Is Strength & Conditioning THAT Important For Combat Sports? w/ Geoffrey Chiu (SSOF Ep. 43)

Geoffrey Chiu2:09

But in the last two years I've been pretty vocal about getting at least 95% of your conditioning within the sport itself. And that goes over some people's head sometimes because I'm telling people, hey, we don't really need to dive super deep into energy systems. I know you've had guests on, like PhD researchers, talking about sprint interval training. Personally, that's not my philosophy on building conditioning.

I don't see conditioning as solely energy system development. I see it as tactical, strategical. What I see conditioning is: are you able to repeat the sporting movements under various environments, stressful environments? Are you able to do it in training, in sparring, and then in the fight?

James de Lacey4:04

I love that. I'm actually going to have Fergus Connolly on. It'll be the week after this podcast drops. And he's obviously been very vocal about, I guess you could say, anti-energy systems as well. He's of the idea of the interplay between energy systems and pretty much what you're saying there. And I really like that philosophy.

And looking into sports training, obviously you can have a pure physiological approach, which is, hey, I'm just targeting energy system adaptations, or you can have almost what you mentioned there, like a work capacity approach. You know, can I sustain whatever the output is for however long it is and repeat it over and over again? And then can I manipulate training variables to be able to sustain whatever power output, a workload it is for short, medium, long term and things like that.

But do you want to maybe give an example of—obviously you talked about specific conditioning within that—how, maybe let's give some specific examples for strikers, MMA, and for jiu-jitsu athletes? What would be some examples of a specific conditioning system? Obviously there's lots of different work-rest ratios, but just even just some exercise examples there.

Geoffrey Chiu4:58

Right. So when we talk about, let's say, aerobic development and we agree that aerobic development is all about creating structural demands, making sure our heart's pumping out enough blood, everything that you read in an exercise physiology book, I think S&C coaches and sports scientists understand that point, but they apply it in the wrong way.

So they would say, okay, go on the bike for 45 minutes, or 45 to 60 minutes, because that's what aerobic training is. But I would argue that that could be better spent on the heavy bag or shadow boxing or practicing some sort of sport-specific skill. So that's why I always say skills practice is conditioning.

And a lot of skill coaches know this. They just use running as a supplement. But they know that in order to be a better martial artist you have to practice more martial arts. And I'm just afraid this generation of fighters is, I guess, too worried about modern, I guess, modern training sciences. They listen to the sports scientist. They'll run a lot, skip a lot, but they're not boxing enough or they're not practicing their sport enough.

James de Lacey6:05

Is there a point in which you wouldn't prescribe as much specific conditioning if their technical load is really high? Do you have maybe a general benchmark of when you'd be like, okay, we probably need to spend more time doing things like biking, running, whatever it is, versus boxing for conditioning?

Geoffrey Chiu6:41

In terms of technical load, I'm looking at how many hours they're training per day. If a recreational athlete comes to me and says, I want to be a competitive boxer, I'm boxing one hour each session and I'm doing three boxing sessions a week, can I add in assault bikes, can I add in the runs? And I'm like, you're barely at that minimum threshold of what it takes to be an elite athlete. So if you're boxing three times a week, then you might want to even double that, and your conditioning is going to get better just from that.

I've said this before: I think the problem that we kind of face in combat sports currently is there's a big influx of S&C coaches like us, sports scientists coming into the field, they're purely looking at it from a physiological standpoint, which works really well based off of the background that sports scientists and S&C coaches have, which is cyclical endurance sports.

They look at marathon runners, they look at cyclists, they put them on the VO2 max machine, they measure blood lactate. I think they are trying to reduce combat sports performance to purely physiology, which doesn't really align with what high-performance combat sports is.

High-performance combat sports, to me, means the physiotherapy side, the tactical side, are we building the right culture in the gym? How are they developing skills-wise? What kind of development system do they have in terms of skill development and drilling and sparring?

So that's what I really want to touch on in the next few years. Not necessarily step away from strength and conditioning, because I'm still a strength and conditioning coach by profession, but I'm looking to integrate strength exercises and what I know about energy systems to apply it to combat sports.

