Maximizing Rotational Strength & Power Development For MMA w/ Terrence Kennell (SSOF Ep. 20)

James de Lacey2:10

There's plenty of sports like that within the space. But let's jump into maybe some of your, obviously at the UFC PI now, working with MMA athletes. And I know you also have a manual with William Wayland, who eventually I will get on the pod. Actually, might get you to link me up with them to do that too.

But focusing on rotational power for essentially rotational sports. Obviously golf, cricket, baseball, fighting all kind of have that similar element to it. So do you want to maybe jump into strength power training to improve that rotational element in combat sports?

Terrence Kennell2:36

Yeah, definitely. So the ebook, the part one and two, Will and I wrote, we called it Big Hitters Manual. At the time I was working in baseball, mainly worked with the Astros. And Will having brother experience in MMA and combat sports, but also working in golf. And what you kind of see is that I think it gets a bit bastardized that people think, oh it's rotational power, to do strength and power work you have to do tons and tons of rotational work.

And even a lot of general rotation work isn't actually rotation. People just do Pallof holds to the Landmine and just say, oh I'll rotate better. It's you're not even rotating, doing rotation exercise.

But a lot also starts that force at the ground, starts at the feet. And so being able to create vertical force and vertical force output is where it kind of begins at. And then it upstreams and uptrains from a synchronization perspective through that trunk and that core and the hip. But if you don't produce force from the ground up, you're starting two steps behind essentially.

Some of what we saw when we were at the Astros, we saw our guys who hit the ball the farthest, the hardest, guys with we call it exit velocity. So basically velocity the ball comes off the bat. Guys who are hitting, you know, 110 miles per hour plus off the bat were happen to be the strongest guys in the lower body power and strength perspective. From looking at force plates, it correlated with their concentrated impulse. The higher that overall concentrated impulse was, then the harder they hit the ball when they hit it.

And then from a, so concentrated impulse at 100 milliseconds as well. But the speed of their force was a bit more, was a bit messier. And it's because it actually takes a bit longer than people think. Because people only ever see the endpoint, they see the output, they see the rotational aspect and the contact with the bat or swing with the kick or punch.

But they're forgetting about basically how long it takes for that force. You're driving that force from the ground and digging your feet into dirt, mat, canvas, what have you. And that's kind of where that force starts at, is you create that force through your feet and through the ground up. So if you lack some of that pure just lower body strength and power, and it's not set in stone, it's not like just hey, you got to get stronger.

But it does work in that sense, stronger, more powerful. And then obviously there's of course the technical element that's part of it. If you have terrible mechanics, as strong and powerful as you want, it's not going to help. But if you have the base, the power and your mechanics and your technique is where it needs to be technically and tactically, then you have a better shot.

James de Lacey5:35

Yeah, there's actually a great critical review that just came out this month in boxers showing boxers that essentially punch harder have greater lower body strength.

Terrence Kennell5:35

Yeah, I was reading that paper last night actually.

James de Lacey5:35

There we go, perfect preparation.

Terrence Kennell5:35

Yeah, yeah. So that, yeah, it's another interesting take as well.

James de Lacey5:35

And then regarding I guess it's, I guess it's an easy low-hanging fruit within fighters, because I guess most fighters generally don't develop strength in the gym, they're kind of just doing whatever it is. But is there a way to maybe decipher if a fighter needs more rotation training versus maybe lower body strength or vice versa?

Terrence Kennell6:04

I think from talking to the technical coaches and also watching a bit of how, especially when, MMA where you have a variety of different backgrounds. Some people start from kickboxing, Muay Thai type background, come from a grappling background. I think you can almost sometimes look at the phenomenology of it. Someone who is coming from a wrestling or jiu-jitsu background probably struggles to rotate more because they tend to not have to get in those kind of positions from that, if that's their background of training.

So they tend to be fine with general strength and power because of the nature of those sports. And so you have to add in some more, even things of overloaded actual cable rotations, old school style with a rope or whatever handle and actually adding weight on it and not just doing a Pallof hold. Do things like rotational medicine ball work and try to teach them to rotate into that hip, rotate through that trunk.

I think that's kind of, I think from a phenomenology perspective that's probably where that comes in the most I find, is that usually our guys who are wrestling, jiu-jitsu background, grappling backgrounds tend to struggle a bit more with that, especially trying to sync it up.

As opposed to the guys who are striking background, guys tend to lack more of that general strength and power end. They tend to be lacking that, but they can usually rotate pretty well because they have to, from their ability to create that force. And when you speak to technical coaches, you watch how they strike in the controlled setting, you kind of get that kind of viewpoint as well.

So that is a nice part about the PI is that even though a lot of guys don't necessarily do all their training here, as Gavin talked about, they still come up here and do some training. So a lot of time you can just hang out upstairs and see guys hitting a bag or hitting mitts and kind of get an idea of where you could potentially sprinkle in some other exercises that could probably help them from a rotational perspective if they lack some of that.

