I could just see a total stranger and they say like, oh,
do you do jiu jitsu? And I was like, yeah, they're
like, oh man, on Instagram I see all these jiu jitsu clips or I
saw that Mark Zuckerberg is doing jiu jitsu now.
What's awesome is that jiu jitsu is a way to get a community
aspect, get some combat sport and martial arts self-defense
experience. Physically demanding, yet you
don't get punched in the face. But depending on how you train,
there's a lot of things that you can do to decrease your risk of
injury. You look at people these days,
it's like they're slouched over, they're looking down, they look
like easy targets. People that have done combat
sports, people who have dug really deep within themselves
and like grinded through something where you start like
walking with your chest up a little bit more, walking with a
little bit more confidence, people can.
Pick up on that and we are rolling.
Josh, how are you, man? I'm doing great, Robert, how are
you doing? I'm good.
Are you, are you doing a podcast while on like a treadmill or
something? Yeah.
Yeah, I got AI, got one of those under desk treadmills.
It's it's dope. It helps me get get my steps in.
I've had one guy just constantly emailing me telling me that I
should get that because I'm on the computer all day long.
So do you find it? You're able to like type and
everything with it no problem. So this one, it doesn't go too
fast. It's like a walking only
treadmill. So even at the fast, it may be
like if I turned it all the way up to the fastest it goes,
typing would be pretty difficult.
But yeah, for the most part, like I think I usually set it at
one mile an hour or maybe like 1.1 miles an hour.
And typing is, is pretty good. I will say though, like if
you're reading a lot, it's pretty tough.
Like usually I turn it off when I have to like read like a lot
of emails and stuff like that. But like typing, editing videos,
it's like more monotonous type work.
It's it's pretty convenient. Yeah, I'm not.
I'm about to get me one. I could use that for like
working on my client macros and stuff like that and get more
steps in the day. So yeah, you might be selling me
on it, man. Bro let let me know how it goes.
It's AI set a goal a couple years ago to get 10,000 steps a
day for a year or at least average 10,000 steps a day for a
year. And like throughout the year it
was up and down like January, February, March, I was on point.
And then like as it started getting really, really hot here
in Sacramento, like the average tanked again and it picked back
up and I made it to the end of the year and I looked back and
my average was like 9500. Like I barely missed it.
And then that Christmas I ended up getting a walking treadmill.
And then the next year I smoked it.
It was like it was honestly too easy of a goal because you can
just walk most of your work day easily get in 1213 thousand
steps without even really trying.
I like the idea of having like the consistent effort over a
year span too. Like I, I did a, you know, David
Webb, he's been at super training gym.
Yeah, I love David. Yeah, he's.
Awesome. So he's, he's a good friend of
mine and he was like, we should do a mile a day for a year and
I'm OK, I'll do that with you. So I did it with them.
And I mean, a mile is nothing, man.
Like I can get up, run a mile on a whim.
No, no problem. But doing it every single day
without fail, like it'd be 3 feet of snow on the ground and
I'm running in the middle of a ice storm or rain or whatever.
I'd get home late. It'd be like midnight and I'm
still going out and getting my mile in.
Oh, man. It's like the consistent effort
that you commit to. That's where it gets hard, man.
Yeah, yeah. And it's, I found with that goal
of walking 10,000 steps a day, the quote UN quote easier goals
are way harder than like a goal that at least for me, that's,
that stretches me, that like pushes me, you know, I know
you've done plenty of bodybuilding shows.
I did 1 bodybuilding show and that is like a, that's a huge
goal. Like takes all your focus.
You got to get fully locked in. But if the goal is just to walk
10,000 steps a day, at least for me, I was like, oh, I don't have
to like go for a walk right now. I can do it after I finish, you
know, messing around on my phone for the next half hour.
Or I can do it later. I could always do it later.
And I, I find that sometimes when goals are that easy to push
off, like those have just as much value as setting goals like
a bodybuilding show, which takes all your focus, all your
intention. Can't really have a minute of
your day that's focusing on something else, you know?
Yeah, and I, I totally agree, man.
I think you have to have like these big hairy audacious
stretch goals that just like scare you a little bit, but then
you have to have like goals that most people would kind of ride
off. But like the consistent
application of those goals every single waking day of your life.
That's where it gets challenging.
That's where people fall short. Like I'm, I've never been good
at pull ups. So I started doing pull ups
every single day and I have my employees here and we'll just
like take a break at some point the day we'll all go knockout 35
pull ups, like, you know, a couple sets of seven or so.
And it's been good because like it gives them a break from
production and then we all just knock out some pull ups and like
we've actually gotten pretty freaking good.
I got one employee that couldn't do a single pull up and now he's
doing 35 every single day with us.
What? Dude, that's freaking awesome.
Yeah, so I'm totally getting ahead of myself.
So you and I have a mutual fan and Andrew, awesome guy and he
he sent me a message saying I got to get you on the podcast
because you I didn't even know you did a bodybuilding show.
So you got to tell me about that.
But you are big into the world of all things martial arts,
right? You started out wrestling and
then moved to Jiu jitsu. Is that correct?
Yeah, yeah. So I grew up doing traditional
martial arts when I was a kid, and then I started wrestling in
middle school and wrestled through most of high school.
And the way wrestling works is like, there's no, there's no
hobby of wrestling. It's like you're wrestling with
the full intention to compete as hard as you can.
And then when you're out of high school, if you're going to
wrestle, it's going to be wrestling in that college.
And if you were going to wrestle past college, it's wrestling
towards the Olympics and anything outside of that,
there's not really much else to do.
And I wasn't that great of a wrestler.
I was like as average as a wrestler as you can get.
And so I wasn't going to wrestle in college and I still wanted to
do something. So then I kind of found jiu
jitsu is thinking, oh, this is a lot like wrestling.
It's a little bit easier in the sense that like you don't have
competent, you don't have to do competitions every single week,
you know, throughout four months of the year and stuff like that.
And so I got into jiu jitsu and I absolutely loved it.
And kind of all throughout that time I was already, I've been
lifting, started lifting before I did wrestling.
So like I lifted all throughout wrestling and then I came into
jiu jitsu and just kept lifting. The bodybuilding show that I did
was between the time that I stopped wrestling and the time
that it started jujitsu. And what was interesting was in
wrestling, strength and conditioning is kind of baked in
to the wrestling culture. Like wrestlers are always doing
pull ups, always doing rope climbs.
They're always like, you know, doing fireman carriers up
stadiums and stuff like that. Even though I'd say like maybe
the periodization and maybe the structure of how a lot of
wrestling programs run, their strength and conditioning is
pretty outdated. They're at least doing something
they're not doing like. Football, right?
Like the football coaches in high school Kind.
Of like, yeah, exactly. Yeah.
The football, like a lot of football programs, like they
could probably do things a little bit better, but the good
thing is that they're doing something.
Jujitsu, on the other hand, was kind of the opposite.
They most grapplers, at least in the context of jujitsu, weren't
lifting. They weren't doing strength in
additioning. And that was kind of weird
coming into it. And so I just, I started
training jiu jitsu and my training partners would ask me
like, hey, like, like you feel really strong, like like what
are you doing? And I was like, well, I just, I
just lift when I'm not here at jiu jitsu, I'm at the gym
lifting. And so they were kind of asked a
couple questions. And then what I started to
recognize was people would start to get injured and then they'd
really start asking questions. They're like, hey, you're into
like exercise, right? And I was like, yeah, I'm like,
man, that guy, something about my shoulder, man.
It's just like real messed up. And so I started helping a lot
of my training partners through that.
And that kind of, that was eight years ago.
