How "Super Circuits" Will Make You Into An Unstoppable Boxer (SSOF Ep 139)

Edward Baker2:19

So bi-weekly, and the punch force once a week just logistically.

James de Lacey2:19

Are you seeing any trends currently?

Edward Baker2:19

Yeah, so we're seeing fairly typical. So we're five, yeah, this is week five of the eight-week training, which is divided into two phases. And typically that first four weeks, I see improvement in everything because we're doing heavy strength training, complex training, lots of aggressive jumps. And nobody's started cutting weight yet, and fatigue hasn't caught up.

So the first two or three weeks, there's a modest improvement in the force, in the RSI, in the jump height, and the punch force. I think there's a learning effect too, right? Because they're hitting a padded, but they're still hitting an inertially relevant force plate. So then maybe the first couple are tentative, then it's increased. I'm getting five punches and five jumps every time, so I can look at the variability.

But yeah, pretty typical profile. They go up for a couple weeks. Now it's starting to bite, so now they're cutting weight, the sparring is longer rounds, they're tired. So I'm seeing now a reduction in the forces produced and a reduction in the outcome in the jump height.

James de Lacey3:24

But the punch force is stable or increasing then?

Edward Baker3:24

Interesting. Interesting. Okay.

James de Lacey3:24

Does that influence your training programs at all then, currently?

Edward Baker3:53

Well, this is where this is the downside of the researcher who's also the coach. The complete bias of the whole thing, because I see that and I'm like, the S&C is working, I know what I'm doing, they should be doing those loaded jumps, and look, it's underpinning their performance. So naturally, I'm making that assumption that by choosing the correct programming, we've managed to preserve that neuromuscular performance.

It's probably to do with the fact that they are boxers and specialized in punching. So even if they're tired, where they're not specialized jumpers, they're not specialized at jumping, so maybe they're seeing a dip there. But they're still able to produce the outcome. Of course, I'm not measuring how they're doing it. With the jump, with the force, we get to see, are they taking longer in eccentric phase? Is that where the fatigue's showing up?

I'm just getting the outcome with the punch because of the logistical constraints. But that's all I'm interested in as well. Is the outcome? So at the moment, they're keeping that stable or improving it slightly, which is good, because we've trimmed a couple kilos off. So they've been able to maintain punch force even as they're cutting weight.

James de Lacey4:57

I guess that's why you may not have the time or the equipment to do 3D cameras and start to look at, are they winding up more? Are they sitting down more?

Edward Baker5:23

This is what, if I had an eighth day in the week, right? That's what I would be doing. That's the gold standard. Exactly as you said, force plate under each foot, full body kinematic marker, 3D camera. But with a normal budget of what I'm working with and the time constraints, this is not feasible.

And I'm taking my research in a more applied direction for that exact reason. I was in a rabbit hole trying to bring to bear all the kit. You can't get it to talk to each other unless it's all made by the same manufacturer, too. So these were some of the issues I was having. So I've gone in a much more applied direction because that's really what I'm interested in anyway, is tweaking performance.

James de Lacey5:51

Was there much training? Were they working with you before coming into camp?

Edward Baker6:19

Yeah. Yeah, okay. So they were doing a lot of the stuff anyway, and then it just ramped up from the start of the fight camp. And that's when you started even more coming to see me every week?

James de Lacey6:19

I mean, there are different levels in their career.

Edward Baker6:19

So one's ten and oh, and the other one's had his professional debut. The one who's ten and oh has been training with me for over four years, consistently. And the other fighter for like six months. So it's quite interesting to see the differences there. And the idea is, these via these small intensive case studies, I could build a body of work that I can apply to other athletes.

James de Lacey6:43

Do you see the differences between them in these tests as you go through fight camp in your jump metrics?

Edward Baker6:43

Yeah, the forces and the jump height, for sure. And probably indirectly, the stronger you are, the more resilient to the week-in, week-out fatigue you are. Okay. So the bigger strength base seems to, it's common sense, but the day-to-day training is taking less out of those stronger athletes.

James de Lacey7:16

Yeah, there's actually some good research on that. It was a while ago, showing strong athletes were able to handle higher workloads. I can't remember what the paper was. I'd have to dig it up somewhere.

