MMA Strength & Conditioning For Paddy Pimblett & Molly McCann w/ Paul Reed (SSOF Ep 96)

James de Lacey2:30

I would say that was a perfect background given there. I just wanted to touch on, obviously you mentioned you span a lot of coaching over, I guess, multiple levels there from youth MMA all the way through through professional UFC, etc. Do you want to maybe go into a little bit of your strength conditioning philosophy there in terms of development? So guys that are coming in, or even younger individuals that are coming in to you for training and how that kind of progresses through to once they become, I'm not going to say professional because obviously there's a training age involved and how they may train outside of the sport, but just in terms of overall development. I know it's a very broad, long-ranging question, but I'll leave that one to you.

Paul Reed2:57

I think generally in the sport, it's very general athlete to athlete, sport to sport. What I will say is that I've seen a lot of high level athletes have got zero in place. So no basics in place. What I'm saying is some kind of idea of how to run a strength conditioning plan that isn't being sick on the floor daily in some kind of high intensity circuit, and also don't know...

James de Lacey3:23

Yeah, because that goes on.

Paul Reed3:23

Yeah, it goes on with the youngsters. We're going to first and foremost make sure that they are consistent and we create an environment for them to turn up, to be consistent within. Because without consistency then we're not going to really get any development either way.

We load programs all onto an app for them that we encourage them to study the videos, read the cue points, which is super important. So they're kind of pre-educating themselves before they come in. And we do the basic movement patterns of lift, hinge, squat, lunge, this kind of stuff, push, pull, because that's what we're teaching them fundamentally. But we're trying to teach them good technique, why we do it. We're going to coach them correctly.

Generally, to have a plan, and the plan will be all foundational lifting, because some of the youth athletes we've got at the moment, and I want to make a point, James, they're exceptional at the moment. The talent pool in youth is exceptional. What I'm trying to break them out of, and trust me they do it, is this high intensity environment they put themselves in permanently, thinking that's the way to do strength and conditioning.

We're not doing conditioning with a youth athlete. We're doing strength. We're going to teach some the foundation movements of strength. So that's the principles, but we also want them to enjoy it, build up, know what jumps are, plyometrics are, the basics, low level, some ballistics, like med balls, this kind of stuff, because they enjoy that as a team. So we're still doing that.

It's incredible to watch young athletes develop when you keep them consistent, do the basics of some low-level plyometric, some ballistics, lifting, all the foundational lifting. They get better so quickly. And if, communication is everything, coaching practice is everything, as well, as long as we explain that, give them the app that explains that as well, that they know what they're doing before they come, that's kind of the process.

Of course, there's a limit of periodization with that as well, so we want to look at that. But ultimately, to start with, we just want to teach them the right movement patterns. We want to teach them how to lift. We want to create a future for them that they enjoy coming into a gym. That's the most important thing for me.

James de Lacey5:46

Awesome. You mentioned obviously most of it centered around teaching good habits around strength training, plyometrics, lifting in general. And you mentioned that you don't really touch on conditioning with these youth guys. When does the conditioning start to become or be incorporated in your programming for these athletes? Is that once they get higher up and or older?

Paul Reed6:13

Yeah, definitely older. I think once, see, if you split, if you break MMA down, and I'm going specifically about MMA, you kind of got, I'd say four areas. You've got youth, then you've got amateur, but actually amateur split into juniors and seniors. And then you have, I'd say, two levels of pro. We can't just use professional. You've got professional that's paying them £250, £500, that don't have access perhaps to the top coaches. And then you got a high level professional that maybe doesn't need to think for himself because he's working one-to-one with a coach.

We try and progress them through to at least the junior and senior level before we start talking in all the modalities of conditioning and how they should apply it. You'll find through their enjoyment for their sport that they're well conditioned from their sport. So they have a baseline for their sport that they're reasonably well conditioned.

I will say this, I think we also teach them about nutrition and the basics. I want them to optimize body composition, and the big thing for me, and I talk about this at every level, James, regardless of what, when we want to talk about conditioning, and even when we talk about the more advanced athlete with internal, external load, I need to know that they're eating properly, because it's a huge factor.

Before we start thinking of getting the best out of an athlete in any way, when they're listening to people and telling them to eat a thousand calories, low carbohydrates, they've got disordered eating patterns showing at the age of 16.

So we still talk to them and interact with them about what they should be eating before training and what they should be eating after, because ultimately it's the saying of flogging a dead horse. If you don't eat well, it doesn't matter what I do. I'm probably, it's diminished. I need to teach you that fuel is part of your performance.

James de Lacey8:08

Yeah, and especially in weight class sports, man. Like, with youth and, my wife grew up as an elite level weightlifter, so even through teenage years and stuff, like the weight class sports can rip pretty big havoc on your body and things, especially when you're not given the guidance.

Actually, have a question here from the live chat. He's asking about, would be brilliant to know your career path, how you started. I think we touched on that initially, but he's asking for any advice for young coaches would be appreciated too. I mean, very general question there, KP, but have you got any general advice for younger coaches there, Paul?

Paul Reed8:32

I work and collaborate with great academics. I make a point because integrity is important to me. I never went to university, James, and give some background of that. I've been involved in senior management of business for 30 years, last 15 owning the biggest prestige brand within this group for last 15 years, which I sold in December 2022.

I actually did an NVQ of physical education, James, because there wasn't the things that you can get access to when I was a kid. And then after that I took every kind of Active IQ at the moment, which is level four in strength and conditioning, did all the personal training qualifications, traveled the world, studied the Westside.

Barbell way. I tried to do as much as I can while running a big business. I will say this: the guys that I add value to, that come into the gym and I mentor, that I work with or class them as my wingmen really that come from University, is coaching practice and the art of communication is a skill you need to develop. Because I've had many with me that sport science doesn't always lead you to be a coach on the floor, the personal trainer strength and conditioning coach.