James de Lacey8:21

So how would that look then? If you're in—are you talking about integrating, obviously as a skill set for yourself, but would you then integrate that within, say, a technical training session itself? You're looking to almost blend the approaches together so a session is not purely technical, it's designed around technical training, but also developing the physical attributes you need?

Geoffrey Chiu8:56

Yeah, so for example, something that I've been doing for quite a few years now is applying what I know about energy systems to, let's say, heavy bag training. And let's say I'll prescribe heavy bag intervals for one of my athletes. I'll say we're going to work on these skills on the heavy bag because that's what you need based on what I know about striking as a very amateur striking coach.

And then as an S&C coach, I know that I need to give you this amount of work and this amount of rest intervals just to not necessarily target the energy systems, but I'm seeing which work-to-rest ratios work well with whatever skills we're trying to develop.

We're not trying—if we're trying to develop explosive punching power on the heavy bag, for example, then my rest intervals have to be prescribed accordingly, whether that's complete rest or longer rest in general. And then some coaches would call that quote-unquote power endurance. But I don't like calling it power. I find it better for myself to communicate if I'm speaking in the language of the boxer. Just calling it explosive power or explosive punching work or something easy to understand.

James de Lacey10:03

Yep. Yeah, obviously you mentioned the recreational boxer that's coming that's boxing three hours a week and he wants to do extra conditioning, so it's better spent doing the specific style of conditioning. Have you got any, I guess, maybe amateur guys that are training full-time or pro guys training full-time that have really high boxing loads, and what would you consider—

Geoffrey Chiu11:11

I would say on average, if you're training five to six times a week and you're doubling up on some of the days like two-a-days, that's when I would consider adding on a separate session of, let's say, assault bike intervals or hill sprints or something like that. But I do like to integrate some running and just low volume running, low volume skipping to tack on to their skill sessions.

Let's say they have a technical session and I know they're sparring, maybe they're getting five to eight rounds and that's all they're doing for that class. I would say, okay, if we're counting this as a high training day, then the volume isn't enough. So I would add, let's say, skip rope intervals, three rounds, 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off, just to keep that training load high for that day.

James de Lacey12:19

Yeah, that's probably good for anyone listening as well who's maybe short on time, kind of that one technical session is their training session for the day and being able to tack on the end is easy enough versus trying to do a second session.

Geoffrey Chiu12:19

Skill coaches know this and they prescribe it really well, maybe better than S&C coaches. They work with the boxers for more hours per week. They know, although it's old school, they know what needs to be done in terms of general conditioning.

James de Lacey12:51

Now it's interesting, you obviously mentioned about sparring, okay, that might be a higher day. How do you structure your weeks then for your fighters? Obviously you mentioned sparring there might be a higher day, but do you follow a high-low model? Do you follow maybe like a low-medium-high, or are you just trying to fit things in when the fighter has time to do it?

Geoffrey Chiu13:21

When I had a smaller roster of fighters, I would use the high-low. And now that I'm working with more fighters, I realize that their schedule is just completely [expletive]. It's impossible to do high-low. I applaud anyone who can apply the high-low model consistently from week to week.

So currently what I do is just I ask them, what days do you feel the freshest? And then we place those important strength and power days maybe in the morning or after training, because we want them to be pretty fresh if we want them to make those gains on the strength sessions.

Sometimes they have to double up. Sometimes they're doing it on days they're not training skills. I feel like a lot of fighters are at the mercy of either their class schedule or their team. I think we all, S&C coaches, have this kind of illusion that every athlete we work with is some pro that's able to control every variable of their own camp, which just isn't true. More than half of my team are amateurs, but obviously they still work hard, they put in the work. It's just scheduling that we have to work around.

James de Lacey14:30

On that scheduling as well, obviously you mentioned doing the strength, the strength power in the mornings. I guess some people will say, hey, shouldn't I do the technical training first because that's more important and I need to do the skills, and then shouldn't I do strength power in the afternoon? What's your philosophy around that?

