Haoson Nian On Strength & Conditioning For BJJ + Best Exercises To Help Performance (SSOF Ep. 22)

James de Lacey2:19

For sure. Yeah, definitely. All right, so I want to dive into a little bit of your, I guess, your sports science data. And for anyone listening, some of this might sound a little scientific, but we're going to break it right down to essentially being actionable for you guys listening as well.

So a lot of your data is correlational, at least stuff you've seen. Maybe you might want to go into other stuff if you have it. But firstly, you've kind of correlated, I guess, different tests together, and you've correlated tests by, I guess, the martial art and also test potentially by level. But do you want to maybe start with a general overview of what a correlation actually is and what kind of, I guess, what information that gives you as a practitioner to have correlations between, whether that's levels of fighters or tests and anything like that?

Haoson Nian3:17

Yeah, so I'll try and break it down simplest terms. But basically a correlation, you could see it as a bit of relationship between two things or variables in more scientific terms. And basically we're looking at different trends.

So for example, one of the things I sent you was looking at the correlation between the counter movement jump and a trap bar deadlift 3RM, for example. So what we found there is there's a bit of a positive correlation between the counter movement jump, the jump height itself, and also how much the athlete can lift on a 3RM test. The other tests, to be honest, have fairly weak correlations. I think it's in terms of the specificity of the position, probably just doesn't translate well to the sort of key, big, traditional big lifts.

But yeah, I found... I've been doing a bit more diving into the data in terms of looking at some other metrics. One thing that I've been looking at recently is looking at some momentum-based stuff. I know there's been some research around in rugby. So I think in terms of your lighter weight classes, they're going to have more of their speed characteristics, so they're going to generally achieve higher jump heights compared to someone like Bam Bam Tuivasa, who's obviously a lot heavier in weight but actually has quite good momentum figures.

And momentum is basically, I guess, if you think about, for example, in a takedown in MMA, how much, or I guess you're countering the object's resistance. So you want to be able to have the maximum momentum to be able to carry through your takedown in order to finish the takedown and take the person to the ground. So yeah, there's a lot of different metrics that we can talk about further, I guess.

James de Lacey5:23

Perfect. We'll come back to momentum, but we'll start with what you mentioned in the beginning, which was the positive correlation between essentially your vertical jump and your trap bar deadlift three-rep max. So what does that mean for someone listening that there's a positive correlation between those two lifts?

Haoson Nian5:23

Yep, so basically, if it's a positive correlation, it means the higher that you can jump, generally we find that the higher numbers of the 3RM that you can achieve in the trap bar deadlift. So that's pretty much what it means there.

James de Lacey5:54

So if I was, I'm saying, okay, so if I can jump higher, then I can trap bar deadlift more weight, and vice versa. If I trap bar deadlift more weight, I'm probably going to jump higher. How does that fact into your programming or influence your programming for, I guess, Combat Sports?

Haoson Nian5:54

Yeah, so with the, I guess the counter movement jump, we look at one of the main two metrics we look at. We look at the contraction time, so the time to take off, so basically how long you're taking to jump, and also the jump height itself.

So if the athlete is, I guess, taking a long time to jump, then we tend to have more of a velocity-based focus for the athlete. So they'll tend to lift at higher velocities. But then we also use things like the isometric mid-thigh pull, which is another, I guess, test for strength, maximum force output, and also, I guess, how fast the athlete can produce the force.

So we look at another metric, which is force at 200 milliseconds. And you think about that's less than a second, so it's basically the force you can produce in a very short period of time. And then we look at a percentage of the force at 200 milliseconds compared to their maximal force, and we like to see that at about 50%.

But in terms of the, I guess, the IMTP, we tend to look at that more as more of a strength focus. So I guess, yeah, if the athlete is achieving slightly below average or well below average, then obviously those guys, they tend, sometimes tend to be beginner sort of combat guys, and then they get more of a force-dominant focus. So they'll tend to lift a little bit heavier in the gym and yeah, focus on those more traditional lifts first before progressing to obviously higher velocity lifts closer to their fight camp.

James de Lacey8:06

Is there a way maybe for people listening that don't have access to say force plates and things like that to do any of this testing that they can kind of figure out where on the spectrum they should most likely train to improve power outputs within MMA or other Combat Sports?

Haoson Nian8:06

Yeah, so I think this comes back to some of the findings that we have with our data. So we tend to find that... So what we do at Ethos is, because we technically don't have enough athletes to sort of divide our data by weight classes and sports specific, because for example, a wrestler cohort might only have... You know, we got some pretty high-level wrestlers here who compete internationally, but we only have five of them, so the sample size isn't really too great.

So I've sort of combined different disciplines of Combat Sports together. So that's why I've got things like grappling as one category, MMA as another, and striking-based sports. Obviously it's not ideal, but I think it sort of fits what our context is.

