Marvin Vettori Strength & Conditioning Case Study w/ Chase Cichos (SSOF Ep 160)

Chase Cichos2:36

That's... I mean I'm sure there's a few more. I hope I'm not disrespecting them by... it'll come to me later. But yeah, I've worked with quite a few UFC athletes. I have some PFL guys also. That's just the UFC. I've also worked with like black belt world champion jiu-jitsu athletes and whatnot and still work with them.

Usually when I start working with people, they tend to stick with me, which is a huge testament to my work. If it... I mean, for me, that's the biggest thing, right? If an athlete comes to you and really never leaves, I think you must be doing something right and they must see value in what you and what you do.

James de Lacey3:42

I love that. No. Perfect. Let's go into some of the details of maybe around your philosophy around... Let's start with MMA. We can kind of keep it contained into one thing for now.

But I guess say we can start even with with the UFC side. UFC athlete comes to you to start training.

Maybe let's run through. This is going to be a very general question, but let's just start with maybe general strength conditioning philosophy. What are you really looking at and what are you looking to try and achieve? And if there's anything you're doing to identify maybe what needs to be done.

Chase Cichos4:18

Yeah. So, as soon as somebody comes to me, if it's a if it's already a UFC athlete, I probably already seen them fight. Or if they're just getting in the UFC, I will already have watched them. And just by watching people fight, you can start to identify certain things, especially the more octagon time they have, right? The more time in there they have, the more you can start to identify certain physical attributes they possess, certain physical attributes they may lack.

But once I get them in the gym, I'll put them through an assessment. And when I say assessment, I don't have like... I used to do more like, oh, I have set assessment standards that we were looking at. And I've moved off of that from the last few over the last few years because really once I start putting them through a warm-up and start having them move a little bit, I can start identifying things just through that.

Now, when you first get into the game, you're like, "Oh, I'm going to do this functional movement screening or I'm going to do different things like that." And those things are great. Those are great because they have standards and they give you something to identify as a young coach, especially if you don't have the most experience. That you can like identify right away. But the more experience you get, the more you can kind of like have an eye, I believe. Then I tend to trust my eye, what I'm seeing, how they move, and different things.

So, I'm identifying those things right away. Now, if it's a UFC level athlete, we also usually have the benefit of having them tested at the UFC PI. Now, those things can come in handy. But it's not the end all be all. I want to get that message on to like a lot of coaches because I think especially early in my career, I did this.

I would see these tests and I would like, oh we got to we got to make up this because we're a little bit behind in this and it becomes paralysis by analysis. I'm just looking at all these numbers and now I'm only trying to improve these numbers when I really lose sight of like the overall goal which is performance in the octagon.

Performance in sport. I'm one of the coaches that I will go watch my guys spar and if I don't get to watch them, I watch the videos. And I'm relying on major feedback from them. Hey, how are you feeling in the sparring? How are you feeling in this and that? Because listen, at the end of the day, if you're telling me you feel good when you're in the octagon, you feel good in training, you feel strong, nobody's throwing you around, if you have the endurance and you have the conditioning and all those things are lining up, then okay, we'll keep progressing along those lines.

Now, a lot of times guys will come to me and maybe they might be having a conditioning problem or say, "Ah, these guys might feel stronger to me." So, I know where we have to work. And along with watching the sparring, I can look and watch and see, okay, maybe we need to get a little bit faster. Maybe we need to be able to have a little bit more explosiveness when it comes to like a shot or like a takedown defense or something like that.

And all those things are very technical. At the end of the day, physical attributes can help... how can I say... those can help show your technique at a higher level. It can help you perform the technique. Right? If I'm shooting in a takedown and I can shoot really fast, obviously I'm going to penetrate faster. I'm going to penetrate faster and that's a good thing, right? Same thing with takedown defense. If somebody shoots on me and I have explosive hips, they're going to feel that defense hit them right away. So, just little stuff like that.

I mean, there's no... there's no like I wish everything was just cut and dry like, oh, boom, this is it and this is what we got to do. But in the reality, there's so many different variables in combat sports that it's hard to identify KPIs like key performance indicators, and it's really hard to nail that stuff down.

So, in reality, my approach is a holistic approach, and I'm looking to... perform like... I'm looking to improve all these physical attributes really all year round. And for certain fighters, we might emphasize certain things more at different points in time.

James de Lacey8:40

So in terms of a global outlook on their periodization, then it wouldn't be a traditional like block periodization. It's kind of like vertically integrated. You're always addressing everything but maybe biasing certain things.

Chase Cichos8:54

Yes. Yes. Yes. I don't do very strict block periodization. We will have times when we are focusing on strength development. We will have times when we are focusing on more power, but I'm never ever leaving anything out of the program. We are always going to do some kind of plio, some kind of ballistic training, some kind of strength movement, some kind of prehab, rehab, mobility exercise, whatever that may be. We always integrate all of those attributes into the program.

I'm never going to go through a block with my guys where it's just like, okay, this is all we're going to do for the next four to eight weeks and we're not going to worry about anything else. I just don't... I prefer a more globalized or more well-rounded approach to the training just because I feel like that's what... we progress the best.

