All Blacks 7s S&C Shares Maximizing Conditioning & Power Development When Fighting Often w/ Travis McMaster (SSOF Ep 75)

Travis McMaster1:10

Had a short stint over in Las Vegas with the current family cup champions. So one year too late, I should have stayed on an extra year. The boys actually brought the cup home, which was quite good to see this year. I was a sport scientist for 2020, 2021 with the Golden Knights in Vegas. Just tough pulling a coastal girl and their family away from the ocean, moving to the desert. So bit of a balance there in terms of work-life and how you make that work.

And we know everyone that works in elite sport as an S&C or sport scientist, there's actually no such thing as balance. It's just ebb and flow, making the most time when you're off and making the most in time when you're at work. So anyone listening that wants to get into S&C, just understand how this job works and how you and your family operate and how the dynamics work before you actually jump in both feet, brother. That'd be my word of advice for young S&C.

James de Lacey3:59

I think we've all been through the ringer with it. Obviously moving with my wife to Romania, taking her out of the states when she just moved here to then to Romania, there is obviously a challenge in itself. But we found our way back here, so it's all good in the end.

But I think it's interesting because obviously both sports—you got ice hockey at the professional level, you've got rugby sevens—I usually say on this podcast rugby and sevens is probably the closest thing in terms of physical preparation to combat sports. And a lot of similarities and a lot of repeat sprint, repeat power ability stuff. And even with ice hockey, I mean you guys on the ice for one, two minutes sprint plays, then back off.

Travis McMaster4:25

Not even, bro. 30 seconds to a minute.

James de Lacey4:25

So it's extremely high anaerobic load, lactate threshold.

Travis McMaster4:49

Their legs are blowing out each shift, and it's how you train them to do that over and over again, right. Give them the capacity to repeat that work. Anyone can do it one-off, right, a one-off sprint. It's being able to do it over and over again, over 82 games.

James de Lacey4:49

So yeah, let's start there. How are we... Okay, it's a general loaded question because it can go anywhere. But how are you developing that ability to repeat those 30 to 60 second bursts? Because obviously that's still applicable within combat sports—you need to be able to do that within whether you're striking, MMA, or grappling. So how you going about that?

Travis McMaster5:15

Before we even look at repeating that, it's do they have... where is their initial capacity at from a pure output point of view? Right, from that top of the curve, that phosphocreatine, where's our max output? And if that's nowhere where we need it to be, then we have to look at why is it strength, is it force, is it... what is their weakness in that area to bring that power capacity up?

And then from there, once we have a level of capacity, how do we repeat that over and over again to maintain within 10% of that? So initially we need to build a foundation base for everything. This goes for every attribute you're looking to build, right. So you need that basic strength, aerobic foundation to build from. So from both ends of spectrum—thinking strength, thinking aerobic—you need those bases to be able to tolerate the load that you're going to give the athlete.

So first thing is get that foundation. And once you have that foundation, then you can start to build that individual capacity in terms of anaerobic work, repeat speed. And obviously we periodize it throughout the season. Give you example in rugby, we start being a work from general. So we work from doing it running and on a Watt bike where it's very controlled on how we shift the curve, shift the anaerobic output.

So example would be 15-second effort, 45-second rest, repeat that eight times, see the drop-off, see the mean power drop-off. And then you can start to train it from there in terms of their output. And then we transfer it to the field, so how we build it into rugby. So we start with obviously down-ups and change in directions, where they're working for those same work-to-rest ratios. So it's either a one-to-three or one-to-six, depending on what we're looking to build there in terms of capacity.

And then we move it and apply it into rugby where they do it in contact, do it in the small-sided game. And then we build it from—we call it from control to chaos. If you've read any of that Matt Taberner in terms of—it's more of a return to play thing, but you can use the same concept from a physical attribute and how you apply it to a game or the sport you're with, right. So how you would build a combat athlete to handle what, five three-minute rounds. How you would build that capacity in a general and then into specific, into the fighting context as well.

James de Lacey7:30

Okay. Do you want to dive a little bit into that foundational... So obviously mentioned, okay, you've got the strength side, the aerobic side you're trying to build first. That eight by 15 seconds on, 45 seconds off, is that what—is that the general test you're using then to see...

Travis McMaster7:55

The second—that would be an anaerobic stimulus. So we'll do repeated power test where we do seven-second sprints and go every 30 seconds for 10. That's your drop-off. So that's on a Watt bike, generally. It's easy to control, it's easy to focus on the lower body there. You could do it on other equipment as well if you found the right piece, right. You could do it on assault bike if you want—it just depends on the consistency of your methods and profiling.

Then we'll have an on-field test which is the same thing, the repeat efforts with contact. Be like shuttles with contact, and we still look at the drop-off in terms of their output. The same work-to-rest, but it's applied to the field, not just on a bike. So it's a little less stable and standardized than the bike, but it's the next closest thing to the...

James de Lacey8:22

The next step in your mind.