Geoffrey Chiu14:59

My philosophy is you have to work with your schedule. If you don't have morning technical trainings and they just don't offer that at your gym, do it. If they do have to perform strength in the morning, then I keep that in mind and I lower the volume a bit, make sure that they're as fresh as possible heading into each session.

James de Lacey14:59

What does your strength training, what do your strength training or strength power sessions look like? I know I've seen a few clips and things on Instagram and you've got a few different athletes going on there. I guess what just surrounds your philosophy regarding strength and power training? Obviously you mentioned that you might lower the volumes. Are you looking at more of a low volume approach? You want to keep them fresh for technical sessions? I guess I'm assuming it depends on the time of year, when they have fights coming up, how much they're doing.

Geoffrey Chiu15:55

I don't think it's much different than other experienced S&C combat sports coaches. Exercise selection might be a bit different. Let's say Will loves split squats with the hand-supported split squats. A lot of my athletes just don't have access to that, so I feel like we're at the mercy of our equipment sometimes.

I like to program concurrently, so I don't like phases where we're heavily invested into power, heavily invested into heavy load strength exercises. I like to just keep it all in the mix. So each session would look like dynamic warm-up, some plyometrics, some ballistics, whether that's slams or med ball punches or whatever, and then we get into the compound lifts, end off with some accessories, and then some robustness work.

James de Lacey16:36

Nice. Do you want to maybe dive a little bit into your robustness work? I know you've mentioned that quite a bit as well on your social media. What are you trying to achieve with your robustness work, and I guess what are some example exercises and things you're doing there for your athletes?

Geoffrey Chiu17:07

Robustness work, robustness circuits is what I call it. I'm not even sure where I got the name from. Maybe I didn't make it up, but hopefully I'm popularizing it. But I'm essentially putting three to four exercises together based on the athlete's injury history and the most common injuries within their sport.

So let's say if we take boxing for example, I'll look up boxing injuries, what's the prevalence for each body part, and then I'll look at my athlete's injury history. And then, okay, let's say neck, we need strengthening. Let's say our boxer has got a history of knee pain. I'll throw in some direct knee exercises in there. And then maybe something like the lower leg complex, like the ankle or the wrist, which is usually the first points of contact for combat sport athletes.

So I'll throw it all together within a circuit at the end of the session and perform anywhere from two to four sets of that, no rest in between. Let's say like a lying neck curl with the harness, dumbbell wrist curls, and then maybe some split squats or split squat isometrics. I think they're just exercises and body parts that are easily forgotten and people don't like to do. They like to do the jumps, they like to do their med ball slams and punches, but when it comes to the boring [expletive] like calf raises, they tend to...

My philosophy on that is like, work at a low to moderate volume and then we get that in frequently. And then over the training year you've developed a ton of neck strength, a ton of wrist and forearm strength, grip strength that translates to the sport.

James de Lacey18:45

How would that circuit differ for, let's say, for a grappler, like a jiu-jitsu athlete? Do you have sort of exercises you go through there?

Geoffrey Chiu19:16

Mhm. So we might look at the hip and the knee more, or the shoulder joint, just based off of injury data. If I remember correctly, grapplers suffer different injuries than striking athletes. Striking athletes get blows to the head, but grappling athletes are resisting their opponent and their opponent normally puts on a lot of force within the elbow joint or their shoulder joint depending on the submission, or you're cranking your neck. Exactly, all things there.

James de Lacey20:05

So stop inverting everyone, you're going to [expletive] your neck up. Now if you do things all right then you're not going to do too much damage. But let's go back into some of that training week structure. Obviously you're fitting it in wherever. Do you maybe have, or you able to share an example, you're working with boxers now I think in person, do you want to maybe share like a typical training, how a typical training week looks for these guys?

Geoffrey Chiu20:32

Yeah. They're always going to have one rest day, whether they could be shadow boxing, they could be doing some dynamic warm-ups or mobility work, but I always want at least one dedicated rest day for my fighters. They're probably going to be training boxing anywhere from five to six times a week, and then we tack on two really high quality strength training sessions and focusing on heavy load exercises, plyometrics, robustness circuits like we talked about.

