Strength & Conditioning For Fighters Over 40

James de Lacey2:38

If there is a difference, if there's not, if it's more kind of just thinking of kind of general qualities all around or if there are differences in that strength and conditioning.

Dustin Lebel3:15

So, I guess to maybe comment on the gearing more towards older grapplers and the older population, of course, anytime you turn 40, you immediately need to start posting over 40 content. Hence why I do that. No, but most of the folks I work with are 30 and up, 35 or even 40 and up. They've been training for a long time and they train as a hobby for the most part. Again, I have a few higher level competitors, but these are people training two, three, four days a week in their sport and they want a strength conditioning program to not only improve their sport but also just overall health and longevity so that they can stay on the mats longer, perform at their personal highest level for as long as they can and feel good off the mats. So that's kind of where I come from in that regard.

Now, in terms of whether I change programming up from someone who's just strictly grappling to someone who's more on the striking or MMA side of things, I've been, I guess, hearing a lot of the content you've been putting out lately in regards to improving things like rate of force development and increasing like eccentric strength and the ability to train those qualities with different types of speed, elements of speed training in a weight room or out of the weight room if we should say.

A lot of the folks I work with though aren't necessarily at that point where I think they need to have that divide. They're more on the very general side of things. But as I learn more and as I kind of go through different folks' content and try to hone that in for myself, I'll start to incorporate some of those things.

With that said, obviously if someone is more of a striker and they're not doing any grappling or any jiu-jitsu, yeah, we're probably going to emphasize more on the speed or rate of force development side of things versus if someone's grappling and they need to improve general strength levels and the ability to grind, if you will, then we're going to improve that. But we find out a lot of these things through just a general assessment and the ongoing assessment that is training. And I'm really big on just kind of using folks' preferences in terms of like what do they like to do.

So, I have guys who they might train jiu-jitsu, they might be grapplers, but they want to get out on the track in the spring and in the summer.

James de Lacey5:39

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Dustin Lebel6:33

Not because they think it's going to help their sport, but because it's something that they enjoy doing. And it all depends, I guess, on what the person wants.

James de Lacey6:41

Yeah, for sure. That's a huge factor in programming as well. Like as much as we'd love to just give the perfect thing to do all the time, there are just some things that you kind of you have to work with with the athlete. That's pretty much it. Instead of it being a dictatorship on top of it.

Dustin Lebel7:02

Yeah, there's always a little bit of give and take. You're giving people what they need or what you feel like they need, but also a little bit of what they want. So even though some of the things I might post on social media, they might be more like directive in terms of do this, I'd say very little of my coaching is actually that because you're constantly taking into account of what the person wants to do, what their time constraints are, what their equipment or gym constraints are, and you're factoring all these things in to create a program that is actually sustainable and repeatable over the long term.

James de Lacey7:35

Yeah. Funny enough, I just had a fighter I started coaching and he's got a fight coming up potentially in March, but he wants to learn some of the Olympic lifts. So it's like in a, well let's not say perfect world, in a social media world at two months you wouldn't even bother because of the, but it's doable and he wants to do it so it's like okay I'm not going to say no we're not going to do any of them, why not have some of it in there but you can still do the other things around it, so

yeah I mean as you mentioned things are lost on social media and the way things, yeah you go

Dustin Lebel8:12

And my take is always you do no harm, right? That's first and foremost. So, if we're not going to, if the individual is not going to get hurt, then we can go explore a bunch of different areas of training as long as it fits the general mold of what we're looking to do. If it's their lifestyle, their ability to recover, I'm all for it.

James de Lacey8:33

Yeah. It's kind of like diet, nutrition, too, right? You have most of your meals and your food good and you maybe have 10% wiggle room to do what you like. It's the same in training. You hit the main things you need to do and you've got some wiggle room to kind of do what you like in the gym if you so please. And it gives flexibility.

It's the old Steu McMillan, 80 to 90% of your training is kind of pre-planned. It's what you need to do and the rest is he doesn't say but [expletive] around and find out for the most part.

Dustin Lebel9:04

Yeah. And experimenting. You mentioned general and ongoing assessment. Do you want maybe just jump into that kind of what you're looking at there and how that further informs the programming?

James de Lacey9:04

Yeah. So when I first start with folks, we're going to do some sort of an assessment. And my assessments range anywhere from a simple one week to three or four weeks where it's kind of ongoing and it's assessments built into the training. But I'm generally going to get an idea of, well, after an initial conversation, right, where I want to—I need to know if, a, what equipment do you have, b, what is your training history? Where are you coming from at this point? Do you know how to train?

And then I'm going to create a program/assessment that's going to give me a really good idea of where we stand at least within that first few weeks of us working together so that moving forward we have a good idea of where to take things. So a lot of the assessments that I do have been—and I actually posted something about this earlier today—have been just kind of refined over the last 10 plus years of working with people and trying to figure this out for myself as well. But you want to get an idea of someone's general capabilities, right?

