Wrestling Strength & Conditioning w/ Zach Even-Esh (SSOF Ep 83)

James de Lacey3:28

And that's perfect into kind of topic of this podcast on wrestling strength conditioning. But before we go down that road, I remember you posted about that, the evolution of the current athlete now. So I'm sure there's people listening that maybe have kids or kids going through some kind of sport. What do you put that down to, or potentially down to?

Zach Even-Esh3:28

There could be so many reasons. I'm a dad, so when I speak on this topic, I speak as a coach and a father. My son is a freshman in high school. My daughter's a junior. Both of them competitive athletes. And growing up in our house—in the house we live in, my son was a little over a year and a half when we moved here, and my daughter was just shy of three years old.

So they grew up seeing me climbing rope in the garage, carrying kettlebells up and down the streets. I would jump on and off the stairs. I would do workouts outside as my kids played outside.

So they grew up seeing me being active, and so it wasn't odd for me to see my son deadlifting a 70-pound kettlebell but he weighed 45 pounds. But why? He thought it was normal. He sees his father climbing rope, doing ring pull-ups, jumping, sprinting, pushing a truck. And so my kids are very active. The food that's in the house, just everything is to support strength and health and high performance.

And I think in a world of convenience, that's where parents are making a mistake. If their kid is busy in sports: "I'm too busy, we're not going to get strength training," or "I'm too busy, we're just going to order these ready-to-eat foods," and it's just processed poison. So I see high school boys, and I say high school boys have boobs and beer bellies, but they don't drink beer—they're 15, they're 14. So lack of strength training.

The physical education programs in many schools, cities, and states is just on a downturn. Certainly there's some very good physical education programs, but there's a lot of resistance. Kids don't want to do push-ups, kids don't want to run. Coaches who know that the athletes need to work hard, they don't want to push too hard because then the parents complain.

And so it's pretty simple. I look at it like convenience has ruined things. A life of comfort has ruined things. We take away the challenges. We find an answer for everybody. Whereas when I was a kid, I think about this often because we live in a real nice town. But the town I grew up in, in middle school or even younger, you'd have to worry: "Who's going to kick my ass? Who's going to be waiting in the back of the school to try to steal my bike? Can I pedal fast enough to get away from them?"

And then in eighth grade, when I started putting on muscle from weight training, people treated me differently. And I didn't start training because I was training for sport. I started training because I wasn't a confident person. I started getting into the lifting, I noticed people respected me more. The common bully did not bother me anymore. So that's when I realized strength helps you win. Building muscle—Jim Wendler says, "Win the game when you get off the bus." So when the other team sees you, they're like, "Damn, these kids look jacked."

We are missing that big time. And there's many reasons as to why, but it really comes down to we eliminate challenges and comfort is the enemy. It is just making everybody weak. And if I stop into a gym somewhere and I want to pick up a protein shake, everybody is on their phone. Nobody is actually working. I mean, granted, there's going to be some outliers lifting heavy, but for the most part it's a bunch of [expletive], and nobody's putting in the work.

And I tell you the other thing, even to work against myself: I'm a coach, but I think there's too many coaches. And now people think they can't do anything unless they have a coach: "Oh, I can't figure it out." You could figure it out. There's so much free information out there. And that goes to show you, James, it's not an information problem.

It's a follow-through problem. So if I want to become a better MMA fighter, I could look at YouTube and study videos. I could learn my own strength and conditioning, nutrition. I could do it all for free on YouTube. So it's not a money problem, it's not an information problem. It's a lack of commitment and a lack of focus problem.

James de Lacey8:16

For sure. That resonates, that resonates big. I mean, even when I first started strength training and stuff, yeah, I had a couple of programs from a personal trainer and stuff like that, but I eventually went online, taught myself a bunch of stuff, just literally did a bunch of different programs, did lots of stupid—I would literally max out every bloody week, one RM squat every week, one RM deadlift after that. But I got stronger. I did, I think I did, in kilos, 142 kilos at 74-kilo body weight squat, and then 180 deadlift at 74 kilos. And that's just stupid training.

Zach Even-Esh9:16

But I think we need a little bit of stupid training. I think there's so much science and such nerdy activity that we're trying to make everybody so perfect. And listen, that might work in basketball, baseball, but combat sports, you have to be able to perform when the [expletive] hits the fan. Can you be explosive under fatigue? Can you be explosive when you can't see out of one eye? Can you train under just tremendous fatigue, or with a broke hand? "Well, oh, I didn't want to work this energy system. We don't do that on this day." Everything's so perfect.

