How To Schedule Your Training For MMA, Boxing, BJJ w/ Meer Awny (SSOF Podcast Ep. 13)

Meer Awny2:57

Okay, you asked me philosophy, so I guess I'll touch on philosophy first and then I guess training methods and my philosophy around training methods. Having been involved in the combat sports culture for a long time, you really can't just tackle programming before you tackle the person. And I'm sure that's the case for all sports, but I'll just speak on what I know the best.

A lot of my philosophy personally starts with connect with the athlete. And before we start any programs, I like to get a good idea of what they're currently doing, what their resources look like, and what the limitations might be present in that area. And then I try to also fill the gaps in that regard. So especially these days I definitely have a lot more of a kind of, I won't call it managerial, but kind of connecting the dots between different professionals, whether it be a physio with a combat athlete, a dietitian with a combat athlete, sports psychologist with a combat athlete, and then stepping back and saying, okay, here's what your program will look like now.

So for all of my fighters, the first thing we do as one of the systems within Ethos is we touch on their schedules with them. So before we add more volume and more intensity into what is usually a crazy workload for combat athletes, we like to really get an idea of what they're doing and why they're doing those things as it is.

Depending on the combat sport you're dealing with, so for example if you're looking at boxing or Muay Thai, there tends to definitely be a lot more frequency of road running. And a lot of the times it really doesn't make sense in terms of when they're doing it. So an example would be some Thai gyms and some boxing gyms that we've worked with, they'll do things like a five to six kilometer run before they've even started their technical training session.

So when we look at it from an energy availability and even just being most resourceful for that training session, it really doesn't make the most optimum sense. It's not the best for performance.

So scheduling is the first thing we touch on. We send all of our athletes, whether it's online or face-to-face, a schedule tracker where we get them to input what their week looks like. We then have a chat with them about what we think could be some changes. And obviously we don't step on anyone's toes in terms of their technical coaches, but if it's things like running and it's not really technical, it's non-specific conditioning, our question is, well, why are you doing this six times a week?

Could we be subbing this for something that's more beneficial, a more low intensity skill session where you're doing some drilling with a partner or on a bag and you can tackle similar training qualities but not necessarily have all the non-specific running adaptations that you're getting? Mind you, I do like running, but not six times a week.

So when we're looking at training methods for combat athletes, the first thing we do is we conduct our testing battery at Ethos with our combat athletes, with any athlete really. And for us it serves as a really nice starting point to work backwards from. Now we generally work backwards from athletes' competitive dates, their context in terms of their training age in the gym, their age in general, all their limitations in terms of injuries, as well as what their testing looks like.

So with those three things, we can get an idea of, okay, well here's what this person needs to work on, being mindful that they have the Commonwealth Games in four months. So that's step one.

Now, in terms of training styles, look, I think a lot of the time the fancy stuff that we see on social media, it serves probably, what, five to 10% of someone's program generally speaking. All of the peaking methods like oscillatory training, VBT peaking, clusters, et cetera, et cetera, and we can touch on that stuff, that all kind of, for us it's four to six weeks out really when we start utilizing those methods more. So it doesn't mean we don't touch on them if they don't have any comps. We might cycle some different training qualities if they don't have any fights coming up.

But look, being combat sports, more often than not the athletes do have some sort of competition that they are getting ready for. When they're amateurs, it's acyclical in nature in that you don't really know when it is. So you kind of need to have all qualities touched on throughout the year whilst obviously focusing on the ones that that person needs the most.

So you'd refer to that as a vertical integration model of programming, where if the person's quite strength deficient, you can have that as the primary training goal, but it doesn't mean that you don't do any plyometric or more rapid force development work at the same time.

For higher level athletes, and I'll use someone like George Kambosos as an example, it's not easier but it's clearer to see what the calendar looks like because things are contracted and things are definitely planned out a lot better now. So prior to the Lopez fight, for example, we knew he was going to be fighting Lopez and we knew the date. Obviate with COVID and changes of fights several times that changed. And then with the Devin Haney fight again, we knew that it was going to be at that time of the year, so we could start planning backwards a lot easier.

With amateur boxers, amateur boxers in an example, these athletes are competing anywhere from one to three times a month depending on the type of competition. So if it's a state, national, or qualifiers type competition, they've got anywhere from one to three fights over a weekend, and then four weeks later they've got another amateur fight. Then they might have an exhibition fight. And so if we're programming and I guess periodizing for that sort of athlete, you can't keep peaking every four weeks because you're not really developing any quality to peak off on the back end.

So for our amateur guys, boxing, MMA, we have a more vertical integrated model where we tackle the key qualities that would benefit that athlete. And being amateur, a lot of the time it's just developing a good foundation of hypertrophy and then developing enough strength to then qualify them to do some more complex training methods like the VBT stuff later. We call it in the industry, what it is, the meat and potatoes, right? So we keep it simple as long as we need to.

