MMA Conditioning, Eccentrics, & Power Development w/ Bill Smart (SSOF Ep 129)

Bill Smart3:18

I could see it. Yeah, it was such a very different entry point to sport, I think. Even then, I really got into training, but it was bodybuilding training when I started.

James de Lacey3:41

That's how we all start. It's basically how we all start.

Bill Smart3:41

Which was cool. Then I sort of wanted to get a bit of powerlifting, which was okay too. I was never the most gifted person, but I was pretty persistent. And I guess not being the most gifted, you're kind of seeking more answers. That makes sense, and to try to do things a bit better.

Then I ended up from there getting a little bit bored when it came to the monotony of some of the training and then got into a bit of weightlifting. So I enjoyed Olympic weightlifting.

James de Lacey4:05

Where did you train for Olympic weightlifting?

Bill Smart4:05

Well, when I say I trained for Olympic weightlifting, it wasn't like I was trying to compete or anything. I was basically just putting time and effort into the clean and jerk and the snatch. There was actually a place in Hamilton—so I'm from Hamilton in New Zealand—and it was a place called Athlete's House.

Matt Kritz was the head performance guy there. He would sort of help. His system was put in place within the gym. It was one of the first gyms that I worked at actually, and it was there that I spent a lot of time working on some of that stuff.

It was a cool space, honestly. You don't really, for public gyms that are publicly available, you don't really get a lot that are targeted towards athletes.

James de Lacey4:58

Yeah, because it doesn't make money.

Bill Smart4:58

Unfortunately, people often think that sport makes money, but it's often not the case. That's why we're on a podcast right now. We do it because we love it, essentially.

But I think it was through the Olympic weightlifting that I just enjoyed the movement side of it and the movement variability. I had like previously, historically, had a few back injuries and little things, and it's sort of like the risk-reward for trying to push super maximally when it came to a lot of just standard strength, it just didn't quite align with what I wanted and what I was doing at the time. But I really enjoyed the weightlifting still.

But then as soon as I went into this martial arts gym, all of a sudden those principles or ideas, when it came to the movement stuff that I was enjoying, it was all of that times a thousand, and I was like, this is amazing, trying to dial down when it came to just technique and movement.

That was sort of, I guess, how it started. And it wasn't too long after that I started getting into the UFC, so probably around the 2015-2016 mark. Yeah, I loved that. It was funny because when I was doing my sport science degree, I wasn't really invested in any sports. I enjoyed science. I enjoyed understanding how things worked. I enjoyed movement and training.

But I didn't necessarily have a sport that I was attached to, and I didn't even watch a lot of sports that were on. Even at this time I was still working in different sports, but it was kind of like finding a Pokemon in some ways. When it came to martial arts, it just clicked, and it was pretty cool.

James de Lacey7:00

That's awesome. I used to—so one of the guys, a friend of mine, Jamie Vander, he passed away many years ago. He's on the mural there in the new City Kickboxing gym, up on the wall. So we used to trade. I would teach him 45 minutes of Olympic weightlifting, and he would teach me 45 minutes of Muay Thai.

And so we'd either go into the old City Kickboxing gym and we'd do that, or he'd just come over to my garage or whatever. We'd just do it at home in the garage and stuff. And that's how I really got into that stuff. I haven't done much since. I want to, but you know, splitting time between grappling and striking work, family, all that kind of stuff, is crazy.

Bill Smart7:52

It's funny. Yeah, if you're not a—if you don't have a lot of time and you're not committed to fighting, as soon as you start splitting the martial arts, you're committing to being very average for a very long period of time, unfortunately.

James de Lacey8:14

Let's go straight into this. We've been talking all sorts of stuff, and I want to—there's more questions I want to jump into. I mean, our first podcast we talked a lot about the testing going on and what you're doing with some of the guys at City Kickboxing. I want to go into more of the training philosophy you have. I guess just training in general.

And I want to start around—let's start about the videos I put out recently on Instagram and YouTube around the long duration isometrics. I talked to Angus about that just the other day. That came out this week, and that was a really good chat on the kind of history of where it kind of came from, what it's doing. But I know you messaged me the other day about some of the results you're seeing potentially from it. I don't know how much you...

I want to share about what you're seeing there, you just take it from there. And then we can maybe just go on as well, how you're implementing them, where they fit within the training program, how all that, all the nuts and bolts of essentially implementing these long duration isometrics.

Bill Smart9:01

So something that we've played around with for quite a while. I mean, Angus has been using them since I've known them, and it's been many years now. I guess the evolution of them has probably changed in terms of what we know and understand over time.

Pretty much what I think a lot of people have thought of, I think there's this idea that stretching and range of motion itself is inherently bad for things like power and velocity. And when you look at the literature, it's just that's not the case. I mean, there are some aspects that might become compromised in certain areas, but that's sort of one part of a full picture.

