How The UFC Builds Professional Fighters w/ Dean Amasinger (Ep. 46)

Dean Amasinger1:51

It was because, my experience of technical coaching from martial arts was just from the traditional martial arts that I've worked in. And I'd never really thought about understanding the needs of a particular style, understanding the needs of the sport and trying to meet those technical needs and physiological needs as well, and then individualizing your coaching depending on what those particular needs are as styles.

And, as I mentioned, I feel like there's similarities to rugby and MMA. In Union, there's very many different positions, and the demands of those positions change in terms of their technical need, but also the physiological needs. The difference of a winger and a prop couldn't really be much more different. So the approach that you would do in terms of that S&C programming would be considerably different.

But then also the requirements for the difference between scrummaging and the ball handling skills that you need is completely different. But he had a system of each position in rugby: what do they need to be able to do? What does he want out of that position? And he made sure that that person that played that position knew what was expected of him in that position.

Even when I played rugby as well, I'd never had that from a coach, really. We just kind of played the position, and it was never really broken down to me in that way of like, as a flanker, this is what I'm expecting from you, or as a center, this is the skills that you need to play the system that we're playing.

So then that made me look at mixed martial arts. And I've broken down MMA into 11 technical skill categories. And then those 11 technical skill categories I use as a skill assessment, understanding what those different skill categories are. And then when you look at it, looking at where their strengths and weaknesses are across those 11 technical skill categories.

There's a foundation across those 11 technical skill categories that all athletes need to have a foundation of, because if you don't, then you're going to have deficits when you fight a particular style. But then you're going to have strengths and weaknesses within that, and that's what forms your style, whether you're more of a striker, whether you're more of a grappler.

But in the modern day, you have to have that complete skill set across those technical skill categories. But that came from working with Frans and his... and the way he broke down those different positions. And I was like, oh, we should probably do that in MMA as well.

James de Lacey5:27

Yeah, nice. So yeah, this would be a good topic to go down. Do you want to maybe give a couple of examples of some of those 11 categories, then maybe some examples of, as you mentioned, if someone's heavy on one side of those categories of skill sets, how the strength and conditioning kind of changes between, I guess, different styles?

Dean Amasinger5:27

Yeah, so the styles... or, start... so the 11 technical skill categories, they're in the journal, the second PI journal that we... there's a topic about it there in terms of athlete assessment. It's one of the earlier chapters. But it's like striking offense, striking defense, wrestling offense, wrestling defense, then fence wrestling offense and defense. It's breaking it down in all the areas that you see.

And you could put fence wrestling as part of just as part of wrestling. But the way I sort of see it is that there's striking, wrestling, and grappling, which come from the foundation martial arts. So you could just do wrestling, boxing or kickboxing, and jiu-jitsu, and you would know those areas of MMA. And then there's nothing different about striking, wrestling, and... well, there's not too much different between those and the foundation martial arts.

Whereas fence wrestling is not in any other martial art. Get-ups in the way that you need to do get-ups for mixed martial arts are not in any other sport, because the way you get... the mentality behind getting up into guard, for example, is not really in there. It's in fact penalized. And then wrestling, the way you get up, you're happy to give your back more, which is dangerous in MMA.

So there's a... although there's those aspects in there that it's unique to MMA, and then ground and pound is obviously unique to MMA as well. But it's bringing in aspects of the foundation martial arts. So the reason I separated it that way is because I feel like that there are techniques or technical skill categories that are unique to MMA and have been developed since the inception of the sport. And then there are the technical skill categories that are predominantly from the foundation martial arts.

So when we're looking at an athlete that comes in, we have some objective tests, well, as close to objective tests as we can have, for grappling, wrestling, and get-ups on both ends of that: offensive wrestling and wrestling defense, and then offensive grappling and get-ups. So we have objective tests there. The only ones we don't have really objective tests for is for striking and ground and pound, because then you're having to get into sparring and it's like you don't want to be doing that as part of an assessment. So it's more subjective in terms of their technical coaches and using coach's eye, et cetera.

So when we do that and we have an ongoing assessment of the athletes, my approach to coaching would be that in off camp, we're predominantly focusing on their weaknesses. And then in fight camp, predominantly focusing on their strengths.

