Two Peas in a Podcast

Episode 118 - Phil Daru

Phil Daru is a world renowned strength and conditioning coach and is the founder of Daru Strong. Phil has had the pleasure of working with world renowned celebrities, NFL players, World Champion Boxers, UFC fighters and Olympic athletes. He has worked with some of the most elite athletes and fighters in the world, including the likes of Joanna Jedrzejczyk and Dustin Poirier.

To connect with Phil directly please go to:

https://darustrong.com/

Broadcast on:: 27 Sep 2024
Audio Format:: other

Phil, you are genuinely one of the kindest human beings of all time. I'm so so grateful for this opportunity for us to record again. Thank you first and foremost for being here and sharing your valuable time with me and our audience. All good, man. What do we go? We went a good 45 minutes to an hour. We went almost an hour last time and then based on the crappy florida temperature, we lost part of the recording. I would definitely say that. I would definitely say that my phone overheated in the car, as we were talking, because it is so hot. Now it's it's raining out. We actually got a hurricane coming. So wait on that. That scares the crap out of me. So I have absolutely no idea how you survive down in Florida knowing that you never know exactly what the weather is going to bring. So used to hurricanes, man, living down here. So it's not it's not it's a category three, but we're getting the the outer end of it, which is actually worse. My wife is the meteorologist. She knows all about the weather. So I always ask her. But I would say, you know, the thing that I am and the one thing that I was totally taken back from was tornadoes. And I got caught in a tornado in Dallas. And I was in a I was actually in its funny story. I was in an in an outburger. And we I was just getting done with a seminar. And I was like ordering my food, then all of a sudden the lights went dim. And then it turned off. And then like it was like night and day was sunny out. And all of a sudden it went black and went super dark. And then my boy that lives out there that brought me out for the seminar, he lives in Dallas. He's from Texas. And he's like, yeah, we're gonna have a tornado. And I was like, come on, man, get the hell out of here. And sure enough, you heard like the whistling of like that train whistling noise. And I was like, oh shit, we're gonna die. This is it. So I was like, you know what, if I'm gonna go, I might as well finish off my burger and fries. So I was eating, you know, things were flying. I felt like there was cows flying to buy me and stuff, you know, like to like the movies. But it was all good. Nothing really too dangerous. We did have an outage. So I stayed there for an extra day. But I could say I got caught in a tornado in and in an outburger. So small, does that make you feel? Because every single time, like I'm in Chicago area, and every single time there's a tornado or something happening close to us, always look outside and just seeing these like incredibly giant clouds, I always go, we as humans get so caught up in this idea of like everyday life going to work doing this. And then you keep forgetting how small you are and how little the world gives a shit about what it is that you have going on. Because those storms are so, so powerful and just can knock out towns. Yeah, I mean, there's the world in general. I think everything is gonna go round, you know, no matter what you're doing, life goes on. And it depends. It's all subjective, you know, what you have going on is very important for you because you have aspirations, you have, you have goals in mind, you have a vision for yourself. So everybody kind of gets caught up in their own stuff. And unfortunately, you know, we neglect to stop and take a look at our surroundings every once in a while and actually see the beauty in nature and see the beauty in our lives in general and stop being caught up in the minutiae or the day-to-day process. Yeah, I love hearing you talk about beauty because I know exactly how wonderful and incredible of a life you built based on hard work, based on the kindness that you showed to everyone. So let me start out by asking you this question. How good does it feel today knowing that you're one of the best trainers in the world and are officially recognized, I mean, in multiple communities as just that. So, you know, it's funny because I don't necessarily think of that too much. You know, obviously, I do appreciate it when somebody comes up to me and says that. I think for me, it's about constantly looking to increase my value and help others and do that through means of coaching, through means of education, informing myself so that I can inform others, take the knowledge that I've gained, take the information gathered and then being able to reframe that and be able to teach and coach that from my own perspective and through my own experiences. And so I always think about it as like, I want to be on the front line, whatever I do, and it just so happens that's how I lead. I don't lead from the back, I lead from the front, and I show it by examples, right, and going through the actual process. And so for that, you know, when I'm able to get obviously credibility for what I've been able to accomplish, it's a good thing. But it's not something that I'm like, all right, I can just lay back now. So there's always something that you can do, always something better. I laugh when I hear about you talking about leading by example, because I know that you almost passed out and died in one of the workouts. Can you tell us the story of what happened there? Oh, okay. So I was getting ready to do 150 miles Ruck walk. This was, this was in the heart of like the hottest time that you could ever do this in Florida and in anywhere really. But July 4th, it was July 2nd to the 4th, I was, I was aiming for 150 miles, rucking, and what rucking is it just