I think what we do well is we understand the sport, the context of the sport, quite well just by default of dealing with it every single day. So I personally feel comfortable when to push a little bit more despite there being a comp coming up, because I just have honest conversations and understand that, okay, if you're an amateur boxer and you've got the Commonwealth Games in August and you've got some trial competitions in the leadup to that, I'm not too focused on the results in that fight so long as you're healthy and you're fit and you can come out and we can continue training. Because I know that we've qualified for the Commonwealth Games and the priority is performing at that competition.

Perfect example of that would be one of the current athletes I'm working with. So we've got a few athletes going to the Commonwealth Games this year. One of the athletes I look after, her name is Kay Scott. She's an example of what I just mentioned. So she's had some fights in the last couple of weeks. She's had some camps where we've had to undulate training loads and things to accommodate for travel and increase training intensity with different teams and obviously sparring as well. But the ultimate goal has been to make sure she's in great shape for August for the Commonwealth Games.

Now when we're looking at very different sports, if we're comparing a sport like boxing to Jiu-Jitsu, obviously the qualities within each sport are slightly different. If we look at the isometric strength requirements and strength requirements as a whole in Jiu-Jitsu, it would be very different to boxing. The pulsing type actions, the power requirements in boxing would be greater than they would be in Jiu-Jitsu. It isn't to say that there aren't any strength requirements in boxing, but they would definitely vary between a boxer and a grappler. So then we would train those things accordingly. That'd be some more specific type exercises we would include.

But a lot of the time, it's manipulating tempos, joint angles, changing how we would peak for that. Plyometrics, whilst we do include them with our grappling athletes, especially if it's Jiu-Jitsu, it's not as important as a quality to see improvements in. So those are the subtle differences that you begin to appreciate once you start working with different combat sports.

James de Lacey11:47

Perfect. You're preaching to the choir in a lot of that stuff, and I think the listeners might recognize a lot of the things that you're saying there with some of the stuff that I've written and sent out too. So it's great to have someone else reinforce a lot of those similar points as well.

I wanted to dive a little bit into some of your testing. So I think understanding as well, I guess, the metrics and the key, I guess you'd say, your KPIs within your testing will also help solidify that philosophy of your training. So are there specific tests that you have found provide you with good information for programming? And are there certain KPIs within those tests that you have found that seem to indicate good combat sports performance?

Meer Awny12:45

Yeah, look, I'll start by saying a lot of the tests are limited to the fact that they're very sagittal in nature and they are what they are. It doesn't mean you can't take current from them and use them. So we use Vald's systems for our testing. So we use their force plates and their force frame.

There's a piece of equipment I've been looking at called, I think it's called the Proteus testing piece. It's a long T-shaped device and you can measure rotational outputs on that. Now, would it be cool? Maybe we can use it. It's massive though, we don't have the space for it now.

James de Lacey13:15

Is that the one that's built out of the out in Boston in the States? Is that the one?

Meer Awny13:15

Yeah, correct, correct. It's almost like a Kaiser unit into the ground and there's a long arm that sticks out of it, and then you can hold the arm and do chops, low to high, high to low, across. And you can, I'm not sure what metrics it gives you, but you can definitely use that for those movements.

So with our force plates, we do the IMTP, isometric mid-thigh pull, countermovement jump, RSI, single leg hop, left and right. And then with the force frame we test all our athletes' neck strength. So we do flexion, extension, lateral flexion. We do shoulder internal, external rotation, hip abduction and adduction with that. And also with the force plates we do the ASH test. So we get a relatively comprehensive analysis of things.

We have a fantastic sports scientist at our facility who you should also have on another time and deep dive super deep into metrics with him. Yeah, he's our guy. He's named Huss, H-O-U-S-S-O-N.

So he does all the reporting, all the testing, all the, he makes things look pretty and makes it very easy for me to understand. He's super switched on. All of our athletes end up generated with a testing report. And the good thing is now that we've tested so many athletes, and with our recent collab with the UFC PI, we've got some cross-pollination of data between MMA athletes especially.

So we can start to draw some references of, okay, here's where you are at the moment and here is what the average is across your cohort. That's also our goal at the moment with the current research study that we started collaborating with the PI on.

James de Lacey14:44

Yeah, I'd love to dive into that for us.

Meer Awny15:13

So I'll touch on that once I just wrap up some of the testing stuff.

James de Lacey15:13

Perfect, yep.

Meer Awny15:13

So the IMTP, I mean, you get it. It's our basic max strength measure, alongside that as a strength test. We also do one to three RM conventional strength testing on a variety of lifts that we like. With the countermovement jumps, we look at height and then different contraction times and speeds. Single leg hop for limb symmetry index. And then Pogo, the 105 Pogo, we do the same thing with that. And the 105 also gives you a nice limb symmetry index.