James de Lacey8:04

I guess from a pistol standpoint, how much time in terms of when you're training rotation do you spend doing almost full body rotation where you're allowing the hips to move and sequence of the rotation versus just fixing the legs where they are and just having the upper body rotate? Do you have a preference there?

Terrence Kennell8:29

Yeah, for me I usually address just the upper body rotating first so we can teach that dissociation very early on. And we go extensive of medball work or loaded with cables, things like that, or even the big heavy medballs, have guys sit and just laterally doing rotating trunk while holding those.

And then vice versa, progressing it into adding the leads into that movement and getting that force from the ground so you can feel that and then synchronizing that up.

James de Lacey8:57

Gotcha. Nice, yeah, that makes sense. Yeah, I like that idea of having almost starting from that heavy loaded, force isolate that upper body, and then moving into more I guess sequencing of being able to put everything together, allowing the hips to move and then getting the hips or getting the hips to move, I guess, with the upper body. Almost, don't want to say simulating a strike, but...

Do you have any, I guess you could say special or special strength exercises regarding maybe rotational stuff that you like that maybe I know transfers well over to striking in MMA or boxing or whatever it is?

Terrence Kennell9:24

I think probably the best I've done is medball, basically having a partner throw it to you to catch. For me it's similar to as close as you get to upper body plyometric without having the old school kind isokinetic type machines you kind of see some guys like Speed of Sport stuff like that use, which I actually do think those are viable for the rotational aspect.

But from a medball perspective and that sort of exercise, I do like partner tosses like that. You have to catch in reverse at force, whether it be from a shot put stance from the hip and things like that. I find that's a good way to overload those patterns with some over-speed eccentrics, having to catch it and then reverse that force.

James de Lacey10:15

Nice. Do you do both sides when you do that? For example, you're doing a cross or rear hand throw, are you then doing maybe a lead hand jab medball toss, or you just reversing and doing cross both sides?

Terrence Kennell10:15

I just reverse it and do cross both sides, basically, or in the southpaw stance. I've never actually thought about doing from a, if I'm doing from a cross in and a jab. I may try that actually. Try myself and see if I can catch the ball in the first place.

James de Lacey10:40

Yeah, it might be hard with a partner throwing it to you, but I guess if you have a small enough medicine ball maybe you can hold it in a hand.

Terrence Kennell10:40

Yeah, or those sandbags, or something that could work too.

James de Lacey11:03

So maybe a new fighter comes in to see you, because I think they get assigned to you guys when they come in. How do you then determine what a fighter needs as part of the prep? Say they're out of fight camp, their fight's a while away now. And that's, I guess, for anyone listening as well, maybe if you run through that, but then maybe if you run through as well the amateur fighter who doesn't have that kind of tech, how they determine what they need.

Terrence Kennell11:26

Yeah. So I'll, I'd say when I get a day or two notice someone's coming in, I'll try to go and watch at least two or three of their fights, kind of get an idea kind of how they fight. So I think it helps kind of shape some of that language too when you're trying to connect the dots to them.

And then we'll run, we have a battery test from strength and power perspective but also an ESD perspective. So power perspective, it's a countermovement jump is a big one for me, just to understand how they produce force. That's with hands fixed on their hips. And then we do a loaded velocity kind of profile where we take a countermovement jump but also then add 10% of their body weight, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 if they're male, you cut off at 50 at that point if they're women.

And then landmine punch throw, which is also a progression of load as well. Start with just an empty bar, it's 5 kilos, 10 kilos. Or it starts with 5 kilos on the bar, into 10, 15, based on their weight class, into an isometric mid-thigh pull. Now that's actually, now that we have the rack fitted, we got isometric mid-thigh pull profile as well. And also we can do a grip test. You have a few other tests, 10-5 hops, stuff like that.

Those are kind of the big four: the neck, landmine punch throw, isometric mid-thigh pull, and a countermovement jump. And that kind of gives a general idea of where someone's at, whether you look at from a dynamic strength index perspective. Where they lack some more ballistic abilities, really lack some more isometric strength work, things like that. So it kind of gives us a kind of good gamut. And then we can look at upper body perspective and also the neck is four directions: flexion, extension, left and right lateral.

And so then we use that kind of data from my strength and power to determine, okay, there's some things we might need to work on. Maybe they lack strength, so the first part of our program will be geared towards those things.

And then they'll do the ESD assessment, which is match alactic power all on AirBike, match elastic power, match glycolytic power, and then a repeat power. Essentially almost like a repeat sprint test with only three reps: match alactic, match glycolytic, long duration sprint, and a repeat power, just like basically a step test, step bout match test.

And then between those all assessments, which is obviously a lot, so it's nice if they're someone who's going to be involved and be into the program for a decent amount of time. If they're going to be around in Vegas or based in Vegas for six, seven, eight weeks, and if they're not, then we try to get all those things done within maybe 10 days or so so we can send them all with that information as well. And they do a remote program for myself or whoever is programming for them.

And I kind of always go with the reason I think watching their fights is really important, speaking to them about how they fight, is that it gives you an idea, not meddling point perspective, but you always go with you never want to take away what made them elite. So if someone's a high-pressure, high-volume fighter, it's that's the thing that got them into the UFC. They should probably still [expletive] do that thing.