weighted backpacking. And it's a military type of endeavor, you would say, because usually when they have to rock emissions, it's not a great thing to do. It actually sucks. But I wanted to do something for military veterans. So we were raising money for three foundations, defenders of freedom, right, warrior dogs, and also, it's leaving me now. And one other one, I forgot the name, sorry about that. But that was the main focus for me on top of the fact that I wanted to push myself, right? And so all pipe hitters foundation, sorry about that, Eddie Gallagher's foundation. So pipe hitters foundation, warrior dogs, and defenders of freedom. And we ended up raising $10,000, which was, which was solid, right? I ended up only going 51 miles due to the fact that when my feet were about to fall off, I had holes in my feet, I stepped in a puddle at around mile 10. And this puddle wasn't your ordinary puddle. It was a puddle that went ankle deep. So it was like, damn near, I was in a monsoon, and I couldn't get around it. It was just a, it was, it was an unfortunate circumstance. And we had to adjust as much as we possibly can. But since this was the first time of us actually trying to attempt this thing, there was things that were unforeseen that we had to try to work through. And so I ended up developing blisters and, and, and these blisters weren't your ordinary, just everyday blisters. They, these were like quarters, like silver dollar sized, wow, hotspots on the bottoms of the soles of my feet. And then, you know, lost a couple, I lost like five, actually six toenails now. But that wasn't the biggest issue. The biggest issue was, I ended up developing ribdo myelitis, which basically means that if you get proteins and enzymes, because of broken down tissue or broken down muscle, it gets into the bloodstream and it can cause kidney failure. And so I was on the verge of that. And by mile 50, my goal was to go to the hospital just to get my feet wrapped and taken care of from a professional. But they, they looked at me and they said, well, let's run some labs. And as soon as they said that I knew that it wasn't good. And so they saw how it was looking and they came back and they're like, listen, you, this is done, you got to stop. You got, you got it wrapped up. And if you don't stop, you're going to be in kidney failure. And, and at that time, I was definitely feeling it. Now, mind you, I had to do another, what 100 miles to go. Yeah, which is insane. Yeah, it wasn't like a, and I was aiming, I was like, listen, I need to get at least 50 miles and then we can go to the hospital and see how I feel. So, you know, I, I ended up getting that. And then basically I had that decision to make, you know, I have a family, I have a business, I have multiple businesses, I have athletes that I coach. So I had to also think about them. But the one thing that I didn't want to do was, I didn't want to leave anything on the table. So no matter what I was, no matter what happened, I wanted to make sure that I was comfortable with saying that I gave it all my, all I got, at least physically, especially mentally, I was always there. I was always mentally tapped in. I never at any point in time was saying to myself that I'm just going to quit because it hurts. I was going to quit or stop because of long term health issues. And so, that's what I decided to do, to take, take a, let's say a quick or a slight pause in the action, so that I lived to fight another day. And now we learn from that process and then we'll figure out a way to make it happen because I do want to finish, but we have to be smart. We have to be calculated in our approach and have a strategy, not to say that we didn't, but now we're a little bit more in tune on what could happen. And so now we'll be ready when the time comes. Yeah. First and foremost, I'm so happy that you are okay. And you're here with us telling us about this story of like, hey, this might have been kind of dumb. I'm glad I didn't keep pushing. And I'm really excited to explore this mindset. But before we go there, let's ask you this follow-up question. Given that you were in the hospital and you almost like had a serious health issue, you stopped working out and took a break for the next month. Is that right? Yeah. Come on now, I know better than that. Definitely not. So I got out like, you know, it took me some time to actually get my feet under me. As soon as I patched up my feet and I was able to move, I went right back to the gym and slowly started to get back. Now, because of the rap, though, and my creatine kinase levels, now your ordinary creatine kinase levels are sitting around, usually should sit around 150. Let's say you do a heart training session, you get some sort of muscle breakdown. And you may get a little sore from that, right? Usually your kinase levels, your creatine kinase levels should be around three, 350 at the high end after a hard, hard training session. My levels were up to 10,000. Wow. So they were high and I've seen, you know, individuals get higher. I've had people reach out to me saying that they were at 20,000. Luckily, I didn't get to that level. But if I would have kept going, who knows? But so what you need to do is you need to make sure that you're able to still move and get blood flow without muscle damage. So not only was I was actually making sure that I was hydrating myself, keeping sure that I had the electrolytes immediate and constant basis. And then from there, the training was a little bit less intense, but I was still moving my body, right? So I wasn't just laying down. Now, mind you, it took me two to three days to be able to get up and move around because my body did feel like I got hit by a train. But mentally, I was still there. I was still studying soon. I was still, you know, doing what I needed to do mentally to still stay tapped in. And then from there, once I was physically capable of getting