But to your question about, and how that impacts the strength and conditioning, I don't think the style necessarily impacts it too much. It is more about... I think you've had Gavin on, and about the profiling that we do, both in terms of the ESD profiling and seeing where their energy systems are and if there are any deficits across the different energy systems. Or on the strength-power profile and seeing if there's a deficit there and what their strength... the force-velocity curve looks like, and whether, in terms of their phenomenology, whether they're force-dominant or speed-dominant.

The style doesn't necessarily... the style will probably impact what that profile looks like, but it doesn't necessarily... and so then we'll try to balance it out in terms of the deficits. But it's not like just because they have a particular style we're going to have a particular approach. Does that make sense?

In terms of what we have in the academy program on the technical side, we have in the morning sessions, the morning sessions we have where it's the full squad together. I work in normally three-week cycles: moderate, high, low. They cycle between, if they're not in fight camp, off-camp general prep, specific prep, and there'll normally be a six-week—I call it integration—of technical streams. So there's coordination between those six weeks of when I'm programming those technical sessions.

So those morning sessions, across the three-week cycle, will hit all 11 technical skill categories. Within a week I try to hit at least eight, and that's covering the foundation of no matter what fighting style you are, you need to have that fundamental which I spoke to earlier.

Afternoon sessions, which are split sessions between S&C and technical training, then they go off into—they're bucketed by that skill assessment that I mentioned previously. If someone, we, a group of people need to be working on, say, takedown defense, there'll be four or five guys that will go off and do that, and that's what they'll do. Then there might be some guys that need to be working on their head movement or whatever it might be.

We have a tiered system in the academy, so there's tier A, tier B, tier C. And so when we're bucketing and choosing, in terms of athlete-coach ratio and how much resources we have, we don't have unlimited amount of coaches. We can't individualize that absolutely individualized to every athlete; it's not possible. So we prioritize to the tier A's and then we work backward from there if we can accommodate the others. But they're still benefiting from what they're going to be working on; it's just not quite necessarily as individualized as I would hope for.

But again, following that model of in off-camp, they're predominantly—I'm not saying completely—predominantly working on their weaknesses, and then fight camp working on their strengths.

James de Lacey11:26

Before getting back to the podcast, I want to let you know there's a link down in the description for the Sweet Science of Fighting Underground Community. You can get all the help you need for your combat sports training. You get every single Sweet Science of Fighting training program, online course, and you get access to a range of coaches within the private Discord community. So go check that out, and back to the podcast.

Because you mentioned this is the academy squad, so all coming together and training at the same time, and you take care of the technical and S&C scheduling with that entire squad. I'm assuming then you have guys that are out of the academy that are full-time in the UFC. I'm assuming you don't have that same control in that aspect and they kind of have their own technical stuff that you have to work around?

Dean Amasinger12:16

Yeah, so the academy guys, I control—I do all the programming and the periodization, obviously within the team as well, not just like you have to do this.

Obviously we have starters, we have daily morning meetings about what's going on in that day, but then a weekly longer meeting that we talk about the programming. Because don't also, one thing we have to consider, we have multiple different phases of camp operating at the same time because there's different fight dates of people coming up. So you may have two people fighting in six weeks, you might have three people fighting in two weeks, you might have—and then the predominant of the group in off-camp.

But they might be in different phases of off-camp because they had a fight not so long ago. Then one group in return to play, one group, you know what I mean? So I'm balancing all those different phases of camp at the same time.

So I operate the master timetable and then we just get aligned with—so making sure that the S&C periodization is the same as the technical periodization. That's obviously really important that we have that concurrent periodization according to what phase of camp they're in.

And then, over the past few years, we've been dealing with COVID, right? So you guys, very mess of lockdown too. I don't even really want to get into it; it's been an absolute nightmare. I did actually an analysis recently about some of the impact that we had because of that, and we've been shut over 30% of the time in the past four years since we opened, which is pretty crazy.

So now that we're open, the border is opened on January 9th, which is a massive relief to us. And what we're planning to do with the PI—now that, because although the academy initially was based on the Chinese athletes and developing Chinese MMA, it's actually for the whole of Asia. Kevin Chang is the SVP of the APAC region for the UFC. He's trying to develop MMA in the whole of—sorry, whole of Asia. It just so happened that when we first got there it made sense just to focus on China, we're in China, and then we'll open up the academy to other Asian countries.