It doesn't mean we don't train their alactic system or glycolytic system and things like that. What it doesn't mean we don't train their strength and power, they may need those things. But as you get closer to the fight, have to trim some of those things down and then make basically their strength their superpower and just not worry about their crypt at that point.

Okay, if we're 16 weeks out, whatever, you don't have a fight at all, we're going to focus on things that you're bad at, and then, like, we'll just maintain your qualities that you have that have made you elite. But once you get within that 10-week, eight-week mark, even not even 12 weeks depending on who it is and kind of the training age of that fighter, it's let's focus on the superpower. That's what's going to win the fight more likely.

It's going to be the high-volume fighter because they're to win because they're going to break their opponent. If they're someone who's not that and they're explosive, one shot, but they don't have many [expletive] bullets in the chamber, then it's okay, we just need to make you robust enough to survive just in case it goes past maybe second, third round, 30 seconds. We just work on being powerful and fast as much. If it lands, the person's going to sleep, so let's get to that point.

James de Lacey16:05

Yeah. So I guess an example, let's just, so Nate Diaz verbally has a fight coming out in the future. So say if you had Nate Diaz, we just take, don't know his stats whatever, but he's a high-pressure, high-volume fighter. So it means out of camp maybe you prioritize strength power work there, and then as you get closer then you'll be looking more just, hey, endurance stuff is your thing, that's what we're going to do to make you feel good and everything. But you're still going to sprinkle a little bit of that strength power in there.

Terrence Kennell16:32

Yeah, exactly. Just sprinkle a little bit, just try to maintain as much of those kind of qualities as possible. But yeah, as you're closer, it's let's keep making the main thing.

James de Lacey16:32

Yeah, nice. And then you also mentioned with the countermovement jump test you did loaded, so I think it was 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60% body weight. What what...

Terrence Kennell16:55

So basically try to put them in a form, a bit of a quadrant of where they fall with explosive strength, they're elastic, inelastic, weak, stuff like that. But almost creating another version of a dynamic strength index almost like you were with the IMTP. Essentially, we're still... that's still very much in early stages. We're sort of collecting a breadth of data from various fighters within that test.

I think that was actually, I think that one was only started doing maybe two months before I got here, I want to say. They added that one.

James de Lacey17:19

Yeah, okay. So relatively, you got to... yeah. So maybe someone listening to this, they don't have force plates, they don't have everything else. These tests, is there anything they can do? Say maybe at their local gym, at home in their garage, something they can do to maybe... it doesn't have to just... maybe it doesn't have to be a test to help them prescribe something. It could be maybe because they don't have whatever equipment, but it could be a test maybe to help them monitor their progress and things like that. So anything that you would recommend for an MMA fighter to do in that situation?

Terrence Kennell17:49

For my pure equipment perspective, if you want one thing I think that's going to... I can add a lot of value to someone's training potentially, I think some kind of VBT tool is quite nice to have. I wouldn't say use a Push band, no offense Push, but I'd probably go with a... I think Push band's gone, isn't it? Haven't they fully stopped making it?

James de Lacey18:12

I'm pretty sure they went under.

Terrence Kennell18:12

Oh. I'm pretty sure Push... they probably need to. Fair. But I would probably get a company out of... I think out of Spain called Vitruve. I think that just... they're like 300-something dollars like that, and you have that on your phone. To me, it's just like a gym aware. It's not 10 grand and you don't have to send... you send it back to Australia is always nice.

So I think just then you can kind of track your training. You can do higher intensity, high strength work without having to worry about injuring yourself by doing a one-rep max test. It's like, okay, if we're in that... if it's a squat or deadlift and we're in that 0.4 below range, that's high, high stressful activity. You're close to 1 RM. You can kind of program, prescribe off of that. And oh, you want to look at peak velocity on a jump? We can do that by attaching it to a dowel.

So I think from a perspective of that and a heart rate monitor, I think you'd cover 99% of things you could possibly really need to do or would recommend doing from a training perspective.

And I think also from my... I think the heart rate monitor is probably the almost more invaluable one. Because some of your training doesn't have... it's not so intense that it's not really a massive, massive deal at all. And as long as you're just consistently training, consistently building your volume and intensity, you kind of get to where I find most fighters probably need to be at.

As long as you're consistent about it and not doing the kind of stereotypical thing of train when I'm in camp and then once I'm out of camp I'm just chilling now, just chilling, just hitting the pads a few times a week.

So I think as long as you just keep consistent training, probably most for a while anyway, you probably don't necessarily even need to really test that much or assess your program. As long as you're consistent, two, three times a week, boom, maybe it's full body each time, you're going to cover a lot of bases and be ahead of a lot of people in that sense. Because a lot of people don't do that, people don't... consistency is huge.

James de Lacey20:22

You could do very little consistently and make huge gains just over time, just because you're doing it all the time, as the person who, as you mentioned, chills in the offseason between fights and comes back in. Now you're working from a step behind because now you're unfit.