And I look back and it's ironic because I feel like my older training style, when I was less smart, is better than what we have today. Because that's what the athletes of today need. They need more of that grit, toughness, durability. And even the language—I was thinking, in the early days, 20-plus years ago, it was core strength, functional training. Then baseball moved into arm care.

Now, they call it, building your body resilient. They say build a robust body. I'm like, that's such a stupid term. We want a durable athlete. We want a durable fighter who cannot just withstand the rigors of the fight, not just the rigors of the competition, but can you thrive during training camp? Or if you're a high school athlete—

Or college athlete, can you handle all the practices or are you going to fall apart? And if you're falling apart, it could be bad lifestyle, bad nutrition. And the other thing could just be you didn't have a good base of fitness leading into it. Louis Simmons always addressed that as GPP, general physical preparation.

Lou Simmons, with training fighters, I remember speaking with him on the phone. He would talk to me about training Kevin Randleman. Kevin Randleman passed away some years ago, but Kevin Randleman was a national champion wrestler from Ohio State, then he went and fought in Pride and became a UFC champion.

But he would tell me about the training they did, and to me it made sense, but it probably didn't make sense to somebody who's a science guy. Oh, this is where he's weak, this is where he struggles, I'm going to create a program that attacks those weak points. People don't think like that today. They make it so perfect that, like I said, I think every sport needs toughness and grit, but MMA fighters, combat athletes absolutely need it. And so perfect training works against the combat athlete.

James de Lacey12:01

Now this actually goes nicely into what I wanted to ask you around your philosophy around strength conditioning or physical preparation for wrestling, or even a little bit into MMA as well. But I know I think a lot of old-time strongman style training is within your philosophy, correct? Stuff like Brooks Kubik's work, Paul Anderson, all that kind of stuff with odd object training and heavy lifting, fat bars, etc.

Zach Even-Esh12:33

Dinosaur Training, I think, was my favorite book of all time. My eyes don't see so good though, the writing is so small in there. But I think it was written in '98. I did a video on it called Iron Roots. But everything was heavy, odd objects, thick bar. That would be a good aspect of training. I wouldn't go all in on that training.

My philosophy is I want to build overall athleticism. So I look at that as a blend of all the qualities. I want you to be strong, I want you to be explosive, I want you to have speed, I want you to have endurance—strength endurance, power endurance, cardiovascular endurance. I also want you to have muscle, body armor to protect your body.

So if you're an MMA fighter and you're fighting somebody who's maybe got a big Muay Thai background and they're kicking you and hitting you a lot, if you're all skin and bones and you don't have the body armor, you're going to take a greater punishment. We just had a football player break his collarbone, and sure, anything can happen when you're playing football, but you have a greater chance of injury when you're not building body armor.

And so a lot of times when an athlete gets injured, most of the time it's not a surprise to me. Sometimes there's bad luck and there's a little bit of good luck in sports. Sometimes you just run a string of bad luck and you're going to get hurt, especially in combat sports. It's going to happen.

But if you don't have this umbrella of physical preparation—strength, power, body armor, all these traits that make an overall great athlete—you're just putting yourself at greater risk. And to me, preparation is something you can absolutely control. And it's interesting, I could watch athletes train together for two years. One athlete will make great strides, the other one will barely change. Why? Mindset, nutrition, lifestyle, intensity in training. But they were side by side, they shared the same training. Okay, but the other person just did not follow through.

And that's a massive problem in sports. People, I think, are a little bit delusional. They sign up for sports and they don't think about the danger involved. In MMA, I'm not sure if we've seen a broken neck yet—sure we have, I just can't remember who's done it—but we've seen broken bones, we've seen crazy stuff.

But you have people, you have high school athletes going out for wrestling. Wrestling is going to start in about three weeks. We've been doing training twice, three days a week for wrestlers. All of a sudden I'm going to see a ton of new kids.

Wrestling is a winter sport, I think it's winter in Texas. I think it's pretty much everywhere. California may have been a spring sport if I recall, I'm not sure. But you have athletes turning up three weeks before the competition. We do the strength and conditioning, so I schedule the teams to train. You need year-round preparation, but what will happen is in three weeks when the whole team comes, we're going to have kids who maybe did their own workouts, but then we're going to have kids who did nothing.