But I actually wanted to, you posted something recently, and I titled this video on that thing on your super circuits. Yeah, super circuits. That look damn, honestly, they look damn hard, too, and I was like, my legs are going just watching it. So explain to myself and the audience what these super circuits are and what you try to achieve out of them.

Edward Baker7:47

Yeah, so I've completely unapologetically about calling it super circuits. Often I'll say there's no magic exercise, all that [expletive]. But these are magic. These are my circuits, super circuits.

So yeah, I said in the post that I developed this working with wheelchair rugby. So worked with wheelchair rugby for GB for the Rio cycle and then carried on with a couple of players for the Tokyo cycle, where we won a gold medal. And that sport is interesting. You've got spinal injured athletes, and then you've got athletes without a spinal injury but a different type of impairment.

And what you have with athletes with a spinal injury to the neck is that the autonomic nervous system is different. And what it really means is their heart rate cannot go as high as somebody without the spinal injury. They're limited to about 125 beats per minute. Okay. So that stroke volume and that ability to deliver aerobic energy system is compromised, and therefore they're heavily reliant on peripheral muscle endurance.

So I needed a training method that was going to build extreme endurance in the muscles of the arms and shoulders for these players. And it also happened to be that particular athletes we had would stay on for the whole game. There's rolling subs in that game, but they would put in a longer shift, and they're working at a more continuous rather than a more intermittent rate.

So I got to practice on them as guinea pigs, and we did some absolutely horrific long time sets of bench presses and bench pulls and chin-ups.

James de Lacey9:46

Dips, stuff like that. And I work with different work to rest ratios. There's not a whole bunch of literature on it, but there is some, and just taking some Common Sense guidelines, and then I've transferred it into boxing and adapted it, adapted the exercises for boxers and particularly for that elastic athletic quality that we really want to see, that ability to sustain that bouncing, athletic, very efficient movement pattern.

I can walk you through how we do it, but that's the background and the context to it.

Edward Baker9:46

Yeah, yeah, definitely. And I think the, I guess say, the avid listeners of the podcast will understand what you're talking about when you're talking about these peripheral adaptations in the muscle and what you're targeting there. Do maybe just before we go into what the circuits involve, maybe let's just go into what makes these circuits more peripherally targeted versus, I guess you say, centrally around the heart?

James de Lacey10:48

So using exercises with a long range motion, so like a real deep squat, things like that, and using the right work to rest period and the right Cadence, so the right amplitude of the jump and, like, or the movement, the exercise, whatever it may be. And we're typically using a one to one work to rest ratio, so 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off, or similar. And then this focuses the effort more on the muscle and the muscle tendon working together. More legs and less lungs, if you like, or more arms or shoulders, less lungs.

And there's a rhythmic Cadence. It's something that's continuous, repeatable, cyclic, so that the athlete can time the breathing and the contract-relax nature of it as well. And again, that makes it, puts it more on, brings that the relative heart rate down, but it increases Demand on the muscle. And there's a skill component to it as well as a raw physical component. There's a timing to it as well.

Edward Baker11:56

One more question before we go into the circuits. Because some of them, I guess, are more bouncy and more elastic, are you, would that now make it less muscular because you have that elastic component to it?

James de Lacey11:56

Yeah, well, that's the eventual goal, right, is to get to the point where you built a golf ball, or a rubber ball, where the minimal amount of muscular work is being done to achieve the same external mechanical output or movement. So yeah, that's right. And so you could think of it as on a Continuum from running on Sand, where there's just no recovery and it's all muscular work, right up to doing pogos or bounding stiff track in spikes, where you've got the maximum amount of recovery from the ground.

The muscle almost quasi asymmetric, and you're getting as much recovery from the tendon. And you need a really good training base before you can get there. It's not for everybody. You have to be very strong before you can do it.

Edward Baker13:03

All right, run us through the circus then. How does it start and how does it progress? And, oh, and exercise examples would be awesome as well. Give you some example exercises.

James de Lacey13:03

Yeah, so what I'll do is pair, I'll do a lower body followed by an upper body, all right? And so that is going to increase some stress on the heart because it's going to have to shove the blood to different areas of the body. And we'll use some total body exercise as well.