And basically, so for example, for a grappler, we found that their peak net force output is significantly greater than say an MMA fighter or a boxer. Now I think that's due to the nature of the sport. Obviously grappling, it's very technical focus, but at the same time, I think the contraction types that you see in grappling are sort of like your longer duration isometric holds, and being able to take someone to the ground requires a fair bit of strength.

As well, compared to more, you know, if you look at it on the other side of the spectrum, it's just striking-based sports very velocity, well, mostly velocity-based focus. And I guess more reactive strength focus, which is another thing we can talk about later in the podcast. But yeah, so back to the question, I guess, if you don't have the resources to sort of test yourself or find resources like us where you can actually come in for testing, then yeah.

For grapplers, generally we find that grapplers are already strong, so we might have to adapt your training so that you're improving other qualities like power and things like that. Whereas on the other side of the spectrum, maybe your striking sports, they're already really fast and reactive already, so we find that they're lacking in a bit more of that strength.

So that's where in things like your general prep period where you can actually do a little bit more work, we can address those weaknesses. And then as we transition closer to the fight camp or closer to the fight, we can make that more back to your strength, which is more velocity-based training.

James de Lacey11:06

Nice. I want to come back to your momentum calculation too. I think that momentum is obviously, as you mentioned, making its way now through the research. More people are using it because it obviously gives more insight into I guess how someone's moving in terms of speed. Because obviously, as you mentioned, there's weight classes, right? The same thing in rugby. Obviously you got big guys in the front row, 120 kilos running X speed, and you've got the backs who are lighter, who are always going to be faster.

But you can't really compare that because of the weight difference, whereas momentum obviously kind of negates that weight difference and gives you a value based on their mass. So I guess from that momentum data, how are you using that to influence your programming? And if someone's listening, how can they figure out whether it's a say a weight issue or a speed issue in terms of what's going on?

Haoson Nian12:03

Yeah, so with the momentum calculation, it's basically multiplying your body weight by how quickly you're taking off in the jump. So basically, I guess for your heavier weights, you really need to be able to help them maintain their size because obviously that's a big part of momentum.

So yeah, with that in mind, I think the training, especially in that general prep period, that's where you can include more hypertrophy-based exercises to help build some size and keep that lean tissue mass. And then progressively, as they obviously get closer to the fight camp, they might need to cut down a little bit.

In terms of, I guess, the velocity, again we use a lot of the velocity-based training here at Ethos. So yeah, we're working generally at high velocities at the high ends. So we might do things like loaded jumps, like a loaded countermovement jump on a trap bar. Generally work it above one meter per second.

And lately we've been playing around with peak power as well. So on the on the Flex devices, so I do a bit of a power profile. We work up to a weight where they achieve that peak power, which is displayed on the device. You get that figure from the iPad, and then we can maximize the power output within those exercises as well. So those are just some of the ways that we help athletes to actually maintain their size and also to train the takeoff velocity as well for the jumps.

James de Lacey14:08

Nice, nice, nice. So are you using peak velocity for the jumps and then average velocity for like I guess like squats and things like that? Or do you have a preference in terms of what you like to use?

Haoson Nian14:08

So at the moment we're still using velocity for each. But I think lately I've just been playing around with using peak power and then trying to figure out, try to develop a profile for that. And then work up to a weight that, so I guess they're in their first week, I guess the best way to sort of use it would be like in their first week they'd be doing the profile.

And then the following week they can use those loads to achieve the peak power, which was found in the previous week. And then they can continue the program from there. But basically I guess it makes sense, like if you're developing power to be training at peak power.

James de Lacey15:07

Nice. So you also mentioned before about the reactive strength. So are you assessing reactive strength? And then if so, I guess how are you training reactive strength that can be used by the people listening, maybe who don't I guess have a lot of the equipment or maybe they're just training a commercial gym or anything like that?

Haoson Nian15:07

Yeah, so with reactive strength we use the 10-5 RSI test, which is basically 10 pogo jumps. So the athlete performs 10 pogo jumps. The jumps are performed with relatively stiff knees and it's mostly focused through the ankle. And it's very similar to like jumping when you're skipping. So I guess I always cue the athlete to minimize the time on the ground and to try and bounce up as high as possible.

And then from that data, basically it takes the average of the best five out of those 10 jumps. So we look at how much time they're spending on the ground and also how much time they're spending in the air. And what it's measuring is basically the athlete's stretch-shortening cycle capacity, so basically how quickly the athlete can transition from I guess absorbing force to producing force.

So obviously in a lot of sports, those actions tend to be quite prevalent, even in things like boxing. Reactive strength I guess is quite important in like change of direction and things. So I guess for boxing, you have to be able to change direction quickly to evade punches, create angles, all that kind of stuff.