And then I try to work around their sparring. I'm obviously not going to put a strength and a boxing session on a day before sparring days, but it really depends on the athlete.

I've worked with boxers that like to get a lift in before sparring days, not too similar from how a few sports teams are doing things now with almost like using it as a 15-20 minute primer in the gym stuff and then going out onto the field and doing high speed, whatever it is, or their high intensity sports training.

James de Lacey21:41

Yeah, you worked in a lot of team sports. For the players that don't play, their training load is obviously a little higher, in-game playing time is lower. Let's say you get like a rugby team or a football team, obviously not everyone gets the same playing time. Does their S&C look different?

Geoffrey Chiu21:41

Yeah, they usually do extra stuff. But it depends, like for example, so you have...

James de Lacey22:17

You're playing Saturday, Friday would be like a captain's run for the team. And then obviously the non-playing guys typically will either be on the field or they'll do some of the extra stuff then. So might be extra gym, extra conditioning, whatever it is. And then they'll have like Saturday, Sunday—Saturday they might do something, but usually Saturday, Sunday off. And then Monday they'll do more than the guys who played in training.

But then as well, you've obviously got guys that are on the bench that play less minutes than those guys starting who might play a full match. So then straight after the match, you'll have guys that play like say less than 20 minutes, they'll be on the field. I mean, that's why you see if you see on TV you see people running after the games on the field, some players.

So they're doing like, they're basically doing top-ups just to essentially keep everyone near the same level. But it's some people have it down to an exact science, but it's not always that easy because obviously the game's chaotic.

Geoffrey Chiu23:12

I find that to be the more difficult part of the profession—just managing training load, managing the team, managing the culture. I think that's really underrated compared to things that we normally talk about on social media, like exercise selection. And we go to each other's throats just based off of exercises. It's crazy.

James de Lacey23:12

It is crazy. I mean, it's the team aspect of combat sports. But I mean it's having full-time S&Cs within a team is pretty, is relatively new, right? I'd say so.

Geoffrey Chiu23:48

So in Thailand, you won't find that in Muay Thai camps, or they'll hire some dude who got his bachelor's and never really looked at any information outside of school. It's pretty bad. The teams that have good S&C coaches and performance coaches are usually like multi-disciplinary teams, like Tiger Muay Thai or what are other camps out here—I don't even remember—but like the MMA-focused camps, American—aka or Tiger Muay Thai or Bangtao Muay Thai, all these MMA teams. They usually have better nutritional support, better strength coach support behind them.

James de Lacey23:48

Okay. I don't think the Muay Thai gyms see the benefits just yet. Interesting. Is that just like a—I was training at one of the gyms back in, I'm not going to name which one, but back in 2019.

Geoffrey Chiu24:28

They had a conditioning coach who was basically like a runner or a marathon coach. And all he would do is make sure that all of the guys hit redline for each one-hour session. And if they don't hit redline, it's not a good session.

James de Lacey24:28

Damn. So with heart rate monitor, you mean?

Geoffrey Chiu25:12

All the fighters would have heart rate monitors on. It would show up on the TV, like, "Hey, you're in the yellow, you need to work harder." Damn. That was the extent of the sports science or the S&C. This dude was getting paid full-time—I'm not sure full-time, but he had a position at a pretty big gym.

James de Lacey25:12

That's crazy. I mean, I shouldn't say that's crazy, because literally all over the world in every sport at the highest level, you get the same thing. It's just probably now trickled down, trickled down into combat sports now that strength conditioning stuff has become more, I guess, more popular. But the idea that Muay Thai gyms there haven't kind of gone down that road, is that just to—is that a tradition thing? Like with the Thais, I mean, they spend a lot of time running and then just doing Muay Thai basically. And that's kind of how they like to do, and they don't want to change.