So we do some Dynamic jump squats, but they'll be deep on the balls of the feet, and they might involve jumping over an object or turning a little bit in the air. You can begin with a basic squat jump in place, and then you can add more of a coordination demand to it. And they're sub maximal, right, they're sub maximal.

But I'm looking for, if we're doing 30 seconds, again we might start with 15 to 20 and then build up over a period of weeks. But I'm looking for around one rep per second. So I'm looking at 25 to 30 squat jumps, and they've got to be a full range in terms of depth across that time period.

So, might squat jump, and then we'll do like a plyometric or a stretch shortening cycle press up variation in, you know, in that Instagram reel I posted, some continuous press up base movement, particularly stretching that tricep tendon across the shoulder. We'll have something Vertical Press, so that might be a squat to press. Some an upper body pull, now whether that's a chin up or a body row, that again has that elastic and repeated quality to it. The rowing ones are harder to get the right Cadence. You can use banded attachment or a cable if you have a heavy enough one.

And then we'll have maybe something a little bit more trunk with the land mine or again with a cable or something like that where there's that whole body tension, almost ischemic. And then you got to work the muscles in environment as well. Might put pogos in there or tuck jumps, other dynamic jumping or lunging exercises as well.

And we'll typically do four to six exercises, 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off, and we'll do four to six rounds. So it's 22 to 30 minutes of continuous activity, but on that 30 on, 30 off, and building efficiency. So I'm really interested that the final round looks the same or close to as the first round. It's one of these ones where you don't want to be emptying your tank early and then it just degenerates. The idea is to prolong, almost like extensive fly actually.

Edward Baker15:49

It reminds me a lot of fern gamb League circuit. It's pretty much the same principle, but his is all legs and it's absolutely killer. Because it's the actual leg, the full leg circuit is five rounds, body weight squat, 20 reps, and you, as you mentioned, every try and get Cadence every second. Just forward lunge, 20 reps, step up, 20 reps, and then 10 jump squats. And then you do that five rounds, no rest.

I still haven't been able to complete it. I have to go through the progression. Even going through the progression a lot, dude, just lower body tortures you. But it's one of his, I guess, work capacity things he does before. Like, if you can do that, you can do all the different plyometrics and stuff. And it's a pretty cool little thing. It's just pretty much the same principles as what you've got going there, which is really cool.

I guess with those example exercises then, how do you, are you changing them often, or are they running the same circuit, say, for four weeks?

James de Lacey16:51

I've changed them. The slightly psychotic aspect of the S&C coach is like, how much can they take? Like, how far can I go with this?

So yeah, I began thinking of a couple of athletes that have kind of, I do this with on on a regular basis, regular being like the first half of a training camp. We started with much less taxing variations. So like, rather than jumping, it might be just a low amplitude squats, holding a kettle bell, doing a wide stance squat, maybe getting 25 reps like that, but without displacing the center of mass as far as you would with a jump, and just a regular press up, and more regular exercises.

And then increasing the, basically I want to see that the center of mass go further vertically for every rep, or I want to see bigger amplitude movement. I want to see more of the stretch shortening cycle happen repeatedly. That's how I increase intensity. And so it's not, I've got athletes that can do 15, 16 pull-ups in that 30 second window, can do that six for six sets.

Edward Baker18:16

Damn, okay.

James de Lacey18:16

Then you've got, you know, that your shoulder girdle, your biceps, your elbows, they're healthy, they're resilient. They can stand up to the pad work, the sparring, all that stuff.

Edward Baker18:16

Are you trying to use mainly these ballistic star exercises? And actually, you mentioned sometimes you do squat and press. Are they mainly trying to get the ballistic stuff so you can get that tendon more involved?

James de Lacey18:52

Yeah. So with my, and that's where, you mentioned earlier, you've definitely got your athletes are on this Continuum, aren't they, from more springy to less springy. So depending on the athlete and what we want to achieve, it might be that I'll provide more of the stretch shortening cycle type activities because I want to promote that elasticity in that person. But perhaps if that's not them or that's not their style, we might look at a little bit more of that, almost static.