So from our data as well, we found that the RSI figures are definitely elevated in the striking populations. I think just due to the nature of the sport, they're very bouncy and springy in nature. If you think about grapplers or I guess MMA, a lot of those guys, even in MMA, they come from a big wrestling background as well. So you find that they're more, you find that the values are higher in terms of the strength department. But in terms of the RSI velocity, takeoff velocity for the CMJ, those values are definitely elevated in the striking population.

In terms of how people can train it, to be honest we use a lot of plyometric training. I know a lot of fighters are jumping on powerlifting programs or bodybuilding programs. And yeah, even some, obviously the information's getting a lot better for combat sports, but yeah, even a lot of our guys who are coming in, they had very little experience with plyometrics. Just doing simple things like a countermovement jump or a squat jump, they actually tend to struggle with it quite a bit. So that's where our coaching comes in and things.

But ultimately, yeah, we're looking at, if you're looking to build some reactive strength qualities, then definitely including things like plyometrics can be useful for the athlete. Now obviously we need to keep in mind as well the time of the, I guess, the competitive period for the combat athlete.

So for example, in our general prep period we use a lot of extensive-based plyometrics, just generally to build capacity through the connective tissues like tendons and ligaments. And also just to prepare them for more intensive blocks. We have a very, I guess, progression-based system here at Ethos as well.

So we're using some extensive-based exercises where they can get countless amounts of reps in. We can use progressions and make that more intensive in nature later on in their program, but just adjusting little subtle things such as using a band-resisted variation or band-assisted variation. So yeah, those are just some ways that you can develop reactive strength.

James de Lacey19:17

Nice. And in your experience then, because obviously from the profiles or the data you've collected, you see say grapplers, because of the nature of the sport, they tend to be stronger, they don't have that much of that reactive strength. Do you still find that it's useful to still develop that quality? Say maybe a jiu-jitsu person listening, even though the sport doesn't require or have that requirement I guess within it, unless maybe you're playing a more wrestling-dominant style jiu-jitsu kind of thing.

Haoson Nian19:50

Yeah, I think it's ultimately, like for me, I still like training a lot of the different physical qualities. I like including them in different components in every program. But in terms of the amount that you need to do, I'd say

For a Jiu-Jitsu athlete, it's probably not as necessary to have, it'd be bonus to have good reactive strength, but at the same time it's, yeah, ultimately it might make you a better athlete but at the same time the whole concept of, yeah, the fact that Jiu-Jitsu is very technically focused as well. The technique is, you look at, I think it was John Danaher, obviously, I think he talked about on the Lex Friedman podcast he was saying when you look at the podium finish of a major Jiu-Jitsu competition, they're all different sizes.

So it's one of those sports where how athletic you are or how big you are, it all comes down to the technique itself and how skilled. It's one of the most skill-dominant sports there is.

But yeah, I'd say with grapplers we do include components of reactive strength, but I guess they're more focused. With the plyometric stuff, you can categorize it with your shorter contact plyometrics and your longer contact plyometrics. So your shorter duration plyometrics are, they're more tendon-focused, using that elastic energy from the tendon, whereas your longer plyometric work, they're more muscular-focused.

So in terms of the grappling side of things, I think using some of the more longer duration-based plyometrics would be useful because there's a bit of that muscular contribution as well. So you can develop your ability to be producing large amounts or large quantities of force over a constrained period of time.

James de Lacey21:46

Nice. We actually haven't had many, I guess, coaches come on that work with Jiu-Jitsu athletes, but I guess mainly because boxing and MMA are professional so there's money in that, money to spend on coaching and stuff. Obviously, Jiu-Jitsu isn't, I guess, professional as such, even though obviously you've got some of the guys at the top making a lot of money, but it's not professional like some of the other combat sports.

So it's good that you maybe dive into a little bit of maybe how you design, I guess, strength training programs for the Jiu-Jitsu athlete. I know it's a very general question, but maybe if you want to cover just a general overview of how a training program would look maybe for a normal Jiu-Jitsu training schedule and then maybe as they're leading towards a competition how maybe that might change.

Haoson Nian22:47

Yeah, so with our programming here, I guess for me with general prep phase, it's really capacity-focused. So with our resistance training side of things, we tend to include high volumes just to develop good muscle mass. Obviously that's, I guess, important to introduce as well, general strength. You need to have that good baseline strength, and at the same time, including things like some general power work as well.

So Olympic lifting derivatives are useful, I find, just like a hang clean shrug or like a, again like I said before, like a loaded jump. Those kinds of things are really useful, I guess, in general period where those exercises, I guess, aren't really complex in nature.

And then as they transition closer to competitions, we might make some of those contraction types a little bit more specific, so, and positions as well. So we utilize a lot of staggered stance work, so you think about mainly stand-up, for example, they're in that staggered stance position ready to take the opponent down. So we use a lot of things like hand-supported safety bar squats is a great way to sort of train, I guess, maximal strength in a staggered position.

