How To Never Need Extra Off Mat Conditioning For BJJ w/ Ed Hanson (SSOF Ep 178)

Ed Hanson2:53

Well, what were some of those mistakes? Because I remember when I got my first full-time role. I still remember this, I mean I made a ton of mistakes, but I still remember this one cuz it was probably one of the first big ones I made.

Where every field session we would train often twice a day on the field. I did the exact same warm-up during season. The exact same. And I think I don't know what week it was by the time that the players complained, but then I was like, "Ah, okay. Maybe you shouldn't do the same thing every single time."

James de Lacey3:23

To be, yeah, some, I'm not going to lie, where I work now in Burnley, players minded. They like the consistency. And I think it's just a different culture. It was the exact same thing in basketball though. They needed the variety and they hated it when I was very consistent with how I did things. I always had to find little ways to try and make things fresh and different for them cuz I hated the monotony.

But I think one of the big mistakes that I made was just not respecting the competition schedule as much as I should have done. And it immediately killed a lot of the buying and the trust from the players and it took a while to get it back.

I think for me when you're going into that environment so young and a lot of what your perception of SNC is is oh I've got to get them strong or get them powerful. Got to get them fast. They're thinking I got to get through the next game. They've got all yaches, all niggles, all that. They've got to get through the next game.

And especially in that environment, contracts are quite, well the contracts, the environment is quite cutthroat. So if you're not performing, you're gone in a month's time. Our turnover squad that season was crazy. It was like a 50, 60% turnover. There's a lot of players left by the end of that season. I might be off by the numbers, but point is a lot of players left by end of the season just due to injury, not playing well, not good enough, signing a three-month contract, meet the standards, so they were gone.

What I didn't do was align my practice, my processes with players and the coaches. And it just created a ton of disconnect and I kind of felt isolated a little bit. I was like, how I'm going to get them back on track and it just took a little bit of time of just working individually with players, speaking to a coach individually and just little things each day just to show, look, I'm on board. I'm part of the team. My goals is the same with your goals.

And yeah, I think that's probably the big one I'm kind of carrying even into what I'm doing now. Just making sure that I've got that alignment in everything that I'm doing. But yeah, I'm sure the same for you in your first role. There's so many different lessons that you carried to today. I'm talking was 2018 when I had that role. So I'm talking eight years now. It's a long time ago.

Ed Hanson5:41

So when you say you not respecting the competition schedule, you mean your strength conditioning was sole focus as you mentioned, bigger, stronger, faster, but not really taking into account that they're going to play in a couple of days or they just played the previous day?

James de Lacey6:05

Yeah, that one took, again a shame to say it took a little bit of time to be like, okay, maybe I should just pull back a little bit and just adjust things just to take into account that they're going to play two games in less than 48 hours. So it's like, yeah that one, I feel like it should have been at the forefront but it was just like oh I've got to make a stamp.

Ed Hanson6:29

Yeah I think you don't get taught, you don't get taught when you go through going through a university degree. You kind of get taught this is how you set up the perfect periodization for XYZ.

Oh god yes. And that's it. And then you go walk into your first internship or whatever and you're like, "Huh, why is no one squatting full depth? Oh, why is this guy not doing that?" You look around, you're like, "This is nothing like anything." Well, you go in obviously as an arrogant young strength coach thinking, you know, and then you realize this is so different to what night.

James de Lacey6:59

Yeah. Night and day. None of the players wanted to be in a gym. I looked at the movement competency. I was like, "Oh, I thought this should be better, but none of them even worse." So a lot of stuff you thought you want to do, all the exciting stuff, you have to just strip it back down to the bare basics.

You have 7 foot guys weighing way over 120 kilos, goblet squatting 20 kilos, and that's a significant hit for them. So, yeah, big learning curve and a lot of stuff I take into today, but a really good year of learning. Yeah. So, yeah, enjoyed that and then it carried me. It held me in good stead with a lot of stuff I did after.

Ed Hanson7:44

So now you got the kind of soccer role, but you're also doing, I mean your whole Instagram profile is centered towards jiu-jitsu and jiu-jitsu strength conditioning. So it'd be interesting is so you're doing the soccer role, then you're doing a lot of online coaching on the side for jiu-jitsu or how is that all connected?

James de Lacey8:00

Yeah. Yeah. So I'm still full-time. I'll flag ourselves. I'm giving myself that kind four, five years to trying to get the heights, get to the heights I want to in football. I said I enjoy the sport. I love working in youth football. It's quite rewarding. Especially when you're looking at working with players cuz a lot of the time you are their first exposure to SNC and a lot of players you'll watch from 12, 13 up until the first pro contract, making debuts for the first team. That stuff for me is quite exciting, which I do enjoy. So, that's my full-time role.

And then alongside that, I run Jiu-Jitsu Pro 4, which is online based SNC service that I, where I try to take some of those principles in elite sport and then bring it into jiu-jitsu world. I feel like there's a bit of a gap there and I do feel like a lot, there's a lot benefit jiu-jitsu guys can get from those kind of principles which hopefully we can discuss a little bit today.

