what does it mean to live life to the fullest train to your potential and perform at your best, leave nothing on the table. That's a non negotiable is that I strive to be better every day because if I'm not on top of my game, how is anybody else going to follow me down the road? Keep demanding more of yourself to live up to that potential and to stay hungry. Training is progress. You know, when I look at the word training, I think of steps, baby steps to get somewhere that you want to be and that is basically your life journey. That's a mindset and itself man, it's like, it's not just about, I know that for you, a lot of that's about the physical, but we're constantly in training, whether it's growing our skill sets, whether it's growing our physical bodies, whether it's growing our relationships, whatever and all of that is a training ground and that kind of goes back to the mindset that we just talked about, You underestimate yourself and you don't even start, but then once you start, you often surpass what you thought you could do perform at your best money. That's that's sort of what life is all about. You know, I don't have the knowledge and have the fitness, the healthy ambition and drive that no matter what comes along when that next phone call comes, I can just say yes, I don't have to worry, just go and do it, Yo what is up guys, welcome back to the live trade reform podcast?

I'm your host Sean Coba and joining me today is five times strengthening conditioning coach of the year Phil drew make your an absolute inspiration to me and a number of my colleagues. Um you're blazing a trail ahead of myself and you know, some of the coaches that I'm working with, some of the people that I'm around, We look up to someone like you as you know, a Trailblazer that is setting the pace and doing what we essentially want to be doing. So um May one of all, welcome to the podcast, can give my audience a quick introduction to yourself. Yeah, yeah, well first of all, thanks for having me again, we had to do this one over, but finally got it to make make it happen. So you want the long or the short version up to you man, I'm happy to go for the long version, we can kind of jump in and pull some pieces out for the audience as well if you want. Yeah, yeah, so I've been, I've been in martial arts since I was a young kid, I did temple karate as a, you know, as a, as a kid and then from there I kind of wanted to pursue sports in all different directions, so whether it be baseball, basketball, football, and then I took a liking to american football, so started playing that at about 78 years old and then working my way up and I've always was intrigued with building my body and building my performance, right, whether it be speed training, strain training, you know, hypertrophy training, so on and so forth.

So When I got to about 13, 14 years old, my grandfather actually like took me to a gold's gym and my grandfather was like 72 years old, He started getting into it really uh really bad once he had he got he had a stroke and ended up actually getting over the stroke and started going to the gym a lot. And so I saw him go and this guy after the stroke was able to bench press like £225 for reps, that probably would have just changed his quality of life, being, getting getting into the gym and building his strength, mobility. Yeah, absolutely, absolutely changed his whole life man, so he started eating better taking supplements, things like that, so he got me in the gym and then it just so happened that my mother was actually, you know, she was a firefighter. So one of the first female firefighters in in our area And so I was training her at the time too as well. I remember training alongside her, running upstairs and and pushing sleds and things like that, and so it was all like a family, thing you know and I remember 14 years old bringing a lot of my friends over to my house and we would just do any type of lifting that we could man and we didn't have much, you know, I come from humble beginnings, so, you know, I think I had a bar bell had no bench, we're doing floor presses, uh, dead lifts.

We were putting the bar on our backs or putting a bar in the front rack position, doing front squats and back squats and I remember like looking up old like Louie Simmons articles and, and Dave Tate and uh, and, and jodi franco and so watching those guys And seeing how they trained and I started taking a liking to understanding programming actually at a young age, so 14, 15, 16 years old, I started to implement a lot of the programming inside of our, my high school weight room. So the high school football coach used to let me kind of take over some of the workouts, which was cool. That's sick man at a young age as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what he's doing. Yeah, I mean I've been lifting at that particular time for three years, so I was like, I got, you know, and I'm all cocky and everything. So freshmen coming in, I'm teaching the seniors how to lift and it was funny, but they're like, damn, he actually knows how to live, let's, let's let's pay attention, but we did, we did that. And then, you know, I, I grew up in an area where, you know, it wasn't, it wasn't the best area in a sense, you know, so I grew up in south florida Broward county to be exact and there was a lot of crime, there was a lot of bad influences, so on and so forth.

And for me, you know, I didn't, I was a person that didn't want to ask my parents for money, right? I knew that they were struggling. There was no, no, uh, no point for me to actually ask them for money to go to the movies and, and you know, even even to eat sometimes, and that's, that's something that, you know, I wish I would have did and not taking it to the extremes of what I was doing, you know, at the time to make money, you know, obviously, you know, doing the wrong thing selling drugs and, and you know, hanging out with the wrong people, hanging out with the wrong crowd. And So ultimately I got into a lot of trouble at about 16 years old, ended up actually going to jail, going into the county jail and sitting in there thinking to myself like, what am I going to do next? And I knew for a fact that this wasn't it, you know, I wasn't a criminal, um, just made a bad decision, a couple of bad choices end me up in a, in a bad place and from there, I decided right then and there, you know, turn my life over to God and actually really find a way to make it happen. And so by the grace of God I actually got out, got probation, you know, did did they gave me five years probation and some restitution.

I got out in two years and actually had to switch high schools. And the time I was actually getting recruited by Wisconsin, I think it was N. S. U. So it was an issue Wisconsin and Clemson and also Rutgers. And by the time I got out of that and uh got you know, back into probation, switched schools. All the colleges dropped me. What were you getting recruited for? I was playing college, I was playing football, so college football. Yeah, so play linebacker. Um most of my life, so linebacker, strong safety, play fullback and running back some of the times and also played quarterback um in little league, but that doesn't count. So yeah, so you know, I just like to hit people in a sense, right? And this makes sense going further on and I'll tell you about that story. And so after that, you know, I got I switched schools, you know, went to another high school. My senior year played very well. So I ended up getting a partial scholarship to Alabama State University.

Total culture shock, you know, from south florida to Montgomery, Alabama didn't know where I was man, it was the first time actually really seeing a true country like that like a filled area, you know, where it was just like alright, there's really nothing out here, I'm used to a little bit of city, you know, a little bit of beach and uh yeah so it was definitely a culture shock. Um But my second year in school as I'm going and I didn't really know what I wanted to do, all I knew I wanted to play football and I knew that I loved to train so I used to be in the weight room a lot, used to pick the brain of a couple of my strength coaches there and then after that you know I ended up uh my parents got into a little bit of trouble. My mother developed lupus which is an autoimmune disease. My dad got in a bad car accident ended up being wheelchair bound. So there was no money coming in. They couldn't they couldn't work. My dad had V. A. Benefits so he was a veteran but that was it, that was all the money that was coming in so I couldn't work because N.

C. Double A wouldn't allow us to work and then there was no money coming into the to the house back home. So I was getting calls and you know they were doing bad. So I ultimately made the decision to cancel my scholarship. Actually basically drop all of my dreams of being an NFL player which again I'm 58. So this would have been a far fetched reality, right? So how much do you weigh by the way Because I was looking at your stats before is like, you're 1 73 and it said 68 kg was like, you're not 68 kg. Unless the fucking camera puts on a lot of 68 kg. What is that in? Pounds 1, 2 Something? Right, What is that? 68 kg? Probably 1 50. Yeah, no, no, no, I bought it 1 55 and then that must be what the stats are from. Yeah, I thought it was 55, but I weigh about 2 10 now, and that makes sense. In College, I was I was probably like 205, you know, £200, something like that. But it's like, you know, compact, you know, 58.

