What GSP Does for Power and Endurance: An Interview With His Conditioning Coach

[Stephan Kesting]

Hi Guys

I recently interviewed with Jon Chaimberg, a top MMA conditioning coach, based in Montreal Canada!

* Click here to listen to that interview on Grapplearts.com, or
* Click here to subscribe to Grapplearts Radio in iTunes

Jon has worked with many top Mixed Martial Arts fighters, including Georges St-Pierre, Denis Kang, Rashad Evans, Nate Marquardt, David Loiseau, Keith Jardine and many others. Here's footage of a circuit he put together for Denis Kang. In a second clip he's working with GSP, Loiseau and Kang.

It's a very detailed interview, I really did my best to pick his brain, and also Jon pulled no punches. He shared much of his approach for working with fighters and talked about what other people are doing wrong. That's gonna make it a bit controversial, but you can't make an omlette without breaking a few eggs...

More specifically, we talked about the benefits of specific exercises, periodizing your training, Crossfit, whether to do aerobic or anaerobic work, program design, the dangers of overtraining, initial assessments of athletes, and a whole lot more.

You can listen to the whole interview by clicking on the link below and scrolling to the bottom of this post at the Grappling Tips Newsletter

Stephan Kesting
Grapplearts.com

P.S. This is also the inaugural podcast episode of Grapplearts Radio. I plan on adding material periodically (but NOT at predictable intervals), so to download this and future episodes automatically click here to sign up in iTunes - it's completely free and totally simple.

[FrozenMonkey]

haha Stephan I was just posting this and saw you posted it. Great site keep up the good work!

[wOg]

Interesting interview. His case against LSD seemed more anecdotal than scientific ("Rick Franklin syndrome"?!) but it was worth hearing. Also appreciated his critique of Crossfit.

Good stuff, SK!

[paolo27th]

Very nice interview. Could only listen to half of it tho, will listen to the rest tonight.

Interesting thing, GSP was a world champ and all he could do was 8 chinups? I guess I`ll use example whenever someone comes up with some shyte argument like "hey, X top pro fighter does it so it must be great!"

[Excelsior]

At work now, but going to check it out when I get home.

[Centaur]

Stephan Kesting?

Damn man, great to see you post here. I'm a big fan of your drills DVD and I hear you drop into the Burnaby location for WCBJJ from time to time. Heard nothing but great things about you.

Thanks for the interviews. Liz just sent me a link to your website the other day. Good stuff.

[EZA]

I respect Jon Chaimberg and probably agree with him more than disagree, but this idea that you can achieve the same things with HIIT than you can with LSD but faster is simply not true. They lead to different cardiac adaptations, each with it's own benefits and costs in terms of energy production. There is a mountain of research that demonstrates this.

I recently had someone from my site, who happens to work in a cardiologist lab, send me the results of an echocardiogram done before and after 9 weeks of LSD style training. I didn't solicit this but it provided very good data.

The protocol was about 3-3.5 hours per week total of LSD type training with heart rates in the range for maximum stroke volume.

Here are some of the echo numbers (4/8/09 to 6/17/09):

Left Venticle (LV) Septal Wall thickness (diastole/rest): 1.04 cm to 1.04 cm (no change)
(systole/contraction): 2.08 cm to 2.08 cm (no change)

LV Posterior Wall thickness (diastole): 0.94 cm to 1.04 cm
(systole): 2.09 to 1.77 cm

Ratio of Septal Wall to Posterior Wall: 1.11 to 1.00

LV Diameter (diastole): 5.31 cm to 5.83 cm
(systole): 3.02 cm to 3.54 cm

LV Volume/Amount of blood in ventricle (diastole): 135.9 ml to 168.5 ml
(systole): 35.6 ml to 52.3 ml

Stroke Volume/Amount of Blood pumped w/ each beat: 100.4 ml to 116.3 ml

LV Ejection Fraction/ % of Blood in LV pumped with each beat: 74% to 69%

E/A Ratio / Measure of Diastolic Function: 1.46 to 1.97


What you see from this is an increase in cardiac dilation with stroke volume improving from 100.4ml to 116.3ml and an increase in efficiency as you see from a the decrease in LV Ejection Fraction %. In other words, his heart is now able to pump significantly more blood with each beat and has improved in efficiency meaning the myocardium fibers themself require less energy to contract.

It should be noted that he's also got fairly thick cardiac walls to begin with, otherwise there would likely have been an even greater increase. Also, the increase in dilation and elasticity means you get greater contribution from the Frank-Starling effect in contraction as well. These are very important qualities when it comes to both aerobic power such as is required in MMA.

The same person is now about to go through a 4 week high intensity interval protocol I gave him and will provide the same before and after echocardiogram results. From this you'll be able to see the distinct differences in myocardium changes that occur as a result of LSD compared to HIIT style training. These are incredibly important differences whe it comes to energy system production and cannot be ignored or simply written off as unnecessary.

If you're talking about a high level fighter, chances are they've developed a high level of cardiac output through years of training and they most likely have great cardiac genetics to start with. Just because they don't need LSD and won't see the same benefits since they already have those adaptations doesn't mean that lower level athletes or those with poor cardiac output will not.

I'll post the echocardiogram results showing the distinct differences in cardiac adapations depending on whether LSD or HIIT was used when the 4 week program is finished.

I'm also not so sure about the example of Rich that he used in his argument. Ever since I've known Rich he's done next to no LSD whatsoever. Even previous to training with me he's done very little of it. Most of his strength work in the past was circuit based, but he's never really done a high volume of LSD type training to my knowledge.

As a fighter, Rich has also won plenty of fights do to his conditioning levels and out of his 4 losses, it would be difficult to argue any of them resulted from a lack of strength or power. He's moved up a weight class higher than he really should be and he's certainly not getting overpowered by anyone. Rich is genetically predisposed to have excellent conditioning with moderate strength/power and he's used his genetics to his advantage and developed a fighting style that suits his strengths and he's been a world champion because of it.

[Gary Peters]

I train with a few guys who never do any type of LSD and their endurance used to smoke me. Since November 2008 I started incorporating mostly LSD and Aerobic Power with my general strength training and it has made a world of difference. I think as Joel has mentioned, it will depend alot on genetics and what type of training the athlete has done in the past. I'm trying not to sound like a salesman but Joel knows his shit.

November 2008 my RHR ranged from 54-58 BPM, last week it was consistantly sticking within the 44-46 BPM range on a daily basis. Take that for what its worth, I like my Aerobic work.

[dan_torres]

Very interesting post. Thanks.

[Mark Limbaga]

I think it would also be better served that if a fighter who is known to gas frequently suddenly develops excellent conditioning, then that we can take note ofsince there will be some insights and pointers that will be useful.