And a good example being, even if you look at a lot of research studies that compare different physical components of different athletes, a lot of the times if they used to make a sit and reach test, you will see the athletes who perform better on your muscular tests and speed-based tests, they do end up having a better sit and reach than athletes that don't, which I think is important to sort of preface that range of motion inherently is not something that we should be afraid of.

When we look at the long duration isometrics, essentially what we're looking at is—just go back a little bit. When we look at things like speed or velocity-based training, I think what we end up doing is we view it from this lens of the neuromuscular system when it doesn't maybe quite make sense, because we can't produce as much force or we can't produce a lot of force at all, or these velocity characteristics from a firing speed standpoint don't quite align.

But when you sort of change the lens and you look at it more from an architectural perspective, that's when we start to potentially see some of the benefits of this in a different light, if that makes sense. So we use these for two different reasons. One of them is the architectural changes to the muscle, which I think Angus touched on a bit in the podcast, is a potential method to—and we say potential because what we're looking at is faster length being a pseudo for adding sarcomeres in series.

Which when you have more sarcomeres in series, the muscle contractile velocity is greater. When you look at actually developing speed itself, velocity is very hard to develop. It's not hard, it's very easy to get someone strong, it's not easy to get someone fast. And I think that's probably something that you see often when it comes to athletes or training.

If you view speed purely from a nervous system and muscular perspective, that's one potential element when we shift lenses, but it isn't the only element. And you can look at muscle fiber composition as another potential way to increase maximum contractile velocity in terms of having more fast-twitch muscle. And we've talked about this a little bit. Perhaps having more 2x isn't necessarily the most beneficial for sports like MMA that have an endurance component as well.

So then as we sort of go down this lens, then we can look at architecture. And as soon as we look at architecture, it potentially provides another way to look at what Angus is pointing and how do we change it. So when we started using these, essentially we probably weren't doing them long enough. I know touched on in terms of making it quite uncomfortable, it seems like pushing them to a reasonably extreme standpoint is required to create some of these changes.

For me, the way that I use them primarily is sometimes it might be maintenance through the week, or other times we'll use it maybe at the end of a session and sort of push the boat. But I mean, these can really, they're not a big strength exercise. The nervous system taxation isn't the same as heavy squats. You can actually do these really frequently.

But yeah, it's still the early days in terms of modifying some of the changes. Observationally, you, I talked about the Oxyurg that we have in Cambridge, which gives us the ability to test essentially high-speed power—so power on a power bike. It's run by a flywheel and we can look at the different power that's produced across different RPM ranges.

So we've seen some pretty interesting and positive shifts in that curve, potentially as a result of some of this training. And I can't say exclusively, because of course there's many things that are happening at one time. I definitely couldn't say exclusively, but it's definitely been a trend that has been pretty positive, which has been cool.

James de Lacey14:11

Interesting. So what's happening on the bike then in terms of I guess this positive trend? Is it being able to produce more power at high velocities or more force at high velocities? Is that what you're seeing out of that?

Bill Smart14:11

Yeah, essentially more power. So with the bike, what's unique about it is as the flywheel gets going, it gets very fast, super maximally fast. And essentially your ability to still apply force in a very short period of time is how we have the ability to measure that, if that makes sense. Versus if you were driving the crank or driving the bike purely manually, like you would on a Watt bike.

Which is, I think it's quite interesting. And I think when you dive into the literature around combat sport force and velocity, you don't see a lot of studies that have explored combinations or striking sequences. Majority of research is based around punches in isolation, single punches in isolation. And that to me is interesting because it's definitely important, but I think—and I'm not sure how much you've seen around that—it seems like there's a lack of understanding when it comes to the cyclic nature of punch sequences or just striking sequences.

James de Lacey15:50

I'll know. Yeah, have you seen much around research? I've come across one paper that used—one paper, I think it was, or two papers that have used combinations. Can't remember off the top of me which ones they were, but they used it and they had, they did rounds on the bag. And they just used, I think was it just the power strikes within that round as well, or they took the average? I can't remember exactly.

But they basically set it up where it wasn't just one punch against whatever it was, it was multiple. It was rounds they used. Man, I have to dig up and see which one it was.

Bill Smart16:21

I know it's done. And you can, there's a few studies you can derive a little bit from, but it's not something that's been looked at specifically. And I think definitely not, there's more to see changes from some kind of intervention versus the actual thing itself.

And I think when you break down striking, of course singular punches are something that happens, like a jab, right hands, like one-two to a certain extent. But I think when it comes to putting strikes together, the cyclic nature of that is probably a little bit understated. So I think when you look at potentially the high-speed power on something like one of these bike tests, I think there's something that potentially relates back to that, which to me is quite interesting and something that we're currently exploring a little bit.

James de Lacey17:22

Well, I guess the other thing to think about as well is with the one punch test, how much of that really translates to live fighting? Because you're never going to be in that position to be able to stand there, measure your target out, wind up and just throw a huge bomb at whatever it is, at whatever target you're trying to hit, because it's so many other variables.

Bill Smart17:22

I think even from a, I mean, I know there's limited studies that have measured forces in competition, but I know the ones that have, there's one in particular I can think of, substantially lower than what you see in any of the standalone tests, which is what you'd expect.