And so since then, I've really just have dived into as much as
I can, helping grappling athletes get stronger, be better
conditioned, help them be in better shapes.
That way they can do jujitsu better.
Nice, nice. How old were you when you
started doing jujitsu then? I.
Was 20. Yeah, I'm 28 now, so I started
when I was 20. Nice.
So jujitsu has been one of those things that like I've, I've
always wanted to just dive into, but man, I'm tricky cuz like we
have, we've got jiu jitsu mats, we got zebra mats in my gym here
at the compound. We had like a year where all my
employees and I were like doing striking work.
We were doing, we were rolling, we were figuring all out.
And then right before I started prep for my 2023 competition,
one of them put me in an ankle lock and tore my LCL.
Oh my God, let's put a pause on the jiu jitsu until at least I'm
done competing. So I healed up from that and I
just haven't picked it back up because a couple different
reasons. They're all excuses.
But like I just had, I got two sons, one of them just turned 3
and I called and there's a jiu jitsu place not far from us that
has like a three to five year old class.
So I've been wanting to get him into it cuz I think that'd be
super good for him and I want to do it with them.
So I've been like not doing it until we could just both start
at the same time. But my problem is I'm still like
deep into bodybuilding and with my personality, like I just am
an extremist with all things that I do.
And I'm afraid that if I do jiu jitsu, I won't be able to focus
on the bodybuilding. But you're lifting while you're
doing jiu jitsu. Like, so do you find like if you
were trying to be the best bodybuilder you could be, the
jiu jitsu probably wouldn't be conducive to that because you'd
be risking unnecessary injury and overtraining, right?
I would assume. I I would agree with that.
I think it depends on a lot of different factors.
There's, you know, I'm in Seema Yang.
He's still a pro bodybuilder, but he hasn't competed in a long
time, but he still looks incredible.
He's a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt.
There's another guy that trains within Semen and I his name's
Tyler. He's still a competitive
bodybuilder and he he competes in the wheelchair Mr. Olympia.
I don't know if he did the last Mr. Olympia, but he definitely
did the one in 2023. And when I talked to him, who's
still actively competing, he has so much skill in jiu jitsu as a
black belt that he knows how to train in a very, very Safeway
where he can use jiu jitsu as a little bit of his cardio work
for bodybuilding. However, that kind of comes all
within the context that he has such a high level of skill where
he can kind of like manage his intensity really well.
He knows how to keep himself safe.
If someone was a beginner, I would say that, you know, if
you're like in the middle of bodybuilding prep, just stick
with like the Stairmaster, like treadmill.
Don't use jujitsu as your cardio in bodybuilding prep.
Use it as something fun to do in your offseason.
Use it as something fun to do, like, you know, just to get you
out of the gym doing something different than just
bodybuilding. And as far as like staying safe
with injuries and stuff, a lot of that comes from just training
with training partners who know what they're doing and are able
to help you, like not mess yourself up, so to speak.
I, I heard someone say this on Instagram and I thought it was a
perfect description. They said most people think that
you're like, the most dangerous person to roll with is a black
belt because they got all this skill.
They're probably the safest person to roll with.
It's actually, I know you hunt a lot.
You probably like hunting like the more experienced hunter you
go with, they got you like, they're not going to let you.
This is best as possible. They're not going to let you
mess yourself up. They're going to teach you the
do's and don'ts, the etiquette and all that stuff.
If you got two guys that have never haunted before, they're
like, let's just figure it out. That's usually a recipe for
disaster. And jiu jitsu is very similar.
So if you got two guys that you know don't have a whole lot of
experience, the risk of injury is a lot higher.
If you're training with someone that has a lot more experience,
they can do a much better job of kind of funneling you and like
the safest route possible to be able to learn Jiu jitsu, get a
lot of benefits from it while also not taking too much away
from your bodybuilding training. It makes total sense.
What gets you into like martial arts to begin with, man?
Like when you started wrestling, what was the catalyst for that?
Yeah, I, I remember, I think I was in fifth grade.
It was like the summer between 4th grade and 5th grade.
And my brother and I, we had played soccer.
I wasn't very good at soccer at all.
We had played basketball. I was even worse at basketball.
Like I just wasn't good at most sports.
But I just wanted to do something.
And I remember my mom, she was driving us to this martial arts
school. It was probably like 10 minutes
away from our house. We called it karate.
We had no idea that it wasn't actual the martial art of
karate. It was called Bakfu, but we had
no idea. So we're like, ah, it's just
called karate. And my mom said, OK, this summer
you guys can pick. You guys can either do karate or
you guys can learn how to play the guitar.
I was like, well, I mean, playing the guitar seems dope.
Doing karate seems dope. At that time I was already
watching the UFC and stuff with my uncles and stuff.
And so I figured like, all right, I'll just do karate.
That's kind of how I got introduced into martial arts.
And I did that from 5th grade up until the middle of high school.
But also around that time was kind of when the economy crashed
and things were a little bit tougher financially.
And so I remember my parents and said, like, hey, we can't
necessarily afford for you to do martial arts year round, but
your middle school has a wrestling team.
So like, wrestling's kind of like, you know, kind of like
martial arts. How about you do that?
And my dad, he's incredible. He did a lot of, like, research
and like, really invested in getting us connected with the
wrestling program at our school. And he took us to the offseason
practices. And I hated it.
I was like, wrestling's lame. I don't want to do it.
Like, this sucks dad, but he made my brother and I go and
then by the end of that season, I ended up, I just love
wrestling. It was awesome.
And so I wrestled from 8th grade through to my junior year and
then kind of had a break for a few years.
And then when I was a freshman in college, that's when I
started jiu jitsu. Nice, nice.
Do you prefer jiu jitsu as a sport?
As an art? Much more so than wrestling.
100%, yeah, 100%. I had stopped wrestling because
I really just didn't enjoy it anymore.
Wrestling is, there's so many benefits from wrestling and I
think that I would go as far to say that I think all like
growing boys and all young men should wrestle.
And now they have some pretty established and growing women's
wrestling program. So I think wrestling for women
is also incredible, but it just teaches you so much.
Like not just the mental toughness side and the
discipline side. But one thing that I really
loved about wrestling, which I didn't care for as much about
soccer and basketball, was that like you have full control over
what you're doing when you go out and compete.
You don't have to like do everything right and then some
dingus fumbles the football and cost of the game.
Like that would just, I never played football, but if I was in
that scenario, that would just drive me nuts.
And wrestling, if it's like, look, if you fumble the takedown
and you get pinned, like that's your fault, you know, there's
there's no one else to blame but yourself.
And I really enjoyed that. And I also really loved how
wrestling was the Ultimate Team sport as well.
You can't get better at wrestling in your room by
yourself. You have to have training
partners. You have to have people around
you that you can actually wrestle and engage with.
And so I thought that was awesome.
The downsides of wrestling is I think that in the time frame
that I was wrestling, being in middle school and high school
and you're growing, you're trying to like figure out your
identity and stuff. I put so much of my identity in
wrestling and the winning and losing and I've just like,
that's all I focused on and I was super competitive.
So if one weekend I won a tournament, I feel great.
And then another weekend if I lost or even if I like won most
of the matches but still lost and didn't get first place, I
was just absolutely devastated. And the the way wrestling is set
up is that there's not really, you don't have a guaranteed
spot. So it's not like, OK, you're a
senior. If you're a senior playing
football, you played varsity football.
In wrestling, they do challenge matches where basically they
have all the weight classes in high school, there's 14
different weight classes and every week they have wrestle
offs. So basically they run a
tournament within the school itself.
And then the best person in each weight class is the person that
wrestles. So every week you're battling
for your spot to wrestle varsity.
