Strength & Conditioning Secrets For MMA w/ Quincy Johnson (SSOF Ep 97)

James de Lacey2:22

Yeah, that's you. Is there much you've taken from that tactical area into some of your MMA strength conditioning?

Quincy Johnson2:22

Yes and no, and probably not the things most people would think, right? They probably think it's, what'd you learn mindset-wise? How do the best, like literally no. It's like just the basic things like building relationships, right? Asking the right questions, learning how to craft your program and design and periodize, right? The right exercises at the right times, right, to get the right adaptation that you want. Learning like timing, right, of the exercise, of the training session.

If you do it after, they're probably going to be cooked, depending on the schedule that they have. If you do it before, right, just expect these things. So I would say more so on the organizational side, yes, there are some elite mindsets there. But yeah, aside from that, really just how to structure, how to treat people, talk to them, build relationships, create buy-in early. Yeah. So yeah.

James de Lacey3:25

Nice. So regarding your MMA strength conditioning, obviously you've gone down this path, and I think a lot of strength conditioning coaches kind of coming as, I'm not going to say a passion project, but it's something they're passionate about, especially since I think, as we both know, strength conditioning typically in combat sports is well behind the times a lot of the time with a lot of the stuff going on. So it becomes, I guess, an educational thing for us too.

So it'll be interesting. Just to quickly, a very broad, general question, just kind of like your philosophy around MMA strength conditioning. What has that summed up? And then have you drawn any influences from other areas of strength conditioning?

Quincy Johnson4:21

I would say my philosophy is the best ability is availability, number one. Number two, fighters fight. Number three, athletes are not weightlifters. So at any given time, right, that flips around. But for the most part, my priority is to make sure that my athletes are, number one, they're available for training, right? Strength conditioning is a supplement to the sport.

So sure, in the off-season, maybe it takes more of that center stage, but it's never really truly the priority, right? Fighters need to fight. And then also understanding, again, it's just a supplement. So we want them to be great in the cage, on the mats, right? So if they can't do the most advanced, technical lift, that's fine. We just need to find something to develop the exact quality that we're after. So I don't know if that answers your question, but that's kind of my...

Yeah, before when I just started off in the field, and sometimes for different populations, I had a very well-written, by-the-book philosophy. And this is my vision, these are my values, and this is exactly what I hope to implement. And this, I want to uplift, encourage, inspire. But for MMA, not that they don't need it, but just to get straight to the point.

James de Lacey5:25

Yeah. Yeah, I think we have very similar philosophies based on the things you said there. So there won't be too much arguing with different viewpoints, unfortunately. But we're going to dive down this road anyway. We can get into some specifics too, around I guess how training changes throughout a training year. Because I think a lot of people, a lot of listeners, may get kind of stuck in how they plan their, I get a lot of questions through Instagram as well on different things that people will find Instagram clips of people talking about different things and kind of get a little confused about, I said this thing and this person said this thing.

So it'd be good to kind of dive into a few things over a training year, because I think people like to see almost like black and white. Like, okay, this is good and this is bad. Obviously, it kind of depends on where you are within your training. So should we maybe just start, let's just say how training generally looks, we'll call it out of camp, so away from a fight, and then how that changes maybe as they're getting closer towards a fight?

And we can just start with just the strength training, if that's easier, then maybe move into conditioning after that, just, or we can blend it together, which if it's easiest to kind of...

Quincy Johnson6:37

Yeah, that sounds good to me. Maybe, well, I guess for me, I just, I take an integrated approach, I guess that's the sophisticated... But I, so the way that I got into strength conditioning for MMA athletes was completely by accident, fell into it. Met the nicest lady at the university that I worked at. Her name was Karen Primer. Her son was a fighter at a local gym, and I had like a CSCS plaque on the wall or something. She's like, "Hey, what's that?" And so, it's just one of those storybook moments, right? Who would have thought?

And so after being introduced to the coach and the coaches and kind of hearing what they were after, what their goals were, what they thought would get them to the next level, I was able to kind of propose just a training program, just lay it out for a full year. This is what it would look like. And it's really simple, really straightforward.