James de Lacey17:50

I need to link you up with where's Elliot after this. He's on StrikeTech. He has some really cool data.

Bill Smart17:50

Yeah, yeah, I've played around with it, but I haven't used it in any official capacities. I've played around with it.

James de Lacey18:19

I'm going to link you up anyway, because he's got some really cool data he's collected and you guys will click.

Bill Smart18:19

Yeah, I've considered using it. Because I wanted, one of the things that I'd like to figure out is in terms of combat-specific performance testing, it's hard to really quantify striking a lot. Potentially something like that is an option.

James de Lacey18:19

He's doing something right actually. I probably shouldn't spill the beans. I'll tell you after.

Bill Smart18:19

Yeah, well, we can, yeah.

James de Lacey18:19

He's doing some cool stuff. But what, the long duration isometrics, could you theoretically or potentially replace that duration in volume with intensity and still get the stimulation? So instead of having to drag out five-minute sets, one-minute sets but loaded?

Bill Smart18:47

So that's a good question. Honestly, the answer probably—

Is that we don't understand at the moment. I can tell you from a practical perspective I do do that, so I use a combination of both. Weighted less duration, unweighted more duration.

I do think that getting to a point where you're struggling to maintain position and you're starting to get a few shakes happening, that's probably where some of the magic happens. But in terms of which is better, yeah, it's pretty early days.

I also, from like there's a connective tissue protective element to those that I really like as well, in terms of taking the tissue to long muscle lengths and having to utilize the fascia, the connective tissue around the joint to stabilize. I think there's a nice benefit to that as well. And I think that's probably how they've been used primarily in the past.

But yeah, as soon as we start to take things out, what we get out of them is just a little bit different I think.

James de Lacey20:24

Regarding, let's stick on the isometric topic, have you played around oscillatory isometrics at all then along with those?

Bill Smart20:24

Yes, so something that's what we played around with as well. I think I like them as a variation where you can do them in a way that is still very much along the lines of long duration, or potentially there's other ways you could do them that promote other variables like RFD or whatnot, which I like as well.

I think to be fair with a lot of the stuff, we're still figuring out how things are best operated. I know Gus has probably spent a bit more time around interchanging with the oscillatory versus not. For me at the moment I like that as variation, and especially when it comes to trying to like say athletes struggle when it comes to just general range, I like that as a way to push through some of those barriers, almost like a disadvantage position oscillatory.

James de Lacey21:27

Like bottom position squat kind of bouncing as a—

Bill Smart21:27

I've done them a lot in the lunge positions. I quite like the lunge position. And I think if you're someone who's quite stiff, especially sort of anterior hip, I think something like adding some of the oscillations can help when it comes to being able to get a little bit more range.

James de Lacey21:27

Wait, how are you doing them? Because there's two ways that I've seen they're done. They're either done where, I guess you could say Joel Smith DFL style, where you're kind of tensing and then kind of dropping and rebounding back up, tensing—

Or it is just kind of the rapid bounce.

Bill Smart21:57

That style, yes, totally. So I'm referring to more so the second where you're sort of bouncing out of the end range position. But the first option would be something that potentially you could look at from an RFD perspective which I think is valuable as well.

I think with stuff like that, I mean I think it's really important with any training methods to evaluate where it fits into the sport and potentially the outcome that you want to get in the sport, in terms of some sporting positions. That's probably more advantageous than others, if that makes sense.

So I think the work with any of the stuff, it's important to sort of zoom out a little bit and think about what's the context in terms of one, the adaptation that I'm trying to drive; two, how it relates back to the sport specifically; and then as well as that, that it's within a very complex wheel of modalities and methods that sort of into play with everything else.

I think we touched on a bit last time, a lot of people get into being like functional movement only or powerlifting only or whatever it is. The quote from Bruce Lee I thought was fantastic, which was essentially take what is useful and disregard what isn't, and the context is the sport and the person. And that's sort of how I like to look at a lot of that stuff.

James de Lacey23:21

Are you looking at stimulating similar adaptations with the oscillatory isos versus the long duration, or is it something else you're looking at with those?

Bill Smart23:21

Yeah, I think for the most part, yeah, a lot of it still comes down to architecture and fascicle length. Potentially, yeah, that would be why I'd put them in to be honest. Some of the times it's around trying to create some connective tissue adaptations as well, whether or not it's from a health or performance standpoint. But generally that would be why I put them in.

James de Lacey23:51

Perfect. I guess if we're still on master muscle architecture, we can talk pennation angle as well. Regarding I guess speed and power, since we've talked about muscle fascicle length, if we're talking decreasing pennation angle for improving speed and power, I'm assuming then the eccentric training and plyometrics you're doing is kind of geared towards, and if you're thinking muscle architecture alongside everything else, those would be the main modalities? Or have you got some other things up your sleeve too?