on my feet, then we slowly got into integrating back into the training that we did prior, but obviously less intense. Yeah. And to me, it was crazy just to hear how quickly you started coming back to working out because in general, a normal person would go, hey, like this was too intense. I need a little bit of a break. And just knowing who you are as a person and knowing this mindset of being a champion and being the best, I have no doubt that like it pushed you to the extreme. Do you find that a lot of the top athletes in the UFC and the NFL and the NBA across every discipline that you work with have this attitude of I have to turn over every single stone to see just how far I can push it? Yeah, the ones at the elite level, definitely. You know, there's there's a common theme with those individuals that push it to the max and or at the elite of the elite. And they all have similar qualities, similar values. They take every opportunity to learn and grow. And like you said, they leave no stone unturned. So they're constantly checking, rechecking, studying, looking at details that needed for a necessary gain. And then they don't take uncalculated risk either. Right. So that's the that's another thing that a lot of people don't understand. And time never is wasted. So whatever you're learning, whatever you're trying to improve upon, if you're trying to eliminate limiters, you got to look at, you know, what's the best use of my of my time? And that could go for training that could go with fighting, that could go with owning your own business or running a family or communication in general. Right. What what's the best use of use of my time in this particular moment? And how can I get it better to elevate my game to elevate my personality to elevate my ability to produce results? And so when it comes down to that, it's a constant reevaluation process. And having that intro spectrum and knowing yourself is key. Because if you don't know who you are, you don't know what you can accomplish or what you need to get better on to accomplish the end set goal. I love that. I love that because this is such a deep conversation specifically between you as an athlete. How can you build the trust required to have that conversation with some of the best in the world, especially when they are not taking the steps to be doing the right thing all the time? Well, in the beginning, it's it comes down to communication. It also comes down to showing that individual that you truly care about them, not just as an athlete, fighter, whatever client, you show them that you care for them as a person and what they have going on, not just around the training side, but also in their everyday life and their family life. And that kind of shows that you care more so about the individual and that allows that individual to really want to open up and actually be a part of what you had going on. And for me, it's not just about, you know, the Xs and O's or the science behind the training. It is the art of training and coaching where it comes into play. You have to understand personality traits. You have to know how people like to identify certain issues or like to be talked to. A lot of people don't like to be yelled at, believe it or not, even my fighters. You know, I remember the first time I trained one individual was a very well-known fighter of mine. His name, obviously you guys probably know Dustin Poire, and you know, he was one that that for me, I'm so used out in the beginning I was so used to training young athletes, high school football players, and even myself, as a college football player, I didn't really mind getting, I don't want to say yelled at, but, you know, with some authority raising my voice, getting things going and having some high energy, but it didn't work for him, you know, because he didn't come from that background, right? He came from a street background and, you know, all he knew was fighting. So, whatever I did to coach him, I knew that being loud and being highly energetic and like, you know, the raw, raw type of guy wasn't going to get him to the point where we knew he needed to become, you know, to become the person that he is or to become the fighter that he is now and to be successful, come fight night. So, understanding personalities and understanding how people like to learn, like to be coached and be informed is important to as well. And that comes with time, you know, it comes with experience with other individuals and other backgrounds. I've worked with, the fortunate thing for me was when I was at American top team, I was able to work with so many diverse individuals, right? From all walks of life, you know, you had guys from the inner cities of Detroit to, you know, athletes and guys coming from the mountains of Dagestan. And so, you had to formulate a way to communicate and be versatile on your communication skills, showing that versatility and having that ability to evolve that into a way of coaching and then giving them the opportunity to showcase their abilities through your coaching is something that I couldn't get anywhere else. You have to have time, you have to spend time on the floor, you have to spend time with so many different individuals. And, bro, let me let me tell you right now, like I'm, I'm an introvert, right, to a degree, which I would say that because knowing the killers that you're surrounded by, it's hard to be an introvert knowing that you have such a level of respect, these guys look up to you knowing that, you know, you are so many different things to them. You're a therapist, you're a trainer, you're a person to bounce ideas off of, and you're just, you have to be so in tune with yourself as a person. So to hear you say that you're an introvert is like, yeah, like you can be, but come on, brother, like you have such an incredible skill set of being an extrovert what you need to be. Yeah, I mean, you got to turn it on when the