James de Lacey9:42

Yeah. Yeah. I fully agree there. What might be interesting as well is if you're, I don't know if you're able to share, if not all good, with say like Marvin Vettori maybe use as a case study with maybe how his strength and conditioning looks and maybe how it's, if it has at all maybe changed or progressed over the years.

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Chase Cichos10:54

Yeah. So, with Marvin actually, okay, so Marvin is always a strong guy. Okay. And I knew his strength and conditioning coach before me and actually I was interning for him and then he got other opportunities and he decided to take that and Marvin decided to stay with me. Marvin was always a strong athlete and he's still very strong. But I saw the most room for improvement with Marvin in like speed and power acquisition, like we focused on for a few years and we had a really good run at this time primarily on like all explosive and speed movements.

Now, like I said, we didn't leave out strength. I'm always going to do some component of strength. Now, it might not be like, "Oh, we're going to do back squats and deadlifts every week." But when I think of strength training, I think of strength training like, is it heavy? And are we working in a one to five rep range, one to six rep range?

For me, it can be, doesn't matter the movement. For me, it's okay, we're going to do a heavy loaded Bulgarian split squat, for example, and it's going to be a heavy one to five reps, one to six reps. That's what I'm looking at. If you can do eight reps, we're going too light. Let's go heavier. Let's bring the reps down.

That's strength training in my opinion. It's not only back squat, deadlift, bench press, whatever. Whatever it may be. Like if we're going to do loaded pull-ups, right? Pull-ups can be a strength exercise. If I'm working in a one to six rep frames, that's strength training. So, when I look at things like that, I'm never leaving those things out of the program. We always incorporated something like that into the program. But we did shift the focus over to a little bit more plyometric agility type of training with Marvin. And this was like I would say from, 2018 until 2022, 2023.

James de Lacey13:01

He had a pretty good middleweight run, right?

Chase Cichos13:03

Marvin had a hell of a middleweight run. We lost to Israel, but we contended for the title. We fought for the title. And regardless of what people might think, in my opinion, that's still a big accomplishment in the UFC is fighting for a title. That's still amazing. And me and Marvin still have a relationship.

I am not as hands-on with his training now. He, with after he left Southern California, he moved to Vegas and he was working with the PI guys and I'm not coming on here to bash what anybody was doing. I just don't think it was the best fit for Marvin overall. I think some of the, like he, it just, he agreed. He didn't stay there long because he just was, it wasn't the best fit on a on a variety of different levels.

Now he's at ATT and he's happy and I am helping with his strength and conditioning. I have more input. He has a coach there also, Will Futches, who was American Top Team strength and conditioning coach. And we talk regularly on programming for Marvin. And like I said, the same principles are still applying of what, I have my input, he has his input, and then we find common ground. A lot of things that we agree on, most of the things we agree on. So, so that it actually works well.

That's just what you have to deal with when a high-level fighter like that. They need to have eyes on them when they're training and they need to have attention. I would never just give Marvin a program and say, "Hey, go figure it out." Sometimes I'll sit in on the sessions over a phone call or Will is with him and Will is not able to be with him then I try to, we'll get Facetime and figure it out and do the session like that.

But some athletes are going to come to you and they're already very strong. So you have to focus on different physical qualities. That's how I look at it. It's like, okay, if there's a point of diminishing returns if I Marvin deadlift [expletive] 500 pounds.

James de Lacey15:05

Oh [expletive]. You know what I mean?

Chase Cichos15:05

Yeah, man. Like he's strong.

James de Lacey15:14

He's very strong. Like how many fighters are deadlifting 500 lb?

Chase Cichos15:20

Not many.

James de Lacey15:21

The diminishing returns on getting to 600 are, it takes a lot of work to get to that extra 90 lb. If he's deadlifting 505 and he can probably do 520, whatever, 80, 90 lb to get there, it's going to take a whole lot more work and effort.

Chase Cichos15:36

And he's not a powerlifter. If he was a powerlifter, I would be like, "Oh, we got to do it." But once we get to that strength level, it's like, "Okay, now we got to work on some different attributes." And I think things that are going to, being able to apply that strength in a fast timely fashion is going to be, have the highest return on investment at that point.

James de Lacey15:36

So, what kind of, I guess what kind of exercises or philosophy are you looking at when you're looking at improving, I guess, speed and power qualities, rate of force development, I guess, within, we can use Marvin as a case study, like what was he doing there to be able to improve his qualities?

Chase Cichos16:18

So we would always start with like extensive plyo work. And that just means like more reps, right? Like pogo, like it could be as simple as pogo hops, little hops to a box, stuff like that. And we would progress that depending on where we were, if he had a fight scheduled or whatnot, into higher intensity plyo work, depth drops over hurdles, depth drops, lateral movement, whatever. I like depth drops a lot. Hopping off of a box, hopping over something, hopping to something, hopping whatever it may be.

We're always looking at like advancing the exercise after the athlete gets down the basics of it, right? If we just hop off the box and jump, that's the basics, right? That's the basics. And also, I feel like the extensive plyo help with tissue elasticity in the lower limb, which I think has a major impact in like the movement of a fighter, moving forward, backward, lateral movement, stuff like that.