Not everybody goes to University for that, but if you do and bear in mind in the UK to be insured to be a coach on my gym floor you still have to do a level three personal training certificate, you don't get insured just for your MSc. Now that's ticking the boxes. The real advice I'd give is you've got to experience people number one.

You've got to work out, make mistakes, develop your art of communication, find out what works with them. But your communication skills should make them ultimately come back to you, keep them consistent, enjoy the process, educate them. If you're not available one week through holiday, they can do that program on their own because they're good enough to do that.

But that's the number one for me. I think the biggest, and I'm outspoken about it, which is why have we lost the art of communication and coaching practice? I've got thousands of people I can quote that I've coached. I'm as good as I get as a coach. I'm still a student of the sport as far as what I do in performance, both in strength and conditioning and nutrition. The guys will tell you, James, that I don't use the word science around me because that's not right, but I'm well practiced evidence-based. The guys around me respect me, that says everything, the level they're at.

But for me, if you want to be a coach, then coach. Because use as much as the academic learning or whatever you're doing, but you've got to get in front of people. And you and I know this, James: fighters as people are difficult. You're going to have to get used to the, everything that you did in your education, this human being is going to stand in front of you and do something different that you're going to have to coach.

James de Lacey11:22

Yeah, 100% man, I'm with you there. I mean, I went through, I started coaching, it's the only job I ever had. I started coaching at 13 or 14 years old when I was playing tennis back home, started coaching kids, and I've just coached ever since.

And it's one of those things where you can't just, you see people, they did eight weeks and they lost weight and now they become an online coach or a coach, or they've done some certification for one week. And it's like, you can't, coaching is not a certification, coaching is not a certificate, coaching is not a degree. It's something that you have to do and you have to be [expletive] at it initially, and you just have to develop.

You have to learn on the job. It's almost like an apprenticeship. And no number of certifications or anything will ever get you good at coaching versus actually being on the floor coaching people. Because yeah, you're dealing with a lot of different people.

Paul Reed12:13

I can tell you the things I learned from business and being a head of a major corporate,Yers was Mercedes-Benz, with the brand and building my own business and being successful was that coaching people was the most important thing I did for business success. But ultimately I became a head of a UK Council in education in the business, didn't effectively have a business qualification, but I was good at coaching people on the practical fundamentals, how to get them come into work and develop. I learned a lot from that.

But I coached in football nearly all my life. I actually coached in motorsport as somebody that did motocross and did quad racing competitively. I was the first to try and bring in some nutritional strategies and strength and conditioning around it because it was a tough sport. So I guess I've always coached. I've been coaching in the combat sport and writing programs now intensively for over a decade. But I've done some bad stuff, some of the stuff's not good, but you've got to reflect and you learn and you work with athletes and you get better, right?

James de Lacey13:09

Yep, and I'm sure you're the same. Yeah, I can look back now and think of injuries that I've definitely caused in the past, but we'll move on from that. We'll go into, you mentioned obviously you studied a lot of different things, you mentioned Westside as one of them, and it'll be cool to dive into a little bit of your strength conditioning philosophy now. Moving more towards, I guess, a more developed fighter, someone who's got some strength condition background to them.

Paul Reed13:40

So look, the basics we talk about is I need athletes to understand why I'm doing what I'm doing. So we make sure that the language we use, and we can't get this to everyone, but the basics of whether we talk about mesocycle, macro or micro cycles, what I'm talking about is all year round GPP basically and the approach to that.

But the main thing is fight camp and the fight camp, which is the basic approach we have, depending on a number of things. One is, do the athletes stay in the gym all year round or do they only do a fight camp? Because it becomes more intense.

We don't need to do perhaps the higher volume, lower intensity at the start of camp with them athletes because they've already done that work. We can start focusing on power generally and speed. But we use almost a triphasic approach as well. I like that little eccentric loading at the start, but not, we're talking about three to five. We switch into, and we're using more and more now, isometrics. So overcoming isometrics, we're still, we're using a lot of, now we use a lot of yielding isometrics, mainly for contrast work as well, because I feel it works great.

We'll use isometrics where I think an athlete's quite beat up, if I'm honest as well, more joint friendly, we're still getting the right adaptation. And the back end of the camp, it's higher intensity, lower volume, where we're developing strength speed, speed strength, rate of force development, using accommodating resistance. That's the basic philosophy we use if we have the ideal 12-week camp, which we very rarely do, by the way.

Obviously we switch from, I mean, there's a lot of chat about whether we use the classic linear periodization model. I'm kind of think you're doing more daily or weekly undulating, if I'm honest as well, because the subjectives of readiness load will play a part. And when we talk about their training load, their training diary from a technical perspective, I need to be close to the head coach because I want to understand that that day.

I've got my diary where I understand their technical load. Doesn't mean that they've just now traveled to another gym for sparring and sparring that day is now the RPE has gone through the roof and I need to adjust for that.

So there's so many things you have to consider outside of, I have a, we have a philosophy and methodology how we want to train an athlete. But what I'm finding more and more is that if you don't really understand the technical diary and you don't talk to the coach, and maybe you can influence RPE in the technical window because they're coming to me beat up, consistently injured, big one, James, under-fueled, especially in camp, in that chronic phase where they've got signs of maybe low energy availability, we adapt to suit, I guess.

But the basic principles of we're doing a bit of eccentric loading, we're doing, using isometrics, and we're doing that higher intensity. Almost we're not putting any load in with using ballistics, rate of force development, banded exercises, that kind of stuff at the back end.

