Building a Fighter

The everlasting fear in combat sports. Gassing out. We talk a lot about conditioning in this episode, pretty much hit the whole topic from top to bottom. Outline the energy systems, talk about common pitfalls and offer our suggestions on how to best prepare any energy system. Long story, short you must be intentional and patient with your conditioning work. Know where in your process you are. Hint...

Not actually brought to you by Coke.*** How good is good enough with movement? Where is the balance between moving perfectly and moving good enough? What is the risk vs. reward of moving inefficiently for performance? We discuss this topic in depth in this episode. As a strength coach or chiropractor we want athletes to move well and reduce the risk of injury, but performance demands some risk and...

Building a Fighter welcomes Aaron Porter. Aaron is a sports performance coach with Alex at Landow Performance and Aaron has the privilege to train some of the best MMA athletes in the world such as Kamaru Usman, Justin Gathje, Cory Sandhagen, Drew Dober, and various other high level mixed martial artists. We have a great conversation just talking about training and MMA and UFC and how important it...

Technology and life balance! How should you approach technology as a business person in 2023. Alex takes the Bah-humbug approach to tech, whereas Austin thrives in it. This is a talk as much about taking on challenges and deciding how to address hurdles as it is about embracing technology in training or business. This talk gets heated as we argue about systems and how to become robust in dealing w...

Life outside your hustle. Does doing cool things make you a more well rounded human and add to your ability. When we as humans get so focused and narrowed into what we are doing we have a hard time seeing with perspective. This can lead to being unattached and unable to relate. There are benefits to hyperfocusing at times, but the eternal struggle to be balanced is worth the pursuit. Take this opp...

Building a Fighter welcomes Adam Lusby, Strength and Conditioning Coach out of Dundee, Scotland. Adam has a great story of how he found his love in Strength and Conditioning and pivoted from no background in the space to owning and operating a high performance facility. Communication is a huge sticking point for Adam, he speaks to the importance of this ability and how coaches can go from simple c...

Special Guest! Brandon Morgan. “B.Mo Fit” is a strength and conditioning coach for the Serra-Longo fight team based in New York. You can find his online bio here! He has some excellent insights into the strength and conditioning game and how to truly connect with athletes. A lifelong martial artist himself Brandon is entrenched in all performance related to the fight game, strength and conditionin...

Our most frequent guest returns! Miss Christina Chu is back and we do a bit on a nutrition Q & A! We also spend time exploring the gray area in the questions from Christina’s Instagram Poll. We cover topics that range from good pre-workout fuel (food not supplements) to optimal weight loss strategies. Christina brings lively energy, great information, and professional conduct no matter her venture...

Talking fitness myths. And, our apologies for the intro. Lol  From getting sunlight to making up artificial stressors. What is the best way to pursue health, wellness, and value in life? It's not these little fads or trends that people fall victim to, it's the whole picture. Doing the one thing most likely won't change your life, but putting together the whole may change how you live your life. Un...

A peak under the hood! We recorded a live programming session for one of our Building a Fighter athletes. We talk about her need analysis and what our process in programming for this athlete has been. Then we get into the nuts and bolts of how we build any program then how we built her program. We are giving you a live look at a real program we would build for any athlete. Each program that Buildi...

Why should MMA fighters golf? Amongst other things! MMA fighters should pursue varying interests but things that require focus, and the flexing of different muscles than those in their sport. Almost by definition MMA requires a huge discipline and commitment time wise, and mentality wise. Taking breaks from this repetitive pursuit, and using other muscles will offer an outlet, release, and reinvig...

Wildin’ and Freestylin’ Talking about our experiences at UW - La Crosse, theory vs. practice, and where genuine action comes from. We hit on professionalism, self improvement, and consistency. The role of coaching bubbles up as a main topic in this talk. We ponder the weight of doing all the right things all of the time. What are the pros and cons of this, and can it guarantee success? What is exc...

