How do you approach training? What is the right mindset to take into workouts? How do we change our thoughts and mental state in front of a challenge? Lets evolve our understanding of the mental side in sports performance. Scale your workouts but still push your athletes to perform. Two words we refer back to in this podcast are robust, and fragile. We want to create robustness and a general resilience to all challenges in our athletes. This challenge happens in the weight room and not, but robu...
Jun 13, 2022•36 min
Quick hitter this week. How do you maintain high effort? Everyone says they train hard, everyone works hard, but how do you know you are truly giving peak effort? WE break it down into being present and being motivated to hit the target. Many athletes come in with a goal to just “go hard” that intent is not good enough and it leads to burn out. You simply cannot maintain the go to go as hard as possible every session. You can however give 100% to a targeted goal every session. We dig into what c...
Jun 06, 2022•26 min
Hello, and welcome to our interview with Darren Treasure. Darren is a mental performance coach who works with multiple world level and professional athletes. We talk a lot about mental skills and what a mental performance coach can offer for athletes. As strength coaches and healthcare practitioners we can always employ a better battery of mental skills. This is a great entry level talk on what mental performance is and how it can help you as a performer! Darren is an excellent mind and articula...
May 31, 2022•1 hr 17 min
Having trouble transitioning from wrestling to jiu jitsu? Or just starting jiu jitsu? We can empathize. As we continue our journey as sports performance professionals for MMA we detail our own transition into BJJ. Austin and I have been having a blast learning Jiu Jitsu and grappling. We talk about learning progressions, drilling, and etiquette when doing BJJ. It holds so much value to know the sport that you are coaching in S&C. Jiu Jitsu is so accessible to everyone, it is literally called...
May 24, 2022•40 min
Jordan Rudolph! Jordan has been a great mentor and friend to Alex since 2016 in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Jordan is the owner and operator of Unity Fitness. Unity is a fantastic gym where the commUNITY shines and people are able to move better, feel better, and look better. He talks a lot about starting a business, being genuinely yourself in coaching and owning a business. We talk about coaching models, coaching through COVID, and how to continue growing and innovating as a coach. If you need to co...
May 16, 2022•1 hr 3 min
How can you add value to a performance team? Is this your show or do you play a role in culminating a holistic service? There are times and places for both. You must know your role and be able to nail it on repeat. At the same time part of nailing it is knowing where you fit in the team and how to effectively communicate with everyone else on the team. Ultimately serving the athlete is the main goal, other motivations are valid. You should want to progress your career, you should want to launch ...
May 09, 2022•39 min
Lessons from the field. Within this new series we deep dive into our own process in adapting our wrestling skills to mma coaching. With the inclusion of striking, submissions, cage wrestling, and the general mma ruleset. Outlining our journey in coaching helps us to see where our thoughts lie and how we can progress into a more mma dominant mindset. We really focus on the adaptations that wrestlers can make into mma and how we can coach transitioning wrestlers as well. Share with us your thought...
May 02, 2022•32 min
We welcome Dr. Brian Gearity of The University of Denver. He is the director of the Masters of the Arts in coaching and sports education. “Dr. G” was Alex’s Graduate advisor and has published multiple works in sports sociology and the study of coaching. Formerly a strength coach Dr. G, has been around sport his entire life and now studies how coaching is developed and works. He shares a plethora of knowledge in this podcast about the study of sporting culture, coaching philosophy, and ethics. We...
Apr 26, 2022•1 hr 2 min
Book Club installment number two! Relentless by Tim Grover. This book is very popular as Tim Grover (the author) was the strength coach to many greats in the NBA, including Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant, and Dwayne Wade. Tim outlines his thoughts on mental performance and the right mentality that takes you to the top. He classifies athletes into Coolers, Closers, and Cleaners. Enjoy our conversation about the book and let us know what you think! We hope you guys enjoy this book club idea, and plea...
Apr 18, 2022•48 min
Our Zone #2! Austin goes off in the realm of Sports Performance Heatlthcare and return to performance. How do we modify practice, S&C, or movement to completely enable each and every athlete despite any injury/irritation. We talk about how healthcare practitioners can create better relationships and be involved in the training process not just the rehabilitation process. Concussions and other typical MMA injuries are also a huge topic that we cover in this podcast. Austin runs through typica...