Travis McMaster8:47

Nice. Then you look at their profile from there. So what's their peak, what's their drop-off or decay over that time, and try to shift both. So if their peak output's too low, you need to shift that up individually. And...

But if the decay is too large, you have to work on that repeat effort on bringing that up so there's less of a drop-off in terms of their output over time.

James de Lacey9:15

We'll dive into that in just a sec. Obviously someone just commented saying thanks for the podcast and informational videos, keep up the good work. The information is gold as someone who is training in MMA. Thank you very much, G. And for anyone listening to this recorded, make sure you jump on these live. They're scheduled on YouTube.

But Travis, for the you mentioned obviously someone might have a low output or someone might have a hard drop-off and you're trying to kind of balance that, bring both those sides up. How are you targeting the output side to improve that, and then how are you targeting the capacity side to reduce the drop-off?

Travis McMaster9:35

So we'll target the output side in not a separate session, but we always do the output side first. When you're freshest, you need to train the output and you got to get those work-to-rest ratios correct so that output is always high. You don't want that to be done under fatigue if you're working on shifting an output.

So it's when you're doing any, this goes for any power rep. If you think if you're doing jumps, you make sure you have adequate rest in between your sets so that output remains high and you monitor that output on a Watt bike or with your velocity with your gym aware or tendo units, depending on what equipment you have, what movement you're doing.

But typically we go no more than, or no less than, two to three minutes rest depending on the output. The output might only be for three to seven seconds, but that rest has to be a large chunk of that, so like a one to ten, even work to rest, one to twelve even, so they're fully recovered.

And you can shift that by autoregulation. If the output's not recovering, you do longer rest the next set. If, I don't know if our listeners understand what I mean by that, but if autoregulation is if you're looking at a power output, let's say they can produce 1,000 watts, next set they only produce 850, you might have a longer rest before that third set so they can get back to that within that 5% range of their max, if you will. When you're trying to train pure output, you want the muscle not to be under fatigue.

James de Lacey11:15

And a lot of those cardio machines display watts or power, like rowing machines, a lot of spin bikes also display that too. So you can kind of measure that and then you want to stay within, try and stay within 5% of that for those 30 to 7 second sprints?

Travis McMaster11:15

Correct. You want to stay within that upper range, otherwise you're defeating the purpose. You're starting to train a different system here. We're starting to train that repeated sprint ability when you actually really want to just focus on maximum, producing a maximum output.

James de Lacey11:15

Nice. And then with the capacity then, how are you developing that? Is there much emphasis on developing that low or spending time in that low intensity, quote unquote, aerobic zone or zone two that a lot of people are talking about?

Travis McMaster11:40

We do a lot of zone two. At the end of the day, it's anywhere from 30 to 60 minutes, depends on the week, in zone two on a bike, on a rower. It's off-feet, so we have enough running load as it is with our athletes. So it's always that extra zone two stuff is always an off-feet load for us.

So we do a lot of conditioning on the field that's interval-based, like high-intensity interval-based, whereas this aerobic stuff is at the end of the day where you can train that cardio system under fatigue. It's okay to have two sessions in and actually focus on that cardio system.

We'll do sustained aerobic and we'll do nasal breathing as well. We'll do intermittent nasal breathing and long sustained nasal breathing to help with that CO2 tolerance. So it basically just helps your body utilize oxygen better. So how can your body function with less oxygen in your system as well? So it helps you create a more efficient energy system, if you will, more efficient aerobic energy system.

And on our off days we have a minimum 30 minutes of zone two in that day. So every off day they have to do that too. And this is currently in the preseason phase they maintain all these. And we're trying to push that system up. In-season it's a bit different story, but right now we're pushing that foundation phase right now with all our athletes in terms of strength and aerobic capacity, regardless of their age.

Right now we're just trying to shift everyone up to a place so when the season starts we're in a really good place. Our bodies are reconditioned, we're resilient, so we can attack the year and stay healthy and robust throughout the season.

I got this zone two stuff from head S&C in Vegas, Doug Davidson. He's a genius in terms of exercise physiology, so I'll recommend him for your podcast. But he's where all this zone two stuff and all the ideas from on training that system to tolerate an 82-game hockey season, or to shift that base up high enough so you're recovering really quickly between your sets and reps and rounds in boxing or MMA, right? So having that base will allow you to recover quicker between rounds as well.

James de Lacey14:04

Awesome. So it's boring, but athletes just suck it up. You're a professional athlete, brother.

And then how does that change as you get closer to a season? Obviously we talked about okay, you might be off the bike and stuff and you might be doing more stuff on the field. But does, obviously you're not going to be doing maybe the same volume of that zone two stuff. So what are you doing then to improve capacity as you get closer to the season and then likely throughout the season?

Travis McMaster14:28

So when we get close to the season, a lot of our conditioning falls into small-sided games. That's where you're playing games on a field for our listeners, or games on a court, to train the energy system, to train the work-to-rest ratios, to train the ball-in-play for the game specific. So are we meeting the demands of rugby, the demands of a game, a half, a set in rugby? So that's kind of how we shift from that control to chaos in terms of prepping them for the season.