Geoffrey Chiu26:13

I think an S&C coach from the West would come to Thailand and say they're doing everything wrong, but somehow they're—that's maybe the approach I took when I first visited here a few years ago. I don't see it that way anymore. I see it as they're obviously doing the right things in terms of training volume. But there are some aspects of sports science that we can bring into their traditional camps, like the way they peak for fights or how we manage training load.

Like, okay, running is good for them, it builds toughness in their lower leg, it builds their calves, it builds leg endurance. But we don't need to do so much of it. Cultural aspect too.

James de Lacey26:41

You mentioned about peaking as well. How do you like to peak your guys for fights? What changes in those last couple of weeks?

Geoffrey Chiu27:17

I'd say 30 to like 20—20 to 30% volume drop in their training, just because sparring picks up, they're getting tired, they have to cut weight.

James de Lacey27:17

Is that your training? That your, like, your specific strength—is that your specific strength conditioning training you're dropping volume on, or does that include their technical training?

Geoffrey Chiu27:17

That does not include the technical training.

James de Lacey27:17

Okay. I don't really have control over that. And I imagine a lot of S&C coaches don't.

Geoffrey Chiu27:53

But that's the strength work. I'll probably take out all, if not most of the general conditioning, like the runs and the assault bike stuff. I'll take it out two or three weeks out, because we both know at that point you can't get fitter. It's just about dropping fatigue so your fitness can show.

James de Lacey27:53

And the Thais here don't do that because, like I mentioned before, I don't think it's a sports science thing. I think it's a culture thing. A lot of elite Thais, they train—they have like two or three week fight camps.

Because they've trained their whole lives. Their technique and skill is so much higher than the foreigners here that they'll train for like maybe really hard for two or three weeks and then take some time off. So the way they approach it is completely different.

Geoffrey Chiu28:29

Interesting. With the elite Thai athletes that are now fighting in like ONE Championship and things like that, have they taken a different approach there? I don't know if you have any insight into that. Are they doing like what you're saying there, or are they taking a different approach?

James de Lacey29:03

ONE Championship's given everyone a kick in the ass, I think. With the prize money now and all that money on the line, they're starting to train more consistently like UFC fighters would—MMA, like high-profile MMA fighters would. So I think they're training a bit more consistently, going along the lines of what would be considered best practices nowadays. But I think habits still kick in, and some of them get a bit lazy. I mean, I know people here, so I've heard some inside news. And that's just how, unfortunately—

Geoffrey Chiu29:37

I mean, you see it in most sports. The top, top talented guys that not always the—have the—not or don't always have the highest work ethic. They just get by on how good they are.

James de Lacey29:37

The best fighters aren't always the best high-performing athletes, let's say.

Geoffrey Chiu30:14

For sure. And which is which probably bursts a lot of bubbles for people looking to try and make it who are putting the effort in and everything, and then but still falling short. Sometimes it's more than just training and work ethic.

James de Lacey30:14

That's a big thing I've learned traveling here is just you have to work under their conditions and then trying to create some buying—like for me to go to a Muay Thai camp, a traditional one, and be like, "Hey, I'm an S&C coach, here's my resume," they just tell you to [expletive] off. Especially if you're not Thai and you don't speak Thai. There is definitely a language barrier there, and it's like a trust thing.

Geoffrey Chiu30:47

One interesting thing you've actually been posting about over the—oh, probably a while now—I thought was quite interesting, was the transitions between striking and grappling in MMA and how you have decided to, I guess, attack and develop in training, essentially condition fighters for that demand that they see in MMA. Do you want to maybe dive a little bit into that and how you saw that as an issue?

James de Lacey30:47

Was that me? What did I say?

Geoffrey Chiu30:47

I don't know, you posted a video of you guys doing strike—uh, conditioning-specific conditioning, pairing striking and grappling.

James de Lacey31:15

Oh, that was for MMA-specific conditioning, right? Um, that was just driving home the point I mentioned earlier: like doing your intervals on the heavy bag or on the dummy, or setting games within your shadow boxing or heavy bag drills just to mimic what you would in an MMA gym. That was my way of saying, like, "Hey, these are better alternatives than just jumping on the VersaClimber or jumping on the stationary bike." Because if you looked at the heart rate response, it would be identical.

