The Strenuous Life Podcast with Stephan Kesting

Oliver Taza trains at Tristar in Montreal with Firas Zahabi and at Renzo Gracie's in New York City with John Danaher. With his impeccable technique and aggressive grappling style he has amassed an impressive array of wins at Polaris, Metamoris, the ADCC Trials, the No Gi Worlds, and many more competitions. In this episode we go deep into the training and technical development required to hang with the Danaher Death Squad monsters and win at the elite level. I think you'll really like it! Also check out the new instructional I did with Oliver Taza called No Gi Leglocks at https://www.grapplearts.com/taza. I guarantee that it'll immediately take your leglock game up to the next level and allow you to tap out your training partners more often! Cheers, Stephan

Peter Drucker, the godfather of modern business management, once said, "You can't manage what you can't measure." Now I don't think that Peter Drucker did Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (or any other form of martial arts) but the idea of measuring things in order to improve them applies to every field of athletic endeavour. So let's look at some concrete ways that we might quantify our training and improve the results we are getting… Quantifying Your Nutrition Nutrition is a fairly complex field but there are certain tenets that most thoughtful people agree on. For example, almost everyone agrees that you should drink enough water but not too much water. But most athletes still drink way less water than they should be. For me the problem is even worse… I'm a kidney transplant recipient which means I only have one kidney that needs to remain well-flushed. Furthermore I exercise a lot which means that I'm sweating out a lot of fluid. To stay well hydrated I have to drink about 4 to 5 litres of water a day, which is roughly 1 to 1.5 imperial gallons. There's no way I would end up drinking that much if I didn't measure it. Trying to reconstruct the amount of water that passed my lips based on half remembered sips from glasses and water fountains would be totally inaccurate. So I have a very simple method that I've stolen from the bodybuilders… In the morning I fill one of those large 4 liter water jugs with water. And by the time I go to bed it has to be empty. There's no second guessing about how much water did or didn't get drank that day. It's binary, either "Yes, the jug is empty", or "No, the jug still has water in it." This system is a method of quantification. There's no thinking required, so I can that mental energy for other, more important functions. Another example of quantification being critical is the experiment I did with the keto diet. In 2019 I tried the keto diet for a month. At the end of that I felt physically alright, but the data said different. My LDL and triglycerides had skyrocketed, my HDL to LDL ratio had crashed. 30 days of a diet with huge amounts of whipping cream and saturated fat was basically guaranteeing a heart attack within a year. This is NOT to say that keto is bad for everyone; it most certainly does work for some people but it also doesn't work for me. But the point is that you need measurements, bloodwork, and data to know for sure. So if you're going to try a new diet – keto, carnivore, vegan, whatever – don't just rely on some podcast or Youtube video for your information. What worked for that person may not work for you. Please, please, PLEASE go get the relevant bloodwork before you start a new diest to get a baseline, and then again after 1 to 2 months of being on it. Without that bloodwork data you're flying completely blind. With quantification you can see what's actually going on in your veins and arteries, hopefully avoiding a disastrous mistake. That which can be measured can be improved. Quantifying Your Strength and Nutrition Every serious athlete tracks their strength and conditioning, and the more serious the athlete the more minute the data they track. There's a reason that Mikaela Shiffrin, one of the greatest skiers of our time, tracks not only the weights, reps and sets of her squat workout but also the actual velocity that the squat bar moves at. For people at her level the coaches use the ridiculous amount of data generated to track the progress of their athlete. Now for most of us that's too much, but we could all do with a little tracking of workouts. For example, I've kept a training journal for the last 25 years in which I've tracked nearly every strength and conditioning workout I've ever done. From that journal I know that on March 17, 2009 I did the following workout… 8 circuits of bench pressing 155 for 6 reps, followed by pullups to failure, followed by sprinting up and down 6 flights of stairs, Then 3 sets of standing dumbell curl and press exercise in which I did 4 reps with 45 lb dumbells, 6 reps with 40 lb dumbells, and 8 reps with 35 dumbells, Then a single set of 30 back extensions, And two sets of hanging ab raises Note that this is pretty specific but it could have been quantified even more. I could have recorded the times for each of those 8 tower sprints and the number of pullups I did on each set. If I had done that then I could now go back to that workout and know exactly how much I've improved or fallen behind since that workout. Knowing your numbers prevents you from having to 'guess' if you're improving or falling back. That which can be measured can be improved. Quantifying Your BJJ Training Jiu-jitsu training itself is a little harder to quantify because your training partner gets a vote too. You might be planning to have a nice easy sparring session but then the other guy gets all fired up and before you know it you're in one of those death rolls. That being said you can still keep track of how long you trained for and how hard you went. You can quantify your drilling reps, sparring rounds, training intensity and total training time. For example I know that on September 17th last year I did 1 1/4 hours of BJJ drilling and sparring with my friend Alex Kask at a moderate intensity while fasting. If I was getting ready for a competition I might get more specific than that. I might keep track like this… 30 minutes: brainstorming and drilling turtle escapes, getting to guard and/or back to feet 5 x 5 min rounds sparring at easy-moderate intensity focusing on turtle escapes Then 2 x 5 minutes rounds going hard, starting on the feet The bottom line is that feelings can lie to you, memory is faulty, and you are the easiest person to fool. But data doesn't lie. So track what you can, regardless of whether you're using a physical book, a spreadsheet on your computer or the notes app on your phone. That which can be measured can be improved. Stephan Kesting Grapplearts.com P.S. Download my FREE app for iPhone and Android devices called The Grapplearts BJJ Master App. It's been updated recently and now contains more than 600 free minutes of BJJ black belt instruction. Seriously, you'll get a ton of value out of it Click here to get it for iPhone or iPad https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bjj-master-app-by-grapplearts/id1308072068 And click here to get it for Android phones and tablets https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.grappleartcontainer And finally, as always, good luck with your training Stephan