And if your varsity, you got to like defend that spot every
single week. And if you're not varsity, then
you're challenging every single week for that spot.
And it was super competitive. And there's a lot of benefit to
that. Yet I also think that that kind
of drove me to not love wrestling as much because of
just, you know, you put your identity only into winning and
losing and you don't put your identity and other things.
It's a very, your identity is built on a very shaky foundation
because not everyone can win everything all the time.
And maybe if you're Michael Jordan, but there's only one
Michael Jordan. And so I ended up not wrestling
in my senior year and just like trying to figure things out,
just trying to figure out like, man, what am I going to do with
my life? What am I going to do with who I
am as a person? I was lifting before I was
wrestling, and I lifted all the time during wrestling.
And so I just kept lifting after I stopped wrestling.
And I loved it. Like strength and conditioning,
learning about strength and conditioning, bodybuilding, all
that stuff was so much fun. And so I just stuck with that.
And that's kind of what funneled me into doing that one
bodybuilding show. And after the bodybuilding show,
I definitely wanted to do more, but there's still part of me
that was like, I don't necessarily want to like step
into the Super hyper competitive, hyper intense
pressure cooker of wrestling, but I got to do, I got to do
something. I got to do some form of combat
sport, I got to do some form of martial arts.
And so that's when I end up finding jiu jitsu.
I only wrestled for four years and I've done jiu jitsu for
eight years and I love it. I still love wrestling.
Like there's aspects of wrestling that I enjoy, but I
love jiu jitsu way more. Yeah, well, I feel like, like I
did a bunch of team sports in like middle school and, you
know, basketball, baseball, stuff like that, a little bit of
football, but I never really enjoyed it all that much because
I like the individual sports. I like it when, you know, the
buck stops, so you you're, you know, reaping what you sow.
That's why I think I was drawn to bodybuilding so much because
like, I'm the one putting in the work.
It's totally an individual sport.
But wrestling or jiu jitsu is kind of like a blend of both
worlds because it's an individual sport, but you have
to have a good sparring partner and there's like a team
component to it in a regard. So like, it's the perfect
hybrid, so to speak. 100 percent, 100%.
I had a coach in high school who said in.
He said wrestling is the Ultimate Team sport because you
share your wins and you own your losses.
And so he would make that speech kind of like the start of every
season. He said like, Hey, there's going
to be like everybody here is probably going to win at least
one wrestling match and there's going to be guys that are going
to win a lot more wrestling matches, the better guys on the
team. And if you're winning a lot,
remember you share your wins with everyone else.
You did not get there on your own.
You were not a self-made man. You you accomplished those wins
thanks to all the training partners that contributed to
your success. And if you lose, there's no one
else to blame but yourself. So if you lose, like don't come
back to us as the coaches and say, Oh, I lost because of, you
know, so and so did this or whatever.
It's like, we don't care. We're not, we're not going to
listen to it. You own your, you own your
losses and you share your wins. And that's what's super
impactful for me because I think like, what a what better way to
kind of set up young men for life with that kind of
mentality. It's like, Hey, if if you make a
mistake, if you fall short, like you got to take ownership for
that and you got to deal with it.
And yet, if you have a success, it's also important to
recognize, like, look, you probably didn't hit that success
all on your own. There were other people, there
were other things that helped contribute to that, that allowed
you to be in that position to be successful.
Yeah, yeah. I feel like when I'm looking at
how I want to parent my my sons now, I feel like that would be
an awesome outlook for them to learn because like, I've learned
so much through bodybuilding, like hard work, dedication,
discipline, consistency. But you can learn all those same
things through, you know, combat sport or jiu jitsu, but have
also that team element where you have to learn more about how to
talk to people, how to interact with people, how to, like, let
your ego and get in check. So yeah, it's pretty powerful,
man. 100 percent, 100%. I think for kids it's also great
too. I even though I didn't do jiu
jitsu when I was a kid, I did other martial arts which was
still physical. But just like getting used to
being physical with another person in a controlled way
that's not automatically 100% like balls to the wall the
hardest fight ever. I think that's important to
learn as a kid. At at least for me, it made me
more comfortable at least a little bit with confrontation.
And not that I got in any fights in school, but you just start to
build a little bit more confidence.
Like if someone were to get in your face for something, it's
not like the scariest thing in the entire world.
Or if someone were to, you know, grab you and mess around a
little bit, it's not like the most alarming thing in the
world. You're used to just interacting
with other people. You're used to engaging with
other people. And as you can see for myself,
how that was beneficial as a kid.
I don't have any kids yet, but I, my wife and I are thinking
like, yeah, when we have kids someday, that aspect alone may
be beneficial. Like how to interact with other
people in that context. I think it's huge man.
Like nobody really ever messes with me.
Like I've never been in a legitimate fist fight except
with my younger brother. And.
Like, I don't have any, you know, combat sport training, but
I feel like people don't mess with me because I I carry myself
confidently and I know how to talk to people and communicate.
And I feel like if you just, I mean, you look at people these
days, it's like they're slouched over, they're looking down, They
look like easy targets. But if you like, have confidence
in yourself, if you know how to communicate effectively, which
are all things you would learn through jiu jitsu, I mean, you
can just bypass all that negativity on the front end.
Yeah, absolutely. It's a it's a weird thing.
Like I've heard some people say like, oh, you walk like a like a
wrestler. It's like, what?
What does that mean? I don't, I don't know what that
means. And I think sometimes some
people mean like you got bad posture and like your shoulders
are internally rotated and it's like, OK, yeah, I probably
should work on a little bit more mobility.
But I think there's also the other aspect of like, yeah,
people that have wrestled or people that have done combat
sports or not even specific to those things, but people who
have dug really deep within themselves and like, grinded
through something, grinded through multiple hard
bodybuilding, perhaps grinded through multiple long hunting
trips and like packing out an animal and all that stuff.
I think that in a way kind of fixes your posture where you
start like walking with your chest up a little bit more,
walking with a little bit more confidence.
And that even though it may not be like the most obvious thing,
it's like a subconscious thing. Like people can pick up on that.
100% ma'am. So would you haven't been
introduced to you said eight years now total.
Do you feel like there's been this like hockey stick trend
upward in its popularity like in the last?
I would, I would say three to four years because like, and
maybe it's correlated with Joe Rogan because he starts talking
about things like I noticed that with bow hunting, like bow
hunting wasn't popular and then he started having Cam Haynes on
his episodes a lot and Cam Haynes obviously a super
prominent bow hunter. And now everybody wants to be a
bow hunter. I think the same thing is
happening with jiu jitsu where it's like everybody's now
wanting to go roll and and emulate them.
But have you noticed that as someone that's been in the space
for so long? 100 percent, 100%.
I started jiu jitsu because I was listening to, to Joe Rogan
and Jocko Willink and, and all that.
And even when I started it was still kind of like, I don't want
to say it was underground per SE, but it was, it just wasn't
mainstream. It just wasn't like I still had
to explain to people like when I first started jiu jitsu, like it
like, you know, I'd go to like Christmas Eve and my aunts would
say like, hey, like, what are you up to?
And I'd say, oh, I'm doing jiu jitsu and like, oh, is that like
like karate? And it's like, no, it's like
kind of like wrestling. And but anyways, they had no
idea. But now when I go to Christmas
Eve or whatever, I could just see a total stranger and they
say like, oh, do you do jiu jitsu?
And I was like, yeah, they're like, oh, man, I on Instagram, I
see all these jiu jitsu clips or I saw that Mark Zuckerberg is
doing jiu jitsu now. So it definitely has kind of had
like this explosion. And I think what's cool about
that is that that's like the tide that raises all ships.
I know for me that's been great for my own business.