I ran, I ran like a 44546 40 depending on where I was. Um and you know, so if I would have made it to the NFL, it would have been a rough road and then that's fine with me because I'm used to that, you know, but either way, you know, ended up canceling everything and and dropping all my dreams of being an NFL player and decided to move back in helping my family, you know, start training, but training for, you know, helping people and that was when I really decided to make that transition into being a trainer and and try to figure that thing out just to make some money at the time, but I still wanted to compete. So when I got back to florida, my parents moved about an hour and a half away up north to a small town called port ST lucie and there's nothing there. Right? So when I pulled up I'm like, oh man, I might as well still be in Montgomery because there's nothing here, you know? And uh, when I got there, I'm like, all right, this isn't gonna last. So I'm gonna have to like figure out something, go back to school and and get my PhD or something like that. And that time I was like, all right, I'm gonna go for exercise science.

I'm gonna finish it up, ended up finishing it up at a community college near where my parents were staying at the same time. Like I need to compete, I need to still do something. And, and I always watched mm A this was when Emma was starting to get big, this is when the ultimate fighter started to come on and you know, so I was like, all right, let's try, let's try. Well first I tried boxing and I was boxing on the offseason in, in Montgomery Alabama and I was like, alright, I wanna box. So I tried to find a gym there and it was too far away. I had no car, I had no money. So I was like, I can't drive anywhere. I'll have to walk to a gym that's close by and it ended up happening to be, there ended up happen to be a american top team affiliate gym owned by Dean thomas. So I, I knew Dean because I'm, I was around that area in coconut creek where the headquarters are and I knew about american top team just from being in the area. It's like, okay, there's an A T t there, maybe they have a boxing class or something like that that I can get involved in. So I went there and I remember pulling up that morning and he was opening up the gym as I pulled up and I just kind of ran up behind him and like kind of startled him a little bit, which is funny now to this day, but he looked behind me, he's like, he's like, you know, what's up?

And I go, oh man, I want to fight. And, and it's funny because like now that I know, I know that every kid comes up to him saying that same, that same statement, right? We're asking the same question. How can I, how can I start fighting or whatever? And he's like, all right man, yeah, just come in, try a class, you know? Um, but then I found out later on that he told the GM, which ended up being my manager and uh, you know, a couple of years later and he was like, yeah, whatever you do try to get this kid out of here quick because I'm still rough around the edges, man, you know? So it was it was really funny if you look at like some of my older interviews with Dean, I'm definitely really hood like just like street kids, you know? Um but so I went there and I did a class and I loved it, you know? And then he was, he talked to me after the class, he was like, man, you're doing really well, You you moved really well, Have you ever done any type of martial arts or mixed martial arts? And I was like, not really, man, I've done martial arts at temple karate, you really don't, you know, you can't really really put that into terms of, okay, mm.

A you know, this is just like kids karate types class, you know? And but I was like, yeah, I boxed a little bit and you know, I'm an athlete, you know, so that, that helped. And so he was like, well, you should try grappling, we need to get you into some, we need to get you in the G and ju jitsu. And I was like, nah, I'm not doing that. Like, I don't want to grapple, I don't want to roll around with other guys. I'm good. Um not to say that's bad, let me let me go ahead and because we're in a cancel culture stage, say whatever you want on this podcast mate, All right. Um, so, but I ended up doing it, man and he was telling me he goes, you know, with your stature, you know, you've been 58 and you know, you're not long limited, you're gonna probably have to go down to 1 55. And I kind of took that, I looked back and was like, are you serious man? I haven't been 100 and £55 since, like middle school was like, this is crazy. Um But he was right man. So I found that out a couple of months later when I went down to Coconut Creek and actually saw Thiago Alves at the at the prime of his career at 1 70. I was like, he fights at 1 70 he was walking around 2 10, he's pretty, so I was like, I get it, I get it.

So either way, um came back and started training, you know, uh did some grappling here and there and then, you know, turn turn pro about a year and a half later. And that was when like things started picking up for me in the training world, right? I was starting to coach a lot more to as well. Um the strength conditioning gym that I worked at, worked out at to get ready for fights was owned by a power lifter and powerlifters, strongman competitor. And so he was like, you know what if you have time, if you want to train guys here, you can train some of the football guys. And I was like, yeah, absolutely, let's do it. So, I started being like, an independent contractor going in, uh paying some rent, and also training the athletes that he had, and when he was getting ready for competitions, I would take that I would take over, you know, and then I brought some people in, some general pop started working them out, and then it got to a point where I was taking on a lot of clients, a lot of athletes, and so it made no more sense, It didn't make sense for me to start paying that rent more and more.

So he upped the rent and I was like, all right, well, if I'm paying all this rent, I might as well just get my own place. And so I did, I ultimately did that at the same time, you know, I was still trying to pursue my professional career, so, I opened up a gym 22 years old, trying to run a business, trying to make money, but also trying to be a pro athlete, which is crazy to do, trust me. And so the focus was shifted, You know, either, you know, work on your business, work on your coaching, work for your athletes, or try to work, you know, and improve yourself, and you just end up end up, yeah, man, you end up diluting your energy, right? And then you do two things half fast rather than doing one thing really well, yeah, yeah, I always end up Hurting myself in that particular way, right? Trying to do so many things at once and now being 33, I found that that's obviously not the right way to go, you know? And I try to, I try to uh minimize the distraction. I try to compartmentalize and, and make sure that I'm isolating each individual task and also whatever goal that I have, I'm trying to spend an ample amount of time um, focusing on that goal and hitting that target before I move on to the next, you know, that was something that I learned by experience, unfortunately, right?

So I didn't do too well, did my first pro fight, I was the main event, I fought a guy who has an amateur was like 12 and oh, he had like 22 titles, one and or two. And as a pro, he's coming down from 1 70 I was coming, I was going down to 11 55 and so we both were, you know, similar in weight. Um but he trained with Dustin Poirier and it was in Louisiana and I fought a lot of Louisiana, which kind of comes full circle, I was gonna say, yeah, everything's going full circle man. That's crazy. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, um remember like doing doing fairly well, I remember cutting weight in a walmart parking lot inside of a rental van um with sweats on in the sauna suit and turning up the heat in the van. And so I was like, welcome to the pro world of mm A in in Monroe or wherever the hell I was. I don't remember where I was. Mandeville. Louisiana, That's where it was. If anybody knows what that is.

Louisiana. Yeah, every time I talk about that, like, damn, you fought there. I'm like, yeah, dude. Um Yeah, so, You know, the problem was the focus wasn't there though, particularly. I still had the gym back home. I was I had about 20 2, 30 members right now. Smart started real small 800 square foot gym, had bootcamps going on and then I had my athletes and then I was also training my teammates too as well. So with that, you know, and all the stress of trying to train multiple times throughout the day. Not just a week. It uh it definitely threw me in so many different directions, right? And uh you know, fight lost the fight got submitted um by arm bar, just not focused, you know, not really paying attention to I didn't even watch film on the guy. There was nothing like that. So, you know, after that I tried to try to figure it out and still, you know, didn't really do too well my first, you know, three fights lost in stupid mistakes. You know, I would have rather gotten beaten up than how I lost those those three times.