Ed Hanson9:00

Yeah, perfect. Let's go. Let's start there. Let's go into it. So, what are some of these kind of sporting principles you've taken from I guess a lot of from your experience through coaching as well that you're bringing that you feel works well or transfers well over to I guess the general everyday jiu-jitsu practitioner.

Yeah. And I think it's you have to apply it a certain way, because a lot of the guys I work with, I think 99% of the guys I work with are all hobbyists. So you got to apply it a certain way. I do still think it applies. But if you look at how the landscape has changed from a coaching standpoint, so back in the day, you were a pure S&C coach. You were in the gym, you were pushing numbers, that was your role.

And I think especially in football—I'm not sure how it is in rugby and other sports—but especially in football, it's very much devolved where you're more the complete package, if you will. So you're great on paper, you're great in the gym. You know what you're doing. You know how to get the players stronger, faster, fitter. But then you're also competent in or have a good understanding of the sport as well.

So you're not just driving numbers in the gym, but you're also working closely alongside with coaches to drive physical returns on the field in the sessions. You're not leading the sessions, but you're working along. You're like an assistant coach to the head coach.

So the best way to kind of describe it to people who may not be too familiar is you might have, let's say, American football, you got a defensive coach, you've got an offensive coach, and then alongside that, you'll have a coach working with the head coach to drive what physical return you're going to get from the actual practice.

And I think that's something that you can apply to jiu-jitsu to some degree. Maybe obviously not to the same extent that you might do in a sport where you've got so much control over what each player does on the field. But there definitely a lot of principles that we can, if we understand jiu-jitsu well enough, that we can apply to our practices to make sure that we're getting certain physical returns that then drive our performance forward and put ourselves in the best position to succeed in competition or just get better at jiu-jitsu period, which even if you're not competing I still think it's quite valuable to have in your repertoire.

James de Lacey9:53

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That means you're going down more along the lines of changing the, not changing, altering the structure of the actual technical jiu-jitsu training sessions. Is that what you're kind of talking about there to get the—

Ed Hanson12:27

Yeah, kind of. The issue, the main problem in jiu-jitsu is you don't necessarily get control of the session.

If you're, obvious—you go to a session, typical class structure is structured, they'll go through a certain level, certain amount of techniques. You're not in control of that bit, you don't control timings, you don't control the amount of rounds you do. Well, to some degree you might control the amount of rounds you do, don't always control the positions. But there are certain ways I think you can go about approaching your sessions to drive the session towards certain physical returns.

And we can categorize that in a couple of ways. So this is where I kind of try and take some of the stuff that we've done in football—I think we've done in football that people have done in football—and apply it to jiu-jitsu. And I'm sure I feel like it's very similar in rugby in terms of some of the relation models that you guys use.

So a way that we've broken it down—I've seen it broken down, to be fair we don't actually use this too much in the UK, I've seen it more so in like Europe, continental Europe—

James de Lacey13:36

Like a tactical periodization approach.

Ed Hanson13:38

Yeah. Yeah. I see it more in sort of continental Europe. So in the UK, our days are based off stress level, if you will. So we'll have one day which will be like a primary day where this is our main conditioning stimulus, have more of a moderate day, which is moderate through the reduction of volume. And then the days either side of game days are much lighter days where it's a little bit more about recovery on the days post-game and more about priming in the days prior.

In Europe, what I've seen them do is base the days off physical targets, which is what I try and do in the jiu-jitsu performance model, if you will. So what they do is they'll break it down into maybe like a speed day, an endurance day, something along those lines, which I'm sure you've probably seen.

And then from there, we can work down to what we then actually focus on within our game to drive that physical return. So we use the jiu-jitsu. So it's not necessarily we're altering the technical structure of the session, but how we approach the session, how we approach our live training is what then helps us push those physical returns towards a certain direction. Just to make sure we're getting a well-balanced, a well-balanced exposure to our physical development. So that from a performance standpoint just puts us in the best position to be able to find success in competition or in training.

James de Lacey15:14

Yeah, I love this. I love this idea of having a little more, even for just hobbyists and stuff, just having a little more structure to their training week. I mean even, I know myself and I'm sure anybody listening goes into a class, you go, you roll at the end, but you might not have any kind of structural or kind of outcome that you want to get out of the session, you're just rolling rounds. So having something that might help.

But do you want to just go into some examples then of—

Of how you would—

How you would get someone to make a certain session more, say as mentioned, speed-based, endurance-based or strength-based or whatever it is around those qualities.

Ed Hanson15:50

Yeah. Yeah. So I think a good place to start is just have an understanding of your game. So how I've described it before is kind of like a sliding scale. So one end of the scale being ultimate goal, win by submission. Opposite end being, see what you're trying to avoid, submission loss.

Have you, are you familiar with Game Changer, the book by Fergus Connolly?

James de Lacey16:15

I have not read it, but I must have read little bits and pieces of it like many years ago, but it's been a long time.

Ed Hanson16:15

Yeah, I'm, look, I'm not, I've not read it from, I've not read the whole thing. But he breaks it down into sort of different phases. So you got the offensive phase, the defensive phases, more sort of neutral phases, and he's very, he kind of defines it in terms of what the kind of main principles are and then kind of like your micro principles or your sub-principles. Again, it's something that you'll see in the tactical periodization models in football as well.