And so from there, like in our off-camp, it's pretty much, for us, about 80% general, or it was at that time, really, really general compound lifts, right? And we're trying to build up, number one, we're just trying to make sure that everybody's healthy, right? Coming off of, maybe they had a three-fight competitive phase or maybe they had four fights or maybe they did multiple disciplines and so they had a couple jiu-jitsu tournaments. And this is true, it happened with us. Jiu-jitsu, boxing, and then cage fighting. Like, dang, you guys have been, yeah, you've been put through it.

So that off-camp for us, yeah, for me it was like jumping right in and little background of the sport, how can I make it as simple as possible? Off-camp is primarily compound movements, multi-joint movements, very, very general. We're going to squat, we're going to push, we're going to hinge, we're going to lunge, we're going to step. We're going to do some core movements and we're going to do those things well.

To layer that with conditioning, we're just lightly developing the energy systems, each energy system: ATP-PCR, glycolysis, and then our oxidative system. So I'll probably pause there.

James de Lacey8:28

You're good. That's really good. So on the strength training side then, in terms of, you obviously talked about it's more general, and I'm assuming then that means you're going to say that as you get closer to fight it becomes more specific. If not, correct me if I'm wrong. But what does general, specific mean to you within these two phases?

Quincy Johnson9:02

So I guess for me the best way to put it is, if you walked in on one of our training sessions one morning and we're in the off-camp phase, a lot of the movements we're doing, exercises...

Look nothing like fighting. It doesn't look like you're a bodybuilder or a powerlifter either, but it doesn't resemble fighting. The movements, ranges of motion, sometimes even the speeds, they're general. We're just taking our time, we're building strength, we're taking rest between sets.

Now if you show up in a couple months and we're eight weeks out from a fight or six weeks out from a fight, it's like holy crap these guys have resistance bands, these guys have kettlebells, they're sprinting in place or they're on that bike and they're hitting 10-second all-out burst, 12-second all-out burst or something similar, or they got dumbbells and they're throwing their punches. So yeah, the further away the more general it is, the closer to the more specific it looks like a fight.

James de Lacey9:55

Do you still layer in some of that general work just for, say, for example if you want maximum strength or power development in that phase, and then you're still layering on some of these more I guess specific exercises on top of those?

Quincy Johnson9:55

It really depends. For our group they weren't, I wouldn't say they were very young, so they're around late 20s, early 30s. So I was like okay, do they need a break from some of that specific work? But I'm happy to always, we'll do some light plyometrics, we'll do some med ball slams if they want their rotational, or throws if they want their rotational aspect. Yeah, definitely.

James de Lacey10:50

Nice. And you mentioned as well the energy system training through the off-camp, you kind of touched on all three there. Maybe give some examples of what a session would look like where you're trying to target some of these energy systems or whatever, or the adaptations you're trying to elicit from them?

Quincy Johnson10:50

Yeah, so I was telling someone I was showing them the first training block that we ran and I know Coach Richard, he kind of raised his eyebrows, like "this is it?" Because they were coming off of doing I think they were doing 90-second efforts on the bike, just all-out effort, and they were maybe taking 30 seconds to 60 seconds break in between.

But something that I noticed is that it was just out of sync their training was, right? So they're, that's a pretty big effort, right? 90-second all-out effort, 30 to 60-second recovery, that takes energy system, and they're doing this far away from competition just because they can. It's like okay.

So an example was we would do six-second all-out burst, but we would only do three to five and then we would take rest in between, a minute rest, and then we do again. So in a session, in the conditioning session just on the bike, and that's another thing maybe we talk about his conditioning, kind of what's worked for me, what worked well, my preference. But we would do maybe three sets of five six-second bursts and then we would rest 12, 18 seconds.

And they all looked in the beginning like "this is it?" But we eventually progressed up to 15-second burst repeats, 20-second burst repeats. And a lot of them have credited that conditioning to being able to go deep into those rounds.

But for conditioning, for whenever I had time with athletes, we didn't do a ton of mile, we didn't get a lot of miles in on the road. They were just, just get so beat up. The sport, the name of the game is to show up, be able to train to be your best, to stack those days and then progress technically.

So I felt why not utilize the bikes? We had like four or five bikes just sitting right up in the front room. So why not take a little bit of load off of the tendons and ligaments and let's just develop the respiratory system.

