Science Behind Terence Crawford's Transformation & How To Move Up A Weight Class w/ Gavin Pratt (SSOF Ep 167)

Gavin Pratt2:00

So usually that return to training block or general prep block might be a good opportunity to increase some lean mass. But then after that, it's like your phase potentiation in a sense. Let's build that. Then we need to focus probably on more of your neural component, like your strength, and then maybe a little bit of power based on your testing results. And then that force that you created, you then want to make sure that you're expressing that force faster as you get closer to a fight.

So just as a general sort of outlay, that's usually how I would approach it with probably most combat sports. I think if you're looking for someone to go up a weight class, even in MMA, then maybe you can hang on to that hypertrophy phase a touch longer, or maybe it just becomes part of the accessory component rather than the primary component of your training program so that you get the other elements in there.

James de Lacey2:00

So what counts in as a hypertrophy phase in this example, in terms of maybe just a general structure of the training program as a whole, just so we could get a real idea of kind of what goes into maybe a typical, a very general, very general sense of a training session.

Gavin Pratt4:06

Yeah. So I guess return to training could be anywhere from anywhere from two to four weeks depending on your target. But if you're looking at hypertrophy, then generally you want it to be a four-week phase at least. Basically, the return to training block, you probably want about four weeks to get some kind of adaptations from a hypertrophy standpoint.

So let's say your return to training block was that, then that might just look at three sessions a week. It does depend how many times the athlete wants to train with you. But if you've got three opportunities a week, you could do two ways. You could look at covering the volume that's required for hypertrophy, but you certainly want to make sure, based on a lot of the guys that are doing better research than I ever have, I'm taking their information here, but looking at things like mechanical tension being the primary component of that hypertrophy phase.

But then getting creative and competitive with those athletes to try and get them to get the most buy-in. I mean, it's not hard for a lot of athletes to enjoy a bit of hypertrophy from time to time, but it is also really cool and interesting to try and get some different methodology in there, especially when you're working with combat sports and you don't get that opportunity very often.

James de Lacey5:20

What kind of, okay, what kind of volumes are you looking at then, in terms for that hypertrophy phase? And what are some of the more, I guess, competitive elements or other variations you're looking at as well to drive it?

Gavin Pratt5:20

Yeah, I think one of the main things from what I've been reading is, you want at least around that 10-set mark per week. Volume can play a pretty important role, but then in terms of the rep prescription, from what I've been reading in the literature, it's not, you can get it with high volume and low volume loads. It's more about getting close to those stimulating reps. So those reps in reserve are key.

And so finding methods that aren't just your three sets of eight where you might end up getting one to two reps in reserve on each of those sets, it's about being a bit more creative with some interventions so that you can get a little bit more of a bang for your buck, I guess, in those sessions. So minimal effective dose, but also trying to make sure that you get more of those stimulating reps within a standalone session.

So some of the ideas we've played around with, 50 reps in five minutes and making sure that you get those loads so that it just times out. We'll look at drop sets. So whether that's 15, 12, 10, 8, 6, or whether, and you're staying on the same load, but you've got 10 seconds between them. Whether that's looking at 10, 10, or 10, 10, 10, and your weight is the decreasing component. So that's another one. Then we'll look at things like myo reps and rest pauses, but more in that sort of moderate rep range from a hypertrophy perspective. That works really well.

James de Lacey7:06

Yeah. Do you want to maybe explain some of those, myo reps and things, just for the listeners?

Gavin Pratt7:09

Yeah, sure. So with myo reps, normally you're going to start off with a single set to pretty much failure. Then it depends on the time frame. I've read a few different ones, but we've liked to use a 10 to 15 second rest period. And then the aim is to do clusters of a particular amount of repetitions. So let's say 6, 5, 5, 5, 4, and almost set a minimal number.

So let's say three is your number. Then you keep going until you get to three, and then you're finished. So that could take you three sets, that could take you eight sets. It's a way to sort of just keep pushing towards those stimulating reps. That's one way you can do it.

Another way with the rest pause is to look at a 20-second interval. So again, depending on if you want to work heavy load, low reps, or lighter load, high reps, that's up to you. But that first effort needs to be in the stimulating reps. So reps in reserve should be one at most, and then 20 seconds rest, and then you've just got three to four subsequent sets where you're going one rep in reserve on each of them.

One that I've loved to do with fighters because they're highly competitive is kind of a myo reps, I guess, but with a target. So if they do a set to failure at a very much a submaximal load, they might get, say, 25 reps, right? Then we'll give them a 30-second rest, and then their goal is to then make up 26 reps however possible.

James de Lacey8:59

So this is meathead stuff. I like this.

Gavin Pratt9:02

Oh yeah. Yeah. But it's competitive too. So, and then they'll just do that. That's it. One set gone.

So again, bang for your buck, time efficiency. But the idea with that is that I'll, let's say, I'll go, right, you're trying to get as many reps as possible on this first set. There's a bit of a strength endurance element to that as well. But I won't tell them what's coming.

So in week one, it's usually pretty good because now they're going to set the standard. They're highly competitive. It works really well. They might get 26. I say, "Great, you got a 30-second rest. Now your aim is to try and get 26 reps again, however possible. Take a break whenever you need it." And they'll always go to that one rep in reserve as well, because they're trying to get there as fast as possible.

James de Lacey10:39

Awesome. That's some cool little things that people can use. Do you have a preference then? Because you mention obviously all rep ranges build muscle. Again, it's kind of about that tension and I guess accumulating those sets kind of close to failure. Do you have a preference maybe based on exercise or by athlete or just generally in terms of what end of the spectrum you typically like to be on with lower and higher reps?