But another, I guess, another velocity-based training device is V-Max Pro out of the Netherlands. That's another good one. Got that one. Same thing, works in an app, just goes on the bar. So that's another option for anyone listening as well.

But do maybe dive a little bit into the velocity-based training. You obviously mentioned, hey, under 0.4 meters per second, you're looking maybe more maximum strength. So do maybe talk about average versus peak velocity, when you use each of those, maybe with what people are doing, and then maybe just some very general guidelines around velocity bands in terms of maybe what you're looking at. You mentioned obviously 0.4 and under for max. Maybe what some of the other ones are.

Terrence Kennell21:15

Yeah. So I really like the... is using drop-off sets, especially for higher velocity endpoints. So I tend to usually just use average velocity for the set. Sometimes you use peak, as you know, within a set it can kind of vary a little bit. A lot of times your first two reps are usually almost your slowest reps of a set. You got to find the groove.

So then I got into that dynamic effort work, like that 0.75 and faster. Most of my VBT I get from Dan Baker and Brian Mann and doing things like that. And so you're taking the average velocity across a set, you do things like drop-offs as well, knowing when to cut a set. Whether it would be a 10% drop-off, 5% drop-off, 7%, things of that nature.

So that's... so I use that dynamic effort stuff. I either use it in a contrast setting with some higher-intensity strength, or probably not as low as 0.4... 0.3 usually. Usually would be 0.5. 0.5 tends to be a good strength stimulus.

James de Lacey22:06

Sometimes is that average velocity over the whole set, then you're looking at that point?

Terrence Kennell22:06

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Over that. So if it's like four sets of six or whatever, okay, so we want every set to be within that 0.5 range, or 0.5, or 0.6. Really, 0.62 to 0.5... 0.5 is the low. And my last set, 0.5 average? Okay, we've done a good amount of work here.

But there's that middle zone of that kind of 0.6-ish to 0.7 where if you're doing some high volume, some very high volume work, you can get a lot of reps in. It can be pretty brutal, especially doing off of that stuff. But it tends to be kind of where I'm operating: of that 0.45 to 0.5, 0.58 range in terms of strength work, true strength work, maximum. More 0.4 and below, that's when it gets grindy. And then dynamic effort, 0.75, pretty much faster. And anything that's above a 1.0, 1.02, 1.03, you're just jumping.

James de Lacey23:32

So with the velocity drop-offs, obviously you're looking set to set there, you're looking at velocity drop-offs within the set too?

Terrence Kennell23:32

Yeah, so yeah, I'll do velocity drop-off. I'll do within the set. I'll set it... you can do on Vitruve as well, but we do on Gym Aware. You set within it, okay, I want a 10% drop-off. So the set doesn't end until we get a 10% drop-off if you're doing some high-volume power work or some repeat power, repeat speed. But you can do a drop-off with strength work and high strength work and volume work. And that is brutal. Because you'll... those, you tend to go like 15 to 20% drop-off unless you know... you're doing a set of 12 with like...

James de Lacey23:56

Damn. Yeah, there actually... I just reviewed a paper this month for Science of Sport, and they did... they compared 0% drop-offs, 15%, 25%, and 50% velocity drop-off: strength, hypertrophy. And obviously they had a 50% drop-off, brutal. Mean for hypertrophy, but just canned everything else. Just hit the gutter.

Terrence Kennell23:56

Yeah. When you're going that much volume, people just getting jacked.

James de Lacey24:27

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. That's something that people can be aware of, I guess, with one use of using a velocity-based training device, having those bands. So then are you using average velocity as your metric regardless of the exercise?

Terrence Kennell25:02

I probably say... I tend to, unless I'm looking at jumps. Jumps, I probably go more toward peak velocity. I don't tend to... unless it's a weighted jump... I don't tend to do VBT for a weighted jump. It's always going to move. I want a drop-off, but I tend to mainly drop-off maybe a speed squat, speed trap bar deadlift. It's more dynamic effort-type exercises.

And someone's a bit more advanced, I'll not do things like a jump squat with a drop-off set. But I find this population tends to not be as needed. I've done some kind of playing around with baseball and working in rugby, doing jump squats with a drop-off set, stuff.

James de Lacey25:28

Nice. Yeah, it's especially when you're maybe an individual athlete, it's quite easy to implement. Obviously with a team, a bit harder. But if anyone listening, if you're training by yourself, or...

A couple of people or something, you can definitely attach your velocity-based device to the bar, set a threshold, and you can do whatever your set is and it ends once you basically lose 10% of that max velocity that you've been trading. That's one way to minimize fatigue and maximize power as well. Yeah, that's a great way of doing things too.

And maybe we start a little bit more of the strength power stuff as well. On this podcast recently, I've had a lot of conditioning talk. I guess a lot of fighters, they love—they just want cardio conditioning, got to make sure they don't gas out. Obviously the strength power work also transfers over to that. Obviously if you can do things at lower percentages of your maximum force capabilities, blah blah blah, it can be a lot easier.