James de Lacey12:44

I like it. With the, you want maybe run through some of that progression there? You obviously mentioned they're doing five-second sprints with what was it, 18 to 20 seconds of rest, times five, rest a minute, repeat again for another set, go from there and kind of let the listeners know how that kind of progressed eventually to those 20-second bursts and what that final, I guess those final sessions kind of look like?

Quincy Johnson13:11

Yeah, so we essentially flipped that work-to-rest ratio. So it was like a one-to-three work-to-rest in the beginning, like six-second burst, 18-second rest, one-to-three, pretty simple. If you've been showing up to the gym, if you've been turning up, you should be able to handle that.

And they did. And so my big thing was I didn't want to burn the cake, right? I didn't want to come in, that's not where I was. My big thing is I want to create champions. And we did, like three out of the four athletes went on to win belts. So I'm not here, I put the ego aside. Sure, I have the credentials, sure I have the education, but that's not what I'm here to do.

So that was a thing, make the entry point super easy, right? Everybody gets in, everybody can hang for the first few weeks. So we went one-to-three, so like six to 18 was a work-to-rest, and then we went six to 12, right? And then we started getting into the six to six.

And once they can start to handle that, repeats, and we do five repeats, I know it may not be by the look, but I just think for MMA you either have three rounds or five rounds, typically. You either have three minutes or five minutes. So whenever we're doing sets, typically that's easiest to understand.

So once we're hitting six on six then we start pushing that threshold back a little bit. So I might even skip 10 seconds and go right to 12 seconds, so we go 12-24, so now we're just doing a one-to-two. And then we go 12-12, and then we go 12-6, so we start to flip that ratio. Yeah. And so it doesn't take long, right?

So that's just one way, that's the ATP-PCR system development. And of course you might just through the demand of that develop your glycolysis system, right? So if we're working in that intermediate zone, I know the recommendation is like 30 seconds, like that's supposed to be the sweet spot. But I always start a little bit under just to allow for a little room. You never know, maybe they had a tough session the day before, maybe they have a tough one coming up, maybe they didn't sleep.

So I try to account for that because ultimately I want them to get the output, that's what I'm after. And I want them to show up and have positive, great outputs each day.

So right there in that zone we'll probably start truly at like 15-second burst, probably three 15-second bursts is what we did. And then rest, a minute, maybe two minutes. I only choose a minute because you get a minute between rounds. So I try to make it, some things are going to stay consistent. So even though we're lifting weights, I still want it in your mind the reason why we're doing this is a transfer to the cage.

James de Lacey15:47

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.

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We also have some online courses within the training app. They cover strength conditioning, mental skills, and weight cutting. And finally, we now have Ryan Voss in the community, a second-degree jiu-jitsu black belt, who is there to break down any of your grappling matches that you want seen to by a second eye.

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And then the oxidative stuff you mentioned, obviously they weren't running and that's always a contentious argument in combat sports. So what were you doing? Was it just this stuff, or were you doing some, for example, steady-state cardio stuff on the bike, steady-state?

Quincy Johnson17:33

We started them off at like 55 RPM just on the bike. And we never really went above 65 RPM because really the goal, yes we're conditioning, but they're doing so much on the mat.

For me it was eye-opening. I went and trained for a week like one of the athletes. I was like okay, I have a new respect. So it made me dial back. And even in my mind I was going in pretty conservative, but I had some ideas like "yeah, on this week, yeah, we're going to show them who's boss, we're going to really lay it on them." And then I got into those sessions like "okay, so this is what one feels like and they're doing multiple."

So those are really just more so recovery aerobic recovery sessions, pretty low intensity, I would say steady state.

James de Lacey18:30

Where would you place this condition typically within a week and then how many times a week were you doing some of these sessions?

Quincy Johnson18:30

So in our off-season, further away from the fight, we'll do more. So typically three. From what we've seen, obviously what the literature suggests, three sessions per week seem to be about the sweet spot without overdoing it. You can develop the muscular, the muscles that you want, tendons, ligaments, also the cardiovascular system. You should be able to, if you have a well-coordinated design program.

We would do it Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays. Monday to start the week off, just get them in, let's get them in the flow of training. And then as you get closer to or into fight camps, we start to dial back from three sessions to two sessions to maybe one session as they start to go through that weight cut depending on how much weight they have to cut.