time comes, you know, that's the one thing that I've been able to, like, in some way master, because even like on videos or even here, having to communicate with other individuals that I just meet, you know, for the first time. And that first impression means a lot to any person that you try to meet or go to meet. And so when I do get that first impression, I want them to have a long lasting impression that is a positive one. So I have to come out and be that extroverted person, be that very energetic or having good energy overall being positive and showcasing my abilities as a communicator, but also showing that I truly care about people, right? And that's throughout that's across the board. Yeah, I love hearing that you're just such a caring person, because it comes through in every single thing that you do. And especially on the business front. Now a lot of people see the success of today and they go, hey, Phil must have always had this. Talk to me about the beginnings of you as a business owner and the opportunity with, you know, being the head trainer at the top gym in the country. Well, in the beginning, you know, let's start from when I was in like high school, right? So I've always been someone who loves to gather individuals to go do a thing, right? Whether it is, you know, playing football on the street, manhunt, you know, or getting guys to come to the gym with me. And I've always had that quality of leading that particular way. And then also, you know, the way I organized my first gym, and I was about 22 years old, very young. And it didn't know too much about business, barely had any business skills whatsoever. The one thing that I did have, though, was I had the ability to create a community. And the reason why I did that was because everybody that I brought on board, I had the energy that was contagious. And I wanted to see people succeed, and I knew how to actually get them to get their goals accomplished from a physical standpoint. But if you create a physical change in an individual, it usually stems through or it comes from having a mental, mental block that gets, I would say, broken apart, right? So when I get an individual and I know, all right, you have some problems, you have some issues that could be psychological, right? But if you start to push them physically, and they know that they can go through a physical pain, right? And I mean pain in a good way, right? Pushing through a workout, pushing through a hard run, getting them path, what they feel their discomfort level is, they become a stronger person mentally. And so creating that community with like-minded individuals that all went through the same process, and then they started to help uplift each other and create a team atmosphere in an environment that was contagious for everyone. And it wasn't just like, okay, I had a group of guys here that were all come, they all came from the same background and all that. There was multiple people from all walks of life coming into this one center that I would train. It was 800 square feet, it was a small like a storage closet, and I actually met my wife there. And I had 12, I had 12 individuals, didn't know me at all. Maybe one or two knew me from the past when I was doing other independent contracting training. But most of them didn't know, and the goal was to just allow them to see what I was about. And then also everybody loves to push the boundaries, everybody wants to see where they're at, everybody wants to see how much they can push and how strong they can actually be. And when I got them to that level, when I guided them to that edge of the cliff, and then slightly pulled them back, they said, okay, I know I can push a little further the next day, and the next day, and the next day. And then they started to get results. And so when you have that, people are going to be wanting more, and they want to bring other people along with them, show them the ride that they're on. And so it ended up growing exponentially within a short time span. And so I had to really bring up my business savvy and my skill set there in my knowledge base. So marketing, marketing strategies, different promotional strategies, things like that. I was doing things on social media by that time, mainly putting out just workouts and things like that on YouTube and Facebook, those were the two platforms. And then eventually when it's an Instagram, which again, my wife will take credit for that. She said she was the one that got me an Instagram. So shout out to her. You know, and then I just started to put out constantly putting out content, not only of myself training, but my athletes, my clients. And I had a big bootcamp, which was really good at that time, because it allowed me to train a large amount of people with a very short time span that I had, because I was still training for fights. So I would train, you know, maybe two or three classes a day, and then I would have some personals here and there, and then I would go train myself. And so it grew into about 11,000 square foot facility. We had over 300 members in and out. And at that point, you know, I wanted more, though, I was happy, but I wasn't satisfied. Let's put it like that. And so I knew that I wanted to work with some high level people. At that point, you know, I was on the tailoring of my fighting career, basically with the concussions and just time itself. I wasn't able to focus on it. So, you know, the opportunity came where I was able to go ahead and go to a gym that I knew that was going to elevate my career as a coach, helped me build my experience with other high level individuals and helped build the brand. And so we took a leap of faith in that in that way, and took a calculated risk, you would say, and went full time in there, sold the gym, and then started doing, you know, just some small stuff next to my house and next to the next, like about 10 minutes from my, from my house. So I