Gavin Pratt11:03

Not really. I think that's athlete dependent. So, some athletes prefer to lift at that heavier load. They feel that they need almost that strength hypertrophy end of the spectrum. But then there's other athletes that we might select to have more of that strength endurance hypertrophy end of the spectrum.

The probably the biggest challenge we're looking into at the moment, I don't have all the answers for this either, but one thing that's really interested me is the differentiating factors between hypertrophy and strength and endurance because if we get that wrong in a weight class sport, we might have made their weight cut extremely difficult.

So, as an example, we might look at mechanical tension, metabolic stress and length tension relationship being potentially three really important factors for hypertrophy. So, if we're taking away the mechanical tension, in other words, we're staying further away from one to two reps in reserve, then maybe we're ticking a box with strength endurance. But then strength endurance recovery periods are normally around 30 seconds.

So is that when we start implementing prescriptions where we're going, you know, the classic four main lifts, all different body parts, and 30 seconds separate them, and we're looking at 15 to 25 repetitions for each. And it's almost like that high repetition circuit, but because you're not working on that same muscle group, we're decreasing the specific metabolic stress of that muscle.

And that might be a way to make sure that we're doing strength endurance, and not hypertrophy. So, I don't know the answers, but that's what we're digging into at the moment because we have to be really cautious of adding a heap of lean mass to our fighters.

James de Lacey12:54

Yeah, that's something that I think most people are almost aware of when they're trying to potentially do this. And you mentioned about the length tension relationship. Are you thinking about in terms of hypertrophy length tension relationship in terms of where you maximize tension or are you looking at maybe long muscle length?

Gavin Pratt13:11

Yeah, long muscle length. So full range, making the tissue strong through its full range of movement. And it's funny because on that mate, one of the interventions that I was sort of putting in at the thought of minimizing hypertrophy, and this is a great example of trial and error, error being in capital letters. I thought I was helping this athlete minimize lean mass because what I was trying to do was like your isometric sandwiches. So, we often are told isometrics don't do a great deal of hypertrophy. Well, they can. And with isometrics that long muscle length too as well.

Most of the time. So sometimes say on the pushing type variations it was more at your long muscle length. At the pulling type variations it was more of a shortened muscle length. So there's a differentiating there. But so I might do your isometric sandwiches like let's take a split squat for example. And week one might be fives. So you're doing five reps, 5 second hold at your long muscle length, five reps, 5-second hold, and then switch to the other leg. And then instead of the load going up, I'd increase the volume. So five, sixes, and sevens across the week.

So I thought by keeping the load lower, that would have helped by putting them in an isometric, they weren't able to lift as much weight. So therefore, I'm staying further away from that potential mechanical tension because we need all that force. But what I did do was obviously create a great metabolic stimulus and environment because they're holding at long muscle lengths.

They're then fatigued. So that lower weight actually feels like a heavier weight. And it was a great hypertrophy stimulus. So again, trial and error. And when I look back at it, I'm like, "Oh, all the three things were there. I just thought maybe because of isometrics, it would minimize that output." But it was quite the opposite.

James de Lacey15:09

Yeah. Yeah, Dustin Orchuk has a good paper on I guess long versus short isometrics in terms of long muscle length just being basically being superior for everything short muscle length and including a hypertrophy stimulus which is which is funny. But yeah, they're cool little things to play with too obviously with the long muscle isometrics because you also got like some of the structure adaptations for speed that can come out the other side of it too.

But obviously kind of depends on how it's being applied and if it's being applied in say maybe a more hypertrophy style set like that then yeah you can probably come up with some of those outcomes. How quick was that, how quick did you notice that hypertrophy change?

Gavin Pratt15:48

Pretty quickly. I think it was interesting because also, you know, we know that fighters tend to maybe not over like fuel enough, but it just coincided with the perfect storm where this athlete was enjoying food again and it was like again the perfect storm.

James de Lacey16:11

And was this with the USCPI little kitchen there where they can kind of pick up their meals and things?

Gavin Pratt16:16

I don't know with this athlete but yeah it was just like a had a great stimulus and I think across the weeks there was a really good net weekly stimulus and was obviously in a good, you know, calorie non-deficit. They're in a surplus and I think all those things combined for them to put on a really good amount of lean mass but at the same time I now have something in my back pocket for another great alternative for when people want hypertrophy.

So, we got through it. It wasn't a bad result in the end, but it was just an interesting experiment that probably went the opposite way of what I thought.

James de Lacey16:55

No, that's cool. That's cool. Oh, I just had a question. I literally just had a question and I literally just forgot it. Oh my gosh. Okay. Well, I'm going to continue on what I was what else I had in my head anyway. At least if it comes to my mind. But okay, I had two questions and I forgot them both now.

Gavin Pratt17:17

Well, that's a good effort. So, we're talking about like I guess your isometric sandwiches and things like that.

James de Lacey17:26

Came back. The four-we you mentioned obviously the general prep or out of camp kind of or not out of camp directly after fight kind of getting back to training period as the hypertrophy period. Within this period then are you also incorporating some of the other training I guess qualities to put it very generally? So is there still maybe jumps plyometric whatever other stuff in there that you're trying to address and keep and develop or is this like okay we're focus on hypertrophy this is the main thing this is kind of what we're covering?

Gavin Pratt17:57

Yeah, yeah definitely mate. I think things like say our plyometric continuum will usually work on braking capacity during that phase with the knowledge that in general prep, we might start looking at more performance-based outcomes if they're up for it. But again, this sort of comes back to usually at the end of a return to training phase, we're going to be doing some testing to work out where that athlete currently is at and what they would like to achieve moving forward. So, we'll take into account their testing results, but also discussions with them about how they can best utilize strength and conditioning.