James de Lacey19:35

Gotcha. And we talked a little bit about the specificity of the stuff you're doing in the gym. Is there a point you think that you can get too specific with what's going on and it's almost better to just be doing the actual sport itself, or how close are you drawing that line with what you're choosing exercise-wise in the gym?

Quincy Johnson19:35

That's a good question. I like to give them tools. So I don't want it, if I wanted to put on gloves, hit a bag or hit somebody, we would just do that instead. So it's really just getting down to that gross motor pattern, or it's really getting down to that physical quality that we're hoping to develop.

So even if it's punching, it's not just punching, it's with dumbbells or you have a band, right? So I try to keep them separate because it's strength conditioning resistance training. But yeah, as far as for my conditioning, we don't really strike pads a ton. We don't. So I keep it separate, but I know others, it's a philosophy thing.

The big thing, big reason why is just overuse, right? So I tried to, that's it. So they'll have plenty of time to train the technical aspects. So I'd develop physical.

James de Lacey20:34

Gotcha. And then you mentioned about conditioning, so you're doing three times, three times a week, say off-season. Does that include the strength training, or is the strength training separate sessions on top of that?

Quincy Johnson21:06

No, it's all integrated. So yes, sir. Yep. Yep. Strength conditioning, yep.

James de Lacey21:06

So it would be a completely separate session on its own, the strength training followed by the conditioning Monday, Wednesday, Friday?

Quincy Johnson21:06

Yes. Yep. Perfect. Yep. In the mornings. So it's a sacrifice, but it's the best time that it will work for everybody's schedule. So everybody rolls in, we do some alcohol release, we do some stretching, foam roll, PVC pipe warm-up, walk-in warm-up, dynamic warm-up. This might be a point that we might argue about. How do you feel about speed ladders?

James de Lacey21:36

I hate them.

Quincy Johnson21:36

Well, I implemented speed ladders. And I know a lot of people, not for speed though, but for coordination, for balance, for proprioception, and also for rhythm, right? Obviously coordination, but for rhythm, teach them different rhythms, right? Because I feel in a cage fight there might be a flow of things, and if you can find a rhythm, it's like, okay.

So we did a bit of that, and then we did a quick warm-up on the bikes, and then get right into the lift. So we did a movement type circuit: squats, face pulls or inverted rows, push-ups, rotations, go through three rounds is what we started off with, ended up at five rounds, and then get to your lift. So yeah, that's how we kind of structured it, then you condition afterward.

James de Lacey22:40

Gotcha. Before I jump into the ladder debate, I'm assuming they started, they maybe sparred on Friday. How did you balance the strength conditioning on that day if they had sparring on say Friday night or even Saturday morning?

Quincy Johnson22:40

Yeah, so essentially the way I did it is we would do lower body Mondays, upper body Wednesdays, total body on Fridays. But that total body would be like a trap bar, our deadlift day. So really, really not putting a ton on the hands, the wrist, the knees, you know?

So we would do trap bar deadlift and even from there we could do it off of blocks if we really just wanted to get that concentric action. So yeah, that day was the total body day, and that's also the day where we did that aerobic steady-state conditioning. So that was just in preparation.

That's another thing too. I don't know who we'll end up listening to this, but just trying to stay proactive. Literally sit down with the coach. I wasn't, I hadn't been trained at the gym, right? I hadn't really had that background. So we took time out every week, went and grabbed a coffee. Like, "Hey, Coach Rich, so tell me about what you visualize as a coach whenever you're six weeks out, eight weeks out, two weeks out, two months out. Like, what's the plan coming up? How many fights are we fighting?" In six months and 20 days or so, we had six fights.

So he was able to tell me that, I was able to stay proactive and then create the program that just makes sense for everybody. Because I'm not here, strength conditioning again, it's just a supplement to the sport.

James de Lacey24:06

Yeah. Yeah. Nice. Nice. I'll dive a little bit more into that. I'll come back to you later one. And the reason I say I don't like them, I understand people use them for kind of general stuff for moving through. But even for the idea of rhythm and coordination and, I guess people also say sometimes for fast feet and whatnot, the issue for me is all those things come down to the ability to decipher or solve the problem that's in front of them in the sport itself.

So being able to anticipate, being able to see what's coming through different visual cues, what's happening in front of them, and then being able to essentially solve the problem with whatever is. And for me, ladders, because you don't have any of that element, for me there's just no transfer. Because you're just looking down at your feet, moving your feet. And that's where I see that closed skill of moving the feet versus open skill of having a whole environment around. That's why I just don't see the value in the ladders themselves.