All that zone two stuff will be done at the end of the day still. We'll still do three times a week zone two, say at 4 p.m., everyone will be on a bike, slow, steady, heart rate monitored out, and just tracking that. If they can't maintain their heart rate in a certain zone, you either decrease or increase the cadence from there with that athlete.

James de Lacey15:24

I hope you're enjoying the chat so far. Before we get back to that, I just want to let you know that Sweet Science of Fighting is more than just a podcast. We have a full training app with strength conditioning programs for strikers, grapplers, and MMA athletes, so you don't have to think about what you're doing and you're getting access to the latest scientific methods to improve combat sports performance.

We have programs specifically for judo, for jiu-jitsu, for wrestling, MMA, boxing. Muay Thai is coming soon. All these things are going to be in the training app. We also have a private community where some of the coaches that have been on the podcast are in there to help you with any training questions and any performance questions you have, for example Andrew Usher and Casper Durwit.

We also have some online courses within the training app. They cover strength conditioning, mental skills, and weight cutting. And finally, we now have Ryan Voss in the community, a second-degree jiu-jitsu black belt who is there to break down any of your grappling matches that you want seen to by a second eye. He's currently breaking down videos on a separate Sweet Science of Fighting YouTube channel, and he will break down your video within the community.

So if you have a match or a roll that you just recorded, you can upload that in there and Ryan will break that down for you. So what are you waiting for? Jump down the description, you can check out the Sweet Science of Fighting Underground. Otherwise, enjoy the podcast.

Gotcha. So how are you manipulating the small-sided games? Because I think a lot of people, they come into various, it doesn't matter what sport, could be combat sports, 3-minute rounds, it could be seven, 7-minute halves, okay, that means everything we do in this phase is going to be 3-minute rounds or 7-minute halves. It doesn't matter.

So how are you manipulating that time period when you're looking at small? Are you looking at, for example, intensity through GPS and trying to exceed game values through certain time periods or anything like that? So, big open-ended question in terms of small set of games.

Travis McMaster17:07

We can go anywhere with this, but let's look at how we do it to prepare them for a game of sevens or a tournament. So there's a tournament on a weekend. You play six games in a weekend. There's approximately 50 minutes ball-in-play in that weekend of high-density work where the ball's actually in play.

So we structure, say, a training week off a percentage of that, and training sessions off a percentage of that. So within a small set of games, we might have, let's say on a Monday we might have 10 minutes ball-in-play where it's high-density work for 10 minutes, and that's split into five-minute halves with that ball-in-play, 5 minutes each. And then on a Wednesday you might have 15 minutes ball-in-play.

Yeah, we can go anywhere with this, but let's look at how we do it to prepare them for a game of sevens or tournament. So there's a tournament on a weekend. You play six games in a weekend. There's approximately 50 minutes ball in play in that weekend of high density work where the ball's actually in play. So we structure, say, a training week off a percentage of that and training sessions off a percentage of that.

So within a small-sided game we might have, let's say on a Monday, we might have 10 minutes ball in play where it's high density work for 10 minutes and that's split in two five-minute halves, with that ball in play five minutes each. And then on a Wednesday you might have 15 minutes ball in play, might be split three blocks of five minutes.

And from there, after we - so we get our week. We might, the whole week might be 70% of our tournament max in terms of ball in play. And that's high density work because in the game of sevens there's no rest once that ball's in.

So a lot of high density work. And how we manipulate, let's say, the volume, the density, intensity within that drill is field size, player number, and then work-to-rest ratio. So I might say to the coach, "Alright, there's six 60-seconds ball in play, 30 seconds rest within this set." So they're letting the ball fly for 60 seconds. They're given 30 seconds rest within that block. So within that set, that's the work-to-rest. And we start to bridge that gap.

We call it best-case scenario, but it's most teams' worst-case scenario. So the longest phase of ball in play might be three minutes we've ever experienced. We want to take teams to that level so we can fatigue them and score tries. So we want to be able to function at the two-to-three minutes of ball in play. So we have to take our athletes there progressively and safely.

So we'll start with the lower ball-in-play periods in, say, week one, and by week six we're up to that two-to-three minutes ball in play for a single bout. So that's kind of, when you think of a pure linear progression, that'd be the easiest way to explain it right now, is how we get them to that place from, say, 50% to 100% over the span of six weeks. Obviously you could go in a lot more detail. I don't want to give all the secrets away in case the Aussie fans are listening.

Fair enough. That's how we progress and structure our high density work, is based off the tournament's ball in play, based off the work, based off the distance, the high-speed running, the high-intensity accelerations are the main metrics we work off of in terms of preparing athletes for the game of rugby.

James de Lacey19:44

Nice. And if anyone listening is, "Okay, how does this relate to them as a combat athlete?" I mean, you could do the same thing within, for example, boxing, MMA. A smaller cage or a bigger cage or ring will dictate how much action's going on. You can do the same. For example, 60 seconds work with 30 seconds rest within sparring, just as an example of a work-to-rest. That can be a way to increase the intensity of some of your sparring sessions versus just three or five-minute rounds.