So, there's certainly no blanket statement on it. I think some athletes, depending on their weight class, will actually continue hypertrophy quite late in the piece, particularly in your heavier weight classes because it's not so much of a problem. But if you're someone that traditionally has suffered weight cuts or is not wanting to get too far away from it, then we'll have to nip that in the bud very quickly.

And it might only be a two-week phase where we're looking at strength at length, good mobilization or mobility with load, getting you moving well and preparing you for the next phase where we are looking at more of your dynamic type lifts.

James de Lacey19:10

That's good. That's good. Just wanted to ask you that because I think it's good for people or at least people to hear maybe what goes on in some of these well I guess we can say phases because often we talk like hey this is a strength phase and people think okay so all I'm doing is this one thing, you know, whereas too many coaches kind of like okay that's just the emphasis usually and there's other things going on.

Gavin Pratt19:33

Absolutely. There's so much going on. I mean, this is again why we test. We might have neck specific force vectors that we're working on and even that's got its own matrix and depending on where that athlete's at, we might be doing something along those lines or you know, I mentioned the plyometrics, maybe it's upper body versus lower body. If we've actually done some solid testing then we might actually see some deficiencies early on in the piece where it's not just about strength or not just about hypertrophy but we are touching on other pieces that vertical integration I guess.

James de Lacey20:06

Yeah. You just mentioned the upper and lower I guess plyometric stuff. So you are you looking at some kind of ratio between upper and lower body in terms of maybe

Gavin Pratt20:14

That was more related to the strength. So we tend to look at it, particularly something we've seen is particularly in females, they'll tend to be really strong in the lower body and needing that strength to try and develop in the upper body. So sometimes, if they're considered strong enough for that lower body in terms of MMA, then we might move on to more of your strength power type work, but remain on maximal strength for the upper body if that's what it's required.

James de Lacey20:43

I was going to say with the females, do you think that's just because of maybe the way they train or training backgrounds, or is it more of a men versus women thing?

Gavin Pratt20:53

No, I think there's probably a gender component to that for sure, from what I've seen anyway. But again, that's the beauty of MMA because it's probably both. You've got the gender component, then you've got someone potentially coming from a heavier striking or grappling background that's going to provide some differences.

And I've seen two training partners work together. One of them's come from striking, one of them's come from jiu-jitsu. And the chin-ups were severely different. So they're in the same weight class—that's just their backgrounds that was creating it, but they're the same gender. So there's lots of pieces to consider in MMA, not just because of strength and conditioning, but because of the sport, the weight class, the gender, the tactics, the game strategy, previous fights, training age with strength and conditioning, which isn't always that high in MMA.

A lot of considerations. So we need to test and work out where that athlete is, and then we can have better answers around where we go to.

James de Lacey21:47

I want to give you a real hypothetical here because I think it's interesting. So you mentioned almost the perfect scenario, right? An athlete finishes a fight, they're not going to have a fight in a while, they go through kind of these different phases—a hypertrophy, let's say, for example. Atta, when he had to fight Yan Blankovic—basically the weight class difference—now just right for that fight, he didn't add body weight, or didn't at least didn't intentionally try to move up the weight class. You guys just fought at his weight class.

So in that scenario, how would you approach that scenario differently than say the quote unquote perfect scenario? Maybe coming out of a fight and then kind of working their way through, I guess, a normal camp.

Gavin Pratt22:41

So I guess taking a fighter out of the equation, it's the question is around like if someone was going up a weight class, would you want them to put on some extra mass?

James de Lacey22:41

More so. If they would, and then if they do, would that approach be different? Say they had 12 or 16 weeks or whatever it is to get there, just hypothetically.

Gavin Pratt23:04

I think one of the—we've got these—we're starting to develop these things around performance triangles. So it's almost like what are the main things at the base of the pyramid that we should focus on in off camp. Then what's in the middle ground, and then what's at the sort of top with the smallest consideration. And then as we move across into fight camp, the triangle inverts and we start considering all the components that we might need to think about like game plan and strategy in that phase.

And one of the small points we've come up with at the moment is decay rate and around the adaptations, the work that Isharan's sort of created in his papers. And again, everyone's going to be different, but in terms of just guidelines and understanding that usually you can hang on to maximal strength for a lot longer if you don't train it than you could with speed and power. That tends to be a consideration for us.

It also helps our athletes to feel better as they lean into a fight. If they know they've done the back-end strength or hypertrophy work in this sense and then the last sort of late fight camp phase, maybe we're just expressing that strength faster. That usually gives them a better psychological feel of preparation.

So I would say just working backwards from that, that's how I'd be thinking of it—is giving them a really good solid amount of time for that hypertrophy phase, that strength and hypertrophy phase next, and then maybe strength power. So we're still maintaining that strength but not losing that mass, which is also really difficult with the amount of training units that MMA athletes tend to do.

And now we're starting to get into a weight cut. So there's a calorie deficit, which is not ideal for hypertrophy as we all know. So there's a lot of crossover things. So I think that also highlights why it's important to get it done early when the athlete is eating at the way that they should in terms of a calorie intake.

James de Lacey25:00

How much—for anyone who's maybe thinking about moving up a weight class—how much mass can someone realistically look to potentially put on in a small amount of time? I know it's going to vary person to person. Elite athletes tend to just take a stimulus and just soak it in.

Gavin Pratt25:16

It's true.

James de Lacey25:18

But for the mere mortals though.