was able to still do the content and then go travel down to coconut creek and train some of the best fighters in the world. And we did that for five years. So what is that conversation like with a significant other where you go, hey, I built this incredible business. We're having a lot of success. I'm going to give this up for an opportunity at potentially building something great without having any proof that we're on the way there. You got to have a partner that supports everything you do. And then it's real with you too as well on top of that. Like sometimes, you know, you could have crazy ideas and I do have crazy ideas. And the one thing that my wife will always do is keep it real. And she'll tell me if it's a good thing or maybe that's not the way to go. And so she's a good judge of that. And she's also a good judge of character, people come into my life all the time. And I'm, and I'm really receptive to a lot of people. And she she'll, she'll, she'll tell you right then and there that's not the guy or that's not the girl, you know, or accepted. And then we know what's up, you know, then we can keep moving forward. But yeah, it is important. You know, the thing that I had, I talked to her about it when the opportunity came up and it was, you know, I was like, you know, what I'm not going to make as much money. But she was like, now go for it. Because there's, there's other opportunities that are going to come up this. And I knew it too. But it's very hard, you know, to see the forest through the trees type of deal when you're, when you're already successful at this level. But there's so much more out there. And so I would have, let's say we never did that. Maybe I never went to Coconut Creek, KTT. I would have been successful still. I would have built the gym up and we would have had maybe two or three, you know, and franchise it or, or had multiple locations. But I never, I don't think I would have got to the point where I have a world-renowned brand. And then also, I wouldn't have got the opportunity to work with the highest level of individuals in the sport. So just depends on the decisions that you make. And as long as those people that you care about most support that decision, then the sky's the limit. So make sure that you have a support system there that allows you to go after your vision. And you don't have anybody holding you back to do it. And if it takes you not having to have that individual in your life, then so be it. But you have to make the decisions appropriately. And that's one thing that I, as I look back and connect the dots, decisions will dictate everything in life. And so you have to be calculated, you have to be conscious, and you have to be somewhat patient in the way you decision make. Because it will either make or break you down the line. And it could make it a lot more difficult to get to the end goal. Let's say even if you do decide to go this route and it may not pan out, and you may have taken a loss, you know, you take three steps back, maybe you take, you know, four or five steps forward, but you didn't have to take those three steps back. So just be calculated. And the other thing that I would say is that get someone around you or get a mentor that's been there before, so that you can ask those questions, where you can learn from their mistakes as opposed to your own, and then just keep moving forward. And that's why I think that every generation, when I have, you know, my kids, they're not going to have to go through any of the situations that I've gone through because I've already went through, right? And so you can put them in the right position to succeed based upon your own losses. And their kids are going to be better off because of their losses and so on and so forth. And that's how it should go. You know, every, every generation should level up on the, on the older generation. Yeah. One of the biggest like things that I just take away from every single conversation that we have is this particular way that you have of speaking. And it's always talking about us as a team, like we made it. Here's the thing that we did together, which just shows how much you appreciate being surrounded by good company and making sure that, you know, every single decision that you make is seen as a decision for your entire family and as a team. Talk, talk to me about this value of building a team, especially when working with high caliber athletes, knowing that for a lot of people, the way that they think about themselves is like, I'm out here doing this by myself and the culture that you're trying to create as one of a team. You can't do it without a team. And if anybody says that they did it all on their own, they're probably lying, right? At some point in time, you cannot do it all on your own. Otherwise, you are going to fall short, right? And the reason why I say that is because, you know, there's going to be times where you're going to need someone to show you certain things, right? You have to learn the process before anything. So even if you learn online, let's say, for instance, YouTube University, right? You had to learn from others to be able to do what you do. So what I will always say is I will always pay it forward to those individuals that are looking to be at the position that I'm at now or higher than me. And because I've had the opportunity to be able to talk to individuals and be able to learn and grow and then bring on people that wanted to learn from me. And then ultimately, they end up helping me out, right? Because they may know something that I don't know. And that's the goal, is to have a team that surrounds you that's smarter than you, right? You never want to be the smartest one in the room. You're in the wrong room, right? They say that all the time. So I try to make sure that I'm in a room where I'm like, damn, I could learn from everybody. And usually that's the case. Always, always staying humble. What's