So within each phase, just have an idea what it is that you want to do. Okay? So it's like from an offensive phase, okay, right, how do I play offense? Neutral, how do I play neutral? Defense, here's how I play defense. And keep, I think just keep it simple. It might just be related to how quickly you want to progress your position.

So in offense, get to a dominant position as quick as possible. In neutral, it might be to be very active in trying to off-balance your opponent. In defense, it might be to try, first opportunity to escape, that type of thing. It can be complicated, obviously. For most people, it's best just to keep it simple.

And then underneath that you have your kind of sub-principles. Okay. But how do you then achieve those targets? So let's say if you want to, let's say pick the most common position, guard position, let's say if you want to be an active guard player that's constantly off-balancing your opponent. Okay. Well, you're going to need to do a good job of managing distance, you'll need to do a good job of establishing meaningful connections. And you know, like, you'll want that across the board from a defensive point and offensive standpoint as well.

They can then form task focuses within your sessions. And again, they can be as simple as you want or as complicated as you want. Best to keep it simple, especially if you're fairly new and you're still kind of getting your head round of the tactical side of jiu-jitsu, the decision-making side of jiu-jitsu.

So you might go into a session, and let's say, and we can go into a bit more detail around this, you want a more endurance-based session. So an endurance-based session, you want frequency of actions, you want density of actions, okay? You want volume, okay? You want level of exchanges. So you might not want to progress your position as quickly as possible because you want exposure to certain areas.

So not only do you get the exposure to the technical area or the skill-based area that you're focusing on for the day, but because you've constrained it to a certain level of exchanges, it puts you in a position where now you're creating tons of opportunity to stress those physical systems, energy systems, however you want to describe it, much more than let's say if you kind of just went into a live rolling situation and you just kind of let things just happen freely.

You might need to adjust it based off skill level. So let's say, because I'm black belt, I go up against somebody who's a blue belt, kind of, with, for the most part, you can kind of, you can do what you want. I was trying to find a better term there, but you can do what you want.

So I've got a lot of freedom to get what I want out of those exchanges. I can create a lot of movement. I can take away movement. I can progress my position quickly. I can progress it slowly. For the most part, you can do that.

Now, when you've got the flip side, a blue belt who wants to apply this and roll with a black belt, you haven't got that freedom. So you have to be a lot more selective in the exchanges that you choose to focus on. You're not going to win or easily win certain exchanges. Let's say you're working your passing, and you want to kind of work maybe more, let's say, muscular endurance and work on those close ranges before you get chest to chest on a good black belt.

You are going to work extremely hard, especially if it's a competitive round. Good black belt is not going to let you get chest to chest on them.

So your exchanges, the exchanges you kind of focus on have to be realistic ones, if that makes sense. So it might be more early phase where you've not got many connections. You're playing a bit more loose and it might just be, okay, can I get outside the legs and create some sort of defensive reaction? And that'll be a good target to set. So you're not necessarily getting those close range exchanges, but again, you just got to be mindful of what battles, what exchanges are the ones that you can win in that scenario.

And then we can structure it from there and we try and find, okay, what can we actually structure our session around, if that makes sense. I'm going to have a tangent now. I'll try to reel back in.

James de Lacey21:54

No, no, you're good because I can ask follow-up questions. So I think what would be even easier to visualize is if you can use that same example of, we can go passing guard and then maybe we can even go to your open guard or playing guard positions. How the intent or what the goal someone's trying to achieve, the differences between a session that's maybe endurance focused versus maybe speed focused versus maybe if you have other qualities that you typically add in there focused.

Because as you mentioned with the endurance one or the speed one, I think trying to get outside the legs, how would that differ from something that's maybe endurance or strength focused?

Ed Hanson22:29

So again, I'll break down the three areas that I primarily focus on. So first one is sort of speed/explosiveness. So here what we're looking to do is push the intensity ceiling. So I think something that we find we tend to struggle with is getting intensity, real intensity in our rounds. Especially if you're even myself as a hobbyist.

I'm not going to go on a Tuesday night and go balls to the wall with another guy who's got kids to go home to and work in the morning. That's just not going to happen. Not most of the time anyway. Some days, but not most of the time. Getting real intensity can be an issue.

So after speed, from an endurance standpoint what we're looking for is density, probably the best way to describe it. We're looking for the repeatability of actions and how much we can get in a certain time frame. And then the other one is, sorry that's volume, endurance is a little bit more on the muscular endurance side or the muscular effort side. So this is thinking more kind of close range exchanges where there's a lot of contact.

So think half guard, think defensive positions trying to escape side control, trying to escape out where there's a lot of contact, you're bearing a lot of weight. That's kind of more your endurance side. So just remind me your question again just so I don't go off track because I will go off track.

James de Lacey24:16

So examples of the different intent of say passing guard or playing guard for the different day qualities for each day. So muscle endurance versus the speed versus the volume.

Ed Hanson24:28

Yeah. So this is where we just kind of understand the type of ranges we're trying to work in. So let's say speed. Let's start with speed. So we're trying to push the intensity there. So we're looking for high intent actions, exert ourselves highly. You're looking for the most part lots of movement. So you're trying to stay loose, you're trying to avoid connections, trying to stay on the outside. And your actions are just a little bit more explosive in nature.

