Phil Daru | Elite Fighter Training | Straight Outta The Lair Podcast

Join us for a riveting conversation with Phil Daru, a top-tier strength and conditioning coach who has worked with elite fighters like Dustin Poirier and Hollywood celebrities. Our episode begins with reflections on our long-standing friendship, Phil's relentless journey commuting between Port St. Lucie and American Top Team, and his impact on my brother's rugby career with the Chicago Hounds. Phil shares his innovative training techniques that blend the old-school grit with modern advancements, providing an eye-opening perspective on elevating athletes' performance and confidence without compromising their weight class.

Explore the world of elite boxing and MMA training through our discussion on mental and emotional recovery for fighters. Discover how activities like ping pong and pickleball offer much-needed breaks from rigorous training, while elevation training at Mount Charleston plays a crucial role in enhancing performance. We examine the challenges of adapting traditional coaching mindsets to embrace new methodologies, illustrating how data-driven results can bridge the gap between skepticism and acceptance for both coaches and fighters.

Lastly, we dive into the psychological battle athletes face, especially when bouncing back from losses. Phil emphasizes understanding an athlete's motivations, whether it's fame or family security, to reignite their passion. Hear stories of personal growth and endurance challenges, including a grueling 150-mile trek from Miami to Fort Pierce. This episode promises a captivating blend of insights into athlete training, mindset, and the relentless pursuit of excellence, leaving listeners motivated and inspired to reach their own peak performance.


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Protocol Performance: https://protocolperformance.com/

----- Content -----
00:00:00 - Intro
00:11:27 - Athlete Training and Elevation Insights
00:17:00 - Evolution of Strength and Conditioning
00:27:31 - Motivating Athletes Beyond Losses
00:32:09 - Elite Athlete Training and Mental Growth
00:38:14 - Endurance Challenge
00:51:11 - Fight Life Membership and Fighter Supplements

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:14):
today's guest is one of the top strength and
conditioning coaches on theplanet, known for training some
of the most elite athletes andalso some of Hollywood's best.
Join us on this episode to hearan incredible story of a
150-male ruck which took thisguy to three days in the

(00:35):
hospital.
You do not want to miss this.
This is a special episode withPhil DeRue.
Anyways, straight out of thelair, Phil Derue in the place.
We've already started havingconversations.
This is how we do things.
My man.
Welcome to the show.
I appreciate it brother man, youand I have known each other for
a minute, right, I think, 10years.
Yeah, you saw, to give a littlebit of a back story, we met for

(00:58):
the first time.
If I'm not correct, if I'mwrong, tell me when correct if
I'm.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
If I'm wrong, tell me , um, when you came to my boca
return location, yeah, and youwere the dad right.

Speaker 1 (01:08):
No, no, sorry, your friend, my business partner,
your business partner and, uh,that's when I had the private
facility and we were full of ahodgepodge of different gym
equipment.
Yeah, yeah and phil came ininterested in picking up the the
whole lot, the whole.
Thing the whole.

Speaker 2 (01:21):
Thing it was one of those things where, like I had,
I had the gym.
That was successful, right.
And then I seen how you set itup and it was a private area and
I was like, man, I want to dothis, this is where to go.
And so, I think, going to youand then, obviously, meeting you
, getting with your brother tooas well he ended up being an
intern for me.
It was awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:45):
Full circle story, bro, like we met and then his
career truly took off becauseyou were in port st lucie at
that point in time.
Right, it was solely port stlucie yeah and you were
commuting to american top teampretty much every day.
What's that?
What's that trip?

Speaker 2 (01:56):
it was about an hour and a half every day one hour
I'm back.

Speaker 1 (01:59):
I still do that really yeah, I just so.

Speaker 2 (02:01):
The gym that I have now is in Deerfield, which is
down the street from ATT, andit's been now seven years that
I've been making that commute.
And I go to Miami too because Iwork with Timbaland.
Yeah, so we got the Miami trip,which is, you know, in some
ways and depending on thetraffic you're looking at
three-hour trips, wow, and thenthree-hour back, no joke.

Speaker 1 (02:20):
We're sliding in the names here, but for all the fans
that don't know, this man righthere has truly taken training
to the next level and taken hisathletes to the next level as
well.
You've trained with the best ofthe best people I can call my
friends as well, from the DustinPoiniers to the Yuanas to all

(02:41):
of the above, all the savagesthat you see coming out of the
American Top Team.
They were all doing strengthand conditioning with my man
right here, and then, a fewyears later, when my brother
came over, he took him under hiswing and gave him the
opportunity to flag him andtrain with the best of the best.
And you guys now are both inyour own stratosphere.
Luke now has gone back to theroots of rugby, and Chicago

(03:03):
Hounds is now his home.
And you, my friend, every timeI hit on instagram you've got
some celebrity.
You're either training in inthe home of or fighters that
have followed you, whateveryou've gone.

Speaker 3 (03:13):
So it's it's a testimony to you, my friend yeah
, and for me too, like and Ihaven't known him for 10 years
like you, but I've been on.
I've been on you for a fewyears because I love the style
of training that, all thetechniques I utilize and I think
that's why I first hit you uplike I utilize those kettlebell
techniques all the time, becausethat style of training is

(03:36):
exactly where I'm trying to bein a very performance driven
space, with strength, thefunctionality, so like I geared
towards that immediately and solike when Flex was like that's
my boy.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
Get him on the show.
I was like get him out here.

Speaker 3 (03:50):
I was like I want to train with him.
Dude, like let's go.

Speaker 1 (03:52):
Yeah, we've been trying to get on this, get him
on the show with being topassing ships.
Right, it's not because wehaven't tried for sure.
And then when he found out, wewere friends.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
He was like get him on the show.
We can definitely train.
I'm here until the end ofNovember.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
Definitely, and him too Because we've both been
talking about Flex has gone downthe road a little more
functional stuff and we can tellhim about the whole Pilates
journey but trying to do alittle bit of that cross
training and more functional andreally including that, because
it's something I've always triedto do.
But I really appreciate thespecific training methods.

(04:28):
I really love it and, like Isaid, I take them all the time
and bring them to my backyard.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
Well, I see you work the mitts man, yeah.
And I was telling them I waslike man he can crack.
I was like you got some skills,bro, you just got to get him in
the ring.

Speaker 1 (04:40):
Now he's gonna say hey, listen, that is going to be
a forecast.

Speaker 3 (04:42):
Let's do business, aside this guy's cracking whips
in the business wasn't it,bradley martin, we were aiming,
yeah bro, I was starting, danblazarian was was really don don
king that whole thing and itdidn't end up not happening.
But I was, I got my weight down, man, I was like you know, I
was 220 that's the thing right220, yeah, 260 oh, so it's 260.

(05:05):
How much do you weigh?

Speaker 2 (05:06):
right now 225.
225?
So where would you fight at.