In this conversation BJJ black belt Jon Thomas and I go deep into training and drilling methodologies that give you results as fast as possible. Jon is originally from the US but teaches at a school in Sweden. He still competes at a high level, so he has had to take extreme ownership over his results using reverse-engineering and a very analytical approach to his training. In this episode we go deep into how everyone learns BJJ differently and how therefore the optimal learning environment is also different for everyone. We also cover training methodologies you can use to get better at a smaller gym without a world class talent pool of sparring partners (hint: basically it involves turning your gym into a scientific laboratory for developing techniques). You'll also learn how to increase your mat time without incurring more injuries, methods to develop attack systems from different positions, tournament strategies vs training strategies, and our thoughts on how many top level competitors are on steroids Follow Jon on Instagram where he shares a ton of great techniques at @jonthomasbjj And while you're there also follow me (Stephan Kesting) at @stephan_kesting

Rory Van Vliet and I go deep into the 12 most important concepts to make your guard very hard to pass. Counterintuitively these concepts will also help your guard passing, because now you'll understand what your opponent is doing to try and stop your pass. Grab our Guard Retention Formula in DVD, online streaming, and app form at https://www.grapplearts.com/guardretetention

There's an old saying that goes… "Don't do what's best for you. Instead do what's worst for your opponent." There's a lot of truth there. In a competition your odds of victory go way up if you can prevent your opponent doing the things that he is best at. Optimal Sparring Strategy Rolling in training is different from rolling in competition. In training, during sparring, you actually WANT to spend at least some time in your sparring partner's strongest areas. This way you can get the highest quality training possible. This is especially true if you're bigger or better than the other guy. You WANT to let him into the game so that you can get a good training session in and learn something. So figure out what any given sparring partner is really good at and occasionally let them do it to you! Here's a concrete example… A few days ago I sparred with someone who was 50 lbs lighter than me. Had I just passed his guard and played crush the bug for the rest of the session this would have been good for my ego but bad for my jiu-jitsu. Instead we stayed and played in an area where he is strong – the lasso spider guard – for almost the whole training session. Every time I passed his guard (or he swept me) we would stop and reset back in his lasso guard. The net result of this training was that my training partner got to develop his game against a bigger and reasonably skilled opponent, and I got to work on a somewhat underdeveloped aspect of my game (I've been working no gi a lot and so I needed to blow the dust off of my defences to all these gi-based entanglements). There are competitive elements to training, but training is not competition and competition is not training. Tapping a lighter or a less experienced player out 35 times in a 5 minute match does neither of you any good. The goal of training is to get better. By purposely allowing your training partners to use their best positions and techniques while sparring allows you to feel, experience, and struggle against the highest level jiu-jitsu available to you. That will make you better. Ego is the Enemy Of course life will be easier if you spend all your time doing only things that you're good at.But are you actually going to learn anything new that way? Ego is the enemy. Succumb to it and you'll get injured, burnt out, and get better much slower. Ginni Rometty, the first female CEO of IBM, said, "Growth and comfort do not coexist." Which is a more succinct way of stating that there is no comfort in the growth zone and no growth in the comfort zone. Sometimes it comes down to a question of looking good or getting good. And sometimes you've got to look stupid to get better. Stephan P.S. Check out The Guard Retention Formula in App, DVD, and Online Streaming format at https://www.grapplearts.com/guardretention