There's other ways that we can do it. There's other layers that we can focus on as well, which I'll touch on now because I think it'll help with some of the other stuff. So you've got your physical primary objective, and then we've got, let's say, physical levers that then help us achieve that. And these are kind of tactical points that help guide our decision.

So let's start with one that I don't really have to term these properly, but I've just termed it depth. What we're looking at here is how far along that scale we try and progress. So from, let's say, if we're passing guard, if you watch, are you familiar with, do you watch a lot of jiu-jitsu by the way? Just so I know.

Let's say if you watched Adam Wazinski and how he passes. The best way to describe his passing I've seen is he slowly takes away space and then there's none left. So it's a very, to be fair, everyone knows this. Gordon Ryan, just watch Gordon Ryan pass anybody's guard. It's a really slow pressure game. Slow grinding horrible process where he'll just slowly just break down every obstacle you put in front of him.

He'll get you flattened out. He'll get chest to chest. He'll get body control. He'll clear your legs. He'll get to mount and he'll find a way to submit you either from the back or from the mount.

So that would be kind of more of a what I'd call a shallow depth in terms of he's not progressing his position very quickly. It's just very slowly one step at a time. On the flip side, who's a good example, Andrew Tackett a good one? Or to be fair Andrew Tackett, Roto, those types of guys who are really explosive, lots of movement. When they pass you'll typically see them get to a very or put their opponent in a very compromised position very quickly.

So they'll be passing loose, not many connections. All of a sudden it'll be like maybe a throw by and immediately they're threatening north south. So that'll be, let's call it more a high level of depth in terms of they're progressing that position quickly. They're going straight into a very threatening position. And that's something that will then create a much bigger defensive reaction.

The other target would be sort of volume. So the amount of exchanges in a certain time frame. So I'm trying to think of a good example here. Again, you can stay on that in terms of the Andrew Tackett example.

James de Lacey28:21

Very high volume of attacks. That's what he's known for.

Ed Hanson28:26

It's constant, right? He's always looking to engage in some way to try and put his opponent on the back foot. And I think some of his matches against one of our best guys, John Flanagan, is a really good example of that from CJI. So really good one to look at. And then the other lever would be the pace. So pace just being how intense your jiu-jitsu is. So those three levers will then kind of guide how you then approach your jiu-jitsu to try and drive those physical targets.

So stay on an example. So I'm not going off tangent here. On passing, if you want a speed based or you want your passing to push that speed physical target, you want your pace to be high. So you want the speed at which you're progressing your jiu-jitsu or progressing your position to be high. You want your depth to be high because you're now creating those big defensive reactions that you then have to counter.

And you want your depth to also be high because now you're creating much more threatening positions. So, sorry, you want your volume to be high because now you've got the frequency of exchanges that then help drive that intensity ceiling a little.

James de Lacey30:12

Be like your Tainan Dalpra, Roto style on your speed.

Ed Hanson30:17

Yeah. So I'm trying not to go off on a tangent here. I'm trying to stay on still. So that's the speed one. So that's what we got covered.

Endurance. So endurance is kind of more on the muscular effort side. So think again, remember just a reminder this is kind of close contact. Think half guard defensive positions trying to escape control trying to escape mount. So in this case pace can be a little bit slower. You want to, again, this is being deliberate. You want to spend time here.

So this is not necessarily a model where you're always thinking about winning the round. It's about getting the necessary exposures to develop in that area. So let's say you're trying to win. So it can be a bit slower here. Depthwise again just to lean on the previous point it's going to be shallow in the sense of your attacks odds are going to just progress you slightly. And to be fair, if you're in a competitive round, that's going to happen anyway. You're not just going to, you can do most part, you're just going to pull somebody off you if they're in control.

You shouldn't be able to... My mount's not great. Some people can do it to me, but you shouldn't be able to just throw somebody off you. It should be a slow process, a steady process to work to a much more dominant position. And then with volume, in terms of the frequency of attacks, that one can be moderate. It's just not realistic for the most part that you're going to get a high volume of attacks in those position just due to high contact nature. It's just going to be a little bit slower.

James de Lacey32:03

So that day that muscle endurance is more defensive positions, establishing frames, working for under hooks, inside positions and stuff like that. And you're just kind of working out of these positions and that's kind of giving the resistance to be that muscular endurance.

Ed Hanson32:19

Spot on. So think of kind of mid close ranges. You'll kind of, I won't say you bypass, I don't want to say this, but you kind of bypass the early stuff. So this is where you're fighting for those early grips just because it really matters. And it's not one where you want to kind of get lazy with because that's my absolute worst habit in that I give up early.

I don't win those early battles often enough and I end up in a terrible position. I've got to fight my way out of which help me in the long run because I'm quite good at it, but it's just it's hard.

I don't want to be doing that in competition against, you know, some of the bigger guys I'm now going to have to go up against. But for the sake of getting that exposure, it's a case of less of a bias on the early extremes probably the best way to put it. More of a bias on mid-range, close range exchange.

James de Lacey33:17

Okay. And then volume. So this is where we're kind of trying to accumulate the number of exchanges. So here we can go sort of moderate to high pace. Depth here will be a bit lower. So again we're just looking for that steady rate of attacks. So kind of that Gordon Ryan style. There's a lot of, there's a high volume. So, when you watch Gordon, and I'm happy to be knocked down on this, but there's a high volume of exchanges if you will, battles being won.