I think that that helps a fighter a lot because yes, we are extending the hips, but a lot of that work is coming from movement in the feet. It's all footwork. So, having a strong and ankle, ankle and foot complex is going to help the fighter a lot in forward backward lateral movement.

Though like as I said sometimes I will do those more intensely up to like as low as 10 reps but with the foot and ankle really you can get pretty high volume with those things because those, it's pretty resilient and robust and the endurance capabilities of the foot and ankle just because we're humans. We have a, we tend to have a greater threshold for volume in our lower limb.

Now, when I get to more like hip dominant and knee dominant jumps, I will lower the rep range there. Sometimes I will go as high as six reps. Sometimes I will go as low as two or three reps depending on what we're doing. But I'm looking for overall just maximal effort and fast ground co, ground contact times when we do those plos.

Now, if we're, so, for example, if we're hopping off of a higher box, obviously I'm understanding that we're going to have a little bit slower of a ground contact. And just understand that when you are going to do those plyometrics, we're going to have different focuses. Now, if I'm only focusing on ground contact time, it's just going to be, that's going to be lower, primarily lower limb focus.

If I'm going to get deeper into a hinge or a squat position, I'm going to bias more of the upper leg, right? Glutes, hamstrings, and quads, but looking to put more force, more power output out. Does that make sense?

James de Lacey19:14

Yep. Makes perfect sense. It's also a nice, it's almost a maximal strength stimulus, too, when you're jumping off higher boxes.

Chase Cichos19:20

Yeah. So, it's just another way of training. People don't realize that the way I do the, the reason why I train and I mean let's be honest Louis Simmons was the one who made that a popular thing. You would see his powerlifters doing dynamic effort days hopping from boxes over boxes onto boxes, seated box jumps. You would see him do banded resistance exercises like banded squats and banded deadlifts for that exact reason because he noticed when he started doing that with his powerlifting athletes that they would get a huge increase in their maximal strength deadlift squat etc.

James de Lacey20:03

Yeah. They're great exercises to use and hugely applicable in MMA as well with MMA training as well. How did his conditioning look through I guess all those phases since that kind of that speed power was I guess your main priority during most of those years?

Chase Cichos20:20

Yeah. Well Marvin's V2 max always tested really well and when I first started working with him, man every fighter that you ask their biggest nightmare is probably gassing out in a fight especially in MMA where you can take a lot of damage if you gas out. So I also I know I said we did have a focus on speed and and power stuff. I will say that we also did conditioning. Now depending on where we were at in camp, we would focus more on sprints and stuff like that.

If we're if we're going to be doing a lot of power exercises, then I'm going to right after that session, we are gonna do something like a sprint, shorter effort and repetition like that, like on a bike. Bike sprints versus climber sprints, we we tend to not run as much when it comes to stuff like that, just because also if I finish a session in the gym, if I don't have a lot of space to work with, what am I going to do? Have him go run sprints? It doesn't make a lot of sense.

But with Marvin, Marvin was able to really build his gas tank. Marvin comes from Italy, northern Italy. It's in the mountains, it's a beautiful place. I've been there, it's a beautiful place. They are very well known for their bike bikers, like endurance biking. So like even Lance Armstrong stuff like that they would go train there during offseason and stuff to prepare for like Tour de France, different stuff like that.

So Marvin always liked biking. He had some very nice bikes. Some of his friends owned a bike shop and it's crazy to me. I didn't even know this before that like man, there's there's bikes that are $10,000, $20,000 which is insane to me. But Marvin would really enjoy just getting on that bike and going to ride for an hour, sometimes 90 minutes, up to 90 minutes, which starts to get on the long end, but it was something that he enjoyed and something that he felt helped him in training.

So yeah, I think fighters need to do stuff that they enjoy, especially if it's going to help us any kind of benefit for the endurance aspect. Like if you like to go and ride your bike for an hour and you actually enjoy it, then I'm all for it. If you want to go do that on a weekend or maybe one time during the week, I'm all for it.

Now if there, I wouldn't be the biggest proponent of like going dirt biking in fight camp. That's not, I wouldn't recommend that because I'm looking at like cost benefit analysis here and I'm like it starts to look a little bit risky. But I have guys that like to do snowboarding different stuff like that and I'm like yeah man go for it. If it challenges you in a different way and it makes you feel better go for it.

James de Lacey22:46

Awesome. How, what might be interesting with someone like Kelvin Gastelum as well, how did someone like his strength conditioning differ to someone like Marvin? Was there much difference?

Chase Cichos23:44

As far as programming it, it kind of depends, right? Like are we out of camp? Are we in camp?

James de Lacey23:56

We can kind of both.

Chase Cichos23:58

Yeah. So like out of camp, it's just very, very general physical preparation, like very general. It's basic strength movements, basic biases, and I like to incorporate throws and slams at the beginning of every workout. I, you could call them primers even or kind of priming the system, but also we are getting adaptation from that. Yeah. I mean, man, at this point, like we have a warm-up now where I do like, it's probably 10 minutes.