So these are just things that maybe as an audience can potentially think about in terms of their own training. I mean, you can even go as far as analyzing some of your fights and looking at actually how much action is actually going on at certain times. That takes another level of dedication as well.

Travis McMaster20:06

But yeah, you could look at your work rate, your highest work rate in, say, 20-second blocks. We'll do that in rugby. So we'll look at the game and we'll look at the highest intensity in 20-second blocks. It'll chunk into 20 and see where your highest work rates are. And, hey, how do we replicate this? So how can we maintain this 20 seconds for three minutes to suffocate our opponents or suffocate the opposition?

So I guess a good - give me an example. Who'd be a good example who suffocates their opponents in MMA? Khabib. The other guy's name now that's coming up, Makhachev. Yeah. So that's the idea of having a higher work rate to actually destroy your opponents that they can't handle or keep up with.

And in the All Blacks Sevens it's always been a high work rate, high work environment. So that's the point of difference for us against many other teams, is their ability, their work ethic and work rate when other teams fatigue. So that more comes down to mindset than my actual training, in a sense. It's their mindset versus the other team's mindset.

James de Lacey20:57

Yeah, we're both tired, but we're going to play hard, we're going to keep going.

Travis McMaster20:57

So it's what you do in the dark, right? How you - our coach always says, "How you find the light in the dark places." So our head coach, Tomasi Cama, is big on that, on how the boys will find a way. We call it "just find a way." And if you need help, your teammates are right there to support you. So just find a way.

James de Lacey21:27

Nice. Just for my own selfish learning. So we did the similar best-case or worst-case with Romanian rugby, and we'll do, say, two three-minute game blocks above a certain - at that time, certain - our peak meters per minute against our one of the fastest games. But how did you keep that three-minute block going? Did you just keep throwing a ball into play for the players to scramble? To have, say, the ball was dropped, the ball went out of play.

Travis McMaster21:49

And then, yeah, the coach would be refereeing and he'd just keep it live. The ball went out, he'd throw the ball in. The ball went out, or he'd blow a whistle, make up a penalty and turn it over so the other team had to keep working. So he just - the coach kept the game flowing because that's what we wanted. So they were constantly under pressure and they couldn't rest. Like, yeah, you could kick to touch and rest, but that defeats the purpose of the drill. So yeah, the coach would always keep the ball alive so the players have to work the whole time.

James de Lacey22:15

Yeah, perfect, perfect. I just had to ask.

Travis McMaster22:15

And obviously, we understand your output's going to drop over that three minutes. It's impossible not to. But it's how can we create a situation where the players have to adapt and perform under fatigue is the main thing for us.

James de Lacey22:36

Perfect. And obviously within sevens you play pretty regularly, and obviously you play longer tournaments. Within the NHL, I mean, you're playing stupidly regular games within the NHL. So how are you - yeah, yeah, you go.

Travis McMaster23:05

The main difference, NHL versus sevens, is sevens is a tournament format. You have four weeks to prepare for every tournament. So you have this nice even, you know, peaking formation in terms of your periodization plan. You can really plan well for sevens because you might play one tournament in a month. So you come up, you deload, you recover, you come up, you peak, you deload. So you can get a really good rhythm and flow.

You can also get a good rhythm and flow in an 82-game season. You just have to focus a lot more on the micro-dosing side of things when you have an 82-game season. Meaning you might be doing a 20-30 minute lift after a game, after a practice, at the end of a day. So you maintain the strength and power throughout the season. So you have these pockets where you're going to micro-dose two or three times a week your strength movements when you have a long season and you have to play constantly.

So that's the main difference in sevens. We can fully deload for a week and then start to ramp up again and peak for a tournament. Fully deload, recover, peak for a tournament. So that's the main difference between our rugby format and the NHL or American, North American model of pro sport. A lot of games to combat with.

James de Lacey23:57

Nice. Let's talk with that combat sport peaking for that event. You have a big camp to build your body up to peak for that event. So you have the time to build it up, which is good. Even some combat sports, like grapplers, some grapplers will compete very, very often just because - oh yeah, you can beat you up, but you're not taking head knocks and stuff. So some will compete almost every weekend, every couple of weeks, every month.

So I think a lot of this is still applicable for a lot of fighters as well. I mean, there's even some MMA athletes that will compete very often or might compete MMA then grappling, etc. So maybe let's start with the sevens format, every four weeks, as an example. How does your S&C change after a tournament and then throughout that period leading up to the next one?

Travis McMaster24:49

Yeah, so post-tournament's all about getting that body back to homeostasis, fully recovered and regenerated as quick as possible. So from right after the game's finished, what we do from a recovery point of view in terms of get your protein in, get your ice bath done, get your meal in so you can recover - I'll talk even within a tournament. So we make sure we do things, it's not rocket science, you just got to nail your nutrition and nail your process in terms of recovery so you can go again, go again, go again.