So let's maybe dive into a little bit of kind of—I don't know how you program, I guess, regarding the tests and things like that—but maybe differences between out of camp gym work and then coming into the camp, and then also jump into as well closer to the fight, two weeks out, what are you doing there to kind of taper into the fight as well?

Terrence Kennell26:44

Yeah, so out of camp, more to have a bit more volume if we have place for it, especially they're doing less technical work, bit more volume of training overall, trying to hit up some potential gain overall muscle, general GPP, maybe hit some different kind of movement patterns, don't normally hit, sprinkling bits of mobility that's necessary as well.

And then as you get kind of that more close to camp, we'll definitely drop the volume back a fair amount, just chasing intensity to maintain. We can still gain some strength and power, but also know that we're not worried about the volume as much because the nature of MMA and just martial arts in general because of the class structure of it. You don't really a lot of times know what's occurring in terms of volume training and stuff like that, and it's fine. But you have to be aware of that from a strength and conditioning perspective.

A lot of martial arts schools tend to be very high volume of training. Tend to be, if you're doing—I've heard of four, five, six—I've heard as much as 8 to 10 hours of training, martial arts, MMA work within a two-day span. It's probably shouldn't. I don't need 12 to 15 exercises either. We can stick to really four to six exercises, chase some higher qualities, allow a bit of rest between sets, and train some higher intensity, which that we maintain that strength and power, especially because there's that weight descent factor as well.

You have also, especially during camp, starting to lose a pound or maybe even two pounds a week, how heavy they are and how aggressive the weight cut is going to be. And so now they have a weight, now they're—the tank is basically being drained by the technical training. Also they're slightly underfed, and then now you're like, all right, here's a [expletive] ton of volume of weight. It's something's got to give.

So you decrease the volume by a lot, chase some intensity, chase high rep sets of threes, fours, fives, maybe it's across four or five sets, decent amount of rest, but maintain that higher percentage, that higher percentage of load, so we can still train those qualities to a decent level while that weight's coming down and it's still getting some high threshold motor unit recruitment going on, as opposed to with more volume in the middle of camp.

And actually closer to that end stage, now it's more higher speed work, looks more almost kind of like peaking. I quite like that the plyometric stuff William Wayland does, and also Tuworth in the peaking kind of phase that Cal Deeds kind of talks about. I think that has a lot of value.

I think in a lot of ways that has more value in MMA as opposed to doing death jumps or a bunch of pogos where your foot just doesn't interact the floor like that. And you produce—you produce force fast, your feet still be on the ground as opposed to we think traditional team sports where there's a sprinting factor or jumping factor.

So we don't really have that in combat sports. So really I prefer having your feet in contact with the ground, doing more oscillatory work, whether it be speed squat, speed Zercher, Zercher speed deadlifts, things like that where they're interacting with the floor but still producing at a very high speed.

That's kind of what generally kind of look like from there. But the big, probably the biggest thing is I reduce, I cut the volume, I cut the volume down.

James de Lacey30:30

That's through the taper period, those last two weeks is where you look to cut the volume down?

Terrence Kennell30:30

Even eight weeks out, we're down to two to three sessions a week. And even still that volume then is actually still pretty low from a strength and conditioning perspective, from a strength and power perspective, because now just still just chasing high intensity work and then high threshold, trying to high threshold motor units, and maintain, maybe gain a bit of strength and power as there's some weight descent occurring, the technical work is through the roof. There's sparring two, maybe two times a week. And some gyms spar really hard, some don't really spar very hard, some don't really spar at all. You just don't really know.

James de Lacey31:29

So how does fight week and the week before fight week look in regarding strength and power?

Terrence Kennell31:29

With fight week, I mean so far we tend to—most guys don't tend to do much on fight week in terms of strength and conditioning perspective, which is perfectly fine. I don't blame them. [expletive] hungry and [expletive]—the last thing you want to do is lift.

But the week before is when we try to start to do a lot of those kind of more peaking type of work. And if there's a level of just a general kind of calorie burner they probably need, if they're—if they're maybe stuck at a point whatever from a weight-cutting perspective, maybe you do some long duration kind of aerobic work that's just boring and just need to tick away. Or you do some more lactate power interval work or heavy glycolytic work just to get some—this mean two weeks out.

Usually the week of, there's a couple who will come in, but most don't come in the week of.

James de Lacey32:22

Gotcha, gotcha. You mentioned about the plyometrics. I found that concept interesting. I think William actually posted about it maybe a few years ago now about the idea that obviously in combat sports you don't have these very short ground contact times, maybe amateur boxing when they're bouncing around the ring and stuff like that. But if we get this towards maybe MMA, even grappling and wrestling, you don't have these very short ground contact times, even though you may need to produce force relatively quickly, maybe if you're throwing striking combinations or shooting for takedowns, whatever.

So I guess maybe do you want to give your perspective on that, how much play are you using plyometrics that often then with fighters because of that? And are you using other methods instead, or is plyometrics still in your program and for what reason?

