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

[BayAreaGuy]

Eza, was Franklin gassed against Lutter? He looked like he slowed down considerably in the 2nd round



and cool interview TS

[EZA]

Conditioning is all relative. Lutter expended a great deal of energy in the first round and Rich was carrying his weight a lot of the time so it certainly did fatigue him a bit, but you could see how much more Lutter was gassed as a result. Rich also said afterwards he felt fine in the fight and wasn't particularly fatigued so I'll take his word for it.

I will also say that ever since that fight we've spent time working on his strength and power and everyone who trains with him has said he's physically stronger and more powerful now than he's ever been. Anyone who has ever trained with him will also tell you he doesn't feel overpowering but somehow he wears you down and I've seen a lot of guys in good shape get totally gassed when training with him.

When it comes to developing fighters, you have to train to maximize your strengths while minimizing your weaknesses. Very few people have the capacity to possess tremendous explosive strength and power as well as great endurance at the same time, and from an energy production perspective the two fundamentally are at odds with one another in many regards. You'll never see someone run a mile at the same pace you can run 400m in for example, and there's a good reason for that.

Rich is a great example of an athlete who has used his genetic predispositions and strengths to his advantage and won fights and even been a world champion because of it. Would it hurt him to be a bit stronger and more explosive? Probably not, and it's something we've worked on in the last year, but he'll never be the most explosive or strongest fighter in the game or win fights because of his strength and power no matter how much he were to train it regardless.

It's a mistake to think you can have the best of all worlds in physical development because 99.9% of athletes out there simply don't have the genetic capabilities for it. This is especially the case with regards to explosiveness and there is plenty of research showing the anaerobic properties, i.e. alactic and lactic energy production potential, have a huge genetic component.

Train to maximize what you are the best at while minimizing your weaknesses and you'll be on the right track. I think there are plenty of fighters out there who wouldn't mind having "Rich Franklin" syndrome considering the success he's had in the sport, due in part to his conditioning, and he's been a world champion with only only 4 career losses, all to other top ranked guys.

[paolo27th]

Originally Posted by EZA

...Anyone who has ever trained with him will also tell you he doesn't feel overpowering but somehow he wears you down and I've seen a lot of guys in good shape get totally gassed when training with him...

There`s a guy at my gym that does the same for me. He`s much smaller than me and doesn`t have particularly good technique but whenever I spar with him it kills me.
It`s just that if you push someone you expect to encounter some resistance, instead with this guy you don`t meet any. So you fall forward, go off balance and have to pull yourself back into position. You basically end up doing twice as much work.
It`s a bit like if you are used to hiting the heavy bag alot, then when you try to punch someone and you miss a few times you suddenly find yourself gasping for air. That`s because you were used to having the bag stopping your hands and bouncing them back to their place, while now you have to do all that work yourself.

[Stephan Kesting]

Thanks for the input and the civilized discussion guys.

I've gone through phases of doing mostly aerobic and mostly anaerobic training. I could be wrong, but I thought my BJJ improved a bit more when I was in an AEROBIC phase.

If in fact this was a significant and repeatable improvement, then the counter-argument might be that this is because I was doing BJJ. BJJ requires a lot of endurance and static strength, and not as much explosion and power as MMA. Jon Chaimberg is an MMA conditioning coach, after all.

Also the bottom line is that, for 99% of recreational practitioners, doing something, anything, is better than doing nothing.

BTW a lot of the credit for this interview has to go to the readership of my Grappling Tips Newsletter. I told them I was going to be talking to Jon and asked if anyone had some specific questions. The questions I got from them formed the basis for much of the interview.

[EZA]

Stephan,

You know what from I've seen using heart rate monitors and endless testing, there are certainly some differences between MMA and BJJ as far as energy production is concerned, but the aerobic system is the foundation for both. Even in maximum intensity efforts or fairly short duration, such as a 400m sprint, the aerobic system contributes roughly 40% of the total energy.

Regardless if it's BJJ or MMA, there is simply no possible way the anerobic systems could contribute the majority of energy for a sport that lasts up to around 30 minutes for a championship fight and over 15 minutes for a non-title fight. The aerobic system will therefore always provide the foundation of ATP regeneration for pretty much all combat sports.

