Building a Fighter
114 episodes - English - Latest episode: almost 2 years ago -Join our weekly coffee hour where we discuss the building blocks of making you a combat ATHLETE, not just a brawler. Dr. Austin Schoen, a sports chiropractor/wrestling coach, and Alex Friedman, an elite strength and conditioning coach, talk on the strength and conditioning, healthcare, nutrition, and sports science behind making you the best athlete you can be.
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Episodes
July Freestyle
July 18, 2022 18:49 - 24 minutes - 22.4 MBToe spacers!! Lol this is a trend that has caught on in Crossfit, and should catch on in MMA. Take care of yo’ feet! We are Freestylin’ in this episode and we cover some peripheral exercises and supplements, grading your return to play from low back pain, and opportunity cost in strength and conditioning. We hit a lot on “functional” ...
Combat Nutrition Power Hour with Christina Chu,MS, RD
July 11, 2022 19:00 - 51 minutes - 47.4 MBOur Favorite Registered Dietician is back! Christina Chu, Dietician extraordinaire! Follow here @christinaychu on Instagram or reacher her through her website: www.christinaychu.com Nutrition Power Hour! Christina joins us to talk on many nutrition topics for our listeners! We cover a broad range of topics including nutrition for recovery, post workout fueling, quick nutrition tips for fight week, and common myths ...
Whats Your Coaching Philosophy?
July 05, 2022 15:49 - 33 minutes - 30.8 MBBuilding a Fighter Ep.112 Coaching Philosophy. What is it and is it useful? We brainstorm and talk about our coaching philosophies in this episode. While we do get into the details a bit in this podcast a solid performance approach with a well organized system will enhance your overall coaching game. A coaching philosophy helps direct your attention and progress ...
The Age Old Argument: Unilateral vs. Bilateral programming
June 27, 2022 19:22 - 22 minutes - 20.5 MBTraining Unilaterally. This training intervention can introduce variability and more athleticism to your workouts! Typically in MMA we are exploding off of one leg. This only makes sense that we should train one one leg, at least occasionally. Let us know what you think of Unilateral training and if you use it in your program! buildingafighter.com Message Building a Fighter ...
The 3 R’s of Recovery
June 20, 2022 18:47 - 30 minutes - 28.2 MBRecovery’s 3 R’s – regulate, refuel, and reflect. You are only as good as you can recover. Each training session cost us – energy, fuel, mental exhaustion. We must come back from that cost even stronger. Here we offer various methods to recover in between workouts and on a constant basis. These methods are not one-off sexy theraguns and ice ...
Building a Robust Mentality
June 13, 2022 19:58 - 32 minutes - 29.7 MBHow 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, ...
Step Up Your Effort
June 06, 2022 23:26 - 22 minutes - 20.7 MBQuick hitter this week. How do you maintain high effort? Everyone says they train hard, everyone works hard, but how ...
Mental Conditioning with Darren Treasure Ph.D.
May 31, 2022 17:30 - 1 hour - 66.2 MBHello, and welcome to our interview with Darren Treasure. Darren is a mental performance coach who works with multiple world ...
The BAF Jiu Jitsu Journeys: Part 1
May 24, 2022 22:40 - 36 minutes - 33.4 MBHaving trouble transitioning from wrestling to jiu jitsu? Or just starting jiu jitsu? We can empathize. As we continue our ...
Interview with Jordan Rudolph of Unity Fitness
May 16, 2022 16:53 - 59 minutes - 54.6 MBJordan Rudolph! Jordan has been a great mentor and friend to Alex since 2016 in La Crosse, Wisconsin. Jordan is ...
Adding Value To Your Athlete’s Performance Team
May 09, 2022 19:34 - 35 minutes - 32.8 MBHow can you add value to a performance team? Is this your show or do you play a role in ...
Lessons From The Field: Wrestling Adaptation
May 02, 2022 17:53 - 29 minutes - 26.7 MBLessons from the field. Within this new series we deep dive into our own process in adapting our wrestling skills ...
Interview With Dr. Brian Gearity
April 26, 2022 00:41 - 58 minutes - 53.5 MBWe welcome Dr. Brian Gearity of The University of Denver. He is the director of the Masters of the Arts ...
Book Club: Relentless by Tim Grover
April 18, 2022 17:03 - 44 minutes - 41.2 MBBook Club installment number two! Relentless by Tim Grover. This book is very popular as Tim Grover (the author) was ...