Bill Smart24:19

Honestly, I haven't put enough thought into trying to gear changes to pennation angle specifically. I know it will be the case with a lot of that type of training, and I do wonder in terms of—I mean when you look at the relationship between pennation angle, velocity, pennation angle, strength, yeah it's definitely something that I've looked into but isn't something that I'm actively chasing at the moment if that makes sense.

I guess MMA is complex because you still need to be strong but you need to be fast as well. So I guess that relationship is something that I am not confident enough to look at driving specifically if that makes sense. What are your thoughts on it, James?

James de Lacey25:21

I think the same thing as you regarding you can't obviously just go for that pure sprinter muscle architecture type with that really small pennation angle, because as you mentioned you need that strength-based pennation angle because that's where you're able to—I'm going to say absorb but I don't want to say it but I can't think of a better word—absorb or deal with the eccentric forces that come with various activities. So it's almost like you have to—

What's interesting within the research though, I did a really big dive into it and I was like, what actually causes this pennation angle to decrease for improving speed and power? When you see some pretty conflicting stuff regarding plyos and sprints and jumps, what I found interesting is when I dug a little deeper into some of the meta-analyses and things, they say, okay, plyometrics increase pennation angle. And you go, that doesn't make sense, because if we're talking speed, power, and a lot of the other interventions we see this decrease of pennation.

But when I dug into that, was actually cited in the meta-analysis, they weren't using plyometrics, they were using like loaded jump squats to 90 degrees kind of thing. And you're like, huh, so that's more of a strength-based jump movement. Maybe that's why they didn't see that pennation.

So yeah, it's interesting what's out there. I kind of have to do a really big deep dive just to really try and get my head around what was going on. That's the conclusions I pulled out of it, basically just kind of, okay, plyometric, sprint-style stuff and eccentric work is probably going to give you that more of a shallower pennation angle, and then obviously your mainstream lifts is going to push it the other way.

I guess honestly, probably depending on how much you're doing of each, you're going to have a hybrid profile anyway I guess if you're training all of them, so probably not such a big driver.

Bill Smart27:06

I do wonder how it plays into when you think about full-body coordination, force coordination for things like striking. It's so complex and I think we probably don't give enough credit to the complexity of the neuromuscular coordination, synchronization that goes into bringing everything together to strike well and efficiently.

And I do wonder, when it comes to things like pennation angle and it comes to the transfer of force for things like striking movements, what the potential implications are. And that's not something I can answer. But then I also wonder how that sort of links in with some of the fascicle elements as well.

I think when you look at the literature, I think what's—there's definitely a clear relationship between neuromuscular qualities and competition levels, which is cool. But when you also break it down there's a very clear relationship between experience level, training, and those same qualities as well.

So it's pretty clear that athletes who have trained longer have produced more force when it's impact force when it comes to striking as well. And observationally, when you look at especially a lot of athletes in Thailand and things like that, you don't have to be the strongest guy to produce a lot of force when it comes to striking.

So probably highlights that there's a lot—we touched on the neuromuscular system that is undoubtedly important, but there's a lot that goes into effective striking that is separate to, well, to some that, as it pertains to purely strength and power. I think, sorry—

James de Lacey28:36

What's interesting as well is that is relationship, but when you crack when you—

Bill Smart29:10

When you start looking at studies that really separate higher competition levels, low competition, like high competition levels, and say high competition levels, really the separating factor is factors as velocity. So in terms of high-level athletes, it's actually the same as, you know, Gus brought up when it came to sprinters and ground contact times, right? Essentially, athletes who are more elite produce similar forces, they just produce them quicker. And that's reasonably clear through a lot of the research that's out, even within combat sports.

James de Lacey29:51

I mean, yeah, even with team sports, the high-level rugby competitions are all faster speeds, faster athletes, faster gameplay in general. So it's across the board. And I want to go down this power road, but I want to switch the topic first and get to this before I get to come back to that. And it'll be on conditioning. And obviously, you've been working a lot within triathlon, cycling, is that right? Cycling, sorry, cycling, endurance-based sports.

So I want to know, okay, we're going to start this, let's start with the very topic that always comes up and is always the question. Then I'll dive a little deeper into it. But zone two, high-intensity interval training, these two are almost seen as two different entities that can never come together. So I'll be interesting to kind of hear your perspective. In terms of combat sports, where do these things fit or even do they fit? And then let's start there. Where do these things fit and do they fit?

Bill Smart30:49

Hey, that's a really good question. Honestly, I think if we touch on zone two first, I think zone two training inherently can be important, but it really depends on the context. So a good example being, and this is just a good example I think for programming in general, is that within a system where an athlete does a lot of skill, a lot of drill-based work, and essentially they're working within these low heart rate zones for periods of time, you probably find that they're reasonably sufficient when it comes to some of the lower aerobic capabilities.

In which case, looking at adaptations around the heart, maybe that is something that doesn't need additional time. But it really depends on the system that they're in. You find that other systems or other combat sports systems where athletes train a lot more high intensity, they do need a bit more of that injected in a way to balance out their profile.