really, really cool is just seeing how far you have come and knowing, you know, once upon a time you were this personal trainer who didn't know if he was going to make it because it feels like there are so many people who are doing personal training. What is it like today having the pressure on you for the fighters, specifically for the fighters to perform, knowing that you can do everything possible on the strength and conditioning side of the world. And the outcome might still not be exactly what you expect because of the circumstances, because of the fight game and what it is. That's a good question. So in the beginning, when I was younger, it was tough. It was really tough. And I would go above and beyond, and I still do, but I would put a level of stress on myself. And the anxiety was so high because of the fact that I know that it's life or death for them, right? It's their livelihood. And I was there at one point. And so, but, you know, going through this consistently, I don't know how many fight camps I've been through now. But I've been through great camps where everything was spot on. All the numbers went up. They progressed from a strength standpoint, a conditioning standpoint, but it's the fight game. And they could go out there and get caught and get TKO'd or KO'd within the first minute. And then you go, well, damn, we just spent 12 weeks or eight weeks preparing for this. And it's worse for the skills coaches, because they prepared technically and tactically for this particular fight or competition or whatever have you. And to go out there and lose like that, it's heartbreaking. And it's even more heartbreaking for the fighter. So, you know, I put it in that perspective and think about all the things that I know that I can control, the biggest thing that you have to understand is that accept the things that you can control and accept the things that you cannot. And for the most part, you cannot control the outcome. You can only control the build up and the execution to the process. Otherwise, you're going to bring yourself crazy. Yeah, I love that. Now, every single fighter and every single camp and every single team has a different approach to strength and conditioning. It's become really obvious that the best of the best all have some type of training. Now, like, once upon a time, BJ Penn's team was like the crazy one who did just strength and conditioning ahead of the fight. What is the ideal combination of skill training to strength and conditioning that you've seen for fighters having long term success? That's a good question too. So, like, to break it down, I would say that in the beginning when they're learning the skills, right, let's say there's two types of, well, several types of individuals in the combat sport world you have, and there's hybrids too as well. But you have the athlete that comes from a traditional athletic background, maybe played football in college like myself or played some type of sport, right, that they developed an athletic ability, let's say, for instance, or movement quality or some sort of attribute that carries over into the cage of the ring, right? Those individuals primarily, because they have built up all of this athleticism, strength, power, speed, endurance, for the most part, they need to be focused on their skills training. They need to improve on their technical efficiency. They need to be in there sparring and actually taking shots, getting in there and grappling or so on and so forth. We're talking about MMA or whatever sport in the combat sport world that's grappling based, if that's the limiter, then that's what they're going to be spending most of their focus time on. And that's going to be situated more early on in the day. So, like, let's say, for instance, morning to afternoon time, when they're somewhat fresh, they're going to be doing more of their skills training. Now, this is for those athletes with that background. And then later on in the day, they can do their physical training, right, their physical prep work. Now, flip that to individuals that are very skillful, that have experience in the actual sport of martial arts, whether it be boxing, kickboxing, MMA, whatever. And they've been so specific in their approach that now they blacked or they're gaining or they're accruing injury because of the fact that they are one-dimensional in their movement quality. And the only reason why we would want to generally get them more fit, and I say that loosely because you're obviously fit for the sport, but generally strong overall and covering all bases is because we want to reduce the risk of non-contact injury. And we want to prolong the career as much as possible, along with getting them healthy and creating a better well-being for them after the sport. So, strength and conditioning, mobility work, any type of physical preparation work is going to be the focus point primarily for those individuals, right? So, you would say maybe like a 70/30, 70% will be physical preparation, 30% will be actual skill, technique, drilling, stuff like that. And that's primarily going to be on the off-camp side of things, right, when we're trying to build and create a better well-rounded individual from an athlete standpoint. And you're plugging the gaps, you're reducing the limiters. Once they get into the fight camp, then it reduces down to maybe 50/50, right, where they're still doing their physical prep work and they're still putting together a game plan. That's tactical and technical based upon, you know, what they want to accomplish or how they want to approach the fight. From the other side, the athlete side, let's say, once they get into camp, then it is 70/30, right, 70% game plan, 30% is going to be, you know, strength and power because they already pretty much have it. It's just about maintenance at that point. And they're going to get a large amount of their conditioning, specifically from