Speaker 3 (05:09):
You think I mean for that I would stay right where
I'm normally at.
You know, I wouldn't try to cutany weight Because, like there
was a couple fights that werethere in front of me and you
know one of them that seemedlike it was a better fit for me.
I was trying to cut down to 205.
And I haven't cut that low in awhile.
So like doing that cut for mewas like I got myself ready to

(05:30):
go and then it ended up nothappening.
But I still felt good about justgetting in the shape.
You know, just doing thetraining.
You know it was like even whenwe were talking earlier, like
for me I've always wanted that,like go back and, you know, do a
a fight.
That mattered, right, you knowsomething.
And just going through thetraining camp and pushing myself
is like that journey part iswhat I like.
And I like having somethingscary right, like something like

(05:54):
that is in front of me.
That's like I gotta tackle thisright and I have another man in
there gonna try to kill me, butI'm gonna, but I'm gonna take
him out, you know, and I and Ilike having pressure, I like
having some kind of thing thatmakes me buckle down and bite
down on my mouthpiece.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
It's got to get you out of bed, right, that's it.
The training is.
For most of the fighters it'sconstant, right, but then you
just rev up in a different gearwhen the time comes, when that
eight weeks hits, then you know,okay, now we have to really put
in the work.
And I hits, then you know, okay, now we have to really put in
the work.
And I think that if people canstay, like we talked about, stay
ready, right, the biggest thingis staying ready at all times

(06:31):
being 80, I like that, you know,but always having something to
strive for.
And look at your limiters, right, what is the limiter, what is
the technical limiter that youhave?
What is a physical limiter thatyou have?
And at that time of off camp iswhat we call it.
We want to work on improvingthat.
So for mma, let's say, forinstance, you come from a
kickboxing background.
Okay, so your limiter may bejujitsu, it may be takedown

(06:54):
defense.
We want to utilize our timeright there to improve on those
limiters so that once we getinto camp now, we can hone in on
our skill set, develop a gameplan around our skill set, and
then again we lessen thoselimiters.
So now there's no gaps in thesystem.

Speaker 3 (07:10):
Right, and, like I would imagine, you know, coming
from an MMA background, right,and you know, for those who
don't know, he was also afighter right going through your
training programs and the styleof training, did you see a gap
in physical training?
Like, did you see like we cando this better, there's an
improvement that can happen here.
Like, did you feel like that'swhere you found that when you

(07:33):
were a fighter?

Speaker 2 (07:34):
Personally.
I started to develop it once Istarted working with other
fighters and I wish I would haveknown what I've known now when
I was fighting.

Speaker 3 (07:44):
They say that makes you better.
Right, Like I've heard that youlive the life too.

Speaker 2 (07:48):
Yeah, one thing that I can connect with those
fighters is that I know how itfeels to cut weight.
I know how it feels to gothrough a fight camp.
I know how it feels to makethat walk.
I know how it feels to step inthe cage, feel the canvas, you
know.
And that's a connection thatyou must have with a athlete,
with an athlete, and the biggestthing for me is that
understanding how they go abouttheir day-to-day practice.

(08:11):
Right now, I'm living with oneof my fighters.
He's a boxer, robacy Ramirez,and he knows that I understand
the process right, I'm a littlebit older than him, but the
thing is that I know that.
Okay, I know what it takes toget up, make sure that your diet
is on point, make sure thatyou're getting to the training,
make sure that you're doingmultiple trains throughout the
day, and then the recovery ismost important on top of that.

(08:34):
But you have all these otherstresses, right, because you
have daily living, you havefamily, you have other
obligations, so that is anotheradded stressor.
So the biggest thing that I wasable to understand was fatigue
management and especially in mma, because there's multiple
modalities of training that youhave to go through is finding
out what's the best way torecover from each training

(08:54):
session and then formulate aprocess plan so that you can
keep progressing down the line.
And if you have that, thenthere's going to be no I would
say there's no chance of youactually getting to that point
where you over train because,let's face it in the fight game,
it's prevalent, yeah.
So we want to make sure that weminimize that as much as
possible you mentioned recovery.

Speaker 3 (09:14):
I jump in here.
I was going to say sorry, I wasgoing to say that man, I was a
ridiculous over trainer, yeah,most of my life and there was
times where I was hittingplateaus and not understanding
I'm like dude, I work out morethan anybody I know like I'm in
the gym three, three times a day, like how is this, you know?
And then it was like thosetweaks in nutrition.
It was like those tweaks andhonestly, it took me a long time

(09:35):
to understand that resting istraining and you have to have
that rest.
And I still have a problem withmy rest, right, but yeah, you
have to.
You have to plan that rest justlike you're planning the
workouts, right?
Yeah?

Speaker 2 (09:47):
and there's, and it's accumulated fatigue, it's
accumulated stress, right, andstress is systemic.
So the goal is to figure out,you know what's going to be the
most that we need to do torecover from.
And you start off minimal andyou work your way up to maximal,
but you definitely want to hityour.
But just make sure that you'restarting at a good point, to

(10:07):
where you can progress, becauseif you start too high, you set
the ceiling too low, then youcan't go nowhere.
It's the same thing with a dietright, if you start with
calories too low, there'snothing to pull from.

Speaker 1 (10:15):
Yeah, the recovery side of things is very
interesting to me becausethankfully I had a great coach
from the beginning of my careerwho emphasized rest days as much
as the work days, because forhim a work day is a rest day as
long as you put that work inthat rest day.
So now you're at that point inyour career there's been a

(10:36):
massive evolution to theknowledge and the old school
mentality that I know you foughthard on back in the day with
with some of the, theintroduction to weights and
strength and conditioning ingeneral.
I know that that was um at onepoint in time.
You don't have to get into thedetails and names and stuff but
for you to to understand like,no, this is what these athletes

(11:00):
need in the strength andconditioning and then implement
the recovery program that goesaround it.
Could you tell us and talk tous um, a, a like a traditional
day for one of your athletes andthen I want to follow up on a
question on the back end of thatbut a, a traditional recovery
what that looks like from a hardworking week.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
Yeah, it depends on the athlete, obviously, and
let's just we'll talk aboutRobisi as of right now, because
I'm with him.
So he's fighting for a WBOtitle.
He's actually trying to retainor get his title back from the
person that he lost it to, sothis is something that is near
and dear to his heart.

Speaker 3 (11:38):
It's a big one.

Speaker 2 (11:38):
the get back, it's the get back and he knows what's
at stake.
He's won two gold medals.
He's been a fighter all hislife Cuban boxer Seven, I want
to say.
Since he was seven years old,he's been fighting right Every
day, nonstop.
So not only is it important forme to get him to recover

(12:01):
physically, but also mentallyand emotionally right it's a big
thing and you know it allcorrelates.
if we've done this for so longit gets a little monotonous.
Right camps get a littlemonotonous, and so I try to take
him out of the realm of theroutine some days and do things
that are fun in all actualitybut still get the blood flow,

(12:23):
still allow him to recover insome ways.
So active recovery, activerecovery A little pickleball
Could be, you know.

Speaker 3 (12:30):
He likes ping pong.

Speaker 2 (12:31):
Yeah, he's a master at ping pong, believe it or not.
He beat my boy's ass the otherday, didn't he right?
Caleb, he got those reflexes.

Speaker 3 (12:39):
I don't play them.
I don't play them.

Speaker 2 (12:42):
If I can't win, I'm not going.

Speaker 1 (12:43):
No, I pick my sports too, bro, trust me.