Because inherently, the ability—when you look at zone two and you look at some of the cardiac and sort of mitochondrial adaptations from that, really what you're trying to do is you're trying to help athletes recover. So in a fight context, it's your ability to recover between either sequences within rounds or between rounds, and that's very important. But in terms of the importance of it in training, I do think that it comes down to the system and what they do. And then how you do it, that's another question entirely.

James de Lacey32:24

That's a good start with zone two. We don't want to take this so, let's go into, let's actually, let's go a little further into that. So you mentioned obviously with the heart adaptations, I don't know if you read Martin B and Paul Larson's—I guess an opinion paper they released not too long ago on basically bagging zone two for soccer.

Bill Smart32:24

I didn't, sorry, you cut out for a bit there, James.

James de Lacey32:24

The paper from Martin B, Paul Larson, it's an opinion paper they released not too long ago, basically, uh, call, I think it was "Outdated Zone Two Training." That was based on soccer athletes.

Bill Smart32:52

You still got me there?

James de Lacey32:52

Nah, got you back, sorry James.

Bill Smart32:52

Geez, cut out.

James de Lacey32:52

You got me?

Bill Smart32:52

And then they're basically—they're basically arguing that you get similar adaptations at the heart level from long and short high-intensity intervals. For soccer players.

James de Lacey33:29

Yeah, and this is all about soccer players. So basically, do they need to do more volume of zone two when we can do less volume and use long and short high-intensity intervals and still get similar adaptations at the heart, just different pathways. What's your thought on that then?

Bill Smart33:29

That's a good question. I guess when it comes to football, I'm not entirely—I don't understand enough about the sport in terms of the work to passive to active periods. Combat sports then? So combat sports, you definitely had—I mean, 100%, right. You probably—I imagine that you'd see combat sports in terms of activity to passiveness over the period of time to be a lot greater than football. Would that be correct, would you say? Or in terms of work to rest, work to rest?

James de Lacey34:00

Well, if for work to rest we're looking at what, one to two to one to four, in?

Bill Smart34:00

But even with the, even, yeah, I think one to four—because I've read that paper as well, and I think what it doesn't state is that includes the—that includes the one-minute rest in between rounds, right? So it's like all of a sudden you're like, "Oh, that changes things a little."

James de Lacey34:33

Yeah, no, seriously, it does change things a little bit. But it does change significantly dependent of competition level and then depending on weight class as well.

Bill Smart34:33

Interesting. Yeah, it's a good question. Honestly, I think I definitely would put a preference on some of the—we talk about high-intensity training, talking about sort of long intervals, short intervals.

James de Lacey34:58

Just stick with those for this, just so it's really basic.

Bill Smart34:58

Yeah, 90 to 120% of maximum heart rate speed or something like that? I definitely think that that's definitely would be a preference for me.

I think when you come back to talking about the training itself of the athletes, I think oftentimes what you will see is you'll see gaps either at the top or at the bottom. And I'm very big on, when it comes to what do you need from conditioning, well, essentially you need to align with the physiological needs of support. You need to align with what you need physiologically as a person, so your personal requirements. And then you need to align with what essentially don't you get when it comes to your sport and sporting practice that you do now.

So I think that it's oftentimes the high and the lows that are missed within combat sports. I do think that when it comes to those high-intensity interval training, whether it's the short or the long intervals, it can be hard to get there and whether or not it's MMA or striking-based sports within some of the specific context. And one thing that I've found is that does vary quite a lot dependent of experience.

So you find that people who are more experienced are quite efficient, people are less experienced and maybe a little bit less efficient. And I do think that does potentially change the way that some of that can be used, if that makes sense.

James de Lacey36:35

So just move your microphone a little closer to your spell there. Sorry. And now you're good. Obviously, you mentioned obviously with specific modalities for those, then are you—is that your preferred option over, say, jumping on a row machine or air bike or whatever and doing those intervals with prescribed intensities?

Bill Smart37:07

Great question. So I think that when you break down conditioning, you can't—we often think about conditioning as, you know, these are the energy systems that we use and we pull from different parts of different mechanisms depending on what task. And that's very true. But we often don't put the same thought into things like efficiency and economy when it comes to the movement itself or the sporting movement.

So I think that, like, that in itself—and the prime example of that is, you know, my jiu-jitsu coach, he can not train forever and jump in and roll and roll for an hour and be sweet. You know, the Muay Thai coach who doesn't train can jump in and spar with the guys and be sweet. And it's not because—you know, it's not because from an energy system perspective or a metabolic perspective they're able to generate more ATP. They're just extremely efficient within the movements themselves. So I think that needs to be given credit.

So we talk about zone two training, I don't think running is bad at all, even for MMA fighters. I do think running is quite beneficial for the striking-based sports specifically. But I think especially for MMA, there's something to participating in some of those lower intensity work sessions with modalities that are more specific, because potentially we can build efficiency as well as some of the adaptations. That's my thought process around that.