A deep dive into designing and running MMA fight camps, how to mix striking with wrestling and jiu-jitsu, conditioning for fights, and much more with Greg Nelson. Greg has trained many MMA and UFC fighters including Brock Lesnar, Dave Menne, Sean Sherk and Thug Rose Namajunas. I really enjoyed this conversation and I think you will too! Grab my free downloadable guide to learning BJJ fast at https://www.grapplearts.com/book Check out the huge archive of techniques and detailed training tips at https://www.grapplearts.com/articles/ ----------------------------------- Grab the "Grapplearts BJJ Master App" with more than 500 minutes of free black belt instruction here: iPhone and iPad: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/bjj-master-app-by-grapplearts/id1308072068 Android phones and tablets: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.grappleartcontainer ----------------------------------- Here are some of my social media links... Tiktok (NEW): https://vm.tiktok.com/QQDSBt Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stephan_kesting Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/grapplearts Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/stephankesting Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/stephankesting ----------------------------------- And, most importantly, good luck with your training! Stephan

Here are the 5 most important skills you can learn from BJJ that'll keep you safer in real confrontations against bigger, stronger, and adrenalized opponents! Download this rant as an illustrated PDF for free at https://selfdefensetutorials.com/get-free-self-defense-tips-by-email/

In this Q&A I cover gameplan development, what to do about training partners figuring out your game, how to find a good gym, whether loyalty to your instructor always a good thing, how sparring is the secret sauce of any effective martial art, and taking time off from jiu-jitsu! These questions came from an Instagram Live session I did. Follow me on Instagram @stephan_kesting or click here: https://www.instagram.com/stephan_kesting/ And while I have your attention, here are some of my other social media links... Tiktok (NEW): https://vm.tiktok.com/QQDSBt Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/grapplearts Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/stephankesting Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/stephankesting Good luck with your training! Stephan Some of the highlights I recent

Rory is a corrections officer with a ton of experience in other branches of law enforcement. He's also a very skilled BJJ black belt at Island Top Team under Rob Biernacki. In this chat we go into depth about how BJJ can be applied in law enforcement situations as well as talking about Rory's latest BJJ instructional, The Guard Retention Formula, which you can find out more about at https://www.grapplearts.com/guardretention. If you've read down this far then you're probably a fan of the podcast. And if that's the case can I ask you for a rating or a review of The Strenuous Life Podcast on whichever platform you use to consume your content? I can't emphasize enough how much that helps. And if you're looking for more from me and my guests then please check out some of my other social media links... Tiktok (NEW): https://vm.tiktok.com/QQDSBt Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/stephan_kesting Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/grapplearts Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/stephankesting Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/stephankesting Finally, as always, good luck with your training! Stephan Kesting

Sticking points and plateaus are inevitable if you train - here are 3 strategies you can use to smash on through to the other side in 2020. Have a great Christmas and New Year's! Stephan