Gavin Pratt25:19

For meals like us, it might never happen. Let's be honest. But look, I think there's even more considerations there around what's your somatotype, like mesomorph type athletes who are going to look at a weight and put on muscle. Your sort of ectomorphs are going to probably work their asses off and put on a kilo. So that can also be a challenge. And then there was something else you said there as well, mate.

James de Lacey25:50

Basically how much could someone realistically look to put on without—it's so general, but I know it's a general question—but without negatively affecting performance, and maybe what would be a target that maybe is shooting too far.

Gavin Pratt26:07

Very general. I don't know because I think a lot of it comes down to their fueling. And like I said with my previous example, we went trying for hypertrophy, but because he was fueling so well and we don't normally do that type of work, he exploded.

I think the other thing I was going to add to that was the training age component again, because we know that from research that those with low training age just require new stimulus and they're going to make changes. Whereas I've had athletes who I've been working with for three years trying to put on lean mass and they might put on a kilo in a month and a half, and then go and rest for three weeks on holiday, come back and in the first four weeks we outstandingly go past it because they're back in that calorie surplus and they're just relaxed about everything.

So there's just too many factors unfortunately in MMA to be that precise. But I would like to, if I could give an answer—if I truly thought hypertrophy was the goal for an athlete, I'd want to be considering an eight-week plan at least, that sort of six to eight week block of getting after it and minimizing the interference effect as much as I could, which is very hard in MMA. That would be a good goal where I think you could put on some good lean mass and change composition.

James de Lacey27:32

Nice. How much is there a consideration during these phases with say muscle soreness and just general soreness and then going to technical training as well? Because obviously there's a lot of things to juggle. Does that come to mind with maybe exercise selection or some of the things that you're trying to do within the gym, and then how do you work around that?

Gavin Pratt27:55

Great question. The last thing I want to do is affect sparring. However, if you're in a return to training block and maybe early general prep, probably doesn't matter as much. So if hypertrophy is one of the goals and they're going up in weight class and we might risk a little bit of soreness and poorer movement quality as a result, then those return to training, general prep phases are going to be key for me to go, well, the priority is this at the moment.

But as soon as we move more closer to that specific prep, that's when we're going to have to be really crafty about interventions and timing of those interventions. So if an athlete had say a Monday, Wednesday, Friday with me and Tuesday, Thursday was their sparring, that becomes pretty tricky, right? But—is that a case where, and this is what I've used as an example—is that the Monday and Wednesday are more of the strength power components. We're looking at the neural changes, and then Friday we just—we're doing a hypertrophy session and we're trying—we're sending it. We're sending it.

All those methods that I used in the previous examples, we're putting them in there and we're giving them a big pump session and knowing that Saturday they're going to be recovering, Sunday they're going to be recovering, they should be okay by Monday again. So we get that sort of 48 hours plus recovery period.

James de Lacey28:28

For those who are still doing more of a say hypertrophy emphasis, or at least with some of it in there, maybe closer to fights or maybe closer to preparation, then what other considerations are you looking at then to potentially try and mitigate some of the soreness or negative effects?

Gavin Pratt29:32

For me I guess it's around minimal effective dose. It's around can you incorporate isometrics into that. So can we almost decrease—I don't know if this would work because a lot of the time it's around the calcium buildup—but could we decrease the loading if you're supersetting your static-based work, isometrics, into a superset of something that's more slow dynamic but a lighter load?

Potentially that could minimize the hypertrophy. Then even the hard thing here is if you're looking at concentric only, then that's one of the things that's sort of minimal in terms of hypertrophy development. So great for not being sore, not so great for improving hypertrophy. So it does get really tricky, mate, if I'm honest.

But I might just do little touch points. So even those 50 reps in 5 minutes, that's my finisher. That's the last thing we're doing and we're just touching on that Monday with a muscle group, Wednesday with a muscle group, or even your transverse splits upper and lower, upper and lower, just so there's not so much upper body on one day local volume.

James de Lacey30:44

I usually tend to stay away from that in MMA if I'm honest for that reason, because even if it's not hypertrophy, just doing a big upper and a big lower body day is probably going to affect them at some point on the next training, on the subsequent training session. So I do like those transverse splits a little bit more.

Gavin Pratt31:03

I like the rep goal one. One of my favorites I like to program in sessions just body weight is superset push and pull. So it's either push-ups and inverted rows or pull-ups and dips or anything like that. And it's just rep goal, say 50 reps of each. You have to reach 50 in the least amount of sets possible. And they just go back and forth and you sort of mirror them.

It doesn't even have to be just say it's something like 50 reps. It's like you have to get to 50 reps, least numbers possible, and you just superset. So do your push-ups into it, maybe at 15, you go do inverted rows, you maybe at 12, then back, you just keep going. It's a nice one too and it's joint friendly.

Even though it's hard, you're not beat up. It's just you get all the benefits from doing something like those things where most people are kind of maybe more thinking I need to use heavy dumbbells and barbells and this and that. It's like you can do stuff with body weight and still build volume and feel good and get a pump.

James de Lacey31:59

Well, I always use that example when people sort of look at body weight being lighter. But if you compare a push-up, which is going to be around, I don't know, it's like 45% of your body weight, even more if you're off your knees, you go that's how much I'm pushing. And then I could do a dumbbell bench press with two kilos in my hands. That's way lighter than my push-up is. It's not just because it's body weight doesn't mean it's easier. There's still a load that you're lifting.

Gavin Pratt32:27

Exactly. People seem to think body weight doesn't do much, but you can definitely get stuff out of it. Obviously, it's not going to be the main thing you do, but as a finisher and stuff like that, it works really well.

