NEW Advancements In Muay Thai Strength & Conditioning w/ Lee Brown (SSOF Ep 126)

James de Lacey2:15

Awesome, awesome. Let's run through, you sent me your thesis and we can run through the different chapters in there and we can go a little deeper into each one. And we can start with the physiological profiles of Muay Thai. And you had a few Muay Thai athletes go through a few different tests. So for everyone listening, just your basic, I guess, strength, power test: squats, pull-ups, bench press, jumps, and then you measured striking force or striking impact force on the Power Cube.

So maybe just go into a little bit of details around that. Maybe just explain kind of what that Power Cube is, what you're trying to get out of it, what you're trying to find from these profiles.

Lee Brown2:44

I'm pleased you asked me, actually, because it's quite contentious when you go to publication. You always got reviewers. It's quite a tough one because of what is the Power Cube. Obviously when we measure impact forces, we should be looking at impulse, we should be looking at forces produced, all the rest of it. And power, it's a tricky one. And my biomechanics colleague would rip into me if I said power and it's not in his force. However, the metric on the Power Cube, it is in watts. The Power Cube is proprietary, so it's quite difficult to get the information off them.

Because in there, for respect for Power Cube, it's a phenomenal bit of kit that's practical. We, regardless of whether the output, the metric, is bananas or wardrobes or watts or newtons, regardless, we can use it for a pre and post because it's that good. We dropped a weight on it, a 5kg med ball from a set high 50 times. It was the same every time, as long as you hit dead center.

Now, as a big shout, obviously to Duke, Duke, Luke Delito, I always say his name wrong, from Australia. He's done some validation papers on it. He's done a lot of work. He's actually moved into aerial parks now. He's moved away from combat sports, similar to myself. The Power Cube, the big selling point, I don't work for Power Cube, but I work closely with the guys and I've done some stuff, and I'm just a big advocate. It's really easy to use. It's padded, so you can hit it as hard as you want and it's not going to break your hand.

We've talked about thickening force platforms with rubber. And I speak to Anthony Turn, and it's true, and like you said, the more padding you put on it, the less effective it becomes because it more absorbs. But Power Cube, it just gives the same results over and over and over and over again, as long as you hit it linear. You can't hit it from corners.

Like if you was striking like on a suitcase for a roundhouse, and usually use a, he goes in on a vector, it doesn't like so like that and he goes in on the angle. He hates it because it works, as far as I understand, on pressure, and it's got accelerometers in there, and it works.

And like I said, the metric, a lot of reviewers don't like it. They don't understand it. They hate it because it's in watts. It's not in watts. However, for pre- and post-intervention, to measure over a certain amount of weeks, it's phenomenal. There are obviously limitations to it because it's made of foam. You have to have it calibrated, which is the reason why we drop the weight on it every single time, because a Power Cube from 10 years ago to one now, I sent one off, I sent one off for it to be fixed, and it came back. I was getting numbers of like 36,000 watts, and it came back and it was like 15,000 watts. And that was instant ego bashing.

We've also worked out with a set of acceleration and vectors of G-force, anything over 30,000 on the hit was causing concussion and possibly fatality. However, when it goes off and it comes back again, those numbers go down. But that's why we calibrate every time, so we can always make sure. So the biggest problem I believe within combat sports with research is having an overall norms. I've seen publications would have had a mannequin, those BOBs, and have had accelerometers attached to BOBs done with lots of tape, and then they've hit them, then it's got published, which, if it works, it works.

I've seen another one with a medicine ball. I've seen all sorts. And you're not going to get someone to punch a force platform as hard as you can without causing injury. So I'm on an ethics board, so I approve studies, and I wouldn't approve a study that would be punching or kicking a platform, not to say you can't do it, it's just a little bit difficult to do it.

So the last reviewer that actually was very kind but a bit mean kicked back one of my studies. I'm desperate to get in, which is ballistic press-up, press-ups, which must be used. He said that, actually, rather than focusing on the reliability of it, why not mention the practicality of it? Now I would say I've seen Power Cube, a lot of their videos, a lot of people hold it.

If you're holding Power Cube, yeah, you see the UFC guys do it. I'm sort of who's on offense about it. But if you hold it and you get hit, if you're 100 kilos and you're 60 kilos, when you get hit you get moved. So the force impact will be different.

So I would say if you're going to use it for research, for testing, put it against a solid surface. Power Cube have just come out with, I love throwing things at me because I love testing. I test everything, absolutely everything I look at. There's a brand new question with everything. I'm very curious. And they've got this attachment. You can now put it to a squat rack, and then it's done, and you can change the height, you can move it around.

Before they had it on velcro, it just wasn't practical. But now they, they're just no, it, they just need to, I believe if they were to really push this product forwards, is to one, show a way of calibrating it, and two, to be able to get metrics to accepted by the sports science world.

However, that being said, my PhD is on strength and conditioning for coaches. You're not going to get many coaches, you're not going to get many athletes, not say this in a negative way, reading a JSCR. I struggle with a JSCR sometimes because it just gets a bit, so, for instance, I put it in the Australian Strength and Conditioning Journal. That's very, very easy to read, and their actual outlay, they say do not put anything in there it's too sciency. It's there for coaches. And that's what the Power Cube is for.