I call it a warm-up, but we are improving general physical qualities within this warm-up. And it's not just mobility. It's not just dynamic stretching and stuff like that. We're doing power skips, which is a low, which is a low-level plyometric in my opinion. We're doing hops. We're doing straight leg bounds. We're doing lateral, like fluid hops like rhythmic and those are all building up general physical qualities.

I call it a warm-up because they do it every single training session when they come to see me. But it's a way to sneak in a little extra general physical preparation, a little extra and it's building physical qualities and I sneak it in and disguise it as a warm-up. We're doing cartwheels and different stuff like that. Like it keeps the athletes moving and it's just building up little, little qualities that I think are important and it's a way to sneak it in.

But we're doing that all year round. Now, after we finish those stuff, then we go into like more jumps and throws and our strength. Now, a guy like Kelvin, Kelvin is like an anomaly because and I'm not going to put his business out there, but maybe some of the tests would not come back as like favorable as we would have liked and then he would go fight five rounds and be completely like fine.

Like actual main events, and I'm like, "Okay, well, maybe he didn't score as high on this endurance test as we had hoped." But at the same time, he went out there and he fought five rounds and so that's when I really was like paying attention to things and I'm like, "Okay, how much weight can we give these, these numbers that we're getting back because like I've seen it all, man. I've seen people with high V2 maxes and they maybe are gassing out in a fight. And I've seen guys with lower end V2 maxes and they're performing just fine in the fights.

And it comes down to like, is the fighter efficient? It comes down to maybe a matchup. It comes down to so many different factors that it's hard to nail it down. Now, does that mean I'm just going to ignore it and we're not going to, we're not going to use any of that? No. I think we should always be working to improve all our physical qualities as athletes.

But at the end of the day, I'm not going to just look at this number and say, "Oh my gosh," and get all freaked out about it. It's okay. How we feeling in sparring? Are we gassing? Okay, we got to do a little bit more. We got to do a little bit more cardio. Oh, you feel great. Okay, well, let's keep doing what we're doing.

James de Lacey27:16

Yeah. And that just also highlights the limitations of all-encompassing metrics like V2 max because it doesn't tell us enough other than oxygen consumption during a test. It's actually a good follow on from which will be the podcast before this one that will people listen to that will go into that as well.

But in camp then if we cover in camp in terms of differences, you mentioned like Kelvin maybe didn't score well on some of these different tests whereas Marvin was very, very strong. So were there any kind of key differences maybe as part of their more specific preparation then leading into fights?

Chase Cichos27:56

Yeah. Like when I'm working with a guy all year round and then we get into fight camp, I can focus more, I can use a better approach and focus more power, speed with a, like the strength work will be like maybe some maximal isometrics and something like that. We'll use like some post activation potentiation work or something like that to keep the strength up without necessarily doing the heavier, heavier loads.

But if it was up to me, depending on how long we had. Sometimes I had Kelvin and he had three weeks. Sometimes I had Kelvin and we had 12 weeks. So it just depends. Like I always, which is another reason why I like to work all these physical qualities all year round. It's not like that way we're never lacking too far in anything, right? And it's even better when the athletes actually come around all year round.

Sometimes I don't see guys until they get a fight and then we have to go through a more strength focused block because they obviously are not going to be as strong if they haven't been training and then we'll go into our power, speed and if it's eight weeks we'll spend the first four weeks working on that more, let's build that strength again and then we'll spend the last four weeks or so working on more developing that strength into speed and power. Does that answer your question?

James de Lacey29:21

Yeah. Yeah, that gets it. And how many sessions a week would you usually have with them in the week?

Chase Cichos29:26

Normally I spend two to three sessions a week with the guys. So right now I have most of my MMA guys, two I will put them on two strength, we'll call them strength sessions, even though they're all encompassing everything we already talked about. And then on Saturdays we will do our more endurance focused work which those will be like depending on where we're at. Off-season I'll even do circuits and stuff like that because I just think it's good for muscular endurance.

Now at different times of the year we'll be more focused on longer sprints. As I said, I like to do my shorter sprints on the same sessions as I will do my strength and power session. So if we're going to, I'll keep that, I can keep that during the week and we'll do some sprints right after the training. So that way we're aligning with the goal of that training session.

Now on the weekend, that's when we'll do maybe, we mix off the intervals, but it'll be 30 second, 60 second, even 90 second sprints sometimes or a more muscular endurance-based circuit, just taxing everything, trying to get the muscles working through a lot of different movements. And those will either be timed or repetition based.

So I have two days a week where I'm going to do more strength, power, speed, whatever, or all of them at the same time. And those are during the week twice. Saturdays, that'll be more endurance focused where it's going to be a super hard session. It's going to be a grind and those are more endurance-based. And as I said, we switch it up. But one of my favorite is like a and the least favorite of all the athletes is like a 30 second sprint maximal effort on the bike or on the a dine or on the burst climber and then you rest for four minutes.

And when people hear that one, they're always like, "Oh, that can't be that bad. It's four minutes rest." I'm like, "Ah." And those same people end up throwing up after number two.