Terrence Kennell33:16

Yeah, so jump stuff still still in mine for sure, just because big part I think there's a second-order effect from a strength and power perspective because of that eccentric loading. I tend to avoid things like box jumps because I just—I'm getting a lot of concentric output, but I'm getting very little eccentric loading perspective, which I think you then need that to get—you need the load to get the full kind of gamut of information from doing jump work.

So I'll still do a fair amount of jump work from a tendon, joint—well, tendon health perspective, tendon elasticity perspective. There's a level of elasticity that has to occur, especially because you're still producing force on the floor. And so I think it helps. It's really viable in teaching them to produce force. But I just don't personally go to the extreme ends. We'll do some repeat jump board, but we also will do kind of plyometric oscillatory work as well.

I don't see the value necessarily in doing things like depth jumps, death drops, stuff like that, and drop jumps personally. But I do actually still doing repeat jump efforts, stuff like that.

James de Lacey34:04

So would you then would you also use maybe pogos, ankle hops, I don't know, various even maybe extensive like hurdle swallows?

Terrence Kennell34:32

Yeah, still a big fan of pogos early in camp as well, especially extensive, just from that tendon, Achilles health, that force that the lower shank has to absorb, that eccentric loading as well.

James de Lacey34:32

Nice, okay. Now that clears up, I guess for everyone listening as well. Obviously, I guess for everyone listening as well, obviously—

Most people probably do some form of plyometric, whether that's pogos or maybe repeated jumps. I guess maybe to clarify for everyone as well, not all jumps are plyometric. So if you're doing things like box jumps, technically it's not plyometric because the ground contact time is too long. But obviously they're often used interchangeably as strength power exercises, so kind of in that way. But yeah, same thing with your jump training. I think it's relatively underutilized within combat athletes unless they put it into a circuit.

Terrence Kennell35:37

I think utilizing most sports in general.

James de Lacey35:37

Yeah, there you go.

Terrence Kennell35:37

For sure. I mean, especially loaded. I think people are almost afraid of loading them, whether that's maybe because it's on the back and maybe people are scared of loading on the back. But I don't know. I'm sure you probably haven't had a problem with it. I haven't had a problem with loading someone on the back.

James de Lacey35:37

Almost grab a trap bar then, or grab two dumbbells.

For sure. Do you want to maybe dive a little bit into those oscillatory isometrics? We've had—I've had Gram Morris on the podcast talk about them and mention them. I've had I think Kevin M have talked about the podcast. I've had a couple of other guys talk about oscillatory isometrics, kind of why they use them and how they use them. Do you want to maybe just dive into a little bit of how—

Terrence Kennell36:31

So the big thing for me is, like I said earlier, the interaction with the floor, producing force to the floor at very high rate of speed, and cutting that kind of joint range of motion off too. We're not going no deep range in that position and kind of just moving as quick as possible. I think I want to say it's some overspeed work where they call it alactic time set. So I'll tend to kind of do it in that kind of manner with, like, six seconds as fast as you can, and then you'll rest for like a minute and you'll repeat in that.

Big reason for why for me is that it's very low stress on joints, things like that, because of the angles that you're working in. It's not heavy. It's enough eccentric load to make you move down fast and have to reverse out of it, but not so much that you're going to be sore from it, essentially. I'm being using it as a kind of end stage, closer to the end of fight camp. I've used it other sports as well, like right before first game, that kind of thing.

That's kind of my biggest kind of reasoning why and the how. I'm not—I've yet to use it on anyone who's that well trained, so I don't know how viable it would be because I just don't have anybody who has a breadth of training age. I know Gway does, like Alan Cory McKenna, who—they—he's been training them for five-plus years and so.

James de Lacey37:46

Yeah, got it, exactly.

Terrence Kennell37:46

But I'm definitely a huge fan of them for that reason of low stress from an eccentric loading perspective in the side of soreness and just overall fatigue going forward, but also still getting a high level of concentric output, moving at a fast rate, without having to do things like pogos, like high-intensity pogos, or high-intensity jumps, or drop jumps. I'm just—you just don't interact with the floor that way within the sport.

Teaching it—the barrier of entry for teaching it—teach someone to do a depth jump two weeks before a fight doesn't seem a great idea to me, if it wasn't done before. Blowing knees and ankles for sure.

James de Lacey38:17

So I guess the example used is the oscillatory split squat. So if anyone goes back to the Gram Morris, I think I put a link in that description of it where essentially someone's got a band around—a band is pulling them down—they're supporting themselves with their hands and just moving up and down. What's the range of motion that you're kind of looking at when you're doing it? Are you looking at maybe just doing the top portion, or maybe just the bottom portion, or are you ever doing the whole movement as an oscillatory isometric?

Terrence Kennell39:13

I tend to go top portion and kind of middle. I haven't tried it with using the entire range of motion to move. I think there probably is some value in it. I think especially depending—if you have maybe someone who's probably more grapple dominant, probably a lot of value in that because they're working from low positions more than likely. That's going to be where they're going to be stronger. You have to produce a lot of force very quickly. But yeah, I tend to just go top position and kind of mid.