The more people that are doing jiu jitsu is like the more
people I have an opportunity to help, the more people I have an
opportunity to work with. And I think what's awesome is
that jiu jitsu is a way to get a community aspect, get some
combat sport and martial arts self-defense experience.
I know there's people out there that say that jiu jitsu is not
great for self-defense and maybe like the sport jiu jitsu where
you're like spinning upside down and like doing the splits and
stuff that may not be like the most effective self-defense, but
like if you know how to strangle somebody, you know how to like
break joints like that's pretty solid.
But you get like the community aspect, you get the self-defense
aspect. You get like a lot of good like
physical interaction like it's physically demanding, yet you
don't get punched in the face. You there are injuries in it,
but depending on how you train, there's a lot of things that you
can do to decrease your risk of injury.
You know, if you're going to be doing stand up stuff, you can
decrease your risk of injury a lot, but there's still a risk
that you're going to get clipped with something and get some sort
of concussion, either a minor concussion or a major
concussion. In jiu jitsu, if you're training
smart, you're you like you leave your ego at home and you're
like, you're not trying to be a hero and and like wait till the
very last second to tap to something.
You can go pretty hard without necessarily having that high of
a risk of injury. So I think a lot of those things
contributed to what's made it so popular.
And it also helps that like MMA is getting more popular.
Not everyone's going to do MMA, but there's a lot more people
that watch MMA that might do jiu jitsu.
Jiu jitsu competitions are growing and getting more
exciting and more engaging from a production value.
So I think there's a lot of things that contribute to that
hockey stick effect that we've seen over the last couple years.
Is there like, it's like some unspoken jiu jitsu etiquette
that I would need to know before just walk into a Dojo and be
like, all right, I'm signing up? Like what?
What do I need to know so I don't make a fool of myself?
Yeah, honestly, honestly, like just be cool.
You know what, you're already a cool guy.
Like I think the only there's like hygiene etiquette.
So like, you know, it's definitely a good idea to trim
your fingernails that way you don't like accidentally scratch
somebody. Like not that anyone would ever
intentionally like try to claw somebody, but if your
fingernails are a little bit long, it's good to trim those.
You know, don't walk with, don't walk on the mat with your shoes
on because like you don't want the rocks from your shoes to
like dig into the mat and mess up the mats and stuff.
If you already have zebra mats, like I'm sure you're already
aware, like those things are pretty pricey.
They're really nice. Like as much as possible, like
keep them clean, you know, keep the take care of him and stuff
like that. And then honestly, like just,
you're already a cool guy And based on like what you do in
life, like with all the hunting, the bodybuilding,
entrepreneurship and all that stuff you already have, like, I
don't believe you would be a guy that goes in that with this
giant ego, you know, like you're just going to like, hey, like,
what can I learn? How can, how can I get better
today? And there's that side which we
can consciously, like, do our best to be prepared for.
But then there's like, all these unconscious things that kind of
just get fixed with time. So like, when I first started
doing jiu jitsu, I would tense up a lot.
Like, I'd tense up and hold my breath and I would just
completely gas me out. And that's something that you
kind of learn over time of like, OK, I probably don't need to
tense up really hard in every exchange.
I can learn how to relax a little bit.
There's other things I heard someone say like, hey, if
something's not working, doing it more aggressively and harder
probably isn't the answer. So that was helpful for me.
Like, OK, if this technique isn't working, even though I'm,
I'm strong, I probably don't need to just RIP on it as hard
as I can to try to figure it out to make it work.
There might be another like detail that I'm missing that can
make it work a little bit better.
But yeah, other than that, it's like just be cool, which you
already are, and you'll you'll be just fine.
Yeah, I'll try and be cool for sure.
I'm afraid that like, like because I come from
bodybuilding, like I would have a natural tendency to just try
to use my strength and overdo it in that regard.
As opposed to like actually, you know, technique fixating on
that. Because the cool thing about
jujitsu is you can have somebody that's 115 lbs and scrawny as
hell just totally wipe the floor with some that's twice as heavy
as them. But it's like, that's all
technique. You know, it's not muscle, but
that's technique. So I got to just like fixate on
that and not to rely on the muscle and strength that I've
built over decades to try and compensate basically.
I think I hear I hear what you're saying.
And I think unfortunately, jiu jitsu has created a bad stigma
around using strength. And that's kind of what made it
popular was like, Oh yeah, hoist Gracie won the first UFC.
He wasn't as big and as jacked as some of those other guys and
he submitted all of them, which that is incredible.
And that was awesome to see, but I think that message has kind of
gotten muddled that like, oh, you don't need strength.
And it's like, whoa, let's pump the brakes.
That 115 LB guy, like he'll mop up a dude that's bigger than him
that doesn't know jiu jitsu. A bigger guy that knows jiu
jitsu, he's cooked like he's getting smashed.
And so when people come into jiu jitsu that are already strong,
usually I just encourage him like, Hey, you're going to kind
of find that you're going to do things a little bit harder and
apply a lot more force than most everyone else that has been
doing jiu Jitsu. So just try to like
intentionally slow down a little bit and just keep like an idea
in your head of like, if I'm, if I'm doing a rowing motion more
than 70%, like I might be going and it's not working, I might be
going a little too hard. I don't probably don't need to
row like, you know, RIP an arm drag, which is kind of looks
like a rowing movement. Probably don't need to RIP that
100% could probably like try to figure it out at around 70%.
And then the other thing that helps too is just a breathing a
lot more when we tense up and like brace, we're getting ready
to like be really explosive. But if you just kind of slow
down your breathing a little bit, try to relax a little bit,
you can still be strong. You can still, you know, move
fluidly and be really effective, but you're not you're not as
spazzy, if that makes sense. And I think honestly, like one
of the best examples of this is in Seema in Seema's black belt.
He started training a little bit before I did and he's he's like
200 and 42150 lbs. He's huge, but he moves really,
really well. And if you watch him train, he
doesn't really like grunt very much.
He doesn't really like, you don't really see a lot of like
intensity in his face. It doesn't look like he's
lifting. And I think sometimes like when
people come from lifting and they are super strong, which is
great, that's like a huge asset to have.
And it like a great part of athleticism to have.
Sometimes they kind of just take how they would lift something
like an explosive Rd. explosive press.
They do that for everything when maybe there's a little bit
better at balance to be had. Like, hey, there's a time to be
explosive, but a lot of the time, like try to be a little
bit more relaxed, try to be a little bit more fluid and go
from there. You roll with encima.
I don't roll with him too often. No, no.
So I'm mostly train no key. So like no pyjamas and Encima
trains mostly in the ghee. So occasionally if I'm showing
up to a ghee training session and he's there, we might roll
and Seema's awesome they, but they're also like for myself,
there are times where like I go in with something very specific
that I'm going to work on and sometimes in Sima and I will
work on those. Like at least for me, there's
this thing called the constraints LED approach to jiu
jitsu. We have like very specific
training constraints to develop certain skills and that may not
always work with what in Sima is working on or a competition he's
prepping for, but we roll occasionally.
I want to say I train with him all the time.
So, so with the ghee and no ghee, like is that just kind of
like more purist versus more practical like what, what's kind
of like the ideology around the ghee versus no ghee?
So to my understanding, Jiu jitsu originated from judo and
they wore the ghee and then when MMA got popular it didn't make
sense to wear the ghee because no one's wearing the ghee in
MMA. Or at least after the first few
years of MMA, no one was wearing the ghee.
And that's where nogi kind of became more popular.