And right now actually we're having the Road to UFC final, which is being in Vegas right now, which has been—I don't know if you've been following it—but it's been a tournament across all of Asia. Four eight-man tournaments, and we have representation from India, Indonesia, Philippines, Thailand, Japan, Korea, and obviously China. And in the final there's actually an Indonesian and an Indian, which is fantastic. We thought we'd potentially maybe be dominated by Japan, Korea, and China, but we've got two guys in the final from India and Indonesia.

And it's really to highlight the talent coming out of Asia. But we, as a PI, we are supposed to be servicing all of those countries, including APAC, Australia and New Zealand, having guys from City Kickboxing coming over. It's supposed to be for everyone so they can use it as a resource, so they don't have to go to America. But we haven't been able to do that.

But then the Chinese, because of the restrictions up until January 9th, you still had to do a two-week quarantine to China. And at one point it was—at one point it was a 21-day quarantine. Oh my gosh. In the past three years I've done 15 weeks of quarantine from coming in and out of China.

Anyway, so the Chinese athletes that either were already in the UFC or have graduated from the academy into the UFC—which obviously the main thing we're trying to do—when they're in China, if they, when they're, they will use the PI. And often they'll just integrate into our timetable and with us, particularly with—for example, Sumu, Sumu Daري is coming back from an injury and he's using—he's doing his recovery and rehab with us. And it's good because we do have an interdisciplinary team. The PT and S&C are aligned in terms of their programming for his recovery.

And then also the PT can work with myself and we can tailor his technical training with the limitations that might be put on him because of the injury. So he can still get back to the mat as soon as possible. And because we're having those daily meetings about his progress and whatnot, we can get him on the mat as soon as possible, rather than sometimes when you're working with a PT they kind of keep you away from it until you've hit a particular milestone. Whereas we want to be back on the mats as soon as possible but working within the limitations of a particular injury.

But having said that, there is a limit. Because I work for the UFC and the technical coaches work for the UFC, we can't work individually with the UFC fighters. So they can come into the squad sessions and they can get involved in that—any UFC fighter can do that. But I can't, I won't hold pads for them, I won't do any individual sort of game planning or anything like that, because then you're getting into a bit of a conflict of interest, really, to do that. So that's the only sort of rules around the UFC guys that work there.

And then we're hoping now that the border is open that we're going to have a lot more UFC guys using the facility. I'm friends with the guys at Bangtao, and Woody, the S&C coach.

There I know he wants to bring over some of his guys there and get some profiling done, some diagnostics done that we can then share with him that he can program off the back of that. And that's hopefully what we're going to be as a resource for all the, I mean anywhere in the world, but it just geographically and logistically, the fighters, any UFC fighter in the world can use both PI. But it just, I could imagine that it would make more sense for the guys in Asia and the AP region.

James de Lacey18:24

Awesome. I want to ask you as well with, I guess with your background with the technical side along with I guess the integration, does that influence how you program your conditioning at all? Are you looking at programming more specific style conditioning because you have that technical background, or are you looking just purely hey, we need to reach these outputs, et cetera?

Dean Amasinger18:50

Yeah, so in off camp, we're looking at the ESD profiling in terms of what particular deficits there may be. And we've now put together like an assault bike V2 max test and assault bike MAP and MGP test. And we're getting some decent normative data from the UFC roster of where the standards are for the weight classes across those different tests.

So then once you get that, when you create those standards, once you do that testing, you can see you can compare and see where particular deficits might be on that. So I feel like off camp is the perfect time for you to do that. And you want to be, for me, fight camp is not about getting really, really fit. And like that should be in, starting to train.

We talk about a 52 week fight camp, and it's obviously a little bit tongue in cheek. But it's about, it's not about those huge peaks and troughs of training and taking huge amounts of time off camp. You want to be building on where you've been before each off camp. And not just on a technical side, but on a physiological side, working on those deficits so hopefully they're starting a fight camp in a good point to then really peak for the fight.

And so I'd like the guys to get fit from the sport during fight camp. And then off camp, we're leaning on more targeted ESD development and based on those diagnostics that I talked about. And Gav and Roman and the guys here put together some really good prescriptions to work on those deficits once they do come off that testing. And so far it's been, it's constantly ongoing. That's what so excited about working for the Performance Institute.

We're constantly trying to review and improve. And we're getting more data from the guys that we're testing as they come through the PI, and the data is becoming more robust because the more people are using it. And we're developing the test off the back of it. Like yesterday, Roman was doing a sled test but with gas analysis. He's doing, Roman's doing some really, I don't know if you've had Roman on.