So even before the mentorship with Andrew, I was doing a lot of these things and the mentorship helped refine some of that further and also added some new ideas. So I generally want to get an idea of max strength or at least their general strength capabilities. Not necessarily one rep maximum, but that three to five to six rep max of, a daily max, if you will, of a hinge, a squat, press pull pattern, something like that, want to get an idea of relative strength.

Again, if it fits the individual, right? So if I through conversation, I'm talking to someone, they've never done a chin-up, I'm not going to test their back rep chin-ups, right? But if it's somebody who's decently well trained, we're going to get an idea of just some relative strength along with filming of these movements just so I can see how you move—can you control your body space, really almost rudimentary type stuff.

But I think a lot of people find out that they're not maybe quite as fit as they thought they were when you have someone do some relatively simple tests. But this way I can see how they move, see what their kind of volitional point of failure is. You're watching a set and they're moving relatively good and they just stop. Okay, that tells me a lot of what I need to know for training moving forward and kind of how to prescribe things moving forward.

I do—and it's something that I kind of gone back to after re-listening to some of the stuff you've been putting out lately—going back to some ISO holds as part of an assessment. I was doing a lot of this pre-COVID, right around COVID and then stopped. But then I really just think having someone film their work too, having someone do a simple iso lunge for time, that tells you a lot about in terms of not only their ability to hold that position, but again, I'm watching them and if I see you're at, I don't know, 33 seconds or something in an iso lunge and you just stop because you felt like stopping.

Again, it's not good or bad or anything, but it does tell me, okay, here's where we need to take that person moving forward. So on the strength side, it's pretty simple, pretty straightforward. And then on the conditioning side, I know Andrew has talked about the windgate test and various ramp test protocols. I have a few that I've gotten from folks in the past. One of which is just a simple max wattage test on a—if somebody has an assault bike or an echo bike.

So I'll have them do a 10-second all-out sprint. They're going to rest for a minute 50 or two minutes and then try to repeat that effort as many times as they can trying to sustain at least 85% of that top number with a cap at 10. So the test is over in 10 to 20 minutes depending on the person's capacity. And then from there, we're able to get a top end number, right? Generally going to get an idea of their ability to repeat that.

And also if someone, they go out and they—I give a prescription for a warm-up prior to doing that but let's say they go out and they get 800 watts as, let's just say, on their first repeat and then on the second one it's 850 and then on the third one it's 900 and then on the fourth one they completely [expletive] the bed and it's 600. Let's just—that person is just not well trained. And I would not have that individual do a windgate for example. So I'll run these assessments before I have them do a classic 30-60 windgate.

The other one I'll do is a two-mile echo or salt bike. I have a decent amount of data at this point to kind of know what that should look like. And that's kind of my baseline assessment for the delivery side of the cardiovascular equation. So if someone is over five minutes generally we're going to push that a little bit more and we're going to do more of whether it's a combination of moderate intensity steady state or shorter high intensity interval training that's going to lead me in that direction.

And then the last one I'll do is an ascending or a ramp test. I really like using the wattage from the max effort test earlier in the week and they'll do percentages of that wattage in incremental step form. So 5 minutes on, 1 minute off starting at 10%—doesn't have to—you don't have to go by percentage, you can just do a low number and then incrementally increasing by 2% every five minute bout. So by on, one off, repeat until failure basically.

So I want to see that person get to 18, 20, 22%. And I do like the heart rate data for that as well. So that way you can see, is someone able to demonstrate that steady increase in heart rate throughout or are they kind of reaching a peak heart rate relatively soon? They just kind of flatline and they're staying the same even with the increase in output. And those are just simple ones that are easy for me to interpret, easy for the person generally to follow through and do, and most people have access to some sort of fan bike, salt bike, echo bike, et cetera.

And then, Andrew talking about some of the windgate assessments and looking at heart rate kinetics have been useful, though, to be honest, interpreting that data has been something that I'm currently going back to and kind of re-watching. And now that I have a H10 myself, Polar H10, I'm going through. So I've had people do a 30-60 just to get the max wattage and also the average wattage for the two repeats.

But the heart rate data, either folks don't have a Polar H10, might have a Garmin and that's not going to be that accurate. So I'm playing with that, but I wouldn't do the 30-60 till I probably got the previous data first, just because if someone has a seven minute, two mile echo bike test, we just need to improve that general baseline fitness before moving on, if that makes sense.

Dustin Lebel15:59

With your population, do you find that's more common than not? Those people with maybe longer two mile times and really don't have that base.

James de Lacey15:59

Yeah. I would say that's the case. Unless somebody is training multiple times a week and their practice sessions are kind of designed in a way where most of that time is spent live training, they're getting a lot of volume in and they're fairly well trained. They've been doing a lot of cardiovascular training or conditioning on the side.

Yeah. Generally, I've noticed that those two-mile times, whether it's do a two-mile or a 10-minute test or anything in that 5 to 10 minute range, tends to need some improvement. A lot of times it just hasn't been trained. So they need to improve that capacity at least in the general sense before we worry about kind of the kinetics and more of the really high intensity type work.