If you've got fighters, I work with Stonebridge Boxing Club as a pro-am gym, and they have fighters coming in. They use, we was using them to go in there, and it's a really good measure to show performance. So if you've

Got like Fred Seth, he mentioned a lot of stuff about the landmine press for a great way to measure your strikes. But that's Seth and we have these conversations and the trouble is that's an open chain kinetic exercise, whereas a punch when you hit, it's open chain, as soon as it connects it becomes closed chain. But a landmine doesn't do that. And even if you're throwing it, it's the three Newton's laws, isn't it? The first law is not doing anything, the second law you're throwing something, the third law, which I believe which Seth and I both agreed on, is the most important, it's the connection.

So I did a study on the physiological profiles of Army boxers and their novices and there was no correlation between strength and their striking because there's no plyometric involved, there's no reactive strength, there's no tension, there's no rigidity. But that will improve over doing pads and hitting heavy things.

So when it comes to testing, I believe, and again this is opinion, my belief and my research, this should not say it's true because I'm not ignorant enough to say we there's still so much we don't know, right? I mean, we still call each other different races when there's only one race. I mean, what does that even work?

So we're still so far behind. But I believe that Power Cube, and again, not being I work for, just I'm a big fan of it, is a great device that's practical and can be used as long as it's calibrated to test and retest, but it should be used for norms.

So I'm speaking to a guy in Finland and he's been using it way more than me, but his numbers will be different to mine because it's a different cube, because the sponge on it, the impact may change, whereas it's same with Hawkins, the same with Perform Sticks, but they can be calibrated, which this one's not as easy. But if you use something to drop it on, it's done.

So yeah, sorry, I've went a bit off on one then, but I'm just trying to explain myself, trying to explain to every reviewer please don't discount it just because it's not something you don't understand. You shouldn't say it doesn't work.

James de Lacey10:30

Perfect. And within that study as well, so they were hitting the Power Cube and you were just looking at correlations between these exercises? And was it the impact force on the Power Cube? Just dive into a little bit of that. It seems like it just reinforces some of the stuff that we know from previous research.

Lee Brown10:56

Yeah, so now I've got the Power Cube out the way and I've just explained the reason why I used it, and because again it's a good bit of kit. We used correlations. I didn't want to, I couldn't derive norms. I can't turn around and say this is normative data for a pro fighter.

We're quite lucky, and I'm not supposed to mention names of studies, but we had someone from Team Underground who's currently a pro from One Championship. Again, screen participants, GDPR, I can't mention names. But we had some really high profile fighters and they were banging that cube. But then we did the strength test and there's so much out there to say, so many coaches, and my background being from Muay Thai—Muay Thai, I would, again I'm probably going to get told off for this, but boxing coaches tend to use information their coach's coach, that coach that coach used from last century, who used from this, and it is slightly changing. But I believe Muay Thai and MMA, they're a little bit more prolific with their research wise.

Most of this, the idea of this chapter of my thesis is to produce something to say, look, those are squat jumps, it's a correlation, not a causation. So we can't directly say that's the reason why. There's just, if it rains outside, there's going to be people buying umbrellas, but that doesn't mean it's a causation. If you go outside and you get wet, that's the causation.

So we know if you're good at clap push-ups, which is understandable as well, right? Because you got your lats using that as part of your windup, as part of the second phase of the punch. So the correlations I've got on there were quite strong. The one that was kind of surprising for me really was the bench press was a large correlation but wasn't massive. It was like 0.5.

But my research study I've done with ballistic press-ups showed that there was no correlation between punches and press-ups. But we've done it on upper limb RSI, so we've done the drop press-up, and there was like a 0.96 correlation with the jab and stuff like that.

James de Lacey13:09

Yeah, yeah, I didn't want to explain—explain what that means. Explain what 0.96 means for the listeners, because they're numbers.

Lee Brown13:09

Yeah, so this one, it means it's perfect. It means it's one, that correlation, there's nothing to be argued about there. And the lower down it goes, unless it is a relationship, not a causation, but a relationship. So 0.96 is near perfect.

And that actually builds on the work of Seth Litzky. And I know he'd done his stuff before, and he kind of called me out. But Seth's work on effective mass with fighting is what's massively driven all my work. That was post this PhD. So it's the idea of being, there's no point of being heavy if you can't strike, and there's no point if you can't strike if you can't land.

So we've done the drop press-ups from 10 cm from height, and we're going on the drop back. We just see how high you can bounce up. And the correlation was near perfect from that. So it could be used, I would say, as a training tool. So how ready is your fighter? You've been injured, you've been out of camp, whatever else. And we know that a plyometric or striking, a plyometric can cause tendinopathy if the tendon and the muscle aren't prepared.

So this drop, this RSI, it just gives us insight from Damon—sorry, Eamonn Flanagan. Eamonn Flanagan, I do apologize if he's listening. And he may have heard that wrong. He's the godfather of RSI. And his work, have you had him on this?

James de Lacey14:01

I have not had him on here.

Lee Brown14:01

You should bring him. Yeah, he's phenomenal, the guy. He's such a, he's so humble as well. But his work on RSI is just driven, I'm trying to jump on the back. I'm standing on the shoulders of giants with Seth and Eamonn. And the RSI is a great way to say that your trainings, Peak, and we're ready.