James de Lacey39:35

Okay. And it'll be—for essentially, even if you're doing oscillatory bench, row, whatever it is, you're looking at essentially in range of motion, mainly?

Terrence Kennell39:35

Yeah. So that extended range of motion being producing force quickly at that extended range, whether it be a punch, punches, kicks, things like that. Because you spend so much time at that extended range, and that's where you're not going to be isometrically—not going to be very strong there—but we have you moving very fast. Those ranges where you just snap your arm back, snap your elbow back to pull your leg back, that's kind of what we want.

James de Lacey40:10

Easier to protect yourself when your arm or leg is back under you.

Are you using, I guess, any form of isometric training within your training regimes for fighters, whether that's long duration stuff, maybe the overcoming isometrics, or yielding? Is there anything that you like to use with fighters that you found valuable?

Terrence Kennell40:38

Some stuff I want to play around with. Nothing I've really—I've done long duration stuff outside of camp, almost more for a joint fashion kind of tendon perspective, holding long positions for two, three minutes and kind of teaching, kind of create new patterns of motion.

James de Lacey40:38

Two, three minutes? That's—I've done 90 seconds max and I'm like—

Terrence Kennell40:38

But I haven't—stuff I want—stuff I've seen I want to play around with. I've talked to Gram about it and stuff, but not I've actually tried on a program. Stuff I tried on myself with some overcoming stuff. I tried stuff. I think Gram posted to where the guy kind of had a med ball against the rack as overcoming. It was posted, work on clinch. So stuff like that I want to try, but I haven't tried yet on anyone. I'll have to play around a little bit on myself.

James de Lacey41:35

Maybe it'll help my shitty clinch game as it is. That's right. How long you been doing Muay Thai?

Terrence Kennell41:35

Three years now, I think. I think I've been—I think I've been bad at it for—I don't know. Probably about two years. I think I'm all right, then the coach just be like, 'TK, what happened? Why is it you were good yesterday? You [expletive] today. What changed?'

James de Lacey42:10

Is there anything you've learned maybe going into Muay Thai as a new sport? Because obviously the people listening might also be looking to expand their martial arts repertoire. Maybe they enjoy grappling but they start striking. I guess, anything you learned maybe going into it that maybe helped you not get injured, not burn out, enjoy the process?

Terrence Kennell42:10

Probably from a physical perspective, I think the biggest thing I learned was how—almost reiterate what kind of you and I probably both seen in other sports—is that how important tissue tolerance is, how much task specificity and tissue tolerance are aligned. I'm— I'll run two times a week. I'll hit on a bike. Go for walks all the time, things like that. But the first two months of Muay Thai, my feet and calves were so [expletive] sore.

I was like, 'I run. I sprint. I [expletive] jump. I [expletive] do bounds.' So then it's like, 'Oh yeah, because I don't do this.' I've never done this thing. I'm also doing it on a soft surface as opposed to hard surface, and then my feet have to do more work to stay balanced.

So I'd say that's probably, like, reiterating that thing of tissue tolerance is task-specific as well. And then same thing with even a conditioning perspective as well, being like, 'Oh, pretty good heart rate. Do a decent amount of conditioning on my own.' Then in there [expletive] dying, fighting for my life, I'm like, 'Man.' But same thing, it's like, 'Oh yeah, because it's specific to the task. The task I do regularly is not Muay Thai.' And now it's like, 'Oh, now I'm punching and kicking people, also apparently.'

And I had to learn very quickly every punch and kick can't be the hardest one you throw every single time, because you won't last very long. And I think from a mental perspective is that you have to relearn—I mean, some people maybe need this as well—you relearn to be okay to be bad at [expletive]. And that's kind of a big reason why I joined. I knew I wanted to do something that wasn't—

Lifting weights, that wasn't sprinting, wasn't jump. I was doing this for years. I was boring me, I wasn't playing rugby anymore, wasn't really playing. I play pick-up basketball every now and then, that's about it. And I was like, okay, I want to actually try something actually difficult. And I was like, oh, okay, I'll do. I've always liked watching. I watch K1, used to always like watching [expletive] Ray Sefo, K1 and Pride.

Yeah, I was like, always one of my favorite fighters as well growing up. So I was like, find Muay Thai. Happened to be one like a couple miles from my house and I joined it right away. I'm like, I don't need a trial class, here's my money, let's do it. And then just fell in love with it right away.

It probably helped as well that I did taekwondo as a kid for like 12 years, talked until I was like 18 or 19. And so now I just, I think there was that aspect of being like, hey, this is this isn't like a, it's not a thing you're going towards. You're not working towards. I'm not working towards a [expletive] fight in Glory. There's no like belt system. I don't need a belt. I don't need a trophy.

I don't need to, I just want to constantly get better. I literally sometimes, I just tell myself like, oh, what you going to work on today? I'm just like, man, I'm trying to be a little bit less [expletive] today than I was yesterday. That's pretty much it. And taking that approach. And also, to be fair, there's probably a fair amount of people within our profession that probably need this: you realize like, oh yeah, just because you're a bigger dude or strong or stronger doesn't mean [expletive] in a fight.