But, you know, thing is a lot of athletes and fighters love them, and you put them out and it's just, I mean, go through it, sweet, you know, whatever, it's there.

Quincy Johnson25:30

Yeah, just run through it. And it gives them something different a lot of times. How many speed ladders do you see in a combat gym? How often do you see athletes doing cone drills or coordination drills aside from, you know, something with gloves, mitts on?

James de Lacey25:30

Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. It definitely changes the pace if you're looking for something a little different there as well. But on that sparring day, it's a trap bar deadlift kind of day. What else goes on in that day then? Is it more of a full body, almost a power day then, because the loads are typically light or less volume?

Quincy Johnson26:00

Yes and no. Off camp, it's super general. We're going to do that trap bar deadlift and we might add a plyo in there. It might be some type of broad jump, just very, very general type plyo in there. And then all we're working on is lower body posterior chain.

Now, the closer we get though, we're going to work some trap bar deadlift and we're going to maybe work in some resisted band broad jumps, maybe we're going to do some multi-response broad jumps. So it progresses depending on the time and the year that we're in.

James de Lacey26:27

Gotcha. So maybe go into that a little bit. With the resistance band, you mentioned that earlier as well with the specificity stuff. Are you using more accommodating resistance, or you're looking at more, I guess, for example, rotational stuff with the bands where you're able to generate some speed on it?

Quincy Johnson26:55

Both. Both. We hadn't done banded barbell work, but we'll just put a band on the athlete or put a band on the rack, right? Take your hands out and just rotate, boom. Because they're going through these ranges of motion, but wouldn't it be nice if you start to develop, actually develop those muscles off of the mat, right?

And then for the broad jumps or the sprints, banded sprints in place, for that it is accommodating resistance, but we're not using barbells with it, if that makes sense, where we, you have a question in the chat here.

James de Lacey27:24

So TP's asking, "Which books made the biggest impact on you? What advice would you give to a young student that wants to become a good S&C coach?" Let's start with the books and then we'll move on to the next one. So any on you?

Quincy Johnson27:24

I got a couple books with me. So this one, "The Coaches Strength Training," oh, the TP System.

So if you just want to start off, this is really easy to read, really straightforward. This is a good one. There is a gentleman by the name of Josh Bryant. He has a brand called Jailhouse Strong. His background is really training bodybuilders, powerlifters, but he put out a book on conditioning for MMA athletes or strength training for MMA athletes.

And it's really straightforward. It's a good start. If you want to get into something heavier, I got it on my desk and I try to read a little bit each day. The book that everyone says that they've read but haven't read, Super Training. I got some sticky notes and I got it marked up. And then of course, I guess for me, Essentials of Strength and Conditioning.

James de Lacey28:24

For anyone who's listening who's not watching, it's Super Training.

Quincy Johnson28:24

Super Training, yeah.

It really depends on where you are, but you can't go wrong with the Tier System, can't go wrong with, if you really want just a reference for any question you might run into, any issue you might have, Super Training, the Holy Grail, Essentials of Strength and Conditioning. I think that's a good one. So those are like three.

Other than that, I think it's important to get out and get in the trenches. Once you have good understanding or if you have a mentor, go get some experience so you can see it firsthand.

James de Lacey29:24

That would be your advice to young students who want to become a good S&C?

Quincy Johnson29:24

Absolutely. Learn, obviously, right? You need to, well, if you want to be accredited, if you want to be certified here in the States at least, like National Strength and Conditioning Association is the largest strength and conditioning organization. By 2030 you're going to have to graduate from an accredited program. So not to go off the rails, but you're going to need an education piece.

But to add to that education piece, find a great mentor and go shadow, volunteer, go ask questions, go see athletes train in real life. And then you'll start to develop your philosophy, your coaching style, the way you like to program. That would be, personally, that would be my advice.

James de Lacey29:53

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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.

So, you had another question from Antonio Baklava. He's asking, can you use similar concepts for skateboarding?

Quincy Johnson31:20

That's a good question, Antonio. I would imagine the speed ladder will be great for you. You want some balance, coordination. It might be a little bit different. Really depends on what level you're skateboarding and what the needs analysis looks like and what the demands are.