So the faster you do that, the quicker your bodies are going to recover. So might be protein, creatine, ice, rest, repeat as an example for our guys in terms of our context. We'll ice all tournament. And then after tournament, let the inflammation come, because you want that body eventually to inflame to fully recover, right? So we're just trying with ice, we're just trying to stop the inflammation the whole weekend so it doesn't actually happen.

And at the end of the tournament, we'll let it - let the body inflame, let it go through the natural process of adapting to that contact and running and muscle damage. So there's a lot of research out there. I won't get into the science. You probably already know the science with me in terms of contrast, ice bath, should we ice bath, should we not ice bath. There's still a huge debate on it, depending on pros and cons to it.

So we still ice on training days, but we'll still let that inflammation come on when we have time to let the body recover. Like that week after, so that week after we'll come

Down, have a medical check-in with each athlete. We'll flush the next day we get home, so we get the bodies moving. We flush out all the toxins and chemicals so we can actually get the body to a good place to be able to train the week after that. So if we do nothing that whole week, the boys come back slow and sluggish if we that second week.

So we found if we come in early, just do the work, flush the body, maybe get a little low upper body hit in and train on the Thursday or Friday that week, just a light skills session, just to get our hands on the ball, get moving. And then by that Monday we're fully recovered to go again and we're not feeling sluggish. We're feeling refreshed and ready to go. So that's one of the big shifts we made last year in terms of preparation, making sure that we recover right that week after and just instead of taking the whole week off.

So we make sure we nail those from a recovery process. Then we start to rebuild. I won't give you the exact weeks, but then we'll start to rebuild from say 65% load, 75% load, 85% load, and then tournament. That's the idea of the model in terms of peaking. And then we'll drop right down to a 25% load and do the whole process over again. And obviously within a season, our goal is to help retain, maintain strength and power, and even to improve it if we can.

So how can we shift these capabilities up as well in terms of strength? I hate using the word power. I'll use strength, force, and velocity, and how we can keep these components high. So we want the athletes to be able to produce a high amount of force throughout the whole season and to run fast all year. And how we do that is built into our training program.

So we have acceleration work rate days and we'll have high-speed open field days where we're focusing on those different attributes for the athlete as we move through the year. And obviously we'll progress the sets and reps based on our model in terms of increasing and decreasing those outputs throughout the year to get the best out of our athletes.

A big one for us is run fast often and maintain posterior strength, real good mitigator of injury for us. Because the hamstring is the biggest injured muscle in rugby.

James de Lacey28:20

I'm not sure in MMA what is it. I don't know if it's groin, because hockey was groin.

Travis McMaster28:50

I'm not sure MMA.

James de Lacey28:50

Well, a lot of it's more contact injury, but shoulders, knees, ankles, the usual stuff.

Travis McMaster28:50

Ours is a more soft tissue from overexerting themselves, a sprint or multiple sprints.

James de Lacey28:50

And then I guess so you've got that model within sevens, and then you've also got within hockey. You've got that every few days almost, so there every three days, let's say you're playing a game every... That's so nuts, man. I can't believe they do that. But I mean there are probably some combat athletes that compete every week. It's an insane thing to do and they have to still manage themselves through that.

So how are you... I mean, obviously the game itself is the strength conditioning stimulus a lot of the time in that. It's the conditioning stimulus in a sense. It is the stimulus. It's not the strength stimulus, but it is a conditioning stimulus. So then how do you maintain the rest of it?

Travis McMaster29:45

Any sport you look at, the athlete's load on ice, if it was a super low load and it's not maintaining their capacity, they need something extra on top of that. Like when you used to work with rugby, you'd have guys that played low minutes, they need a top-up after to make sure you're maintaining that level of conditioning.

From a strength point of view, you basically have three days. You'll have a practice day, game day, off day, repeat the process. It's crazy. There's no such thing as an off day. So off day is basically that recovery day, that medical day where they come in and get their bodies right so they can practice the next day to get ready to play the third day. So those are basically the three days in North America or in the NHL.

So medical day you won't lift. You might do a flush. Practice day you might do a power session on the practice day, like a more explosive session. Then on game day after the game, you'll do a strength micro-dose. And that's kind of the cycle throughout the season. So it might be a push, pull, lower body. You have those strength flips to maintain or develop strength, and it'll be 30 minutes after a game to develop those priorities. So that's the model.

James de Lacey30:38

That is the model, brother. That's so nuts. It's same in NBA, obviously, because you got pretty much the same schedule within the NBA. The MLB, same schedule. Basically, it's unbelievable that that's just that's the way. I just don't understand. And even short preseason as well, right?

Travis McMaster31:05

Yeah, really short preseason, like three weeks, two, three weeks. And then the off-season is where you can make gains. You just have to take advantage of it. That's where you get your physical, that's where you build that foundational capacity for the season.

James de Lacey31:05

But do you have contact with the athletes in that time? Because some players associations don't allow that, right?

