times. And I don't necessarily think that it creates the best punches, but I think done correctly it can help it. But for instance, a lot of the best in terms of people who punch hard, knock people out, and look very good when they're striking—all of them don't bench at all.

So it's like do we need to be doing it all the time? There's a time and a place for everything, but it's not something that is a mandatory part of training for me.

James de Lacey1:03:48

There is that one paper by lko and his colleagues, I think, where they correlated rear hand punch speed, I think it was, with bench press one RM. I think it was those two and they found that there was an 82% correlation, I think it was something like that. It was a relatively high correlation with people who bench more and that cohort were able to throw faster punches. But that's the only paper I've seen on there and you don't know—you can't just kind of take that one paper and be like, "All right everyone, we're going on a bench cycle and we're going to go start knocking—"

Bill Smart1:04:16

But again, it's still tried and true. So I definitely don't want to come across as that you shouldn't bench press or anything like that. But it's undoubtable that a lot of the best punchers don't bench, right?

So then you could say that about some of strength and conditioning stuff in general. Doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. I just think that from a movement efficiency perspective, I think people who bench press too much have poor efficiency when it comes to striking. So as I know that I can manage how I implement that modality—sorry, that method—into training and just try not to end up compromising stuff that's important.

James de Lacey1:05:10

No, that's a great point. And I know you don't have much time left, so Bill, where can people find and follow you and keep up with the—wait, have you posted on Instagram? You post on Instagram? I don't think I posted one post after Israel's fight.

Bill Smart1:05:10

Oh yeah, I remember that one. I need to post a little bit more, but Instagram is Smarter Performance. You can find me. From that, if you want to email me, bill@smarterperformance.com.

James de Lacey1:05:10

I always put your name on here so—I hope I don't—it comes up, may not come up on the replay either way. I'll put it down the description. I'll put Bill's Instagram down the description too if anyone's seeing later. And I appreciate you coming out. We're going to keep doing this because that was awesome.

Bill Smart1:05:40

I appreciate it. And I think just context is—I think this is just important to say because I read some of the comments on videos like that and it's easy to get lost in terms of what you see as—you know, that's what happens in a fight camp. But there's—wait, I didn't even go to the comments. Were there bad comments?

James de Lacey1:06:11

No, no, not on your—no, no, not on the video.

Bill Smart1:06:11

No, they weren't bad comments, but I think just in general don't take too much from clips that you see. For instance, that training session was quite different to a lot of the other training sessions that we run through. But it's all about balancing physical qualities in the right way and that was the day the cameras—the camera came.

James de Lacey1:06:33

The day you decided to choose all fancy exercises, right?

Bill Smart1:06:33

Well, when initially I was like, "Damn, if only they came on Thursday or if they came last week we were doing some more—well, I guess just some different stuff." But I was like, "That's fine." I don't—for me it does, I guess it's a part of it at that level, but at the end of the day it's all about the training of the athlete. Yeah, not too worried about the other stuff.

James de Lacey1:06:59

For sure, I—

Appreciate you coming on, Bill. We'll have you on again soon, I'm sure.

Bill Smart1:07:24

I appreciate it, James. And yeah, thanks for—if you've listened to all three, I appreciate you coming back to listen. You get a gold star for sure if you—all three of these, you get a gold star.