Dustin Lebel15:59

You mentioned with the ISO lunge as well, maybe with guys who potentially stop or fail 30 seconds maybe versus someone who goes to, I don't know, 90 seconds plus, how does that potentially change what you're prescribing programming wise?

James de Lacey17:12

Yeah. So, this is something I've been recently revisiting. This kind of got my gears turning a little bit too because if you're watching someone go through an ISO lunge and you're watching the video and again you might see different failure points for different types of people but someone who's grinding through and they're hanging on for dear life and they get to that 90 second, two minute plus range, for lack of a better term they got that dog in them right and you can prescribe things in a manner that they are going to kind of know how to go through that and apply the proper intent behind what you do.

Versus someone who they attempted the ISO lunge, they write back that wasn't that hard, but you're like in your head, you're like, you didn't quite—you didn't even hit a minute. Yes, it wasn't hard because you didn't try that hard. You don't want to say that in so many words. So again, that tends to drive how I'm going to program things moving forward. Just kind of understanding where that person is.

So yeah, we probably don't need to be doing fast eccentrics or drop catches with that individual and again looking at the other data too, their three to five rep maxes on their primary lift, that kind of thing, their relative strength. I think I've learned to just kind of find these general baseline measurements just as a catchall and then we can kind of move from there. And then as the training moves forward and as we kind of get to know one another three, six, nine plus months down the road, then things can get interesting and we can play around with some different tools.

How do you cue the iso lunge? Because you can do it and you can just hold it in position. I've been gearing more towards trying to keep that active tension where you're trying to almost scissor your legs. But I don't know if that's even necessary if you're going like two, three minutes because the tension is going to be there as you fatigue more. So I don't know if you have a preference there or if you do cue it at all.

Dustin Lebel18:44

So for the test itself, I don't cue it. I just give the—I want a long—I have a video, right, where it's a long lunge, knees one to three inches off the ground, and it's just to hold it. I feel like the cueing would kind of confuse—again, this is someone who's brand new. They've never worked with me before. They don't know anything from anything. The cueing would kind of confuse them.

But again, if someone's doing two plus minutes and they're looking pretty good, especially in your other assessments, and we include the ISO lunges as a part of their training, whether it's post training or as a warm-up, then I'm going to add that cue in. I figure that first week assessment or even that first month, depending on how I kind of lay that out, it's me getting to know the person and I don't need to give them every arrow in my quiver.

Let's just see where they're at. Let's see if they know how to operate and how to train and we can start adding little things in.

James de Lacey19:57

Yeah. That's a good way to go about it as well because I think people can get a little too crazy trying to throw everything into the first program when you can kind of just gradually build it out as you understand more about the fighter and the athlete as they progress through and maybe they need more things because initially most people don't even need—even just the small tweak and having a new coach or new program or whatever, the novelty is enough to start changing things.

So you don't even need to start adding a bunch of other stuff until as you continue down the road as you become more familiar, I guess, with them.

Dustin Lebel20:38

Yeah. And it's just kind of how I—I think it's just a good way to keep clients for longer anyway. Underpromise and overdeliver. At first, when I'm first talking to somebody, I'm very clear with them of, look, this is going to be simple moving forward. And that's kind of why maybe I air towards that too on the social media side of things.

Because not just because nuance tends to get lost, right, in translation, but also I want to make sure that we have this crystal clear starting point of, look, we're going to—we have to have a baseline. We got to start somewhere. And then once you demonstrate to me that you're capable of doing the things that I put down on the app or whatever, then we can start to advance forward if needed, right, if at all. So—

James de Lacey21:26

Nice. And then obviously you mentioned you work with mainly 30, I guess 35 plus, we'll call it, which isn't old.

Dustin Lebel21:35

No, no, not by any means. No.

James de Lacey21:37

But for—I guess maybe there may be some special considerations maybe as you start creeping up in that age range compared to maybe young athletes or people in their early 20s. Are there any considerations that you found that may be common that you have with this population versus maybe younger athletes?

Dustin Lebel21:58

I honestly just think the main thing is just the life constraints that come into play when you get older. People tend to have more on their plate. They're more advanced in their careers. They have a family, a mortgage, this and that. They have a bunch of other things on their plate that they probably didn't have in their 20s or early 30s. So you have these different stressors pulling at people. It's just important to understand that.

As much as people want training to be thrown at them, especially people that tend to look for coaching, they want more. They want the different bells and whistles. They want to be kind of crushed. And it's important for me to just remind them of, look, we're going to have something that's sustainable, that's repeatable. Just like with the assessment example, demonstrate to me that you can repeat this training week and that we can kind of check these boxes off week after week. I'll gladly add in more.

But I also want them to kind of have this, for lack of a better term, maybe safe space where, look, if you miss a session or we need to push something off, it's totally okay. We can do that. We need to fit training in with the rest of your life. Most of my clients, they're either other coaches themselves or they're just busy, busy professionals, as the term goes, right?