I think for some of the high-intensity interval training, it's pretty dependent on phase, when it comes to when you do things. I do like the idea of doing them specifically as well, but I do know the limitations for some people to get to the place that they need to, in which case some of the cross-training modalities, whether it's running that's on an air bike, you know, it's on a rower, become quite beneficial. And I do think a lot of that is probably more beneficial when it comes to the off-camp or off-season than during in-camp.

James de Lacey39:13

At what point does efficiency, I'm not going to say not matter, but is, say, an athlete—let's just take Adesanya for example, one of the more efficient strikers in the UFC. At what point would you be like, "Hey, maybe we don't—"

Bill Smart39:43

Yeah, I think it all comes back to those three points before around, you know, physiological demands. What do you need? And what you need is based on more than the sport. It's based on your competition, it's based on your weight class. There's many factors that go into what's the physiological requirement for the specific person in this context.

And then of course, what do you need specifically? And I think that's why having the ability to test and test well becomes so important, because it gives you the context and understanding to make some of those decisions around when you put some of that in and how much. Because I think the big thing with MMA is it is extremely taxing and there's a lot that goes into it.

So I think if you look at skill being King, so skill's the most important factor, we need to be very methodical about how we use anything that's non-specific to that. And I think that the rationale needs to be there for it, and the need needs to be there for it. And then depending on how big that need is, then that potentially will depend on the dose that you can use.

But I think that without having the understanding of one, the importance of it—the importance comes from the demand—and then the requirement from the athlete in terms of their testing and how they, or where they're at at a specific time, I think you need those to be able to dose correctly.

James de Lacey41:19

You mentioned some fancy tests last time around, Energy System stuff. How are you—how was that? Maybe do maybe an example of how the conditioning prescription was applied to a certain test result.

Bill Smart41:19

Yeah, so a good example being—and I think what's important as well is when you start to delve quite deep into this—we talked about, say, one of the big tests that we do is the max 60 second assault bike test, where essentially an athlete goes as hard as possible for the whole minute, and then they've got three to five minutes on the back end to recover. It's pretty disgusting.

James de Lacey41:56

Yeah, that's brutal.

Bill Smart41:56

It's disgusting. So we do it with a combination of near infrared heart rates. So even though we look at the power, look at the power points, I'm very interested in how the muscle oxygen kinetics, very interested in how the heart rate kinetics, and potentially that informs some of the discrepancies.

But to confirm those—because really that's you're making assumptions based on that—confirm those, I want to look at something that's a bit more specific. So that's when we'll start to look at things like sparring, whether it's the heart rates or it might even be the NIRS profile in sparring.

And then that gives a little bit more context for how some of that prescription might change. And a good example might be that, you know, you do the test, your average power for 60 seconds is good, maybe your power at the first 30 was pretty high, it was above average, maybe you're below the last 30, maybe your heart rate recovery, the trend is elevated compared to the average.

And I think what, you know, I'm fortunate because I've got reference data that I can look at and be like, okay, you're outside of what we typically see. And that's just enough to spark looking into things a little bit more. And then maybe we see in sparring that the heart rate recovery isn't where we'd want it.

So maybe it's—looking at some of Andrew's work—maybe it's the heart rate is within the first 20 to 30 seconds, maybe that's sort of delayed. Maybe it's the overall heart rate recovery. Potentially that can then inform some of those shifts in terms of the conditioning. And generally if the heart rate is elevated and the recovery isn't being met, it probably highlights that the aerobic requirements aren't quite being met in terms of the support.

James de Lacey43:52

So what would you then prescribe off the back of that?

Bill Smart43:52

So that would be an interesting one. And I guess that would depend on the time frame. And if you're in a fight camp, you're a little bit more limited potentially. Maybe from a—if you're looking at, say, short intervals, potentially maybe that recovery comes down a little bit to sort of promote that recovery going up.

Maybe it's looking at adding in, or maybe it's looking at reducing some of the rest during one of the skills-based sessions, which is, say, inherently a little bit more low intensity. So then that session becomes just a little bit more aerobic based, almost like zone two, if that makes sense.

So those are probably the little things. I often wouldn't be just adding stuff in for the sake of it. And if I was, there would be many factors that need looking at.

James de Lacey44:56

And then so the opposite profile, somebody maybe doesn't put out good power during the test, but the heart rate recovery looks quite good and the kinetics looks quite good. Then you'll be like, okay, we increase the rest of most of your stuff and really have you do, say, more kind of go power-based intervals?

Bill Smart44:56

Yeah, it definitely could be. It definitely could be. And I think some people that are a bit more diesel, that maybe struggle when it comes to getting things going or instantaneous power, maybe those are the people who need that.

And I think what it often comes down to is, you know, when you start to look at, it's quite complex when you start to look at things from a detail perspective. Because the other components that come into it are, you know, if you're in a fight camp, who are you fighting? What's the game plan against this person? And then what do you need to get out of the athlete and where?

If you had a game plan that was more based around output and based around essentially strike count or repeat sprint ability, volume of work, then you might not want to do that. So it's definitely all quite dependent on the circumstance.