But he's just not going very far with each one, if that makes sense. So like he's getting, he's winning the under the hook. He's clearing the knee shield. He's getting the inside position. He's connecting to the hip. He's getting in the cross face. He's flattening you out. He's not gone very far in the sense that we not pass your guard yet, but he's just slowly grinding away and putting you in a position where when it comes to his time to pass to pass your guard, there's nothing left.

So that hopefully for anyone who might be listening to this and that might be a bit of confusion as to kind of the difference between the two that hopefully will clear it. So like there's a lot going on there but it's just happening. It's just not progressing the position very quickly. But it's just he's just winning all those little battles that put him in a much more dominant position. And then, so where am I? So I've got pace, which is...

Ed Hanson35:06

So volume. So yeah, so that's what means those high frequency of exchanges where he's doing a lot, but like I said, he's not progressing his position that quickly, if that makes sense, on purpose because that's his game. He wants to grind you out, fatigue you, put you in a fatigue state so when he's ready to submit you, you've got nothing left.

So that's how you then approach a more kind of volume based session, if you will, where you've got plenty of exchanges that you're working on. You're taking your time in that position. So, you're not trying to progress it that quickly. You're not trying to just blow past somebody's guard. You want to be, because let's say I'm going up against someone who I know I can pass their guard very easily.

I want to put myself in a position where I'm having to fight those battles. I'm going to have to fight against another good black belt. I know it's not necessarily going to be the exact same, but I'm at least I'm giving him the opportunity to try and win those battles.

So, again, it hopefully creates a little bit of a back and forth where I'm not just, you know, blowing past somebody's guard and I'm not giving opportunity to work on stuff. There's a bit of back and forth there where I'm giving you opportunity to take stuff and obviously I'm going to not allow you to do it, but it becomes more of a not even role but more of a productive role for both of us in that sense.

James de Lacey36:38

So if I was doing those three days in a passing guard example. So for the speed day it would be more kind of upright upright postures playing with the legs trying to almost create angles to get entries that way to put it. If I'm doing a volume day, I might kneel down and go straight into like a half guard position, start trying to clear knees and knee shields and clear the arm, etc. to get inside position and chest to chest. And then if I'm doing a muscular endurance day, I might sit and play guard or play half guard or play more defensive positions.

Ed Hanson37:15

On the right track.

James de Lacey37:17

Yeah, some more defensive positions where maybe you're allowing more contact or even if you are on top you let's say if I'm going up against somebody who I know I'm better than I'll focus more on the types of battles I'm trying to win are going to be more the mid-range battles if you will so connecting to the upper body and getting them flat as opposed to getting to just maybe clearing knee shields frames and trying to get inside and just win the inside battle.

Now I'm trying to connect to her head, get them flat and start working to start maybe not say free the knee but just maintain that position while see they're still trying to defend.

Ed Hanson38:06

Gotcha. So how are you then structuring this for someone who comes to you for coaching and they train jiu-jitsu three times a week. Are they just doing kind of one of these qualities in each session?

James de Lacey38:06

It varies a lot. So, it won't, I won't necessarily... This is something I probably do if you're training, let's say, four, three, four times a week, four, five times a week, I'd say. Probably just the safe bet for most people who kind of go down this route. If you're training twice a week, for the most part, both sessions should be hard. If you're only training twice a week, load management still a thing to a degree because if you're in that position so you probably got job, probably got responsibilities that is stress to take into account.

But for the most part, most those sessions should be hard. So it'll just be not necessarily that same level of detail, but it'll be just certain areas that you might want to focus on to make sure that we're getting the intensity. So in the first instance, I'll just look at their training and just get them to log RPE how intensity sessions first and foremost before even for guys on the performance ball stuff. The big thing that you'll see again I mentioned before the intensity of sessions is always something that we will struggle to see.

If you're training twice a week and you want to get better, even if you don't want to compete, but you just want to get better, you need to be working hard regardless of where of what your objectives are, be it if you want to just train or if you want to compete. So having an idea of how hard your sessions are, I think is a really important insight to have.

If I see that, okay, sessions, and this is I've very rarely come across somebody who's just training twice, three times a week, and sessions are where they should be, I'll look at where the sessions are. I'll see what they're doing in those sessions. So, I usually have like a reflection log in with my coaching and just see what you're doing. I'll just give you little tips just to try and bump the intensity up.

And it could be very simple in terms of take everything that we've just said away. Go back to the side of scale. How quickly can you progress your positions in certain rounds and be very selective in the rounds that you do it. Don't try and do it every round initially. Just try and do it in one or two rounds where you know okay right I can exert some level of control in these rounds and in these rounds I am going to be very aggressive my jiu-jitsu. My pace is going to be very high. I'm going to try and progress my jiu-jitsu very quickly in these shield rounds.

And straight away, you'll tend to see an increase in intensity. And that's how simple I'll keep it for somebody who's only maybe training twice a week, once a week because not everybody maybe wants to go into that same level of detail. So, I'll try and do I've given out the full thing there, but I'll try and do on different levels just to kind of meet people where they're at because I back it and it's worked very well, but it's quite demanding in terms of there's a lot of reflection involved on the other side, which not a bad thing. So, if you want to improve, that's sometimes just what you have to do.