It's like, hey, why are we learning how to strangle someone
with their collars? If we're training for an MMA
fight and they don't have any collars, we might as well just
try to learn all the same stuff, but without the use of the
fabric. And so that's kind of where it
branched off. And there are a lot of guys that
do both. Like I know I started doing like
a even split like 50% of the days when I started jiu jitsu
where nogi 50% were in the ghee. And now it's like 95 five.
Like every couple weeks I might do 1 Gee session.
But because I came from wrestling, which we just wore a
singlet, it was just, it was just a smoother transition just
to mostly focus on no Gee. Yeah, because I guess with the
Gee training, like you're pretty much making your decisions based
off of them wearing vents, like all of your hand positioning is
all around the collar. Like it just totally changes
where you're grabbing. I mean changes everything I
guess. Yeah, there's it does change a
lot. Like there's specific, there's
specific grips like if you were to try to grab someone's tricep
like this, like it would be really hard to control someone
because like you could might be able to get it, but it's kind of
easy for them to just pull their arm off.
But if you grab like the sleeve, that's a super strong grip that
you can have on the back of someone's tricep, that's pretty
hard for them to break. So there's little things like
that, like different grips, there's different submissions to
that you can do. But I'd say like probably 70% of
it crosses over between both. Like all the principles around,
like, hey, you know, if we're going to protect our neck, the
principles of protecting your neck, whether you're wearing a
ghee or no ghee, are pretty similar.
You want to defend your neck, you want to make sure their
hands aren't getting around and under your chin, stuff like
that. So there's quite a bit of
crossover. Makes sense.
What what what do you look for? And this is a selfish question,
but what do you look for in like a good quality school or Dojo
for jiu jitsu? Like what do I need to keep in
mind when I'm because there's one that I know is relatively
reputable like 25 minutes from him?
I'm kind of in the middle of the country though.
Like should I shop around or what would you base that off of?
Yeah, I think there's a few things.
I think I think it's great to shop around, like take as many
trial classes as you want at all the gyms in town.
And I never thought of this because I don't have any kids,
but one guy that I trained with, someone asked him this question
on a podcast and he said, look at their kids program.
If their kids program is really strong, that's a great sign.
Because if, if there's a lot of parents that trust this
instructor or this group of instructors consistently enough
to bring their kids there two to three times a week, that's a
really good sign. That's a good sign that they
know what they're doing. They got their business taken
care of. They create a good environment
for kids to learn in that's going to transfer better to
adults. It doesn't always work on the
other side. Like there may be a gym that has
like a ton of competitors, a ton of MMA fighters and they might
have some kids classes, but it's like some teenager that doesn't
know what he's doing having kids.
It's like rock em sock em robots on the mat and stuff.
That may not be the best place unless that's what you're
looking for. Like when when I first started
jiu jitsu, I trained at an MMA gym.
I didn't have any kids. I was like, I don't care what
the kids class is like, like I'm just going to throw down.
But you know, like what you said, if you know, if the goal
is to do it with your son, I'd air on the side of like find a
place that has a really good established kids program.
And then all the other things too.
Like if you walk in and it smells clean and it looks clean,
that's great sign. If you walk in and and like the
bathrooms are an absolute mess, like there's sweat everywhere
and no one mops up like that's, I'd say like that's a little bit
of a red flag. There's also some stuff.
Thankfully the place that I train at isn't like this at all.
And I didn't even know about this until after I'd already
been doing jiu jitsu for a couple years.
But there are some places that are a little bit, for lack of a
bad term, they're just a little bit cultish.
Like the instructor wants you to only wear a white ghee with the
school patch on it. You can't wear anything else and
you have to like, you know, when you tie your belt, you have to
face away from the mat and you have to ask to use the bathroom
before you leave. Like I can, I understand that
for kids, like you want to build like a culture of respect and a
culture of discipline and all that stuff.
But once you're an adult, like you're a grown ass man.
I'm a grown ass man. I'm not asking anyone to go to
the bathroom. Like if I got to go to the
bathroom, I'm going to the bathroom.
I'm not going to be a like bowing to a picture of a dead
guy on the wall or any like weird stuff like that.
So there's some stuff that has kind of transferred over from
like super, super old school traditional Brazilian Jiu Jitsu,
which I don't, I don't the place I train at now, the Casio, he's
from Brazil and he's awesome. Like like we bow at the end of
class just as like a not like as any weird thing, but just like,
hey, class is over, bow out. That's it.
But he doesn't care. Like what do you wear?
He doesn't care if you go to the bathroom.
Like he's pretty chill about all that stuff.
Nice, nice. Yeah, Cool deal, man.
Yeah, I'll check it out for sure.
I'm assuming with like a three to five year old age group for
them, they're doing like just basics.
Like they're not going to be strangleholding on Week 2 I
wouldn't think. No, no.
I think what's cool about jiu jitsu for little kids is that
it's often times like gymnastics with a little bit of like
grappling involved, like a lot of tumbling and a lot of like
somersaults and stuff like that. With a little bit of like, hey,
this is how you know you do a takedown or this is how you do
whatever. Nice.
So how? I mean, anything is better than
nothing, obviously, but like, how many days a week would one
need to commit to, to, you know, going after it to like, see a
measurable improvement and not like overdo it necessarily, but
like not just tipping their toe in.
That's a great question. I think this is one of the
biggest mistakes a lot of people make when they first start jiu
jitsu, especially if they're like Someone Like You and me
were like once we catch the bug on something like it's all gas,
no brakes on that one thing. And I think a lot of times
people will. Go way too hard, way too fast
where they like try to train 4-5 days a week at jiu jitsu and
they physically haven't caught up to be able to handle that
kind of workload or that kind of training volume.
We can almost look at it. It's like, you know, if someone
wanted to go running and they haven't ran before and they're
like, oh, I watched this David Goggins video.
He ran 100 miles. Well, I'll just do half that.
I'll run 50 miles. It's like whoa, whoa, whoa,
whoa. I did that same thing.
Listen to his podcast last night on the spot.
I know they. Mad at me to blast you out like
that, but but there is like a there does need to be a slight
progression and how much time you're spending on the mat if
you want to be able to do it for a long period of time.
So for someone who's just starting jiu jitsu, if they're
in decently good shape, I'd say like two days a week is perfect,
like 2 days a week. If you could do that every week
for say like 2 to three months and are able to successfully
recover, well, you could probably do more.
But if you're like you said, your main goal is to like still
be competitive as a bodybuilder and still make strides in that,
I think doing more than two days a week might have a negative
impact on that. After a few months though, once
you get familiar enough with it, you will also get much better at
kind of auto regulating your training.
So with some guys that I coach, the guys that I've noticed that
the guys that are more experienced, they can have a lot
of days on the mat and recover pretty well because they're just
so much better at auto regulating training.
You know, with the people you coach, maybe you've experienced
this where someone's brand new to the gym and it's like, hey,
we're going to have you go to the gym twice a week and we'll
have you do like a lighter stuff at home the other days of the
week. That way you're still doing
physical activity, but you really only have like 2 hard
workouts. It's when someone is more
experienced and they've gotten a better handle of the gym.
You might have them go to the gym five days a week, but they
kind of intuitive, intuitively know, OK, you know, days one and
four are the days I really push it.
Days 2-3 and five, little bit lighter, still able to get some
good work in, but I'm better able to manage intensity and
manage my fatigue and stuff like that.
So jiu jitsu works very similarly, say two days a week
to start is pretty solid. And then the other thing too is
when it comes to the live sparring aspect, you definitely
don't have to spar every single round.
I think that's another thing that messes people up.
They're not used to doing that much live grappling and they
feel like they have to do every single round.
It's still like the first few weeks just do half and then you
know, do a round, take a round off, watch, do another round,
take a round off and watch. Then as you get a little bit
more familiar, you start to get used to like the rigors and the
stresses of grappling. Start doing more rounds.