And certainly for Grapplers, I'm going to bring that stuff in as well because that's more in the nature type of work. So yeah, it depends. I mean, there's an argument for, do you bring up, say, the plyometric capability of

Edward Baker19:49

Somebody who's lacking it or do you make their strength a super strength? And I think that depends on the athlete themselves and where they're at. Is this a 18, 19 year old, relatively young training age, so you need to improve everything? Or is this somebody who's nearing the end of their career and they need to kind of turn their strengths into super strengths? It depends on the person.

James de Lacey19:49

How often are you doing these circuits a week and where do they fit in the training week?

Edward Baker20:12

Once a—I mean, typically once a week. You can do it twice a week if there's a serious need for that kind of muscular endurance, you think that's something that's holding the athlete back. But I found once a week works well and there's a visible improvement week on week, typically measured by the number of reps in that same time episode and the consistency, quality of the movement.

So, put this early in the week in the morning, first training session of the day. If boxing's in the afternoon, it would replace a run. It would replace a run.

And then we'll put a strength power session elsewhere in the week. The week starts to fill up, so you've got to be smart where you put things. And I get my guys to run less in camp and this time of the year to be honest, do it all—all the treadmill is what I recommend, just from the temperature and kind of upper respiratory infection risk perspective, because you can govern everything a bit more.

And so I've got them down to maybe one or two runs, kind of interval sprints. Those tend to take it out of the legs more actually than the circuit, so I can afford to put the circuit a little closer to important things or sparring and maybe would put the running elsewhere and give 48 hours of recovery.

James de Lacey21:10

That was going to be my other question with this as well. So how much of this circuit—or does it replace much of the actual, say, strength and power station you mentioned or your other conditioning? Because obviously you're doing a lot of your plyometric work in this, so does that change your safe strength power station quite a bit?

Edward Baker21:40

Yeah, so if I've got—again, depends how strong you are. So for the athletes that are strong enough, then this, the circuit and the flyers that you can do kind of elsewhere, are intense enough, enough of a stimulus that we've even left kind of traditional strength training for six, seven weeks in the part, and the athlete has not detrained. They've maintained, like, maximum strength when we've come back to test it after the fight.

That is not the case for athletes with a lower training age and a lower level of kind of absolute strength. So for them, we'll have to keep a heavy strength training session somewhere else in the week to support that.

And so again, it's depending on the athlete. Those that need more sparring or wanted maybe the sparring twice a week and they're doing 10 rounds, 12 rounds even, I'm going to scale back the really—I'm going to scale back the volume of SSC to allow them to perform in the sparring.

So I typically run that circuit that we mentioned once a week for four weeks, first half of camp, and then I'll change it slightly—for the, well, not slightly—I'll change it for the second half of camp. The volume is down, the intensity is up, the rest period is up, and it's much more kind of a peaking plyometric circuit.

So it's typically then one day will be the circuit and then the other day will be like a strength power, like traditional lifting session. And those are kind of two big strength training days.

The other day is just like a, what you would recognize as a pretty traditional full body. So lower body strength lift, pretty much always train in complex pairs, so trap bar deadlift and a jump or a squat, a jump, a bench press and a throw of some form in that session.

James de Lacey23:35

Yeah, don't think I remember the last time I did anything other than complex training really with fighters, just because it's time efficient.

Edward Baker24:06

Yeah, if you got if you got three, four days a week to get in the gym and lift, like fantastic, go for it, do more traditional, get more volume in. But the reality is I might get to see—I might get 45 minutes in the gym with them, or they've got 45 minutes if they're following me remotely and following a program remotely. So it has to be most efficient way.

James de Lacey24:06

What's the kind of minimal volume you're looking at in some of these sessions? I think some people get caught up with, "Oh, they need to do four plus sets of certain exercises," and you start to get into these high volume, what a bodybuilding routine. So what's that kind of minimum volume you're looking at?

Edward Baker24:30

In my experience, you need a lot less than you think or that you read. And I would say the minimal effective dose such that you progress is the one that you should prescribe.

And so for the great majority of people, I might prescribe, say, five sets of three to five reps in a major compound lift. But I say to them, the last set counts. So it's a couple of light warmup sets and then progressively increasing, and most people can PB every week that way for like 6 months, 9 months without interruption, because they're not meatheads like us maybe that are training 15 years and you got to sweat your guts out to lift an extra two kilos.