Why do Strikers need strength and conditioning? One word: Power. Training in the strength and conditioning setting will increase the underlying physical qualities that lead to power. Long story short lifting weights is a good way to enhance your potential to be more powerful. Power will still depend on your timing, technique and build but with the aid of a specific program we can enhance your powe...

The hustle. Fighting rarely pays the bills, which is a problem on its own, but we can do something about it. There are so many ways to profit off of your career as a fighter. You work so hard in the gym to win fights, work just a little hard at marketing, branding, and promotion to reach some level of financial support. One avenue to feel great about using your platform as a fighter to make money...

Summer is time for the boys! Freestylin about home gyms, finding new exercises, competition, and fun! We dig into topics about building teamwork and just comradery amongst athletes. While this profession and the pursuit of excellence can get serious, there are so many opportunities to have fun! Enjoy this athletic journey and keep it fresh! Let us know how you keep it fresh in your workouts!  Visi...

What does it take to be a high level strength and conditioning coach? Sacrifice is a word that comes to mind. It takes a lot of investment in time, money, passion, and curiosity to become a good strength coach. Speaking of time, internships, continuing education, and practical experience take years to accumulate and build up. This time can be fun, and being a coach is a fun job, but it also takes...

Why should wrestlers lift heavy? Why doesn’t lifting heavy feel intense? Am I wasting my time if I am not tired while I lift?   Wrestlers need strength. It’s a non-negotiable. Adding strength through lifting heavy is one of the easiest ways to compound your skillset in wrestling. It's not just about the specific strengths in wrestling, it's about the ability to adapt and train a new skill set. Tak...

The age old question, youth vs experience. How can we best adapt strength and conditioning to fit these two different athletes? The rookie vs the vets, which is also the theme of the renewed reality TV show The Ultimate Fighter. To boil it down we look at qualities not yet developed and what skills we can add for the rookie, vs how to adapt around previous injury and dysfunction for the Vet. Train...

Time to get after it. When and why should you actually train hard? The work is unavoidable, but we can still organize it in the right manner. The mental benefits are untold in the realm of hard pushes. Conditioning pushes, wrestling grinds, attention to detail, and marathon sessions. These give you a perspective on where you are at mentally, and where your weak links are. Invite the challenge in,...

Freestylin’  Welcome to the Summer Vibes! We cover a bit in this sporadic episode. Entering into new Freestyle and Greco wrestling seasons, what wrestling can mean to a child’s growth and maturity. We get into talking about how valuable hard work and hard workouts can be! Pushing yourself is not a sin, however it is best in moderation. Hard work is immensely valuable in today’s culture, and wrestl...

Are you truly ready to go? Well Ready or not, here we go! We are talking all types of preparation and your ability to take on the day in this podcast. A slight bit of terminology to start off but we dig into how to really be ready, prepared, and robust. We, as strength and conditioning coaches, have great opportunities to make sure athletes are ready to take on the day, prepared for the next compe...

Creating a winning environment. How can we cohesively piece together all of the aspects of training so that the atmosphere is a positive one. Home life, training life, strength and conditioning, and wellness, each of these aspects add up to create a situation where you are getting better or you are getting worse. Finding good people and good facilities is key. The right people can make consistent...

I know I should be lifting and going to the gym, but what should I do? Create a plan, based around a couple of variables. The variables that we should address first is changing your loading, amount of reps, and exercise selection. Doing the same thing day in and day out will not benefit you as much as adding variety into your workouts. Once we dig into how we change these variables, we can target...

Mentorship, What's it worth? We both agree that mentorship and having a person to guide you/rely on is super beneficial. It's a relationship, both mentor and mentee have to put in quality work and effort which defines the relationship. Should professional athletes be looked at as mentors by default? Should they act accordingly and carry this weight? This is a key question we dig into with this epi...

Apologies for Austin being so cringy. Odds are, if you grapple your lower back and neck have and still hurt. We have created some continuing care protocols for these areas of pain. Here we talk about the causes, symptoms, and rehabilitation processes you can go through to address these specific problems. Austin, Building a Fighter’s very own Chiropractor, spits his wisdom for general spine wellnes...