You probably need a good amount of total body strength. You'll probably need a little bit of the ability to transfer some of that strength, I would imagine, to get that board up on the rail. I played Tony Hawk Pro Skater when I was a kid, so...

James de Lacey31:52

That's the best PlayStation game ever made.

Quincy Johnson31:52

Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2, man. That game, best out of all of them.

James de Lacey31:52

Best out of all of them as well. If you guys have any more questions and listening live, check them in the chat there and I'll come back to them. I can't remember where we were now in our chat on MMA, but I know you asked about explosive lifts maybe and the loads and the percentages.

Quincy Johnson32:18

So the big thing, I guess, another thing to add with this group, these are flyweights, these are bantamweights. I think in the past they had been trained like a heavyweight would be trained. So just a lot of strength building, a lot of slow grinding.

And as a result, they had a ton of back pain, they had a ton of shoulder pain, just because they don't have enough mass on their body, enough functional mass to support those heavier loads and the amount of work they were doing. So I would always keep in mind just making the intensity relative to the athlete, obviously, their past medical history, their training age, training status, but their body comp.

For their explosive lifts, we work pretty light and we just work variations. So we would do hang high pulls, we would do hang pulls, we would do hang jump shrugs, we might do a jerk, we might do a push jerk every now and again. But I didn't program any cleans for them because I didn't want to go on the risk. We probably would have been fine, but I was really just looking for the transfer and the explosiveness.

James de Lacey33:18

That reminds me, in rugby, so the Fijian rugby team, they're known for their athleticism, their speed, their play of the ball. And the strength and conditioning coach for them, they had a thing where basically a lot of the Fijians would go play in France and Europe. And in France or in Europe in rugby, they're very big on heavy strength training often.

And he found that, over time, a lot of the players would, as you mentioned, come up with stuff like that, or the athleticism wasn't there like it was before, just because that was such a big emphasis. I think that's a very similar thing, like what you're saying there kind of rung a bell there around, you know, do the strength training, but you got to actually do some of the high velocity work as well to complement it. Otherwise you end up with problems like you mentioned: structural issues, potentially becoming slower. That is a problem that can happen if your strength training isn't done properly.

Quincy Johnson34:40

Yeah, strong, slow, sore. Yeah, the three S's, right? It's great you got strong, but we lost a lot of that power, the ability to transfer that force in a timely manner.

James de Lacey34:40

Yeah. We have another question actually, so same guy, TP. He's asking, would you say that explosiveness is something you are born with or you can upgrade it to some extent?

Quincy Johnson34:40

It's a good question. Well, technically yes. So some individuals, genetically they're gifted, they're born with more type two fibers, and so we typically see that in sprinters. If you look at even their build, if you take a look at their legs, if you take a look at their calves, their tendons or their tendon, you can tell just genetically. So yes, you can be.

And that, maybe we talk about it as individualizing. So I did have to individualize a bit, even though I had a group, where there's one athlete that he's just a walking tendon. He just bounces when he walks. It's like, wow, well we need to build some strength because he was weak, but he was really powerful, which is great until you get locked into the cage with somebody that's around your same body comp and they're hunting for your head. So you need something else.

But then we have on the other side someone who's just strong, very strong. But when you ask them to produce force in less time, they have issues. So for one, it's developing strength and then but not taking away their natural gift. For the other, it's maintaining that strength and teaching them how to transfer.

James de Lacey36:11

Do you find that your twitchier guys, like that guy you mentioned, are more susceptible to injury?

Quincy Johnson36:11

Yes, yeah, somewhat. And mainly just because that force occurs at such a fast rate. And maybe it's not even the force that's occurring, it's just their body's ability to stop that force if there's not something in front of them. It's just, and they don't know if they haven't trained those systems. I would say potentially, potentially, yeah.

James de Lacey36:46

Nice. You have another question from Antonio Beav again. He's asking, oh wait, before I ask this one, are you familiar with ATG?

Quincy Johnson36:46

What does it even stand for?

James de Lacey36:46

The Knees Over Toes group. What's ATG stand for? Athletic Training Group, I think. You're familiar with it?

Quincy Johnson36:46

I've heard of it. I've never really dove in.

James de Lacey36:46

Okay. He's asking, what do you guys think about ATG in terms of longevity?