With other tests that we do, we do basic bodyweight strength tests or endurance tests like push-ups to failure, chin-ups to failure. We've done our best to standardize what those look like. We do a Copenhagen hold, a bent raise Copenhagen hold, just very basic bodyweight metrics. That's our testing battery summed up.

Usually, we'll, as I touched on earlier, we'll work backwards from our testing battery as well as athlete dating context to start their training program. And that's then essentially when our programming starts, once we've touched on testing, context, and then their schedule. Then we would touch on their program. Honestly, for me, once I've done those things, the program tends to be the easiest thing because the context is so clear by that point.

In terms of systems for us, every athlete, once those things are ticked off, has their own macro cycle calendar document. We have that as a shared document within all the coaches at the facility. So if I'm handing over an athlete to someone else, then they can effectively see, as long as I've had them, let's say it's two years, they'll be able to see exactly what that person has done over the last two years.

So our macro cycle plan gets filled out for every single athlete. And then we have our programming that we currently do via Team Builder as of the most recent change from paper-based programming. So that's our systems in a nutshell.

Now I'll touch on the testing project. So it was, we slowly started registering interest in that collaboration late last year with Gavin Pratt and Reid Reale from the UFC PI. So the goal for us was to just progressively elevate the standards at the lower amateur and semi-pro levels of mixed martial arts. Obviously when you're at the highest levels, funds are better, so these sorts of resources become more easily accessible to you.

And at the moment, I mean, you would also know yourself having interest in obviously the Sweet Science of Fighting, the current research and future in combat sport, it's still up and coming, especially in mixed martial arts, because it's such a young sport. And so our research aims to look at jump qualities between amateur and professional mixed martial artists.

Now just last week, our ethics application got approved, so we're ready to go, ready to start testing. So now it's all a matter of logistics and organizing testing with MMA facilities around Australia. Look, the goal for us for this project is to for amateur level MMA athletes to give them some standards, to give their coaches, their physios, some standards that they can start working towards in terms of comparing where they are compared to the top of the top athletes.

Now, will the study be limited in terms of the method that we're using in terms of the limitations in the fact that we're only doing one sort of testing? Yes, but nonetheless it's a kick in the door and we're just slowly starting to, we're trying to improve the quality of research in mixed martial arts.

James de Lacey19:31

No, that sounds great. If anyone wants to listen to Gavin Pratt as well, he was on the podcast a few episodes ago too, so you can listen to him. But I like the idea of bridging that gap between the low-level amateur fighters and the professional fighters. I'd love to take this podcast down that road of the fighter that doesn't have the budget.

Amateur in nature, maybe competing even for fun but wants to do well, because a lot of the listeners and people reading out are in that space. So maybe let's start with the tests then. So you mentioned obviously a lot of those tests, and you mentioned you have some bodyweight tests as well. For someone who doesn't have access to any of that kind of equipment, would you have any recommendations in terms of what they can do to maybe assess themselves and kind of keep track of their progress?

Meer Awny20:22

So look, you can do long-standing tests that have been around for a long time. You can do a basic vertical jump and tag something up top, and then there's some research on what acceptable elite standards are for countermovement jumps. You can do things like broad jumps for distance. I've done that with some of my online guys, so I work with quite a lot of online athletes all around the world, and sometimes they don't have access to those facilities like you said.

So you can do countermovement jump, bodyweight broad jump, so you get vertical, horizontal plyometric type test, power test. Obviously your 3RM tests, which are going to be done with all athletes at all levels. You can do your basic bodyweight pushup, pullup tests. We have some other like low-level trunk type training requirements, things like a basic hollow body hold strict for 60 seconds, a prone hold for 60 seconds.

There's also the, what's it called, the closed kinetic chain shoulder stability test. It's the shoulder taps, I think, in 20 seconds. And then there's some standards on what, again, beginner, intermediate, advanced results are. So again, we're talking about basic testing: single leg squat to box, active straight leg raise for your hamstrings. All those things are very easily repeatable tests that someone can do on a budget, definitely.

James de Lacey21:22

Now that's great insight.

Meer Awny22:01

So one thing I'll touch on, and I'm going to plug a project that I've been working on while I'm here.

James de Lacey22:01

Yeah, go for it.

Meer Awny22:01

So look, what you said nails the hammer on the head. Fighters are very limited to having access to all of these resources, even at higher levels, because of the nature of things being so expensive and them juggling so many things. So, James, if you're managing nutrition, so you're paying a dietitian, you've got a meal prep company or you're buying your groceries, you're seeing a physiotherapist, you've got an S&C facility, and then you've got your gym membership for your skills training, very quickly all those things add up, right?