It's not like that. They're boxers or fighters, so they've got loads of other training going on, and their neuromuscular system is not very well developed in the weight room. So they've got this massive wind of gains. And to be honest, if you could just add five kilos to your major, your last set, week in, week out for a year, then you're going to enjoy uninterrupted progress and it's going to transfer into the sport. And I don't see a reason to do more volume for the sake of doing volume.

James de Lacey25:37

So it's like one main working set then, basically? Like one top set you're kind of working towards?

Edward Baker26:05

Yeah, you get—I mean, you're obviously getting—if you got your stuff under it, yeah, yeah, getting 25 kind of reps there, but and they're good quality reps. But yes, if you beat last week's weight by 2 and a half kilos and it's still like an RPE 8, you've got a couple left in the tank and you feel good, then that to me is progress and you're triggering an adaptation. And there's no need to kind of go beyond that.

There are occasions if you might more aggressively chase a strength adaptation, but you've got to balance what is taking out of the athlete, what is taking away from them elsewhere in the week.

James de Lacey26:31

For sure. To maybe just give—you mentioned obviously you do like a squat and a jump and then like a bench and a throw—is there anything else in that session for that last strength session?

Edward Baker26:58

Yeah, so I might do three exercises. So the sessions this week have been regular warm up, right, and then we'll do trap bar deadlift, and probably two to three reps, and it's quite heavy. And the athletes that I've trained from, thinking back to Tuesday morning of this week, a little bit more advanced. So we might be up at kind of seven or eight sets there, because it's going to take a couple of sets—your absolute strength is greater, takes you a few sets to kind of get up to the correct weight.

So we might do, say, three reps trap bar deadlift, we'll rest 30 seconds, we'll do repeated counter movement jumps with a barbell. And following a really good paper out of Brazil from a couple of years ago, if you just stick an LPT on a broomstick and do some counter movement jumps and look at the peak power, you should add a little bit of weight and just keep going until you maximize the peak power. As soon as you put too much on, it goes back down again, you stop.

If you just want to—that kind of 15, 20 kilos is around the sweet spot for most. So if you're a little bit lighter, if your athletes maybe 56 kilos or under, okay, you go to 10. If your athletes like 80 kilos or over, maybe you go to 25. But for most athletes, a 15 to 20 kilo barbell for kind of five to eight aggressive kind of movement jumps is around the sweet spot where they maximize mechanical power.

So we'll do that, rest another 30 seconds, and then we'll go to a drop jump, like a 30 to a 45 cm box. We'll do a drop jump. I typically drop jump to a higher box because I feel that it constrains the time better, it forces the athlete to project vertically better. So it'll be heavy trap bar, loaded counter movement jump, unloaded drop jump, and we might do between four to eight sets depending on the level of the athlete, how prepared they are.

For upper body, will do some kind of heavy press.

James de Lacey29:28

Technically competent with good shoulders, I might even do a push press or something like that or even like a jerk. Boxers with those shoulders are few and far between. I might do just in terms of achieving that overhead position, I do like a banded bench press. I like an Arthur Berto BF style bench press with the pad on the bar so that we be as aggressive with that coupling between the eccentric and concentric phases.

Like a banded bench press or a bench press throw, and then a couple of medicine ball throws, and we might do a double arm and a rest and then a single arm more like a punching position, or we might do a drop press up and then progress towards a med ball so increase the velocity as we get closer to the fight.

And then for a pull we might do like a weighted chin up or a bench pull. And then we might do like a bench pull and release, so body decline row you pull yourself up, you release and you catch again. So something like that where we can get similar movement speeds to that upper body pressing, the highest velocity that we can get basically.

Nice. And that's your three complex session, 45 minutes done?

Yeah, that's it. And then got time, we do some neck and some torso work at the end, or maybe carpal or wrist, some kind of robustness which I think trying to get everybody to do this as a matter of course, week in week out, they either do it themselves if they're disciplined enough or time I'll direct that and make sure they're doing that. And again I like plenty of variety with that's concerned. So with the complexes again depends on the athlete, you don't need to do the same exercise week in week out.