I don't believe it should be used by proxy as a striking predictor, because when it comes to striking, you've got so many variables. You might have problems with your feet, or you might have a different core strength. We know you start from the feet and you have to have stiffness in the core to then translate that to upper body. We know that.

But you can't, I believe, and I reviewed a paper that they were trying to say that counter-movement jump, because it correlates 0.96, which it does, 0.96 to sprinting, they wanted to use it as by proxy instead of a sprint. But a sprint's a sprint and a jump's a jump. I said, well look, it's a great relationship, but explain it's a relationship. Don't say if you're going to test for sprint, test for sprint. If you're going to test for a punch, test for a punch, don't do it by proxy. But just use it there as an assessment.

I'm massive on testing and assessments. There are coaches out there that would say different, and we're all allowed to have our own opinions, which we should, because that brings different skin to the game. But for me, I would always do assessments. I need to know where my athletes are. I need to know if there's asymmetries. And that's why I did this profile.

This basically was a build on from Anthony Turner's paper that originally was done in the Strength and Conditioning Journal. And his was based on a lot of other types of sports like wrestling and stuff like that. So there was nothing specific. And I've actually been in touch with Anthony and we're going to do on the back of this an updated version, so a part two. So his paper actually drove my PhD to where it is now. So if it weren't for him, I basically wouldn't be where I am now. So that's the outline to that.

So that paper will show if you were a coach, we should be doing squats, we should be doing pull-ups. What exercises you could complement? And again, I might get told off for this, and people would argue it, I see strength and conditioning as an additive, as a supplement to boxing. It should be a supplement. So it should be done because without strength you're not going to be any good.

James de Lacey17:02

But I think people are going to be in agreement with you listening to this podcast. I don't think anyone's going to fight you with that.

Lee Brown17:02

I've seen someone say different. But it may split my profession a bit, but I think the attitude that we give is the fact that one, we know for a fact you cannot be rehabilitated without strength. That's a fact. Without strength you can't produce force, you can't produce reactive strength, you can't...

You can't produce a strike without strength. And if you get that strength training right then you're not going to—because obviously the stronger you get, the more energy you use. But then if you can periodize that in the strength training with endurance, you're going to have less injuries. We know that football, the last sort of 10 minutes is the most likely time you're going to get an injury because that's when you're fatigued, that's the most time you're going to have it.

James de Lacey17:49

That's the one and only time I'm ever going to talk about football, by the way. Actually, Lee, it actually leads us well into your next chapter around Olympic weightlifting derivatives for performance. And I've talked to—I've done a few different videos on the channel on Olympic weightlifting derivatives. I am—I didn't use much Olympic weightlifting within a lot of my rugby stuff. Just with big teams you can just do load of jumps and stuff. I used a lot of them myself, especially for grappling and MMA. I really like them. And obviously you've used them here for Muay Thai, which is quite interesting.

So we're going to run into it. So for just quick background for anyone listening, so Olympic weightlifting derivatives—Lee will run into kind of what they did there—but they saw small improvements in counter-movement jump, so essentially vertical jump, and roundhouse kick power, which is an interesting one. Do you want me to go into a little bit of kind of what you did there and what your, how you're interpreting that data?

Lee Brown18:34

Yeah, so basically that's a big shout out to Paul Comfort. He's another guy—if you haven't had him on the show you've got to have him on the guy. He's like—he's a person I come on to have a chat with, he's like a thousand papers. Oh my God, he tells me off every time. He's not—anyone in biomechanics talks to me like my dad apart from Mitchell Finley, because I think he's a lot younger than me.

But yeah, so basically I did a BASES workshop on Olympic lifting derivatives in Salford University with Paul and co., and it was brilliant. Because like you said, with a big team, how hard is it for a rugby player to be able to produce a snatch? That difficulty of going from one position like your first pull into your scoop, that on its own goes into the shoulder shrug—how hard is it to catch for a rugby player? Imagine like a prop coming off the pitch and you asking him to do that. It just be like—

So I needed a way to see whether or not this would work. It was only a short—it should have been—I was expecting more. I was expecting to have bigger improvements, but that could be for many other reasons. But then there were quite high-level fighters, so to see smaller increments is kind of like a bigger increment because you've got such small amounts to go by.

And we did the counter-movement jump just to see whether or not it worked for the actual lifting itself. So otherwise you could turn around and say, "You know, they might have got better with the kick in because they just improved over time to kicking." So I wanted to see there was a physiological difference. And I'm massive—I know Seth mentioned it before—but the counter-movement jump, that is—I believe that's kind of like as an S&C coach, that is our kind of minerals of everything we're going to make. That's something that we should be using. I believe counter-movement jump is massive.

James de Lacey20:08

I'm not big on those Vertec by the way. I can't stand them. Have you moved one of those around? We've got one in the lab.

Lee Brown20:08

I've been lucky that I haven't had to use one.

James de Lacey20:08

No, they're so cumbersome and you'll always guarantee you'll hurt your shins. So if you do some Thai boxing, perfect because then you can use it for your conditioning. But they're really off because you're using your arms to jump and obviously you're not doing it—we want to identify the triple extension, what's coming from that.