So they have other things going on in their lives. And as much as we want compliance to be high and adherence to be high, it needs to come with the understanding that life is going to take people through different ups and downs. And that's kind of my job is to be there for those down periods especially, make adjustments so that they feel confident in whatever they're moving forward.

James de Lacey23:44

Nice. Does that mean then your typical maybe training program might be considered low volume in the grand scheme of things? And then what would be typical session structures from that, whether it's low volume or not?

Dustin Lebel24:00

For sure. Yeah. So the total volume of a session—I guess I try to keep all sessions within that 60 minute sweet spot, more or less kind of depending on how it's structured. Whether I squeeze more or less volume in that depends on, number one, what the person wants to do, right, their preferences, kind of the feedback that they give me in terms of how they want to train, their volume outside of the gym. So again if they are a combat sport athlete, what does that look like? How many days a week are they on the mats? Are they sparring? That kind of thing.

So it tends to be lower volume in the general sense of things, but I will incorporate different protocols and methods that might seem quote unquote higher volume. Definitely not high relative to what people would consider high volume. But just things that give people that taste of they're working hard, they're getting a lot of work done in a relatively short amount of time.

But that said, a typical session structure. If it's a strength day, they're going to have some sort of general warm-up. I mean, this shouldn't be news to anybody, but some sort of general warm-up, some sort of prep work, or primer series, whatever we want to call. And that's going to include some sort of low amplitude to higher amplitude plyometric and/or throw and/or ballistic. If they're competent in the Olympic lifts and they want to include the Olympic lifts, it might be a derivative of some sort. And then some sort of primary squat or hinge.

I tend to alternate between the two each day. A primary pull or press and then usually secondary or tertiary options after that, right? Where they're going to do some sort of split squat, one arm row, some sort of single leg hinge, hamstring curl, single arm press or body weight base pressing variation, whatever the case might be. And that's where I'll kind of vary things a little bit more.

So primary lifts tend to stay the same for multiple blocks or some people just never change them because they don't want to. But I'll tend to rotate those secondary and tertiary pieces every three to six weeks or so, generally every month. And I'll give them some variety for the sake of variety. I know that's you're not allowed to say that on social media, but I've just found most of my clients don't care if they switch from a rear foot elevated split squat one block to a front foot elevated reverse lunge next.

Even though technically I know you're learning the movement in the first week or two and then finally you get to overlook, as long as that primary lift is moving and we're kind of sticking with that.

I'm going to give people some variations on their secondaries again if they want it. I have some clients who are, "Don't touch it until I say so." Because I want to do the same things. I like seeing the log book increase every single time. But I would say 90 plus percent of the people I work with, they like the variation. And even if it's just a small subtle change, they like to see that.

And I think it gives them some variability in terms of their movement competency, right? The ability to move in different planes, move through different ranges of motion and try things out because training at the end of the day still needs to be fun even if we take it seriously. You need to enjoy what we do.

James de Lacey26:54

Yeah, I don't think I've ever—well, I don't think I've ever come across someone who just will do the same program over and over and over. That's—that takes some dedication.

Dustin Lebel27:21

Yeah, it it—yeah, there's a certain level of neurodivergence that I think that requires that most I've just found, even if you do have that, that's just tough to do after a while. And I think variation definitely has a role.

James de Lacey27:36

Yeah, for sure. So then how does the—how will the condition, like a general kind of conditioning structure look within a week as well with around people's kind of combat sports training and then also with their strength training? What does it usually fit in, and then what does it typically kind of look like, at least within your population?

Dustin Lebel27:54

Yeah, so that'd be helpful if I talked about the conditioning day. So conditioning will either be done post strength training again if that person is kind of constrained to that. I'd say most of my clients, though, will generally have one or maybe two dedicated conditioning sessions, again based on their allotted time throughout the week.

So I have over the last few years—I think coming across Evan Peikon's work four, five, six years, like since he kind of started talking about kind of the contemporary model of looking at energy system development or whatever we're going to call it—I started kind of looking at more of like the utilization versus delivery side and kind of having that difference throughout the week, right?

So one day might be more on the utilization side, where we're doing short sprint repeats with varying rest intervals one day, and then the other day might be more of like your longer, whether it's high intensity interval work or threshold or sub-threshold or whatever we're going to call it.

So if somebody has two days, I'll generally divide it up like that. So you kind of have like a high day and then a kind of like a low or moderate day, again depending on what that interval structure looks like. And I'll put in again depending on the person, they might have some plyometrics before some of that work. They might follow up some like easier accessories, whether it's core, arms, neck, etc.

If it's one day, I'll typically have some sort of blended session where they're going to do, depending on kind of where I put the sprint intervals and kind of depending on what their makeup looks like, they're going to do some sort of, let's say, sprint interval, whether it's, varying again work to rest. They're going to do something in that moderate, let's call it long high-intensity interval training, that kind of 30 to 120 second range, again various rest intervals, and then maybe some like oxidative, more steady-state work on the back end.