That doesn't mean the anaerobic systems aren't important, because obviously they are, but without the necessary aerobic development you won't even be able to use your more powerful anaerobic systems for nearly as long. Something people don't often realize is that a more well developed aerobic system clears out a lot of the by products of anaerobic metabolism and allows it to continue longer.

Lactate, for example, is oxidized in the slower twitch fibers and in the heart itself and used as an energy source. The inorganic phosphate that's generated during anaerobic metabolism is also recycyled, and creatine phosphate is only regenerated through anaerobic metabolism as well.

The aerobic system is important not just because it contributes the majority of energy, but also because it allows you to use your aerobic systems to a greater degree without fatiguing as rapidly.

The funny thing is that a lot of coaches put together different circuits that they consider to be anaerobic, but the reality is that they are more aerobic than anything else. If you take the average heart rate of any circuit that's 4-5 minutes in length you'll quickly see it will be under the athlete's anaerobic threshold. Any high intensity circuit that last a few minutes will be largely aerobic, regardless of the work rate or exercises.

[rookiechief]

Originally Posted by EZA

Stephan,

You know what from I've seen using heart rate monitors and endless testing, there are certainly some differences between MMA and BJJ as far as energy production is concerned, but the aerobic system is the foundation for both. Even in maximum intensity efforts or fairly short duration, such as a 400m sprint, the aerobic system contributes roughly 40% of the total energy.

Regardless if it's BJJ or MMA, there is simply no possible way the anerobic systems could contribute the majority of energy for a sport that lasts up to around 30 minutes for a championship fight and over 15 minutes for a non-title fight. The aerobic system will therefore always provide the foundation of ATP regeneration for pretty much all combat sports.

That doesn't mean the anaerobic systems aren't important, because obviously they are, but without the necessary aerobic development you won't even be able to use your more powerful anaerobic systems for nearly as long. Something people don't often realize is that a more well developed aerobic system clears out a lot of the by products of anaerobic metabolism and allows it to continue longer.

Lactate, for example, is oxidized in the slower twitch fibers and in the heart itself and used as an energy source. The inorganic phosphate that's generated during anaerobic metabolism is also recycyled, and creatine phosphate is only regenerated through anaerobic metabolism as well.

The aerobic system is important not just because it contributes the majority of energy, but also because it allows you to use your aerobic systems to a greater degree without fatiguing as rapidly.

The funny thing is that a lot of coaches put together different circuits that they consider to be anaerobic, but the reality is that they are more aerobic than anything else. If you take the average heart rate of any circuit that's 4-5 minutes in length you'll quickly see it will be under the athlete's anaerobic threshold. Any high intensity circuit that last a few minutes will be largely aerobic, regardless of the work rate or exercises.

this is interesting because the literature that i have read implys that to train your aerobic system you really want to be doing 30 mins+ of work (LSD). So really this method of training is confused as spending the majority of the time in the anearobic zone where as you are actually inefficiently training your aerobic system.

edit: highlighting a word i spelt incorrectly. nice.

[EZA]

People have a general misconception about the aerobic system in general and don't realize that it is the sum of multiple parts and requires more than one method of training.

Lower intensity work like LSD stimulates an improvement in cardiac output and an increase in capillarization of the working muscles. The result is increased blood flow and oxygen supply to the muscle and a greater mechanical efficiency of aerobic energy production.

Higher intensity aerobic work increases the amount of aerobic enzymes in the muscle and the maximum rate of oxidative phosphorlyation, i.e. how much power you can generate with the aerobic system. Of course the best way to improve this is by maximally training it a its limits of energy production, which of course occurs right around the anaerobic threshold. This is where you aerobic system is working as hard as it possibly can to regenerate ATP as fast as possible and so training it at this level increases the how well it can do that.

A lot of people who think they are doing anaerobic training are actually spending the majority of their time developing this ability and working aerobically much more than they realize. True anaerobic intervals are either 10-12 seconds for alactic deveopment or genereally under 2 minutes for lactic work. Anything longer than that, and you're predominantly working the aerobic system, plain and simple.