Lee Brown20:35

So I would say use the Olympic lifting derivatives just because it's an exercise that's easily done. If you're already doing squats, why not do squat jumps? Why not make it into a power phase? Why not make it into that? But I wouldn't—again, personally—I wouldn't say this was like the be-all and end-all. It was just I wanted to know from our physiological study and our outcome of squats, how can we change that squat into something different that's more appropriate? So therefore we've got it.

I wanted to see what the squat could be made from because it's a massive kinetic chain exercise and it uses everything, right? You got to have stiffness for the core. But these guys have never done anything like this before, so you kind of expect them to have bigger improvements, but it might be we're holding something back then. I think there needs to be more investigation into that.

And if you've already got a busy schedule, it could be something you could just do as a warm-up. It could be do something you could do as an extra additive session. So, you shouldn't be tired afterwards doing Olympic lifting. You should be knackered. You're going to be hot and sweaty at neurological, right? But I believe the derivatives shouldn't—you shouldn't be absolutely wasted because it's a power, isn't it? So that's the kind of gist for them.

James de Lacey21:45

What derivatives did you end up using?

Lee Brown21:45

We used the really easy ones like the jump shrug. It's just so easy, the jump shrug and the high pulls. I mean the high pull, I think can get a little bit lost because as soon as you go into that scoop—and that's when, or just before they go with the elbows bend and it goes into the lower back of the neck—and it goes away from it. So I tried to keep it really simple there.

I think there should be more study. And like you said, there's nothing into—I mean there's a few, there's a handful of studies in Muay Thai, and Muay Thai is like becoming one of the fastest ever growing sports right. I mean One Championship around the world. Why are we not doing this?

And you'll find, the persons I've spoken to in combat sports, most, probably 90%, has been a practitioner and a fighter. So I've obviously had a number of fights and I've wanted to know. And we've always been told stuff, so where does it come from? So you have that passion. I think it should be—I think if there's anyone listening that's interested doing research on it, I think it should be greatest dissertation study at university that could be turned into a publication, but Olympic lifting derivatives, not the full lifts.

James de Lacey22:52

I think—how heavy did you load? Did you load that jump shrug and the high pulls?

Lee Brown22:52

I mean that was the other thing as well. I wasn't there for every session, so sometimes—but then I'm a big also on believing in self-selected intensities. So it might be one day to come in, but then it depends on how good they are as an athlete.

So we was going at like 60s and 70% and was building it up, so it wasn't going for a massive smash. And these guys had trained before, but they hadn't overly trained. So I had to be careful. And this is always a difficult part as well about doing longitudinal studies is the fact you're now invading their schedule. Or schedule—I schedule—I get told off for that, English schedule.

It's not schedule. And then you're invading and you're croaching onto the coach's fight times. So if you mess someone up, you're going to mess up their fight. So we had to be a little bit careful. So that actually maybe one of the limitations—we could have gone heavier, we could have gone way heavier. It was kind of doing it as a—

James de Lacey23:45

And I—how much do you think it could be say just because it's a novel training stimulus that ended up—

Lee Brown23:45

Yeah, there is that as well. I expected it to—if it was a novel training stimulus, I'd have said it a bit more, if I'm being honest. Because novel is different, isn't it? It's something they haven't done before. But then are they doing other exercises like their explosive stuff—is that too similar? And like you said with the weight and intensity, I didn't—I was kind of overly cautious. I didn't go too heavy.

So maybe, and we know, don't we, that the General Adaptation Syndrome—GAS—if you don't give your body enough weight, it's not going to adapt. So that may be—thinking about it now, this is quite good actually because I'll use it to my favor—that actually may be a limitation. But that could also be moving forwards—this will be doing something else. Maybe use people that are out of competition, post-competition.

I didn't want to ruin anyone's chances if that makes sense, which is ethically binded as well, right? Ethically binded. Now these guys are going into a fight. End of the day is combat sports, it's not a game of rugby or football, is it? You're going in there to knock each other out or be knocked out. So I didn't want to lessen their chances. And again, this sort of goes back to the whole ethos and ethics to my PhD: safety over performance.

So yeah, I do believe I could have ramped it up. They definitely—and like you said, a novel training system—but then it could be an argument for using it as well, right? If you're doing the same thing over—

And over again nothing's going to happen. Einstein states doesn't it, it's a definition of madness: do the same thing, get expected results. So maybe use it as a novel, maybe use that, but it's also a variation. But there's a low familiarization in derivatives as opposed to the full lifts.

James de Lacey25:18

Nice. And the I guess another potential limitation maybe if someone was kind of looking at that and you're testing roundhouse kick power, but it's like a one-off you're loading up to hit this Power Cube versus in a fight you're never going to get that chance. Do you think there is that translation transfer?

Lee Brown25:47

Absolutely. I think power fight, no absolutely, absolutely. I was thinking about this the other day: in every testing scenario they're always going to be doing a lot more in a test than they will do on field, absolutely. I remember this one guy, he was getting massive numbers every, but it was like the fairground, those stupid things that come down winding up.

We're trying to like do it all properly, and then you get this drunken yob from Southend—I love Southend but—come running up from 100 meters and then just launch it. And you're absolutely right, this guy was smashing and numbers coming up. You're not going to get that in a fight because you're most likely to get knocked out whilst you're throwing a knockout punch, it's going to happen. Chappell is typical example.