James de Lacey17:02

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

We have programs specifically for judo, for jiu-jitsu, for wrestling, MMA, boxing, Muay Thai is coming soon. All these things are going to be in the training app. We also have a private community where some of the coaches that have been on the podcast are in there to help you with any training questions and any performance questions you have. For example, Andrew Aser and Casper Detet. We also have some online courses within the training app. They cover strength conditioning, mental skills, and weight cutting.

And finally, we now have Ryan Vos in the community, a second degree jiu-jitsu black belt who is there to break down any of your grappling matches that you want seen by a second eye. He's currently breaking down videos on a separate Sweet Science of Fighting YouTube channel, and he will break down your video within the community. So if you have a match or a roll that you just recorded, you can upload that in there and Ryan will break that down for you. So what are you waiting for? Jump down the description. You can check out the Sweet Science of Fighting Underground. Otherwise, enjoy the podcast.

That's a little deeper in as well. You mentioned triphasic, some listeners might not be familiar with it. Do you want to maybe dive into a little bit? Okay, what does a triphasic training block look like, and maybe just in that 12-week, perfect 12-week example, are you going two weeks, two weeks, two weeks for those, maybe three? Because we're trying to work...

Paul Reed18:45

This is the other thing about deload and trying to react to deload. We used to do a monitor system, the deload was set every week. I've kind of become concerned that we need to react to deload depending on the athletes' scores in there. We call it reading the scores because they all have to score it on their app.

But it's normally three-week blocks. We look at the moment with the three weeks. Certain periods, so three weeks maybe eccentric loading, three weeks into isometric, three weeks into that concentric rate of force development focus.

James de Lacey19:08

Gotcha, that makes sense. So how do the days look in those blocks, just as a general example?

Paul Reed19:08

So we do two days a week, full body. Obviously, we'll switch in the type of lift. So from squat to hinge, some kind of pattern of that. We'll generally always end up with some contrast, so from depth drop jumps to broad jumps to this kind of stuff as well.

I will say we focus a lot in every session on plyometric development, and also from a more intensive warm-up. Because they're coming to us after sessions on a Wednesday, for example, they've done two hours. I want to start them lifting without extensive warm-up, active mobility, probably more extensive plyometric.

Then we're going to be looking at no more than three sixes at the start of camp, no more than 18 reps probably on the main lift, probably three to five seconds on the eccentric, that kind of stuff. But that can change depending on the athlete. Who we've been working all year round, because I'm not going to put any eccentric loading on them, they don't need it.

So it's a big part of, triphasic plays a big part of what we do, but we don't always use it. We use a lot in GPP all year round if I'm honest as well.

So we'll probably do four-week blocks, four-week blocks of eccentric loading, probably a bit more. We use clusters, we use myotatic reps, we do all kinds of things within that as well. We use unilateral work with lifts like zerchers. I remember when I first started using zerchers a long time ago, James, a lot of people threw a lot of abuse at me to start with.

It becomes now the lift of choice for a lot of people now. What's the most specific lift for combat sports now? It is. Yet people thought I was mental, or "What are you doing? What kind of lift is that?"

But look, we use, the other thing we're responsible for, we've got to limit injury, we've got to know that they're good to lift. And we don't use a lot of straight bar deadlifts, because unless I'm really comfortable with their technique, we've seen people hurt their backs. The same as using sumo deadlift, we do use it at times, but I want them to be a bit more advanced. We're using trap bars for deadlifts.

We do use some box squat if you want to get that consistency of depth. But we use deep squat with the more advanced athletes. We'll switch from bilateral to unilateral. That's kind of the way we make it up. And we will change on time and attention, the eccentric loading into more explosive work. And we're always doing contrast work into back end of camp.

James de Lacey21:27

We even use French contrast.

I love that. I was going to say I use French contrast quite a bit as well, especially with the isometrics you mentioned. Obviously some of the overcoming isometrics. I've used that at the beginning of French contrast, especially during heavy training blocks, just because you don't have to have those heavy loads on your back or have to be lifting heavy loads. You can still produce high levels of force pretty quickly and then get into other stuff. Are there other things you do with those isometrics?

Paul Reed21:54

Not really. We'll alternate between overcoming and yielding, of course, and holding in position, which is pretty brutal. But we do limit, we're limiting joint pain generally, and that's what we're after. We use isometrics for people with knee tendonitis and things like that as well.

We switch the lift. It's been great for us because we see a lot of knee tendonitis, and it's definitely changed the game for that.

So we used to have the kind of blocks, we're not afraid to switch into isometrics now if the athlete's a bit beat up, they're struggling with a few injuries. It's a great way to get the CNS adaptation, and actually it's great to contrast from as well. I'd like to listen more. I've seen output, doing a bit of work on isometrics right now. Can't think of the guy in the podcast, but I've downloaded an isometric kind of training course. I'm interested in getting more science on isometrics at the moment.

They work for us, and we can be doing isometrics in yielding for up to 15 seconds probably, no more. But we'll do as low as six when we're doing perhaps overcoming.

James de Lacey23:15

I'll link you up with Dustin Oru after this as well, because he's done a bunch of stuff in isometric training, a bunch of research there. He's been on the podcast recently again.

But you talked about you doing maybe three weeks, perfect fight camp, depending on obviously everything else going, but maybe a three-week eccentric triphasic, and then the isometric three weeks, then you've got more of that concentric or rate of force development or say power style three-week block. How does that look within training? Are you still incorporating a lot of the stuff that you did previously in there?

Paul Reed23:40

So we might use some potentiation with a heavy two, for example, or the heavy single before we start using the power work. We use a lot of bands and chains at that stage as well for rate of force development. We're going to do more extensive plyometrics in the contrast work as well.

So we do use, we start using output on them again, so we get some information. They start to camp on jumps and leaps and the broad jumps and this kind of stuff, medball throws, landmine throws. We get some information, we start testing them, get the back end of the camp.