And you can pretty much do a full body exercise as well because you're sort of using your arms as well to help you up, and you can really load it up, and it also eliminates the stability factor too. So we use a lot of that, we do a lot of staggered stance work with jumping as well to develop the power in those positions.

In terms of some of the strength work, we tend to transition it more to, I guess, your longer isometric holds, upwards of 10 to 20 seconds, training that ability to be able to grip and hold things. For example, we even do things like a gi chin-up. We have a gi here at the gym, we chuck it on the bar and they're working on their grip strength with the gi whilst doing a strength exercise. So that, in terms of resistance training, that's sort of how we cover it.

And then obviously in terms of some of the accessory work, we find having good groin strength is quite important as well. So there always tends to be a threat of, just, groin accessory work. And yeah, that's definitely found in some of our Force Frame data as well. We look at the abduction and adduction strength, we find yeah, Jiu-Jitsu athletes have a 1.14 ratio, so that means they're significantly stronger with their groin squeeze, so squeezing in, than pushing out abduction. So yeah, we tend to include that as an area of robustness.

Also just some general elbow work, like tricep stuff, is I think it's useful, especially getting caught in arm bars and things. I think having that good elbow strength is really important. And also a lot of unilateral work as well, just to ensure that the athlete minimizes chance of injury and things from submissions from the lower body as well.

And then in terms of the conditioning side of things, so again, just a pretty, I guess, traditional progression. So for me I like developing that aerobic base further out from competition, and then as we get closer towards the competitions, we tend to transition it more to your anaerobic energy systems or do things like doing a short sprint on a Watt bike or a salt bike.

And then they transition into some rest work, but with that rest work they make it specific to the sport. So we do a lot of shadow grappling or shadow wrestling within those rest breaks as well, and then they'll interchange between those two activities.

So they'll go through, for example, like a 10-second sprint into just some shadow grappling work where they can really visualize what they want to do in the lead-up to the competitions and they can work on little techniques and things that they're looking to improve on for their competition as well.

In saying that, a lot of the times, especially with our amateur grappling guys and same with our amateur boxers, you tend to find that they're competing quite regularly as well. So that's also a big consideration, which is why sometimes this periodization, what I've described at the moment, is a, I guess, a periodization model that we use for some of our higher-level grapplers where they might have a big event or a big competition and we have that time to sort of plan it out.

But sometimes you've got amateur boxers or amateur grapplers who are competing almost every week. So for me in that instance, that's where the programming changes and I like to use a vertical integration approach where I'm including little doses of your strength, power, speed work, little doses of conditioning as well within the week. And then generally for those athletes they're pretty consistent in the gym, so you'll find that if they're training for the whole year, they can gradually build those qualities over a longer period of time.

And I guess, yeah, another consideration as well is also how, I guess, how they pull up from those competitions as well. So we have some guys who do Jiu-Jitsu competitions, they have upwards of six to seven matches, which is crazy, in one day. So the next week might have to be a significant deload week as well. So there's a lot of considerations around training the amateur guys.

Always a lot of, I guess, on the internet they have all those periodization models, but it tends to be for the real high-level professional fighters where you can have your general prep, specific prep, fight camp period. But a lot of the time with the amateur guys, pretty much makes up the majority of the combat sport population, they're competing quite regularly. So that makes my job as a strength and conditioning coach very interesting as well because I have to adapt, I'm always adapting programs on the fly.

James de Lacey29:29

Yeah. I'm going to come back to that bit about the amateur fighters with the weekly schedule, but first, obviously you mentioned about the Watt bike sprint and then the shadow wrestling. There's actually a good paper that was published, I think it was this or last month, and they did jump squat loaded jump squats paired with low-level Jiu-Jitsu drills, and they found it was basically the physiological...

Response was similar to a sparring session but higher in your muscular load, so obviously you're getting a little bit of that peak power stuff in there too. That's interesting that you guys are basically doing that anyway, doing what you're doing.

And then you also mentioned about the groin squeeze, the groin squeeze and the hip external rotation. So you obviously mentioned you have a ratio there. Do you have a ratio that I guess you guys are aiming to be at, or you found maybe as best regarding I guess reducing the risk of injury? And do you do anything I guess for external rotation then, because it is I guess, the ratios are so close?

Haoson Nian30:20

So with the ratios, we tend, like I said before, we tend to find that Jiu-Jitsu guys are very adductor-focused as well. So at the same time they also need to train sort of the abduction as well, so we use things like reverse Copenhagen as well to train the outside of the leg.

Unfortunately some one machine that I would like to have here as well would be like just a standard abduction-adduction machine. I think that would be quite useful just to train general strength, in terms of like good girl bad girl. I recently went to Europe and had all these machines that we don't usually have here, and I was experimenting with all, you know, like the glute extension machine, different machines. And the abduction-adduction one was quite a nice one. I think it'd be useful just to develop some general strength for both the abductors and the adductors.

