Even though I’m not a competitive keirin racer and don’t train any (and you probably aren’t either), this video shed some clear insights on what it takes to achieve substantial results. Here’s what those “clues” or key concepts are to me, along with an explanation on why they’re so important from a strength coaches perspective.

1). Collects data. The dullest of ink is better than the best of memories. That’s a famous quote from Tommy Kono, an olympic weight lifting champion of the 1950′s. One of the biggest mistakes people make is not writing down and tracking what they do. If you don’t have a plan it’s way to easy to get side tracked for one, and how do you know if you’re making progress if you’re not measuring any data? You can’t base your training off emotions. How bad you sweat or how out of breath you get is not indicative to progress in the gym. You need something that’s honest. Writing down and keeping track of your loading parameters does just that. At USI we measure what matters; sets, repetitions performed, the tempo of the exercises, and the rest intervals. We keep meticulous notes on what we see, and we know what an athlete needs to work on. And when you’re not making progress based off of your numbers we tweak your program. Another very popular saying in the weight room is “you’re only as strong as your weakest link”. We collect data to identify what that weak link is so we can make it stronger, and this was actually mentioned in the video.

2). Trains at maximum effort every time. Hard Work. Those are the two most important words when it comes to results. To accomplish this the progressive overload principle must be applied. In layman’s terms this simply means your training has to get harder, more demanding, and somehow more challenging. You’re wasting your time if you’re not pushing yourself every time you train. If you lift the same weights for the same number of repetitions all the time there’s no reason for your body to get stronger because the stimulus hasn’t changed. If you can’t train at maximal effort you need to find out why. Are you not getting enough quality sleep? Are you training to long or to often? Is your nutritional needs not on par with your training demands? Do you need some soft tissue work? These are some of the things that could be affecting your performance and some of the questions you need to ask yourself.

3). Nutrition IS NOT enough. You must take some key supplements to train and compete at a high level or simply to be your best. To get someone in great shape today you practically have to be a functional medicine practitioner. Why’s that you might ask? Because we put fertilizer, pesticides and herbicides on our soil, we don’t rotate our crops, and we feed our animals foods they are not supposed to eat (for instance, cows are meant to eat grass, not grains). Because we do this our food is devoid of vitamins and minerals, are animals fatty acid composition is no longer healthy for us, our water is tainted with crap such as chromium-6, we are exposed to a ridiculous amount of toxins on a daily basis, we are stressed to the max, etc. You cannot out train deficiencies. Everyone that comes into USI gets a consultation on nutrition and we determine what is lacking in their diet. If these deficiencies are not corrected, good luck getting into the shape you desire. It probably won’t happen.

4). He’s not afraid to push his training to where he feels like he’ll puke, take a dump in his pants, or black out. You can’t hold back or be afraid to take it to the next level. You will probably feel uncomfortable, your brain might want to quit, your muscles will probably hurt. You will be sore. Good. You’re not training for entertainment, you’re training for results. And maybe this will transfer into other areas of your life and you’ll achieve more success with other endeavors. Exercise can be a very powerful vehicle for success. Everyone needs to be doing it, and everyone needs to learn what is going to give them the biggest return on their investment, which is their time.

I’ve used programs like this with too many people to count for several years. Doing circuits at all can be a real problem in a regular membership based gym. Since I have my own private training facility I don’t have that problem. I can do whatever I want with my clients.

I treat my facility like a proving ground. Constantly applying and testing what I know and/or think might work. I still use Death Circuits like the one above, but I also use ones where there’s more than four exercises involved. Recently I’ve been using a heart rate monitor on a few of my athletes that are involved in mixed martial arts or brazilian jiu-jitsu. I’ve messed around with prescribed reps and prescribed times. For instance, instead of having someone perform an exercise for 12 reps I’ll have them just go for 40 seconds straight (40 seconds is just an example. You could go 30 seconds, 60 seconds, etc.) Some exercises when done in a circuit I think work better with timed sets instead of prescribed rep ranges.

I’ve tested different circuits to see which one’s get the heart rate up more. Does three big compound exercises get the heart rate higher than four, five, or six? Some tests have surprised me.

The guys I used these on didn’t necessarily like the training because the workouts were brutally hard. But they knew they were effective. They didn’t complain ever and usually asked for it. They had serious mental toughness.

When I think of mental toughness I think of Drill Instructor Sergeant Kiehle (one of my drill instructors when I was in the Marine Corps) always saying your brain will quite before your body. I’ll never forget that guy. His mental toughness was stronger than anyone’s I’d ever seen. I once saw him run 3-miles with a gas mask on and a back pack with an ammo can inside and he ran it in 19 minutes and 10 seconds. The guy was a beast. To build mental toughness you’ve got to be willing to go through some pain. You’ve got to dig down deep and push yourself harder than you want.

Here is a training video of one of my athletes pushing the limit while getting ready for the Golden Gloves boxing tournament.

Sol Kim (one of my jiu-jitsu athletes) did these workouts and took second at the IBJJF (International Brazilian Jiu Jitsu Federation) Tournament and told me as soon as he was done that the heart rate circuits helped him a lot.

Narcis (another one of my jiu-jitsu guys) did these workouts and took First place at the same tournament and told me the exact same thing.

Jaspaul Gill (the guy in the video) told me the conditioning workouts at USI are legendary.

All these guys exemplify what Sergeant Kiehle had…mental toughness.

You gotta push it to the limit if you want to be an endurance machine.