Speaker 2 (12:45):
Trust me, there's things like that, that it's
still active, it's still fun andit gets them out of the mind
frame of going into the gymevery day, boxing, taking your
licks and then having to go tostrength and conditioning.
We're in the mountains now, sowe have.
The last run we did was athree-mile run up Mount

(13:05):
Charleston.
We finished at 8,500 feet abovesea level, which is good,
because we finished last time atonly 7,500 feet above sea level
.
We did a three-mile run.
The good thing about that isthat we can go at a slow pace,
at a zone two pace, but he'sstill getting the benefits of
blood flow.
He's still getting the benefitsof increasing rethropoietin,

(13:29):
right red blood cell count, andwith that blood flow you got
nutrient partitioning, you gotall the things necessary for him
to recover for the next day.
But it's not demanding to wherehe's building a massive amount
of lactate and he's sore.
You know muscles get sore,things like that.
So a lot of concentric actionif we're going to do anything in
the weight room.
All concentric based, butconsistent at a lower percentage

(13:52):
of intensity interesting.

Speaker 3 (13:54):
I've been going up there to mount charleston for
years doing some of thatelevation training, you know,
with the fight teams or whatnot.
Like that elevation training isno joke bro.

Speaker 2 (14:03):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (14:03):
It's no joke.
You know, Eric, Eric Nixick, Ithink you know him.
Like we go up there and we'llget some training in it's like
three minutes in it's like dude,Don't you feel like you've done
10?
Yeah, Like it's just yourlittle heavier, You're out of
breath like this, you know, and,yeah, your arms are a little
bit, everything feels a littlebit slower, you know.

Speaker 1 (14:23):
For you.
How long do you spend in themountains right now?
You've been here for how longwe're going on?
Four weeks how long has youbeen able to kind of feel that
next level?

Speaker 2 (14:35):
take place when we come back down.
Really yeah, so train low, yeahlive high.

Speaker 1 (14:40):
So, but how many, how many days, weeks does it take
for you to feel that?

Speaker 2 (14:45):
it depends on the person.
Okay, for me personally, I feltit the first week.
It was hard for me to even justlay down and breathe because
I'm, you know, I live in sealevel.
You know I'm in florida.
So for me, you know, sleeplessnights and I was waking up like
out of breath, shortness ofbreath.
Now I feel acclimated.
You know sleepless nights and Iwas waking up like out of
breath, shortness of breath.
Now I feel acclimated.
Now we're getting so I wouldsay, about a week or two, you
know, to truly get acclimated.

(15:06):
I can't, I can't say foreverybody.
I'll have to look at theliterature too as well.
But the good thing about Robeseis that he's used to going up
to that altitude, so we livethere primarily.
We're spending most of the daythere too as well, and obviously
throughout the night.
So I think it's good.
We were originally going to goto Lake Tahoe and it was just
away from his camp, his boxingtrainer Salas, and so we wanted

(15:30):
to stay here.
So we went up to MountCharleston, which it does
actually work.
It's just a farther drive, it'san hour to get to just
civilization.
It takes 30 minutes.

Speaker 1 (15:40):
If we run out of gas, we're you know, yeah, I've
needed a hundred guys a fewtimes up there, indeed, but
that's a story for another time?

Speaker 3 (15:46):
um, can I, can I ask one thing so, as you're doing
your elevation training, like,where do you stop that?
Before the fight itself, likeare you, are you cutting that
back?
You know a week before, is itlike a couple days before to
keep?

Speaker 2 (15:58):
keep that?
Yeah, that's a good question.
So we have to be at the, the,the site, I would say the.
We're fighting in phoenix.
So we have to be there a weekright before because all
obligations, um, ideally I wouldsay, try to go as close to the
fight as possible, right, asclose as you can.
If you can't, then you know.
Obviously I think we're gonnahave to leave about a week out.

Speaker 1 (16:20):
When does that decline, though?
I want to know, when does thatdecline?

Speaker 2 (16:22):
I think it does decline after about a week.
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (16:25):
And can you mimic that with some of those masks?

Speaker 1 (16:27):
Hyperbaric chambers and stuff, right, right.

Speaker 2 (16:29):
The hyperbaric?
Yes, like the.
What is it?
The high altitude mask?
Yeah, the.
The only thing that that reallydoes is increase your strength
of the diaphragm so it can playa role.
It doesn't simulate a highaltitude, it just lessens the
ability to breathe and let outCO2.
So it does increase thestrength of the diaphragm, which

(16:50):
can obviously help you take inoxygen and let out CO2, which is
important for clearing outlactate and so on and so forth.
So it does have somewhat of abenefit.
I wouldn't have it be the endall be all but um, if you can
definitely go ahead and livehigh, train low, so that you can
get the intensity necessary foryou to get the job done.
Like if we were to spar at highaltitude, it would take us a

(17:13):
longer time to acclimate to thatintensity.
Right, we don't have thatamount of time.
So when you start off, he'sfighting a 12 round fight, let's
just say.
And we start off with sixrounds.
Now, because he's in shape andbecause we were starting to work
.
We got here nine weeks out,actually 10 weeks out.
He started sparring nine weeksout because he was already in
shape.

(17:33):
But most fighters aren't atthat level yet, so we have to
wait until like around six weeksto truly start to rev up the
sparring.
You know how that goes, yeah,and so the goal was to improve
or increase the volume of theactual sparring rounds, and then
we can taper off two weeks out.
So, but the good thing, like Isaid, is that now his ability to

(17:53):
take in oxygen, his, his vo2max, is high, his lactic
threshold is high, which, um,that helps us especially in
sparring rounds.

Speaker 1 (18:02):
I'm going to go back to an earlier question.
I kind of threw in with thewhole recovery side of things.
The evolution of strength andconditioning, especially from
the MMA world I mean from theoutside in has just tremendously
now just taken off.
People are so athletes are soaware of how critical that
component was.
Athletes are so aware of howcritical that component was.
Taking from my own personalexperience when I was boxing, my

(18:24):
boxing coach wouldn't allow meknee or weight.
They wouldn't allow me.
And I came there with big legsplaying rugby and I was
squatting and my advice was justrun them legs off.
Well, what they didn't realizeis they live in the top of a
hill, so my legs were gettingstimulated everywhere I go.
Pull-ups, push-ups-ups, dips,that's what we always had.

(18:46):
Yeah, I had skip, that's allright, I just had skipping and
and push-ups.
That was it.
Um, so the evolution of thestrength and conditioning,
certainly you've lived in themshoes, and again, you don't even
mention names and stuff.
But how, how hard was it foryou to be in your position,
knowing that what you know, andthen trying to bring this
evolution into certain teamswith certain athletes and then

(19:09):
fighting that old school untilthat old school became new
school?