Apr 11, 2022•1 hr 1 min
Back in our zone! We consciously try to explore topics that get us out of our comfort zone both to spread knowledge and awareness as well as grow in our own understanding of those topics. This is not one of those podcasts. We are talking about various training methodologies to accomplish training goals. We go through Triphasic training, Density circuits, and Contrast training. What are they, why utilize them, and we give specific examples where they could be useful for an mma athlete. We felt li...
Apr 04, 2022•58 min
Freeeeeeeeee - Style! Video games, going to practice, getting respect from your athletes, cards against humanity, movement patterns. We are back to a more open format for this podcast. Little bit of Ranting on movement patterns, and knowing the sport that you coach, but we keep it light and topical for this episode! Plus a bit of a peek into our very formal planning process of podcasts. We hope you enjoy! buildingafighter.com Message Building a Fighter directly at buildingafighter@gmail.com @bui...
Mar 28, 2022•33 min
As a coach you have a moral responsibility to your team to lead them. You are an instructor, teacher, shoulder to cry on and often an example of how you want your team to behave. How can we demand more athletes to be “bought in” if we ourselves aren’t operating from a moral place. The little things count in this profession. Being punctual, respectful, empathetic, and authentic all can build credibility for you as a coach. You still need to be damn good at your job, but don’t undermine that skill...
Mar 21, 2022•27 min
Welcome to our new series! We are starting a book club. This month’s book is It Takes What It Takes by Trevor Moawad. We will be reading a book per month and then reviewing it and talking about our opinions. This book is very popular as Trevor is the mental performance coach for Russel Wilson. Trevor talks about his approach for neutral thinking and the power of controlling your settings. We have been deep diving into a bit more mental performance recently which is a great avenue for professiona...
Mar 16, 2022•38 min
High School Wrestling. What can the sport do for you and how does it feed into success in mma, school, career, and life. The accountability, work ethic, and narrow focus bred in wrestling helps to instill some foundational behaviors of success. Wrestling has another key aspect that can help in an mma, or elite mindset. That key aspect in domination. In wrestling winning is often not enough, winning in dominant fashion is the expectation. We talk about mindset and how mature wrestling helps as a ...
Mar 07, 2022•36 min
Cutting Weight. This is almost an unavoidable aspect of combat sport, today we are talking about the culture and psychological impact of cutting weight. This podcast is rife with personal experiences of cutting weight and improper weight cutting strategies. We work through our own experiences to find some data and diamonds in the rough as to why we act this way in weight cutting. If you have wrestled or cut weight in a “serious manner” then you know what we are talking about when we talk about s...
Feb 28, 2022•57 min
This episode gets a bit more philosophical on you! We open it up from our typical elite MMA athlete topics to a more recreational based idea. We tackle the question of “Why do you train and perform at sport?” Typically there are two models of sport in the sociological world: “Pleasure and Participation” or “Power and Performance.” Try saying that 10 times fast! Do you train to enjoy the pursuit of growth and be happy with just participating with peers, or are you trying to dominate and win? Is t...
Feb 21, 2022•31 min
A quick hitter for this episode, we touch on coach-athlete relationships. Most coaches do this well, some do it great, and few are horrific. Specifically we tackle this question, “Should you be friends with your athletes?” We agree that getting the work done is essential to any coach-athlete relationship, so creating a friendship cannot hurt your ability to push, pull, or stress the athlete. In some contexts a friendship can help the ability to coach your athletes, and as a coach we must identif...
Feb 14, 2022•25 min
Super Special Guest this episode, we have with us Corey Beasley from Fight Camp Conditioning, what is now GetPhysical.com Corey is a wealth of knowledge in the MMA strength and conditioning field. He has done an awesome job of platforming and spreading the good word of knowledgeable, and reasonable S&C to mixed martial arts. Corey shares so much great information on his come up into mma, some innovative unconventional S&C methods, and load management. Thank you Corey for sharing your tim...
Feb 08, 2022•58 min
Science! Its real! Exercise Science: a passion of both Alex and Austin’s. How do we approach a practical method of exercise science within our training context. AKA: How do you write an exercise program. We talk about this and much more in this episode. Running through scenarios we define our thought process and how we get there. What should or shouldn’t be in a program? How many days per week should you train? Which exercise should we pick? We outline our approach to each decision made in progr...