Like if you looked at two pages of heart rate responses, you couldn't tell which one was general versus specific. And if that's the case, why would you not go with the specific one?

Geoffrey Chiu32:28

And I think that that transition as well, obviously, having to get on and off the ground, having to go from some kind of isometric grappling position, standing up, then having to feel loose again to throw strikes and things like that. I guess that's something that can be trained, and you can—again, conditioning, obviously more than just energy systems. You're conditioning yourself for those demands that you might encounter in the cage.

And you've been playing around with wearable resistance, correct?

James de Lacey33:01

With the last few months. But I did. With the Leatomoov Tech. It was good. I've used it with two or three athletes—two athletes, I've used it with two athletes. They've given me good feedback, but it wasn't like a big game changer.

Geoffrey Chiu33:01

I imagine it would—go ahead.

James de Lacey33:01

No, you—

I imagine it would be more beneficial for maybe cyclical sports where we're trying to get percentage increases in movement efficiency and biomechanics, but I've used it with primarily strikers. And yeah, the biggest effect we saw was like a good potentiation effect after using them for two or three rounds. We took them off and their kicks were flying and that lasted about, I'd say, two more rounds, so like eight, ten minutes or so.

Geoffrey Chiu34:19

Interesting. I mean, if you're talking long-term training effects, if you did that long enough, I'm sure that that would potentially have some benefit down the line. I know if anyone's listening, it's pretty non-invasive. If you load it correctly, it's really non-invasive. It doesn't change technique much, if at all.

James de Lacey34:19

Yeah, I think there's this—I've said this before, but people don't like punching with dumbbells because they think that it changes their form. I used to buy into that but not so much anymore. I don't think striking or grappling is about perfect technique. It's about finding effective technique and then working with it, that range of what is biomechanically efficient for the athlete.

Geoffrey Chiu34:51

Interesting. Yeah, because the striking with dumbbell thing about being too heavy—sure, if you did it all the time. But I think as well, within—obviously if you look at the heavy sled or resistance sprinting research, obviously that was the prevailing thought too back maybe a couple of decades ago, where you shouldn't sprint with more than 10% of your body weight because it changes the way you sprint and that can negatively affect your sprint technique.

And then obviously in the past decade, a lot of research has come out around using 70% of your body weight or even more to essentially improve acceleration, horizontal force, all that kind of stuff and translate to—but you can also argue sprint technique would correlate closer to, let's say, performance outcomes in track and field or field sports, then compared to punching technique.

James de Lacey35:56

That's a good point to combat sports performance outcomes, because we like to think that, okay, if you have great punch technique, that's all that matters. But there's so many tactical and strategical variables in play. That's why people argue all the time, well, do we punch with our hook like this or like this? At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter because different systems and different coaches will teach you different things.

And it's—I think our job as coaches to understand, okay, where are the commonalities between all these training systems, and then we get our principles from there and we work from there.

Geoffrey Chiu36:30

So are you using, say, dumbbell shadow boxing at all? Does that form a part of your program, and if so why, and if not, why?

James de Lacey36:30

I do it myself. I hold these small eggs. They're probably like a pound each. I don't prescribe it, but if an athlete came up to me and said, "Hey, can I add weights to my shadow boxing rounds?", I'd be like, "Yeah, go ahead. Just keep it under, let's say, two pounds." Okay?

A lot of MA is about feel. It feels different to hold a bit of weight, whether that gives you a physiological effect or not. I can hold it for three rounds and then do unweighted for another three rounds, and that's going to give me different feedback. And liking that feedback is enough for me to be like, "Okay, let's keep it." Got it. I don't really need to go deep into research and be like, "Hey, it changes our punch angle by 2°", and "Hey, the research says it doesn't help."

Geoffrey Chiu37:29

Yeah, fair enough. And anyone was interested in learning more about what we're talking about with the Exogen—a few episodes back with Joe Doti, it's—oh, must have been two or three episodes back now, where we do a deep dive into the Exogen suit there.