But yeah, other than that, I think a lot of the time we use a lot of reverse Copenhagen progressions to train sort of the abduction work as well. And then also sometimes we use banded work with just a simple lateral abduction as well. That can be quite useful for that.

But in terms of the ideal ratios, yeah, I think having a good balance, like a ratio of one, means that you're sort of equal. So I think Jiu-Jitsu, I think it's important to have a little bit stronger for your adductors. I think it's necessary to be a little bit more specific.

But even in MMA, in striking, a lot of the time it's more like internal rotation stress through the groin. So I guess some ways you can work on that specific quality would be doing, we've been playing around with some like single leg RDL variations with some rotation. We find that that helps sort of bias that internal rotation of the hip and also get some loaded strength at the same time.

And same thing with split squats as well. So split squats, if you do a split squat and you rotate towards that front leg at the same time, we tend to find that's pretty similar to, if you're an orthodox fighter, you find that if you're throwing a right cross you find that there's a bit of stress for the groin. That's sort of what we're training there as well, developing the sort of insurance and capacity to handle those kinds of contractions.

Some of the other work I've been doing, so we also have done, we've been, our testing battery, like testing some shoulder rotation strength, so external and internal rotation. And sort of an interesting thing that I found with it was the fact that, so majority of fighters are orthodox, and we found that the left-sided values for both external and internal rotation are significantly weaker than the right-sided.

So I guess that was an interesting sort of thing that I found. I think it's, all the time, potentially maybe the fighter is coming in a little bit fatigued. So this is, I'm talking about strikers and sort of MMA athletes who do some kind of striking. So potentially they're coming in, they're obviously throwing out that jab quite a bit, so obviously there's some high stresses going through the shoulder joint there.

So potentially that's potentially a reason why some of those values are decreased on the left side compared to the right. But I'll probably have to dive into a little bit deeper, but that's sort of an interesting thing that I found with that.

And also with neck strength, we do some neck strength testing as well. Obviously that's a pretty important component of most combat sports. Good neck strength has been shown to reduce the likelihood of concussions in striking-based sports. Obviously in grappling, you're getting people having their arm around you trying to choke you out, and obviously those torsional forces there are very high as well. So having good neck strength is super important, and I like to profile that as well.

So I usually compare that to their bodyweight. And in terms of some of the interesting things that I found with that, so again, grappling and MMA fighters tend to have the strongest necks. And then you find that the strikers tend to have weaker necks compared to those guys. But I think that's again due to the nature of the sport. I think in terms of wrestling, they're always pushing or applying head pressure on the chest or on the shoulder to keep the opponent down or to secure. So I think that's potentially the reason why.

James de Lacey35:41

It's interesting. If you go back and listen to the podcast with Gary Turner, so his research group is essentially disputing the fact that neck strength reduces the risk of concussion. And it's really interesting the way he explains it on there and kind of the theory behind it, the research they're doing, because it made me be like, oh, so all this research now that's, well the few papers that have come out now kind of with these observational, almost like retrospective studies, kind of just gathering subjective feedback and then comparing neck strength, they're saying okay, it reduces concussion because these people didn't have it. So he's saying like a lot of the papers being published almost are cherry-picked within those journals.

And then his theory is actually the same with Seth Lenetsky, who's done a lot of the boxing punch research as well. They actually have the same theory on this, and they haven't talked to each other, which is quite interesting. And that's essentially if you have a stronger neck and you get hit, obviously you reduce the deceleration of the head, but that means all the force goes through the brain instead of if your head moves, it kind of dissipates around the head so it doesn't all go through the brain.

Which I think is pretty interesting. And that's, Seth was telling me the other day that that's his theory of why you see more knockouts in the heavyweight division, because mass doesn't equal more force and more impact force on punches. But the fact that you're bigger, so you generally have a bigger head and a bigger neck, the head doesn't move as much when you get hit. So his theory with heavyweights, they get knocked out because the head and neck kind of stops the head moving and the brain takes most of the impact.

Which man, it's interesting stuff. Like I'm just waiting, hopefully some more research comes out on it. But it's always awesome and interesting to hear kind of both sides of that area of, hey, is next strength, like are we doing a good thing or a bad thing making Striker necks stronger? Or we don't know yet.

Haoson Nian37:34

Yeah, that's really interesting. Yeah, all the research I've basically read is looking at the reductions in risk of concussion. But yeah, it's always good to keep up there with the research. I'll have to dive.

James de Lacey38:01

Yeah. Yeah, it's, that's really cool. But yeah, I'll link you to that podcast anyway.