Ed Hanson41:22

But not everybody wants to do that, which is fine. So I try and scale it down so it's just rather than this long document of okay right here's what you need to be doing in each session. It's very much okay right here are one or two key points to then help you just bump the intensity of your session slightly just so that you're getting more out of your session and then we'll make sure your S&C is on point around that.

James de Lacey41:48

Okay, that's a good segment actually. How does the, how do you, I guess your general philosophy around strength conditioning, how do you like that to be set up, structured to kind of support what's happening within the jiu-jitsu training?

Ed Hanson42:03

Yeah, I think the main one is I like a very flexible approach to programming. So you had Na Malovich on recently. Really really good episode. So a lot of my work, I'd message you around that to be fair. A lot of my work is based off some of his work around agile periodization. Just because going back to my time in Leicester and how chaotic that schedule was. That was just the best fit from a periodization model standpoint I found for my work.

And you learn about all these nice intricate periodization models and you try and apply it in normal situations. I say normal situations in sporting situations and they fall flat on their faces. And when I read some of his work around agile periodization, that's the one thing that actually, this makes perfect sense for the situation I'm in. That's an elite sport in context, but I do very much think it very much applies to the context of the hobbyist because you're talking about schedules that might change. Not because of a competition schedule, but because work has kept him behind for a good few hours.

He's getting ill. My son's ill right now, so I have to mess with my fiance to, you have to look after him just for half an hour while I'm on this podcast if he wakes up. So again, I'm not going to be able to train for myself. I'm not going to be able to train properly tomorrow because I'm going to make sure he's all right. So your schedule will change for a variety of things.

So having a periodization model that is flexible and allows you to adjust while respecting what your big picture goal is, is really important. So what I do within the programming, I just break down or at least categorize my sessions and just have blocks where I could just move things around throughout the week to best fit what's going on on the mats. So I try and put everything in respect to the mat.

So a big thing I'm trying to get on to my clients with is what's your schedule for the week? I don't need to know every little detail, but when do you plan on training? It hasn't got to be an exact, okay right I'm going to do this session I'm going to train for this long. I just need to know when you're training and then obviously I'll have a good enough relationship where I'll know about working schedule and stuff like that and any other hobby that they've got. And then from there that's when we can plan.

Typically sessions will just be a whole body split like most of us do, but I'll break it down each session into five sections if you will. So we'll have more of a dynamic explosive movement section where you kind of get your plyos, jumps in. Your strength section, which is where you push your intensity ceiling from a force production standpoint.

A secondary section, I'll call it a secondary, it's more like a volume based section where you accumulate work in that area. So you might see GPP circuits, hypertrophy clusters, things like that in that section where if their goal is maybe put on a bit of size, that'll be something that will emphasize size.

We might even have an accessory section, which is where we'll focus more on movement quality, targeting the injury sensitive sites, just making sure those tissues are healthy. And then a conditioning section, which is where we look to really target energy system development.

Within that I'll, the whole body session will have all of those blocks but then it'll also have the flexibility to just move those blocks around throughout the week. So we still tick off those key boxes but we have the flexibility based off what might get thrown at us during the week. So let's say we do a jiu-jitsu session on a Monday night, plan to lift on a Tuesday. The jiu-jitsu session goes left on a Monday. We're now really fatigued. However, that Tuesday is really the primary day to lift throughout the week.

So it's just a case of, okay right, just to provide clarity and make it easy for where I'm working with. Okay right. These are the sections. These are the ones that we can exclude for today. Let's get rid of the volume. Let's get rid of some of the conditioning because you already had a tough session. And then we'll just make minor adjustments to the rest of the work that's left just to make sure that everything fits around what you've already done and what you might have coming up.

But the point is that even in a setting where you don't necessarily think about elite competition, elite performance, those principles that we've experienced, you and I in our previous settings can still be applied to the hobbyist setting as well.

James de Lacey47:10

Yeah, I love that. I love that take on the agile approach and how things can't be set in stone as I think most people figured out from their own experience.

Ed Hanson47:21

Yeah. And I think that that's the main thing. Everything else is really simple and it's just I've learned, again multiple scenarios, I've learned the hard way just to keep it simple. Don't make it complicated. Don't make people work hard to get after it. People just want something simple to follow and get after in the gym. So that strength work is—

James de Lacey47:47

Sorry, go on.

I was going to say for any of your guys that compete, does that training maybe change potentially, kind of leading into competition or even competition week?

Ed Hanson48:02

Minor, barely anything to be fair for the most part unless it's a major competition. I try, only last two days especially if there's travel, only last two days really. Because what I try and communicate to a lot of them, especially if you're only competing locally, just see it as just another—

James de Lacey48:23

Just see it as another—

Ed Hanson48:25

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, just see as part of the process. Because what I don't want to do, now I'm not saying it's a massive knock to your training, but let's say you treat it like a big deal. You'll go into a block two, one or two weeks prior to competition. You have a big deal, kind of easing off week if you will. That's two or three weeks that you've lost. Let's say you compete four or five times a year. That's a huge chunk of training that you lose.