Speaker 2 (19:13):
it's difficult, you know.
The thing is is that you haveto relay over information that
correlates over to what they'reactually going to do inside the
cage or the ring.
So if you have an understandingto reframe what you're doing in
the weight room has carryoverto the cage, then you'll get
more buy-in from, let's say, anold school coach and then from

(19:38):
there you have to get theresults with the things that you
do.
Once you do that, then you canstart to develop that
relationship with the old schoolcoach that starts to buy in and
adopt these new trainingmethodologies that are going to
help the fighter succeed inevery way, shape or form.
So it takes some time and youyou have to nurture that, that

(20:00):
relationship with the coach.
With a strength and conditioningor performance coach, or let's
just say even a speed coach orconditioning goes whatever you
want to call them they have tohave one, they have to have
measurable metrics to showcasedata is progressing right.
So the numbers are exceeding.
And then when they go intotheir skills training, they have

(20:22):
to see the correlation.
They have to see okay, they'remore explosive, they're able to
recover faster, their movementis efficient, and a lot of fight
coaches want to see bettermovement quality and they want
to see, obviously, theconditioning Right.
So those are the main factorsfor buy-in.
First and foremost, we know asstrength coaches that the goal

(20:43):
is okay depending on wherethey're at in camp.
We want to maybe improvecertain elements of the game
physical, technical, tacticaland mental.
So if I can get them strongerin the weight room, it improves
their confidence everywhere elsein their game.
And the big thing that I sawwith, you know, a couple of my
high level guys, guys that havebeen in the ufc top 10, some

(21:05):
champions people know we'veworked with dustin.

Speaker 1 (21:08):
You can name names, bro, you you can.
This is full bragging rightsfor you, bro go ahead.

Speaker 2 (21:13):
So yeah, so dp was uh , when we started.
He's worked with some strengthand conditioning coaches but he
didn't really touch a lot ofweights.
The goal was, when I saw him,we needed to improve some
strength.
He wanted to move up to 55.
He was actually he moved up to55, but he needed to build his
frame up.
And now I mean he barely.
I mean he can make 55, but he'sa big kid.

(21:34):
You've met him several timesand the thing is is like I
wanted him to match the strengthof all these other 55ers that
were in the in the actual ufc.
And then on top of that you putin the skill, the technical
efficiency, the, the mindsetright he's, he's got a great
fight iq and when you can putthat in there and plug the gap

(21:55):
of that limiter, then it justmakes you a well-rounded athlete
.
And my goal wasn't to make thembetter fighters, it was to make
them better athletes that cancorrelate over to their fight
game that they already had wellestablished it's a big factor.

Speaker 1 (22:07):
Yeah, do you have any resistance from some of the
fighters adopting this new newage mentality back then?

Speaker 2 (22:13):
back then I would say maybe 40 to 30 percent of them,
really yeah.
Yeah, they were just a littlebit reluctant on doing strength
training because they thoughtthey would get too big.
Build out, you know, blow outof the weight class, things like
that.
But when I broke down thescience behind certain

(22:34):
intensities that weren't goingto develop massive hypertrophy,
on top of the fact that theywere in somewhat of a caloric
deficit, anyways, that I saidit's, it's almost somewhat
impossible.
It's very hard to build muscle,you know, even though you've
done a tremendous job, by theway he's done all right multiple
times yeah, but you know howhard it is and if you're not, if

(22:54):
you're training constantly anda lot of the training is
conditioning based they'reburning a ton of calories.
You can easily burn a thousandcalories in a, in a MMA or
wrestling training for two hours, like so easily.
And are they?
Are they actually putting thatback in?
Sometimes they're not, becausesometimes they don't even want
to eat.
You know, it's just, it's justa lot, of, a lot of things that

(23:15):
they have to do.
So when I things that they haveto do, so when I broke that down
, it was more like, okay, cool,and then they started getting
stronger, right.
They started getting moreneuromuscular efficiency, more
coordination, more balance, morecontrol.
That, when they got into aposition let's say, you know,
cage wrestling is is veryphysical right.
When they feel that they havecontrol, they have stability,

(23:36):
they can maneuver their opponentor their training partner
wherever they need to go.
They go.
Man, this is really working,because I didn't feel that
before.

Speaker 1 (23:44):
You know, I was technical and I knew how to get
into good positions and I wasthere at the right times, but
now I just feel really solid andthat's, that's the feedback
that I'm looking for that'sgoing to be good feeling for you
too when you've gone throughthe fight camp there or they're
going through it, or through itthe other side, and they get
going through it or through itthe other side, and they get
that data feedback to you duringthat time period.
Yeah, and the ones who are onthe fence like, okay, I'm soaked

(24:08):
now, what else can we do?
Yeah, yeah, you know, but youmentioned the mentality, the
mental resilience.
How much of that played a partin your role as a strength and
conditioning guy.

Speaker 2 (24:21):
It played more of a role with the elite guys,
because we knew that even whenthey got stronger, they were
going to have to fight the bestof the best and it becomes and
this is why I'm actually tryingto go back.
I am going to go back and getmy PhD in sports psychology
because I feel like that'ssomething that I've been doing
primarily, and even as a fighter.

(24:42):
You know, we go in there andit's very, it's a big it's a big
deal.

Speaker 3 (24:45):
I mean it's it's honestly, when I look at guys
and for years you know people,would you know?
People say like they look atfloyd mayweather and they're
like eyes full of himself orwhatever, and you know, I would
train and I would watch him andhe'd sit and he'd shadowbox in
the mirror for 20, 20 rounds andthe entire time, best in the
world, no one could touch you,you know, and he would talk to
himself that entire time becausehe was believed that he was the

(25:09):
best in the world and he,mentally, was so strong and
hardened that like other peoplewould say, oh, he's, like he's
full of himself or like, no,he's confident, like he believes
in himself and his ability, youknow, and like that's such a
powerful thing.
And you see guys, when theyhave that and they're going on a
run and they get, they getclipped and once they lose that
edge, it's it's.

Speaker 2 (25:28):
It's tough to get back at times, right, it's like
the best in the world, say thatover and over again, right and
we'll, we'll joke.
And I've seen I've seen dustinsay it many a times, and you
know Dustin man, he's veryhumble in a lot of ways.
He's a dog Tremendous guy but ifyou talk about fighting, he's
like no, I'm the best in theworld Literally will tell you
that Straight face, no joking,because he believes it.

(25:48):
And you have to say that.
You have to say that over andover again Because it becomes
true.

Speaker 3 (26:00):
It becomes true in your mind.
Eventually it starts to manifestin the fight game that
confidence too, when you'rewalking in the ring, right, it's
like I used to get reallynervous before the fight, like
almost couldn't like pick up myarms, like I'd be in the back,
like I don't feel good, you know, like I'd be like be in this,
like little nervous mode, andthen the minute I stepped into
the ring it was like there's noway, there's nothing this guy's
gonna do that I haven't trained,trained or prepared for.
And it was like this boom, nowI'm in kill mode.

(26:21):
But having and knowing that Iwent through some of those
things and also someone likeyourself who understands what
those feelings are about, likesomeone once told me hey, dude,
calm down.
He feels exactly the same wayin the other dressing room.
He's nervous, he's scared inthere right now.
So just understand that you'vedone the prep work and you in
the other dressing room, he'snervous, he's scared in there
right now.
So just understand that you'vedone the prep work and you've

(26:44):
sparred with better guys andyou're ready.
It's important.
Just another day of training.

Speaker 2 (26:48):
We like to say now it's time to put all the tools
together that you've beenworking on and sharpening the
axe, and now it's time to use it.
And I think that I felt thesame way, man.
I've been to the point where Iwas so stressed that I could go
to sleep, like my sympatheticnervous system was through the
roof and I was like fallingasleep.

(27:08):
I had to.
You know, I had to get candy towake me up, you know, but it's
it's normal and natural becauseyou care.
If you didn't care, that'd be aproblem.
If somebody's like, I'm goodright that's a little.