EPISODE 100! What Do Coaches Need To Know About Healthcare?
April 11, 2022 15:50 - 58 minutes - 53 MBOur Zone #2! Austin goes off in the realm of Sports Performance Heatlthcare and return to performance. How do we ...
How to Implement Different Types of Training in Your Workouts
April 04, 2022 17:12 - 55 minutes - 50.4 MBBack in our zone! We consciously try to explore topics that get us out of our comfort zone both to ...
Freestylin’ in March
March 28, 2022 15:44 - 30 minutes - 27.5 MBFreeeeeeeeee – 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 ...
Practice What You Preach
March 21, 2022 18:47 - 24 minutes - 22.1 MBAs 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 ...
BAF Book Club: It Takes What It Takes By: Trevor Moawad
March 16, 2022 14:17 - 35 minutes - 32.2 MBWelcome 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 ...
How Amateur Wrestling Sets You Up For Success
March 07, 2022 19:41 - 32 minutes - 30.1 MBHigh 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. ...
Weight Cutting With Christina Chu MS, RD
February 28, 2022 18:12 - 54 minutes - 49.5 MBCutting 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 ...
Difference Between Training for Recreation and Training for Performance
February 21, 2022 17:52 - 27 minutes - 25.4 MBThis 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 ...
Should You be Friends With Your Athletes
February 14, 2022 23:23 - 21 minutes - 19.9 MBA 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, ...
Interview with Corey Beasley of Getphysical.com
February 08, 2022 18:08 - 54 minutes - 50.2 MBSuper 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 ...
Programming 101
January 31, 2022 20:35 - 46 minutes - 42.1 MBScience! 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 ...
Orthopedic Cost and Exercise Selection
January 24, 2022 18:06 - 30 minutes - 27.9 MBOrthopedic 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 ...
Help Your Athletes Exploit Their Superpowers
January 18, 2022 01:13 - 32 minutes - 29.7 MBShout 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 ...
Genetic Components to Strength and Conditioning
January 10, 2022 16:52 - 44 minutes - 40.9 MBWe 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 ...
Interview With: Augie Agyei and Eric Telly of Landow Performance
January 03, 2022 02:40 - 1 hour - 58.8 MBThis 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 ...
Year In Review!
December 27, 2021 23:18 - 37 minutes - 34.5 MBOn 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 ...
December Freestyle
December 20, 2021 15:33 - 56 minutes - 51.4 MBThis 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 ...
Professionalism Vs. Authenticity
December 14, 2021 21:23 - 43 minutes - 40.1 MBWhat 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 ...
Interview With Ken Stone, Head Rugby Coach for Denver University
December 06, 2021 15:30 - 1 hour - 71.2 MBKen Stone! This podcast is special. Ken is special. Ken is an elite level rugby coach. Ken hails from the UK, has developed a university and professional level rugby club. Most recently Ken is the Director of Rugby at the University of Denver, and Queen’s City Rugby Football Club. Ken shares many phenomenal coaching and developmental life skills in this ...
It’s OK To Be Sore
November 29, 2021 23:56 - 24 minutes - 22.3 MBIT’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 ...
Spooky Training and A little Freestylin’
November 24, 2021 01:10 - 41 minutes - 38.2 MBHalloween 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, 10×10 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 ...
Freestylin’
November 16, 2021 17:27 - 34 minutes - 31.6 MBEpisode 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 ...
5 Things That Can F*ck Right Off
November 08, 2021 21:24 - 27 minutes - 24.8 MBTaking a note from @thefightdietician, we are listing 5 items/ concepts in MMA and physical training the can F*ck Right Off. If you love rants, this is the podcast for you. There are a lot of actual tips for more logical training in this episode. Learn the actual backbone of what we are training vs learning the fancy tool. Principles ...
Building Your Combat Sports Based Business
November 01, 2021 18:20 - 35 minutes - 32.1 MBBuy In” We are talking about how to infiltrate and be a genuine member of a community or create your own community. In growing both of our small businesses Austin and I have found great success in endeavors where we went all in. Being a member of a community brings a personal touch to gaining clientele from that community and ...
Preparing For Practice with Christina Chu, RD
October 25, 2021 15:07 - 1 hour - 60.6 MBOur favorite guest is back! Christina is here to help us talk about pre-session preparation. This episode is a great guide to make sure you are completely ready to go when the workout hits. Whether it is practice, a lift, or cardio session: at 6am, Noon, or 7pm we cover what can be a good strategy to optimize that session. ...