If I'm honest, the numbers are good. The competition it creates is better. Get a team in for the testing day and start getting through landmines or doing speed bench or doing squat back squat jumps or stuff. It's incredible what you do when they're watching the teammates do it, how they've improved. I will say that, so I'm getting better adaptation.

But that's kind of how it looks. We'll incorporate more jumps, trap bar jumps, banded trap bars, this kind of stuff, banded back squats. So more speed, we're looking for speed. And we will use VBT to look at a certain, we want them over 0.7 or over one or whatever we're targeting as well. We use zercher banded zerchers, chains for zerchers.

So that's kind of what we do. I mean we have multiple things for multiple people, but basically we're looking for speed. We're looking for very low, I mean the real time where I don't use any lifts, but we might do three threes or three ones for some potentiation, or a heavy lift and then start using maybe French contrast or some contrast from that.

James de Lacey25:06

You mentioned you're using more extensive style plyometrics during the training block. Why extensive over the more intensive variations?

Paul Reed25:36

Mainly because I'm trying to develop skill. You'll be surprised how poor some of the athletes are. And actually over time, we've got them a lot better for them using extensive plyometrics. It's very dependent on do they have joint pain, are they pretty injury-free right now.

We use a lot of, at the start, but things like alternating movement, lateral bounds, broad jumps, general jumps, landmine throws, barbell throws, this kind of stuff. We use a lot of that, but plyometric generally is just speed off the floor, speed off the floor movement, off the floor jumps and leaps and bounds. And then a lot of ballistics.

So we do medball combinations, rotation and throws, single arm, double arm, this kind of stuff as well. So I think we built a decent pathway now that people understand why it's there and why they're doing it. I think managed plyometrics have moved the needle for more athletes than I thought it would, because they were so poor to start with.

James de Lacey26:41

I can imagine. I think it'd be interesting as well to dive into kind of that final three weeks of that fight camp. I know, I think it was Paddy's last fight when they did, was it the UFC embedded where you guys were at the UFC PI? And you took Paddy through, I think it was, I think it must have been the final almost like a final blowout. Do you want to maybe talk about what you were doing there and the why and kind of where that fit in the whole puzzle?

Paul Reed27:09

Two things, really. So we built this fight simulation. We're trying to kind of mirror the energy systems you may see in a five-minute round. So I'm going to make it intense. You've got to make sure though, it's important that you do this, that the athlete is fueled well enough in the week leading up to before you'd ever do that. And actually even on the day before, and that day, it's like, "Look, we're going to..."

We do three five-minute rounds. You're not going to utilize too heavy carbohydrates, but we still want to make sure that they're not an athlete that's been cutting carbohydrate three weeks out because that's pointless.

There's a psychology to this, James, which is when we have a conversation with them and they do this at the end of the camp, it's for them to know that that's a tough session and whatever I go through my fight, potentially I'm not going to go through anything harder than that. So when people look at, "Am I looking for physiological adaptation there?" If they're fueled enough, there's no negatives to that session for three five-minute rounds.

However, a big part of combat sport and fight week is psychological. And over time we did it a couple of times, and then before you know, every single athlete within that gym—Next Gen, one of the most progressive, successful gyms in the UK right now, it's got a killer mat roster from amateurs just to obviously Molly and Paddy at the top—but it became that they liked it because it became part of this about "I'm going to get pushed." I know when I walk through there, there's nothing I'm going to suffer with, and I think that's a big part of it, if I'm honest.

Do I think it has a lot of value from a physiological point of view? Not sure. But you know, is it good to do it with them? Yeah, they love it, they enjoy it. It feels like it's that capstone, capstone where they kind of finish with that three five-minute rounds, high effort, and like "I'm ready to go." It's kind of you ticking the box. Psychology is a big part of being ready for fight week.

James de Lacey29:24

I've talked about similar things on the podcast and various videos as well. There's a huge impact of doing something like that and pushing and knowing and having that feeling that when you're actually in the fight that you get, you have that same feeling, but you know what you did previously and you know you can still push through that wall.

Whereas if you haven't gone there and you get—or maybe you have gone there, but you hadn't gone there when you'd already cut weight and things like that, at this new body weight, and you don't know exactly the outcome—and you're able to at least relate the feelings, I think that's huge.

Paul Reed29:50

I do think, and I would say this to anybody into S&C, is that—and I said this before—is that you have to understand the nutrition. So if you're not going to understand, they have a great relationship please with a nutrition guy that they're working with, because the best one in the world, a lot of things we talk about and what we do and how we design the fight camp and what this program looks like is going to be super reliant on you knowing that they're fueling correctly.

And the most basic discussion I ever have with athletes is: one, do you understand energy availability? Have you set yourself a calorie target? Most important thing. Number two, is do you know how much carbohydrate you're eating? Let me tell you, less than 5% will tell me they know that. And if they know it, less than 3% have told me they're tracking it correctly.

And I think you're talking about psychology at fight week. The other part of psychology is that they know and have evidence that they've been eating correctly as well, not just training systems, not just training daily from a technical perspective, of what we do in S&C. You've got to know that they've been fueling correctly, because as I said before, diminished returns and everything we talk about and everything we design and all our intentions and everything we're trying to do will be stopped in its tracks if we can't get them to eat correctly.

And with a long history of working in weight-making sport and putting people on the scales week in, week out, and traveling the world, that's a pretty bleak place at the moment, mate, I can tell you. And I do think for us all to be as good as we want to be, if we don't deal with that, we're probably not worth getting into the major detail of what we do within the strength and conditioning camp either—monitoring the RPE, the technical daily—because it all stops and all fails if we don't know that they're eating correctly. Everyone stop eating a thousand calories of just canned tuna and lettuce six weeks out or something like that.

