82919 2 Cent’s on training ideas

MetCon//

Bar Amanda

9-7-5

Bar Muscle Up

Squat Snatch 135/95

Anthony and Maria were interested to know my take on the ideas discussed in this video of Joe Rogan interviewing Firas Zahabi, a high level MMA coach and trainer. https://m.youtube.com/watch?feature=share&v=_fbCcWyYthQ

It’s a long listen, but interesting. Warning, Joe Rogan interviews inevitably have a few F-Bombs. Disclaimer- I’m a lover, not a fighter and know nothing about fight conditioning or training in the highest ranks of MMA or Jiu Jitsu.

I think he makes some valid points about training frequency, but the way that he backpedals on a couple of points and concedes some ideas about intensity later in the interview shows that there are some context, understanding and language differences to discuss.

If you train the same movements or sport every day, no, you cannot reach maximal intensity on a daily basis or you’ll burn out. That’s a concept true of all training and sport. So if you understand that, part of what Zahabi is explaining is true. Zahabi trains fighters who are fighting for their profession and train the same modality, movements and time domains daily.

But you could follow his advice about soreness and intensity and really forsake the health benefits of consistent relative intensity.

The very beginning of the clip he makes the bold claim that nobody should ever be sore ever from their training. I disagree- Soreness does not blunt training. It doesn’t diminish training. It doesn’t even make training less enjoyable. It doesn’t make training impossible or less fun. Soreness is an inflammatory response to fatigue and stress. The notion that any soreness is a sign of overdoing it really just misses the point and narrowly misses a whole swath of the human population. My mom walks with a cane and walking the dog around the block makes her sore. Did she “over-do-it?” Certainly not. What she needs to do is walk the dog once around the block every single day until her body adapts, then do it twice. The typical American needs to experience some positive physical stress or else they’re on the fast track to chronic disease and an early death. What would you tell someone with RA who wakes up sore no matter what? “Sit in your bed and wait to die?” To choose between intensity and soreness isn’t even a question. The benefits of regular relative intensity outweigh the discomfort of soreness a million to 1. The the temporary discomfort from soreness pales in comparison to improving your life in every conceivable way. If what he is saying we’re true, we’d see people pre-maturely aging themselves. We see the opposite. For me, regular relative intensity has been a fountain of youth. In 35 years of my life, I haven’t been as consistent, disciplined, or excited about any physical activity as I have been about CrossFit for 7 solid years now. Maybe I’m an outlier but many of you come up on a year of consistent training without even realizing it.

At the worst, soreness is a sign of how you need to accommodate that training i.e. “recovery”. A. Cleaner and more nutritious calories. B. better sleep. C. A longer warm-up. If abc don’t get you moving again, then sure, it’s probably time for an unscheduled rest day.

Another interesting point he used to support his “soreness is bad” claim is that he values consistency over intensity. This is pretty narrow minded because consistency and intensity aren’t opposites. You can be consistent and intense. The example he used (if your max set of pull-ups is 10…) is pretty narrow as well. His theory is, every day, I’ll have them do 5 so the weekly volume becomes greater. Well actually physiologically, in order to contract more muscle fibers (recruit more of your muscle), you’ll have to increase the intensity- load, reps, or speed. Consider how many times you’ve done more pull-ups than you could the last time, and the last time we did pull-ups was two weeks ago. We could compromise in a way though. I’d agree that we don’t try to reach max intensity daily locally. As in we don’t do max pull-ups every day. But we do attempt some sort of relative intensity globally whenever we train. Yesterday- Max sprinting on machines; Today- Maximal front squat. Tomorrow- fastest 9-7-5 Bar Muscle Ups and Squat Snatches. We can maintain that intensity over 4-6 days, because we change the stimulus often. That’s also the counter to his idea that training should be addictive and that the only way to enjoy training is to stay in the ‘flow’ state (despite that he later went on to explain that you also need to strengthen and condition and put in the hard work). Because we change the movements and challenges, CrossFit is very enjoyable despite the soreness or fatigue.

As he starts talking about the “problems with CrossFit” it’s clear that he’s speaking a whole different language to a whole different crowd. “CrossFit is only fatigue seeking and there is no skill.” Well first of all, the definition of exercise is fatigue seeking and second of all, when our WOD’s are 4-20 minutes long and our class is an hour, a large part of that is skill acquisition.

At one point, Joe challenges him and says, “well there’s all sorts of top level athletes, pushing really hard every day, and they’re really successful.” Zahabi responds, “but how much better could they be if they didn’t…?” This made me eye-roll because later on Joe asks him about Olympic weightlifting and Zahabi says, “no because Ali didn’t” And i’d ask, “but how much better could he have been if he had?”

Like I said earlier, I’m not a fight conditioning expert. He argues that if you spend time weight lifting, then you won’t have the energy for sport specific training. And that may be true if you’re doing them in the same session, but general conditioning (CrossFit) increases your work capacity in all domains. No CrossFit doesn’t look like any sports we play, but it increases our capacity for specific practice. His sport Grappling/Fighting is pretty taxing, even to practice. Having the energy to practice 100 arm bars is important. Being in good enough shape to practice 150 arm bars is better. Being in good enough shape to practice 150 arm bars at high intensity? If I’m fighting for money I’ll take the 3rd option.

Haha if you’re still reading, this might be interesting. There’s also a cultural idea to discuss here. Zahabi is Middle Eastern-Canadian engrossed in a Brazilian sport. Eastern and Western training ideologies share the value of discipline, but the Eastern (South American and European included) raises skill and natural talent above effort. I don’t always disagree with it. You gotta be a gamer. But it probably doesn’t align with your current physical state or why you’re doing CrossFit in the first place. Are you naturally really really strong or have a natural six pack? Americans appreciate the hard workers, underdogs, tough, and gritty success stories. Zahabi has never been overweight and was probably always a skilled fighter. In Zahabi’s world, why would you exert more effort than you need? In South America, Eastern Europe, and much of Asia, everyday life provides adequate healthy stress and sport is a reprieve from that harshness, extra effort is undesirable. Life in America is pretty cushy. So much so that we go to a gym and pay a trainer to make our lives harder to be healthy. It’s so bad that for the first time in history, our life expectancy is longer than our kids’. We put children in sports so they won’t get diabetes. 100% of the people who train with us at HCF for whatever reason are going to benefit from regular relative intensity far beyond soreness will hurt them.