I think you can do a pin squat, you can do a box squat, safety bar squat, trap bar deadlift. There's no reason to necessarily do the same thing week in week out. Again they're not powerlifters or weightlifters, you're looking at expressing force against the ground with maximal intent, so I do think a bit of variety is good too.

That's true. And you mentioned obviously you do the seven weeks and you have the one week, how does the program change there during that taper period?

Yeah, eight weeks and then a week's taper. So I'll start to bring it down in week eight in terms of the volume, so pretty typical guidelines. I'll probably reduce the volume by like 50% in week eight but maintain the intensity, maybe even go for a PB, but just bring the number of reps down, maybe the number of sets down.

And then really in my mind the taper begins 10 to 11 days out from fight night. I don't always tell the athlete because fight week is fight week and it's just like that's set. I train right up to the Saturday before the Saturday I fight, and then the seven days before the fight is fight week and that's where the taper begins. But there's some research that we get that wrong, and in fact that if you athlete is tested after the fight they're still super compensating in some of their physical test, even like aerobic capacity is going up four, five, six days after the fight, and this suggests that they just do as much training as they could tolerate for the fight camp and then they take the foot off the gas seven days before.

But they got to lose a load of weight in that time and in fact they've accumulated a lot of fatigue that needs to be dissipated. So I'm starting mine 10, 11 days out, so starting to reduce the volume of like heavy eccentric work, reduce the overall training volume. If we're doing interval sprints, bringing the number of reps down. And then during that fight week, much more about recovery, regeneration.

Again, like not tearing your muscles down, not doing too much eccentric work, not having any muscle buffering, so all that's done by that point. So making sure we're not creating metabolic fatigue or things in the muscle where you're getting that burning, aching sensation, because you just want that recovery. So short and sharp alactic power.

Bringing your, I'm a big proponent of doing your fight warm up every day your fight week, the one you're going to use with your coach with the pads, etc., backstage, doing that and bringing it a little bit later in the day so it gets closer and closer to the time you're going to fight.

Nice. I like that. Yeah, as you mentioned, you can do much less than you think and still progress. And as mentioned during the taper period, people, obviously it's a mental game, right? Because they be like, "I got to, I feel like I haven't done enough or I haven't trained in four days or haven't lifted or whatever it is in four days. It's Thursday and you fight Saturday or whatever. Oh, I should do something today otherwise I'm not going to be ready." It's balancing that out, which is probably the hardest part of the actual taper, is actually tapering.

I totally agree. It's mental torture cuz you've been focused on doing as much as possible, and to the fighter, discipline is training hard. But then you get to that, you can't get fitter in the last week, but you can [expletive] it up, so you need to make sure that you don't. So yeah, the discipline changes.

And in fight week it's leaving the gym feeling like you're ready to do loads more but you're not going to. Sticking with everything else that you need to do, the weight cutting and so forth. But it is very difficult because you feel, obviously the more recovered you feel, the more ready to go, got this excess energy, and the nerves, everything of the approaching fight. So yeah, it becomes more difficult to manage that.

How close is your last session to the actual fight?

Well, we'll still lift, if they're fighting Saturday we lift on the Monday, but it'll be more like a priming session. So if you've been used to 15 minute warm up and then eight sets of three to five reps of three exercises in a complex, then we're going to do a similar warm up but then we're going to abbreviate that session. So we're going to be working at 75% to 80% of the weight she were lifting week in week out, and we're doing one, two reps, and we're doing maybe two working sets.

So it's enough to stimulate the nervous system to feel really sharp, powerful, get that tap into that feeling. There should be that intoxicating feeling of being how strong that you've built across your camp, feel that way, but you're not creating any fatigue because your training tolerance is up here, and you're just introducing a very low level stimulus in terms of the volume. So you still lift on the Monday.

We might do some non-impact short intervals, assault bike, like six second peak power with plenty of rest on the Tuesday or Wednesday at the latest. But the rest of it is shadow boxing, technical training, some fast pads, that kind of stuff.

Walk me through the conditioning as well, because we touched a little obviously with the circuits, but you talked about the various running and interval sprints you're doing. Are you also gearing these trying to, I guess, bias the peripheral adaptations as you mentioned earlier? That was the main topic around these circuits. Or are you looking to maybe just do the opposite to what your circuits are doing and maybe go more central?