And the reality of things is a fight camp is not cheap. Usually costs increase during that time as a result of having to invest in that period. Which is why recently I launched the Ethos online coaching service, because I'm aware and I've had these conversations for the last however many years so often where an athlete is limited or not able to train or work with us because they just can't afford it, and I completely understand when that's the case.

So the Ethos online coaching service is $10 a week Australian. $10 a week gives athletes access to actually working with coaches and not just buying a program. So I've purchased a lot of the programs on the market, and whilst they're great programs, they're limited in that they're a six to 12-week PDF package. So you don't really get any of the guidance, any of the community, any of the networking and other resources that come with what is usually working with a strength and conditioning team.

And so with the Ethos coaching service, whilst it is 10 bucks a week, you get your program on Team Builder. It's modified to your training level as well as your stage of competition. But then you get access to our Ethos community group where you can ask questions, where you can get connected with a dietitian, with a sport psychologist. You can send emails anytime, and myself and the team check them every day. We get back to athletes about their training schedules if they have other questions about hydration and all those sorts of things.

So that was my big global goal, not just obviously helping more fighters in Australia but also fighters around the world who want to have access to high-performance environments but don't have the budgets to do so. I slowly wanted to provide a route where they could have that at a cost-effective price.

James de Lacey24:25

And I mean, many, you say the career of a fighter doesn't pay well until you're at the top, so a lot of the guys—I mean, and all combat sports too, it's not just MMA. So fully agree with you there, and I think we're both on the same path too, to just try to deliver cost-effective things for people to use.

But I want to come back as well to, I guess, towards the amateur fighter. I mean, you have a lot of people come through the door, and you've probably seen a lot of the way fighters do things before coming to you. So are there any big, I guess, blunders and mistakes that you see commonly with fighters that come through your doors that maybe they're doing training-wise in terms of how their schedule's set up, the type of training they're doing, anything like that?

Meer Awny25:21

Okay, let's go schedule as the first point. What I generally see, and see quite a lot, is a schedule that has no structure, that has no concept of high and low days. I'm not necessarily discussing like acute chronic workload ratios, because I mean that's also slightly been disproved in literature as being an effective means to monitor things. But if I look at an athlete who's doing a 10k run in the morning, some skills training in the morning, they go to work, and then they're doing three to four classes back to back in the evenings as a training day, and they do that anywhere from three to five times a week, there's a lot of red flags that come up for me.

Generally what I find is that athlete says that they feel tired and that despite doing all of that training, they feel like they're not as fit or as conditioned as they'd like to be. And that just gives way to why the first thing that we do is, one of the first things, is we touch on the schedule.

So look, the reality is for an athlete in that case, what they're doing for work is also important. So if you're a bricklayer, if you're working in a labor-intensive role, that also needs to be accounted for. Now if they're doing their skills training in the evenings after a long day of work and a 10k run in the morning, the next thing that I'll touch on is how poorly educated athletes are on basic concepts of hydration and nutrition.

Now, without stepping on my professional boundaries, we also touch on those concepts very basically with athletes, because the information is there. And if we ever need more information, we work very closely with the team at The Fight Dietitian to provide our athletes with a more professional service if they need it. Now in terms of tackling basic hydration and some basic understanding of macronutrients and how to fuel yourself for training, we can definitely do that with the athletes.

So those are the first two things that I'll highlight as the errors that I often see: lack of structure and overtraining in an athlete's schedule, basic understanding of hydration and nutrition, and that starving yourself isn't the best way to make weight for an athlete.

The third thing I'll touch on is the type of training that combat athletes are doing when they refer to training as strength and conditioning. Man, oftentimes I don't even like saying I'm an S&C coach, because immediately I know the picture they get in their mind is someone who's going to put them through quite specific... Yeah. Look, the thing is, I've said this in podcast three years ago, but it's still happening. And I guess that's the whole reason why I'm trying to—we're trying to elevate standards and make what we're all trying to do, I guess, on this podcast as an example, more accessible to combat athletes.

So the third thing is going through countless non-specific circuits as a way of developing yourself for a fight is not ideal. So we break down what we do as very general in terms of training goals in terms of transfer to sport. You can very easily argue that there isn't any direct transfer of what we do to the sporting success. You look at some athletes in the past that have been world champions, Hall of Famers, who have had very non-conventional sorts of training methods.

James de Lacey29:02

I like how you call it non-conventional, a euphemism for the audience.

Meer Awny29:02

It just highlights the beauty of the fact that combat sports is such a skill-dominant sport. And which is why we always have to humble ourselves as coaches in this industry in understanding that I feel like there's a lot more that an S&C coach can do aside from just writing an athlete a gym program. That's my personal coaching philosophy in a nutshell, is I do a lot more than just give an athlete a program. I'm invested in seeing them succeed in all areas outside and inside of sport.