You know, And you know, finally, I decided, all right, I gotta I gotta figure out a way to where I can Manage my career and also help with business, and so I brought some people in to help me out. Um this is when now we expanded the gym, so now I went from 800 square feet to about 1900 square feet and went from, you know, 2030 members to about 120 members. So we we Given tremendously and this was in like a six month span. And yeah, so I was in a small area in port ST lucie, where I was probably the first one of the first gyms that was owned by a fighter that did fighting type movements, but also trained General pop, So they loved it, it was a good niche and people are getting in shape, you know, and and this was This was around 2012, And uh so I finally got some help and then, you know, I was able to focus bring a cage in the, in into the gym and also train because I couldn't train at Dean's jim and then try to, you know, training my own gym at the same time and go back and forth.

I was like, forget it man, I'm just gonna go ahead and bring people here and I could train while I'm just getting finished with a lot of my clients, So ended up training at like 11:00 PM, most of the times And, you know, getting maybe 4-5 hours sleep. But the good thing was I was focused on the fight. So I ended up doing well and I was trying to make a climb back and I was I was probably 20 for 25 years old at this time. And I remember two weeks out from my my the fight that I was gonna have, I got head kicked on accident, It was just a drill. And one of my training partners was doing like a spinning back kick and I kind of just slipped it a little bit and it came down to the back of my head. And I was I was out for a little bit, not out, but I was I was concussed for sure, you know, a little bit rocked and I finished the training session. Nothing major was like, all right, It's another it's you know, everybody gets rocked in training or at some point in time when you're doing this sport, right? But I didn't it didn't come back. So I was I had concussion syndromes.

I had, you know, obviously the light bothered me. I was nauseous, you know, room spinning, things like that, short term memory loss, all that. And I was like, all right, well, I had a decision to make one. I had to cancel the fight. So that was out and then it just didn't get better. And that scared me because I've had concussions since I was seven years old. Right? Playing football, there was an accumulation of brain damage or trauma to the brain over Now, you're looking at, you know, 10, 15 years. So I went to the neurologist and they, you know, they did they ran some tests Um and they were like, you know, basically if you don't stop, you know, right now, by the time you're 50 you're gonna have Alzheimer's easily, you know? So, I was like, all right? And I and my son was about to be born. My business was thriving. My mm a career wasn't great, you know, Again focus issues, but I was climbing back up and this is something that I put diligent effort in and time in each and every day Now for about six or 7 years.

So it was hard. And I called Dean and I said, man, what what do you think we should do? And he goes, man, if it was your it was something like your your knee or your even your back or something like that, we could work around it, but he's like, yo it's your brain man, you can't really mess with that, you know, it's still it took me a couple of days to really come up to the realization that, you know, it's just probably not the best option to go forward with. So ultimately said, all right, I'm gonna retire, done with it. And then I was like, I don't wanna watch fighting at all. So I got sick of it immediately and ran the business, you know? Um and then I was like, I need to do something and I got down to about £176 274 pounds walking around because I had to fight at 1 55 lost a lot of muscle mass. Um you know, I was fast, I was in good condition, but I wasn't as strong as I wanted to be, you know, and so I'm used to being a strength athlete, it used to be a power athlete, so I was like, all right, how can I get my body weight back up and actually compete in something?

And I was like, I got it, I'm gonna body build. So actually in a bodybuilding competition, which was crazy now, but it was good because it got me to understand how to properly volume eyes and put the nutrition in order and also put together a program that's appropriate for hypertrophy. Yeah, man, to manipulate the acute variables, right? Like it's so, it's so nuanced with bodybuilding and that's what bodybuilders are so good at man, Like they're good at managing intensity, they're good at managing volume. They're good at managing all those minor variables that allow progressive overload over extended periods of time, man, that's something that's something we'll talk about, man, I want to, I want to discuss, Like obviously I'll let you continue with the story and you know, all of the different sports that you played and competed in, you know, through your journey. But one thing I want to talk about is the lessons that you talk from each one of those sports. Yeah, this is this is why it becomes vital, you know, putting myself in those particular sports bodybuilding and then moving on to power lifting and strongman, you know, and then putting it all together, you know, and then taking stuff that I learned from football and taking stuff that I learned from other aspects of of sport and putting it all together and packaging it in the right ways for my athletes and that could be for for any combat sport because mostly I'm working with combat athletes, but also for General Pop we're learning nutrition and learning understanding of like metabolism and learning, you know, proper means of biomechanics and physiology and so all that stuff comes into play when we're trying to increase or progress a person, right?

I work with celebrities now where they're all over the place, right? So I have to manage fatigue, I have to manage stress. So cortisol is obviously up and down. We want to make sure that we're looking at those particular markers, whether that's lab testing, you know, um seeing their cortisol like a dutch test would be great for that and then also understanding the process from a from a programming perspective that allows them to still do what they need to do right as far as work goes, but also get the progress going from a from an aesthetic standpoint and from a health standpoint. But yeah, so I guess going on from there, you know, ended up all right, this is it, I'm not gonna go ahead and do anything mm A based and then I got sick of that and started, you know, I started doing powerlifting, strength training was good, you know, it's actually showed me how to do the big the main lifts appropriately right? Where it's like before it's like, yeah, I know how to squat, kind of, you know, I know how to their lift, you know, from an athlete standpoint. Um but this when I started power lifting with a couple of my guys um that are true power lifters has been in the sport for 10 plus years.

They were like, yeah, you suck at squatting. And I was like, what? So my squat went up £100 no lie with just fixing technique and understanding bracing, you know, so routing and understand embracing. And so with that, with that being in mind, I was like, all right, now, I can put that into place when I go ahead into coach, let's just let's just pause there for a second, man, like how much did that, how much did you need to put your ego aside to learn that because, you know, that was people ask me all the time. They're like, you know, what's If you could go back and talk to your 15 year old self or your 20 year old self, like what's one piece of advice that you can give? And I'm, you know, someone said to me once, like, leave your Ego at the door and perfect technique and that's always stuck with me, man. That's something that I push on to my clients and athletes as well. Yeah. For me, they were specialists in that particular world, you know, and I've never been a person that was like, oh, I know it all. You know, we we we call it a white belt mentality, right?

So I've never been that person, especially if that's all that what they do, right? I bring in guys that are very well known and versed in sprinting mechanics because I haven't been working that right? And working with athletes that don't sprint. Well then I'm gonna bring a guy in, but it can, it makes sense. Right? Understanding gate, understand understanding acceleration force into the ground. I I use that to help correlate that over into what they can do inside the cage, the ring or the mats. So there's plenty of different things and there's people that, you know from the, from the functional health side where it's like, all right, now, I need to know how to actually read labs, right? So I bring those individuals in, right? Or I'll bring in bodybuilders that actually know how to put their body in the right position, right to get the most benefit out of that movement, to increase hypertrophy, to increase the response of tension, increased responsible contract ability. And so when you bring in these people and I the great thing is now I get to I can network with those individuals right, on a constant basis.