James de Lacey46:21

So someone like, just take for example, Nate Diaz, huge volume puncher. For someone with a profile like that, I mean, he's just like a—he runs triathlons, basically does all the slow stuff. In that instance, then would you be looking—I mean, this is completely hypothetical, theoretical, possible to say, but just a generalization—with that profile then, because of the way he fights, that power-based stuff, you might do a little bit of it, but it wouldn't be a priority to be like, hey, we need to bring up your striking power. It's like, your game's a volume punching, lean into it?

Bill Smart46:21

Possibly. I probably—I think for someone like that who's so far on that side of the spectrum, he might be a guy that I would put more emphasis on trying to dial up the power with more recovery. Because I think that in terms of—I guess when you think about all the different buckets in terms of performance, you could probably assume that that bucket would be quite low. So perhaps we can get something out of it faster.

But yeah, it would still play—that still would play into it. And then you'd have to assess the cost when it comes to any of the—are you going to compromise any of the aerobic qualities for that?

I think when it comes to combat—well, when it comes to any sports—any adaptations you drive, you're taking something from somewhere else. I think you need to, if you don't understand that, you end up being surprised by things. So I think that's important.

And that's why when it comes to testing and monitoring standpoint, I think having good versatility within that helps you understand if you pull from something, how's it affecting something else? And to be honest, we'll never understand that as well as we probably want to, but I think it's extremely important.

James de Lacey47:45

Nice. I want to come back to the power stuff that we talked about near the beginning. Got all linked together anyway. But you—I think you mentioned for some of your power-based tests or jump tests, I think you do an unloaded and a loaded jump. And there's a different schools of thought around developing power, peak power. I'll be interesting to hear yours.

And since you do a loaded jump, I'm going to assume you're on the quote-unquote surf the curve kind of style training. But obviously there's people that will be like, okay, we're just going to train super heavy on the force end, because if you train in the middle it's not fast enough, or it's not like there's not enough force. Or we're going to train just on the velocity end as well, because then we get the super speed. We train either end, come together, and they create this magical peak power number at the end. Train both ends.

I guess what's your philosophy and take on training through that spectrum of loads for maximizing power for combat sports? Is it the same for all combat sports? Is it different for based on the different kinds? I'll let you run with it.

Bill Smart49:04

I think really good question. I think what's really important, and I think this is probably what I consider the most, and I think a lot of people listening probably work between different competition level athletes. Development level is really important when it comes to answering that question. I think that if you...

I think that if you are an athlete who is developed, as in I'm training competition level, you know, still moving through side of things, being on the force end is probably going to be more initially. You need to do both, and they change as you get closer to competition. I think the development level is really important for where we start to change.

One is the sport. Obviously MMA has a significantly higher force requirement, say, than boxing. You can definitely argue that you want to spend more time not just at top of that, prioritizing force, but you probably want to spend more time in those middle zones. A lot of them are quite sports specific. Definitely spend more time in MMA surfing the curve.

There's a study that looked at—you might have seen this one—National boxing team in Brazil. Essentially they trained at the that corresponded with. It was quite interesting. They had some pretty—let's be honest, the programming was pretty basic. Some nice changes, 6x6 jumps for six weeks or something like that. I think it was 4 by six or something like that. They had a bench, bench throw and a jump squat or something like that.

What was interesting is they had within their cohort gold medalists—and this happened after—and Olympic bronze medalist. When they looked at essentially what was the difference, the Olympic gold medalist produced 49, 4% more power at optimal load, optimal power load, than just the general cohort of Olympic-based athletes. It was quite interesting. I think that probably highlights on itself that spending time other than just is quite valuable. This is boxing, there's a significantly lower force requirement than—

James de Lacey51:38

Yeah, I'm with you on that as well. I tend to go through and as you mentioned, I see it as striking, sort of more on the velocity, and MMA in the middle, and grappling more on the force end. You can skew your programming either way depending on the sport.

Regarding the optimal power load, is that something you'd use within your training? Do you think that should be emphasized as a way to develop power, or is it more of the fact that, hey, we just need to shift the numbers through the entire range, it doesn't matter if we try and pinpoint where this optimal peak power load is?

Bill Smart52:37

I personally use optimal peak power load. I do use velocity-based loading quite a lot, and that does change depending on the phase and the targets. But I think when you go back to that prior point around, well, what do the best athletes do better? They apply force faster. I think that probably highlights that even within the lifting context, if you can apply force with less time, that's probably going to be beneficial.

So we do spend a lot of time working maximal loading and trying to move it fast.

James de Lacey53:12

Perfect, that answers the question. And to finish this off as well, because we're coming to the end: eccentric training blocks. Is that something you're—because you obviously talk a lot about muscle architecture and fascia—is that something then that you're trying to bring into training? Let's just say out of camp because you got some time to work with. Is that something you're trying to bring into training as soon as possible, trying to get them ready for that super maximal loading to be able to drive those adaptations for high velocities, et cetera?