James de Lacey21:12

No.

Dean Amasinger21:12

I'd love to talk. You definitely should. He's doing some really innovative stuff, particularly on the ESD side. And so yeah, so in off camp that's the focus. And then we get them to that point. And then when they start fight camp, I like a shark tank type style conditioning, which integrates one person doing it with two fresh people.

And then we put them in situations based on their game plan. And there's some prefatigue on an assault bike with the pad work. And it's over effectively higher intensity training than you would find in, compared to a fight pace. And then what I'm looking for in terms of markers there is the one minute recovery post the, one minute post the three rounds. And we're looking at hopefully getting them over 20% recovery.

And one of the guys that just fought, about to fight recently, managed to get over 30% recovery. And pretty impressive, particularly because it's not like a V2 max test where it's more centralized fatigue. But when you're grappling and wrestling and all the peripheral fatigue, to be able to get your heart rate down like that after three rounds of high intensity training is pretty impressive.

And so because in that off camp we can have that more targeted ESD development. Because when they're training, if you're trying to just get fit from the sport, because there's different styles, you may not be getting the different hits or the for different energy systems depending on different styles.

So in fight camp, if you've done that work prior to that, then hopefully they're in a point that it's not going to be perfect, but it's improved any particular deficits across it. Then if fight camp, the conditioning element obviously to that shark tank, but it's also the psychological part that I'm looking for. In terms of how do they react in tough situations, how do they react when they're tired, what's their decision making like when they're tired.

Because you don't want all sparring to be like that. Because sparring is also about controlling the pace and the rhythm that you want to have on that. So if you're trying to get conditioning out of sparring, then you're losing some of the technical aspects or tactical aspects that you might want. By having a higher intensity shark tank, whereas using the shark tank for the conditioning, I've got the psychological aspect, the physiological aspect as well. And I'm taking the boxes that I want in terms of preparedness markers for competition. And so that's kind of the approach that we use at the academy in terms of integrating.

James de Lacey23:57

That's awesome. There might be some people listening to this that don't, for example, may not have the ability to maybe do shark tanks and stuff like that, maybe for whatever reason as an amateur. Do you have maybe any advice or recommendations for someone, okay, what can they do for that higher intensity conditioning maybe during, maybe when they're preparing for a fight?

Dean Amasinger23:57

I mean the thing is about the shark tank though is that is the least, there's not a lot of equipment you need for it. So if you have two training partners, and even if you didn't have an assault bike, there's other prefatigues that you could use, like body weight exercises, like sprawls or burpees, some sort of prefatigue. And then going into the technical areas.

And I change across the, we normally have a six week fight camp. And across the six weeks we change other factors. Like on the pad work, we start with just boxing, and then it moves to kickboxing, and then it moves to MMA pads. On the rest time, we start at a minute 10, and by the end of the, we end at 50 seconds.

In terms of the positions on the that they're working, like the starting positions of grappling and wrestling, we start with positive positions. And across the three rounds there, we start getting more negative positions. And so across the three rounds, we normally get three to four because the timing of the grappling or wrestling is between 15 and 45 seconds.

And it depending on what happens in that particular grappling exchange, and I'll make the call on it. So this recreates the randomness of a fight. So it's not like, oh, 30 seconds of this, seconds of that. It's random every time. And but so we normally get three to four grappling or wrestling positions per round.

And then all it changes across the weeks about how many of them are positive and how many of them are negative. And they progressively get tough. It sounds like, yeah, it's good. That's come over a lot of time of work. It started out a lot more simple. It was just getting there, but now I've tried to, yeah, again applying some sort of S&C programming philosophy to the shark tank to make it a little bit more precise for what I'm wanting out of the athlete.

James de Lacey26:09

Yeah, for sure. I like that. You also mentioned obviously you program over like a three week cycle, like medium, high, low. Someone listening who's maybe planning their own training and training weeks, what are you manipulating within those, within those weeks to make it moderate, high, and low?

Dean Amasinger26:09

Okay, so what we do is, and this is part of how we get different phases of camp operating on the mats at the same time. So on certain sessions we'll do on a Monday, Thursday, we have wrestling Monday morning and fence wrestling on Thursday morning. And what I like to do is up to 10 minutes of drilling on a particular technique, and then we'll go into live of that technique. And I kind of, I like...