So I get these specialists and I'll bring them in. I got like, Evan pichon, who knows more than anybody that I know about physiology and also about energy system training. When I go Evan, what is this rate limiting factor? Why? Why are these blood markers reading this particular way? And he's like, well, and then he goes off on this tangent. I'm like, he's up, man. Let's let's let's bring it back a little bit, a little bit more. Got it. Alright, so we need that. All right, So then I don't have no problems with that. I bring in guys that are working with me now that are on my team that have masters and phds and nutrition, right? So, like they're specialists. I have no ego when it comes to that because I want to learn from everybody and and and and the one thing I've learned that from people that were ahead of me. I know that louis used to bring guys in from different countries and he would learn, he would ask them more questions than they would ask him, joe did the same thing, DeFranco does the same thing, you know, he actually, sometimes he'll ask me questions and I'm like I'm taken back by that, but but I understand why, because he's trying to figure out what's the new thing, you see what I'm saying, so when you're possibly in the mix, it's always good to stay relevant with the culture, right?

I work with timberland who's actually, you know, timberland is record producers, he's done everything with everybody, right? Um but he asked questions to like young kids and he finds out what's new in the culture because he needs to make sure that he can he can flow with it. So it really just depends on on your mindset and how you actually go about understanding the process of learning and so if you can do that by putting your ego aside and understanding that, then it's good when it comes down to like slowing the process down and really learning that technique, like if you you can't add more shit onto more ship, right? So you have to back up a little bit, increase your abilities as far as from a technical standpoint that way, we can increase the performance after that. So when I stepped, I took a step back and actually, you know, obviously brought the weight off the bar and started to work on how to how to fundamentally move this weight the right way And then I increased my load and that from that particular way, I increased it tremendously and increased it faster because I actually knew how to move from A to B in the right manner.

Mhm. And that was simply just building a solid platform to be able to produce force and then stabilizing all of the joints throughout the kinetic chain to be able to up regulate force production. I mean, it's pretty simple right now. It's something you talked about, like some people, you know, they take it into other, other realms of like, all right, I got to do this, this, this and this is really simple when you break it down. Yeah, 100% man. And like, I love what you're talking about before about sprinting because I come from a rugby background, I come from a military background and I've only been in the combat sports world for a couple of years. Um and I've been lucky enough to be working out of Tiger Muay thai in Thailand and you know, I've worked with Peter Yan since he made his UFC debut and that's because I coached a class and he came up to me, he's like coach, I want to work with you. I had no idea what I was doing with combat sports athletes, right? But I started working with him prior to his debut. Um and you know, now I'm working with a number of high level guys, but that was a massive investment from the start and I was training a lot of guys for free because I didn't know anything about combat sports and I was new to the world, I knew strengthening conditioning, um but I had to take that knowledge, I had to take those skills and I had to then apply that to a new sport.

I mean as a strength conditioning coach, I need to be able to work with any athlete, right? But then I need to look at the new answers, I need to look at the specifics and, you know, program for specific adaptation to imposed demands. And you know, that was a massive investment for me man. And um, you know, once you put that time, energy effort into doing those things like the results, speak for themselves, you build the, you build the programs, you build the systems, you build the frame works and then you tweak and adjust and something that I've been doing for years and years is taking, you know, the team sports um, components and applying that to an individual sport athlete. Um you know, about building a culture, having the right people in the right positions, um, you know, working together and this is something we'll touch on in a moment. But, you know, I talk a lot of skills that I learned from my military career and my rugby background, you know, training um, you know, rugby athletes, hockey athletes, etcetera and then applying them to fighters and people would be like why the fund do you have this person sprinting?

Why the fund do you have this person doing like speed, agility, acceleration, change of direction, um center of gravity management, blah blah blah blah. And I'm like well you know, they need to be able to produce force, they need to be able to absorb force, they need to be able to redirect force, you know, it's all about force, production, force absorption force redirection. You know, if I can get someone to organize their body in a manner that's going to be able to produce the most amount of force possible, as fast as possible with the least amount of movement, you know, whilst maintaining stability, um structure, alignment, blah blah blah. Like they're gonna be so much more efficient with their movement, their force production, um you know, they're going to be able to last longer and then we throw on top of that some energy system conditioning, we take those skills that we're learning in the strengthening conditioning environment and we then start applying them into their skill based work. You know, now we've got a better athlete and better athletes are going to make better fighters generally speaking. What was your background in the military? I was a sniper. I did six years in the Australian army as an infantry, soldier and then specialist and became a sniper.

So that's actually something I've spoken about recently with a couple of a couple of fighters. I've been working with. I did a postural assessment with my sponsored fighters at Tiger muay thai a couple of days ago and you know, I got them pull their shirt off and I'm like, all right, have you had any issues here? You had any injuries, had any injuries here, blah blah blah. I'm like contract this muscle for me, contract this muscle for me. And they're like, what are you talking about? I can't and I'm like, I can see that you've got imbalances because you know of how your body has adjusted like your left trap is is bigger than your right trap, which is then elevating protracting the scapula. You know, you're probably gonna have some issues with your shoulder, you're gonna humor joint. Yeah, I kind of get a little bit locked up when I go into these positions. Alright, sweet. Let's go through some drills so we can start down regulating that and look at the muscles that maybe you need to pull the scapula down and back. Alright. What about this problem? Boom boom. And then we just paint a picture man and like I'm showing these guys this postural assessment and they're seeing it on each other and they're like, oh, funk.

That makes so much sense. Yeah, yeah. And that helps with buying. Right? So I think that your military background, it allows you to understand how to systematize any type of program, right? It allows you to be very intricate and detailed, right? Especially being a sniper, you had to be on point, Right? So everything that you do comes from evaluating the situation, right? 100% man. And that tie into that. It's like my eye is like so finely tuned for things that are out of the ordinary. So, you know, it it kind of gives me an advantage in some areas where I'm really looking at the very minute details. All right, there's a little, you know, we're producing force. We're planting that foot in that back, foot into the ground to throw that cross or a med ball throw or something like that. But I can see that we're leaking energy. Our balances off, our timing's off. Our coordination is a little bit off, which means our accuracy is a little bit off. All right. How can we tighten that up? Alright, what we've just done here, I want you to carry that over to your skills based training. See if you can apply that in that chaotic environment.

Let's practice. Let's build the skills in this controlled environment and then see if you can then take those skills and apply them in an uncontrolled environment, yep, yep. You identifying the minute finite details are very important. So like, and you also have to know the sport itself. So the correlation is very key and that's where like a lot of, a lot of the young coaches, they miss that right there, just looking at, okay, let's squat, let's bench, let's dead lift, let's press, let's pull whatever. And then they're not really looking at forced displacement, they're not looking at compensatory strategies, they're not looking at, you know, imbalances in general. And so from there, they really are just trying to throw things and see if they stick. But then you ultimately, one is going to have one or two things gonna happen. One, you're not gonna get the true benefit of whatever you're doing from a method modality standpoint and then to you're gonna ultimately drive them into more competitive strategy to help the weight or whatever the case there, whatever they're doing and then they're gonna end up getting hurt or injured in that particular way.