James de Lacey31:37

But that's real, mate, you know what I mean?

Paul Reed31:37

People laugh at that, but I'm telling you it's real. That I've done, you know what I mean. And I've done so much work, mate, to talk to parents, kids, amateurs. I used to run my own promotion, James—it's where, saying this in my background—I would, Shinobi MMA, I did that so I could try and create a platform that I thought was safer and better for amateur athletes to develop on.

As part of the weigh-in day over them seven years, I seen people collapse off scales, didn't make the weight, get taken to a hospital. I've seen all kinds. When you get into the details of why that happened, and then I started questioning every athlete that came on the scale, it was scary. I know people haven't eaten for three days, never mind tuna and lettuce. Running 40 miles a week, doing 0.2 liters per kilo of water load, doing all kinds of stuff.

And that's been always a big part of where I want to see development in the sport. Development in the sport to S&C and get them better at what they're doing needs to start making sure they're fueling correctly. Right, basic principle. I used to—I've got all the data from that. I've got the red crosses I'd give to gyms and athletes, the ambers I thought were not bad, and the greens that people were doing it properly. Got two greens ever.

James de Lacey33:04

Bleak. Bleak to put it that way.

Paul Reed33:04

I mean, that's why we have podcasts like this, right?

James de Lacey33:34

To hopefully help some of the fighters out there with everything. But I want to come back as well a little bit to some of the strength and conditioning side. Around, you mentioned obviously you have Paddy and Molly under your wing at the moment. It'd be interesting to go into: does their strength and conditioning, or how does their strength and conditioning differ, if it differs at all?

Paul Reed33:57

Well, it differed this time for Molly because she went down a weight. However, at the same time, it's probably the best she ever interacted with us because she knew there was no tolerance.

With Paddy, I've had a long, probably year and a half, of dealing with injuries, so that changed the whole camp. So it's well known that he had the ankle surgery that was poor. He's got extensive shoulder, he's got extensive tears in the labrum of the shoulder, both sides, by the way. And he's got some issues that we need to rest that he wasn't able to press always through camp for the Tony Ferguson fight. So things have changed, but the basics are the same.

What I would say is both of them are more in-camp fighters, not all-year-round. Molly's better to do all-year-own S&C. Paddy is just another fighter that if you left him alone, he's not going in the gym, he's not lifting. That's a big difference. So Paddy needs care, attention. He needs to listen at times.

Is the approach different? Yes, approach is different for Molly. The approach different for Molly is, ultimately, Paddy's a phenomenal athlete from a conditioning perspective. If he haven't been in the gym for six weeks, he'll run a half marathon tomorrow and knock a good timing. He's really good. Molly put more conditioning into this camp. She's always quite strong, but we knew she was stronger at flyweight. So at strawweight we maybe focused more on power, power and speed. I think that came out in the fight—that's the best she ever looked, in the round. She looked powerful, she hurt the girl, took her down with ease.

So we changed her camp because lower energy availability at strawweight—she had 2,000 calories two days before she weighed in, so we knew we could put the work into her.

But Paddy needs more work still on foundational strength. So maybe when we're getting back into that eccentric loading kind of phase, because he's out of camp a lot. His media duties, James, are off the chart. So if you want to kind of keep him in shape all year round, you can't keep him in the gym. He's traveling, he's going to America, he's invited to all the best restaurants in the world, he's paid to go there. Doesn't help me for getting them on weight, but you know, it's going to change.

When he gets back, he's going back into the basic principles of a bit of eccentric loading, strength, maybe higher rep, because we need to develop strength and we've got to get that first and foremost force production back with him before we start anything else. So Molly was in camp for quite a while for this, so we were able to focus more on power and speed and conditioning. So there is differences.

Next Gen as a team are very forward-thinking. They come in as a team. I don't know if you've ever seen—I can have 14 in at once. Could be UFC, Cage Warriors, pros. Some of the footage you'll see, we'll have 14 athletes, including amateurs. We can have them working five racks in pairs or threes, depending where they are in the phase of the program, where they are, and what they require within fight camp, off camp, not being in the gym, that kind of stuff. But they come in as a team, they work as a team.

They do list and we set them in nutrition targets and I think that's why the gym is it has structure. The most fundamental principle of structure: turn up consistent, do your work, eat properly, you're going to move the needle a bit. And then go back to that tri-phasic approach of eccentric loading, isometrics, some concentric focus, rate of force development. End the camp, we do conditioning on a Sunday because they rest on a Saturday so we can push them more.

We don't do conditioning on a Wednesday because they come to us after two hours, so they're more strength focus, strength and power focus with rest on some Sunday, and then the rest of the week, their program, their runs, whether that's their recovery work or whether that's the track work that they do.

James de Lacey37:48

Just how does your conditioning philosophy then? We've touched a lot on the strength and power side in terms of conditioning. I mean, we can keep this geared towards fight camp, currently 12 weeks out, how does that conditioning start and change throughout the fight camp?

Paul Reed38:13

Again, things to think about: happy state camp, are they well conditioned athlete? Do they do their road work? The biggest difference, when they say, is between boxing and MMA: send an MMA athlete onto a zone two recovery run and to maintain the heart rates around the 130, 140s, they have to stop. So we start developing the 5K and then we use some Fartlek-based runs as well. So we have a 5K, we'll use some Fartlek work, and then we might use some red zone work as well, so we're trying to cover all the different modalities.

On the Sunday, it's more about that strength endurance, so sleds and ropes and this kind of stuff. So that's generally how we focus it. If they get a training window, they're going to switch from 5Ks into Fartleks. They might do the 400s and start working on the 400 meter repeat. And as you get further in, we go 200s, use some hill sprints.