James de Lacey16:24

You're going to have wrestlers who can't do a pushup.

Zach Even-Esh16:24

That's exactly—to me that's crazy. Why would you come out for this sport and not have even considered getting great at pushups? So to me, I always say to athletes, if you don't know anything, you know how to run and you know to do pushups. Guaranteed, those are two things you should do. And people still won't do it.

And my old wrestling coach from high school said to me, goes, "Zach, that was always around. He's like, you just were in your own bubble. You were a good kid who listened and so you didn't realize all the bad that was going on around you." And I get to see it now as a coach.

I remember in high school, a kid junior year really had a standout year, was beating state qualifiers. But then him and his buddies were partying every weekend, drinking, smoking. And then he started losing a lot of matches senior year, a lot of matches by one point, overtime, very out of shape, gained too much weight. And one of our coaches, I overheard him say, he said, "Mike, maybe all that partying caught up with you."

And now I get to see it every season with athletes who decide to party on the weekends when you could recover, or you could go to a party and not drink. Eating better, just a lot of things that require basic discipline. But some people just don't want to do it.

James de Lacey17:56

I hope you're enjoying the chat so far. Before we get back to that, I just want to let you know that Sweet Science of Fighting is more than just a podcast. We have a full training app with strength conditioning programs for strikers, grapplers, and MMA athletes, so you don't have to think about what you're doing and you're getting access to today's scientific methods to improve combat sports performance.

We have programs specifically for judo, for jiu-jitsu, for wrestling, MMA, boxing, Muay Thai is coming soon. All these things are going to be in the training app. We also have a private community where some of the coaches that have been on the podcast are in there to help you with any training questions and any performance questions you have. For example, Andrew Asser and Casper Deit.

We also have some online courses within the training app. They cover strength conditioning, mental skills, and weight cutting. And finally, we now have Ryan Vos in the community, a second degree jiu-jitsu black belt who is there to break down any of your grappling matches that you want seen by a second eye. He's currently breaking down videos on a separate Sweet Science of Fighting YouTube channel, and he will break down your video within the community.

So if you have a match or a roll that you just recorded, you can upload that in there and Ryan will break that down for you. So what are you waiting for? Jump down the description, you can check out the Sweet Science of Fighting Underground. Otherwise, enjoy the podcast.

That's insane to me, someone can turn up three weeks before a wrestling season with no training. But how does your strength and conditioning program run? Or let's just dive into some of the specifics, so the off-season, pre-season, how it changes throughout as you go into the season. And we can cover some of the strength conditioning stuff and week schedule and how it fits.

Zach Even-Esh19:48

I like to look at, right now we're pre-season for winter sports—so wrestling, basketball—but we'll focus on wrestling. So when we're like six to eight weeks out, that's the pre-season. Kids are going to wrestling clubs, tournaments. There's some big tournaments, so we have to look at some of these big competitions and maybe taper the week of. But kids are so busy, it's hard to taper because we might taper, but then their dad is bringing them to the wrestling club extra right before this big tournament.

Like there was a big tournament in North or South Carolina called Super 32. There's one in New York called Journeymen. So it's a weekend, there's college coaches scouting you. So we got to make sure we kind of have this—I don't want to say peaking, it's hard to keep peaking—but we're not running them to the ground. In the season, I want to train wrestlers. I'd like to see them twice a week for 30 to 45 minutes.

Some kids might show up once a week at my private facility, whereas at my high school, my last wrestling coach was very supportive. I would usually lift the wrestling team 30 minutes before practice. Now we've got a new wrestling coach, that could change. And a lot of people are like, I can't believe that a wrestling coach wouldn't train—

With you, don't they know what you've done? It goes back to all this great information out there and people don't want to learn it.

So in season we are working, but the intensity can't get pushed too high because everything is about wrestling. I don't want to interfere with practice. I certainly don't want to interfere with matches. And then as the end of the season comes, those 30-minute sessions I like to make them even shorter. The strength training is power-based. It's not fatigue-based.

So if they're on a barbell lift, it's like sets of three to five but a lower percentage. I want to see speed, no grind reps. If we're doing dumbbells, kettlebells, six to eight reps, and the volume is low because again it's like I'm using the training to prime them up and not fatigue them.