Travis McMaster31:33

Yeah, so in the NHL, some of the athletes have their own entity. They'll have their own S&Cs, their own physios, their own chiropractors in the off-season, and they'll go train at home with their guy for say two months or six weeks in the off-season. So I'd say half the team probably had their own guys, and the other half would come in and train with us, the S&C and myself, and we prepare them for the season.

We build up a foundation over that, so you have a really good block where you can improve that individual's weaknesses or needs, as well as build that strength and aerobic foundation for them to tolerate the demands of that season.

James de Lacey31:59

So those are the two different models I've worked with.

Travis McMaster31:59

Yeah, it's quite a different world. You just got to get your head wrapped around both of them if you want to work in those environments.

James de Lacey31:59

Yeah. Sounds damn nuts. But I wanted to come back to, I know you mentioned you don't like the word power, but I'm going to use it just for the ease the audience. But we could just say velocity under low loads. Now I was going to say, how, what are some ways you like to develop just lower and upper body or full body power within I guess combat, collision, whatever athletes there? Because obviously hockey, high power output demands, same with sevens and rugby. So are there any go-to things you like to use, protocols, etc.? Very general, but yeah, definitely.

Travis McMaster32:53

So obviously plyos is the main one we use to develop power, plyos and throwing. So throw implements and do plyos. And then in terms of that, you can change the tempo, change the rhythm of those movements to focus on different areas and decrease or increase the intensity.

So what I mean by that, you can focus on where you're just trying to develop maximum jump height or maximum output at a peak, so maximum net impulse if you will, where you're going through the range of motion not necessarily explosively as possible, but your goal is to maximize height of the movement. So that would be more the optimal power, if you will, if you're thinking that from that point of view.

And some other instance we want to develop rate of force. We're trying to decelerate really quickly and explode really quickly where you need to react to something. So that's obviously in any team sport or any combat sport, physical sport, you need that reactive ability. So developing that is different than producing a maximum output, if you will.

So ways we do that is to squeeze up that stretch-shortening cycle in terms of drop jumps, reactive, and try to minimize the ground contact time and maximize the height. We do that in all different directions. So initially we'll do it just vertically to train the musculature and tendons and reaction times and nervous system to be able to do that. And then we'll start to apply it in other planes where it's a lateral cut, it's a forward movement, it's a 505 stop-start, or it's a Y, or it's reacting to a defender or color to actually create that stimulus where you have to react quickly.

So it still comes that continuum will build different capacities on where they are throughout the year, moving from a more power-based performance to a more higher rate of force, higher intensity stretch-shortening cycle movement. This is more applied to rugby context if you're thinking in that environment.

So how we manipulate those variables, we'll move from loaded jumps or loaded explosive movements that are quite heavy, where it's the force dominant action, to more explosive, even assisted movements where we're pulling that athlete to move them faster than they're actually used to, or more explosively than they're actually used to moving. So that'd be the continuum you're trying to work off of.

So example would be, here's the athlete, weighs 225 pounds. He's jumping with 225 pounds on his back. That's the high end of the force. To that athlete's jumping with bands above him, making him 50% less than he actually weighs, to make him more explosive in the vertical direction. And then like I said, you can change the contractile components, eccentric, concentric components of how fast we want to do those sequences, based on our progressions.

Hope we understand pretty fast. I'm a bit obsessed with biomechanics and that type of movement stuff. Essentially, manipulate how quickly you dip down and then jump, so you can...

James de Lacey35:57

Go slower down and up or you can go very fast down and up if we want to put it very simply. But you mentioned there you start on the force side of that quote-unquote power spectrum and then move to the more velocity side. Does an individual force-velocity profile ever play a part in that? Does that change at all depending on the athlete, or do all your guys come in—okay, they all start force, move towards velocity as you get towards the season?

Travis McMaster36:20

They all start with a strength, heavy strength movement based on where they are in terms of maximum strength output. But we complex either high force or high velocity depending on where that athlete is on the spectrum. So for example, they'll all do, say, 80% one rep max squat that day or deadlift or split squat. And then their complex will be a jump with either 50 kgs, no load, or assisted depending on what their output in terms of the complex.

And then that'll transfer to—on our horizontal day—they all do a super heavy sled complex with some sort of jump. Could be halter jump where there's dumbbells in their hand, or could be assisted where it's pulling them forward in terms of their output. So these are different ways we complex it. We also complex with tackling as well. We'll do a heavy lift followed by tackles into pads, into bags, or scrub machines depending on if we're looking for high force or high velocity in terms of that contact point of view. So we'll complex that as well.

The closer we get to the season, we'll start to add in more of that rugby-specific in the gym. So a lot of teams, don't be afraid to add your sport, bring your sport to the gym. For sure, for all S&C coaches, you can always complex the movement patterns you need in the ring or on the field with your strength movements. You can complex the skill components, the technical components as well.