Grapple To Win
October 20, 2021 18:06 - 33 minutes - 30.4 MBGrappling can be a huge weapon within your MMA game, however there are good and bad ways to implement it in the cage. How does grappling come off to the judges? What is the optimal position to maintain. Even if you are good off your back, should you go there or stay there? Advancing position, staying on top, landing ground ...
Freestyle Part 2
October 04, 2021 18:39 - 46 minutes - 42.1 MBWelcome to a sequel of our freestyle episode where we do the exact same thing as the original. We freestyle, from anime to life choices, to coaching style, to S&C scope. We cover the gambit here. Let us know what our freestyle conversation makes you think of! Hang with us through the Anime talk and I promise you will find ...
Interview With Aaron Porter and Nate Smock; Strength and Conditioning Coaches for Elevation Fight Team
September 27, 2021 18:48 - 56 minutes - 51.8 MBThis week we are joined by some special guests! Alex’s fellow performance coaches at Landow Performance, Aaron Porter, and Nate Smock join us! Both these guys have a ton of experience in training mma athletes and both were trained under Loren Landow. Aaron is a Black Belt in BJJ and sports performance coach for Team Elevation in Denver, Colorado. Nate, ...
The Difference Between Training and Working Out
September 22, 2021 01:39 - 33 minutes - 30.7 MBTraining vs. Working Out. What’s the difference? Working out is like going for a cup of coffee at your favorite coffee shop with some friends and enjoying the view, company and coffee. Training is like drinking a Folgers cup of coffee in a high rise office building while you are negotiating the details of a business deal. Training encompasses a ...
Comparing the Force/Velocity curve to Energy System development
September 13, 2021 18:17 - 38 minutes - 35.4 MBDown the S&C rabbit hole. We play with and juxtapose the Force x Velocity Curve with our Energy System Development. How can we combine the two different exercise science tools and mix intensities with durations and get a certain training effect? We go over a lot of conditioning, exercise modalities and new circuits in this episode, defining energy systems and ...
Skills Assessments
September 07, 2021 01:18 - 35 minutes - 32.1 MBAn assessment of skill is necessary for progression within any sport. Specifically in MMA we have some very definitive skills that need to be measured. Each athlete has their own skills and weaknesses. We need to know how accurately those skills are measured, and then create a plan to work on them in preparation for our upcoming fight! The key ...
Be an Artist, Not a just a Technician
August 30, 2021 19:26 - 40 minutes - 37.1 MBMixed Martial Artist. Be an artist in what you do. Learn the techniques, understand the playing field, but then make it your own. Whether it is skill practice, strength and conditioning, or any other discipline, find what works for you. We take the time to discuss how exploration, creativity, and fun can benefit your training. Plan in some freestyle sessions, ...
Owner Interview: Alex Friedman
August 23, 2021 19:32 - 47 minutes - 43.7 MBOur owner interviews continue with part two of our dynamic duo! Alex Friedman explains his upbringing and his experiences as a wrestler and coach! Alex has wrestled forever, and coached ever since. Alex goes through a background on himself, then explains his current situation and approach to strength and conditioning. Alex explains a lot about his approach to exercise science, ...
BAF Owner Interviews: Austin
August 16, 2021 14:53 - 50 minutes - 46.5 MBThis week we turn the turntables on ourselves. (I hope you watched The Office and get that reference!) This episode is an interview of Austin which makes up one half of our Building a Fighter ownership! Austin explains his background, current hustle, and what the future holds for him. Austin is a phenomenal chiropractor, strength coach, wrestling coach, and not ...
Grappling With Biomechanics: Takedowns Pt. 2
August 09, 2021 15:54 - 52 minutes - 48 MBTakedowns Part Two! Here we go: part two of our Grappling with Biomechanics Takedowns series. Through our exercise science background and biomechanical approach we analyze preparation and how to best execute physical abilities for transfer to takedowns. The highlights of this episode are promoting single leg strength, fluid strength, Isometric Strength, neck pain solutions, hip pain and blockages, and ankle ...
Grappling With Biomechanics: Takedowns
August 02, 2021 22:16 - 54 minutes - 49.5 MBTakedowns! We go off on this one about our favorite takedowns and how to implement them into your BJJ or MMA game. This episode deals a lot in the technical and tactical side of takedowns and how they can play an effective role in your performance. Watch out for part two where we really mix our exercise science background and ...