I prescribe to – my coaching is definitely impacted or influenced by the constraints-led approach. And so manipulating the constraints in those live situations to test what we've been working prior to that. And so in those live rounds we can either have three live rounds or one live round. So if everyone's on the mat, if someone's in fight camp they're doing three live rounds. And if you were in off camp you'd only be doing – or General or return to play, you'd only be doing one. And if you're in specific prep you'd be doing two.

And then so if you weren't doing the – if you were in off camp you would carry on drilling and then you join in in the last round. And so everyone on the same mat can have a different level, different ratio of live to drilling, which ultimately is the biggest thing that impacts the intensity of that session, is the live to drilling ratio.

So there's that aspect and then there's total number of rounds as well. And so there's certain sessions that don't have that structure that have more of they're doing tactical work earlier or technical work earlier, and then we finish with a block of live work. But then still that's that the number of rounds that they do in that live work again impacts that ratio of live to drilling. And then on a deload week that live amount of rounds are considerably pulled back and there's also one less session as well. So there's an extra half day.

So in terms of the training load of that week that then is significantly reduced. And sometimes depending on what phase they're in, for example on their S&C, they don't have any S&C, they're just doing strength training so the duration of the session is reduced. And we measure RPE, RPS of all of our sessions and our training load, and obviously monitor the duration of the session so that we have the training load pretty closely mirror the periodization, the coach's planned periodization across weeks and across and by individual sessions mirror what we get out of the athletes in terms of their data.

So it's been working pretty well so far because there's pretty strong correlation between live to drilling ratio and the intensity of that session.

James de Lacey29:23

Gotcha. Nice. How different is working with these athletes in Asia compared to maybe the ones that are coming through in the States? Have you – I don't know if you've had much experience on both sides or the different countries, but I'm assuming because the PI is relatively new in Asia compared to the one in Vegas. So do you have – are there any big differences that you've noticed between the athletes in terms of maybe – I don't know, maybe the ones in Asia have a more well-trained or less well-trained versus the ones that come in to the ones in the States?

Dean Amasinger29:53

Do you mean what do you mean by well-trained though? Just more uh –

James de Lacey29:53

I guess you could say have a better physical underpinning already coming in, or bigger training age coming in if yes or no.

Dean Amasinger29:53

Oh, training age. Well that depends on what system the guys have come from, and this will be my subjective opinion. We haven't actually specifically looked at that. But the same thing would be in America – the guys that come out of wrestling through collegiate programs that have had that structured training, those guys obviously more well-trained, and some of the guys that come from traditional martial arts that haven't had that on average probably not.

And that would be the same for the guys in China. We have some guys that have come out of wrestling programs of either national wrestling program or provincial. And it's the same for – Sanda is actually a national sport for them because I think it's in the Asian Games, so they have training schools at young age for Sanda. And a few guys have either come through that or they've come through wrestling, so they're decently well-trained in that sense.

What they've done in that training hasn't necessarily been the best, but they've done a lot of it. They do a lot of volume. It's kind of like sort of Russian style, old school, like get the reps in, get the sets in. So yeah, but they're very coachable in that sense and yeah, pretty for the most part pretty well-trained.

James de Lacey31:11

Gotcha. Is there an academy system in the States like there is for the Asian PI?

Dean Amasinger31:11

No, no there's not. No, no. Because, you know, we're opening Mexico next and there will be in Mexico. But in America it didn't need the academy model because the infrastructure of MMA in the US is the most developed of anywhere in the world. They have the technical coaches, they have the knowledge, they have the understanding of the sport. There's so many great – even in Vegas there's Xtreme Couture, there's Syndicate, and all the guys that come through from the rest of America.

And the reason we have the academy in China is because it is a little bit further behind, particularly in the way that the individual martial arts are pretty good. But think of MMA as a sport, as a martial art in itself, and integrating the transitions between the different technical skill sets isn't as advanced or it isn't as – just in terms of numbers as well.

I did a bit of analysis of where the sport is in terms of numbers and it's still not that big yet. You can get that from Tapology because you can see active fighters in all the different weight classes, and it's comparable size to the UK. I think it's actually smaller than the UK, for example, in China. But MMA in the UK has been more developed for a longer period of time.