Maybe add another day of jiu jitsu.
I think as when people, when jiu jitsu guys ask me, oh, how many
days should I go to the gym? I say just go to the gym as many
days as you can every week. Just as long as it doesn't
negatively impact your jiu jitsu training and negatively impact
your overall recovery. For some guys that's two days,
for some guys that's four days. And I think the looking at it
from the flip side of the coin is also very similar.
So if you're bodybuilding and you're, you know, lifting and
all that stuff, go to jiu jitsu as many days as you can per
week, just as long as it doesn't have any negative impact on your
bodybuilding training when you're just starting out, that
maybe two days a week. If you're someone like my guy
Tyler, who's a black belt and competes at Mr. Olympia, he can
probably go to jujitsu every day and do something and be totally
fine. But that comes with experience,
comes with having a better understanding of auto regulation
and all that stuff. Nice.
No, it makes total sense. So like what you personally,
you're still lifting, you're rolling, How do you structure
like nuts and bolts of your training, split jujitsu, split
nutrition, like how are you structuring everything?
Yeah, so right now I'm only training jiu jitsu about twice a
week. Things have been pretty busy
with work and I just finished a big bulk, so I was like, I'm
leveraging as much time as I can to be in the gym.
But from like on average, I'd say I go to the gym about three
to four days a week and I'm going to jiu jitsu on average
about three to four days a week. And I was competing, I was going
to the gym a little bit less and going to jiu jitsu a lot more.
You know, in 2020 when I didn't have jiu jitsu, I was going to
the gym a lot more because that's all I could do.
But for me, a typical week of training, I structure it using
the condensed conjugate split. So, you know, conjugate system
came from a lot of the strength coaches in the Soviet Union,
then got really popular in, in the United States and
powerlifting circles and guys like Louis Simmons.
And basically the conjugate system is focusing on using
three main training methods. You have your Max effort method,
your dynamic effort method, and your repetition effort method.
The Max effort method you can almost think of like that's the
heavy, heavy strength work. It looks like working up to a
three Rep Max on some big compound lifts.
Squat, bench press, deadlift, overhead press, stuff like that.
Dynamic effort method is most of your speed and explosive power
work. So that could be speed bench
press or speed squats, but it could also include other things
like jumping, mid ball slams, kettlebell swings, if you got
some hills, you can do hill sprints, stuff like that.
And then the repetition effort method is kind of like the glue
that puts those two things together.
You have your bodybuilding training a little bit more of
your GPP or, or general physical preparedness or general fitness
work. And so throughout the week, I
make sure that I'm checking all three of those boxes.
And the condensed conjugate model is something I picked up
from Phil Darue. He's Amma, strength and
editioning coach, and that's basically a way of how you can
combine some of those methods in your workouts.
Try to check all those boxes throughout the week.
So one workout may look like a Max effort lower dynamic effort
upper. So we'll start the workout with
something really heavy for the lower body.
That may be some sort of squat, some sort of deadlift, or some
sort of good morning working up to A1 to five Rep Max.
We'll pick one to two secondary exercises.
So like, say we do a squat and we work up to a heavy triple or
a heavy set of three. I'm not necessarily trying to
like always hit the biggest eyeball popping, gut busting,
heaviest set ever, but I want to hit some heavyweight.
I want to do something heavy, strain against some heavy loads
for that workout. So say we start with the squat.
Secondary exercises might be like some sort of lunge or some
sort of unilateral heavy lower body movement for four to six
sets, 4 to 6 reps That kind of covers the Max effort method for
the lower body. Then we'll move to the upper
body and do all of our speed and explosive power work.
So plow push ups, mid ball slams, maybe even like some
speed bench press. There's a bunch of different
things that you can do with that, and that'll be one
workout. So we checked two of those boxes
and then the next workout may look like the exact opposite.
So Max effort upper, dynamic effort lower.
So we hit the heavy bench press for three reps, do some heavy
pull ups, heavy rows. Then we do something fast and
explosive for the lower body sprints, jumps, banded
kettlebell swings, stuff like that.
And then on day three, this is something that I picked up from
Mark Bell. I, I like to call those the
jacked and tan days where it's just all bodybuilding stuff.
So you're hitting all your repetition effort method
exercises that could be like gangster and out on arms.
It really could be like as deep into bodybuilding as you want to
take it. And then some other guys that I
coach, they're not as much of A meathead as myself.
So I have them do a little bit more like circuit based stuff.
But the goal is really just to get a lot of blood flow, get a
crazy pump, leave the gym feeling better than when you
walked in. And so those are kind of like
the three main workouts that I do and I'll kind of like swap in
different exercises, swap in like different sets and reps
just based on whatever the overall training goal is.
So if I'm bulking and like going through a big hypertrophy phase,
some of those Max suffer movements may be large range of
motion, trying to get a really big deep stretch exercises that
may not be the absolute best for overall strength that are
really, really good for hypertrophy.
So instead of doing like a three Rep Max box squat, which would
be great for strength, I might do like an 8 Rep Max hack squat
or maybe an 8 Rep Max RDL or stiff leg deadlift.
If the goal is to prep for competition, some of the guys
that I'm coaching are gearing up to compete at Master World's
here in a couple weeks. We're really trying to focus on
getting a really big strength stimulus without having a lot of
wear and tear. So that might look like a trap
bar deadlift, but they let go of the bar at the top so they don't
have as much eccentric loading that may look like split squats
with overcoming isometrics. So they like get a barbell, get
into a split squat position, but just RIP into the pins as hard
as possible. They're able to get a huge
training stimulus, but not necessarily have a whole lot of
wear and tear. So that way they have plenty of
energy to go train hard at jiu jitsu.
So the condensed conjugate model is like the outline that I
typically use for myself and a lot of the athletes that I
coach. And then we dive into the
specific exercises and sets and reps just based on whatever
their training goals are or their training needs are.
And do you alternate those days with your jiu jitsu training?
So like you know, heavy day, then your jiu jitsu, then the
dynamic day and split or how do you have that we've done?
So it depends on the athlete for me, since I'm only doing 2 jiu
jitsu days per week, I lift only on one day and then I go to jiu
jitsu on another day. Other seasons of life where I'm
doing a lot more jiu jitsu, I'll double up where I lift heavy in
the morning and then go real hard later in the day.
And depending on what that looks like I try to use.
I think some people call it the high low method, and I've also
heard some people call it the 48 to 72 hour rule where we just
put high stimulus training days throughout the week separated by
about 48 to 72 hours. So instead of doing a really
hard workout on Monday and then a really hard jiu jitsu session
on Tuesday and then trying to do another really hard workout on
Wednesday, that can work early in the week.
But by the time you get to the end of the week, you've
accumulated so much fatigue that's going to be really hard
to give it your best on Friday and Saturday.
If you combined your hard workout with your hard jiu jitsu
session on Monday and then take things a little bit easier on
Tuesday, that gives you a little bit more time to recover.
So that way you're ready to hit it hard again on Wednesday.
So that is typically how I set it up for myself.
And then the athletes that I coach, if they're doing so much
jiu jitsu to where they're going to have some double days where
they're lifting heavy and rolling hard in the same day.
We use that high, low method where we have a day that's high
stimulus followed by a day that's a low stimulus, or at
least a day where they're able to get a little bit more
recovery so that way that they don't accumulate as much fatigue
throughout the week. Makes sense how?
How long are your sessions on average for the training and the
jiu jitsu? For me, I love being in the gym,
so I'm there at least for like 90 minutes and sometimes longer.
And then jiu jitsu is usually like 90 minutes to 2 hours.