Jan 31, 2022•49 min
Orthopedic Cost, what does that mean? Is it a real thing? We riff on a trending tweet in the strength and conditioning world. We argue that exercise selection matters, and all exercise is not good exercise. We dive a bit into pain science, and how to correctly orchestrate exercise selection, load, volume and stress management. We contend that every variable in an exercise program needs to be weighed and thought through in order to have “the best” program not just a “good” program. Let us know yo...
Jan 24, 2022•33 min
Shout out to Coach Augie from Landow Performance for the inspiration for this podcast. We are talking about finding and exploiting your athlete’s superpowers! Should you raise the ceilings aka train into your superpower, or should we focus on the weaknesses? The answer, as always, it depends. One key we highlight in this podcast is the awareness of your superpower and the awareness to utilize it. Becoming more aware and being able to utilize your superpower as a fighter, or being able to identif...
Jan 18, 2022•35 min
We talk about genetic potential and what percentage of success or performance comes from genetics. We play around with the idea of talent vs. hard work vs skill vs innate ability. Genetics predispose us to be better or worse at certain athletic qualities. As coaches we need to be able to recognize and plan for this. The better we can match our training to utilize this advantage the more success that we can have. We reference “The Sports Gene” by David Epstien in this podcast and it is a terrific...
Jan 10, 2022•48 min
This week we are joined by Alex’s fellow performance coaches at Landow Performance. We dive into strength and conditioning for mma. Augie Agyei and Eric Telly have been training fighters for 10+ years amongst other athletes. We primarily work with the Factory X professional fight team. These guys drop so many knowledge bombs in this short hour. I am insanely grateful to work alongside them everyday, and grateful that they joined this podcast. We hit topics of the strength and conditioning profes...
Jan 03, 2022•1 hr 8 min
On this episode of BAF we did a recap of 2021 for Alex and Austin Personally as well as Building A fighter as a business. Alex Came, Saw, and Conquered 2021. With his switch over to Landow Performance, joining up with Factory X Team, and Working with Queens City Rugby club. Austin also had a solid 2021! With Warrior Sports Wellness growing, getting married, and getting his first UFC cornering experience. Combined, Building A Fighter specifically was a part of 8 different camps this year, program...
Dec 27, 2021•41 min
This episode covers a ton of various topics! We start by reviewing a BJJ tournament Alex competed in over the weekend. Then we talk about a technical model for aggression. From there we talk about how athletic styles lead to coaching styles and the life experience that everyone brings to their professional or athletic approaches. This then leads to a great discussion on the training of coaches and how it can be better. Right now, strength and conditioning is a very autonomous field, more hands o...
Dec 20, 2021•59 min
What does professionalism look like for you? As a coach, athlete, manager, administrator, or physician. Austin and Alex debate amongst themselves on what professionalism should look like in the combat sports realm and in sports performance in general. I like to boil it down to two very unprofessional mantras. 1. Do your fucking job. Make them better, provide a top level service. 2. Don’t be a dick. Understand, empathize and treat human beings with respect. Regardless, you must do what is best in...
Dec 14, 2021•47 min
IT’S OK TO BE SORE!!! In recent years it’s popular to want to work smarter, not harder. While it's amazing that sentiment has seeped into combat sports, recently I have seen the training pendulum swing too far to the left. Under-dosing your exercise is also a huge problem and this whole “you should never be sore” idea is bullshit. It’s all about finding the Goldilocks principle, “not too much, not too little, just right!” We appreciate the listens and want to keep putting good information out th...
Nov 29, 2021•27 min
Halloween Freestyle. We have been letting these episodes flow recently and finding the topics along the way. Within this episode we get to scary training methods, 10x10 german volume training, burpees, and 100 push up challenges, what is the scariest training you have ever done? We then segue into scary injuries we have seen and how to handle scary injuries and coach them up or just logistically handle them. We make it all the way to honest, individualized communication. Let us know how you like...
Nov 24, 2021•45 min
Episode 78 and we’re back freestylin Welcome to a more free flowing format of Building a Fighter. We talk about life as married peoples, mma training, and scheduling out your training! Let us know if you like this change of pace! Let us know what you think of our opinions, banter, and information. We want to hear from you! Leave a review or message us. Until next time, this is Building a Fighter. buildingafighter.com Message Building a Fighter directly at buildingafighter@gmail.com @buildingafig...
Nov 16, 2021•37 min