Always, I'm always concerned about hamstring injuries and sprint work into the 60s. Assault bike work is perfect for others as well. So that's the way we come into camp: higher intensities, we get closer to camp, but build the base to start with.

James de Lacey39:10

Gotcha. And then once you get into camp, how does that look then?

Paul Reed39:10

Depending, so this is the big thing for me about working with the coach and understanding their technical training diary: what is the best window for you to get some redline conditioning? Because, to be fair, there's more approaches coming more into combat sport with coaches now. I think they are trying to work the RPE system of like, what does each technical training session look like?

If I want to get something in redline stuff, certainly high intensity stuff, and I need to know, got to fit it in the window when they're fresh and they're fueled. But generally we're going to do some strength endurance conditioning, but we're going to do some track work as well. I work with a great track coach. He brings them to the track. He also coaches them on general running practice as well, and believe it or not, they've improved so much, probably in reducing injury risk as well.

But that's kind, so 12 weeks, we probably do the three weeks they're doing their eccentric loading with more of that 5K work with their Fartlek work. The variant switch then will go into more of the 400s, or we do sixes, fours, and twos in the block, so we're trying to look at that next. And then as we come into that speed phase, high intensity, low volume phase, we're trying to get them into a lot of the short explosive work, so the 60 meter, the 40 meter, the short explosive hill sprints, that kind of stuff.

And we're still using, when they're fresh, we're still using, but shorter, we'll use some rounds. So we're going to simulate what we did on that end session for Paddy, what we're going to put a few of them sessions in as well.

James de Lacey41:02

Nice. Where do you typically like these sessions to sit in a training? Because I think a lot of people have trouble figuring out where they're going to fit this extra conditioning.

Paul Reed41:02

Basic principles for me is we want to understand readiness: how does the athlete feel? Number one, if you're recording readiness goes on in the twos and you're flat and you're sore and you've got no energy, then pointless. Because we do, we have readiness insights for every athlete, we can spot the days where we have the best days.

But then it's about working with the coach to say, where we got that lower RPE time or we can consider it to be a high day, that we put some periodization of carbohydrate in so we're fueling the athlete better with carbs. It is a high day, if we can't find that training window, but I still want four to six hours ideally for rest period, for fueling period before they come and do that.

There's nothing ideal about combat sport. It depends whether you've got a great relationship with this, with the coach, first and foremost. I see a lot of people out there that have no relationship with an athlete's combat sport fighter, with their technical coach. I'm not sure how that works, like I want a relationship with everybody: head coach, physiotherapist, nutritionist, if they've got one working with them, psychologist.

You're part of the team, but I do think you've got to make sure that you understand the training window and well, you understand the best time, and you talk to the coach. Especially if they're redlining them every single day. The one thing I will say is in boxing, especially, I can get them come to me and wonder why they're so flat and they've been, the coaches had them doing 20 hill sprints and a thousand press-ups and that kind of stuff goes on.

Now I've built enough influence and respect to tell them to stop doing that because it's stopping my job. And when I say my job, by the way, it's important to say that Vortex Combat Sports Performance has Carl working with world-class boxers as Connor. He's head of John Moores University strength and conditioning. We have Marcus with us now, his master's degree. So we all try and align generally in the training program.

But Carl and Connor will put a lot more testing, you've got gold standard testing at John Moores. Yeah, well we use Output and we use Vald and we use GymAware as well. We put that in, but training philosophy is all the same: you've got to adapt to the athlete, you've got to have a conversation with the head coach, you've got to know where the training window is. If you want to get the best out of redline conditioning, then you need to make sure they're fueled and you need to make sure what window you've got to do that in communication with the coach.

James de Lacey43:43

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But my personal favorite, this is my personal favorite far, we have this in black and white, and it is the taniwha, far protector guardian version of the Sweet Science of Fighting with the logo on the back. This is designed by a Maori designer back in New Zealand, so a bit of my heritage on this jersey. It represents the acknowledgement of battle and war. It also represents strength and stability and also has the New Zealand silver fern.

But even if you're not a kiwi, cop this, this is an awesome design. It is a custom-made design, you will not find it anywhere else. So check that, that'll also be down in the description with a discount code, but back to the podcast.

You touched on obviously taking readiness scores, so if anyone's not familiar, scale of one to five, typically it can be more, but you're basically judging things on soreness, fatigue, etc. It's a subjective rating for if you're training and you're logging their score each morning. But I wanted to ask you, say during important fight camp, I don't know, four, six weeks out, whatever it is, and you have guys maybe putting in ones and twos, like red scores for fatigue and soreness.

Often I found as well, that can be in the morning, but once they're warmed up and things and they've eaten everything, they might feel better during that time. Or maybe there's times in that training period where sometimes the work has to be done regardless. Does that change at all for you as a low readiness score or something like, okay, we have to make changes, or is it more of a decision that you make based on a few other different factors?

Paul Reed45:26

I think I have to beat my drum or the team's drum a little bit here: we don't have a lot of people are getting them low scores, if I'm honest. However, if they do, the first conversation is why? So what did you do yesterday then? I might find something out that wasn't part of the training program that I had for the technical diary also.

I think we've got to understand when we talk about internal, external load as well, that load is load of course as well. Now, if you've got, we think fighters are full time, even at pro, they're

They're not. They might have jobs, families, kids. Financial issues, the whole demographic of combat sport is like they could have some of the wrong habits. It's real. They could have mental health issues. They've got all kinds of things going on, so you've got to recognize it I think as well.

How do you deal with it? Listen, I sent a talk to a head coach today. I sent a world champion of Cage Warriors and sent him out the gym because his readiness score was poor. He felt poor all weekend. He come in. Experience of just coaching an athlete because, see, he's off. I can see the way he lifted straight away. Can see just doing some of the low-level primatics and warmup.