And I'm not saying that it's to that extent, but I'm just saying you're taking away a lot of training there for a competition that, they're physically demanding, but they're not that demanding. That makes sense.

James de Lacey49:15

You take first place then with only two people in the division or something.

Ed Hanson49:18

Yeah. Yeah. I've done that me. The next day, you could obviously take a day or two off because it's still, but you're going to be fine. So if you're taking one or two weeks off side of that, that's a huge chunk of training missing. So I try not to change too much. I try and keep, obviously I'll make minor modifications just to keep the momentum going, but I'm not taking anything away for the most part.

So they'll still get a good strength session in week of competition and they might pull back for one of their sessions prior to the day, especially if there's travel involved. Or even if there is travel involved, they'll do a primer the day before just so they're still active, still primed. And then they'll do a recovery day one or two days post competition, which is kind of something at home base, just kind of get it moving again, like a reset day, and then back to it after another day or two after that.

So the whole thing for me is just to keep the ball rolling throughout the year. Because again if you're a white belt, blue belt, purple belt, think long term. We're trying to get you in the best position possible physically because you want to be doing well come brown belt, come black belt. So I think just think long term in terms of your development and just making sure that you're not missing out on chunks of training for competitions that in four, five years time nobody's going to remember. I can't remember some of my competitions. I've literally no recollection of some of them happening. It's not that big of a deal.

I don't want to diminish what people might be going through right now because let's say if Euros, I think started today.

You know, if you're prepping for Euros now at this moment in time, that's the biggest thing that you're prepping for. I don't want to diminish that. My point is that in the grand scheme of things, prioritize long-term development over every competition being put on such a pedestal that it takes away from your training.

James de Lacey51:39

That's a good message, too. And you've done some content around masters' competitors, too. Are there any training considerations that may differ for that population that you kind of like to I guess somewhat implement or that's part of your philosophy?

Ed Hanson51:39

I don't think necessarily anything different. Maybe stuff I'd emphasize a bit more. I'm big on a very appropriate amount of volume and it's not necessarily because they're older always. It's just due to the fact that there's just more responsibilities to deal with. They tend to just, obviously if especially if they've been in sport a long time there might be restrictions from previous injuries, but it's generally speaking there just tends to be a lot more outside factors that come into play in that population.

For the most part, kids tend to be higher up in their job. There's a lot more going on in life that gets in the way of training. So I'm very mindful of volume and I've got one or two sets for the most part for some of the strength movements, something that I'll probably keep consistent for a while.

On the more explosive side, especially, I'll always try and introduce it to some degree, just do feel it does have a benefit in terms of just confidence and just feeling athletic again. And then from a daily movement standpoint, that's to be fair, this is across the board, but I do try and emphasize with the older guys because it tends to be something that's not seen quite a lot.

I'll try and just encourage some sort of habit of daily movement. Be it some sort of structured mobility by myself or just some sort of activity where they're getting a wide variety of movement in their day. If they want to do yoga, do yoga, that's fine. If you want to do anything along those lines.

But just those are the main things I'll try and emphasize because again it's not anything overly different from what I would do. It's more just what I'd probably just bias a little bit more. But I've had a couple of guys who are 45 and absolutely flying, fine. I can throw whatever I want at them and absolutely fine. So those are the things I will try and emphasize for the most part when I'm working with masters grapplers, but I don't really consider, well I compete masters but I don't really consider anybody 30, 35 old.

James de Lacey54:30

Maybe mid-40s, okay fair enough. But if you're even like 30 to late 30s, not old.

Ed Hanson54:43

Yeah, I mean you had Dustin on last week, didn't you? And I think you said a sort of similar thing like you're not old, you're 35, you're young. So I don't, for the most part, I don't change too much. But again it's very much based off the fact that generally speaking, not always, but generally speaking if you are a little bit older there are more outside factors that get in the way of training. So it's just a bit more respect to that. I just mean that I bias certain things.

James de Lacey55:16

Funny you mention around the low volume, the one to two sets on some of the main movements. I don't think people, I'm not going to say they don't get it because that's too harsh, but along those lines, I can't find the words, but one to two sets is once you start doing that, you realize you can make pretty damn good progress just hitting one to two top sets on a lift and actually doing it hard because the intensity is there and you can progress through the weeks and you'll feel damn good doing it too.

Ed Hanson55:46

Oh, 100%. So my background is jiu-jitsu first. I started jitsu when I was sort of 16, 17, but I fell out of love in jiu-jitsu for a bit, moved to powerlifting. I was powerlifting for years, so I was very much like I'll push everything hard, lots of volume, got injured. So I'm a statistic of really promising junior powerlifter that gets hurt really early in his career and has to retire.

Yeah, needed something to keep myself busy so went back to jiu-jitsu. So I went back to jiu-jitsu when I was 27. I was a purple belt for seven years and obviously eventually went to black belt. But when I came back I had that kind of issue where I was like, okay, I can't train the same way I trained when I was powerlifting now. I'm screwed, everything hurts.

So it just purely came about by coincidence, but I was just like I haven't got much time. I'll just do one set today. I'll just go up and that just became my training and that's how I've been training for the last good three, four years now. I'll just do one or two main sets, move on to my secondary work, and that's my session done.