But what I really—what I think has big good applications, at least within grappling, is the idea of what it potentially—within boxing was the bodysuit during weight cutting, so being able to add the weight back on that you're losing during a weight cut and then still training with it on and training with that weight, and taking it off a couple of weeks or a week or so before and then training without that weight and then just seeing—

James de Lacey38:01

Actually, I've never heard of that.

Geoffrey Chiu38:01

Yeah, so it was—I won't say who did it, but basically it was the guy was training for his first—

James de Lacey38:29

Keeping it secret over here?

Geoffrey Chiu38:29

Yeah, I don't know. I heard his name once and I was like, "Oh, it was that guy," but then—it wasn't a fighter, it was another coach. And so he was running a—I think he was running his first triathlon or ultra or whatever, and as he was training, and as he was losing weight from all the training, he was adding that weight back on with the vest.

And so he would train at his same body weight at the beginning all the way through his prep, and then one or two weeks out he took the vest off, and then just hit [expletive] crazy endurance PBs. He hit PBs based just doing that.

James de Lacey38:54

Well, faster race times, right?

Geoffrey Chiu38:54

Right. And I was like, "Damn." That's like thinking about the application of that within weight-cutting sports, being able to train—I mean, it's pretty much non-invasive because they're kind of just like sticky things you put on. You could box with that.

James de Lacey39:22

That's one of my biggest philosophies. If we're experimenting with something, it should be non-invasive from a skill expression standpoint. If it doesn't really hurt the fighter and we don't have to change the whole training schedule because of one training modality or method, yeah, I think it's worth to try. And I think that's the arts part of martial arts and combat sports.

Geoffrey Chiu39:53

Nice. Yeah, I mean, literally, that's why I think when sports scientists come into combat sports with very rigid models on what performance should be and we point to the physiology textbooks and all this stuff, I think they're falling a bit short and they're not acknowledging the arts and the culture of combat sports.

Do you think S&Cs in combat sport should have maybe some—or should be at least training the martial arts or have a background in them then? Obviously, that's always a contentious debate within coaching is, you know, should you—whether you need to be—

James de Lacey39:53

Whether you need to be part of that sport.

Geoffrey Chiu40:31

Yeah. Personally, it helps me connect with my athletes. I have more experience with striking sports than I do grappling sports, so even when I train grapplers, I can put together a great strength training program. But in terms of skill development and skill periodization, I feel like I don't have as big of a say, and maybe I could bridge the gap a bit more if I grappled a lot more and I understood all the principles behind submission grappling and wrestling and I competed myself. But that's just not the case.

I don't think it makes you a worse strength coach. You can still understand the demands of the sport really well. But if you're trying to bridge the gap and you're trying to become more than a strength coach—if you're trying to become a performance coach and kind of influence skill development and how the training camp goes—I think it's much better if you have experience in the sport.

James de Lacey41:37

Yeah, no, for sure. And obviously there's different—all sports have different cultures as well. For example, to take a really broad example, like rugby and soccer, I mean, those are two—like those worlds are complete opposites when it comes to training. I mean, I couldn't imagine working in a—with a soccer team or a soccer environment. It would be hell, just like, allergic to all hard training, allergic to weights, allergic to everything in that, versus sport like rugby where, you know, gym is kind of part and parcel with the training there.

So I know what you mean, obviously. And then obviously within combat sports you—I mean, you have slightly different cultures within the different martial arts too, right?

Geoffrey Chiu42:12

Yeah. I mean, it's all a—but the culture tells us a lot and it gives us a starting point. For example, Muay Thai culture, they're not big on heavy lifting, which kind of tells us it's not really needed. It could be used effectively if you know what you're doing, but these Thai fighters aren't winning because they're stronger. Exactly. They're not squatting more than another guy. They're building strength within the clinching drills and striking and just building years and years of volume.

James de Lacey42:39

That's the always the interesting thing I've come across this so much with different athletes. Guys who are complete dog [expletive] in the gym, you know, lift [expletive] all, and then they come into wrestling-based drills, grappling drills, clinching stuff, and man, they get a hold of you and you cannot move. And it's completely different.