But I want to come back to the amateur Jiu-Jitsu guys. So you mentioned guys that maybe are competing often. There might be some people listening to this. How does your week look then for someone who competes I guess often? And maybe you want to define what often is with what you have there. But let's maybe look at, okay, they've just competed, they've done seven matches, what that deload week might look like if anything's going on at all. And then what kind of a normal training week looks like when they're competing often.

Haoson Nian38:32

So when they're competing often, the first thing that's really important is communication between myself and the athlete to really keep myself updated on actually what's going on with their week and also how they're preparing.

So in terms of the programming itself, the in terms of the, I guess, training weeks, sometimes if it's a competition that they've just signed up to like a week before, then the I guess the training doesn't really change that much because they just wanted to get a few rounds in, competitive rounds in. But for some of your more major competitions, I guess then the week changes a little

So we tend to prime them up a little bit more, so we have like things like primal weeks where they're just completing mostly explosive-based exercises. And the sessions are pretty short in nature. They probably take like half an hour, 40 minutes max, and they'll only complete like two sort of resistance training sessions during the week and they won't complete any conditioning. That's if they have a lot of matches lined up for that particular weekend.

Let's say they've come back from a weekend where they've had a lot of matches, then we do like a sort of a regen program. And then we find that with the programming for the regen program, it tends to be really low intensity in nature, low load as well, just because they're going to be pretty sore and banged up from if they're competing in that many matches. So their lifting is generally quite easy during that week.

And in terms of the structuring of the week in terms of their technical training, so they'll generally do their harder sessions earlier in the week and then they'll taper it off towards competition. They'll do like those competitions, those sessions just before the competition. They'll tend to keep those higher intensity but then shorter in duration. Again, the whole sort of concept of priming the athlete for the competition, so keeping intensity high but just lowering the volume to ensure that they feel sharp and ready to go.

James de Lacey41:06

No, that makes sense as well. Obviously with the priming as well. And I guess jiu-jitsu athletes, I guess most combat athletes are training probably more times a week than most other sports, especially at the amateur level. Like, you have guys in the gym four to six times a week, if not more depending if they're doing double days or not going to go do jiu-jitsu.

So then how are you balancing, I guess, what's happening in the gym with the amount of I guess hours and days these guys are training on top of them having to work as well? Is there maybe like a little, I guess, formula, some kind of guidelines that people can kind of follow to help them with that?

Haoson Nian41:38

Yeah, for sure. So I guess a lot of the time when some of our guys come into our gym, they want to train, like they want to train strength training like four or five times a week plus their technical training. Which I guess, yeah, it's the whole mindset of the combat athlete, right? They just want to work harder than their opponents, and there's nothing wrong with that.

But at the same time, I think when you explain to them, like, yeah, strength is sort of like a supplement. Like, yeah, it might, it would improve their physical performance, but you don't really need—you actually don't really need that much to actually get the benefits from it. And yeah, I think they always go, it's sort of like a realization moment for them where they go like, 'Oh yeah, that like that sort of makes sense.'

Like, I tell them, you know, you only, maximum, like most of the guys here, they're only really doing like twice a week strength training and the sessions only go for about an hour. They'll complete like a main lift, couple of main lifts, and then they're going to some accessory work. And yeah, that takes about an hour.

So yeah, keeping it within like three to four sets is generally reasonable for someone training two times a week for strength. I think you can get some good benefits with that, provided they're training with the right loadings and right intensities and things. But yeah, that's sort of how I control, like, obviously a lot of the time as well, like with the fighters, a lot of them actually here in Australia, a lot of them work in the trades.

So they would do like carpentry or air conditioning, roofing, all that kind of stuff. They're already working like pretty intensive jobs as well, so sometimes they're coming in at like 5:00 a.m. in the morning. They've barely gotten any sleep as well.

Like, I've had guys who come in and they've done night shifts, for example, and they've come in and said like, 'Haoson, I've already had three hours sleep.' And I'm like, I think in those instances I've just told him to go home, like, 'Go get some sleep.' Like, the training you're going to get today is probably not going to be worthwhile. You know what I mean?

And we have the other side of the spectrum where they're coming in after a hard day of work at 6:00, 7:00 p.m. at night and they want to do a training session as well. So a lot of the times that's why having like a coach, especially if you're a combat athlete as well, having a coach have a sharper face like that who can talk to you about these things and modify things on the fly, it's super important.

Because if you're just doing these things by yourself, you might potentially think that you can do it and then you end up overshooting it and you're just going to be completely sore and banged up for your technical training.

So I think that's sort of the, if you have the access to a coach, I think that's sort of where the value is. Obviously the coaching as well, but I think a lot of the time it has to do with the loading too. Like, if you're doing it by yourself, a lot of the time you can really go stupid with some of the exercises and really overshoot it, whereas in this environment we're always keeping an eye, we're always talking to athletes, subjectively checking in just to see how they're feeling and see whether they can actually complete some of the things that have been planned for them as well.