Speaker 1 (27:21):
That's a little um alarming in a sense have you
seen any athletes that are toocool in that circumstance?

Speaker 2 (27:26):
I've had a couple.
I've had a couple, but thestakes weren't high enough.
Right, so you have like.
You know, some fighters arelike, yeah, it's just another
fight.
And once you know theyunderstand that it is another
fight, then it becomes okay.
Well, how much are you willingto go in the fight to win the
fight?
Because sometimes fighters willgo into a fight trying not to

(27:48):
lose as opposed to going for thewin.
You see that a lot.
It's two different thingsInteresting.
They try not to lose, they'renot going to take any risk,
they're just going to play itsafe, and sometimes that's okay
if you're winning in the fight,right.
Right, let's say it's a fiveround fight, you won four rounds
, coast, don't take any morerisk, obviously.
But if that's not the case thefirst round and you're not

(28:10):
trying to go after him andtrying to win, then ultimately
you put yourself in a biggerposition to lose regardless.

Speaker 1 (28:17):
Yeah the mentality side of things.
You went back to the sportspsychology.
It's, for me a huge interest wetalk about all the time on the
show.
The mentality to any eliteathlete is elite, right, but
it's been forged by so manydifferent under factors.
You know confidence, trauma,you know pain, discipline,

(28:38):
discipline.
It's just this hodgepodge ofeverything that's just formed
this mindset.
And in fighting, of course,you're only as good as your last
fight.
That's the term right.
But in reality, when you're atthat level, you're not.
You're facing the best of thebest.
In that top five, everybodycould be a world champion on
that given day.
How hard is it for you to getan athlete that may be coming

(29:03):
off back-to-back losses and thenstill keep that athlete
motivated, go through a camp andpush him to the extremes that
he has gone in the past or shehas?

Speaker 2 (29:11):
yeah, it starts with the initial process.
When I do an evaluation andassessment on an athlete, if
it's my first time working withthem, I will run them through
first.
We'll have a have a full onconversation before we step on
the training floor.
We'll have about an hour, hourand a half just talking, right,
just getting to know you, and Ialso have to know what type of
personality is dominant in you,right?

(29:33):
So I run them through a bigfive factor analysis test and
it's been popularized now byjordan peterson primarily.
But the goal is to see whattrait dominance do they have?
Are they very open-minded?
Are they conscientious,coachable?
Well, yeah, that's gonna,that's gonna be dictated off of
their personality traits.
If they're coachable, um,they're very open-minded.

(29:56):
They want variety too as well,and in some cases those are the
a type dopamine dominant type ofindividuals I get excited bro
when I learn new stuff like Ilove.

Speaker 3 (30:07):
I love that process.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
Then you have guys that are very conscientious,
that love routine, that if youput something new in, they ask
you why, what's going, why areyou doing that?
And it's almost nerve-wrackingfor them.

Speaker 3 (30:19):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (30:21):
And some fighters, depending on the person right, I
have to dictate my trainingprocess, my communication
towards who they are as anindividual.
So when they come off of losses, that okay, I fall back to that
.
What is their why?
What is their deep, why?
Let's peel back the layers andfind out what the deep meaning

(30:43):
of why you're actually steppinginto a cage or a ring or on the
mats or whatever the case may be.
And for you, you know, steppingon stage, what's the point?
Why are you putting yourselfthrough this?
And then you have to let themunderstand or think back to when
they started this thing andthen go to okay, things may
change over time, right?

(31:03):
So when you start off, youmight just want to be a world
champion, you might want to winsome money, you know, maybe some
fame.
Once you get to that level, thethings will change.
Now it's I want to set my familyup for, you know, future
success.
I want to be wealthy over time.
I want to make sure that I havea long term um stability for my
life and for my family.
And that's when you start torelay over that information to

(31:26):
them like listen, it's not over,don't you have a bigger?
Why now that's bigger than you.
From your 20s to your 30s toyour 40s.
I've I work with guys well intotheir 40s, right, and there's a
different why from when theywere in their 20s, you know.
So, yeah, that's the biggestthing is getting to the root
cause of the issue and thenfinding out how I can relay over

(31:49):
that information one more time.
When the time gets tough, whenyou know every day is monotonous
and you're like, damn, I gottago back to the gym again, and
then I throw in those Okay,let's get out of the gym, let's
go to the track, let's go to thestadium, let's go to the beach
because I'm in Florida, you knowlet's go to the mountains,
let's change it up, let's havesome fun with this, and then
also remember why you're doingit.

Speaker 1 (32:09):
Have you had any athletes that have gone from
their losses and gone on a newtrajectory?

Speaker 2 (32:17):
This is the one right here.
We're in that process.
Robesio Ramirez is one of thoseguys.
That's a generational talent.
He's so good that he doesn'tknow how good he actually is,
and that's one of those thingswhere you've got to feed the
flame as much as possible and hemay want the belt back, but I

(32:40):
think, more than anything, hejust wants to be.
He wants to live up to his ownexpectations and to all of our
expectations, from all thecoaches to all his fans, and and
prove everybody right, notwrong, because everybody knows
he can do it do you think thinknatural talent, natural

(33:00):
God-given athletic abilitysometimes makes it harder?

Speaker 3 (33:04):
I guess harder for some of these guys because they
always everything came so easyto them they beat a lot of guys
at the other levels reallyeasily and didn't have to put
those extra hours in or other.
That must be something you comeacross also.

Speaker 2 (33:20):
Sometimes, yeah, you got guys like Jon Jones that are
just gifted, talented beyondbelief.
It doesn't matter what type ofday they're having or what type
of night they had prior, they'regoing to win Of disrespect.

Speaker 3 (33:33):
He's amazing they're having or what type of night
they had prior.
They're going to win Right Witha track record of that.
With respect, he loves John.

Speaker 2 (33:37):
Yeah, I mean, he's amazing In my opinion.
Say what you want to say withyou know whatever he does
outside the cage, but in myopinion he's the best fighter,
pound for pound, in the world.
I agree Bar none.
Now, he has natural, god-giventalent and so for me, if I were
to get with John, I would try tofind a way to spark interest

(34:00):
into trying to get as much 100%,110% out of that talent that he
has inside of him to relay itover.
And that's when he'suntouchable, right.
So, whatever that can be, and alot of it comes down to just
like having fun, right, havingfun.
If you look at the ties, if youlook at you know, even with

(34:20):
Cuban boxers, they have fun whenthey spar.
It's not going out there tokill each other, it's going
there and helping each otherfind new ways to articulate, to

(34:41):
articulate their, their abilityto win a fight.
And the biggest thing is thatyou have to be able to find that
out right.
You have to go in there and trythings that you wouldn't do in
a fight if you didn't try itthroughout practice.
So, getting away from thatintensity of man, if I mess up,
I'm going to get knocked out inhere.

Speaker 3 (34:57):
That's what we were talking about earlier, right,
and sparring and understanding,sparring at a level where you
can try things.
That's how it should be.
You guys shouldn't be mad ateach other in there.
You should be trying to work onyour different parts of your
craft, right and so, like,boxing culture has always been a
little more like kill eachother in there, you know, but
I've I've liked that it'schanged a bit and some of those

(35:19):
uh, old school training methodsare changing.
Refining data.
Guys like yourself are pushingforward new methods, right,
because a lot of guys probablyleft their careers in the gym,
you know, um, in some of thesesparring sessions, I've had.