sparring live rounds and grabs links, so on and so forth. So it is subjective, and I hate saying that because that's like the default term nowadays, but that's true. It is what it is. And so you look at each individual and you look at their strengths, their weaknesses, we call them limiters and their compensators. You know, your compensators are going to be what you fall back on based upon, you know, past experiences. And we want to plug the gaps when we see necessary. It's the same thing when you look at, you know, a crossfitter or some sport that has mixed modal demands, you got to, you got to pretty much vertically integrate and focus on times where you need to focus and maintain on times where you need to maintain. Yeah. And what's amazing about this complex answer from you is first and foremost hearing it and knowing that each path and each journey is specific to that individual. And what's awesome is it feels like based on social media, based on the coverage that you have seen or has, it's starting to feel a lot more like people are starting to realize just how complex the fight game is, how smart the camps are, how involved every single person is and how intense the training is. Like, what's incredible is how quickly UFC is changing and how many more people are now knowledgeable about every part of the game. Tell me about some of this growth from the time where you started working with clients today and the specific questions and recovery questions and like blood work questions that they're coming to you with because I'm sure those changed over time. It has changed. I would say it's changed drastically within the past two to three years though. You know, you've seen a significant increase in the individuals that are coming into the actual sport with the, and we're talking about if we're talking about mixed martial arts in general, you got the UFC PI or the Performance Institute. They're bringing in guys that have PhDs in exercise physiology and biomechanics and they're really diving deeper into the science behind actual training fighters because for a while, it was all like, let's just circuit train and run them to the ground and just spar and you know, which is still, you could still do that, but it's, you know, sparingly and you have to make sure that there's a strategy behind it and it has to be appropriately placed. You know, so I still do some of the old school quote unquote training, but it has to be properly placed and it has to be conducive for that individual to grow and evolve as a fighter. If they don't need it, it's not necessary. We talk about, you know, a little while ago, we talked about, you know, making sure that you spend your time wisely on everything. And so the elites know that this isn't something that is going to get me better, especially for the timeframe of the eight weeks of camp, then we need to push it out, you know. And so a lot of times, and this can go with strength conditioning as well, right? If an athlete is truly athletic and is strong and are man handling their opponent or their, let's say their training partners on a daily basis inside the training room, then like the goal really is to allow them to work on the things that are truly going to get them better as a martial artist. And that even could be coming down to just, they need a study film, right? They need to mentally tap in. Maybe they need a, they need a sports psychologist to actually get them mentally prepared from a psychological standpoint and give them the mental bandwidth and the fortitude to get through not only the fight, but also the camp itself, right? So you find out exactly what you need. And that goes hand in hand with life in general. So it's like never, you never really want to waste time on, on things that aren't going to get you to that vision that you have. And so, yeah, I don't know what else. I love it because it's, it's the feeling. Did that stop again? Yeah, you're good. Good. It's a feeling of almost like you're on a sinking ship. And there are so many holes that you just have a limited amount of time to plug. So you just try to the best of your ability to do them quickly. In that timeframe, how do you find this balance between doing too much and still finding time for recovery to make sure that first and foremost, the fighter is not getting injured? Yeah, that's, so that's trial and error, right? That, that is a lot of time being spent on cracking a few eggs as to what I like to say to make an omelet. Unfortunately, it's the same with me with the rook, right? You had to, you have to physically go to that endpoint to find out where that edge and where that endpoint is. And then you taper off, you back down, and then you readjust and go for it a little bit more strategically. So there's always a point where you need to push to a point where you know that there is, let's say you're pushing to the end, right, at the end of the day. And once you find that out, you can readjust, re-calibrate, and then find out exactly how we're going to structurally progress this going forward. And so we like to start off with a minimal effective dose, build our way up into a maximal effective dose, and then find that range in the middle and stay in that range in the middle. You can use objective and subjective indicators to maintain this level of progression without fatigue being over accumulated. So a subjective indicator would be just like, again, a basic talk test, or for the athlete itself, knowing their body, right? When they wake up, do they feel tired? Do they feel fatigued? Do they feel sore all the time? Is it hard for them to go to sleep? Is it hard for them to wake up? You know, are they not cognitively aware? Or they're not, you know, I always say like they're trying to push a thought through jello, right? So they're not always on point, and they're not able to articulate the words properly, so on and so forth. When that happens, then it's