But yeah, the whole thing of like, you know, there's always a plan, but at the same time the plan, it's just there as a structure. It's not really like a set structure like you always have to modify things in this sort of context.

James de Lacey45:11

Have you found there's a—or you need to modify things? Like, from my personal experience, I can lift before jiu-jitsu. Doesn't matter, I can lift like directly before jiu-jitsu and then I'm like, it feels, me, like on the mats I feel really good. But if I train jiu-jitsu, say midday or late morning, and then I go lift in the evening, man, I feel absolutely [expletive] and doesn't like, my knees are sore trying to do things. I'm like, man, lifting after doing morning jiu-jitsu sucks.

So is there, maybe—I'm sure you have guys that maybe do maybe morning jiu-jitsu or midday jiu-jitsu and they have to come in the evening, or I don't work a physical labor job, so maybe maybe these guys are just used to it. But I guess, have you had to play around and modify things in that instance? And if not, is there maybe recommendations you would have for people listening that do maybe have to change jiu-jitsu in the morning and then weights later in the evening?

Haoson Nian46:08

Look, yeah, it is a tough one. I think, yeah, you got to keep in mind the work schedules of people. A lot of the guys are students as well because really big study schedules, all that kind of stuff. But yeah, obviously the schedule you described is probably what I term like an optimal schedule.

Like, I've done that myself where, yeah, I've trained before—I find that my resistance training sessions tend to be a lot better before my technical training. I feel like after technical training, like, yeah, you've had people all like sweaty people just trying to choke you out or trying to bash you up, and you just, like, you just feel afterwards, like, lifting is pretty tough. Like, it is definitely a big mental battle.

But I guess, yeah, if you—like a lot of the guys, like they sort of have to manage their work and their study. Doing resistance training, doing some kind of resistance training is still doing better than no resistance training. So again, in those instances, again, you'd have to be modifying or keeping in mind that what they're doing outside of their training here at the gym. So yeah, I think that just comes with having a good relationship with the athlete, understanding really what they do outside, and then modifying it from there.

James de Lacey47:27

No, I was just going to say quickly that I will say, I think in terms of the different, I guess, martial arts you got, striking, grappling, MMA, I think grappling is one of the only ones that does really well where you can lift first. Obviously if you're doing some stupid like huge high-volume bodybuilding, like just chest on that day, then yeah, that's going to obviously [expletive] you up and you shouldn't be running that kind of program anyway.

But if you're doing a well-rounded strength power program, doing this stuff before grappling works really really well, whereas with other sports, maybe striking things, depending on the volume you're kind of doing, it doesn't marry up so well as well. So that's something to keep in mind.

Haoson Nian48:25

Yeah, yeah, definitely, for sure. I think the nature of the sports is completely different. I think jiu-jitsu, you can sort of—the, I guess, the rounds are way different. I guess with the striking, it's very, very much explosive-based sort of actions. And then if you're doing like a training session before it and you're doing like, you know, you're maxing out on...

James de Lacey48:53

Waste and things and you're going into that, you're just not going to have that same force output as if you're just going into it fresh. But yeah, I just want to touch on as it comes to the end of this that you mentioned there are some, there are some physical performance tests that don't correlate well together. Do you want to maybe run through some of those and maybe kind of your take on what that means in terms of training?

Haoson Nian49:23

So I think with the whole correlation thing, one thing that I haven't really used much is the dynamic strength index. And the reason why is because when I first started investigating it here, I tended to find that like, even though some of the guys who were getting really low values with isometric mid-thigh pull, for example, they were still lifting quite heavy in the gym, like they were strong athletes. But then the DSI was saying like they needed to work on their strength, which didn't really make sense to me.

And then likewise, on the opposite side of the spectrum where the DSI was telling me like this guy needs to work on ballistic strength, but you'd look at him, you look at them in the gym and they'd just be super explosive. And the data just didn't really make sense, so I've sort of tended to go away from that.

So in terms of like how that's negative, that's like an example of that, like the fact that say something like an isometric mid-thigh pull might not relate to your lifting strength. So even though you might have a high isometric mid-thigh pull, I think because some of the stuff that you're doing in the gym, there's still like a bit of a skill element to it, like there's a skill element to lifting too.

So even with the isometric mid-thigh pull, there's an optimal technique to do it. So if you've never done it before, then potentially that might be a reason why the isometric mid-thigh pull is coming up at a lower value. But you might have had experience lifting in the gym, so your joint angles and how you're setting up for those exercises are going to be a lot stronger, which therefore means that you're able to lift heavier.

But based on our data, we found isometric mid-thigh pull doesn't really carry well to things like a trap bar deadlift or a back squat. And the same thing with like counter movement jump and a back squat as well doesn't really match up with higher values for one test into stronger values for your main lifts.