Speaker 2 (35:32):
I've had crazy sparring sessions that I thought
I was fighting.

Speaker 3 (35:35):
It was like more than an actual fight, right.
But one thing that I justunderstanding from even myself I
was because I was athleticallygifted.
I was able to get away with alot of different things for a
lot of years and still be verysuccessful against guys.
And as I got older, I realizedI need to be more bernard

(35:57):
hopkins, like my technique needsto be tighter, like my like,
and really working on techniqueright, because I feel like if
you have, you know, some of theathleticism roy jones, right,
and you're just so there, likeas you get older, right, like
you have to improve on thoseskills, is that something you
feel is it's necessary.

Speaker 2 (36:16):
You're maturing as an individual, though, right Well,
not just as a martial artist.

Speaker 3 (36:19):
Right.

Speaker 2 (36:20):
Right, so you're maturing in all aspects of life.
It was funny because, likeCaleb here is 20 years old,
right?
So we were having wine lastnight, me and my boy.
You know he's 38, I'm 36.
I'm 36.
And he's like do you guys likewine?
And I'm like we didn't likewine when we were 20.

Speaker 1 (36:34):
No, you just developed a taste for it.

Speaker 2 (36:37):
Now You're just getting old.
You just know you're gettingold.
Yeah, we got to drink something.

Speaker 1 (36:41):
You just become a little bougie too.
You know what wine is nice andwhat's not right?
A little Jesus juice.

Speaker 2 (36:45):
Yeah, exactly Big fact.

Speaker 3 (36:55):
So as an individual, and that changes your outlook on
preparation, too, as well.
Right, talking of preparation,did you?

Speaker 2 (37:01):
just swallow his in?
No, I did not swallow my in.
I thought that's what happened.

Speaker 1 (37:05):
Let me get out of my mouth.
This is a live show Talkingabout preparation.
You just put yourself throughone hell of a ruck and, Matt, I
followed the journey andobviously I want the audience
who don't know what you've doneto spell it all out.

(37:29):
Obviously, it was in the nameof charity as well.
In the name of charity as well,and without me butchering this,
I want you to tell the story ofhow you went about this and the
story that unfolded.

Speaker 2 (37:40):
Yeah.
So a Ruck march primarily isfrom military right, and so my
goal was to put myself in aposition of a lot of my guys
that I look up to, that I cancall friends and raise money for
certain charities at that time,and put myself through a
difficult situation in order forme one to find myself again

(38:03):
Right and try something somewhatdangerous in a way to overcome
obstacles, to overcome the oddsand to really find out who I was
.
And sometimes you have to dothat right.
It's either you get in there,you go for a hard training
session, but I wanted to take itto the next level, and so I had
a 60-pound ruck that I put onmy back.

(38:23):
My goal was to do 150 miles,and it was.
You know, we didn't know howthis was going to go, because
nobody's really done it likewith how I was doing it right.
So I had four days toaccomplish the goal and there
were some things that needed tobe that we didn't understand,
that were that kind of went,went astray.

(38:45):
But so I started in Miami and Iwas going to walk or march up
to Fort Pierce, florida, and andend it there, and the biggest
thing was that we didn't havereally any any help to a degree,
right now going back, and whenI do it again, we'll change it
up.
But you got to take intoaccount the elements right Rain,

(39:07):
puddles, right, then alsoelevations.
Well, that's Florida, it'sFlorida.
Okay, we're not going to yeah,true that.
But the biggest thing wasnavigating through Miami and
then getting into Broward andthen going through that.
And so we had, we had, we hadBroward Sheriff's Office.
That helped us to a degree andgave us some roads to clear and

(39:27):
so that we could go faster, butit was the time that I needed to
get it done was one thing, andthen also just overcoming the
pain of the actual ruck so 60pounds dry on my back and within
the 10th mile I was doing abouta five minute was a five minute
per mile pace at that point.
So I was moving, I was goingfast and I was running, walking

(39:52):
until I got to mile 10.
And then we reached a pointwhere there was no way around it
.
I had to step in this puddleand this puddle was ankle deep
and I had my best shoes on, so Iwas like this is the.
These are the shoes that Iwanted to rock primarily in.

Speaker 1 (40:07):
Yeah, we're not talking Jordan ones or anything
like that.
We're talking about where yourbad shoe is.

Speaker 2 (40:12):
There were solid shoes, and then I had my boots
that I was going to just switchon and off in, and so I stepped
in the puddle and I knew rightthen, and there I, was like damn
, it's going to be a big one.
And when you step in a puddle,obviously you know foot's wet,
foot's wet.
You're going to start todevelop socks.
Yep, socks are done, drenched.
So you're going to start todevelop those blisters.

(40:32):
And I was like, okay, Iprepared for that mentally, for
like down the road, we'retalking mile 50, maybe not mile
10.
So when I got that, we didn'thave a check mark or we didn't
have a place to stay or to stopfor another 10 miles.
So I had to go for 10 miles insoaking wet shoes and socks.

(40:54):
And then I started to developthe blisters and I was like, ok,
it's bad, but I can manage it.
And then by the time mile 15 hit, basically all my toenails were
falling off.
I had hot spots on the ball ofmy foot, on my heel, and then
all my toes had blisters on them.
And so we got to mile 25 and Icouldn't stand up straight.

(41:18):
And it was at that point whereI go, damn, I'm, I'm not worried
about not finishing, I'mworried about not finishing on
the time frame that I said I wasgoing to finish on and I said I
got 20, I did 25 miles and I'min pain and I've been through
fights where I felt like I wasgoing to die.
This is the worst pain I'veever been in, and the reason why

(41:39):
was because, literally, theskin was peeling off the bottom
of my feet.
Yeah, it's the worst you showedit.

Speaker 1 (41:45):
That's the thing you documented, this whole thing.

Speaker 2 (41:46):
I had to document the whole thing because I wanted
people to see that I'm not goingto quit on my own accord.
I'm not going to quitphysically, I'm definitely not
going to quit mentally, but Ihave to go as far as I possibly
can physically, mentally,emotionally, everything.
So by mile 25, at this pointI'm just trying to wrap

(42:06):
everything up Jose, my guy, he'sa Marine.
He looked at my feet.
He goes yeah, I mean, we'vebeen through worse, so we can do
this and I was like all right,cool, so wrap this thing up.
We duct taped it.
You know, whatever we could,you know mold, mold tape and
duct tape.
And uh, at this point I was, youknow, I've been up for about 30
hours, maybe somewhere around20 hours, something like that

(42:28):
and then we went out and Imarched another 10 miles.
By that 10th mile I've got toBoca.
They, they looked at my feetand he goes, the same person.
He goes this is the worst I'veever seen.
He's like.
And this is when I had, I wassitting in the um, I was sitting
in the RV and I was documentingit and that's when, all like,

(42:50):
basically four of my toenailswere gone, my big toe, something
.
It was like busted up.
It's still gone to this day,but yeah, it was messed up.
I was in pain and it was hot.
At that point it was probablyaround 98 degrees.