That would just be like a sample, like catch-all day that I think is enjoyable because you're not spending too much time in any one thing. Tends to go by pretty quick. And if it were up to me, I would—I personally like a day like that as well. If we're doing more like the classic, like one to one or one to four work to rest type sprint intervals, they might do threshold or like long high-intensity interval training to start, and then we finish with the sprint intervals on the back end if they're doing one day.

James de Lacey30:23

Yeah. If someone is like myself where I basically I just do conditioning post strength training and I really don't have the time or energy for a dedicated conditioning day at this moment just because of the amount of skill stuff I'm doing, I just do sprint intervals right after right after my strength work.

Dustin Lebel30:41

You're one of those psychos.

James de Lacey30:43

Yeah, it's not by choice, man. I got—but there is, it is nice just knowing that like, okay, I only, like twice a week I just got to find five minutes or less to get this in, whether it's, it just happens to be convenient right after a lifting session, the bike's right there, you kind of feel like, I got to just just do it.

But if I can't get it in then for whatever reason, usually I'm just being a wimp, then I can at least find the time at some point during the week, or I'm lucky I have the equipment in my basement. I can just go down there and knock that out real quick and move on with my day.

How do your, how do your athletes that maybe are less competitive find doing sprint intervals? Are they getting, some of them getting regular sprint intervals, and how do they find doing them?

Dustin Lebel31:16

Yeah, so Andrew would probably be upset to hear this, but I do have people doing sprint intervals just to do them. Like we, meaning they're not really, they might be tracking their heart rate, some do, some are, they're wearing their heart rate monitors and they're posting their data for me. Others aren't. Again, it's based on what the person wants.

So I do try to like, I look at all training through this spectrum of like, I want to give everybody a little bit of everything, and I want to kind of be able to explore the gamut of power to capacity and however we want to look at that. So I do give people a touch of almost everything at some point in their training, even if they are gen pop. Obviously it's going to be skewed towards that individual.

With that said, I do tailor the work to rest kind of depending on what I know that person is capable of. So if for example, we have that two-mile data and I know it's on the higher end, but I do want to start incorporating some sprint interval work, then I'll typically work at like longer rest to work ratio, if you will. So they might do a 6 second on, 54 second off, like on the minute, 6, 7, 8, 10 of those pre whatever their conditioning piece is or at the tail end of a strength session.

But yeah, so to answer your question, I do like to incorporate a little bit of everything almost for everybody, just to—I just think it's a great idea, again, for most of the people that I work with. They're not hyper-specialized, they're not elite elite athletes. I just think for overall health, if you will, and longevity, I think being able to do a little bit of everything and tolerate that stress is a good thing.

James de Lacey33:10

Yeah. Yeah, I fully agree. I ask that question because it's hard mentally if you're not, like if you're not like a hardcore competitor, it's hard mentally to get on the bike two to three days a week and absolutely blast yourself because you go, "Oh, [expletive], not again."

Dustin Lebel33:10

That said, I don't think I have anybody doing sprint intervals twice a week. I'm the only one that, like, out of all my clients, because I had a few people do them and then they were like, I just don't like—thank God you only gave them to me once a week. So generally once a week.

However, it's one of those things too where the more I post about on social media, the more interest people get. I'll probably reach a point where people are like asking for an additional sprint interval day, or they just might, they just kind of expect it to be incorporated into the program, or we have that conversation of talking about including it in at some point.

James de Lacey34:03

So how do your, how do your programs maybe progress or change for your guys that are competing? Does it, or I guess how does it shift going into as he gets closer to competition?

Dustin Lebel34:03

I honestly, the main thing, and I try to keep things relatively simple—also, a lot of it depends on how well trained the person is. But if we know there's a competition coming up, we're generally just going to drop volume, we're going to maintain intensity, and just kind of keep an eye on what their overall recoverability looks like on a day-to-day basis or week-by-week basis, just through a simple check-in or if they have the data.

We're looking at resting heart rate, for example. Not really big on HRV, but if I see that their resting heart rate's relatively stable and they're feeling good, they're reporting back that two thumbs up, everything's great, we're going to continue to roll along as is.

I've found most people, especially like athletes, they don't necessarily need nor want a big taper. They kind of feel, most people tend to feel good, or athletes rather, tend to feel good when they're training a lot and they're training hard. And I don't always see a need to reduce that unless the signs are there, in which case we are going to make sure the volume is still dropped, but I want to make sure that person still feels confident and ready going into a training session.

So it might not look like a typical taper that you might see. It just might be like, week of or even 10 days to 14 days out, we're still going to maybe work up to a top end lift but like at a moderate RPE, like 7 to 8, where they might do some accessory work, but further away from failure. And we're going to still hit our conditioning, but again, more touching on the intensity side, drastically reducing volume, but at least this way the person still feels like, hey, I'm still training, I'm still me at the end of the day. I'm not just kind of waiting for this competition to come up, and they can go in feeling good and feeling fresh still.