Then after the season is over, right, we've gone through 12 weeks in high school, college is a five-month season. They take a week, maybe two weeks off, and then what I want to do is a little bodybuilding phase, four weeks, six weeks, sets of 10, 15, 20 reps, very lightweight, no barbells, building muscle, addressing injuries, getting a pump, and steering clear of that barbell heavy stuff because that's an emotional stress. So I'm playing the long game.

Then after that bodybuilding phase, then we start moving into like a power-building phase. But also what's tricky is in the spring, guess what kids do right after wrestling season? Freestyle, Greco. So it's like, oh, we're going from one season right to the next. And so you're trying to get a little downtime, but you don't.

And then in the summer, if they are not competing in like what's called Fargo, like the Freestyle Nationals, then maybe we have what's called the deep off-season. That's when I could do some of the crazier, like, okay, maybe we could do some more intensive strongman training, maybe we could do a mini-cycle of 20-rep squats, maybe once a week for two weeks, possibly three weeks.

So it's like pre-season, in-season, make sure we peak at the end of the season for the district, region, hopefully the states, bodybuilding phase after the season, power, strength, putting on body armor. And then summertime, if it's the deep off-season, we could do some volume work. We could really hit what would maybe look like Westside Barbell, but a little more of that volume where we're trying to get them to build muscle.

But that's only if they're going to train year-round. They don't always train. They don't always train year-round, James. So that's, like, I just got an email today from a dad, his son trains off-season, cancels in season. It's like, bro.

They're like, he's going to be too busy. Listen, if I didn't own a business, I would tell you the same thing: the most important time to train is in season. Why? Because we're training for this time, this moment, for you to be at your best. Why would I do all this work in the off-season and then just be like, no more?

It's, I mean, I don't need to, you don't need to be an [expletive], an athlete. Diminishes as you go in two to three weeks, they start feeling the weakness, they start feeling the loss. "Oh, I'll just train on my own." I've seen kids train on their own at Retro Fitness. I'm sorry to admit it, and I sound rude, but it's, they go on a bunch of machines, they do a ton of chest and bi's, they don't do deep squats, they won't deadlift, jump, sprint, or push sleds. They're not going to do an athletic warm-up that segues into jump training. And so that's the difference between working out and training.

James de Lacey25:08

For sure. Do, for the listeners, do you maybe give an example of what your in-season strength program looks like, the one you do, 30-minute?

Zach Even-Esh25:08

30-minute one you do before?

James de Lacey25:08

Let's say.

Zach Even-Esh25:08

We do like a quick warm-up. So you want me to give them a warm-up for my high school where I have large groups, or from my Underground Strength Gym, a little smaller?

James de Lacey25:40

Okay, little small.

Zach Even-Esh25:40

So Underground Strength Gym, 8 to 12 kids in a group, sometimes less. We have like a little prep on the whiteboard, and it's about like a 10-, 12-minute, but it's like two sets of everything. For wrestlers coming from wrestling, if they're coming to the Underground Strength Gym, my private facility, they're coming in the evening after they've wrestled. So I could do examples for both.

It'll be like sled, band pull-apart, recline row or pull-up, back extensions, one-arm kettlebell carry, dumbbell bench, very light, and maybe Bulgarian split squats, or maybe empty bar full clean if you're in the off-season. You're doing like two exercises for two sets, two exercises, two sets. So we get like a total-body warm-up.

Then they'll go in, let's say they're squatting, you'll work up. Let's say it says do five sets of three to six in season, they'll do four sets of three to six. Let's say it says pause squat for four sets of four, or let's say it says five sets of four, they'll do four sets of four.

Then you're going to follow up with like a hurdle jump and sprint. They might just do the hurdle jumps, no sprints. Then I'll usually go total body, because in season, if you go only lower body or only upper, they get sore from the volume of work.

So let's say the normal workout would be squatting, jumping, after that they might do split squats with the fat bells, snatches for three sets of eight. Well, I might do something like, hey, you could do the snatches for three sets of five, and instead of the split squats, let's go dumbbell bench for three sets of eight. So I'll pick something that's upper body.

And then we always do sleds, carries, and some sort of posterior chain: kettlebell swing, glute-ham raise, back extension. Love that stuff. And I think we underestimate how capable younger athletes are of working. We don't need to treat them like fragile snowflakes. Hold a high standard. And if they train hard now, they're more inspired to eat the right way, to get to sleep on time. If the training's easy, there's like, ah, whatever, I don't have to. They don't get locked in.