Speaker 3 (43:05):
It's tough to deal with, right?
It's like I mean you just haveto just block the pain and just
go.

Speaker 2 (43:11):
Yeah, there was no point in time where I was like
I'm stopping because it hurts,that wasn't.
That wasn't the issue.
It was I want to make sure thatI can get to the end goal at
that time frame that I said Iwas going to get you know, so
just wrapped it up again, keptmoving.
Now, at this point I went frombasically somewhere around a 10

(43:32):
minute per mile pace to 20 22,so now I'm like crawling,
basically, like just slowlytrying to get through it, and
every step felt like I waswalking on broken glass and my
back was fine.
Everything else was solid, asfar as from a strength
standpoint, I had no problemsthere, just my base of support

(43:52):
was going through it.
And so I got to right aroundDelray beach and I was going up
Atlantic.
You know that, you know thatarea.
I was going up this, this, uh,this bridge, and one of my guys
started videotaping me and Ididn't even see it.
I was, I was in tunnel visionat that point and, uh, he asked

(44:12):
me, like you know, and I clearedeverybody out because I didn't
want to be around anybody atthat point.
I just wanted to be alone, Iwant to be left in solitude, so
I could just put my mind in adifferent position.
And it wasn't on them.
I had to do this on my own.
And so at that point I'm like,listen, it's either you are
going to go through thispainfully and get it done or

(44:33):
you're going to fold.
And you said what you said.
You said you were going tofinish, and every time I wanted
to quit and trust me.
Every step, I wanted to quit,every step.
I wanted to be like you're good.
And you know how that goes, man.
You get these voices in yourhead telling you this guy and
this shit.

Speaker 3 (44:49):
Shut that shit up.
It's two.

Speaker 2 (44:51):
It's like the dichotomy and Shut that shit out
.
It's two.
It's like the dichotomy, youknow, and you go shut up, you're
right, keep going, shut up,you're right, keep going.
And that's all I kept saying.
It's like just keep walking,one foot in front of the other,
one foot in front of the other.
And so I had a goal.
I was like all right, I want to60 hours no sleep.

(45:14):
And I started to feel like legsstarted to shut down, you know,
everything started to hurt,cramping, all of that.
So I got to mile 50.
I was like let me get to mile50 and let's let uh, uh, you
know, let's, let's go to thehospital and let them wrap up my
feet the right way so I don'tget any infection, so that
doesn't hurt the whole thing.
Feet the right way, so I don'tget any infection, so this

(45:37):
doesn't hurt the whole thing.
So we got to mile 51.
We went to the hospital.
I was like listen, here's myfeet.
Long story short, I'm doingthis for charity, I need to get
this done.
And they're like well, let'sjust run some labs.
And I'm like all right,whatever, but I need to get that
back out there.
So they ran the labs andthey're like listen, we know you
have to do this or whatever,like they didn't even understand
the process.
And they were kind of lookingat me like I'm crazy, you know,

(46:00):
for doing this.
And they're like your creatinekinase levels are like 10x of
what they should be, and sousually if you have a hard
training session, you're at like300, right, I was at 10,000.
So they said and I was startingto piss blood at this point so
and they said, if you don't stop, you're gonna have kidney
failure and it's gonna take youa long time to get out of this

(46:24):
and you know, so, full-blownrabdo.
And at that point I said I hadhad to think about it and I had
to actually actually ask Wyatt,who is one of my coaches, and he
was with me the whole time andhe goes bro, I wanted you to
stop, like 10 miles ago, youknow.
And then I called my wife andshe was like I know this means a

(46:45):
lot to you, but let's thinkabout this long term.
And at that point I go well, Icould try to get this going and
I could fail miserably on myface and then not have the
attempt to do it again in thenext couple of months, be out
for a year and a half orwhatever, and be selfish about
it and not be able to train myguys or I can live to fight

(47:09):
another day.
And it was hard and I took sometime to really think about it
and finally was like all right,listen, let's call it, but I'm
gonna go back to it and youcalled it on.

Speaker 1 (47:23):
Listen, as as much as you hate to do it yeah, I think
the best call was the call.
And then you and I were messingeach other and you told me I
think I messaged you when youwere on the rock.

Speaker 2 (47:36):
You did.
I appreciate that too.
Yeah, that means a lot too whenyou reached out.
It gave me some extramotivation, for sure.

Speaker 1 (47:42):
Well, I don't know if I pushed you to more blisters,
but if that's the badge, youwanted to protect you.

Speaker 2 (47:47):
I don't know You've gone through some difficult
situations that everybody knowsand maybe they don't know.
So when you text me that and acouple others text me too as
well some tier one guys that I'mreally close with they were
like bro, stop, like what areyou doing?
You don't have to go anymoreand from them to tell me that I
was like okay.

Speaker 3 (48:07):
I'm on the right path , at least.
There's definitely a pointwhere you're doing yourself more
harm than good, right?

Speaker 1 (48:11):
Yeah, bro, have you seen the mess of his feet?
We'll probably put some B-rollon after this.

Speaker 2 (48:14):
Oh, I know.

Speaker 1 (48:16):
They were a mess.
He sent me a photo of his feet.
I don't know if he even postedthis, but I was like, bro, I'm
good, I'm wrapping these up, I'mgood, and you told me about you
walking through the puddle andhow that just took him out of of
it from the beginning.

Speaker 3 (48:32):
But, um, but I know how those rock walks, feel, you
know, like I was in the marinecorps, so we did them on the
beach and we would do eightmiles on the beach, we would do
and, and the amount of thank youfor your service.

Speaker 2 (48:42):
By the way, thank you for your course 100 the amount
of stress fractures.

Speaker 3 (48:46):
I mean like, literally dudes, feets look like
feet, look like they werepeeled off.
Uh, knee, what's the shinsplints?
You know, and we weren't goingthat far, you know, like we
would probably do eight to tenmiles, which was still really
hard.

Speaker 1 (48:59):
Still a lot though, bro.

Speaker 3 (49:00):
Still really hard and guys would be falling out.
That you know.
We'd always have guys fallingout, so I can only imagine going
that far.
It's wild.

Speaker 1 (49:09):
And Rabdo.
So obviously you then came awaywithhabdo, which, speaking from
personal experience, is no joke.
How long did it take you toknock out that?

Speaker 2 (49:20):
I went and retested, so about two to three weeks, and
I was like it came down alittle bit Obviously, a ton of
electrolytes.
I was in the hospital for threedays, two or three days, I
believe, I don't remember.
But you know, after that I thegood thing about this was like
I'm very um, I don't know, Ican't sit still let's put it

(49:40):
like that, right.
My wife hates that right atthis point, when I was like I
was like laying down.
I was like I'm laying down Ikind of earned that one yeah.
So she's like this is the bestI've ever seen you like you're
laying down that's because, babe, I can't move, I can't move.

Speaker 3 (49:56):
How long did it take for your feet to?

Speaker 2 (49:58):
heal, I still got six toenails missing.
How long has it been?
Oh, it's July.
So what is it?
October now?

Speaker 1 (50:06):
Yeah, A few months.