James de Lacey32:38

And you mention about the neck train. You've been doing a lot of neck training stuff and a lot of kind of little research projects in that area. It'll be interesting because I don't think you had done as much when we last talked a few years ago. So it'd be kind of interesting to hear the progression of what's going on there with the neck training, what you're finding, and what I guess what you're seeing in the neck training space specifically for combat sports.

Gavin Pratt33:00

I mean, we're still exploring it. That's the beauty of it. In my mind, we wanted to be doing something as a collective towards improving this area because, you know, people go straight to concussion and head accelerations when we talk about neck strength, but in reality when you're looking at a lot of sports collision-based sports, we're using it as a weapon. Muay Thai, you're using it to resist a clinch position. In MMA, you're using it to actually help be a fulcrum during your takedown.

We need it as part of the sport. It's a muscle group and a connection of that trunk neck head that we're actually trying to improve. One of the greatest things we've had is the athlete response from it. A lot of athletes who often suffer from neck pain or stingers, a lot of stingers, they're actually saying to us that in training I felt a moment where I was like, oh, that would put me out for a week and I'm okay. And for me, that's the biggest feedback that we're getting is that they're able to continue training.

So we don't know what its relationship is with concussion yet. From our perspective, the way we're approaching it is we want these athletes to have more time on the mats and we're starting to see that that's actually working for a lot of them. I think we're just getting more creative in approaching that neck matrix that we spoke about earlier and looking at when someone is strong enough, when we develop them into their fast dynamic strength and reactive strength, which I think is really important when you're looking at progression. It's just SNC 101, right?

We want to get them strong first, strong in good postures, and then express that strength faster. Why is that trunk neck head coupling mechanism any different? You've got to earn the right. And so now we're starting to put together some guidelines around strength for each weight class and start looking at saying, well, okay, you're potentially considered strong enough, you've got nice ratios, we're good, or your ratios are off. You're strong enough, but one of them isn't. So we've got to work on that particular force factor in the gym so we can balance out your ratios a bit more as well.

James de Lacey35:08

What kind of ratios are you typically seeing? Are you seeing based on certain fighters or styles or things like that, are you seeing maybe what neck flexion, I mean neck flexion is going to be considerably weaker than extension anyway, but is there some kind of ratio that you're looking at with those? And are certain, are fighters typically weaker in one than the other?

Gavin Pratt35:27

I mean, this is the really interesting thing about, we'll call it neck strength, right, but neck coupling strength is what we're looking at. The really interesting thing is that flexion is probably trained the least. So it's the least familiar. It's also got the least amount of assistance from trunk musculature. So if you think of extension and the erectors that are being involved, that's quite a high amount. Whereas your abdominals are trying to help your flexors out, and it's not as strong and powerful as your erector muscles.

So yes, flexion is definitely the lowest. But in the literature, we found that 6 to 1 and above that ratio is going to minimize your risk of concussion according to the research. So we certainly wanted that. What we've found over time is through numbers, as a general rule, males are looking at around 8 to 1 and females around sort of similar 7.8 to 1. And if we've got that in MMA, then we're happy.

The biggest conjecture comes in that in the literature they were saying that 1 to 1 flexion to lateral flexion is what the target is. But because our athletes utilize their lateral neck flexes so much in takedowns and things, they're actually super strong. So we've actually found 0.8 to 1 is a bit more relevant for our cohort. And then within 10%, 1 within 10% left to right, is what we'd like to see as well. So they're the ratios.

Slight differences between males and females. And then obviously absolute strength is something different. But again, this is a work in progress. Even speaking to people like Professor John Cronin. So he and his team are digging into it deeper. And we're looking at things like endurance tests, but then also training age of neck training really affects the reliability of some of the numbers.

So you can imagine even just a single weight class, you got an athlete that trains neck because they're from a wrestling background and a striker that barely did a couple of these on the side of the ring and that was their neck training. They're going to have different values, but they're in the same weight class, same gender in the UFC. So there's a lot of variation because it's not been something that people have trained traditionally in the way that we're looking to train it.

James de Lacey37:45

That is very true. And people usually come from neck training backgrounds as well. As you mentioned with the flexure, that's never done. It's good. You have neck harnesses and you can just kind of do a few of this and then that's your neck training done. It's so much easier with a neck harness than having to lie down, put plates on your head, you know.

Gavin Pratt38:05

And even with our testing, by lying them down and putting them in those positions, we feel like we've come up with a fairly reliable test. But we're going to see different results across the board because of that background. And the other thing is what about training yesterday? If we test you today, did you do a grappling session yesterday? Well, that's probably going to affect the neural component of your strength. So maybe your results today aren't as good as they were the last test purely because last time you didn't do eight rounds of jiu-jitsu the day before.

James de Lacey38:35

Sam K was choking you the entire time and now your neck.

Gavin Pratt38:39

Exactly. I didn't have that last time I tested and now my numbers are bugging up.

James de Lacey38:39

I know you guys kind of you have force frames and things to measure this. Is there a way for someone at home to self test their neck strength somewhat reliably?

Gavin Pratt38:55

I mean, we're only sort of trying to describe our test as being reliable now. We're still looking into it by trying to get people who don't do MMA to do the tests as a test-retest reliability. Every week we find something good and something we need to work on with these tests. This is not perfect by any stretch.

But if you don't have any equipment, to be honest, I would just try and follow the neck matrix and just be smart and safe with your prescriptions. Start static, get them good in posture, add load isotonically, try and hypertrophy the neck a little bit. Don't stay there too long or you might dampen the reactive responses. Move on to fast dynamic strength so we express force faster, going to reactive so that you get the stiffness and impulse focus, and then boom into your fight.