James de Lacey27:47

For sure. Does that change much for your, like, after, in their 20s, maybe even early?

Zach Even-Esh28:20

Depending on your training mileage, your training age. So if you are a fighter, for example, I've seen a lot of the guys from the D1 level that I've coached, they move into fighting. I'm going to really take into consideration mileage on the body, injuries.

You want to be very in tune with their performance. So watch how they compete, when they fight, where are they breaking down? Where do they struggle? What are prior or past injuries? How do we address them?

I think that when you're in your mid-20s, early 30s, if you've been strength training properly since teenage years, you've built a tremendous foundation, and you're able to get a lot more from a lot less. But if you're in your mid-20s and you never really did strength training, then we need to get some volume, to like, your body has to connect with the training.

But, for example, like when I trained today, like I deadlifted, I worked up and I hit two heavy singles. I did that with push-ups. But what if somebody hasn't trained much? They're not going to get much out of doing singles. They're going to have to do fives and threes. They're going to have to do more work.

James de Lacey29:27

Perfect, perfect. And then within the in-season as well, so they compete, that's every weekend, right?

Zach Even-Esh29:27

Within college wrestling, depending on what, yeah, high school competes a lot. Like a typical is a Wednesday, Friday, and then Saturday they'll have three or four matches. So that's called a tri-meet or a quad meet. It's crazy.

So let's say five matches a week. Whereas when I was in high school, when the District Tournament came, we had 15, I had 15 matches. These kids today have like 30-plus matches. So twice the amount of competition. But a wrestling match is six minutes, maybe seven minutes. Let me tell you, a wrestling match is much easier on the body than a two-hour practice.

Today I think a lot of teams practice 90 minutes. We practiced two-and-a-half to three hours. So we did double the work, which beat up the body much more, and we had half the matches, which meant we practiced more. And so again, more mileage on the body.

And so fighters and coaches of fighters, if you could have everything under one roof, it helps with communication. Okay, so how much Muay Thai was he doing? How much ground work was he doing? Oh, did he do strength? Oh, this week is easy, okay, maybe strength training should be easy, so the whole week is easy. Oh no, go hard on strength training. Next week we'll go easy. No, then they never get a downturn to recover.

So the communication from coach-athlete is very important. And where a lot of struggles happen is coaches do not communicate with other coaches, because coaches are too busy trying to be, I'm more right, I was more involved. Listen, at the end of the day, I don't give a [expletive] if people know that I coached you. I want to see you win. I want to see you succeed. And I want to be in the behind the scenes. I don't need any accolades.

So I think the coach must advocate for what's best for the athlete. And that requires digging deep and figuring out what does...

This athlete respond best to intensity, volume, submax effort, optimal training? Just really trying to figure out what works best for them. So I match the training to their body and also their psychological state.

James de Lacey32:05

Nice. So when in a congested in-season schedule, when in the week do you typically like to have them come in for their strength?

Zach Even-Esh32:05

At high school I mean, at my private facility the Underground, they schedule their own workouts through an app. I tell them, organize it in such a way where we're not really piling on more work on top of more work. But that being said, they don't have a lot of downtime.

And so some kids, they don't get like, it doesn't bother them. Like, oh, I was at wrestling and now I'm here training, not a big deal. Other kids, or their parents shall I say, get over-concerned. It's going to be too much, I don't know if I want to go. Ah, like we're going to stop everything. I need to call you on the phone to explain to you like, listen, this is not the first time I've heard somebody who's busy.

But I'd be lying to you if you want me to say it's okay for your son to be weak, yet he's entering and competing in a sport where the guy is trying to break his neck. Not literally speaking, but he's trying to hurt you. He's trying to win. Why would you want your son to be weak?

And so kids need somebody like me to advocate for them because parents get scared and then they pull their kid out. And listen, the transfer of training, the one trait that's not spoken of often enough is confidence. We're always like, oh, does that jump transfer to training, does that bench press transfer to their competition? Well, what about the training? It builds confidence. So if you have an athlete that doesn't believe in himself or herself, we got somebody who could likely get hurt. And man, confidence is a secret weapon for a combat athlete, any athlete really.

James de Lacey34:14

Oh yeah. Hey guys, it's me again. I just want to let you know that I also have Sweet Science of Fighting rash guards and shorts so you can represent Sweet Science of Fighting on the mats and within competition.