Enter Physiology: Heart Rate Training

I’ve had a few martial arts competitors tell me that they didn’t think their sport was providing them with hard enough conditioning to dominate a fight or tournament without the fear of gassing out. For the past few years I’ve spent a considerable amount of time developing training that can provide the fastest progress towards getting someone as conditioned as possible. One thing I’ve messed around with during this time is heart rate training.

Most of the time it’s runners that use heart rate monitors, and most of the time you hear people trying to stay within their target heart rate zone or the fat burning zone. I could care less about either of those two things because 1) MMA is an anaerobic sport and not an aerobic sport. And 2) The fat burning zone is a bunch of old outdated B.S. Staying in that zone to burn more fat is the worst way to burn fat.

What we’re looking for is how high we can get the heart rate up to, and then how fast we can get it back down. The faster it drops back down the more conditioned you are. The longer you can train at a very high heart rate, the more conditioned you are. From there we’re figuring out what’s the best progressions to use to ensure continual progress (that is the hard part).

Below are a few videos of two of my MMA athletes that compete. One competes in Jiu-Jitsu tournaments and the other kickboxing and boxing.

What we did was simple but not easy. We didn’t try to create some crazy new exercises for this. We utilized the basic time tested proven ones. But we changed how they were done. We changed the details. Both of them did the exact same workout. The only thing different was the rest. Instead of prescribing arbitrary rest times between rounds, we based everything off their heart rate and ability to recover. One was given rest until his heart rate hit 135 beats per minute, and the other 145 beats per minute. We looked at how high their heart rate got, how high their heart rate came back down, and their perceived exertion.

Our mission at USI is to utilize the best training methodologies and to continue to learn, grow, and evolve to ensure the most cutting edge training, nutrition, and supplementation possible to maximize performance in the short yet safest way possible. We do this by staying in academia, developing the best resources, and by testing and measuring everything we do.

Enter BioSignature Modulation

Around 2003 I read about BioSignature from Charles Poliquin. Charles is the most successful strength coach in the world and in my opinion by far the best. I often refer to him as the Albert Einstein of my industry. Coach Poliquin noticed that providing different supplements would drive down certain body fat deposits on the body. He correlated all his findings with blood work and since then has developed BioSignature into a very sought after application. The second he had a hands on seminar to teach it I was there.

With BioSignature there are ten sites that are measured and eight of them are correlated with a hormone or an organ/gland.

• Androgens
• Estrogens
• Carbohydrate tolerance (genetic and environmental)
• Thyroid and Adrenal
• Cortisol (stress)
• Liver
• and Sleep Quality

Once you measure these ten sites on someone, you know where their biggest problem is based off of ratios. Once this information is discovered, a specific protocol can be implemented to correct the area. Ever since I’ve utilized BioSignature on myself and countless others I’ve had some very impressive results.

Here’a a quick video of myself taking Cliff Hagermans BioSignature reading. Cliff is a jiu-jitsu practitioner/competitor, MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) fighter, and a very good friend of mine. Below the video I’ve attached a PDF of Cliff’s reading for you to see. It won’t show what is out of balance the most on that sheet though.

Cliff H. BioSignature Trainer’s Report

Anyone interested in getting their BioSignature done, give me a call at 312-725-4874 or email me at chris@usichicago.com to set up an appointment.

PS. If you know someone that you think could benefit from this, please feel free and send them the info. And if you do I greatly appreciate it.

The title might be cliche, but it’s a cliche for a reason…because it’s true.

If you haven’t been living under a rock you probably know that the guy in the picture is “The California Kid” Urijah Faber, the former WEC Feather Weight Champion (and hopefully re-crowned champion tonight after his fight against Jose Aldo).

So what does this guy have to do with this blog post? A lot.

Whenever anyone trains they should have a purpose. I’d go so far as to say that they need a purpose if results is what they seek. If you’re just training for recreation than I guess a purpose isn’t necessary, but then you’re not training, you’re exercising. There’s a big difference.

Whenever anyone comes to train at USI we make sure that they know what their primary objective is. They need this, and we need this so we have something to shoot for. A target if you will. We’re not interested in having you exercise. You can do that at your local fitness center with all the other out of shape people that have given up on life. We’re here to make you train and help you strive to become your best. But if you don’t believe that you’re capable of that, then we can’t help you.

Urijah Faber is definitely one of my favorite MMA Fighters. Not just because he’s an amazing athlete, but because of his work ethic, his optimism, and above all else…his confidence.

If you came to train at USI and said you wanted to obtain a physique like his with the conditioning to boot, then we’d have to have you train like him. But it doesn’t stop there. You’d have to have confidence. You’d have to believe to achieve. I’m not implying you’d look just like him or be a freak athlete like him. But I’d be willing to bet a substantial amount of money that you’d get a lot better. Leaner, stronger, more conditioned, and feel better too. I’d doubt you’d be unhappy with that.

So, regardless of who’d you want to look like or who’d you’d like to be like, you must ask yourself What actions are necessary to achieve this?

What road blocks will stand in the way and what will I do when I hit them?

Test yourself, get uncomfortable, and set up small achievable goals. And above all else, have confidence. Before long you will be laser focused.

Urijah Faber had a great article in the latest edition of FightMagazine. Two things he said that really got me thinking was “There’s only two things you have to do in life, you have to die and you have to live, until you die, the rest is up to you.”

“A champion is a champion because of what’s inside of him. It’s not because of anything else.”

Check out what Faber has to say about Confidence below and tell me that doesn’t motivate you.

So how do you want to live?