So yeah, you're absolutely right, that could be another limitation. But we tried to film them, we tried to as much as we can allow them to do their own technique because we don't want to change anything. But then on the other respect we have to expect the unexpected. At the end of the day, this kind up with my biomechanist Gary's—Gary D—saying at the end of the day we're only human and we're still only 2024, we're still lacking in technology.

We have to put our hands up at some point and say there's only so much we can cover. I mean we're now, I believe, we're at the point where we now know that we're the cleverest dumbest animals on the planet. There's so much we don't know but before we didn't know that we didn't know, but now we know. So yeah, you're absolutely right, I think that's a big limitation. You've got to be really careful about how people hit that because you've got B novice.

A novice would hit like this, most novices wear, someone trained, especially in a big hitters like Mo, he'd swing, cocking face and throw the top. And the difference is phenomenal. But that's the beauty of the Power Cube as well, what I found—and again, not sort of advertise it for him—is you can change someone's punch within one session.

They've got this one guy, I won't mention his name because he's massive, and he hit it and he got like 7,000. And I looked at him, I was like, off his size. And I hit it, was 36,000, and I looked at him, I was like, I'd like to fight you because it might make me look brilliant. But it's just that technique of that winding up, that cocking face.

But even that cocking face you may leave yourself open, so could—you know, that would be, I think with a study, with research I try to focus on the smallest amount of variables and you're definitely going to lose other variables, but that's the reason why we write limitations at the end that someone else could perhaps pick up on.

James de Lacey28:09

Yeah, I mean there's loads of limitations in these studies, but that's because it's the first of his kind and every study should have his methodology so the next person coming on. And again, if anyone's listening to this would like to collaborate, I mean at the moment I'm collaborating with 12 different universities, three different sports institutions and in 17 different countries. And I've got 15 of my students published on my papers, so I'm happy, more than happy to have these chats and bring people in.

Lee Brown28:35

Awesome, awesome.

James de Lacey28:35

And your last two chapters are on post-activation potentiation or post-activation performance enhancement. This will be interesting. I don't know if you saw a recent paper that came out a couple of months ago kind of, I guess, throwing light on the co-myth of post-activation performance enhancement. Maybe let's go to—since I brought up cover there—

Lee Brown29:05

I'll tell you what, James, we're going to talk about this because I saw someone tagged me on a post you put on Instagram with regards to a rather mean critique.

James de Lacey29:05

No, no, it's good, it's good, it's good.

Lee Brown29:05

You about the one I did of your paper?

James de Lacey29:05

Did I? That was a different one.

Lee Brown29:05

No, no, funny enough this one, and I had to agree with it. It kind of, I wanted to say what I wanted to say, I think I explained to this before didn't I? The idea of post-activation potentiation, and like you say, is it a myth, is it not? They call it a phenomenon. It's a warm-up, that's sort of it, it's a warm-up. But the idea is to activate, and it's just calling it something different.

So before—and I don't want to sort of rubbish up PhD—but before I started out I was all into PAP and it was the time, back in the day when everyone was into PAP. It was like wow, this is amazing. And after I kind of—and I did like you said on yours—so what, it's a warm-up, but so what? But I still believe it needs to be studied because it's then—okay, so put it in perspective.

A company used to run that gym was called Spartan, and it's a bit cliche being Spartans. But the Spartans, on record—on record by the Persians—and again I don't always believe history because it's made by the victors—it's on record that the Spartans were the first ever populations to use strength training because the Persians would observe in their recon and they would laugh the fact that the Spartans were fighting each other before battle.

As a rugby player, how hard is that going on at halftime without warm-up? You just get beat up. So therefore could I use this? This—and you made a good point—you're right. Fighters, and I—to say the review was quite mean and when you go to publish paper you kind of have to align, and I get it because it's someone that's reading it that hasn't had any involvement.

And that's the trouble with when you're writing—I'm still in early, early career research, and even late career researchers look the same—you get so involved in a paper, you so believe in it, but then you're only telling your story. You need to have it so everyone can understand it.

So therefore the reviewer was like—so I want to say why can't we use it as complex training? It'd be perfect. And you see that as well, you've already got an overly busy schedule. So why would you then go and make something different? And I didn't want to do that. I wanted to put it in as part of: look, you've done your squats, okay, we'll give it 5-10 minutes or whatever it is, five minutes, then go and hit the Power Cube—you're there anyway. Well, not Power Cube, but a pad, and hit that 10 times because then you're converting.

Because the thing is with strength, strength training on maximum strength training will make the muscle strong, but it won't train it to be explosive. And I know there's that whole—we can't use the word explosive—but I'm using it, you've seen there, yeah, it's a metaphor. Come on, no one's going to explode. But so makes it like a fast action, for those biomechanists listening.

So if you just train your muscles in a slow but strong movement, that's not how your muscles going to react when it comes to fighting. So if you could implement—this is what I wanted to say, but they didn't allow me because I didn't test it, I get it—if you was to do that as part of your maximum strength phase and just do some light kicking at the end, that won't interrupt your schedule.

That will actually increase the body's or the motor units, all the synapses going, fine, the rate coding, everything going really fast. That synapses and they meet, it will be quicker. So that's why I sort of—that was my conclusion I come to.

There's been, there was that study that with the elastic banding, did you see that? Elastic tubing with PAP, that was kind of one that I saw. Is that the Mitchell Finely one or a different one?