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But my personal favorite, this is my personal favorite, we have this in black and white and it is the tany far protector Guardian version of the Sweet Science of Fighting with the logo on the back. This is designed by a Maori designer back in New Zealand, so a bit of my heritage on this jersey. It represents the acknowledgement of battle and war. It also represents strength and stability and also has the New Zealand silver fern. But even if you're not a Kiwi, cop this. This is an awesome design. It is a custom-made design you will not find it anywhere else.

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Yeah, I mean I spent my years working professional rugby and it's one thing, like forwards in rugby, like doesn't matter what time of year it is, they just have to do something heavy because they're in the scrum all the time. So just if just them lifting something heavy is almost like a primary in their mind. Okay, I'm still strong, or I'm strong. And like that's enough for them.

Zach Even-Esh35:42

You're from, James, do you know my buddy Ed Cosner? You're in Texas you said.

James de Lacey35:42

I do, I know him very well, of course.

Zach Even-Esh35:42

So he was big with rugby, I think he was overseas.

James de Lacey35:42

Yep. Yeah, he did some a little bit with Owen Franks and Ben Franks in New Zealand. But he was doing, he was doing New Orleans for a bit too.

Zach Even-Esh36:05

Great, yeah. So he was doing that. So I was doing, I was doing the Austin team way back in 2017, 2018.

James de Lacey36:05

And when did you come to Texas from New Zealand?

Zach Even-Esh36:05

Came to Texas end of 2016, but then left again to go to Romania to work with their national team in 2018. Went back to New Zealand during COVID and then we got green cards, came back to America June last year, June 1st last year.

James de Lacey36:41

And me and my wife, is your wife from the States or from New Zealand?

Zach Even-Esh36:41

Oh, South African.

James de Lacey36:41

So what brought you guys to Texas?

Zach Even-Esh36:41

Well, I met her in Texas. I met her here and then went around for my work. We got married and we loved it in Austin so we just decided we wanted to come back.

James de Lacey36:41

Very nice.

Zach Even-Esh36:41

I used to actually do certifications in Austin in like the, I may have been there like '09 through 2012. Yeah, my friend had two gyms located on Burnet.

James de Lacey37:08

It was like a very, was that, that wasn't Austin, Austin Simply?

Zach Even-Esh37:08

It was CrossFit Central and then another, and then another gym was Red Black Gym. But now that shut down years ago and the guy that used to help me, he runs Travis County Strength. So the culture when I was there, I always remember people were very motivated and just inspired with fitness and strength training. I hadn't been around.

James de Lacey37:44

Yeah, so it was very, it was very cool. And I think wrestling is starting to pick up quite a lot in Texas high school wrestling. Well, jiu-jitsu as well, playing huge.

Zach Even-Esh37:44

Yeah. How come, why do you think all the all the top pros?

James de Lacey37:44

Because of the weather and just California too expensive and too crazy. Yeah, I mean the top teams, they ended up moving to Puerto Rico, then they split up and then they all just moved to Austin and opened two separate gyms, basically. And now there's like a, now all the pro grapplers come train out here. There's like gyms on every corner, it's pretty crazy. Super, almost every week, it's pretty nuts.

Zach Even-Esh38:17

Yeah, it's crazy. Because when I started MMA training myself, it would have been like, that's what kind of got me into everything was I tore my ACL when I didn't know how to train for combat sports, and that's what sent me down the rabbit hole. And so finding MMA was impossible in the late '90s.

And so I looked up shoot fighting and I found a place in New Jersey that was ran by the UFC ref Big Dan, Dan Miragliotta. He had a place in Elizabeth, but there was not really any coaching. Like sometimes Dan was there, most of the time you just went and sparred with people. So it was just, you're not really learning, it was a fight. You didn't really learn.

And I look back, that was crazy. But that's how I got into strength and conditioning. I was a bodybuilder because that's all I knew, training for wrestling, training for shoot fighting, training for grappling, tore my ACL. And that's when I went down the rabbit hole of just figuring out. And I still love researching the strength training.

So, and by the way, training for combat athletes could be applied to all sports because it's so well-rounded on athleticism. Meaning we're not just strong, or we're not just trying to do speed work, or we're not just focused on conditioning. It's just this nice great blend of preparation that is beneficial for everybody.