So the first thing we gotta do is make sure that we're minimizing the risk of injury. So we minimize the risk of injury that keeps them inside their training and they keep them inside their training, the skills coaches actually buy into that too as well. So that gets them on your side. So the whole goal of this whole thing is to obviously increase by it because once they bought into the situation, once they bought into you and what you do as far as from a programming perspective and how you coach, they're gonna be more apt to keep coming back and you know, that when you, when consistently progress an athlete, they're going to get where they need to be and you're gonna do your job. So it all comes back to evaluation, understanding the details and then having the understanding to reframe it so that it can make sense to the athlete, right? I'm pretty sure you do that pretty well, right? The same thing here is with, with the background that I have, I'm able to refrain in reframing a, in a, in an optimal manner so that they can say, oh man, that makes a lot of sense. Now I see why I'm doing this and where a lot of younger coaches, the coaches that haven't been in the sport or know about the sport or know about the movements inside the sport.

I know about the bio energetic demands of the sport, very hard for them to correlate that over. So once that once they cannot do that, they're like, well, we're just gonna get stronger and finally don't care about that man, like, like grapple and finding to go get stronger. So it can't be basic, you know what I mean? When it comes down to like, I guess bringing or identifying the issue right and bringing it to that individual. And so when I can converse with the athlete fighter, you know, primarily and tell them what they're doing right here is gonna have the direct correlation to whatever their game plan is or going to combat whatever their opponents doing. That's where they bought in and that's where you can obviously keep them for the long haul and if you can keep them more consistent, you can get more progress out of them. Yeah, absolutely man, and I think something that you spoke about their as well of you know, speaking the same language as them is so important and if you've been in the game and if you've been in the cage and you thought you can take that knowledge of the movements and what's required and then you can use that same um that same, those same words, that same vocabulary and then apply that in your strength conditioning and this is something that I'm going through at the moment man again, you know, I went through, I come from a rugby background and military background, but you know, this year I'm really over the last year, year and a half, I've started doing jiu jitsu, I've dabbled in boxing, mixed martial arts wrestling over the last couple of years whilst I've been at Tiger, but this year is really the year that I'm gonna level up and really focus on the combat sports martial arts side of things.

Like I haven't even, I love lifting man, I've been training for 20 years um but I haven't done any lifting for the last five or six weeks now because this year is like doing jujitsu a couple of times a week, I'm doing mixed martial arts once or once or twice a week and then boxing once or twice a week as well, depending on my schedule. So you know, I'm really focusing on building my skills because you know that gives me credibility. And some of the guys like PG and I went to, he flew me to Russia for his fight camp prior to fighting Corey san Diego was supposed to be al jemaine sterling, but um he flew me to Russia man for that camp and um you know, all of his boys are over here in Thailand at the moment, going through that fight camp and I've got him a couple times a week, I've got those boys a couple of times a week and you know, they see me in the jiu jitsu session and they're like, oh coach, Very good, very good. They're always like give me big ups and like fist bumping me and stuff man, so it gives me it gives them, gives me credibility and I earn their respect, you know? Um and I actually had someone uh someone say something the other day, um we've got comes at me of in camp at the moment, we're doing a sprint session last week and Tiger put out a social media post and I ended up jumping in and and doing doing a sprint against him and she added on my stories and one of my mates messaged me and he goes, did that guy just beat Shawn Cobra and I was like bro, He got me had me at the start, but I had him covered after 20 m, and he goes, I don't think I've seen any of your athletes beat you at anything, and I was like, yeah, but when I step into their world bro, it's a different thing.

That's a different story, definitely, definitely. It's funny because, like, I'll play around with Dustin a lot, you know, Grappa little bit and I'm like, and they really just don't know, and it's funny because, like, he doesn't I mean, when it comes to weight training, like, obviously it's different, right, Grappling strength, Weight training, strength, it's a little bit different. But when you, when you can manipulate somebody's body right, and you get ahold of somebody, you know what, you know, especially when you have experience in it, you know, that they know what they're doing, you know, you can feel it. And so it's always fun and I'm like, all right, back up, that's enough. That's enough. When it gets a little bit ahead of me, I'm like, all right, that's enough. Let's get back to work, bro. Yeah, yeah, go do these skater bounds, man, let's see how that Yeah, and then we'll grapple afterwards. Yeah, yeah, that's cool, man. So, you know, we talked uh talk about going full circle before, where you're saying you fought against a guy who trained with Dustin Poirier? Your training? Dustin Poirier now, like, you know, how did that come about? How did you get into training high level fighters and um talk to me about that process, how that all unfolded.

Yeah, I mean I started training my my my teammates and they were Dean Thomas 80T affiliated. So some of these guys fought in like regional scene cards. A couple of guys fought in bellator. Um like I said when I was done with fighting, I was like I don't want anything to do with it. Then I started to wind my way back in and I started watching fights again and then there was a point in time. I was like all right man, I want to get back into it. So I called Dean and you know, he we met for coffee and I remember him getting the full time job down there at the headquarters at A. T. T. And so you know, he called me or we we set up a meeting, I went there and I was like, you know if you have anybody that you want me to work with, I'm open, you know and I want to start getting back into it. He's like, you know what, you may be in luck so if you can get your resume, come down to the gym and we'll see what happens. And so I got my resume that day, drove down there and then the first day when I got there he threw me in there with Dustin Hector Lombard teacher Torres. I want to say Diana Davis, which is Howard Davis Jr son he's a boxing coach to he's uh he's Dustin's boxing coach.

And so you know basically thrown into the fire per se. Right? But the good thing was I was very confident because this is what I do right? So that was one thing is with the young coaches remember or coaches in general right? If you get if you get a bump or you know you get an increase in and I guess the magnitude of what you're doing, whether it be you know going to the NFL or going to the N. B. A. Or something like that. Remember that you're a specialist in what you do, you're the black belt in this particular situation. So you've got to lead with confidence because they're not gonna want to get led by somebody who's not confident. So with that I had ultimate confidence in what I knew what I was doing. Now with that being said I didn't know personality traits of different types of individuals right? So I treated them all like they were like high school kids and this and oh and King Mohler Wall was one of the guys that really Took to me 1st and King mo has been in the game forever. He's you know, he's at the olympic training center, he's a wrestler all his life and then did mm a he was in bellator.

And so he was like he's like listen man like you're young you're really good. But you gotta remember that all these people are already self motivated so you don't have to be a ra ra type of guy. And so I was like that I was like let's go, you know? And then I remember Dustin or Dustin telling, I think it was dire or something. Like he was like, man, why the hell is this guy yelling at us? He's like, I'm getting mad, I don't even want to do. Yeah, basically. And and but I remember like we we hit it off the first time we talked because we were talking about Louisiana and all that stuff and but when I started coaching it was like this guy, you know what I mean? So he goes up and so I heard that I was like, damn, no, that's not, that's not it. And so I see that now with the coaches that I have come in here, I'm like listen, you gotta understand personalities and that's when I really start to get deeper into psychology and understanding like different personality traits. You know, using Braverman is tests to understand, you know people and how they think and then I can ultimately understand how to coach them.