Well, it's always, I think it's always, Andrew will correct me, it's always a bit peripheral and a bit central. It's never really completely one or the other. But certainly, funny laugh, Andre just commented saying great to see it on the podcast, so there you go. He might be able to contribute to the comments, and they're certainly following his advice and the advice of others in that space.

In camp, the goal for my athletes, the ones that I'm working closely with, is that they're never not training. So when they're off camp, they're using that opportunity to get the systemic adaptations. To increase the left ventricle, to proliferate mitochondria with their more steady state stuff, they can use that time to do that. And they're entering like the eight weeks with a really good aerobic base.

And then we've got this opportunity when the volume of boxing or sports training goes up and is more important, we've got that opportunity to not spend so much time pounding the pavement, but to be more time efficient and use these super maximal sprints or high intensity intervals and get those more peripheral adaptations. Which, it does seem to spin up quite quickly, four to six weeks in terms of being able to create adaptations.

Obviously difficult to hold on to if for no other reason than who the hell wants to do 30 second super maximal bike sprints all year round? Like, no. Only a mad man would want to.

To do that, right? And it's very difficult to actually get the psychological intent to really do that. Truly, the intensity is required. That's why I think it belongs in the context of a defined training camp period. And it's hard in the moment, but as we know, it's not taking as much out of you as running, say, five, six, seven miles a day.

So yeah, I'm looking at biasing those adaptations within that window of time. We do still run. I'm a big fan of what Joel Jameson would call a cardiac power interval. That's really one to two minutes above 90% of max heart rate, and then recover to 125 beats per minute, however long that takes, and repeat that. So six to ten reps. Do that on the treadmill so that I can see the speed and incline and see some progress there. And I think that's been very, very effective for my guys.

But that is hard too, and that takes it out of the legs, right? So that's taking it out of the legs a little more than the assault bike or the stationary bike sprints. What it's very good for, apart from the adaptations both centrally and peripherally, is the control of the breathing, which is a major thing. Again, no one really talks about, but mastering your own breathing rate and having the feedback of your heart rate and learning to control your breathing and bring your heart rate down, ideally in a minute or less, because that's the break that you get, this is absolutely pivotal for performance.

Edward Baker40:51

On that topic, are you doing any what do they call, resisted breathing, those devices where—what do they call them, lung trainers or whatever?

James de Lacey40:51

Yeah, my mate's got one there you go. Yeah, did the Power Breathe. We did, funnily enough, going back to wheelchair, we did a pilot study using the Power Breathe because, again, with the interruption of the spinal cord at the cervical level, the person hasn't got full access to diaphragmatic breathing, inspiratory muscles around your rib cage and stuff. So we looked at can we increase the tidal flow with the Power Breathe. And the short story is we didn't really get anywhere with it. I don't know much about—I don't know any published studies. I'm sure there are some, but no, I don't use resisted breathing.

What I do do is act like a complete madman and demonstrate what I want in terms of the deep breathing, right? So the real forced inhale through the nose, a brief hold, and then a long, slow exhale through the mouth. So obviously what do you want to do when you're running at 20 kilometers an hour on the treadmill and you jump your feet to the side is kind of gasp, like a deer that's being chased, right?

And you've got this real high sympathetic tone and the deep, shallow breathing. And that's the urge, right? But you can overcome it, and so you can get control. And as soon as you can regulate your breathing and particularly focus on the long exhale, you're going to see the heart rate dropping so fast. And it does recover. And once the athlete gets it, they're like, "Wow, this is amazing." And then they can take that into training and sparring.

And everyone that's got it that I've showed this to has reported back that it's a game changer in that one-minute rest, or even 30-second rest in sparring, because it allows them to bring the heart rate under control. And as we know, if you're inducing that more parasympathetic tone, now you can take on information from your coach, you can think about your tactics, you can be more present and in the moment and in less of a panic state. And the more you do that, the more you're in control. So this is a real performance lever, is this breath control.

Edward Baker43:11

Yeah. How does your conditioning look then, progressing through that five or camp? You mentioned some of the bike sprints, you mentioned some of these one to two minute runs. How does that look as you go through?