James de Lacey39:46

That's funny enough. It's the same progression that I think I did a video on and wrote about maybe before 2020. I think I have an old video going through the same thing. That's from the same things you're looking at there with reactive strength.

So it'll be interesting to kind of go through how you look at exercises that you're doing for the reactive component, because it's not so easy to kind of do and it's sometimes difficult to do on your own too. So it'll be interesting to know kind of what you got going on there.

Gavin Pratt40:16

I mean, it's SNC 101 as well, isn't it? Most the ways that we train, it's kind of the same.

So I mean, one way that we do it is actually got nothing to do with the neck. We're trying to completely look at things like response inhibition, reaction time, hand-eye coordination. So that's its own sense, but it's kind of considered under the umbrella of that neck reactive component. We might use bungee cords on an Iron Neck to do agility-based drills and throw combinations. We might look at that oscillation, so a partner hold band work. It's nothing crazily new.

And even then, when you look at the speed of strikes being under 30 milliseconds, ultimately all we're trying to do is find out if we can increase that strength within that impulse to be strong enough to resist some forces to minimize head acceleration. But even if you look at some of the papers, it's talking about angular velocity and linear velocity.

So for an example, this paper found that obviously your velocity is going to be increased if you get punched square in the face versus if you get sort of punched down on an angle, because that's more of a compressive force versus a flick back of the head. So even where you get hit, some of the kicks that we're seeing looks at forces of impact and it might have just come from a check, like you've actually checked the kick with a cover, but the whole body's been rocked across because it's a kick with a large amount of forces and that produces a heap of rads or linear forces.

I don't know. It's the hardest thing for us is how do we replicate some of the forces we're seeing in training and competition in the gym. That's really difficult question to answer.

James de Lacey42:09

One thing I experimented with, I think I mentioned this on a previous podcast recently as well. I wonder if you've ever played around with it: eccentric overload for the neck.

You've played around with that. How do you go about doing it? You doing it manually or you using some kind of machinery?

Gavin Pratt42:18

So the flywheel. We've used the flywheel with a neck harness or an Iron Neck on the rack, the rack mount obviously. We looked at some preliminary mouthguard data just as a guideline and some of the torque forces were around sort of 230 Newton meters of torque for a single strike.

And so we thought, oh, let's get on the flywheel and measure that as part of the app. And so I got on the Iron Neck, got on big red on the wheel, and ripped that thing eight times as hard as I could both ways with the bigger red wheel. And the most torque I produced concentrically-eccentrically was 50 Newton meters.

So I've spoken to someone else about it and they're like, why don't you try a small wheel and see if you can increase the torque through the speed. So that might be the next place we look at. But then that's where Boost might come in on the flywheel.

James de Lacey43:27

Been brave enough to know.

Gavin Pratt43:29

Yeah. So right now we're just using things like the Kaiser or a regular rack and we're trying to almost simulate overspeed just by tempo. So we'll control the concentric and then just let the eccentric go a little bit faster. So that's sort of just a very simple way of how we've done that. Or just, yeah, we do play around with manual resistance as well, just side-lying and towel on the head.

James de Lacey43:58

Yeah, for sure. The way I tried, I tried doing slow eccentric overload. So I had the Iron Neck and I had a 1080 Quantum. Set to, I think it was set to isotonic 40K. So max resistance 40 kilos, and I would do protraction, lateral flexion. So protraction be like this. Press start and it will just pull my head forward and I'll just resist. And then same thing, lateral flexion. I'll be kind of sideways, then have it pull my head this way.

And I thought I was going to be wrecked, but I was actually all good. But I think I was doing a lot of jiu-jitsu at the time, so maybe it was conditioned enough. But I was like, damn, that overload should have crushed me, but it didn't. So it'll be interesting kind of application, I guess.

Gavin Pratt44:38

I think it's great. I think that would sit into that slow dynamic strength. So if you're doing it in a progressive manner where you've just come out of a static one, then that would make all the sense in the world because they've got the posture to be able to handle that. And then obviously, you've got you're still improving the speed development and the reactive movements because you're getting that structural change for speed.

James de Lacey45:03

So it's just, I guess it could be a bridge between, but obviously you need like a $50,000 piece of equipment and [expletive] to do it. So it's not exactly accessible.

Gavin Pratt45:13

I mean, even for those people that don't have equipment like bands, a lot of people will see bands around the head and side step outs. Let's use the lateral step, right? So obviously you can speed that up a little bit with faster steps, but if you wanted to, you can actually, I usually attach two just for space away from the rack, but I'll attach two bands and then they'll have to do like a lateral hop and return.

So hop, return, stick. Hop, return, stick. And so that is that speed, but you're obviously trying to keep that steel pole down your spine in terms of your cue. And so you've got that trunk-neck-head coupling mechanism being challenged through that as well.

James de Lacey45:53

Nice. I like that one. So what other movements then do you look at doing in that situation where you have your neck maybe under tension and you're doing, you mentioned obviously going out throwing combinations with the Iron Neck, that jumping one. Are there any others in particular?

Gavin Pratt46:06

Positions. So challenging that trunk-neck-head more. We might put in quadruped and we'll do like bear crawls laterally. That's another one we might look at just to add some complexity to that. We like doing, say, putting a med ball in the grip. So you've got like you've got a single leg or a body lock and then they'll do forward or reverse lunges. Usually forward works a little bit better because the flexion is the one we've got to work on the most.

So that sort of chin tuck and looking down and doing your forward lunges. So that's quasi-isometric, like the neck's isometric but the trunk is moving and shifting. So that's kind of like a nice bridge between static and slow dynamic. We have used like backwards sled drags with the neck harness as well.