And so yeah, so that's how it started. And then I I ended up Being there for about five years. Um then from there I was like, you know what it kind of got to a point where I was training a lot of guys and I was getting run down, you know, I was not liking the situation, we're talking 60 plus fighters a week, you know, and with that I had grown the brand, you know, started the youtube channels, you know, instagram was blowing up, I did programs online. I still had a gym up north, like a small studio gym that I was doing for one on ones and just doing video content and I was like, you know what, this is getting, it's getting crazy. So when the pandemic hit, I was like, you know what, I think it's the time I make that pivot and get up out of here. And so, you know, it was, it was a, it was a bad breakup in a sense, I'm not gonna lie. You know, they, they saw that I was, you know, kind of on my way out, I was like one ft out the door and I was training guys that they couldn't train because of covid restrictions. And so I was bringing in guys that had fights and like regional scenes and some low level below regulatory and UFC guys and you know, they're not well trained Dustin and you wanna and Edson if they had, you know, they were coming up with fights.

Um, but yeah, so I ended up, we ended up parting ways and then open up the gym at the same time and same thing and I moved closer to a t t, I sold the other gym and now we moved into, you know right now I'm partnered with mo Vaughn whose ex baseball, ex major league Baseball player. So working with the baseball kids and then working with the fighters and when it came down to it, like when I started working with these high level elite guys, I started putting out more content, right? And so when I put out that more content with those people, those fans and all the people that watch them, they started to follow too as well. Right? So when you want to change a check posted me up instantly, 100 to 200 new followers, you know, and and so on and so forth. So it just grew from there and the reason why I say this is important is because if I would have never put those videos up then all the coaches that I'm able to coach now and help, I wouldn't have been able to do, right, so you wouldn't have been you wouldn't have been here trying to get me on your podcast.

So I think I think I heard about you on joe DiFranco's podcast maybe like maybe maybe two years ago or something, maybe, maybe I'm mistaken. But yeah, I'm pretty sure I heard about you from jodi franco, I started following him many, many years ago, same as you man like you know him and Louie Simmons and those type of guys were you know the O. G. S. Of the game and it's funny because I met joe when I went to new york for your next fight and then you know joe is is like he's a mentor of mine he didn't even know it but you know he gets it all the time and I was like yo man I've been watching this stuff for years you know and he was like oh really that's awesome man I've been watching your stuff too and I'm like I took him back I was like what? And I looked on my instagram and he was actually following me I was like damn so he'd been following the instagram right and then when I was going when I was up in Jersey to train Frankie Frankie Edgar I stopped by and so that's how it all happened and the reason why Frankie found me was because of instagram. So when people talk and that was and that's where okay when people are like how did you get to train these again it takes one it takes one individual really if you're looking to train high level rugby players, high level fighters, high level NFL guys it really just takes that one or two guys to take it to the top and you'll be successful with them and then they talked to all their their boys and and and their teammates and things like that one 100% man 100% and this is something I want to I want to discuss as well as like the business side of things and like the social media side of things because I'm sure there's been times where you've trained people for free man, like I trained people for free for years like and that one guy for me is peter yang right, like he asked me to train him for free before he made his UFC debut and now like you know one of my guys anatoly Malik in just one, the one championship interim heavyweight title last night.

Um you know cain yeah, thanks bro cain moussa's fighting bellator Dublin in a couple of weeks time. I've got marlin rising camp at the moment. I've got PTR in camp at the moment. Yeah man. He's over at the moment. What's up man? You know him? Of course you do of course you know him. Yeah, yeah, I'll say good day man. Yeah, he's a good dude. Um Yeah, but man like you know that was the one guy for me. I had this conversation with um with one of my mates recently and you know the topic of the conversation was like you know there's so many people that just want to be famous and they want to get a selfie with the athletes and you know all this type of ship. But then you know there's the complete other side of the spectrum where there's fucking people out there doing really good work that don't have any social media presence man and then they're doing themselves a disservice, right? So you know, it's, I totally understand um you know, both sides of the spectrum, but you know, we need to, we I mean social media is a tool man, we need to use it for what it's worth and not allow it to use us and you know, if you're doing good work with people, you know, you want to be showing some of that at least.

Yeah, I mean if you're, if you're staying true to yourself, you're being authentic, you know, you're putting out quality content that's giving out value, then you should feel no shame about it. That's what I was saying, a lot of people that there's a lot of people out there that put out content for sure and then they, you know, it's it's snake oil salesmen, it's it's like they're putting out this content that they're that they're showing young kids and they think that that's the right way to do it, but there are some great, you know, content creators out there, you know, and for that it's like you gotta stop feeling like you're selling out in a sense and I know a lot of the older coaches, a lot of coaches that I, that I, that come to me now because they saw me on instagram or facebook and they don't want to get on instagram and facebook, but they saw me on there, these are guys that I read their books, right? And this and you know, these guys, if I were to tell you, I'm not gonna tell you who they are, but these are guys that we've all read their books if you are a strength conditioning coach and they come here and I'm like, why aren't you doing a podcast, why aren't you doing articles? And they're like, I don't want to put out my stuff for free.

And I go, man, like that's why it's gonna, you're not gonna evolve with the times and that's why joe is so relevant still because he still puts out content. He was doing articles and free stuff for years and years before it was even popular, you know, of course when I listened to his podcast all the time and he's like one of my, one of my top podcasts I listen to um and you know, he talks about when he first put out his NFL combine preparation on the cassette tape or VHS and I'll tell you this, joe was such a good guy man. We did a, we did a fitness business conference and and a performance conference here at my gym. He did it for free, he didn't, he didn't charge us anything. He came here because he was like, well I just wanna, I just wanna, you know, he was like basically just want to support and I was like, man, can I do anything for you, Like let's figure it out and so You know obviously I'm gonna help him out in other ways, but that's how great that guy is and that's that's what I'm saying is you got to understand the process and that process is gonna be 90% of the stuff that you do are gonna be free, but if you do that 10% is going to give you exponential growth, if you do it the right way.

but you have to make sure that you're getting people to know like and trust you and you become a level of influence but you become a level of influence with quality valued content that's appropriate and authentic, you know, 100% man, that's a that is a great point, you know, one of the questions that I get coming in from my listeners and followers is you know, if I want to get started in the strength conditioning world, how do I do that? Like what path can I take? What's your recommendations man, there's so many, you know, um it depends on where their end goal is. You know, they want to work in university, they want to work in a professional setting, they want to work in the private sector setting or sector, I think that first you need to know a background or a basis of knowledge, so you need to have an understanding of physiology, biomechanics anatomy, so on and so forth, and now that can take you so many ways and with that if you wanted to work in a university setting at this point in time, yes, you're gonna need a grad degree. So that's that's something that you know for me it was I didn't want to do that, I didn't want to you know, be there from you know five in the morning to 10 at night and only be there doing this school stuff and I wanted to reach more people.

So and also I like to not just train one particular sport. I want to train multiple sports. I want to train multiple people and train different types of people because I know me and I like and I get stir crazy, you know, so I want to I want to be able to be I guess very my my broader broader spectrum of people that I work with and so yeah and then from there it's depending on where you want to go. So If you're looking to open up your own gym, make sure that you have some business sense. Right? So take a few classes or at least learn about finance, learn about business administration, learn about marketing, learn about sales because you're gonna need that and that's something that I did not know going into it right at 22 years old, I was putting money in shoeboxes as opposed to having like business bank account. Now I laugh at that now luckily I got it all situated and and a good uh but before you know, I didn't even know and you're gonna also have to know about social media marketing, you're not going to have to know about networking, you're gonna, you know, things like that, when you come down to the business side of things and then when it comes down to training, find out what your niche is, what you want to specialize in, because specialize people that specialize, make more money, right?