Sent him, stopped him, made him do some mobility work, some foam roll and some stuff like that, just to hang around with us. But that's an example of what to do. Well, I stopped him from training. Got four weeks left, James. And the way to think about it for me is stop treading through deep water because you're not getting the adaptation required from your session number one, because you're not training it with the intensity you need. A couple of days off brings you back, can't wait to get going, and before you know you're back in the game.

This sport is frightened of days off. Athletes are frightened of rest.

James de Lacey47:11

So how do you manage? Yeah, they are, aren't they?

Paul Reed47:11

It's like we create mental health issues when we say have a day off. And I think it's important that any coach that wants to get into the sport, like, objectives are super important if you're doing testing, but I don't think we sweat these subjectives enough at times. They're still human beings, right? They've got a lot of stress in the life. We've got to try and understand it, especially if we're putting things like conditioning in or high-low days and this kind of stuff as well.

But generally we score the tick-it score. We can pick things up from jump height obviously as well, so look at central nervous system drop-off, and we do that. The basics of less than, if they're more than 10% out, then maybe we've got to consider what they're doing. Don't really get that issue, if I'm honest, maybe because we talked to them about fuel.

Maybe that Paul Rimmer, very forward-thinking head coach, is actually more on the less is more way of doing things and take some rest. He'll have no issue saying to somebody, right, even in technical training, have a deload week, take over footwork drills, light drills, that kind of stuff, take out a spar and do touch spar. That's super important for me.

So, but if they fall below, conversation number one. Number two is break down why. Is there something very obvious? Yeah, I had no sleep. Well, there you go. So go and get some sleep and come back the next day. Maybe it's a simple conversation. The most common thing I get is they didn't eat their food. They didn't hit their carb.

And it is, I mean, readiness over-training syndrome, whatever you want to call it, is going to be carbohydrate-based most of the time, right? And fighters don't like carbohydrate. They think it makes, they think it puts weight on them. So, readiness is important to me. On the app it comes up, it gives me an insight into every athlete so I get a trend and I can slot.

I can tell you now I pick the days when they go down. I know it's because they've done an extensive technical training session that is or double or treble that's well outside what I've seen in the window because perhaps they've traveled to different gyms, have different sparring partners, maybe a different coaches in that day that doesn't understand.

So discussion, understand it, use the subjectives, react, give them some advice, give them a day off, or actually you do have a few that maybe are just a little bit lazy, so you might push them through the session because you can see there's nothing wrong with them.

James de Lacey49:30

Nice. Yeah, that less is more approach I think is slowly permeating into combat sports, but it's a very, very, very slow change. As you mentioned, the whole blast yourself with random circuits and then, last one to leave, every session's got to be working hard regardless. It's still there. It's still there in all combat sports. It's hard to break.

Paul Reed50:27

Can I reverse a question on you if I can? Because this is something I'm super passionate about in the development aspect of the sport. We've got all that going on still a decade later. We've been trying to talk to people about that. We've still got people doing circuits like think it's only acceptable if they have to collapse to the floor 10 times a session, not having days off, not tracking the food, doing the horrendous weight cuts, like, and having in zero strength and conditioning methodology at all. I'm even talking about basic principles.

Yet we've got some of the outstanding academic and research available, right? So I'd like to think is, what can we do that we can develop to something in an educational process that really is explained in a way? I don't know if you know, we have a Ladybird book, which is a school kids' education book here, right? It's quite famous for schools.

It's almost we write it on the Ladybird for 8-year-olds about the dos and don'ts of combat sports, because we have a lot of really good stuff going on elite sports, but kids. How do we make the kids and the juniors and the young amateurs the next best professionals if they don't have access to enough money to pay people?

I think that would be my question for me, and that's something I'm so passionate about. Why we have the madness going on, yet we've got so much brilliant resource, like yourself, available to everyone, but like, how do we do it the way that people understand it and can apply it? Whether they've got family, kids, school, how can they think about things differently? Because I am astounded on a weekly basis the stuff I see.

James de Lacey52:01

Dude, it's so tough, man. With the kids and stuff, obviously you have TikTok and everything doing everything else. But I think that some of the issues as well is you see a lot of the professional fighters obviously with their potential training vlogs or buildups to fights through various organizations, and you see it. It's in your face. The top guys are doing all the time, and then that it's a trickle-down effect, right?

Like, how do you convince someone you shouldn't do something when they see their favorite fighter doing exactly what they're doing on TV, on YouTube, whatever it is? And getting around that becomes damn, damn difficult.

Paul Reed52:31

Yeah, I mean, look, the guys I work alongside, the Brit academics I work alongside, know my stance, which is I know my place in the sport. I'm a coach of people. I'm a coach in performance. I've been doing that a long time. We've got a decent methodology about what we do in S&C conditioning. But I want to train kids. I want kids to have access to education. I want them to know what's wrong and right. And as much as I can travel the world with great athletes and have an incredible team to talk about.

The team of Karen Conor's got the boxing team they've got on. I've got some of the judo guys on as well. And that's a good example to use, James, is GB Judo, ready for the, getting ready for Olympics. 23 years of age, female, made weight 14 times last year. Made weight 14 times. I have never managed to get any more than a two-week cycle into her program because she's constantly in competition. She doesn't, like, we all know a tough randori is, right?

They do randori, competition, travel the world. Not a single point of education. And when I get into that, I'm kind of, and they come to me, and a lot of them are starting to come to me and get better because all I've taught them is actually less is more, now how to recover, now how to fuel. And I'm basically giving a little peaking program constantly to keep, but I'm trying to take more out. I'm trying to make them rest.