James de Lacey31:43

Those Wingate 30 seconds are brutal.

Chase Cichos31:46

Yeah. So we're focusing on different energy systems throughout the week. So I like to incorporate them all. I'm usually when I program I follow a more polarized approach especially year round. Now, some people need it more than others. And we talked about that on a post you did.

Some people come in and this is where the testing actually where I'm like okay those are some things we need to improve like ventilatory threshold one. When I see an athlete with a very low VT1 I'm like that's a problem because now we are going to get into more anaerobic work, more glycolytic work at a faster rate. So I'll have them do more of the more boring lower intensity cardio work because they need it, because we need to get that higher. We need to get that higher.

That's going to be a big thing is the longer we can prolong getting into that anaerobic area, the better the athlete's going to fight, the more efficient they're going to fight. I shouldn't say efficient because efficient can you can have the best cardio in the world and if you go out there and blow your wad in the first two minutes, that's what it is. So, but you understand what I'm saying. The longer I can prolong getting into the more anaerobic glycolytic systems, then the better it's going to be for the athlete.

Also those things I find really help with heart rate recovery between rounds. But that doesn't mean that I don't use sprints. I use sprints pretty much year round, too. We try to touch sprints at least once a week with all the athletes I train. So I use the mixed approach. I'm if there's some value to be gained from it and we can fit it in, let's do it.

If it just doesn't work and you have 15 training sessions and you can't add one more, okay, then you got to figure out what to take out and what's the best way to optimize with the schedule that you have. But those are things that you got to figure out on the way. There's no one-size-fits-all and there's no definitive answer for everything.

I think it always depends on the athlete, the time available, the way they're feeling and what do they need more so than other times? Where are they at in camp? Where, what can we afford right here and what can we not?

So the worst part about MMA, the part that makes it so hard and one of the reasons why I love it as a coach is because that challenge. It's not easy, man. I train at a gym where there's a lot of football players that work and they're in the gym four or five days a week and maybe that's it in the summer.

Maybe they do a little bit of field work a few times a week, but they're just getting stronger and that's easy. And if they get tired on the field, they can say, "Hey, I need to come out and play." Dude, if you get tired in the cage, there ain't no getting out of there unless you're out, unless you're done.

The challenge of it is why I love it, but it's also what adds the stress, but again, that's the part I embrace and enjoy about it the most is the challenge of it. There's so many different variables.

James de Lacey35:08

I was going to say probably a really big challenge around that is around that scheduling, especially with some of the UFC guys. They're probably doing their technical training two maybe even three times a day depending on the day. So how are you then structuring I guess their extracurricular strength and conditioning? Are they coming in different days based on when they can, based on their schedule, or are you picking certain days based on what works for most people? How are you looking at that?

Chase Cichos35:38

Yeah. So with my UFC athletes, I help them set up a set schedule. So we sit down and talk about it and now with all the guys I work with now, they've pretty much been with me for a while. So now it's just routine. We know the schedule already.

These guys are full-time fighters. It's not like they have to go to work some days and this and that. The UFC athletes, they're full-time. So we pretty much know the training schedule, which is kind of nice because it leads to a comfort and a routine and that knowing of what okay, I have this today, I have that today. It just takes a lot of stress out of the day-to-day schedule.

Now, are there times when something arises, maybe an injury, maybe they are going to do a scheduled sparring with a boxer for example, or they got invited to go do a training? Yeah. We make adjustments to that. But most of the time I'm training with these guys Monday, Wednesdays, and we have Saturdays. So or sometimes we'll do a Tuesday, Thursday, but in general I'm putting two days in between the training sessions.

Usually with the UFC athletes, I'm training them in the evening. I prefer that they do their skill training in the morning. That way they're fresher for their skill training. And then they will come see me later. I value skill training over everything else because I think it's the most important for the sport because if you don't have the skills then good luck with everything else. I also feel that nothing else matters.

James de Lacey37:25

Nothing else.

Chase Cichos37:26

I don't, you could be the strongest guy in the world and if you don't have the skills it ain't none of that [expletive] matters. So even as a strength and conditioning coach I put my ego to the side and say hey I'm definitely not as important as a skill trainer.

Now, sometimes guys will tell me, "Hey, I'm going to go do a skill session instead of a strength and conditioning session." I'm like, "Go for it." Especially with the guys who are who have been with me a long time. I've had guys been working with me for a long time. Most of them have been with me for many years and I know they're strong. If you're going to skip a strength conditioning session to go do a wrestling session, I'm cool with that. That's fine because it's not like we're lacking.

Now, if the guy is completely out of shape and he's like not been training at all, I'm like, I don't know, man. Because not only that, they're not only about the strength, the strength part of it. If you just haven't been training and you're skipping sessions to go do this and that, it's like I have some guys that been in the UFC, been fighting all their lives, it's like you put yourself more at risk of injury.

And sometimes it's finding that line of like, man, you've had a lot of surgery, you had a lot of this thing, just be careful. If you're not in shape and you go through a hard wrestling session and you're not careful with your partners, then now you have an injury.