James de Lacey46:14

So if I was to get beat up by a 150 lb man who's 5'4, he'd kick my ass and he wasn't even trying. For sure. I think most people experienced that that have come into any martial art, striking, grappling. I guess the first time you go into your first grappling class and you think you're fit and then like a minute in you're just dead. You got someone lying on you, spazzing out, maybe, whatever's happening, and you're just done.

Terrence Kennell46:14

I tried a fair amount of times, never really fell in love with that much. But yeah, you definitely realize like, oh man, this person could kill me right now.

James de Lacey46:47

For sure. So how did you then balance your strength training and other conditioning when you started Muay Thai? Did you change anything on that side? Did you scale back or?

Terrence Kennell47:17

I scaled back my own lifting. I was always a four time, three time a week person anyway. So I don't respond super well to a lot of volume lifting. So I cut back to three. I don't really go above three pretty much. And then I cut my general volume quite a lot. To the point I do four or five exercises. I'm in and out.

My lift takes [expletive] 35 minutes. If I warm up, if I don't warm up, it takes 35 minutes. I'm in and out. Being more intentional with my lifting. And then from a conditioning aspect, I did a pretty long block, probably eight months or so, like steady high intensity threshold work to get. Just 'cause I was, I think maybe could be a genetic thing, I don't know, but I was not as comfortable and I struggled a lot in that higher intensity conditioning. Again, that like orange and red zone. I get up there, then I'm [expletive] in a tank afterwards.

So did a good bit of work on that, but also on the opposite end of the spectrum, train high, train low. I would do 35, 40, 50 minutes of just steady state Blue Zone work in a heart rate. The long, slow, boring. Like, to me, I always, I always go with my boy, and he says it's like, that's the real mental toughness, is being, is getting on a bike or stair master, elliptical, or an incline treadmill or rower and like, I'm going to be here for the next 45 minutes and I'm not going to go very fast.

You sit there bored out of your brains, takes about 15, 20 minutes to start, and you just start sweating. And then you're still sitting there, your ass is getting sore sitting on the seat.

James de Lacey49:00

Oh yeah, I've been through that. But it does pay off, it does pay off. Even though we can call it non-specific conditioning, especially if you're coming to a sport that you're relatively new to, everything kind of transfers over. So if you're listening, if you're starting a sport as a beginner or been doing this sport not too long, stuff like that can definitely have a part.

Terrence Kennell49:00

I mean, this sounds [expletive] just so cliche, but it is truly like a process. 'Cause you're not, you're going to be bad to average for a long time. Jiu-jitsu, stuff like that. My friend owns a jiu-jitsu gym back in Texas, and he says all the time, people will call him, yeah, I really want to get a black belt. He's like, okay, so you're going to start coming for the next 15 years. Great, glad we got your commitment.

James de Lacey49:29

That's good. Lifetime value of a customer there if they stay. But, you know what the statistic is? Most people, you get your blue belt.

Terrence Kennell49:58

I can't remember what it was, but essentially most people, I mean I don't know, I saw some [expletive], but most people get the blue belt and then they stop at blue belt. You know, similar, I'd say with personal training. I mean, S&C's probably really got one as well. Most personal trainers quit within five years, something like that they say, I think. They say it's similar.

James de Lacey50:29

I don't know, maybe you do the same thing with stats too. No, I saw that on Twitter and I just ran with it as truth. I'm like, I don't care enough to look that up, but I'm like, it sounds about right.

Terrence Kennell50:29

Yeah, the coaching industry can be brutal. I mean, most people eventually end up doing their own thing or changing [expletive] completely. I know like six coaches completely in the past six months that I know, not know super well but I know, that have either left the industry all together or now work for an equipment company or they work for, in the US, work for an equipment company like a Hammer Strength or stuff like that. It's actually wild. Fair. In the last six months, go work for Hammer Strength, Rogue, whatever. They're just like, [expletive] this.

James de Lacey51:42

For sure. For sure. I mean, I guess we're in the profession, so we know all the issues with it and experienced most of the issues too. But yeah, I think we covered pretty much everything here, TK. Is there anything else I wanted to add? And if not, where can people follow you and find you and see what you're doing?

Terrence Kennell51:42

Nothing else I really want to add. Social media, TK_FitPrep on Twitter. I mean, if you want to learn nothing about S&C, then you follow me on Twitter because I don't really talk about S&C on my Twitter at all. If you, my Instagram either. Every now and then I'll sprinkle, I'll share a post or a video or something in my story. But if you want to basically know nothing else but S&C, do not follow me on social media. Or the other way around, if you want to learn no new information about S&C, then follow me on social media.

But if, coming to, if you want to learn things, follow other people. Follow, I try to not post about S&C very much at all. People talking about training [expletive], there's a bunch of people way smarter than me.

James de Lacey52:32

Oh, well, I'm going to put your Twitter and Instagram in the description anyway for anyone who wants to see what TK has been up to. But thanks for coming on, man.