James de Lacey32:45

So the Mitchell Finely, is that the one you was talking about? The Mitchell Finely one? Because that was really good.

Lee Brown32:45

No, I was talking about there was a new one that did three studies in one, and they looked at three different interventions on countermovement jump. But what they did is they did an intense general warm-up, so they tested countermovement jump, general warm-up, countermovement jump, specific warm-up, countermovement jump, intervention, countermovement jump, all the different time points. And then they saw no real difference, no real increases in countermovement jump anything through that since the general warm-up.

And I was kind of, it's interesting because it kind of, like if we're warming up enough, is doing heavy squats or something really giving us a PAP effect? I don't know, what your thoughts are on that?

James de Lacey33:08

No, no, absolutely. And the thing is I'd never be able to sort of—

Lee Brown33:36

Okay, probably pretty obviously from my side. I would say I don't know their methods enough. I think everyone's slightly different, but we're all the same. I think that you could... I don't think any study at the moment in 2024 is able to rubbish anything because we just don't know. Every method is going to be slightly different, and it could be like a slightly different day. The variables are so massive.

Mine was a bit more of a fact-finder. Mine was a bit more would it work, does it work. And again, going back to all my studies, every study I'll ever do, the first thing I do is, is it safe? Is it safe to do? Will that cause an injury? No, it hasn't. Okay, brilliant. Are there any performance factors? Yes, there were from this.

And again, I was basically looking at timings. So that was my sort of variable: what are the timings? I wasn't necessarily looking at it for application sport. I was looking more for timings, and then I wanted to lead into my other study. And again, these sort of proliferate into a thread. That's the reason my PhD, you have to make it as one sort of trail.

So yeah, the PAP phenomenon, it keeps talk... I don't think there should be too much focus on it, maybe, because, you know, warm up's a warm up, right? It's better than nothing. But what if you can warm up and everyone's going to be different? Your warm up might be completely different to mine.

You know, I've been known being a rugby player, especially late career, and I've done it before. I'm a member of the David Lay. I'll have two pints before I go train. But it won't work for anyone else. I still have... and I can eat whilst sparring. But my brother can't eat four hours before, otherwise he would be sick. But I could literally... I used to have some sausages. You know, my last cut of fights, I was a bit of an idiot, but I'd neck in bottles of BCAAs. I could do that. That's my system, whereas other people can't.

So there is that kind of like the whole methodology. I think every paper should be taken as it is and helped to build a bigger picture. But I think no one paper should be identifying that one thing. Even position statements, even they are just saying what we've got at the moment, this is what we know now. I mean, people still say the kids can't plyometric train. What's that about? They can, just don't do it within certain... you know, you're not doing massive powerlifting and reps and sets.

The kind of like the kick to my whole post-activation potentiation, post-activation potentiation motif was a kind of discovery about timing. We know that... I don't know if you've done this before, but back sort of 10, 15 years ago, if I was doing research, I thought PAP was where you do like some deadlifts and then you go straight into some sprints. I didn't realize you're supposed to have that rest period.

And there's one PAP article saying you can rest up to 30 minutes, you still works. Does it work? Would it work for fighting? I don't know how long it would work. But I also know looking at Tyson and I try and do it myself and sure others do, if you could activate your motor units and you could have the best ever and it's only once, but you've gone in there and you've knocked him clean out, isn't that the best fight ever? Isn't that what everyone wants? That'd be awesome, wouldn't it? You don't make it past the first round.

So it's open for discussion, I believe. That's what I think. And I'd never say I would never say mine is the be-all and end-all, because that's not... that's an ass as well. That's not the NSA way. Just because it's not my way, that doesn't mean it's the only way.

James de Lacey36:28

For sure. I will say this: the Science for Sport post they put out, they took my quote way out of context when they added that quote to that post, so it sounded worse than it was.

Lee Brown36:51

But it's not... anything is with feedback. You first of all... I mean, I've got... I've been told not to keep going on the PhD, so it comes with feedback. It's like, but every time I read a review... I was a bit mean to one of them. Seth will back me up for that.

But every time you get feedback, you know, I'm a coach, I have to reflect. I'm a scientist. I have to take that on board. I look at stuff like that as devil's advocates. Can I argue it? Is there a reason? And what you made was a good point, which then went into my last journal, which was talking about the eccentric stuff, and that was about putting into complex.

James de Lacey37:13

Yeah, that's really interesting what you did there, the flywheel eccentric overload. So you had the rack move.

Lee Brown37:32

Never been done, never been done. I think it was with an Exxfly. Yeah, so Exxfly had... they sort of approached about doing some research. And again, I wasn't given any funding or anything like that. But the Exxfly stuff, and you mentioned Mitchell Finlay, and I'm going to big him up because he's one of my examiners for December, so he's listening.

James de Lacey37:32

Got to get back to me, book a time to get on the pod, man. It's been two months.

Lee Brown37:32

He's busy. Yeah, I get it now. He's, to be fair, he's a typical biomechanist. They are always busy. If you ever get any time from them, honestly, it's like gold dust. And he's such a nice guy. And again, I'm not just saying that because he might be looking at this, listening and thinking he's talking. But his work... I didn't realize until... because he reviewed one of my papers and he made some really good points. And then he left his name when I contacted... I had a chat with him. He's such a nice guy, honestly. He'll be great for podcast. He's such a nice guy.