That's a good one as well. And then a very simple one if you've got bands is just lying on your back on a bench, having the band around here and doing your chin tuck lift, because then you're getting your flexion, because that's always a difficult one, the flexion I find to find different postures there. So that's a good one to do as well.

James de Lacey47:12

Yeah, I played around with just putting the neck harness on but flipping it around and putting the weight behind my back. So you can just do it standing. It works somewhat, but it's just annoying to set up.

Gavin Pratt47:22

Yeah. It's like having a heavy ponytail.

James de Lacey47:25

Yeah, exactly. And to put it on, you just pick it up. But lying down was obviously much easier. And with the band setup though, do you need a partner to hold the band?

Gavin Pratt47:25

For the band, we're fortunate enough to have a little ringlet at the bottom of our, so we sort of hook it underneath that. But you could get someone to step on it. The other thing is your weighted helmets if you're looking at reactive-based stuff. So even things like weighted helmets and shadow boxing is going to be an option as well.

We don't have any of that here, but speaking to another sport, they were thinking about it during their trampoline-based movements and I was like, that's a brilliant idea for that sport.

James de Lacey48:11

So weighted helmets, like you do almost like an American football helmet kind?

Gavin Pratt48:15

Not even that heavy. Just like that could be an option, but I don't know who'd be keen to wear that in the gym.

James de Lacey48:23

Because obviously you got the Top Spin 360 which works like that as well, which is almost like it's a football helmet with like a helicopter or blade on the top doing the reactive. So they're in a lot of the NFL clubs. Top Spin 360 and more like sort of like your rugby type old school rugby helmets but maybe with some weights in it.

I know Forest here loves using the one that he's got created for him and it's just a really good idea around like gymnastics trampoline based work in certain sports where you're doing all the same actions. You just got a very slight lightly loaded helmet loading stuff.

Gavin Pratt48:59

So you think of like falling back on a trampoline and going and you're having to react. It's a little bit heavier than what your head normally is. That's part of that reactive component that's likely to be more around stiffness and impulse.

James de Lacey49:15

Interesting. I like that. So even like the Laya like exogen stuff.

Gavin Pratt49:19

Spot on, mate. Exactly.

James de Lacey49:22

I don't think they have a helmet accessory though.

Gavin Pratt49:27

Exactly. There you go. Hey guys, got a new product idea for you, but we got to go 50/50. Well, 30% because me and James found out about it and we're going to put the logos on there, all that.

James de Lacey49:37

I run out of this podcast too with the with some just some maybe some terms to breathhold training because I think when we first when I came over to the PI as well, you think you must have been doing quite a bit of it then. It'll be interesting to know has your thinking evolved at all on it? You still using it? What are you using it for? I think it comes to mind because there was obviously Yuri's clip that came out in the embedded recently and that obviously went viral everywhere. So, it'd be cool to kind of go into, you know, what, when, why, how.

Gavin Pratt50:09

Sure, mate. I still rate it and I think a lot of it comes down to my past as a junior athlete having very severe asthma and going through breath work to actually get rid of that asthma, and understanding the physiology of why and how that happened and then how that makes a lot of sense to physical performance. And there's been a few papers that have looked at dysfunctional breathing in athletes.

And one of them looked at around 1,700 maybe 1,800 different athletes of anywhere from elite to high school athletes. And it came up with the conclusion that around 90% of them had dysfunctional breathing. And by that they mean non-diaphragmatic based breathing, more of your chest type breathing.

So for me, a lot of it is about relearning or teaching athletes how to breathe properly by utilizing their diaphragm and then having drills and methods implemented into their training that make it more engaging and challenging for them as MMA athletes to learn how to do that instead of just spending 10 minutes working on the mechanics on the floor with a bag pushing out the diaphragm which is part of it. Which is part of it too. Don't get it twisted. That's definitely part of it.

Learn in a very stationary component. Learn your mechanics and then start to challenge with things like high lung volume progressing to low lung volume or endexpiratory breath holds which is also at the moment there's some real pros for that type of training and some others that say it doesn't do much at all. But for me, what I've seen in the literature is the ones that do work with that low lung volume or endexpiratory breath holding. I say low lung volume because it's easier to say.

What the ones that have seemed to work in the literature is the intensity behind the intervention is there. They're not just going halfass or submax 75% that they're sprinting. And ultimately we're trying to improve that repeat sprint ability through recovery. Things like dump breaths and looking at how we can change that blood pH through CO2 diffusion and extraction and looking at breathing methods around that are going to be really beneficial for that one minute between rounds.

So, how does it apply to their sport? And it might be fringe, right? These are fringe things. You want your meat and potatoes still doing the bulk of the work, but these things can be really beneficial in helping athletes, that 1 to 2%.

And I will say something that I've only just started to realize, which was again by accident, but this time it's a positive. I was getting an athlete to do repeat low lung volume sled pushes. So, not much load behind, well, no load, just the sled on its own. Seeing how far they could push max speed low lung volume, three dump breaths in between and then have to go on a low lung volume again and they do five of them.

And a lot of it was about that respiratory or inspiratory muscle and then utilizing breath recovery. But what I found was their heart rate isn't going too high. Like he didn't get above 140. Now, to me, that's fantastic because it's really truly if you're looking at respiratory, cardiac, and scaladal targets, we're truly looking at the respiratory component.

And then secondly, this guy's in a late fight camp stage. So, I'm decreasing the amount of physiological load on this athlete as he's going into fight camp, but we're winning the psychological battle because he knows that he can push through this. But we're also still managing to work on a component of energy system development for lack of a better word.

