The Strenuous Life Podcast with Stephan Kesting

Brandon Morgan is a high level powerlifter who trains, coaches and competes out of the Kabuki Strength gym in Portland Oregon. In this episode we go deep into strength training and conditioning for combat sports drawing on his personal experience as a wrestler and training MMA athletes to be bigger, stronger, faster, and more injury resistant. Follow Brandon on Instagram at @bmorg33 and at @kabuki_virtualcoaching where he shares a ton of training tips. And please share this episode with someone you think would enjoy it. It's how this podcast grows! Thank you Stephan Kesting

Nini Munoz PhD has a very strong background in risk and failure analysis, and statistical process. She has used these skills and a background in biology to make the science around the Covid-19 pandemic easy to understand and digest on her amazing Instagram feed at https://www.instagram.com/niniandthebrain/ I think you'll enjoy our conversation about risk, science, and who to believe. Take care, Stephan

In this episode I'm joined by pro-wrestler Tad Murphy to talk about the legendary wrestler Karl Gotch. Karl Gotch was a German-Hungarian wrestler born in Belgium who trained at the infamous 'Snake Pit' in Wigan, England, then competed in the United States and then taught several generations of pro-wrestlers in Japan. His influence is the common link between just about every major Japanese MMA organisation including Pride, Shooto, Pancrase, Shootboxing, Rizin and more. You can check out and/or download a high res copy of the Japanese MMA and Catch Wrestling family tree we discuss in this episode at https://www.grapplearts.com/karl-gotch/ Follow Tad Murphy the wrestler on Instagram at @tadwrestler or in his customer success career at @lincolnmurphy

Regardless of whether you want to fight in MMA, work as a cop, or just be effective in self defense you have to know how to function in a stressful environment. Today with Jeff Quail MSc we dive into the physiology of the fight or flight reflex, stress exposure training, the balance between training safety and realism, the carryover between combative sports and policing and much more. Jeff Quail served as a Winnipeg police officer for 25 years, has a Master's degree in Applied Psychology from the University of Liverpool and is currently heavily involved in training police officers how to be more effective in stressful scenarios. And, of course, he trains jiu-jitsu. His book, 'A Scientific Approach to Reality Based Training', is available on Amazon in both paperback and kindle formats https://www.amazon.com/Scientific-Approach-Reality-Based-Training/dp/177529840X/ Enjoy! Stephan Kesting P.S. Check out my latest DVD and online streaming course on winning the guard battle using gripfighting and offbalancing at https://www.grapplearts.com/gripfighting

Two of the best ways to develop your guard are gripfighting and kuzushi. Today I talk with Rob Biernacki about these rarely taught critical skills and how to develop them. Go to https://www.grapplearts.com/gripfighting for more info! Cheers, Stephan Kesting

Why some competitors excel at competition and others don't, hero worship in BJJ, and how to succeed at BJJ partnerships with Andrew 'Goatfury' Smith. Andrew is a 3rd degree black belt who runs Revolution BJJ (https://revolutionbjj.com/) in Richmond Virginia and helped found the US Grappling competition circuit. Please leave a rating and a review of this podcast if you can - it really helps! And download my free checklist to the positions and strategies of BJJ at https://www.grapplearts.com/book Cheers! Stephan Kesting

Today I chat with Dan "TrumpetDan" Lukeheart from Brea Jiu-Jitsu in Orange County about the steps he's taken to keep his school open in a responsible manner during the Covid-19 pandemic, how to improve your BJJ skills during a training layoff, and how to win more matches in tournaments. Check out Dan's school at http://breajiujitsu.com/ The video form of this conversation is available on Youtube at https://youtu.be/JHvGYM0HWmU As always, please share this episode with someone you think would benefit from it! Thanks so much, Stephan Kesting

Your health is like a credit card.. You can definitely put things onto your credit card once in a while. You can even use a credit card to help bridge the gap when you're short on funds. But sooner or later you need to pay it off. But if you keep on making withdrawals against your card without ever putting money back into it then you're going to end up in serious trouble. Your health is the same way. You can't borrow against it indefinitely. If you keep asking your body to push hard without giving it the time and support to recover then things are eventually going to go catastrophically wrong. After beating the crap out of your body you need to balance the books by giving it the opportunity to recover. Hard training without quality recovery is a recipe for disaster, so recovery is a skill you need to master as well. Article format of this episode is here: https://www.grapplearts.com/the-balance-between-stress-and-recovery/ Cheers, Stephan Kesting P.S. Sign up for my newsletter because it's the best, most informative email newsletter about training out there! https://www.grapplearts.com/newsletter

Dr Chris Moriarty is a medical doctor and a former high level black belt BJJ competitor. In this episode we talk about the rapidly evolving situation of covid vaccines, viral variants, and what it means for training jiu-jitsu and martial arts in general. Dr Moriarty has been instrumental in creating guidelines to make BJJ training during a pandemic safer (available at https://www.grapplearts.com/openingupbjj)

Today I talk with Matt Kirtley, better known to many as 'Aesopian', about Changes to jiu-jitsu culture, Crazy martial arts cults, Channeling of ancient spirits, How we can get more out of drilling, Red flags that you're in a jiu-jitsu cult And much more I met Matt ages ago when he published step-by-step breakdowns for the reverse omoplata and the rolling crucifix attack on a forum which I then republished (with permission) on Grapplearts. He's good people! He is a jiu-jitsu black belt who has been heavily involved in online jiu-jitsu culture for 15 years. He writes extensively at Inverted Gear, has helped answer hundreds of BJJ questions for White Belt Wednesdays, and is a Functional Range Conditioning coach. If you enjoyed this episode then check out Episode 290 with Steve Kwan about BJJ Cults and Conspiracies, Episode 291 with Derek Beres from the Conspirituality Pod about Cults and Conspiracies in the Yoga, Wellness and BJJ Community Episode 297 with Mathew Remski about Cults, Prophecies and Deprogramming Your Friends. (Yes, I know there's a theme, but in my opinion focussing on this stuff is more important than ever nowadays.) If you get the chance, please feel free to share this episode with someone you think would enjoy it. Word of mouth is how podcasts like this grow!