So, it's about communicating and working around when, as I said, there's so many different variables in this game. You just got to do the best that you can. That's it. You got to talk with them and just make sure they're aware of all the different possibilities and give your opinion and then they have to make a decision.

I'm not trying to sway anybody's decision-making. I just want to give you my input on what I think is best, or I just want to give you all the different options available and the benefits of each option and then let you make your own decision.

James de Lacey39:23

No, that's perfect. What might be interesting as well is we've talked a lot about MMA and you mentioned you obviously train a lot of jiu-jitsu guys too. Does your strength conditioning differ much between the jiu-jitsu guys and MMA guys?

Chase Cichos39:38

There's slight differences with jiu-jitsu guys. I like to keep in higher strength work longer in the camp just because I feel it's more important. In MMA, for the last four weeks or so of their camp, if they're going to fight, I will keep in more speed work, more power based work and agility based stuff, especially if they're already pretty strong. I will add in some isometric work or something like that.

But with the jiu-jitsu guys, I will keep in more power or strength work and maximal effort isometric work all the way up until tournament time. Also with jiu-jitsu athletes, they compete a lot more. So for them, I have to tell them like, hey, let's pick out one or two tournaments per year that are the most valuable to us, that mean the most to us, that are the biggest to win, and we are going to try to peak for those tournaments.

All the other ones, yeah, you're going to be strong, you're going to be whatever, but we're not going to invest on trying to peak you every weekend for a new tournament.

James de Lacey40:51

It's like the more hard rolling sessions instead or something.

Chase Cichos40:55

Yes. Yes. It's just a marker to see where we're at. And I kind of take it like, oh, this is like a quiz, a quiz before we get to the big test like you would do in school. It's like, yeah, those are good. If you win them, great. If you lose them, it's not a big deal. That's not our focus. We're trying to win world championships. We're trying to win super fights or whatever it may be.

I have a guy that's going to do a grappling match in ONE right now and we're preparing him for that date. He's going to peak on that date. So, with the gi guys, I train a lot of gi guys. They, you know, the biggest tournament of the year is the World Championships in late May, early June. And I tell them at the beginning of the year, hey, Pans, I hope you do great because Pans is usually in March. I hope you do great in that, but for us, I'm going to set up our physical preparation for Worlds.

So, we are going to have essentially a six-month camp and every and building up all your physical capacities and peak you for a world championship because we're looking to develop world champions here. And I mean, I trained probably eight athletes full-time last year and we had four world championships. So, I think we did something right.

James de Lacey42:12

No, for sure. How much does, because you talked about like a lot of GPP in here. Does specificity play much a role in terms of exercise selection at all at any time within MMA or your jiu-jitsu guys?

Chase Cichos42:26

It does. Yeah. Yeah. When we are in camp, I look to do more specific things, especially around that four to five, four to six week out if they—so for gi guys, for grapplers, I'll have them do more stuff with the grips and stuff with like on ropes or towels, something like that that we'll incorporate on our pulling. I'll incorporate some specific isometric work that I see fit and to be able to finish submissions or just hold and control people more.

For a fighter, it's going to be like more specific fight movement. I'll have them get in their stance and maybe they'll do like a resisted moving forward or resisted lateral movement or just a—I mean we always do medicine ball throws and I'll have the fighter if I'm looking to do a specific drill then they're going to stay in their fight stance and when they do their throws like I'm throwing it to them and they're returning it fast. So, I toss them the ball. Boom, boom. It's quick. It's like a plyometric for full body, upper body work. Does that make sense?

I throw the medicine ball to them. They're in their fight stance, they catch, boom, boom. So, it's a quick stretch and boom. And I'll have them do it in their fight stance. I'll have them catch hooks like that. I'll have them do straights like that. That's the specific work we do.

Now, I can even look at that and be like, ah, that's very general. I'm not having them do—how can I say, what could be some stuff that I see on the internet that I don't know—yeah I'm, that's not my type of thing. I'm not getting into that. I'm not saying that there's maybe no value in it. Maybe it does work. Listen, let's keep the weight room the weight room and the movements that we do in here more, even on a specific sense, more general.

Like throwing a medball is throwing a medball. It looks like a punch, but I don't call it a punt. I'm not, oh, we're doing medball punches today. Like, no, we're throwing a medball. We're using our whole body. We're just working a similar musculature.

I just don't think there's a big difference. Also I see it demonized on the other end of the spectrum where people are like, oh, landmine punch. Like a landmine exercise to me is just a general exercise. And when I see people doing it as a punch, I take the perspective of like, oh, it's kind of like a push press. It's a push press. I'm not looking at it like, oh, this is going to make your punch stronger. I'm like, no, it's a push press. It's just a different way of doing the push press. I don't—

I think sometimes like maybe we will demonize things to get a little controversy and get some views on our page and whatever. But for me, I try to just see the exercise for what it is and try to identify what physical qualities are we building with that. And if we're not building any physical qualities, then I leave it behind. I'm not going to waste my time putting stuff in the program that doesn't develop certain physical qualities.