So touching back on errors, it was schedule, basic understanding of nutrition, third is stepping away from all of the lots of sweat, heart rate high, non-specific circuits. And man, the amount of times that I've worked with an athlete for the first two weeks and they say, "Hey look, I feel great." And what we've done is we've actually stripped away a couple of sessions in—

In the week I've stopped doing circuits and stuff with them or got them to stop doing their circuits, and I've just got them to do a very basic GPP-style strength program because it's their first time doing it. What's that feeling they have of feeling a lot better is the fact that they have more energy ability now for their training sessions, and their loads are undulating throughout the week, so their body's recovering more and they're more hydrated.

So those would be, off the top of my head, the three things that I feel like all combat athletes can benefit from at any stage, really: understanding how to optimize their training schedule for better performance and recovery, understanding their nutrition and hydration a little more. And when the time comes and they've exhausted basic understanding, they can work with an experienced or a qualified dietician who has skin in the game, which I think is very important.

There's a massive gray area when you're dealing with weight-cutting sports, and there's a reason why I refrain from working with a lot of other dietitians. Because I've been working with Jordan especially for the last five years now, we have a lot of mutual athletes together—athletes that he's referred to me, athletes that I refer to him. Tyson, they all work exclusively between the two of us, and it makes for a very easy system.

When an athlete's fight is over and I want to focus on some hypertrophy, he lets me know what my upper limits of weight are. I let him know what the training schedule looks like, and then he adjusts macronutrients and meal plans accordingly. And what it does for the athlete is they feel very looked after, they feel like they're covered in all areas, which was always the goal—to be able to provide that sort of service to the athletes both at lower levels and higher levels.

James de Lacey31:38

That's awesome as well. I want to go and dive a little bit into that schedule. I think a lot of fighters struggle in this area in terms of planning a schedule. I mean, a lot of them are also subject to, I guess, their technical or their skills training schedule as well, right? So they have to plan around that.

So you mentioned obviously how you like to undulate workloads, and you mentioned the high-low system within that as well. So do you want to maybe break down how you see a good typical week schedule looking? Maybe just go by a typical technical training schedule that one of your amateur fighters may have, kind of where you would place strength training within there and where you would potentially place extra conditioning.

Meer Awny32:33

Okay, so let me think of an athlete that I know well. So I work with a, let's say, an MMA athlete who's semi-pro and they're also working a full-time job, which is something you have to consider. Let's say they spar Tuesday evenings and Saturday mornings.

So immediately for me, I don't put any intensive lifting or conditioning on the same days as sparring, personally, especially with a full-time role. Because what that means for me is I know that he or she has to come in and do that in the morning, so what does that mean for the sleep the night before and what does that mean for the recovery throughout the rest of the day?

James de Lacey33:03

So would you change that if that athlete wasn't working full-time?

Meer Awny33:03

Yes. So with some of the UFC guys or full-time athletes who aren't working or working very little hours now, I'm happy to do a lift on the same day as sparring, 100%.

The athlete I'm referring to works on roofs all day, and although it's his own business, nonetheless it's very labor-intensive. So for example, in his case, he's doing a Monday morning and a Friday morning lifting session, and he's doing a Wednesday morning conditioning session.

So the lift on the Monday morning will be slightly different to the lift on the Friday morning, just by way of having accumulated so much fatigue towards the end of the week. So on the Monday, it might be our more power-dominant day, more intensive, and I'll get some more accessory volume in that session. On the Friday, it might be more of a force type day. I'll keep volume quite low, almost like a pre-training primer, because he's not sparring the next morning.

On the Monday evening, so he's lifted Monday morning, Monday evening they've got wrestling and then he's got some boxing training. So for me, based on knowing that athlete, he considers that a medium day.

The Tuesday morning, I let that athlete sleep in. He does some specific work for sparring on the Tuesday night, and then they do—that gym in particular have quite an intensive sparring regime—so he considers that a hard day, even though he's only got one and a half sessions on that day. But again, I would still consider the overall workload that he's had on the Monday.

So the Wednesday, he's got one specific pad session with his striking coach in the evening, and Wednesday morning we have our conditioning session. He considers that a low-medium day. And as an example there, we've got a medium day, a high day, and a low-medium day.

On the Thursday, he's got the morning off. Thursday night, they do specific wrestling and they do some MMA jiu-jitsu. So from memory, he would consider that a medium day. Friday for him is a low day. And Saturday sparring is the hardest spar of the week. It's when they get guys in from different gyms or they go out to other gyms and spar. Generally speaking, I think they would do anywhere from, at minimum, three rounds. They'll do five MMA rounds usually, and then this athlete, having his style, usually does some no-gi jiu-jitsu after that.