And there's – there's only been one coach in China that has had a career and then come back into coaching. Whereas in England my generation are now coaching, like Dan Hardy's coaching, Jimi – Jimi is fighting but he's also coaching. We've got that and then that brings in another generation. Whereas China is still in the stage of the first generation of fighters coming through, haven't quite got to that stage of becoming coaches. So yeah, it's a little bit behind, and so we're only going to be going into markets or territories or countries that need the help of developing the sport in that particular place.

James de Lacey33:26

Did you know you can represent Sweet Science of Fighting while you're training? We're more than just a membership, we also have rash guards and shorts. If you're watching this on YouTube you'll see that we have the Sweet Science of Fighting 2.0 shorts, and we also have the Sweet Science of Fighting short and long sleeve rash guard. There's another design coming soon, but you can get those on XMartial.com and you can go down the description and you can find that. And back to the podcast.

Yeah, that makes sense, that makes sense. I wanted to jump a little bit into the gym itself. I know people always want to know exercises, even though we know that's not that important in the grand scheme of things. But are there any exercises that you're very fond of for MMA fighters that you kind of like to keep in the rotation?

Dean Amasinger34:18

I mean, a medball is – use a medball particularly for rotational power and some of the ballistic stuff that you can do with it. It's an oldie but a goodie, and I think that when prescribed in the right way it can be used very effectively.

We also have these jammers that are part of the squat rack – sure you're familiar with. And we're getting some – in terms of what it feels like to the athlete, there's a lot of positive response for how they like to use it in terms of – it isn't throwing a punch, but more so than maybe the landmine punch throw. Which we do – we do like the landmine punch throw. In terms of specifics that's related to potential transfer to the actual sport, then those three are definitely things that we've been integrating at different times for sure.

James de Lacey35:23

Yeah, nice. You mentioned obviously with the sled testing as well. I know you guys – well I mean I see it on Instagram, a lot of Prowler pushing with different athletes. Do you have any – are you able to share any kind of different protocols you guys like to use on the Prowler?

Dean Amasinger35:53

Off the top of my head I can't think – I mean it really depends on what we're – yeah, it really depends on what – there's so many. As a modality it can be used so many different ways. We also have a non-technical shark tank for guys that maybe have injuries that can't be doing wrestling as part of –

So the Prowler is used in that, but there's so many different protocols that there's not like one that stands out to me that would be of any significance. It's just situation dependent of what we're trying to develop in terms of an attribute. So sort of hard to say, I guess.

James de Lacey36:29

No problem. Must be some very general questions there, I know, but the ones that always come through. So I asked them just so we can get them through to the audience as well. But outside of that, like how does the training week look for you guys? I mean, we can use the academy as the example because they're training full-time, yeah?

Dean Amasinger36:56

So yeah, let's have a look at the week. So they're on two-a-days Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and then one a day Wednesday, Saturday.

James de Lacey37:28

Can you share screen? You can share if you just go share down the bottom and then they show. If anyone's listening to this on Spotify and whatnot, you should watch it.

Dean Amasinger37:28

Got it. So this is a timetable for guys. This was actually earlier this year, I guess. So this is the normal sort of timetable that we look at. And as I mentioned, the Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday is full. The whole academy does also the sparring as well.

But the sparring, we have different times. Sometimes we'll have— at this period we didn't have, there wasn't, it was in the lead up to Chinese New Year, so we didn't have that many guys in the academy. But when we're at full capacity, like 30 guys there, then we'll have multiple starting times of sparring depending on what phase of camp you're in.

And so the foundation session, or core sessions or core timetable I should say, is Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and then the afternoon sessions, which is here, here, here, and here, are the swing sessions which I mentioned about, which are individualized depending on what you need to be working on. And so, is it still sharing?

James de Lacey38:27

Still on it, yeah.

Dean Amasinger38:27

So as I mentioned, some of the sessions are we'll do a drill, then they'll go into some live work, and then another drill into live work. And then whether they're in threes or two in pairs, or any notes that come into related to constraints can be put in here.

Then this here is modifications from Sports Medicine in terms of any adjustments that might be made for injury. They say there's particular sessions that they can't do.

And then we have— on what, I think it's decided to phrase on me. Oh, classic! There we go. Here are the different options. Yeah, the different options of modifications that we might have, whether it be graduated return to play from concussion and the stage that they're at, because we have protocols of how they come back from that, or easy day in lieu of the live set, etc. There's other different options that we can have there.