Now, if I can see something and I can identify the physical qualities that I think it's working or that I can see fit for that, then I can see some value in it. So, landmine, I'm not selling it as like this is just like a punch, so I think it's going to improve your punch. No, it's a pressing exercise. It's a push and it's fast. It's like a push press. That's how I look at it.

For me I'm very, I'm a conceptual learner and once I understand the concept of something and I can use that framework to apply the concept to whatever it is that I'm trying to do right—so if I'm going to make, I can make a landmine a strength exercise or I can make it a power exercise based on the intention behind what we're doing.

We can load it super heavy and it could be a strength exercise. We could be on one knee and now it's all upper body really. Or I can make it a more power speed-based exercise and lighten up the load and tell you, hey, I want you to move this thing as fast as you can. I just look at that kind of like an Olympic lift derivative at that point.

I'm not opposed to Olympic lifting. I'm not opposed to anything. I think they all have an application and I understand the concept of Olympic lifting and I can apply it in different ways that I see fit. That's the art and that's the meshing the science with the art of coaching that I like to use my creativity and I have fun with.

If I was only going to be some cookie cutter coach and only do things that I know that I've seen people do in the past that I think, oh just because they did it—it's like no, that's not how I think. That's not how I like to approach the game. I like to approach the art with and mesh it with the science. The science is the concept of what we're trying to do. The art is how I want to apply it.

James de Lacey47:28

That's what social media trainers don't understand as well.

Chase Cichos47:33

I mean, so many times, so many times I think—

So many times you see something online and then you're just going to do what they do. But the first question that I ask myself when I see something online is, okay, what's the concept behind what they're doing? Because once you understand the concept, then you can drive intention, and intention is going to drive the adaptation.

So for me, if we're doing speed work but you're not putting maximal effort in that speed work, then we're not—it's not going to work to get you faster. You know what I mean? If I'm having an athlete run and I'm calling it speed work, but they're jogging at 50%, we're not going to get faster doing that. Now, don't get me wrong, there's times when you need to be technical and stuff like that. That's not what I'm talking about.

What I'm saying is, if I can see a concept behind what somebody is doing and maybe they don't see it and I can, but I'm going to apply that concept doing the same exercise but with a different intention, I'm going to get a different adaptation. Hopefully that makes sense.

James de Lacey48:44

For sure. That makes sense. I got a question in the chat for you. I don't know if it's in your warehouse or not, but can you ask him how to prepare mentally for a first amateur fight? Do you have anything for that?

Chase Cichos48:57

100%. So I will say, mentally, mentally preparation, you need to put yourself in a lot of different scenarios in the training room and outside of the training room. Okay? When you go into the training room, don't just train with people that you know you can beat. No, you want to put yourself against people that are tough, that are hard, that you might not want to train with because they might smash you, but you need to put yourself in those positions.

Also, do positional work where you are losing in a position, right? You're going to start on my back. I'm going to start in the mount. I'm taken down and I need to get back up. Those things are immensely useful. Now, I don't know the style of the opponent that you're facing and I don't know your style, but I think, you know, training with high level partners, especially at any level, really, people at a little bit higher level than you, are going to push you to get better.

But you also need to work with some people that you can work on some things with. Because sometimes I think we always want to train with high level partners. We never really get to develop our own game on lower level partners, if that makes sense. So when I train jiu-jitsu and I'm trying a new technique, I want to train it on white belts and blue belts and purple, you know, up the chain. If I'm getting it in white belts, okay, I'm going to start getting it on blue belts and then I start trying it on purple belts.

But when I train with some of the guys that I train that are world champions, dude, I don't have the choice to even get to that submission. I'm just trying to survive here. You know what I mean? I got to do whatever I can to get where I got to go and try to survive. I think people need to see both ends of the spectrum.

Another thing is visualize outside of the cage, right? Visualize what you want to do. If you can watch any footage of your opponent, that's great, just to have an idea of what they do. Now, I don't say sit down and watch everything they do all day because then you start getting in your head and it's not a good place to be. But you need to have an idea of what they want to do.

Also, the biggest thing that I brought to a lot of the fighters that I train is recording your sparring sessions. Watch yourself. Put a camera out there and you tell your coach or you tell your training partner, "Hey, this is just going to be for me. I'm not going to post any of this stuff because that's kind of [expletive] stuff, posting yourself beating up on your training partners. I don't—"

James de Lacey51:25

Just the highlights, just you getting the takedown, the finish.

Chase Cichos51:29

You know, some people do it, whatever. That's their choice. I don't think it's nice to do to your training partners. Maybe if your training partner is, "Oh, I don't care. You can post whatever." But what I'm saying to do is you got to watch yourself because you're going to see mistakes that you make. You might be thinking that you're doing certain things and you're performing them at a high level, but in reality, you see it on film and you're like, "Wow, what was I doing there?" You know what I mean? It's happened to all of us.

I played high school football in California and every single day we would watch our practice from the day before. We would study film of our practices, high school level, okay? And that goes up in football every level that you do. The higher you get level-wise, the more important film study becomes. So amateurs need to be studying themselves and watching themselves and learning how to get better by watching themselves and watching other people compete. So I hope that helps a little bit and answers the question.