So if you, based on that discussion, what I just said, planned it out in front of you, you would see that from the start of the week until the end of the week, it's not just smash yourself at the wall all week. There's an element of structure there.

And then on a Sunday, he has a green zone option of a bike, run, or swim session. The reason why I do like programming the run, bike, or swim is if they're going to do it, I'd at least like to be involved in it. That way there's some structure around it, and I can educate them on, "Okay, well, you like running because in your mind it helps you build the base. But when you're running at a 4-minute 30-kilometer pace, you're not really doing the base. You're almost running at threshold. It's quite a high pace."

So I'm like, "How can we quantify this and kind of gamify this process a little for you so you understand what you're actually doing? Let's put a heart rate monitor on you. I want you to keep this at either a pace goal of 5 to 6 minutes a kilometer, depending on that athlete's running efficiency and how conditioned they are. Or put the heart rate monitor on, and I want you to look at your screen every so often and keep it in the green zone, so to say."

Is that going to be as customized as some would like it to be? No, for me. Does it allow me to control what is usually a very uncontrolled, sporadic, maniac type run? Yes, it does.

James de Lacey37:11

Nice. That makes sense. I think what might surprise some of the listeners is how little extra conditioning is actually in that schedule, because there's only, I guess, one extra planned conditioning, because essentially their skills and stuff taken care of that. So would that ever change based on the athlete, where you would have, I guess, you would find more slots for that conditioning, depending, I guess, depending on the athlete's profile?

Meer Awny38:08

I'll give you an example of another athlete who I work with who's a professional mixed martial artist. He's very good, but he's very invested in his work schedule. And what that means is he only makes it to his technical training sessions, I believe, three to four times a week.

Now, what that means is, when I speak to his head coach and when I speak to him, he feels like he isn't as conditioned as he would like to be. Now, for me, I would just like him to go to training a little bit more, but he physically can't make those sessions because of his work. So I need to give him something to do to account for the lack of skills training he's doing at the moment.

Now, this athlete in particular is very fast-twitch dominant. He's African-American, so he's very explosive in nature. He's an absolute beast. So for me, I know that I don't need to work on those qualities as much, because even when I've watched all his fights since I've worked with him as an amateur, what he always tends to find hardest is if fights go the distance, he slows down a little more than he would like to.

So in his case, I've programmed a specific anaerobic-type session that he can do either at our gym or at home. And then I've got him doing a separate off-feet, non-specific conditioning session.

Now, on that topic, I know there's conflicting thoughts on doing any conditioning with combat athletes that's non-specific to their training. I like it. I like doing off-feet conditioning at times if there are specific qualities that I'm trying to train. Look, I've had great success with it over years and years and years. I'm just very picky with when I introduce those, and I'm also very selective with the amount of volume that I add on to those conditioning sessions, because just like you said, James, combat athletes do get a lot of their conditioning just by way of doing

Their sport. So a lot of the time, doing the additional three to five non-specific conditioning sessions, you're just exhausting someone who doesn't need to be exhausted. Now, very easy to say from my experience, two qualities that combat athletes tend to not get a lot of in their training is true low zone aerobic type development and very true alactic efforts.

So I'm pressed to come across a facility that does high intensity, Max efforts, with a specific recovery period that allows sufficient recovery for the next maximal effort. Now I program this with my fighters, especially in camp, but again, you have to be selective because I have had it in the past—and this is why I'm saying this—depending on the athlete, you can also cause repetitive type injuries in camp with maximal effort specific work.

So I have to be mindful of names, so I won't say any names, but I had a UFC fighter I was working with and he had existing elbow injuries, had even had surgery on the elbows. So if I want to do max effort ground and pound with that person, I've got to be quite careful because I've been told by a surgeon that he has to limit the amount of force applied on the elbow. So again, for someone like him, a safe, controlled max watt bike effort is a nice alternative at that time.

I've had athletes in the past with groin injuries, and so if I want to do max effort bag work with them in terms of kicking or kick shield max efforts, again, if they're a strong, powerful, capable athlete, them kicking the bag at 100%—again, in camp, when their technical training is already at a high, when their sparring is at a high—I need to be careful that I don't overdo with these efforts.

So a lot of the times, it really depends on the athlete. Sometimes I'm taking out conditioning completely outside of—in camp, sorry—so they get their conditioning from their skills training, and I might tell them, 'Look, at the start of one of your pad sessions, I'd like you to do five alactic efforts on the bag, and then you can start your pad session with your coach.' So I'll try and get my small efforts in their training as it exists without necessarily adding more onto the schedule.

With this particular athlete that I was speaking about, the African-American athlete, he has two conditioning sessions from us because he isn't getting enough from his skills training sessions. And if I keep it as it is and he fights, he might be at a deficit when it matters. So that's an example of when I would actually add more conditioning, contextual to that person obviously.