James de Lacey40:00

For sure, for sure. And I know we're, we don't have too much time there, so I just wanted to touch quickly on, we haven't touched too much on conditioning. We talked a lot about the strength training through the off-season, pre-season and various phases. How does your conditioning look, I guess pre-season, in-season, etc.? Are you doing much extra on top of the wrestling?

Zach Even-Esh40:29

It's hard. You have to pick and choose what is like the, what's the most important thing you need to attack. So some of our high school wrestlers go to a wrestling club three days a week. They'll go, let's say, Tuesday, Thursday, and then Sunday is a big day with the wrestling clubs here, and it's like all live wrestling. So they're getting in three days in the off-season. Then in the in-season, they're wrestling six days a week, so for me to add more conditioning on top is not a great idea.

But I will say this, not just for wrestlers, but I want to talk about combative athletes, football players, some of them are getting too heavy. The linemen in high school, they're trying to, they're fat and they've gained way too much weight. They're better off being 250 more than 280 and fat. Those athletes I would actually have them do steady-state cardio, get on a stair master 20 minutes, three to five days a week.

We do hill sprints at my high school. So when we're done, we go out, the hill's about 100 feet. It's not very steep, but it's got a nice incline. We might do three sprints, five sprints, seven sprints, depending on the time of year. Wrestlers, I might have them sprint up the hill holding a medicine ball or like 15-pound dumbbells, kind of like that older style of boxing training almost.

I'm not a fan of distance running if you're a lighter athlete. It might be okay for you. But I found that once you're heavier, like 175 pounds and over, so that would be like 80 kilos or something, it beats up the body. What I did when I was in high school was when I injured my knee, I started swimming at the YMCA every other day, 30 minutes. It was so hard for me, but then

When I got back it's so hard and I would just do freestyle down, breaststroke back, or I would do freestyle, freestyle, breaststroke, breaststroke, then I needed a rest. But I was in such great shape. And then as the tournament came up, I stopped swimming and started running, and then my conditioning and strength went down. And of course as a kid you're not smart enough to really identify. So I look back and of course learn from those mistakes.

James de Lacey42:32

Now I love that. I love the hill sprint thing. I remember when I was in, oh we call it college back home, but it's high school basically. I mean I was young, so obviously that was one of where I felt like I was in my best shape. Because I remember Jim Wendler saying like if in doubt just squat and run hills. So I'd literally go into the gym, I'd squat heavy, and then we had a hill next to gym and I would run hill sprints. And that's just like I love it. I mean I love that, it's just crazy. Doing is perfect.

Zach Even-Esh43:28

You could squat, sprint hills, and do calisthenics for upper body: pull-ups, push-ups, dips, walking on your hands. And oh, that's too simple. The reason why we need all this variety is because kids get bored. And I remember Marty Gallagher said, he's like, "I'm training people who have their eyes on winning or training for life." He's like, "So I don't need to change just to give them something novel."

And I was like yes, but that's for the people you're training. You're talking about training Navy SEALs, powerlifters who are trying to squat a thousand pounds. They have a different frame of mind. MMA fighters are very much like teenage boys. They have that ADHD, want to experience a lot of different stuff. They want to jump, they want to do some crazy. So you have to appease a little bit of their mind to get them to believe in the training, while also doing what you know is going to get them just strong and powerful.

James de Lacey44:36

I love the squat and sprint. I mean it's so true. I know that was, I just I love that back in the day. I was just like, I wish there was more hills around here. But I mean, little Kilcasan here, a little slight slope, nothing crazy. Maybe I should get back into it.

Zach Even-Esh44:36

I think I told the athletes I said the hill sprints never end, the deadlifts don't end. You should be doing that for the rest of your life.

James de Lacey45:05

That's a perfect way to end this podcast. I know you got to shoot soon, but where can people find you, Zach, and follow what you're doing?

Zach Even-Esh45:05

Strong Life podcast. And Amazon, tomorrow my Encyclopedia of Underground Strength Second Edition comes out. There's a 15-week program in there, very good for combat athletes. And if you go to ZachEven-Esh.com or ZachStrength.com, get my newsletter and free training courses. I think they would love it. And I'm on YouTube, Instagram. A lot of free stuff they could find anywhere.

James de Lacey45:37

Nice. We'll link that up in the description. But thanks for coming on, Zach. Appreciate it.