[kiridoku]

It's great to hear someone who knows his stuff just answering questions without ego & without sounding like he's hawking some Shamwow Conditioning Program/ has a hidden agenda/ trying to sell ya something every second.

[Stephan Kesting]

EZA - what do you think about Chaimberg's statement (that I've also heard elsewhere) that a single set of Tabatas (4 minutes) gives you 70% of the 'aerobic' benefits of an hour of submaximal cardio?

I haven't read the original research for that, but maybe you have...

[EZA]

Stephen,

I have a copy of the original Tabata research and I could probably write an entire article on how overblown the entire thing has become. First, it's a gross oversimplification to describe aerobic fitness purely in terms of only VO2 max. We know from a great deal of research that VO2 max alone A) does not correlate particularly well with performance in aerobic sports B) is largely genetic and can only be improved maybe 15-20% through training.

What are far better indicators are A) HR at anaerobic threshold and even more so B) power output at anaerobic threshold. These two variables can be influenced much more through training and are far better indicators of aerobic power and capacity and much more accurate predictors of performance in such events.

If you read the actual Tabata research, the primary goal in the study was simply to determine if the maximum accumulated oxygen deficit method of measuring changes in anaerobic capacity is accurate as evidenced by it's correlation to changes in anaerobic performance and to compare the changes in VO2 max with lower vs. higher intensity methods.

Because VO2 max is a test done to maximal exertion and VO2 max itself occurs at high heart rates and is a test of maximum oxygen supply and utilization, it should have been no surprise whatsoever that a much higher intensity is more well suited towards this end and improving this aspect of aerobic fitness. It actually shows you how poorly conditioned the subjects were that the moderate intensity method improved VO2 max as much as it did.

Also, it should have been very obvious that the Tabata protocol would produce better results in terms of an improvement in anaerobic capacity because the 70% LSD group wasn't even training anaerobically so there would be no demand placed on the anaerobic systems.

One thing that I never see mentioned when people talk about it is that even the group that used the Tabata protocol did include one day a week during the study of longer slower distance training. I can't remember the volume, but I believe it was around 30 minutes of slower training per week, and this was done immediately prior to the intervals.

It should also be noted that A) there were only 7 test subjects in each group B) they were all of relatively poor fitness to begin with given an average VO2 in the low 50s despite being an average of only 150 something lbs and C) the entire study was done on a stationary bike.

The only real conclusions that can really be drawn from the study are that higher intensity methods lead to better results in a test that is done at max exertion and you will see better results in anaerobic fitness by performing anaerobic exercise. Neither of these points are groundbreaking by any means, but people have somehow extrapolated these findings well beyond their inherent limitations.

Had Tabata measured other variables such as changes in cardiac output and stroke volume, resting heart rate, anaerobic threshold, velocity at anaerobic threshold, etc. you would have seen a much different picture. In terms of aerobic fitness, lower and higher intensities stimulate different adaptations. From lower intensity you will see an increase in stroke volume, vasularization, and overall aerobic efficiency and capacity. From higher intensity methods you'll see an increase in maximal rate of aerobic energy production resulting mostly from A) strength of muscle fibers in the heart increasing and B) increase in oxidative tissue and enzymes on the muscular level. Depending on the sport and the individual each of these adaptations are important, and neither can be developed exclusively through just one training method or means.

To this end, I simply don't agree with any statement that doesn't take this into account. Aerobic energy production is the most complex out of the three energy systems and has the most working parts and the greatest room for improvement. It's far too oversimplified to just lump all aerobic training into one category and say high intensity is the best way to train it or that there is one single protocol that is the best way to improve aerobic fitness.

Submaximal aerobic work has its own unique benefits just as higher intensity aerobic work does. How much of each needs to be done depends on the individual and their specific needs given their genetics and their sport and these need to be taken into account when training.

There was a good post someone made on here awhile back showing research on an athlete's heart that discussed the different cardiac adaptations seen between various sports that demonstrated the importance of making sure you are training the heart and cardiovascular system correctly. This almost always includes a varietyof aerobic training methods, not just one.