And his stuff that he's done... I... and he started publishing after his PhD, so he's done the other way round to mine. And his stuff that he's done, his stuff that he done on the endpoint for the PAP stuff and the elastic, that was so good. Because I was arguing with a reviewer about the punch being... because they called a punch an open chain. I was like, no, it's not, because when you hit, that's when it becomes closed chain. That's when you're pushing off. And Mitchell's paper was perfect because he kept talking about the isometric at the end.

So the Exxfly was exactly the same.

James de Lacey38:36

You used an Exxfly before?

Lee Brown38:36

Oh yeah, many times.

James de Lacey38:36

Luckily enough, the owner was the next block over from my house back in New Zealand.

Lee Brown38:36

No way.

James de Lacey38:36

He had one in the garage just recently. And yeah, brilliant, they're so versatile, aren't they? And there's... I can't remember his name off the top of my head, but the guy who does all their research, John Cronin.

Lee Brown39:02

Oh my God, John Cronin, legend. Is he director, dude?

James de Lacey39:02

Yeah, phenomenal, phenomenal. I can't talk too much because he's a Kiwi because I'm England and we got rugby, but we did do really well against you guys that one game. But then we lost South Africa, so we let them have that.

Lee Brown39:02

But the Exxfly, what I found really interesting about that, and this is what I'm a big believer... so I've never really used it before, and this is something I really want someone to follow on some more research with, is the fact that when you're throwing it out... and yes, the... which is beautiful, because the more velocity you give, the more it gives back on.

So that would therefore show a bigger... because PAP's all about how much can you activate that muscle? How much can you... it's again, it's a warm-up. So how much you activate that muscle to go into a specific motion? It goes specificity versus generalization, right?

But what I found the best part, and this is what I kind of put in there about what I like to be identified, that could have been a major variable to increasing the power punch, is that when you get to the endpoint it does... you know, it gets that endpoint, boom. And it's really... and some of the guys had used it before. And again, these guys were pretty well trained. They were big hitters. And as I'd thrown it out, you jerk it back in. So isn't that surely being so specific?

And then that's what then married up... I'll get all PhD there. That's what married up with Mitchell's work on the end. You know, is it the fact it's the endpoint? It's that stiffness, and that's the Newton's third law. And I want anyone listening to this, I need to... this goes back to Seth's stuff about the effective mass. It's all fair enough looking at the first and second laws of Newton's laws. Especially everyone's training, everyone's new. Second law, Newton's second law, is that mass times... oh no, I've forgotten it. Mass times acceleration equals force. Oh God, Gary will tell me off for that.

But it's the Newton's third law: it's for every reaction there's an equal and opposite reaction. So when you're hitting something, you're creating... you're creating kinetic energy. You're converting energy into kinetic energy. So if you're not fully prepared, if you haven't got that rigidity, that muscle stiffness, tendon stiffness, and the entirety of the body, that kinetic energy is going to go back into you. So it's going to tire you out, it's going to cause fatigue, and it's then going to have a lesser-performing punch, but it could also cause bigger injuries.

Where the upper limb RSI stuff I'm doing and this Exerfly, anyone that is doing stuff Exerfly, please, please, please, please research that. Because the stuff in Exerfly, I think the Exerfly should be in every boxing gym. A flywheel, I think that should be in every boxing gym and it should be there for newbies. Because the kind of the whole plyometric, contention, something plyometric, you should be using those for newbies because that can increase your muscle strength but it doesn't keep your tendon up. So your tendon was slow and it becomes a tendinopathy.

So there should be sort of certain, perhaps there should be things to look upon studies for the safety and efficacy of that. But Exerfly, it was brilliant and I just saw people was just, and then when we compared against the cable fly and that was like, it changed your stance. It made it look different, you know, it was just, and then the cable exactly. So it was like for us, for me it was a big smack in the face saying that every gym should have an Exerfly.

I mean I say Exer because it was just a really good bit of kit. There are other flywheels out in the market, I don't know which ones they are, but you can put it anywhere as well, anywhere, and you've got you can do anything. And the best thing about Exerfly is the eccentric training for rehab and for, we don't know to call it prehab anymore, right, for injury risk reduction.

So, obviously being a rugby player, when he gets cold the sniper takes you out for the hamstrings, right? But if you've been using it, running along, you're about to smash your opposition and then snip, hit you, you have to walk off the pitch. But if you had the Exerfly in your gym, I would say if I was going to pick anything out, any bit of kit, it would be the Exerfly. It'd be the flywheel. I definitely have that. I've actually got one, so I would definitely, definitely use it.

James de Lacey43:11

If anyone's interested, if you go back and listen to John Cronin on the podcast, we've talked about flywheel stuff a lot. Even Cody Roberts as well, who we did a whole episode on flywheels. I've done a bunch of stuff on the channel as well, just videos as well. It's really good stuff.

But I want to, I want to wrap this up, Lee, and I want to have you go through, I guess, just from your PhD thesis, how has it or how has it changed or influenced your view of strength conditioning for Muay Thai? Is anything new come out of it for you, or is this kind of just validating what you thought originally?