James de Lacey42:57

Do you want to give an example of what that specific conditioning prescription looks like and also the non-specific option, just for the listeners that are maybe doing training three or four times a week and thinking, 'Oh, I want to do some of that extra stuff in their own training'?

Meer Awny43:25

Okay, so let's go non-specific for an example. If you run a very basic mass test or you do an anaerobic three-minute MAP test, then you get wattage outputs for someone. Regardless, get something where you can prescribe off, whether it's watts or meters or time. And if you're using mass and you're using meters, you might have someone do a specific amount of time and intensity on a erg machine—so a Concept bike, row machine, or a ski—and then they might have another period of lower percentage mass recovery work.

I like that because in large groups, which is what we have when I need to individualize things, I can do it very quickly. And just on that, I program for a couple of gyms in Australia. So I do their strength programming for the whole team, and a lot of the time they say, 'Look, it's just one coach and 12 athletes. How can I easily customize the conditioning so they're not all just doing the same thing?'

In that case, this sort of prescription works really nicely because if they've got 12 machines, you've got 12 people, each person has what might look like the same program, but it's customized based on their testing results. So it's relative to that person.

Now that's one example of non-specific. For the listeners, anything non-specific is non-specific to the movements and the nature of the fighting itself. So if you're running, if you're rowing, biking, sled pushing, farmer's carry, step-ups, all of those things I would consider non-specific to the sport itself.

Now specific would be your pad work, drilling, partner drilling, bag work, floor to ceiling, specific bag work on the ground. And again, you can manipulate work-to-rest ratios, you can use heart rate as a gauge, and then you can provide—instead of using a rowing machine, you can do specific bag drills. Instead of doing active recovery on the bike, you can do active recovery on some cone drills or some line drills for boxing athletes.

Here is when, for a very small part of programming, something like drawing out some ladders on the ground can be helpful for some boxing athletes for specific footwork drills. I know ladders get butchered and I personally don't see as much use for them as you do on social media, especially with grappling athletes, just by way of the fact that that sort of movement is very foreign to, let's say, BJJ as an example where the majority of the time you're not on your feet.

But if I look at taekwondo and boxing, especially amateur boxing styles, it's very like tip tap, tip tap. If you're a boxer, you know what I'm talking about. I hope you know what I'm talking about.

James de Lacey46:07

I'm not a boxer, but I know what you're talking about.

Meer Awny46:07

Boxing is very much like there's more engagement, it's very in and out, as opposed to the pros where you can slow things down. Obviously taekwondo does the same. If you look at Stephen Thompson, Wonderboy, he stays very much like boom, boom, boom, boom. There's that shifting of feet. So again, those you can modify your specific drills to be more relative to the sport.

So an example of a session—a specific session—could be an athlete on a bag and they have, focusing on straight punches for a specific amount of time. That can be the higher intensity, and you can use heart rate as a gauge of your intensity on that effort. So you might want them at what you would consider their—if you were going equivalent to higher percentages of mass for longer distances—they'd be working in their green, low orange zone as an example. And you can get that person to hit the bag for the designated time at that intensity. It's 90 seconds.

And then in their off period, you can give them a low-level specific footwork task. Or if they're a grappler, you can get them on the bag and get them to just slowly practice their knee slide passes, their guard passes, essentially just going through some drills. If they have a bag with legs, they can practice on the bag and do some sweeps.

I like to sometimes use things like basic hip escapes and those very fundamental jiu-jitsu movements. But if I can—where I'm able—I like having a bag, especially a bag with those fake limbs, so athletes can just go through movements of drilling, practicing, transitioning between half to side to mount, north-south, and they can make things a little bit more specific in that regard.

So very simple: specific is just do your sport; non-specific is you're not doing your sport, but still you're targeting qualities that will help you in your sport. For sure, as an example, we understand, for the listeners, that a developed aerobic system is important for being able to recycle energy in between efforts.

So it's essentially, if you want to be able to reproduce successive flurries of combinations or high effort, high intensity efforts, your aerobic system is very important for almost recycling and churning it so you can go again. And then in between sessions themselves, a developed aerobic system allows for better recovery. And so you can target that system nicely without having to do specific drills where the heart rate generally tends to be higher.

So if you get someone on a stationary bike where there's very low contact stresses, as opposed to road running for example, you can get someone and you can get them to practice their nasal breathing cadences and you can get them to have a nice recovery session in that regard whilst you work on that low-level aerobic system adaptation.

James de Lacey49:12

Awesome. That's great information for the listeners too. And I want to—I get asked this often, you probably get asked often too, and I probably know your answer, but I want you to dive into it anyway. Always, people always ask, 'What's the best exercise for this? What's the best exercise for that?'