James de Lacey52:29

I think you nailed it. That was awesome. And to round out this podcast too, it'll be interesting to jump back a little bit into the MMA and jiu-jitsu strength conditioning and maybe touch on that taper week. Because I think a lot of people—actually had an email just today about, you know, some of the questions around that kind of final week, what should they really do. Be interesting to kind of maybe go through how your maybe final week or even maybe final two weeks-ish looks in terms of strength and conditioning and how that may change.

Chase Cichos52:29

So the last two weeks of the training, we drastically cut down. We don't change any of the movements. We drastically cut down on volume. Okay? We might do one set, maybe two sets, depending, but no more than that. We keep the rep range super low. So we're looking to increase intensity and drastically lower volume. I think that's extremely important.

We still do cardio up until about seven days out, but when I say cardio, I mean short sprints and decent rest. Depending on what the style of the fight is, something like that. But it's always going to be shorter sprints and a pretty good rest. From the strength, it's pretty much out at that time. We don't do really any strength. If it might be one set of an isometric or something like that, that's maximal effort, but that's as far as we're going to go with that.

Usually the last week, if it's a UFC fighter, the last week they will see me on Monday and we have a tradition that we do there. They come in, they do a couple—one set of jumps. One set of—they warm up first, obviously. They do one set of jumps, they do one set of throws, and then we'll do this is a Charlie Francis method where he called them tempos, where we're going to do a 70% effort on the bike and then we get off and we move at just shadow boxing, and we use that time for visualization at a 40% intensity, and we'll do anywhere from 15 to 20 reps of those.

But usually that's just—it's super light. They're breathing through their nose the whole entire time during the session and especially during the cardio. And, you know, 12 to 15 seconds of work on the bike, 70%, breathing through the nose. They get off, maybe they'll do a little bit of shadow boxing at 40 to 50%.

And I always make sure I'm telling them, "Hey, visualize what you want to do to your opponent. Visualize maybe what your opponent wants to throw at you, how you're going to block that, how you're going to counter that," et cetera. Now, I didn't used to be the guy that's telling them strategically, "Hey, this is what you should do."

Over the years, I've earned enough respect to where, you know, they tell me they have an opponent coming up and I'll watch the film of the opponent and then I'll just give my input then, but I'm not spending too much time strategy-based unless the athlete specifically comes to me and asks me, "Hey, what do you think I should be trying to do here?"

I mean, I didn't used to feel confident in that. I wouldn't recommend new strength coaches are going to tell your athletes, "Hey, this is how you should fight that guy." The only reason I've got to that point is because I also train these sports and I literally watch every single fight that happens. I watch every single one. I'm obsessed with this [expletive]. I love to study film.

And if they come to me and ask me about a certain opponent or certain things that they should look for, then I will give them my honest opinion and feedback. But I never ever give unsolicited advice on what I think you should be doing in the fight or how I think you should approach this one. That just takes time, man. And I've been doing this stuff a long time. I've been training a long time, and as I said, I probably watch more or just as much as anybody does in the game. You know what I mean?

Maybe there's a couple MMA coaches out there. John Danaher definitely watches more film than me. I can name some others, you know what I mean? Some that are very good and they watch a lot of film. But I literally watch wrestling matches. I literally watch—the guys will always message me, "Hey, who won this jiu-jitsu match?" Because sometimes they want to know who won. I'm watching it. I watch the Muay Thai fights and ONE. I watch it all. I just [expletive] love combat sports.

And obviously by watching so much and training it, you tend to learn the game. And that took many years to develop, close to 10 years now of literally watching—my whole weekend is that. That's all I do. My girlfriend doesn't always is the happiest with that. But hey, some people watch football Saturday and Sunday. I'm watching fights.

James de Lacey57:27

Nice. I love that. That's a perfect way to round out this podcast. Chase, where can people find and follow you? Keep up with what you're doing.

Chase Cichos57:27

I have a YouTube channel, Chase Dreams 247. They can follow me on Instagram at Chaseor Dreams247. Both of those channels, I try to post as often as I can, but also I'm in the gym a lot, so I don't maybe get to post as much as I would like, but I try to provide as much value as possible.

And really I just show you I'm not trying to sway any opinions on anything that I do. I'm just showing you what I do with some of the highest level athletes in the world and what works for us. If something doesn't work for us, I will either tell you that or I just won't show it to you. So, all the stuff that I show to you, all the information that I give you is stuff that I incorporate with some of the elite athletes in the game. And it works for us. And I'm sure if it works for us, it will also work for you.

James de Lacey58:20

Perfect. I'll link all that up down in the description, too, for anyone who wants to give Chase a follow or reach out or whatever you want to do. But I appreciate you coming on sharing everything, even the case studies and stuff of the UFC guys. That was awesome.

Chase Cichos58:32

I mean, I hope there was some value for you here and just anybody. I hope you guys saw some kind of value from it. I appreciate you having me and I appreciate you hitting me up and asking me to be on. I do. Thank you, man.

James de Lacey58:47

Oh, perfect. I appreciate you coming on.