But for athletes that I'm coaching that like jiu jitsu is
their main thing, I try to make sure their workouts are no
longer than 75 minutes. It's like, I know like how
people say like, oh, serum testosterone starts to drop off
after about 75 minutes of exercise and all that stuff, but
I just love being in the gym. So I'd rather like be in the gym
as long as possible, even though I know like they may not always
be conducive to what science says.
I just love being in the gym. So for me personally, my
workouts are a little long. My jujitsu sessions are a little
long, but this is what I do and this is what I love doing.
For someone else that either has a tighter schedule or maybe
doesn't enjoy lifting as much, you definitely don't need to be
in the gym for 90 plus minutes to get a good training stimulus.
Like a lot of guys that I coach, their workouts are 45 to 60
minutes tops, and then they're doing jiu jitsu for 6075 minutes
a day. Nice.
Tell me about this book you just what was the motivation behind
that? Oh man, I just, well, I just
finished a cut. Like I, even though I'm not
competing in bodybuilding, I, the stuff that I learned from
doing that bodybuilding show has been amazing.
Like learning how to get really, really lean and really, really
shredded. I think is a skill that a lot of
people should have or at least like dabble in a little bit.
And so last year, like last spring, I was kind of like going
through a lot of maintenance in my training.
And I'd love to hear from you too, if you've ever experienced
this where sometimes things with work and just other stuff going
on in life, like get so crazy that training is just like, I'm
just going to like just maintain.
And my gym sessions are just going to be about maintaining,
making sure that I'm constantly putting up points on the
scoreboard, not missing any workouts.
But realistically, I'm not going to like put my full intent to
like PR my squad or something like that.
And so I was kind of in that maintenance phase for a little
bit too long where after a while I realized like I got to, I got
to like turn up the heat and do something, You know, if I'm not
going to be competing in jiu jitsu, I at least got to be able
to push myself in the gym. And so I just set a goal of
like, I'm just going to get crazy shredded, get as lean as I
possibly can. And so I did that.
And then at the end of that, I maintained for a little while
and I'm sure every bodybuilder or anyone that is that loves gym
culture kind of goes through this.
You love the part where you're actively getting leaner and
leaner and leaner. And then you stay lean for like
6 to 8 weeks and you realize, like, man, I feel kind of weak.
I should probably try to get big.
So then you start bulking up again.
That's basically what I did. So I booked for 24 weeks and
then the last 12 weeks have just been maintenance which I feel
pretty good but I'm also ready to start leaning out again so
probably like pretty soon. Like tracking macros and
conscious of how many calories you're eating in a bulk and
versus a cut and stuff like that.
Yeah, yeah. So I've done a few different
diets, some that were really heavy on tracking, some that
were a little bit more intuitive, some that were a
little bit more restrictive, where it's like, hey, I can eat
as much as I want, but I'm just not eating these particular
foods or whatever the case may be.
And over the years, I've found that for me, tracking macros has
been what's worked best just for my overall athletic development
because I know very specifically of like, hey, this is how much I
need to feel and perform my best.
Like I know like I've tested it. I know that when I have 30 to 40
grams of fast digestible carbohydrates right before jiu
jitsu, I feel really, really, really good.
I also know that when I have, you know, much higher carbs and
a lot lower fat, like a more traditional bodybuilding style
diet, I feel really, really good.
I also know, on the other hand, that there's specific foods that
tend to mess up my digestion a little bit or cause me to not
feel as good. So it kind of like the the
outline that he used for a lot of people that I coaches like
let's before we start tracking macros, let's just get your food
selection on point. Like for the next 8 to 12 weeks,
only want you to eat what has a mom or comes from the ground and
then get 1g of protein per pound of body weight.
And they might say, like, well, coach, what about this and this
and this? It's like, does it have a mom
like, well, came in a box at the grocery store?
It's like, OK, well, yeah, you should probably like skip that
for the next 8 to 12 weeks. So I kind of build out that
foundation And then based on those foods, those nutrient
dense whole food sources, then we kind of move into tracking
macros. And it's like one guy might say,
hey, you know, I'm following the diet like I'm, I can see that
I'm getting leaner and decrease in body fat, but I just always
feel so exhausted at jiu jitsu. It's like, all right, well, what
are you eating before jiu jitsu? And like, God, nothing.
It's like, OK, well, maybe I have a little bit of fruit,
maybe I have some nuts in there. Just something to get a little
bit of fuel for that training session.
And so that's kind of the template that I use for a lot of
people that I coach. And then that's also the same
template that I use for myself. So most of the food is nutrient
dense whole food sources. I'm a big fan of Stan Eferdine's
vertical diet and all those foods like a lot of red meat, a
lot of white rice, different things like carrots, cranberry
juice, spinach for different micronutrients.
And then just making sure that my macros are structured in a
way that kind of keeps some guard rails on not eating too
much to where the bulk is going a little too fast, where I'm
gaining too much body fat. Or if I'm leaning out, I'm still
getting in plenty of calories to sustain the training that I need
throughout the week. How much higher on calories did
you go with your bulk and how much weight did you gain in that
24 weeks span? So before, I typically would
just do like the standard, like NSCA recommendation of like you
need to be in a weekly caloric surplus of 3500 calories per
week and all that stuff. And then I listen to Dan Garner.
He's Sean O'malley's nutritionist.
He's also a nutritionist for a lot of different hockey players
and MMA fighters. And he had like the simplest
calculation, which I thought was so genius.
He said maintenance calories is probably your body weight times
15. And then to be in a surplus,
it's probably your body weight times 16.
And to be in a deficit, it's probably your body weight times
14. And so that's, that's what I
did. So I just took my body weight
times 15, ran that for to get my total caloric intake.
And then once I had those total calories for the day, you know,
took out my protein, which was 1g of protein per pound of body
weight. Then plugged in my fat, which
for me, I prefer to have a little bit lower fat, .3 to .4G
of fat per pound of body weight and then just fill the rest with
carbohydrates. So I ran that for maintenance
and weighed myself every day for a couple weeks to make sure
like, yeah, this is my weight hasn't really fluctuated that
much. This is probably pretty close to
maintenance. And then when I started the bulk
I just took my body weight times 15, kept the same ratios as far
as protein and fat goes, and just added more carbohydrates
when I was going through a cutting phase or leading out.
Do the exact same thing, keep fat and protein pretty much the
same and then just decrease carbohydrates.
I like it. I like it.
So you said 5 * 15 for maintenance.
I'm curious, what do you weigh? I weigh 177.
OK, So we're pretty much the same thing.
I'm at 180 right now. OK, let's get me at 2700
calories maintenance and I'm typically, I mean I'm typically
3000 to 3300 calories and holding pretty stable on weight.
So pretty close ballpark there depending on everyone's activity
level or so, but. Nice.
Well, actually you were doing, you just did like a 4000
calorie. Surplus, right?
I did a high fats because everybody's been talking about
the sugar diet. I don't know if you've seen any
of that stuff on their side. Mark's been talking about it a
lot. I had Mark on the podcast
yesterday, actually. But yeah, I wanted to basically
do that to mirror, from a metabolic pathway standpoint,
the FGF 21 by way of minimizing protein consumption and
replacing what everyone else is using sugars for with higher
dietary fat. So I put myself at an
additional, you know, 1000 calories roughly above baseline
for that, and my weight held stable because I'm not trying to
lose weight right now. So that was super interesting,
but it was just a lot of fat, not very much protein, man.
So I wouldn't recommend that as like a long term strategy by any
means. But I'm always experimenting
with something, playing around with metabolism in some form of
fashion. It's interesting stuff.