And you think, "Okay, this guy can't even squat 100 kilos, barely bench presses, barely does his gym work," but then when he's out there doing that stuff, it's just like—it's like that farm boy strength, right? Like, they just come and they have this rugged strength where they can do anything to anyone. They just can't lift the weights.

Geoffrey Chiu43:39

Yeah. We categorize squats and deadlifts as strength training, but we consider clinching, which is also a display of strength, we just consider that, "Oh, that's skills. That's not strength." That's not strength training, even though our muscles are contracting the same way.

James de Lacey43:39

Categorizations. Yeah, true. What's your take on the—I guess you could say it's a trend within—there's probably more of a trend within grappling and stuff now than it is within striking—

I think striking kind of went through its phase of—I mean, it's probably still going on—but went through a phase of real specific style strength training. But for grapplers, you see a lot of it now with jiujitsu becoming so popular. You see a lot of stuff like, yeah, I mean, I've seen guys trying to be in open guard and they got bands in their knees, or dudes being in open guard or being like in de la Riva and some guy pushing on his leg as an isometric.

I saw that the other day. Just guard stuff and people being in these positions and then using that as part of their strength training. What's your take on that?

Geoffrey Chiu44:43

I'd say my general take on special exercises in general—I mean, you can look at the Bondarchuk pyramid and see the definition of special developmental exercises. We're either working the skills in parts or we're trying to overload the skill. I think the problem is when Bondarchuk made these definitions, it was—correct me if I'm wrong—for track and field athletes, which were mainly power sports for hammer throws and discus.

So any percentile increase in strength relates—or sorry, I would say transfers—more to performance outcomes than it would in combat sports. In combat sports, let's say in submission grappling, we're not looking at how hard you can close your knees together and then we're measuring your adductor strength. It's about leverages and position. So again, the big tactical and strategical element in combat sports kind of negates any small percentage increases in physical abilities.

James de Lacey46:02

Yeah, for sure. And I think a good example, when you're talking about it's not how hard you squeeze your legs together, if someone's—if you're in some kind of guard and someone moves your legs, you need to have the technical knowledge to be, okay, he does this, I do this, or I'm doing something to stop him doing that. And that very rarely comes down to how strong you are in a certain position. You should be able to flow and move between positions.

Geoffrey Chiu46:02

Exactly. But I would want my athletes to maintain or increase their minimum level of strength just so it's in the bag. But it's all about how you apply those physical abilities.

James de Lacey46:31

Yeah, for sure. And if anyone's interested in the Bondarchuk pyramid that Geoffrey referenced, if you go back, Maron Bingus, one of the older episodes, he dives into that. He trained under Bondarchuk with his hammer throwing, so he goes deep into that. And also with Nick Garcia, not too long ago too, he uses the Bondarchuk system, he's friends with Maron. He uses the Bondarchuk system with his high school athletes and dives into—we dive into some stuff there as well.

But man, I think we covered most of the topics here, Jeffrey. If anyone wants to find you and follow what you're doing and everything, where can they do that?

Geoffrey Chiu47:27

I'm most active on Instagram, GCP Training. I have a lot of articles on my website, which are kind of old, but GC Performance Training.com. You'll find the ebooks, you'll find the programs there. I'm working hard to release a couple of ebooks, a lot of combat sports programs, S&C programs, some skill development in there as well. But from I'd say March till the end of the year, I'm going to be releasing three or four projects.

James de Lacey47:27

Nice. And I bought Jeffrey's first book he had on—his combat sports preparation is really good. So if anyone's interested in that, that covers a lot of the things Jeffrey talked about here too with his philosophy. So that's definitely worth it.

Geoffrey Chiu48:04

Volume 2 is going to blow it away. I've had three—I would have had, by the time I released Volume 2, I would have had three years more to build experience.

James de Lacey48:04

Exactly. Nice. Awesome. All right, well thanks for coming on, Jeffrey. I really appreciate it.

Geoffrey Chiu48:33

Thanks for having me, man.