James de Lacey43:11

So we'll do the one-minute intervals on the tread. My ideal, just my ideal, it's one minute in on the treadmill, and that's one minute above 90%. So it's going to take you a little while to get there, particularly couple of reps. Then you hold above 90 for the minute, and then you recover to 125. Now I'll do that once a week for the full eight weeks.

We might start with six to eight reps, we'll get up to ten reps, even twelve, and then we'll bring it down again, maybe six reps in week eight. So ideally that's once a week. And then we'll do similar to Andrew's protocol, right? So 30 seconds max effort on—I prefer an assault bike—and then we'll have three to four minutes complete rest, and we'll do that three to five times once a week. Maybe twice, if I can persuade it twice a week, but we're seeing some results with doing that once a week.

And I also like more of a lactic power sprints, so get a max wattage, six-second effort on the assault bike, and then the athlete has to hit 95% of that in subsequent six-second efforts. And we'll start with a longer rest—we'll be over a minute—and then we'll decrease the rest. And we'll do that once a week across the camp as well.

And then we'll have a recovery cardio session as well. And if they like running, they want to go and do steady state, but that one I'll say, breathe through your nose or just keep it at conversational pace. Or my preferred would be a mixture of different things, so run for five minutes, row for five minutes, ski erg for five minutes, just kind of—yeah, so that you're stimulating, just getting more blood flow into more muscles if you're using it for the purposes of regeneration. So that would be my ideal.

Edward Baker45:07

Yeah, also gives you some variation when you're doing that. You're not doing potentially going overuse from sitting on a bike for an hour or running for an hour. You can at least spread it around.

James de Lacey45:07

Exactly right. And if you're running—if you're running every day or a lot, the guys are running four or five days a week—yes, it's a great tool, but one of the things, they get better and better at running, they get more and more efficient at running, just like your circuits, they get better and better at your circuits. Yeah, they've been doing that for years, right?

So the point is then it's like what? It's becoming harder and harder to stress the cardiovascular system or the capillary network. You're so efficient. So again, mixing it up, if you're trying to stress the cardiovascular system, is probably a good idea, because you're not as efficient, perhaps, at rowing or something, so you're going to get more of an effect there. Yeah, the circuit is exactly right.

I'll do that for four weeks and I change it, so the second four weeks looks different and it's much more explosive. And it's closer to what you'd recognize as a tabata, six to ten seconds of max effort, 15 to 30 seconds of active rest. That's usually just very light shadow boxing or moving around. And we'll do that for four to six minutes using two different exercises, and we'll do four to six rounds of that, but with long rest in between.

Edward Baker46:48

Interesting. So that's that second block of your super circuit, then, is two exercises? It's just like a super set, instead of the four to six?

James de Lacey46:48

Yes. We might have a loaded movement, jump, or a tuck jump, some kind of repeated explosive jump, and then the same with the upper body, like a clap press-up or some kind like that. So it'd be six to ten seconds of effort, 15 to 30 seconds of active rest. So your squats, a bit of shadow boxing, your press-ups, a bit of shadow boxing. And that will be just repeated, then, four to six minutes.

And we'll take four minutes of passive rest, and then we'll do different variations, so different type of jump, some med ball work. I like med ball work in that as well. So that's much more—that's all maximum intensity. So rather than trying to maintain that consistency in rhythm, it's all about emptying the tank and being as explosive and aggressive as possible, but then switching into that, again, that relaxed state in the active rest.

And again, I see that as a big performance advantage because boxing has those periods where you're on the back foot and you're recovering, but you're disguising your recovery with your movement, with your feints, all that kind of stuff. And you have to be able to relax and recover under pressure.

Edward Baker48:10

No, I like that. Let's pull it. And I think that's everything I had for you today. Where can people follow you, find you, and see what you're doing online?

James de Lacey48:10

Yeah, find me on Instagram at TheFightLabUK.

Edward Baker48:10

Perfect. I'll link that up in the description too for everyone. But I appreciate you coming on and sharing everything.

James de Lacey48:10

Great. Cheers, mate. Thanks very much for the invite, appreciate it.