Speaker 2 (50:18):
Coming up to five, six months.
Right, five been five months.
Um, what was the biggest thingyou took away from that?
Just just knowing that I canpush.
I can push through anything youknow, and into the point where
I put myself in the hospital,which is in all weirdness.
I guess you could say I'll giveyou a badge of honor yeah, it's
mindset though, too.

Speaker 3 (50:24):
It's like what we were talking about, you know,
before the before we started,was it's like pushing yourself,
constantly testing ourselves asmen, as humans, right, it's like
constantly testing ourselves abit and humans, right, it's like
constantly testing ourselves abit and seeing how far we can
push ourselves, I think keeps ussharp, man.
It's like, even just every day,like we've built these habits.
Um, that's that, obviously, youknow, it just keeps you sharp,

(50:45):
and you know I want to staymentally ready as well, you know
yeah, I think every man andwoman needs to get to that level
, right at that edge, to see howfar they can go.

Speaker 2 (50:56):
And then the good thing about that is that you
just increase that edge a littlebit more.
And now you made yourself thatmuch more hard to kill.
That's all it is.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (51:06):
You mentioned about not sitting.
Still, kind of nice segue intothe business side of yourself.
You're working on a couple ofnew things.
The floor is yours, my friend.
Push and promote.

Speaker 2 (51:16):
The best thing that we've got going on right now is
the Fight Life membership slashapp.
The good thing there is thatI'm putting all of my programs
and consolidating them into thisapp, along with being able to
bring on skills, trainers,coaches, technical aspect into
this app as well for a fullmembership for everybody.
And then on top of that, youknow, obviously you're going to

(51:37):
have the strength andconditioning.
You have the one-on-onecoaching.
It's something that I wanted tobring to a lot of the fighters
that were, that are overseas too, that can't train with me.
They can't come to florida oranything like that, or I can't
get out to them.
It gives me the ability to workwith them from anywhere in the
world, which is awesome.
And then also I'm able to putnew programs and put new coaches
in there too as well, to helpthem get the notoriety necessary

(52:00):
for them to, you know, exceedin the, in the, in the sport.
Then on top of that, we havethe best thing that I'm.
I'm.
I'm looking forward to thisbecause and this is where I want
to talk to you about it kind ofmentor me in this way.
But I'm coming up with twosupplements.
One I used to have it's calledbattle tested.
It's a.
It was a post workout,primarily because I was sick of

(52:22):
having to bring all these thingstogether after post weigh in
and I was like, man, let me just, let me just make my own.
And so what we're doing iswe're doing a pre and a post
trainingtraining supplement forfighters, specifically for
fighters.
So beta-alanine, creatine, thethings that are going to enhance
their ability on the ring or inthe cage, and so on and so

(52:44):
forth.
So I'm excited about that.
That should be launching prettysoon, within the next couple of
months, and the app's going tobe coming out pretty soon,
probably by this time of year.
Sounds awesome.

Speaker 3 (52:54):
I want to try.
I need to try the uh, the pills, yeah, yeah, it'll be powder
okay, so we got it.

Speaker 2 (53:01):
The formulations is crazy, which I'm very happy
about, so it's going to be a mixand I'm not going to say the
whole thing, but it willdefinitely be something
different and it'll allow forthe specific fighters that I'm
thinking about actually puttingthis together for help them in
all aspects of the game.
So, remember, we talked aboutrecoverability, the biggest

(53:24):
thing that we have.
The problem that we have isthat there's multiple training
sessions throughout the day, soI need to get them recovered for
the next training session.
So it needs to be be quick,fast acting and ready to go.
So I'm excited that's awesome.

Speaker 1 (53:38):
Well, for me, my friend, I'm just glad to have
you on here.
There's always something new,there's always something
exciting that's going on.
And because you and I see eachother periodically because
obviously you've been on theEast Coast, me being on the West
Coast, but every time you cometo las vegas, whether it's you,

(54:01):
you've got a fighter or you'rehere for speaking engagements or
whatever else you're doing it'sgreat for me to see this
evolution.
And you're always, you'realways on to the next.
And I go back to that young,hungry lion cub that I met in
boca raton.

Speaker 2 (54:11):
We both were let's be honest, right?

Speaker 1 (54:13):
yeah, yeah, for sure and and our lives have just
blown up in two differentdirections but nonetheless
they've blown up right and itjust goes to show for me that
the conversations we were havingway back when are now still
being done on a much biggerscale, because you've changed
your way and the confidence thatyou install, the mental

(54:37):
confidence that you install inthe fighters, I can see has come
from somebody that's beenbattle tested and putting
themselves out and leading fromthe front in all the things that
you've done.
And we've only recaptured asmall snippet of this last year
and covered a few other things.
But there's much more to youand more than anything else
because my brother worked withyou under you there's so much

(55:02):
unseen that goes into thecoaching side of things and I
think a lot of the times coachesdon't get the recognition that
they deserve.
You know, obviously the fighteris the one that is obviously in
the octagon, the cage is shut.
But the process of getting themthere, everybody plays their
part.
You know every coach has theirinfluence, their touch in that

(55:26):
fight to become that betterversion of themselves.
And for me, matt, I see what youdo.
You know I'm the unseen.
I don't see, but I do know,coming from our mutual friends.
You're an incredible coach andsomebody that truly pours his
heart into each and every one ofthese athletes.
Hence why you've been out herefor so many weeks in the
mountains, away from your family, putting that full focus into

(55:49):
this fight camp.
It just goes to show who youare as a coach, my friend.

Speaker 2 (55:53):
It means a lot coming from you.
You know, that I hold you inhigh regard, look at you as a
mentor, and I actually said thisbefore we walked in.
I said, man, you're doing agreat job.
Man, I remember that Boca gym.
I remember that I was like, andnow, seeing the pop-ups and all
this, man, I appreciateeverything and thank you for
having me.
Oh, we knew.

Speaker 1 (56:12):
We've been trying to do this for a long time we've
been trying to do this for along time and, uh, right now
obviously we're running onparameters because we're all so
busy.
Yeah yeah phil has got his timeslot, jay rock has got his time
slot, and I'm the one todaythat has cleared my whole day,
so I'm the one that's not goingto keep on very rare, very rare
very rare, but um, nonetheless,my bro, um, if, if there

(56:33):
anything that I can do for youwhilst you're in town.
you know the score.
This is your home, from home.
You've brought athletes hereand I appreciate that.
And when is the big day for thenext upcoming fight?
December 7th, december 7th InLas.

Speaker 2 (56:45):
Vegas.
Or you said Arizona, right, itwould be Arizona, top-ranked
promotions.
And, yeah, we're looking to getthe title back.
And who is he against?
And yeah, we're looking to getthe title back.
And who is he against?
His name is Espinosa ToughMexican fighter, 6'1".
So he's tall, oh, 6'1".
Yeah, at 126.

Speaker 3 (57:04):
Wow, shit, yeah, yeah .

Speaker 2 (57:05):
So we got it, and I mean he did a good job.
We wobbled him in the firstround, the first fight.
This is when I wasn't workingwith him and he came back to win
the fight.
But it's a whole differentRobycy this time around.

Speaker 1 (57:19):
My man, phil DeRue, trainer to the stars in
Hollywood, all the way to theguys in the cage and the ring.
It's a pleasure to have you onStraight Outta La Lair Rock.
We are out.