James de Lacey35:55

So what would be like the week of competition? Say someone's competing on a Saturday. How would that week look compared to say earlier in the preparation in terms of maybe number of training sessions, training sessions itself? How far out from the actual competition they might train, et cetera?

Dustin Lebel36:13

Yeah. So I found most people, most athletes are creatures of habit. So they have their days where they train and they stick to those days no matter what. So let's say if that person generally does a Monday, Wednesday, Friday, we still might do a Monday, Wednesday, Thursday or Friday depending on what their travel schedule looks like, what their other constraints are in their life. And just drastically cut down the volume, and we're going to, if that person likes lifting heavy, like that's what they like doing, we might still work up to a heavy double, but in that 80%, just a touch, maybe a back off set or two, just again, low volume, like two, two sets of two kind of thing as a back off and then maybe a couple quick sets of just easier accessories just to feel good.

Maybe finish with just a quick conditioning piece. Again, it could just be as simple as maybe half volume. It could be five sets of six seconds on, or whatever, five sets, six seconds on, 10 seconds off or something along those lines. Again, depending on where they were in the progression. And that would be the same layout that I described before where they're doing a squat and a pull accessory.

And then day two would still be like a hinge, but maybe by that point that Wednesday session might be a little bit lighter. We might air that more towards the velocity side of things, get them feeling good, maybe less on the accessory side. And then if they do a Thursday, Friday, that's just generally going to be kind of the old Joel Jameson rebound type session where they might do some, for lack of a better term, higher stim work.

Maybe it's a couple plyo, couple jumps or throws, if you will. A few short sprints on the bike, but with closer to full recovery, maybe some steady state just to feel good, break a sweat and mentally just get prepped for the competition.

James de Lacey38:06

Nice. So the Friday, if you do a Friday session, it's almost like your primer for competition.

Dustin Lebel38:13

Yep. Exactly. And again, it's if the person has it built in their schedule where they can handle that. But if they're like, I normally train and then go to open mats on Saturday, it's like, how do you normally feel on Saturday? I feel good on Saturday. Well, let's not [expletive] with it. Let's kind of keep things relatively the same. So that way you show up on competition feeling like, oh, it's just a regular Saturday. I just happen to be a bit more fresh and ready to go.

James de Lacey38:37

Wait, so some guys will lift, say, the morning of competition. Is that what you're saying there?

Dustin Lebel38:37

Oh, no, no, no, no. Sorry. I meaning if they normally train on a Friday and then on Saturday they also train, I would just, they might do a light volume session where they maybe just peak intensity for a brief couple moments, and then bring it back down and again go into Saturday feeling good.

James de Lacey39:02

Have you played around with same day primers at all?

Dustin Lebel39:05

I haven't. I just found logistically it's tough for people to manage. I know you've talked about it in the past too and that would be something maybe if I were to compete, experiment on myself before I prescribe to others. And I know back in the day sprinters and shot, a lot of elite track and field athletes would do that.

I just found most people just can't manage it in their day between getting to the competition, handling all the things you got to handle in regards to that day, and then still trying to fit in even if it's just a short session. It's just mentally having to get ready.

James de Lacey39:28

I did it a lot with the repie guys, but I did it with myself for a competition I did a few years ago, but it was like a seven, I was competing at night and it was a super fight. I mean that was, it's tough because, well no the primer is not tough. I felt really good with that. It's obviously just the skill here is really high and I'm [expletive].

Dustin Lebel39:59

I think if someone's competing at night, I think it's an awesome idea. Just a way to relieve some of the tension, take your mind off it for a little bit and then go. I think that would be a fantastic idea. I just haven't had that opportunity yet.

James de Lacey40:13

Yeah, it's definitely different then. And I was just doing light power snatches and power clean. So, it's nothing crazy.

Dustin Lebel40:20

Yeah. Nothing crazy. You're just touching the movement, feeling, getting your mind ready to get after it. And if anything take it off of the fact that you're about to compete.

James de Lacey40:30

I've actually got a question here in the chat from Christian 91919. Interesting username. So do you happen to know what exercises to avoid for someone with shoulder rotator cuff injury and what to replace them with? He got an injury from Olympic lifts. Mostly his fault for going too hard. So, is there, have you got anything that you typically, maybe guys come to you with shoulder problems, exercises that you typically like to avoid?

Dustin Lebel40:56

Well, if you want to answer this, but you're preaching to the choir, Christian. So I had a torn, I had surgery for a torn labrum 22 years ago. I'm not going to say I retore it. I haven't had an MRI since, but about a little over two years ago, reinjured it, and I've just had issues since. So for me, certain movements are just out of the question. Back squat, for example, is just something I'm not able to do. Snatches are just something I'm not able to do. Overhead presses are generally something I'm not able to do.

So the answer is to find things that you can do. So I find most horizontal pressing to be totally fine. Something like a landmine press or something where I'm not getting full flexion overhead is also a great option, like the Viking press. I'm going to do like a two-arm variation. And then in terms of lower body movements, I mean safety squat bar if you have access to one, or I use zercher squats a lot.