So that as technical coaches, when we're on the mats and we know that there might be some limitations— as we talked about, getting them back on the mat as soon as possible but within the constraints, like limitations of a particular injury— and so then that's what, when we have those morning meetings, that's what this is updated from. They'll give us an update what they're able to do, and then we'll— and then we have, yeah, these are the session plans for the different technical sessions.

And it's the same for all of them, just so I can monitor what we've been working on and in the programming, etc. So going back to the actual timetable though, the color of the session also sort of relates to the coach's planned RPE. It's not the actual number, but it covers basically a low, moderate— green being low, orange being moderate, red being high.

And then, when the Sport Science coordinator will ask me after every session what was the RPE, so we also can compare the coach's plan compared to the athletes and see if there's any anomalies from that, or outliers, and then investigate why there might be that discrepancy, I should say.

So that's basically what the timetable looks like. And then, as I mentioned, Wednesday and Saturday, there'll be different sparring start times dependent on what phase of camp there are. So if they're in fight camp, maybe they'd start later and we'd use some of those guys for fresh people in those rounds, or it'd be starting earlier depending on what phase of camp they are.

And then they also— this switches around, so sometimes, not generally, I can't remember off the top of my head why this was this way, but generally off camp we have non-technical training first and technical training after. And in fight camp we have technical training first and fight— that's also so we can keep the athlete-coach ratio nice and low.

And we split them by phases in those afternoon sessions. So sometimes when you're working with like a group of four or something, and again, based on those buckets that we talked about.

James de Lacey42:17

Nice. Do you ever have coaches that go rogue during those green sessions and pump the RPE?

Dean Amasinger42:17

No, because as you see from the session planning, we plan ahead before. We know what's going on in that session before it happens. No one's turning up to a session and just coaching, which, when I was fighting, that's what was happening for sure.

And I didn't even— I didn't, like I said before, I went into rugby. I ended on the rugby coaching side, I should say— I hadn't even thought about a session plan beforehand, planning what we were going to be working on, or planning ahead weeks ahead what we were going to be working on technically. So no, we have a coach— we have coaches meetings as well. So we get aligned.

And I also have a technical theme of the week. So if there's a technical theme, so the double leg, everything in that week from a technical perspective will be in some way connected to the double leg. And that doesn't mean that it absolutely has to, and it limits the freedom of the creativity of the coach, but it's just keeping that in mind. Even on striking, if you're having an awareness for double leg defense, or if you're striking into takedowns and you're looking for combinations that would go into that, or if you're in BJJ, what position do you normally land in from a double leg?

And then so there's like continuity between the sessions and connections between the sessions. And we often— and also for in terms of like recall, like the warm-up from a session on a Thursday will be the review of the session on a Tuesday, for example. So when we program together, they let us know what we're doing and I'll put that as part of the warm-up as one of my sessions, or vice versa.

And so there's integration. And it's not just like, oh, we've done something on a Monday and we don't come back to that for three weeks. We're getting touch points on it across the week and then across the three-week cycle as well because we all program together.

James de Lacey44:04

Nice. It's funny you say that because I've been part of teams where the coaches don't have a plan. They turn up on the day, and it's professional sport, but they do what they want. And okay, it's supposed to be a lower day today? Beasting them. Yeah.

Dean Amasinger44:26

Yeah. I mean, on the technical side, I think it's important as well. If you look at like the research about skill acquisition and whatnot, and how things should be put together, and particularly in terms of the recall sessions later on, that's super important. But on the periodization side, it just— everything goes out the window if you're suddenly like, it's supposed to be a low and you're making these guys spar when— one of the challenges I faced, and I think a lot of gyms would also face nowadays, is we have the luxury of everything is centralized.

So all their sessions are done in one gym and every coach is in the same building, and we're having daily meetings and weekly meetings about planning their training. Whereas when I was training, I was traveling an hour to go do Muay Thai over here, I was traveling an hour to go and do my wrestling here, and then in one gym I'd do, you know— and then those coaches might not have even known each other, let alone communicate.

And so when I get to that coach, they're like, oh, I want 100% from you, make sure you're working hard. But he hasn't thought about earlier in the day I've already sparred 10 rounds. And he's thinking I'm being lazy, but I hadn't—

I thought about that communication. So even if you are in that situation where you're not in a centralized gym, having someone, even if you yourself communicate what you want in terms of the timetable and having alignment in terms of, even if it's high, low, high, low, some sort of periodization with so that we're getting the most out of our training sessions, not everything's just medium, that ends up everything ends up being medium if you don't have that periodization. So that was one thing I would say. It's an easy fix for.