So my sessions are really short, to the point. And as you said, because you are to the point you can get that intensity up really high. The volume's appropriate where it's not going to kill you and it just allows you to make, it's not linear, not pushing the weight every single week especially when you're stronger, allows you to make consistent progress throughout the year. And it's something that I've seen, to be fair, one of my younger guys, he's 26, 27, but we've put on his trap bar in the first year we're together a good sort of 60 kilos and he's again he's only doing two sets a week. Sorry, two working sets for the most part. And we've not really pushed volume a great deal. We just been smart of intensity.

James de Lacey57:49

So that's it.

Ed Hanson57:52

It's something more people should consider. I think especially in jiu-jitsu is bad for this. Everyone loves to grind. Everybody loves to push it hard and this real you want to be grafting, which I get. I understand this. It's good to work hard and you feel good when you work hard. I just feel for a lot of people you just have to consider the sustainability because I see so many people think right today I'm going to go all in and then within a few months time they're like oh my knee's doing, my ankle's, my back's in pieces, I'm just like yeah what you expect.

I think one thing I'm really, I try, well I don't know, I'm terrible with content so I do try and get across is just your program. The primary factor of success is can you sustain it and repeat it over and over again to give you the best chance of getting results. The all in program is good, but I think the mileage is limited based off how unlikely it is that you will see that through for an extended period of time to get the results that you want.

And even if you do get there, you're going to have to come, set your foot off the gas at some point. Then well, where does that leave you then?

It's just finding that program that's just, or find that structure that's sustainable. I'll say program, there's no one program, but just finding a structure for you that's sustainable. So again, I'll go back to that individual, that same individual. We've not changed much in this program for the last six, seven months. Same structure. We've not, obviously we've tweaked things because there does need to be some variability. Nobody wants to do the same thing over and over again. But we've not changed much in the last six, seven months.

The structure is the same. Okay. He'll do a little bit of jumps. He'll get into a couple of sets of his squat, RDL. We'll hit bench that day and that'll be done. Okay. So he does more volume on bench because typically I'll do more volume upper body because he can handle it. But two sets for a squat, that's his first day done.

Second day again, a little bit more power work. I'll do some power work at least twice a week for the most part. He'll do some form of a loaded jump. He'll hit his trap bar a couple of sets and he'll move on to a bit more secondary work. So some flat dumbbell bench pressing, some rolls. That'll be him done. Third day, just more of an accessory day. It's cardio on that day as well. That's it.

And that's been consistent. Obviously we make a little tweaks to some accessory work, a little tweak some of the variations in secondary work, but for the most part, that's his program. And six, seven months, he's just continue to improve. This is a younger guy. It very much can be a really beneficial tool. Not saying I'm big on low volume.

See, I'm not low volume. It's more just I'm big on appropriating volume to make sure that the volume is appropriate for what you're trying to achieve long term, not just trying to get after the next immediate goal. Always think for long term and where do you want to be in six, seven, eight months time. I think that's just from my past experience.

I try not to anyway think about, well, the next week's numbers or the next two weeks or this block's numbers. I try and think about where do I want to be come the end of the year, where do I want my numbers to be then and that will then guide my decisions in that session.

So it's like okay I could take this next set bump up to RPE 9 and a half, but where would that then leave me for the next couple of weeks? And I think that's something that people might want, not necessarily not just in the lift but even in jiu-jitsu as well. I could try and take my jiu-jitsu and push everything and give everything I can for the next session, next couple, next week, which every now and again you should do.

But then you got to think about, okay right, where does that leave me for the next couple of weeks? Am I going to be in a bad position? Will I be able to train properly next week because I've decided to train five times in a row and try to push all five sessions as hard as I can?

So it's just again I'm not necessarily low volume. I'm more appropriated volume, whatever the term is.

Yeah, that's it. That's the team I'm on.

James de Lacey1:03:06

That's a great way that the podcast did as well. Where can people find and follow you, keep up with what you're doing?

Ed Hanson1:03:12

Yes, the main platform Instagram, ed_jiu perform, be the best place to find me is where I'm at for the most part. I do have a YouTube channel that I'm not as active on. However, there is a lot of content on there that cover a lot of stuff I've mentioned.

Anybody listening who does want to get more detail, feel free to go there. There is about an hour worth of content on that stuff. There's any, yeah just drop me a message if you want any more information or any more detail on some of the stuff I've discussed. But yeah really really good chat James, hope you enjoyed it.

James de Lacey1:03:52

Yeah and that went a direction that I didn't know was going to go and it was perfect because it was integrating all the technical and conditioning and stuff together and I was like yeah this is cool I like this. Yeah good, yeah hopefully people enjoyed it and yeah really good to chat. Like I said I've been a fan for for a long time, seen a lot of your stuff for a very long time. Yeah, good to see you in person and yeah, get a chat.

Ed Hanson1:04:13

Yeah, and I appreciate it. And yeah, I'll make sure you link, I'll link all your stuff up in the description as well so people can check it out. And thanks for coming on.

James de Lacey1:04:21

Thank you very much.

Ed Hanson1:04:22

Yeah, no problem at all. One's good to shot.