And again, you also have to know your talent, right, what talent has been given to you and from there, you can take that talent and create growth and create progress and help people in more of a higher magnitude of ways than just being just a general guy, kind of doing everything right, You don't want to be, you wanna be a master as opposed to just being a jack of all trades. Now, I'm not saying don't be, don't have an understanding about all these different things, right? There was a reason why I decided to, to master or at least specialized in combat sports, you know, sports performance because I knew that this was something that I could take to the next level. So whether it be a sport, whether it be or I want to be a nutritional guide guy, I want to be a weight cut guy, you know, I want to be a biomechanics guy, you know, whatever the case or girl, you know, I don't want to guys and girls and all the coaches here, Here we go again.

Shit. Uh, no, I love my girl coaches by the way, they're awesome. Um, but, but yeah, so specialization is going to be key because that's what, that's what, that's what's going to separate yourself from the rest. Right? Um, and then from there it's like getting to know your, your athletes and getting them to buy in. And then from there creating a relationship and trust because that's gonna take, you know, you're gonna get one person and it gets another and another and because they like you and they trust you and you've gotten results with them, they're going to go ahead and tell their teammates, tell their family members, tell their friends to come train with you too as well. That goes for not just athletes, that's, that's in every, every aspect of, of training. Right? Mm hmm. Yeah, that's brilliant advice man. Um, I want to talk about the buying process uh, and like how you get your athletes to buy in. I've got a very prominent memory of when Pete Ian was going through his fight camp preparations for Jose Aldo for the vacant bantamweight title.

So we're in lockdown in Thailand uh, and you know, he was coming to my house and training a couple of times a week. You know, using, we just had a kettlebell and a couple of bands man, that was my whole strength conditioning program. Um, and he was, he was training with, you know, his grappling coaches, striking coaches, um, etcetera, etcetera, you know, at their homes as well, you know, doing the dodgy fucking, you know, skipping curfews and all that type of stuff. But anyway, um, you know, we went through that process for about four or five weeks hard training man and you know, I couldn't really manage his workload, his recovery, etcetera, but I was taking his heart rate variability and his blood pressure before every training session. Anyway, the gym opened up and we got back into training, had like a week or two of hard training and I could see his heart rate variability was trending down and I said to him, I was like, next week we have a d load, I was like, you know, one session per week, let's reduce the volume and all the intensity. Um, you know, let's target a couple of sessions that we're going to get after he speaks Russian, I speak english, a little bit of miscommunication there.

Anyway, he's running big buddha man, there's this, there's this hill is like 4.5 kilometers up, I think it's like 3 400 m climb over that distance, so he's run that on the weekend and then he's, you know, training hard at the gym, just opened up, he's excited training hard that week and I think on Tuesday or Wednesday, he ends up getting sick being bedridden for like three or four days. And I told him beforehand, I was like, man next week, we do a deal load. Otherwise you're going to get sick, you're going to get injured. And you know, he he ends up getting sick bedridden for a couple of days, comes back in training next week and he just looks at me and goes coach, I'm sorry, I listened to you your professional. That was the boy in bro. And that was years, man. That was years of like teaching him this stuff before. You know, how long have you been working with him Since? Uh, March, February March, 2018. So just about four years now. Yeah, but that was that was for me, man. That was the one guy that was the one guy. So, I got buy in from him. Um and now, like, you know, I'm training a lot of Russians, you know, a lot of his friends, a lot of the fighters and that's happened to me before, where it's like a lot of the Dagestani ins a lot of Chechens, they would be like, all right, this is the guy.

So, they'll come in droves, man, You see them like, and I got four weeks coach, let's do it. And I'm like, all right. Like, you know, I don't know what to do, but all right, let's do it. You know, how do you how do you get the boy in from the athletes, man, because, you know, that's, that's such a big part of coaching is like, it's that that coach athlete relationship, like there has to be so much trust rapport by in mutual respect. Yeah, I think it it came in time, obviously it takes it takes a couple of camps, you know? Um for me, like, I'll give you an example with Dustin was the hardest one and people think like it was the easiest one because we're the closest now, but it was definitely the hardest one. He didn't start training with me until a year and a half later when I started top team and that was because, like, he keeps a close circle, you know, and he would watch from the side and see what I was doing and seeing the success I was having with all his teammates. And another thing is like, knowing that they, you want to get let them know that you care, right?

So, if you care about them and then you also know show them that, you know what you're talking about, that's obviously gonna give them overall by in like I said, reframing and things like that, understanding the process, understanding what they're going through on a daily basis, not just from a fight perspective, but also from a training perspective and be like, listen, I'm here to help you not, you know, make myself look good if you look good, I look good. So it doesn't matter. We have to make sure that you're on point and I, I come more of an approach of having more of a positive eq, so understanding their understanding the process that they have to go through constantly checking in on them. That does help a lot, you know, we're even with just a simple text message goes a long ways with a lot of guys, you know, because when they're in big camps, you know, they're just another number, even if they are a peter yon or Dustin Poirier, you know, and for the most part you don't want to be annoying, but you also want to show that you are constantly uh checking in on them and and they're on, you know, they're on your mind and so for that, that allows them to be like, man, this guy really cares about me or the girl really cares about me, I'm gonna go ahead and put my effort in as much as I need to 21, make sure that I'm putting my effort in just as much as he's putting his effort into me because I gotta help him help me.

So I know as an athlete when coaches did that for me, it helped me out tremendously and I was like, alright, I trust this guy because he actually cares, you know, I'm not just another number or I'm not just another guy that he can put up on his instagram and things like that, you see what I mean, and then it's not just about coaching, it's about, you know other issues that they may have in life, whether it be family issues, right, helping them out business wise, you know, giving them an understanding of how they can finance their stuff and if you have those abilities, if you know those abilities, why don't you give them the tools and the tactics to help them in life, not just in fighting. So that takes it to another level, right? I have a lot of um good up and coming guys that I take aside now and they, the good thing is now I have a lot of coaches that work with me so I can be the guy almost like I call like I'm a dentist, you know, a dentist come in and they're kind of just like hey how you doing? They scrape your teeth and then they get up out of there and they make the most money. That's kind of like what I do sometimes and I'm like I'm the dentist now and you guys are all the dental hygienists. Yeah, you guys are doing that but but but but that doesn't mean that I don't consistently check in, put together the program's put together the strategies and things like that and I make sure that I'm always talking with them, communicating with them, you know, and it comes down to understanding people and when you can understand how people think, you know and being charismatic also does help a lot, you know what I mean carrying around that charisma to help people buy into you as an individual, that will take it a long way.