And I know zercher squats, they go from getting a ton of hate to like they're the most, I strictly do zercher squats because they feel good and I'm like that's it. I don't think they're more functional or better. They feel good, especially in that front rack position or zercher position, if you will, center of mass shifted back a bit. I can squat nice and deep and have zero issues.

So, again, I'm not a physical therapist or anything like that. I would definitely reach out to someone who is.

James de Lacey42:20

Yeah, this is not medical advice, but train the things that you can train, avoid the things that hurt, and maybe seek out a professional.

Now that's funny you mentioned the zercher squats because dude I see it everywhere every damn day. It's like this new magical exercise for squatting and yeah sure do it, a squat variation, but I still don't see how it is superior to something like a front squat even to a back squat to some extent, but like superior like a front squat where you still have front loading.

Yes, you take away some of the mobility, as you mentioned, if you got shoulder issues and you can't do it, [expletive] you, go for it. But for someone who's maybe healthy, I just don't see how it's superior to something to overload the legs. I just don't see it. I just don't know. Maybe I'm missing something. Maybe I'm missing something completely.

Dustin Lebel43:23

No, I think the answer's right there. I don't think there's nothing superior about it. I just think it's a viable option if you need, if you have to do it. Trust me, I wish I could just back squat, way easier. And I liked back squatting when I could do it, but the zercher has been a safe movement for me to progress and feel good in. And again, I'm not in a zercher squatting competition anytime soon, so I really don't give a [expletive].

James de Lacey43:54

How did you deal with the initial elbow pain from the barbell on the?

Dustin Lebel44:00

Oh. To be, I don't know. I don't remember it being that bad. I've been zercher squatting on and off for a long time. I think you just kind of get over that initial hump. I have a client who recently had to switch to them because he got a tattoo actually and he couldn't put a bar in his back. He doesn't have access, he can't really front squat. So he'd been zercher squatting and it took him two or three sessions to just kind of get over it and now he's hitting numbers similar to what he was back squatting.

James de Lacey44:31

Interesting. Then I keep hearing about people, maybe give it a proper go at some point and just do a cycle of them just to get a good feeling. But it kind of just reminds you, and when I've done some of them kind of feels like belt squatting obviously without with the load in your hand. And much as the bell squat's a good option for people who can't load upper body, I just don't really like the movement as much.

Dustin Lebel44:56

Yeah, it comes down to preferences, too. It feels great to me. It feels like a squat, even though it's kind of hingy. If you were to watch I can get good depth. It's like a low bar squat with the bar in your elbows. That's what it is.

James de Lacey45:09

Yeah. I mean, you can elevate the heels and you can make it more squatty. I know Joel Smith has talked about that quite a bit, kind of doing that heel elevated zer where you're straight up and down. You're like an elevator. That's definitely I think that's a great supplemental squat variation for somebody. That's quad city all day, but the way I do them as a primary lift, it's pretty hingy. But still feels good. Feels like a squat to me.

Nice. Do you find that with your shoulder issues too, barbells tend to flare it up more than maybe other apparatus or landmines, dumbbells, Swiss bars, or that kind of stuff?

Dustin Lebel45:52

Yeah. So, I have this issue where even with a barbell bench press, I get some real grindy sensations going on. So, actually the best movement for me lately has been a weighted dip. I know dips tend to bother a lot of people's shoulders. I've had zero issues. They feel super safe.

I don't have any of the grinding sensation that I do with even a dumbbell bench, just doesn't feel good to me. So if you see me on my Instagram doing dips and I'll do some band resisted push-ups and the occasional Viking press, those are kind of my options right now that just feel best versus even what would normally seem pretty benign like a single arm landmine, a dumbbell bench, they just don't feel great.

James de Lacey46:37

Interesting. Yeah, it's funny on the dips. I haven't been able to do dips ever and it's not my shoulders, it's my sternum.

Dustin Lebel46:45

Yeah. And I remember being a kid and having that same issue and it just kind of went away. But yeah, the last I've been I've wanted to bench. I'm like I've never had a good bench. I'm like, you know what? I want to start making a priority. I tried and it just doesn't feel safe.

I'm like, I'm going to the bar is going to fall out of my hands. Like I'm going to dislocate my shoulder. So I feel much safer doing a dip and I have zero issues. I can push it relatively heavy weights, even in that lower rep range. Hope Mike Bole's not watching this, but I can do a one to three max and it feels just fine.

James de Lacey47:19

Oh, that's nice. I honestly wish I could do dips, but that's just the that's a good message anyway for anyone listening. You don't have to be married to any one exercise. It's something I've been trying to talk about for so long. And people get so mad when you say you don't need to squat like back squat or bench press or deadlift or any of those.

You can pick different variations. You can do whatever it is, whatever that's going to give you the adaptation and you'll be sweet. And as you mentioned, you live off dips, you live off, what was it? Viking press and some weighted push-ups, that's an echo combo.