In terms of longevity for an MMA athlete. So do you want to have a stab with that and I'll have a stab with that after you if there's a...

Quincy Johnson37:19

Yeah, I'm not well-versed enough really on the Knees Over Toes or if there's something specific... Yeah, maybe throw something specific in the chat there, Antonio.

James de Lacey37:19

But from my understanding, if I... they have a few assessments they like to use mainly around shoulder function. There's some stuff around knees as well. Look, in terms of as a holistic approach, if that's the way you're going to train for MMA, I don't think it's good enough.

Using some of the concepts potentially if you have those issues, I know lots of people will give praise to some of the Knees Over Toe stuff up in the knee pain, but there are a lot of people that get worse knee pain.

You need to understand kind of where that's coming from too. So just be aware of that. But if there's anything more specific, throw that in the chat too because yeah, we're not too familiar with that.

I remember a lot of the stuff around that knees over toes is actually just taken from Charles Poliquin way back in the day and then repackaged and marketed very well.

The backwards, the backward sled dragging, the shoulder internal rotation, the posterior split squat lunge with the knee goes forward. That's all Charles Poliquin stuff back from the 90s, or 2000s, or maybe somewhere around there. But it's all just kind of come back to life and repackaged and repackaged very well, making some very good money.

So if you are interested in the ATG stuff, definitely if you just check out some of old Charles Poliquin articles and stuff, you'll probably find a lot of the stuff in there as well, Antonio. That could be interesting for you as well.

But you mentioned about the ebb and flow with their power training. So in terms of power training, how much you doing, say, unloaded versus loaded? Is loaded power training something that you're doing often or much of, or are you spending a lot of your time doing things like unloaded plyometrics and jumps?

Quincy Johnson39:08

Off-season is primarily unloaded, to be honest with you. That's my preference. And again, the best ability is availability. They're at an age, number one, biologically, chronologically, and also in the sport, to where how much more can we improve their actual sport performance by just loading them up right out the gate?

So yeah, off-season, a lot of body weight plyometrics, what we call gate swings or in and outs where you bring your feet in and out, drop into a squat, just light and easy. Those are very easy.

And then we'll progress into more of what I was telling you, more of a push jerk but with dumbbells. So you have an open end on that dumbbell, you're not restricted to the barbell. So just watching them practice, watching them train, hopping in on some sessions—okay, I can see where they'd have some restrictions, but I can also see how these restrictions would be beneficial.

So we'll progress to some of those dumbbells, still not very heavy for them. Maybe 20 pounds, 25 pounds, maybe 30 for some of the stronger ones. And then we progress to some of those Olympic lift variations.

James de Lacey40:41

Man, those dumbbell weightlifting derivatives, so underused. There's not many people that use them. I was breaking down a video of Beterbiev, and he was doing dumbbell hang power clean and push press basically with it. And yeah, for fighters, so good, as you mentioned, because a lot of pressing a bar over here is pretty tough for a lot of fighters just because the postures there. Using the dumbbells just removes all of that and you can do it.

Quincy Johnson40:41

All right. That's it. Yeah, just they open up and find their own pattern.

James de Lacey40:41

Yeah, I like it. I like it. So if anyone listening, definitely give those a try. Basically everything you can do with the barbell, what a lot of those Olympic weightlifting variations you can do with dumbbells pretty much.

Quincy Johnson41:10

Pretty much, exactly the same thing there.

James de Lacey41:10

Yeah. Same thing. I'm a big fan of the push press, power jerks and things like that too, because it's full body, uses your legs, you have to transfer from the floor through to your hands, just like throwing medicine balls as well. All those things link really well together.

But I think that's everything I had to ask you, Quincy. Was there anything else you wanted to add before we sign off?

Quincy Johnson41:32

I don't know, maybe for those listening or future coaches, just kind of, of course, develop your philosophy, but be flexible. I think the thing that really worked well for me, not having a background in MMA, just the ability to connect, build relationships, and obviously just being able to hold a conversation, be yourself, be your authentic self.

If you don't know something, you don't have to bluff it. Just like, "Yeah, I'm not familiar. What do you mean when you say this? Okay. Or what is it?" "What does it look like?" "What's a guillotine? What's a rear naked?" "Okay, let me see. All right, so how long do you hold it? How does it feel?" And then going from there, asking the athletes.