So what I'm going to ask you is to cover is essentially: are there exercises that you're fond of using? Let's go down the strength training road. Strength training exercises that you're fond of for combat athletes, that you like to use often, that you think are a good fit—not necessarily the best, because obviously the best is subject to whoever you're training—so maybe exercises that you really like to program?

Meer Awny50:04

In most of my programming, you'll always find a good bilateral squat option, whether it's a hands-up supported safety bar squat, a trap bar, a back or safety bar squat, front squat. Yes, usually if I'm front squatting, it's out of camp and it's with the right person, because of the limitations in mobility and obviously the stresses on shoulders and wrists and elbows. I personally don't really prescribe a lot of—

Front squats for those reasons, just the cost benefit. I have horizontal pulling exercises always, so I really like a bench pull if I can set it up, whether it's at facility or on two plyo boxes, and then variations of horizontal pulling. Split squats and your single leg squat thread, so your basic split squats, squat to box, squat off box, your polan steps, skater squats I really like, and then obviously lateral exercises.

You've asked me a question that's just... I use a lot of different rotational type training methods in our program, so we have loaded rotational exercises. We have obviously a large library of ballistic exercises, band type exercises, more rhythmic type exercises using plates, bands, balls. And then again, the basic key rocks, your horizontal pushing, you're pulling, all those things don't really change. Regardless of the sport that you're working in, there are movements that you will be addressing.

But I love a good trap bar deadlift, a bench pull, a hand supported safety bar squat or split squat. I love developing a really strong push-up because I like using that later on for my plyometric push-ups, the box continuous plyometric push-ups, deficit push-ups, band assisted plyometric push-ups, and then all the super maximal push-up variations with bands and stuff. So push-up is definitely a very underrated exercise and people generally perform them terribly. I like coaching a very strict gymnastic style push-up, and that's how we start.

Chin-ups. We have neck training exercises in all of our combat athletes programs. We have a whole system for developing their neck training on the back end of testing their neck strength also. We have that in all of our programs, whether you're working with us online or face to face. There's always a lateral thread in our programs. Obviously combat sports, like many other sports, are not sagittal in nature, so we're not weightlifters here. As Cressey said, you can't be a sagittal beast in a rotational world, so I think we live by that in programming.

So cossacks, transverse type movements, lateral step ups, your C lunges, all those movements we include. That's in a nutshell all of the stuff that you would see, and then it's a matter of understanding the context and putting it all together so it works.

James de Lacey52:53

That's awesome. You actually gave some good exercises there for listeners, and I hope you satisfied everyone that keeps asking the best exercises for this. Here's the thing to any combat athlete listening: there is no best exercise and there is no best training program because no two athletes are the same and your context will always be different. And so what's best for someone else will likely not be what's best for you, which is why it's important as a young athlete or a combat athlete to work with professionals that can find out what's best for you and meet you where you are now.

You shouldn't be comparing yourself to what X is doing on Instagram and what Anthony Joshua is doing. Find a team of professionals that you can work with that can then start to find out what that process looks like for yourself.

Meer Awny53:52

Exactly. And if you're following what X fighter's doing on Instagram, it's probably those circuits that they come into you to see before they see you, those non-specific circus they're doing all week. That's what you see on Instagram because they get the views.

James de Lacey54:19

Perfect. We're coming up to an hour here. Is there anything else you wanted to cover before we sign off? And if not, do you want to maybe plug some of your Instagram or anything like that where people can follow you?

Meer Awny54:19

Anything to finish off on? Look, no. I'd like to say, James, the podcast and your mission with your podcast is great to see. Combat sports is definitely on a rise globally, especially domestically in Australia. We've got a lot of success at the moment with a lot of our athletes around the world, so I think it's important that we continuously try to best educate combat athletes with best practices because unfortunately there's a great area of malpractice in the industry, both in terms of training practices as well as things like nutritional practices. So that's the first thing. I think kudos to you for trying to spread better messages around the world.

My plugs, if you'd like to connect with me, my personal Instagram is just Meer Awny. The facility page is Ethos Performance. This is what the logo will look like on Instagram, there's orange colors everywhere. The last plug would be, look, if you're a combat athlete and you're unsure of I guess what to do next and you're pressed financially but want access to all these things that I'm talking about, send me a DM, head to our website, you can claim your first two weeks free on our online program to see what it's like.

Send us a DM on the Ethos Instagram page, shoot us an email, anywhere you'd like to contact us and we'd be more than happy to point you in the right direction or possibly work with you if you're the right fit to work with our team.

James de Lacey55:50

Perfect. And I'll link up the Instagram and website and stuff in the description of the video anyway, so if anyone's listening on whatever app or on YouTube, head down to the description, there should be some clickable links there. But thank you for coming on, Meer. Really appreciate it.

Meer Awny56:14

Appreciate you having me. Thank you, James.