James de Lacey51:16

That's interesting because most people will say to jump higher you should squat more. But what you're saying is that the correlation is quite weak, so getting stronger in the squat might not translate that well into jumping higher and vice versa.

Haoson Nian51:51

Yeah, I think there's some research as well on doing partial rep style squats as well versus full range squats and whether or not which one is more optimal for improving jump height. I think there was a study by K. who, but they found that the group that was doing the quarter squats actually improved their jumping performance significantly than the group that was doing the full range squats, which is a really interesting finding as well in terms of how people can train for power.

In terms of Combat Sports specific context, I guess that's where reducing range of motion might be useful as they get close to the fight camp to make them feel more explosive. Whereas in those earlier periods or out of competition periods, that's where I like to include more full range of motion exercises as well. So there's a time and place for each.

James de Lacey52:50

For sure, for sure on that. Does that mean, I guess because maybe counter movement jump or the vertical jump is something that you use often for assessments and maybe it's one of maybe it's one of your KPIs, does that mean lean more towards doing the trap bar deadlift over the squat because of that correlation, or you still use them evenly because hey, you're still looking at maybe the eccentric loading on the squatting or you want to still have that squat pattern in there?

Haoson Nian53:20

For me, I still like having the squat pattern in there. I feel like the trap bar joint angles are more specific to more hip dominant based muscles, whereas a squat you can really make that more knee dominant, especially if you change the positioning of the bar or use a different implement like a safety bar or something.

So I still like keeping a thread of a big lower body lift and also a big upper body lift and then a velocity-based lift as well. I like including those sorts of lifts within a combat athlete's program, regardless of their testing results. Obviously testing results do dictate some of the programming, but a lot of the time most combat athletes just need to work on the really basic things, like developing general strength, speed, power, all that kind of stuff.

James de Lacey54:12

That's, yeah, I mean I think most people listening to this would do well with just that advice. Just most people who have very low training age in the gym, just get generally stronger in some of the basic lifts and then you can look to maybe do some other fancier stuff on top of that once you've got a good little base of strength.

Haoson Nian54:44

For sure. There's all different types of fancy exercises out there that obviously social media has gone through the roof now and I guess athletes are using that more to see what higher level guys are doing. But a lot of the higher level guys are doing just some insane things that aren't like, obviously they're still very successful in what they're performing, but at the same time I feel like some of the things are very social media focused, like they just posted to get a ton of likes as opposed to doing things that are actually going to benefit the athlete. So that's sort of my take on the whole fancy exercise.

James de Lacey55:37

So much of it is just straight, yeah, I mean you can go back and I've said it many times on the podcast and to anyone who reads my emails and stuff, it's often a lot of the top athletes are there not because of what they do but in, or despite what they do. And you'll see it in every single sport, the top 0.00001% are there because they are genetic freaks and have just crazy talent.

I have the theory that those the top top guys are just hyper-responders to everything that they hit the gym doing. Whatever they just build muscle like crazy, they learn the information they can take in about their sport, how they can react and see their environment, their sporting environment, and basically anticipate. Like you look at Jon Jones, obviously one of the best, he can off and do whatever and come back and still beat most people.

And that's just that ability to be able to understand, understand the sport so well that it doesn't matter what the hell they're doing outside of their sport, they're going to make it regardless.

Haoson Nian56:38

Yeah, I think one thing that people tend to sort of underestimate definitely is the genetic part of it. Some people that come in here, I'm just amazed at just the genetic build. Like they're just so explosive or so strong and they're just built for that. So yeah, that's always a question of how much can you actually train the athlete to actually get to those really top elite levels as well.

James de Lacey57:06

Well, we've covered quite a bit on this podcast. Thanks for coming on, Haoson. But are you active anywhere on social media or anything where anyone can follow you?

Haoson Nian57:06

So for me, I'm pretty active, I would say pretty active, but I try to be active on Instagram. So my handle is coach how, so you can follow me there. That's pretty much where I post the majority of my content. I post a lot of my concepts, I tend to tailor it to athletes. I feel like coaches already know enough. I think a lot of athletes might not know optimal training, that's why I like focusing on them more.

So yeah, that's majority of my content is purely focused on that, just educating athletes on some things that we're doing here at the gym. But I do sometimes post some more scientific stuff as well for the coaches, especially that data. So that's where you can follow me. But yeah, it was great to be on the podcast as well, so appreciate you for inviting me on.

James de Lacey58:08

No, thanks for coming on. And anyone listening, make sure...

You go follow Haoson on Instagram, show them some love there, and I appreciate you coming on. Hopefully anyone listening took a lot out of this. Obviously I'm going to link up Haoson's Instagram also in the description, so thanks Haoson, really appreciate it.

Haoson Nian58:40

Thanks James.