like, okay, we need to figure out what's going on, and what's the most strenuous thing that you're doing and try to back that down a little bit. An objective indicator is something that is objective, right? So you can use tech or, you know, technology, in that sense, to identify what's going on physiologically, right? So that could be lab work, right? You can measure your cortisol levels. That can be, I mean, conflicting studies are out on the HRB monitors, but you can use heart rate variability, you can use resting heart rate, you can use morning glucose monitoring, and if all these things are elevated or not at a optimal level, then you know that there is something going on with your physiology, and we have to back it down a little bit and then see if that's the problem. You also want to look at making sure that you're not only programming your strength, your power, your speed, your endurance, but you're also programming your recovery days too as well. And your recovery, you can break it down as simple as possible. First and foremost, let's make sure that you're getting enough sleep, quality sleep, restful sleep. You're hitting full REM. You're getting into that deep, you know, rapid eye movement sleep, like we said, REM. And when you're doing that, how are you feeling afterwards? Does that do the trick? And if that's the case, okay, cool, we found out what the problem is. Or maybe is it that you're not eating the right foods for your body to recover? It could be maybe you need to eat a little bit more calories. Maybe you're not eating enough. Maybe you're not taking in enough electrolytes or just water in general. Some people are just dehydrated. And then you can look at supplementation. You can look at those means. You can also look at your cold plunge. You can look at your sauna stuff, all that. There's conflicts in there too as well when it comes to the research. But what I would say is that if it helps you mentally, a lot of my guys like to, when we do weight cuts, right? You've got an option with me, right? You can do the bass where you're doing, you know, basically a hot ass bass, basically, or you can go into the sauna. And some guys like to form all the ladder, right? And then you got to go with that. Because if they're stressed out, because they don't want to do something, now's not the time, right? You got to get them in the best position to de-stress so that they can let off all of the water weight that they have on. But if they're highly stressed out, physically, mentally, emotionally, it's going to be hard for them to do the waker. And the same goes for recovering from the training session. So de-stressing the body is important. It's imperative for you to progress. Yeah. And I am just so, so happy that there is someone as knowledgeable, as flexible, and as smart working with athletes, who is literally called Phil, who's working with the best of the best, because they need all the help, and you're the person to help with that. Now, before we let you go for the day, let us hit you with one final personal question. Now, today you are putting out content, you are doing fight camps, you're involved in a lot of businesses, you are just the busiest men in the world. What are the next steps for you, personally, and what are some of the big things that you're looking to accomplish in the next five to ten years? Okay, so things that we got coming out big time is we have the fight-life app launching within the next couple of weeks, which will be great. It's going to be a consolidation of all of my programs that I've put out within the past six years that I've been able to put out programs. That'll be on there. We're also adding on skills training to as well, so I'm bringing on some of the skills coaches, the technique, from Muay Thai to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, Nogi Engi, to boxing, to regular MMA, and judo to as well. So I'm bringing on some great coaches that I've been able to work with in the past and bring them on to the app too as well. And you're also going to be able to utilize that, trainers are going to be able to utilize that for their own programming. So we'll be able to have a white labeling side of it, where they can use it as their own app, or they can use it as my app, and then just distribute out the programs effectively for all of their athletes. The next thing is the supplements, man. We're going to be revamping the battle tested. We have a new formulation, and then I'm also adding on a pre-workout, which is going to be as clean as possible, third party tested. It'll be USADA approved, WADA approved, and I'm very, very excited about that, because honestly, in my opinion, it's going to be the best on the market when it comes down to pre- and post training for combat sport athletes, for mixed modality athletes, for mixed energy system athletes, whatever. It's going to change the game. It's going to help us out a lot when it comes down to getting them prepared and talk about recovery too as well. And then a few other things in the works that I don't want to really mention just yet, but some books along the line. We got some books launching and things like that. And then also, as far as goals in general, I definitely want to get my black belt here. It's been too long, 15 years of training, and I need to really just hone in on it and get it done. So I've been been studying up and been on the maths a lot lately. And then I'm going back to eventually get my PhD in sports psychology. So those are a few things. Within the 10 years, we'll knock it out. I love it, because you have super small goals where a PhD isn't after thought. Phil, thank you so much for sharing your valuable time. You're an absolute treasure, and we just appreciate you so much, brother. Thank you, bro. I appreciate you. That was awesome, brother. You are just incredible. Thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it, bro. So what?