Dustin Lebel47:52

Yeah. And it feels good. I have zero issues. And I'm always I give people the option kind of the choose your own adventure all the time with your primary lifts. Doesn't have to be a back squat. You can choose whatever squat, press, pull variation that you want, the one that you feel like you can progress that feels good to you.

You're better off than trying to force feed something that just feels like hot garbage. Especially trained combat sports, you're always going to have some sort of niggling ache, pain, something going on, and it's like you have to be able to call an audible, make those decisions so you can have a good session.

I think people get in a trap of they're trying to force a movement. They do it, it hurts, they feel bad about it, so they have a crappy session, and it's just like this perpetual they're like Sisyphus pushing the ball up the hill. They just won't just pick a different movement for kind of you'll feel better.

James de Lacey47:52

Yeah, for sure. And I want to end this podcast on a note, it's not going to be an advertisement for the conditioning mentorship, but it'll be interesting to know kind of your main takeaways from the conditioning mentorship that have made the I guess the biggest impact or at least maybe the biggest thought process, maybe changes to your philosophy, things that you learned from from that 8-week mentorship.

Dustin Lebel49:08

Yeah. So I think to be fair I've been listening to your podcast since the beginning. So you've had Andrew and John Babra on multiple times along with other people who are kind of in the same ilk and I've heard Andrew and John on other podcasts. So I kind of came in with already I won't say well versed but kind of knowing what to expect in terms of talking about intensity and how that relates to substrate utilization.

I think I was thinking about this from yesterday when you told me you was gonna be on and I was trying to come up with a good answer. I think one of the biggest takeaways is understanding and I guess this kind of goes back to the beginning too, understanding how your conditioning prescriptions need to fit the individual.

And there's a number of ways of finding it out. I think we can get as deep into the weeds as you want in terms of looking at the data, plugging in your info into the V2 master and kind of looking at those kinetics, which I'm not great at yet, I'm still learning. But I think even just having a raw whether it's the wattage or pacing whatever however you want to look at that or even just a polar H10 kind of graph that you get along with the subjective experience of the individual along with looking at the things outside of the sprints.

So one thing that I think Andrew talked about multiple times is sprints aren't all we do, there's a lot of other components that go into building a well-conditioned athlete. And I think it's just understanding the kind of a holistic, for lack of a better term, if you will, approach towards building an all-round or a well-rounded athlete.

And yeah, the sprints get a lot of they get all the radio play because I think they're not polarizing, but if you put something out talking about how all training is aerobic, right, for example, and we don't need to differentiate between aerobic and anaerobic because that implies that oxygen is not being used. Well, the oxygen is always being used, but and I think that's why they get so much people are like, whoa, I've been hearing the opposite for so long.

But there are other components that need to be built in and managed and it all depends on the person in front of you. I think those were some of the biggest and I'm going through the course material again just as kind of revisiting some of these things now that I'm several months into trying out some of the different protocols and kind of working things out for myself. It's like, okay, let's go back and let's see if I kind of maybe either misheard things or misremember things or if there's a new inkling that I could add in to my own practice, if you will.

James de Lacey51:52

Yeah, something new every time. That's the thing. Every time I sit down on any of our live calls or talk to Andrew about different things and it's just always something new because it's such a complex nuance topic that you just find especially as you do more things yourself, you just start to pick up things like what's happening here, what does this mean, all these different things that you come across as you start to implement it practically versus just reading about it or learning.

That's the thing. I think just jumping in and doing it has been the biggest thing. Again back 2021 or 2022 when I first heard those guys and again I don't think it was on your podcast initially. I think it was actually on Sean Cely's podcast, that as an upside strength and then getting exposed over the years on yours and then also hearing the slight adjustments that they've made in terms of how they're prescribed, kind of what they're looking at.

And then the most important thing is just going head first and figuring it out on my own. And then of course I'm generally not going to throw something at a client until I have experienced it myself, but also now having implemented this with various clients and now as I kind of go through the second round of like, okay, now let's interpret the data this time around, I'll probably learn more.

Dustin Lebel53:14

Yeah. Hopefully maybe a year from now I'll have a much clearer idea of what I'm looking at and why. But in the meantime, going back to do no harm, so as long as people are improving, they feel like all their metrics across the board are improving, and anecdotally in their sport practices or competitions they feel like they're improving, I think those, I'll take that all day.

James de Lacey53:41

Perfect. That's a good way to end this podcast. Dustin, where can people find and follow you, keep up with what you're doing?

Dustin Lebel53:46

Yeah, so Instagram is pretty much the only spot. I guess I am on the other platforms, but I don't really look at them. So Dustin Lebel, D-U-S-T-I-N L-E-B-E-L on Instagram is the best way to find me.

James de Lacey53:58

Perfect. I'll link that in the description as well. I'll link the conditioning mentorship down there too for anyone who's interested. And I appreciate you coming on.

Dustin Lebel54:04

Yeah, thanks for having me, James. Appreciate it.