So don't just think from an excess and old standpoint, A lot of people like alright programming and privatization and and fatigue management, it's not just that, it's like, how's your family life? How's your wife, How's your kids doing? You know, I said not talk with all my guys, you know, for at least 30 minutes to an hour, you know, after a session sometimes, especially if I feel like there's there's something going on mentally, you know, and then I break that down and so it becomes, you become a lot of things, not just a coach, you become a teacher, you become a psychiatrist, you know, you become a lot of things when it's in this game, and especially if you're dealing with athletes at that magnitude, that deal with so much stress on a constant daily basis. Remember there are people too, so you gotta put that in perspective. Yeah, man, that is a brilliant point and final one, before I let you go, I know you're a busy man, you're hard to get hold of, but I appreciate your time man. Um one thing I found was, you know, when I'm in Thailand training at Tiger muay thai, I'm just one coach and one piece of the puzzle, Like obviously I run the strength conditioning, you know, there's going to be a boxing coach, maybe there's a muay thai coach, maybe Brazilian jiu jitsu coach, a wrestling coach and mm a coach, you know?

So um in the past I have found it difficult to tie in with some of the other coaches whilst I was in Russia and something that I'm building out at Tiger at the moment, but whilst I was in Russia there was a striking coach, a grappling coach, myself, strength conditioning coach and our communication was on point like we were in fight camp together, like it wasn't like we were going home every night, it was like we were all on the camp together, it was like, it was almost like being on military base again um you know, so we're having all of our meals together, we're having all of our training sessions together, spending like four or 56 hours with these dudes every single day man. So I could see how they were, how they were acting, how they were moving, what their body language was, like, what the energy levels were, like, how their recovery was there, sleep there, stress management etcetera etcetera. And you know, I was in constant communication with the other coaches to say, hey man, like I'm going to be pushing him hard for our strength and our sorry, our speed and power endurance for the next couple of weeks.

I need you to pull back the afternoon sessions, you know, I'm going to hire session, you're going to do a low to moderate session, Talk to me about um that process for you, how have you being able to kind of build that network with the other coaches that you're working with in conjunction with the athletes that are working with, because that's a difficult jigsaw puzzle to put together. It's probably the most difficult thing that we have to juggle right, or we have to get through. It's a, it's a definite, uh I don't wanna say it's a roadblock, but it is something that is a hurdle that we have to get over and so for that it is good to have that constant communication, it's good to actually be in the same room in the same gym if you can, you know, that was where we used to really have good synergy when it came down to like communication between skills coaches and I would, for the most part let the skills coaches dictate the training demands of the skills practice obviously, but I would make sure that I wasn't the guy that was like, oh they got a strength train or they got to do this.

Now, if I felt like that was important for that particular individual, if they were very highly skilled, but they lack that strength, then that would be the importance of that particular camphor off camphor, whatever have you, so there would be times where I was the hierarchy of importance and then there was times where I was the lowest on the totem pole, which I have no problem either or right? So yeah, that is going to be the hardest thing. And I get this, get this question a lot from my coaches that that work with or the work outside of the gym and then they can't call up the skills, culture, the skills coach has an ego and they don't want, you know what I mean? And you'll run through that pretty much 90% of the time you're going to have that and you're like, yeah, dude, and you're constantly being reactive man, you're constantly being reactive. You're like, I'm planning on doing this session today and then your athlete walks in their heads down there dragging their heels, their body language is off, you go through some balance and stability work and there all over the place like, man, the cns is fried. Like I need to back them off a little bit. Yeah, yeah. You have to be able to also regulate like hundreds and that was one thing that I got really good at, Like it's calling audibles right on the spot and then you're gonna have that, that's that's 90% 98% of the time, right?

You're looking at all right, well they're coming in, there's probably gonna be something that they're that's hurting or something that's off or they're fatigued from something else and so you want to have a structured system, but you also want to be able to have a little bit more mobility in how you transition things. So yeah, the main thing is like get a hold of the coaches right, make sure that they have your number, make sure you have their number and make sure that you can open up lines of communication, then you have to, cause you have to not just buy in for the athlete is also buying for the skills coaches. So that comes with making sure that they understand that, you know that this is one small piece of the puzzle, right? And even if you feel very passionate about strength and conditioning, which you should because that's who you are, just know that they don't feel that way, right? And you can't have an ego and think like I'm this is crazy, like and I know a lot of coaches like that's bullshit, like they should think this is important and they don't, it doesn't matter, right?

So if they don't think it's important, you have to make it, make them think that you're a part of the team and whatever you can do to help with that, go ahead and do that right now, I'm not saying abandon ship and abandon your programming and abandon all the stuff that you put together, definitely do that because you know that that's gonna work for them, but in order for you to actually cause a positive relationship if the guys that you're working with or the girls that you're working with are not in line with your values and your physio, your your your philosophy of training, right? You have to play the game in a sense, in a sense, right? So you have to make sure that you're doing everything you possibly can on your side, but also telling them certain things that they actually need or that they want to hear right most of the time now, I'm not saying manipulate the situation, but you know what I mean? Influence. There you go. Yeah, I love that man. Um make great conversation, I really appreciate your time man. Um last one before I let you go, if anyone wants to follow you, they want to get in contact, they want to learn from you.

Um where can they find you and what do you have going on this year? Yeah, we've got a lot going on this year. Drew strong dot com. You can find out all the programs, the mentorship program, that's for coaches that want to learn directly under me. The methods, the systems, the protocols that I use, we have over 1000 coaches worldwide, so you can do it from anywhere around the world. It's online, we have calls bi weekly and then we also have a chat group where these guys are sharing information on a daily basis. There's so many e books and audiobooks that are being shared there too as well. Um Q and A is like pretty much every other week and then all the information that I gathered over my 13 plus years of doing this um at the elite level. So that's, that's really something there. We have an online gym where you can do one on one, coaching specified programming for yourself and it's also 50% off right now so you can get that and then as far as new stuff coming out, I don't really want to put it out too much, but we are coming with a supplement, we're doing a pre imposed workout.

So I'll make sure you get a batch of that, you know, and also I'm looking up, I'm looking at my vision board right now. We got, we got the combat sports seminar in my gym in boca raton florida in april. And then I am also doing, we've got two new programs coming out so we have body armor which is the body weight only program, it's two point oh so it's the second one I'm coming out with and that was really good for the people that can't make it to the gym. So trying to help out as many people as possible in that aspect. And then the podcast, my own podcast. Really strong podcast. Uh Good podcast. We got about 82 episodes right now. So going strong and uh I'm gonna keep it going. So YouTube channel if you guys want to find out any more free information, there that's that's growing daily and um and then as far as my instagram is at the root strong, very simple, awesome man, I'm going to have all of those links in the show notes. I really appreciate your time Phil um you've been somewhat of a mentor for me for the last couple of years as well mate, so I really appreciate you giving me here, I want to thank you because you've done a lot of things in your life and I appreciate what you've done.

So 100% much respect to you brother. Thank you sir, appreciate it. This episode was brought to you by Swiss eight, which is a proactive mental health program designed by veterans. Initially for veterans that has been pushed out to the wider community that allows you to structure in and schedule. Their eight pillars of health and wellness, including nutrition, sleep, time management, discipline, fitness, personal growth, mindfulness and minimalism. This episode was also brought to you by be spunky, which is a male hormone optimization supplement that I've been taking for about a year and a half now, absolutely rate. It is a TJ listed nutraceutical meaning that it's made from all organic produce to help you manage and optimize your stress levels, which in turn increases your ability to improve testosterone production levels naturally, User code codes 10 at checkout for your 10% discount. All of those links will be in the show notes. If you've got some benefit from this episode, please make sure you pass it off to your friends and family. I'd appreciate any shares on social media platforms.

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