Some of them will be like, "Coach, this is not what I need right now. I need something. I feel like I'm losing my power." "Okay, so vertical power, horizontal power? When you... what are you missing?" Or, "I feel like my wind is off." So don't be afraid to ask questions. Don't be afraid to be adaptable, right? Change a little bit if you need to, especially if your goal is to have success. So yeah, other than that, that's it. Have fun while you're doing it.

James de Lacey42:53

Nice. We actually have another question from TP here. It's actually quite a good one here. This will be an interesting one. So, what do you think about Dr. Michael Yessis's opinion that athletes shouldn't squat deep, just half and quarter squats, because there's no sport that requires a deep squat?

Quincy Johnson43:21

I respect Dr. Michael Yessis. I think we do. I want to throw that out there first and foremost.

I think that there may be, if we look through a different lens, right, there may be certain times where it might be more beneficial to squat with a restricted range of motion. But I would say that your ability for your joints to achieve full range of motion—that's Tord Baba, that's high on his list, right?—flexibility, joint motion, joint range of motion, we have to have that and maintain that at all times.

Now, if we're getting close to the season, we want to start transferring some of those forces, especially on a squat type motion, where we might do a box squat for speed or speed squat, certainly. So I agree and disagree slightly.

James de Lacey43:54

Yeah, I'm with you there. I mean, Dr. Yessis, for anyone who's not familiar with him, is the guy who brought plyometrics to America from Russia. And I haven't heard him—I don't know what interview that's from, but we're going to assume that he said this from TP here. But regardless, yeah, I think you still got it.

Just because the sport doesn't involve a certain movement doesn't mean you don't do those movements, because some of those things are just general function. It's good to have that range of motion. Yes, you can do more half and quarter squats closer to a fight if you want to get potentially better transfer there. Some good research with half and quarter squats transferring to things like jumping and sprinting compared to deep squats. So there's definitely something you can do that.

We have one more question from TP. He says last one he promises. He says, how much of an impact does static stretching have for after training, and are there any better solutions?

Quincy Johnson44:49

Oh, I like that one. I just did a video on that today. It went up. That's a good one.

James de Lacey44:49

Yeah?

Quincy Johnson45:11

It really depends, I guess, on the athlete. For younger athletes, I'll have them do some static—it's not something that 100% I always recommend, but it could help with the recovery process, right? It could help with restoring ranges of motion. It could help you with some of that soreness later on. So if you're looking for a simple solution that's cost effective—so if you don't have one of those Theragun or if you don't have those compressions for your legs—stretch. You can stretch, stretch, stretch.

Nice.

James de Lacey45:43

And I will say, I'll add that, TP. If you check out my latest breakdown video I just posted this morning, I actually did a whole breakdown of Gilbert Burns's new video, actually touching on that. So that will have a bunch of information in there for you.

But a very quick synopsis: yes, can potentially be beneficial to go from, say, a sympathetic to a parasympathetic response, so just going from a fight or flight in training, then just kind of easing down to help facilitate the recovery. But in terms of improving, say, mobility and things, you get no real structural changes in the muscle tendon long term, which then becomes an issue of, you know, are you actually getting any benefit of doing something like that?

It's after training—probably no harm most of the time, so you can do it. But in terms of benefits, I don't think there's too many that you can add on top of that, other than just helping facilitate the recovery process quicker.

But other than that, Quincy, I appreciate you coming on here. Where can people find and follow you and keep up with what you're doing? I know you released an MMA S&C video semi-recently.

Quincy Johnson46:39

Yeah. So YouTube, Quincy Johnson Fitness, and then Instagram, Quincy Johnson PhD. X, Quincy Johnson PhD. I'm on ResearchGate. I have some research out there. I might do a case study with some of the fighters' data and training approach that I have. I figured that just to throw it out there, make it publicly available, accessible. I think it'd be good to share. So yeah, that's where you can find me, whether it's YouTube or Instagram, X, ResearchGate.

James de Lacey47:09

Nice. Yeah, do that case study and I'll break it down on the channel too, a whole video on that.

Quincy Johnson47:09

Yeah, that'd be perfect.

James de Lacey47:09

I appreciate you coming on, Quincy.

Catch you again.

Quincy Johnson47:36

Yes sir, thank you for having me.