So we'll complex passing even with a rugby ball or med ball within the gym session to help get more touches and get that athlete better at that movement pattern within the gym environment. And it won't take away from the strength movement because it's that complex.

James de Lacey37:50

Actually reinforce sport-specific movement pattern. We did the same in rugby. We did a few experiments with a few different things like upper body pressing with—I had a scrum complex that was like an ISO scrum push into like a banded—like a scrum, I don't know what you'd call it—almost like a launch out into the pads and things like that.

Launching medicine ball throws. I mean, for combat athletes, anyone listening, you can superset your squats with medicine ball punch throws, rotational throws, kicks, roundhouse kicks against the heavy bag, double leg shots. All those kind of things can be used to complex with your strength movements or power movements. And you can potentially see transfer over because you get that potentiation effect from one. You can start doing two movements—should feel a little more explosive doing it and potentially carry that over to your actual technical training too, what Travis is saying.

And I wanted to also—I actually wanted to ask you about optimal power load. For the listeners that—just the combat listening—that might sound like a bit of gibberish. But essentially it's the load that maximizes power output when you're performing a task. Jump, you might jump over various loads and one certain load will maximize power output. Do you subscribe to the idea that you should train an optimal power load to maximize power development, or are you more—you've pretty much already said you train over the spectrum—but just in general?

Travis McMaster39:17

We strain—we're almost more polarized training in the way we train. We train both extreme ends of the spectrum generally. So we'll train the high force and then the high velocity end of the spectrum in terms of what we want the athlete to be able to do in the game.

So what you're explaining in terms of—at a given load, you produce a force and a velocity, and the combination of the product of those two makes the peak power. But usually that peak power occurs at a moderate velocity and a moderate load, where we don't want the athletes operating in the middle. We want them operating at extreme force and extreme velocity in terms of an output point of view.

So this is the main reason we train the ends of the spectrum—both ends of the spectrum. Yes, there's a place for optimal power, but we look at producing more force or more velocity in our movements.

James de Lacey40:11

Hey guys, it's me again. I just want to let you know that I also have Sweet Science of Fighting rash guards and shorts so you can represent Sweet Science of Fighting on the mats and within competition. We have the classic—just like the shirt I'm wearing—rash guard, Sweet Science of Fighting on the front, and we have the logos on the sleeves and then XM on the back. We also have that in a shorts variation, same thing with the Sweet Science of Fighting writing on one leg and we have the logo on the other.

But my personal favorite—this is my personal favorite by far—we have this in black and white and it is the Taniwha protector guardian version of the Sweet Science of Fighting with the logo on the back. This was designed by a Māori designer back in New Zealand. So a bit of my heritage on this jersey. It represents the acknowledgement of battle and war.

It also represents strength and stability and also has the New Zealand silver fern. But even if you're not a Kiwi, cop this—this is an awesome design. It is a custom-made design. You will not find it anywhere else. So check that—that'll also be down in the description with a discount code. But back to the podcast.

Awesome. Do Olympic lifts play any part in your training program?

Travis McMaster41:32

Yes sir. We all clean, we all power clean, we push press, we jerk. If they can't clean or push press—or they can't clean because of shoulders—some rugby players have really messed up shoulders—so they either, they'll do variations that will high pull or we counter-movement jump with a load on their back, which can mimic the same movement capabilities of that.

But yeah, we'll power clean within our cycle. Push press is a main movement in rugby. Got to be able to lift overhead relatively explosively. So yeah, we'll complex those into our training. So those'd be the main two we actually do in terms of the variations of the Olympic lifts.

We don't snatch, but we overhead squat, we overhead lunge. We used to snatch—we had too many shoulder issues—but now we do it under control condition. So if we're looking for triple extension, we're doing either jumps or cleans to get that high force and triple extension and that eccentric catch. We like to look at that component while being able to accelerate that load as you catch it. So you can do it off a jump or you can do it off a clean where you have to absorb the load.

I just like the rhythm of a clean. Once the athletes get the technique, it has a really nice rhythm in terms of triple extension, transfer, and catch under. It's a really good rhythm in terms of that concentric-eccentric coupling in my mind to get the movement pattern. And I find the guys that get really good at clean, they all become our best tacklers. They can all produce the most force in that horizontal plane. We haven't run a correlation, but when you look at our best cleaners, they're usually their best tacklers.

James de Lacey42:51

There you go, for all the grapplers and wrestlers listening, get good at your power cleans, hang cleans, whatever it is, and you'll be shooting massive double legs.

Travis McMaster43:18

It's very important. That's—a lot of guys just do the concentric component, but you're missing the vital aspect of being able to absorb. So when you think of two things you have to be able to do in sport: you have to be able to produce force and absorb force. Those are the two main things you have to be able to do effectively to win over your component or opponent.

James de Lacey43:43

Nice. You obviously showed an Exerfly flywheel thing in your little storage room there. Are you using that quite often with the players?