Bill Smart53:41

Eccentric training is a very potent stimulus. I think with a lot of that, great power comes great responsibility, and it's really true when it comes to the eccentrics because you can really people up with them. Whether or not it's performance, substantially not, it's compromising them technically just in general, whether or not they're getting injured.

I think eccentric training, we use it a lot. It's so important. We talked about the architectural changes and the fascia with the long isos. Eccentric training has a lot more evidence supporting those changes as a result of those training modalities. So we definitely use them together.

I definitely would use them in the off camp quite a bit. You've got to build into them, so I wouldn't use them in the first block generally. So if a fighter comes, has a fight, the week off, they get back into the gym, the first three to four weeks there's no eccentric training. The next box is where we might start to filter them in, but even then I would be aware of the dose and when it comes to the type that I would look at as well.

I think the overload stuff's fantastic. Eccentrics are fantastic. When you look at striking research, water is striking, and you've got high velocities, you've got high forces. That's exactly what you get out of fast eccentric training. I think the ability to use that modality well goes a long way and is very potent when you get it right.

James de Lacey55:17

I know you have a flywheel there, so let's ignore the flywheel and let's say someone's listening to this, they want to implement eccentric training. Obviously at most fighters, low training ages, I'm throwing a bar with 110% one RM on their back to do squats is challenging. So what are you doing then for exercise selection for some of these eccentrics?

Bill Smart55:51

I mean, depending on—the ones that I use the most around the board are probably things like eccentric drops.

James de Lacey55:51

Is that landing with stiff legs, or you're just dropping and you're landing to a squat position?

Bill Smart55:51

Positionally you're probably at a quarter squat position, generally done as well with heels off the ground, so dropping to just balls of feet. You got to remember that the structure here for fighters is very important. You could drop into a split stance position too. 100%.

As well as that, doing things for a push position is quite valuable as well. I know there's research coming out—it was one of our guys, John Wilson, who put me on to it—with a reactive plyometric pushup for—

James de Lacey56:53

I just had him on the pod.

Bill Smart56:53

I'll have to listen to it because that to me sounds awesome. I think that when you highlight stiffness being important on impact of punch, probably something that we can get out of eccentric training, but how we do it is the question. And then you can also do it manually with a partner as well, which is potentially you can get some more specific type work with.

James de Lacey57:22

Yeah, that reactive pushup one's interesting because when I think about doing, say, a drop jump and then a drop pushup, similar thing, I like to think about it as fast as you can ground contact time and get back to whatever the elevated surface is. So it's minimal elbow bend, whereas a lot of the stuff you see online, it's not truly plyometric, right?

Because you're dropping off these things and they're going all the way down chest to the floor and pushing back up onto. You go, are you getting out of that what you want to get out of it versus that really quick ground contact with an eccentric? I mean, I did it and I was damn, this hurts just hitting the ground and coming back up.

Bill Smart57:48

So that's the only tough thing about it. Well, because I think that what's interesting, because we know we talked a bit about the testing protocols, bench press is one that we've used and we do use, but it doesn't necessarily have the ability to differentiate between not just competition levels but good punchers. It got me thinking, well, from a mechanistic standpoint, is something that's happening here that's not translating back to the sport case?

James de Lacey58:12

What, I think—did we talk about it last time? I remember.

Bill Smart58:44

They got me thinking initially, and then there was this Conor McGregor video where he's talking about how you need to disconnect the shoulders and then reconnect them on impact. It was a really cool account. It kind of makes you think about the tower whip on an effective punch. When you think about a landmine, it's just very grunty all the way through. So that made me think about, well, maybe that relaxation piece is quite important.

And then there's a paper by Stuart McGill that looks at the—I forget what it's called, like a peak muscle activation—where there's a peak and then there's a relaxation, there's another peak again, which essentially is what he's talking about. So it's like you lose out with the landmine punch. And you do, I really think you do. As a result, I don't really use the landmine punch anymore.

I still use landmine variations. I think the landmine's a great tool. I think that being aware of that—what I would like is a body test that's able to reflect what we're saying in competition. Probably with something, that's something I'm interested in.

James de Lacey59:46

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They should—there'll be, I don't know if—I don't think they published that yet. I'll have to—I'll link you guys up and I'm sure he's got plenty of stuff.

There, but Bill, we're running out of time here. Where can people follow you? I mean, they should have followed you already from the first podcast, but if they haven't, where can they follow you?

Bill Smart1:00:18

I don't use social media a heap, but Instagram is good: BS_Performance. Flick me a follow, and if you have any questions around any of this stuff, flick me a message.

James de Lacey1:00:18

Perfect. I'll link that up in the description too. I appreciate you coming on, Bill, for round two. We're going to have to do round three at some point too. We'll just keep going, the service on stuff, man. These are good chats. So much, so much.

If you guys have questions for us, just shoot them through. Maybe I'll send out an email and see, and then if there's questions we can just jump on and answer some of the questions. We'll see what happens.