Lee Brown43:32

Oh, good question. Okay, so this would be actually in my viva, so I'm pleased to ask this because I'm prepped for it. Yes, so we've all researched to fill a gap in research. I believe it has. I believe especially with the physiological profile, I believe that that's given enough weight to say this is going and do HIIT training. Which ones? I think that definitely cleared out for that, was validating. So I think that's more of a validation.

I believe the Olympic lifting was also validation, but I'd like to see that explored more. I think there's still a big gap in research for that. And with the PowerCube stuff I've sort of moved on. But with the flywheel, that has really, really surprised me. I was completely shocked by it. I was just, I mean, we've just done a big massive study on Parkinson's disease and hypoxia and we found, we found a treatment. We found a treatment. It's an Alexander Fleming moment. We're like, "Wow."

And that's kind of in a bit of a smaller scale with a flywheel. I would say that was, that's the biggest thing out of that PhD. I found the usefulness with that, with that stuff. And like I said, Mitchell Finlay will probably, not probably, but he will, because I'm looking to work with Anthony Turner and Mitchell Finlay, but I can't at the moment because they're both my examiners, which is a shame, really, because I really like them. Because my exam's on my viva, so I was going to go in there and punch and kick them all and when they come... No, I was only joking.

But no, I would say strongly flywheel has definitely opened my eyes up to what the eccentric that can do. And I think, I believe, I mean maybe a bit biased, I believe my PhD, I've got in front of me, I'm using as reference, I believe that is, and like you said from the start, there's not, there's hardly any research, hardly any research, loads on boxing, loads on judo, loads on all these other sports, but nothing on Thai boxing.

And there's those of people that sort of say they're the experts. But how can you be an expert if you don't really know? And it's not to... So I want people to think from a research point of view, just because it hasn't been researched doesn't mean it doesn't work, but to validate something you have to research it. So I'd say use research-backed information, but don't say, "Oh, it hasn't been researched, so it doesn't work." That's, that's...

The NSA, I'm there as a practitioner and a researcher. I've bridged the gap. So if anyone's listening, I'm more than happy to... I mean, send out my email, just as long as there's not millions of them. I'm sure there won't be because they've probably had enough of my chat already. But yeah, I would, I would say that would be the gap in research is, is kind of like is validating and showing me new stuff.

James de Lacey46:00

Awesome. Where can people find and follow and get in contact with you? Do you want me just linking up your Instagram, LinkedIn? Where do you want to send people?

Lee Brown46:23

Yeah, Instagram's good. I've been quite good on Instagram, actually. I've cleaned up my act a little bit and I've been told to behave myself. So being an academic and an advocate of the NSCA, they can find me on Instagram, which is my Lee Brown, I think it's... yeah, if you put it out there, I'll link it in the description for you, it'll be there.

And more than, if you want to put on my personal email as well, they can do that. lee.brown7000@gmail.com, and I'm more than happy to have meetings. I'm actually building up, I've got a quite big steering group and the NSCA stuff as well, we're on LinkedIn as well. So if anyone's listening, want to get more involved, because Seth's one of these, was put on a LinkedIn group, the Combat Sports SIG. So that's kind of like leading forward some research and it and there's loads.

That group is, they've got some really big researchers, some people, and this is amazing what I love about the NSCA, is I get to speak to people I've been reading their books for the last 10 years. I met Hayden Triplett, who wrote The Essentials. I met him at the last conference. I was such a nerd, I was like, "Please get a picture." And I was meeting all these amazing people and it was little old me.

So yeah, anyone that's in there, see if you follow the NSCA and get involved in NSCA, it gives back as much as you put in, so it's brilliant.

James de Lacey47:35

Perfect. I'll link all of those in the description. And yeah, if anyone on LinkedIn, Combat Sports SIG, I think it is, that's it. And if they want to send me an email, I'll always, I'll always answer best I can. That's just who I am.

Lee Brown47:35

Perfect. I'll link that all up.

Did I swear? I was quite limited. I tend to swear quite a lot, that was my biggest thing. When I first spoke, I was like, "I don't do podcasts, I just don't do them because I swear quite a lot." I'm from Essex and it's sort of a second language, so yeah, my apologies.

James de Lacey48:02

Appreciate coming on.

Lee Brown48:02

No, I appreciate you doing this. This is my little warm-up for my PhD viva, and fingers crossed in December, I'll be Dr. Brown, so I'll have to buy the DeLorean, get called Doc Brown, go back to the future, so yeah, no, happy with that.

I've got those, I'll send you some more information, but I've got four more studies that have been underway about ballistic press-ups. Ballistic press-ups versus dynamic, we had a 50% increase on ballistic press-ups, just by doing those power press-ups, unbelievable. I need to get that word out there. We've done, we're doing upper body RSI, which fingers crossed, should get published. And there's some other interesting stuff we're doing regards to reactive strength index, but pop a Flanagan a message, because the guy, I know this is mainly about combat sports, but his stuff will definitely go over into that and it's all about exercise economy.

James de Lacey48:54

Perfect. Yeah, and shoot me those papers as well, because I'll do, with the previous ones, I'll do some YouTube videos on them and I'll do some Instagram stuff on them and spread it, spread it wide.

Lee Brown49:21

Yeah, awesome. Thanks, James, really good. Actually, I was expected to get pummeled, but this is quite good because I'm waiting for to get this up and running, so I appreciate your time.

James de Lacey49:21

Ah, perfect. Cheers.