Travis McMaster43:43

Yeah, we just started this off-season actually. We just got them in. We used to use it quite a bit previously, but they disappeared, so I bought a whole new stack in the off-season. But yeah, we use it regularly for a lot of single leg work we actually do on it. We do a lot of single leg squatting where they have to get a rhythm and be able to control that eccentric load.

We also do it with rotation. It's quite good for that rotation and that counter. Right, brutal, trying to control that load on the way back. So that's basically fighting your opponent, right? So how do you fight that opponent from pulling you back or pulling or flipping you over or tackling you? So I find it really good for that rotational movement and really good for squat pattern type lifts as well.

So that's what we've explored at the moment—just those two movements. I'm sure there's a lot more we can do with it, but those are the main movements we've done: bilateral, unilateral squat patterns, and then that rotational movement's been really good for us.

James de Lacey44:35

Nice. Yeah, because the co-owner of Exerfly, he lived the suburb over from me in New Zealand. So he gave us his Exerfly to use for the year until we were leaving.

To come to the states and had a good play around with a whole bunch of stuff on there. It's nice you don't get that huge soreness that you would if you were doing huge eccentric loading, even though you're doing massive eccentric loading, which is really nice. And the rotational stuff, dude, that is like another level on the trunk to resist that.

Travis McMaster45:01

I find that rips our guys up though, like you get sore. Like you don't get the squat, but you get sore from resisting that rotation so hard. No, it's had a really good effect on our boys, that one, so start to use that more in this offseason.

I haven't brought it out for most of them yet because I want to save that for our next block. I just want to get that foundation where we're just moving through range of motion with basically free weights, just to get them moving correctly again. It's been a long offseason for the lads, so we kind of gave them it because they won the World Series.

Their best year in years, they're very consistent. I think we won four or five tournaments in a row, so the boys, take the rest. We'll build up, we got 50 weeks to the Olympics, so let's just let the bodies heal here and we'll come back better.

James de Lacey45:49

Nice. If anyone's interested in seeing, if you just search like rotation or flywheel, if you just search rotation flywheel, something like that exercise, you'll probably find something. But if you have the opportunity to use one and do some rotation on it, it's another level. It's nothing like a cable or a band that you just can't replicate it without the flywheel, and it's awesome.

Remember, the faster you move that wheel, the faster it's pulling you back. That's the problem. And then you're just sitting there trying to resist that thing on the way back, or you add the eccentric motor on top and give it the 10% boost, and then you're going for a ride with it because that thing just pulls damn hard.

Travis McMaster46:37

I actually did the eccentric boost doing hip thrusts, so it was like 10% extra on that. That was actually pretty legit because obviously with the hips with the bar, as you sink lower you don't keep that same tension, but when that's pulling on you all the way down, that eccentric load, that's really nice. So that's something I played around with there as well.

James de Lacey46:37

That's interesting with the flywheel. It's cool. And when you mentioned about the rotational stuff too, I was, oh, maybe seven, six, seven years ago, when I was here in Austin, I was playing around with the 1080 Quantum and I tried the same thing, the rotation. So they had like an isokinetic setting, basically, so it was the same speed for anyone listening, and it was a tether and we wrapped it around a light heavy bag and I would grab it and I would rotate it out and then it would pull me back eccentrically at like 40 kilos of force. And then I'd pull it and then I would have to resist it all the way back with it pulling me.

And I did the same thing with neck training. Had it on an Iron Neck. I would hold it there eccentrically. I was doing a lot of jiu-jitsu. My neck would be fine. My neck was fine. I thought it was going to be, but I wasn't, but just like 40 kilos of eccentric force, it was just pulling my head and then just stop it, stuff like that, just playing around with it.

Travis McMaster47:50

Our front rows would love that. They love the neck, just neck all day on that thing. But yeah, that's crazy, like some of the stuff you can do with it. I mean, these things are not cheap for anyone listening. I mean, the flywheel will send you back five figures and a Quantum 1080 will send you back more five figures. We don't have a 1080 yet, which wasn't the budget. I had to pick one, so we got three flywheels here, so that'll do the trick.

James de Lacey48:12

Nice. I love that. No, I think we pretty much covered everything on the pod that I wanted to ask you, Travis, but where can people find you and follow you? Are you that active on socials anymore?

Travis McMaster48:12

Just a little bit, becoming more active. So I've started, get these podcasts out there, so bit of a work on for the season, get out there a bit more. I start to share my knowledge and ideas and experiences and kind of give back a bit. So this is probably my third podcast this month, so we'll keep pushing that.

James de Lacey48:34

Oh, nice.

Travis McMaster48:34

I'm on Instagram, LinkedIn, those are the two main platforms I work off of. All my research is on ResearchGate. If anyone knows that platform, it's where basically all my sports science biomechanics research sits, is on that platform. So those are the three platforms I work off of: Instagram, LinkedIn, and ResearchGate.

James de Lacey49:00

Perfect. I'll link those up in the description too, Travis. But thanks for coming on, appreciate it.

Travis McMaster49:00

Thanks, brother. I appreciate the chat, man. It's good to catch up and maybe I'll see you over there one day.