James de Lacey46:17

I got you. You just cut out a bit there. Do you have a language barrier that you have to deal with there?

Dean Amasinger46:17

Yes, yeah, it's that is one of the biggest challenges. Sorry, I noticed my, it's I'm here in Vegas and it's super dry and my lips are messed up. It's really bad. It's so dry here. It's crazy. I get nosebleeds for no reason because it's super dry anyway.

Yeah, so the language barrier is I've been there for nearly four years now, and so I've got a little bit of coaching Mandarin, just the things that you surprise in terms of your vocabulary as a coach that you use so often. You know, start and stop and how long a round is, how many reps you want them to do, things like that.

I'm capable to do and motivating them when it's hard or get up and things like that, which it's actually a relatively limited vocabulary that you use. But anything beyond sort of commands, I have to use a translator and I have a translator with me the whole time.

And it's challenging because not only that, not only even if he's a really good translator, right, it's not just about translating, it's about interpretation. Because the direct translation of something doesn't mean the same thing sometimes, and he has to use his judgment in that moment to try and get across what I'm trying to say when I'm talking about tactics, when I'm trying to talk about the nuances of fighting.

And when you're talking about in metaphor and stuff, I know I've realized not to talk metaphor because there are cultural metaphors that make sense, right? And normally it's actually storytelling is a good way of explaining what you're trying to say. But then when you're doing that through a translator, it's really challenging.

But having said that, and because I worked in Japan, as I mentioned before, and that was really what got me onto the constraints-led approach of coaching, because I looked into how can I sort of reduce the need for me to be explaining. And if the outcome of a drill is the what I'm trying to teach, then that's actually a better way of learning anyway. And so when you manipulate the drill around the constraints of the task, then you can get that without actually having to coach too much.

And it also made me realize that I probably over-coached earlier in my career. I wanted to, coming from a place of wanting to share the information. But in reality you need to give them the space to work things out for themselves. You know, information is better retained when it's navigated on their own rather than being spoonfed.

So yes, there are definitely some challenges and limitations, but there are also, I feel like all of us foreigners that are working over there, it's made us better coaches by having to navigate that challenge. And I think that one of the things as well is when they're building up to a fight and you're getting that contact with the athlete of understanding where their confidence is at, where what things you might need to say to them.

And you speak to them before training, see where they're at. And it's looking at their response to the training load and stuff, but that comes from body language before the training and stuff. But it's also those small conversations that you have with them before and after training. And so missing that is tough because that's an important part of coaching, and when you're doing that through a translator, it's just not the same.

James de Lacey50:04

I went the same thing when I was working in Romania. It's most spoke English as well, but you know the ones that don't and have to build that relationship, it's near impossible because you just can't speak the same language. So regardless of if you translated there, it's one of the things that can't be done.

Dean Amasinger50:29

But it's getting, like I said, I'm learning. I'm trying, I'm doing my best to try and learn. And also their English is starting to get better because they're hearing us speak English more. And they enjoy it when they say stuff and we respond positively to it. It's a bit of banter and they can say some English stuff. And some of the guys who have graduated to the UFC have spent time in America and did fight camps there and stuff, and then they've had to learn more English because there, you know, no one speaking, Johnny having the translator.

So yeah, it's an ongoing thing and it's not just a language thing, it's a cultural thing as well. Having, what motivates them, what drives them.

James de Lacey51:20

No, for sure, another element. Yeah, no, definitely. I think I've gone through everything I want to ask you, Dean, but if anyone wants to find you and follow what you're up to, where can they do that?

Dean Amasinger51:20

It's well, it's just my name on all social media, Twitter, Instagram. And I don't really use Facebook. Twitter, Instagram is just D-E-A-N-A-M-A-S-I-N-G-E-R. Yeah, that's it.

James de Lacey51:49

Perfect. I'll link those up in the description for anyone watching. But thanks for coming on, thanks for sharing as well the schedules you have there from the UFC PI in Shanghai.

Dean Amasinger51:49

Yeah, you're very welcome. Thanks for having me on.

James de Lacey51:49

Cheers.