James de Lacey53:50

Interesting. Interesting. So I think it'll be good to go through as well. I think when people hear breath or training they think breathe in and hold their breath and then do the activities. So you mentioned low lung level or high lung level. So maybe just go through some differences there and why maybe just which one someone should be using if they're going to use some.

Gavin Pratt53:50

Well, definitely a progression, but what you just gave an example of would be a high lung volume. So, you get that inhalation, that oxygen into your system, and then you hold your breath. And obviously, the buildup of CO2 won't be as high when you do it that way. So, the duration at which you can go for is going to be longer before your diaphragm starts knocking at the door going, "Hey, mate, I need you to breathe, please." Which is ultimately our bicep curls for our diaphragm.

So, that's how we're training that inspiration muscle is the knocking on the door of the diaphragm. So, we're improving that inspiration muscle, which is going to help our breathing rate and our efficiency of that. So, the ways that I would do it is through mechanics first, getting them to even know what the diaphragm is. Then we start maybe looking at

James de Lacey54:53

Just in colloquial terms, is that kind of like what people will say like belly breathing. That would be kind of like, okay.

Gavin Pratt54:59

Yep. So, a lot of the time when you ask someone to breathe in, their stomach will go in whereas when you breathe in, you want it to expand and then they want to control that, the ability to control that.

So if you got someone like there's something called resonancy frequency and that's basically looking at efficient breathing frequency per minute. So that's five breaths in five breaths out in the minute. So it's six cycles effectively. So that would be a nice place to start.

So if you get someone to do that diaphragmatically for a couple of minutes, it's going to get really difficult for them to control the timing of that 5 seconds. A lot of the time if you think of people breathing in, they'll go, "Uh oh, I've still got 4 seconds left. I'm going to breathe out now, three, four." So already you can see that there's not a control there. So that would be something we'd start to work on with that resonance frequency.

And then that's your sort of mechanics of learning that in more of a stationary mechanics component. Then you could progress them to more dynamic, which might be, let's use a rower, for example. I'm going to get you to work at 120% of your MIS, but the sprint ends when you need to breathe. And we're going to do that every minute, but you're going on high lung volume. Breathe in, hold, push at that MAS output until you need to breathe. Good. Now, recovery breathing, hit the minute, go again. So, do repeat to that.

Then, we might look at low lung volume, which is going to be that full expiration of the breath. That's going to build up your CO2 in the system and make you want to breathe sooner. It's also going to create a bit more of a hypoxia, so less oxygen to your muscle tissue. So, they're going to have to work under that strained environment.

And from there, we can start really challenging not just the diaphragm, not just the tolerance to CO2, but this and the ability of you to be able to deal with that. So, that ultimately that central command is going to tell you if something's really difficult or not. And then start saying, "Hey, man, you need to over breathe. This is about to get really difficult." But if your body says, "No, no, I'm good." Then you don't over breathe. You don't fatigue as fast and you might be able to extend your time to exhaustion which ultimately is what the breath work is trying to do.

James de Lacey57:29

Gotcha. Okay. And then does because you obviously mentioned around the diaphragm. Do any breathing, what do they call them? Breath trainers. Breathing trainers.

Gavin Pratt57:38

Oh, the inspiration breath trainers. Yeah. Do those come, are you a fan of them or you use them at all? So we're looking into it at the moment, but basically from all the research I've looked at, that is their reason, that is their purpose. So those breath trainers, the things you put in your mouth and it makes it really hard to breathe in, that is actually training the diaphragm. It's not stimulating altitude or anything like that.

It is purely making it harder to breathe, so your diaphragm has to work harder and it's like strengthening that diaphragmatic muscle. So yes, if that's the purpose you're putting them into, from what the literature is saying, that's what they're there for. But they're not there to simulate systemic hypoxia or anything like that.

James de Lacey58:21

For sure. Do you find that, do you find people need to specifically train their diaphragm in terms of strengthening it with something like that, or you think that you can kind of just, if you learn to breathe properly and you maybe go through some of these breath hold things, that you know that's not really needed in terms of a strength training intervention?

Gavin Pratt58:38

I mean, I guess it's like any tool, right? Like some, it's like some people might need that and doesn't matter how many cues you give them in all your experiences with breath work, they're still not getting it. So here, stick this in your gob, see if that works for you. It's like, hey, I get it now. It's like, oh, I just saved myself four weeks of trying to talk him through it.

So again, it'll always depend on the athlete that's in front of you. But I think also there's a time component to them, there's a bravery component. Like, are you going to be someone that wears that in the gym or public gym? You might get real funky looks in the PI maybe as well. Like, I don't know, like how comfortable are you doing that and is that a time? Like in my head when I saw it, we're like okay, well maybe that's a great option for down regulation after SNC.

You know, put you in the corner somewhere else on your own, throw this in and do 5 minutes of this type of breathing or whatever is required from a prescriptive standpoint, and that's your down regulation piece. But we're just going to add a little bit of diaphragmatic strength into it as well.

James de Lacey59:45

Yeah, that's a good call. That's a good call on there. I like that approach. Deon, we've come up to the hour. Where can people find or follow you, keep up with what you're doing?

Gavin Pratt59:53

Sure. Probably Instagram's the main one, mate. Gav Pratt is me on Instagram. Aside from that, I'm not on much social media. That's probably the only, so it's pretty simple.

James de Lacey1:00:05

I'll link that down in the description for anyone as well. So make sure you get Kevin, Gavin a follow, because obviously he's doing all the great stuff out of the UFC PI in Vegas there. And appreciate you coming on and chatting and going through a bunch of different stuff there, and we'll chat again soon.

Gavin Pratt1:00:19

Thanks, James. Appreciate you, mate.