Yeah, I think, dude, I think the stuff that you're doing with
what I've seen from your podcast and then the times you've been
on Mark Bell's Power project is the stuff that you're doing with
keto, I think is freaking sick. And I think a lot of times I
heard Mark had this guy on the podcast, his name is Joel.
Go shoot, I can't. I have Joel Veep or something.
Anyway, he he said every diet works, but not every diet works
forever. And he is take was like the
people that are like super anti keto, super anti carnivore.
It's like they're not looking at it within the right context of
how in what context it can work. They're looking at it like, does
that work forever? No.
So we should never use it. It's like, well, that's probably
not the best way to to look at it.
Just like how some of those same people might be big proponents
of if it fits your macros and people like, hey, I'll have it
fit, fits my macros. I'll just get all my carbs from
pop Tarts and all my, you know, just eat a beef jerky sticks and
protein shakes. And I'm, I'm good to go.
And that can work a little bit for something, but it's not
going to work forever. And I think what's so cool about
what you've been doing is that with all the experiments you've
done and with your history, you've been following a
ketogenic diet for like over a decade, right?
Yeah, coming up on 11 years now. Man dude, that's that's freaking
sick. It's been awesome to see your
experiments and the results that have come from that.
Like if someone were to take this lifestyle for a decade and
be completely fat adapted, would you say you're completely fat
adapted like 10 years? That's probably.
Right. I don't know if you can get any
more fat adapted. But it's, it's awesome to see
and I think it's a it's just dope to see how the ketogenic
diet can be implemented once it's used.
Like it gets, it seems like it provides more and more benefits
as time goes on and on and on. Some were just a crash diet with
a keto diet for 12 weeks and then go back to what they were
eating before. Like maybe it'd help them out
but I don't know. I think, I mean, the body's very
adaptable and like in my case, if people are doing strict keto
long term, like your body builds up those metabolic pathways and
it can perform at a high level with them.
You just have to give yourself ample time to get adapted.
But I think where people make the mistake, and this is true
regardless of the diet they're following, is they spend, you
know, too much time in the surplus or too much time in a
deficit. And there's no such thing as
maintenance. Like you're either getting
better or worse. And one of the things that
bodybuilding taught me, which sounds like same for you, is
like there's so much metabolic benefit to having some time at a
surplus and some time at a deficit.
And you can do that in the context of the same dietary
protocol, but just like changing the amounts they're consuming.
And from a metabolic standpoint, like that is where most people
just totally miss the boat. Like whether you compete or not,
there's benefit to being at a surplus for a strategic period
of time and for being in a deficit in a strategic period of
time. Nice.
I agree. It's like it seems like as
people jump on some of the diets that get a little bit more
popular, and maybe if they're newer to nutrition or newer to
health and fitness, they might think that they have to
prescribe to it forever. It's like, hey, it's going to
work until you need to make some changes.
So get ready to make some changes once you know, having
the only rib eyes for a year straight may kind of play itself
out and may need to implement some new stuff or whatever the
case may be. It's cool for me to see the
different diets work in different use case scenarios.
So I've got one client that's super competitive for jiu jitsu
actually. He's a like #1 in the world for
his age and weight class and he's, he just competed in a
tournament in Singapore. His name's Jay Horley.
He's a rock star, but he's a type 1 diabetic, so he's been
doing keto so that he didn't have as much, you know, blood
sugar dysregulation or insulin requirements going into a
tournament. So they were just having more
consistent energy. So we've been tweaking things
and like tracking all the data. He's got a CGM and it's cool
because he's competing at like 84 kilogram weight cap and we've
got him down below that slightly.
But he's able to eat more food, not have any blood sugar
dysregulation and not have to do those crazy weight loss cuts
that you see wrestlers in high school doing with sauna suits
and, you know, spitting in the can all day long.
So it's healthier for him for sure.
And it works, you know, So it's just, it's just cool to see that
play out. That's incredible.
Have you have you noticed if he's competing in Singapore?
Assuming he did the the the Asian Open for IBGJF was at the
comp he did. Yeah, he's got like, I don't
know, the different competitions.
That's his world and yours, not mine, but he's got several more.
He's got a big tournament in August, he's got a couple in
August, and then he's got a really big one like the main
ones in. Let me see if I can look because
you would know it for sure. The Big 1, I believe, is in
November. Let's see here.
All right, so August 8th and 23rd, September 5th, September
7th, and then the big one is November 19th and 22nd.
I'm not sure where that is. I guess that's like worlds or
somewhere or another. So if he's competing, so the one
you mentioned in August, the end of August, that might be Masters
Worlds, which is in Vegas. That's a huge tournament.
And then I'm not sure about about the other ones.
There's thankfully. What's cool about the Hawkeye
stick effect with jiu jitsu is that if someone wanted to, they
could compete every single weekend for the entire year.
And like, there's competitions everywhere.
Yeah, that's cool. That's cool.
Now I'm excited, man. I'm excited to dive into it and
I have so many friends that are doing it.
You know, like Andrew's big into it.
He introduced me to you and seem like everybody I know either
know somebody or has done it themselves.
And I feel like once I let the bug, like I've intentionally not
gone because I know that I'm just going to be like hook, line
and sinker in. And I don't want it to distract
from bodybuilding. But once I get in it, man, it's
going to be like, the gloves are off, so to speak, you know?
Yeah, yeah. How, how much longer do you see
yourself competing at the highest level in bodybuilding,
Probably like be bodybuilding for the rest of your life.
But as far as like competing, how long do you think that's
going to be? Man, I want to keep keep rocking
it, man. Like I just had a podcast last
week with Lisa Lum, who is 3 times world champion.
She just turned 62, you know? Oh my gosh.
So like the the cool thing about natural bodybuilding is like,
there's no reason you couldn't keep doing it as long as you're
doing it healthy right way. And I feel like what I'm excited
about in my realm of, you know, ketogenic nutrition is that
there's not a lot of poster Childs for what this does long
term. And you got people like Mark
Sisson that's often times pointed to as the guy that's
super healthy at an older age. But it's like nothing against
Mark. But I mean, if I'm been
bodybuilding since I was in high school, like I'm going to have a
much more oppressive physique by the time I'm 72 years old, you
know? So I just want to keep rocking
it as long as I can. For sure.
I hear you. That's awesome, man.
That's freaking sick. Yeah, if you, if you started jiu
jitsu and just like sprinkled it in outside of bodybuilding prep,
like you're already so into with your body, I'd imagine very
quickly you'd get a good hang of it and be able to auto regulate
your training and be able to pretty seamlessly blend it all
together. Yeah, I'll do it, man.
I'll hit you up because I'm in Sacramento every once in a while
too. It's like I was at Mark's gym
and podcast and I guess a couple months back.
So if you're right there in Sacramento, man, I'll hit you up
next time in town. Absolutely.
Thanks. Absolutely.
That'd be great. Awesome brother, what people go
to find out more about you man. You guys can find me at Joshua
Settlage basically anywhere. You can check on my podcast, the
Set the Strength podcast on YouTube, Spotify, Apple podcast,
all that stuff. And then if you do jujitsu and
you wanna get started on enhancing your grab and
athleticism, I have a free training course that can help
you out. Over the next 30 days, we'll
take care of everything you need to kick start your graphing
athleticism from strength training, nutrition, mobility,
recovery, all that stuff. And that's at the Strength
matrix.com. Awesome, I'll link that to that.
You got a lot of cool stuff on your IG too.
Like you do a really good job at showing what like landmine Rd.
movements and how to apply that to grappling.
Like it. It all works well together.
So keep doing what you're doing there, man.
Thank you man. Appreciate that.
Pleasures always, Josh. Looking forward to keeping the
conversation going, brother. Yes Sir.
Catch you later. See you man, take care.