But my job in the sport before the finish is I'm supposed to sit in front of Sport England and talk about the best way to for the development pathway of sport, the best way to look after these youngsters, the best way to make them the next pros. And I get concerned about the, there must be an educational pathway. And just a, and it's not trying to promo it, but I'd love to bounce it off you, mate, but we're developing something called the Combat Sports Performance Coach Certification. It's for all those that don't get—

James de Lacey54:22

I saw that on Instagram today, right?

Paul Reed54:22

Yeah, so what we're trying to do is from the nutrition program. I'm head of, I didn't mention, but I'm head of the Global Performance Nutrition Institute UK, which is the ISSN partner. For so, anybody, and first and foremost are going to say, while I'm on, if you got a chance to go to university, please go. Because I'm, you need to go, but if you don't have, not everybody gets the opportunity, so if you don't get an education pathway that will still serve you well.

So, and we've tried to set that up. Some moms and dads have even got a nutrition course to make sure they can spot their child as do the right things. We do a level two, a level three, and a level four in strength and conditioning through Active IQ, internationally recognized, but we bolt on that practical days for combat sports performance. So actually how you should start thinking about combat sports. It's a pathway.

That goes both ways and to speak to Carl and Conor at the university, they see it's a great pathway for somebody coming out of the degree to start getting coaching practice. We actually do a business module to take them out to set up a business, how what Companies House need from you, how what a bookkeeper looks like, how to do online links. We got a marketing module, but for those who want to be a coach, we want to bring them out and give them some coaching practice.

The other way is that level four can then is their pathway into start doing their undergrad as well. So we can cover both bases. We've got around me some fantastic academics, ambassadors from English MMA. Dan Hardy wants to do the course as a coach and somebody's been around the sport for a long time. Veronica Hardy is doing an ISSN Sports Nutrition Specialist, one of the GB Judo guys who've done there.

So I wanted to reach out to parents, athletes, head coaches of gyms, maybe so we kind of have this peers approach everywhere that somebody's got some basic level of education to say that shit's stupid, stop doing it. These are the basic principles of energy balance and the bit about how you should be training and approach your strength and conditioning and that kind of stuff. So I am excited about it. It's Vortex, is the team of Carl and Conor and Eric and Marcus, all as the academics are involved in that with me. I'm just there to try and develop coaching practice.

Among the guys at strengthandconditioning.com, strengthandconditioningcourse.com, unbelievable guy who works with, he's created the content and that's one of the most popular courses for those who don't get the opportunity. But what we're saying is at the moment, we've got a lot of combat athletes that are coaching strength and conditioning in their own gym to get a living, to try and keep in the gym. They're the people making people sick everywhere.

So we're trying to, if we can get education better, when it comes to the top and we start using the great levels of sports science, above what I'm capable of doing, they've already got a great grounding of knowing what combat sport is and all of that, the madness of combat sport, how athlete approaches things, and a bit about nutrition and creates a better educational platform only. So that's what that is, mate.

As soon as we've finished a couple weeks, I'd love to send you it, have a look at it.

James de Lacey57:59

Yeah, you're the man for critique and stuff, James, so critique it for me, mate, because I'm happy to take it. I get critiqued on the videos that I critique really, so it's gone full circle. I get a bunch of negative all the time, it's quite funny.

Yeah, I'd love to take a look at it and you must let me know as well because I can send it out through email and post about it and stuff too, just to get the word out.

Paul Reed58:26

I think I've got three years left. I'd like to leave something that I thought could make a difference, which stops a kid from doing a stupid weight cut or sitting a 14-year-old sitting in a bath all night doing the dehydration, because that happens non-stop.

So yeah, this is the basis I guess I get into, and I know generally you're really trying to talk to me about strength and conditioning methodology. And I've tried to explain what we do with, I think, and we have a lot of success. The outcome for our athletes seems to be really positive right now. We're hell of a winning record for all athletes, but I think everything we do in education and research has to have an outcome.

And sometimes I think we lose that outcome of where it goes into and how does it change behavior.

James de Lacey59:15

Ah, perfect, perfect. Yeah, let me know when that comes out and I can send it out. But where can people find you, Paul, and keep up to date with everything you're doing?

Paul Reed59:15

Okay, so personal Instagram page is ROAR, which was actually my Mercedes-Benz business, at ROAR Paul.

James de Lacey59:15

I was wondering why that was the...

Paul Reed59:15

I can't get rid of the profile. I mean, if you get your blue tick and over time, mate, I've been in that business for 15 years, it's what everybody knows me as, right? So it's going to stay, I guess.

We have Vortex CSP if you want to check that out as well. We're not a big marketing business. If for one exchange, we're full up with clients and stuff, but check out Vortex CSP. I'm going to do more work with that. I'm pushing Carl and Conor to share more of their brilliant work because they're so good at what they do, and maybe they're a bit quiet about it, right? So Vortex CSP.

GPN UK is the Global Performance Nutrition Institute UK, which is quite fresh and new right now, but we've had good signup for that. We're trying to create that basic, I mean goes all the way up to what ISSN call their master, CISSN, but you've got an educational pathway with real basics that parents can do, all the way to athletes to coaches to personal trainers to strength and conditioning coaches. All the way. They're the three main sites really.

I've got to say, I'm a collaborator. I love working with people. You'll never see me post anything negative. I work with a lot of great people in the sport. I listen to people, and as I keep saying, I'm a student of the sport. At 56, I still love it. I'm passionate about it. I hope that comes across as well.

James de Lacey1:00:58

Oh, perfect. Love that, love that. And I'll link all those in the description as well, so people can go and follow you and follow everything you're doing. But Paul, thanks for coming on and sharing everything and sharing your years of knowledge too.

Paul Reed1:00:58

Thank you, mate. It's been a pleasure. I appreciate you asking me on, I really do.