MMA Strength and Conditioning

Facebook
Tweet
LinkedIn
Cancel

About This Show

Show Info:

Strength and Conditioning for MMA, BJJ, Wrestlers and other Combat Athletes.Read more »

@fcconditioning
/FightCampConditionin

Listen Whenever

iOS
Android
Web Player

Related Shows

#96 with Caleb Rogers aka Mental Sensei

Dec 6, 2018 · 30 minutes

first few sessions. Then you said you got to work. CALEB: Right. COREY: When you’re talking about working with people, what’s a typical, like, what’s the work look like? When people come and see me? It’s like, okay, cool. We’re going to warm up. We re going to do some work. CALEB: Yeah. COREY: That we’re going to go through the — you know, do our reps in the gym, so for you guys, what’s that work look like? 07:02 CALEB: Sure. Let me keep it brief just to lay down and kind of like the I ll give you a little background, I’ll keep it brief but to lay down a foundation so you can understand. I believe everybody’s a vessel. And as a vessel we get filled by energyand you’ve probably heard or learned in school that the energy can’t be created or destroyed, only transferred. So if we’re not intentional about the energy that we’re transferring or the way that we process this energy that comes in, our vessel might get full of stuff that we don’t want it to get full of. That can be the stresses or pressure about fight lives, that could be coaches, that can be relationships that go awry, that can be finances that come up and bite us in the butt. There’s a lot of things that can stir us up to put us in an off state. And furthermore, we try to like hide these things and we will say one thing or do another thing, right and I believe that people have power. I believe everybody’s got a spirit of power. People with power are consistent in what they think , what they say, and what they do. 08:00 We want to feed this system of power by giving intention to the thoughts that we feed. Furthermore, I believe that what you feed, grows, right? If you feed your body bad stuff, I mean, if you’ve had some really exceptional people on here, you’re not going to get the results you want, you’re going to get overweight, you’re going to get out of shape. It’s the same thing with your mind. When we get very, very clear on what we’re wanting, why we’re doing it, who we are as a person that’s going to get it done and how we’re going to do it. I’ll work with my athletes to kind of create what I call a mantraor acreed. And through that mantra and that creed, we begin to see that every day. We’re intentional about what thoughts that we feed every day. You know, there’s a Bible verse that talks about night, like I said, I study all different types of theology and stuff that says: Take every thought captive . 08:49 And I love that because that really embodies what we’re talking about is if we’re not being intentional about what we consume, then we’re not being intentional about what we re creating or destroying in our lives? Does that make sense? COREY: Yeah, absolutely. So you create a mantra for that person that kind of like in embodies all the things that you discover about that individual or discover together, right? About who they are what they are at, where they’re going, why, right? CALEB: Sure. COREY: And then you create that mantra for them to just grind that thing into their head every single day. 09:28 CALEB: Sure, that along with other stuff, and I should clarify her too, like, there’s kind of two modes and everything’s based on the individual. One person who comes in may not get necessarily the exact same type of treatment as another person, because we’re all a little bit different, and how we process stuff, information and coaching, especially in the mind. A lot of athletes will hire me for their fight camp. And that’s a much more agenda focused program like that would probably be something that you would see in a Strength and Conditioning programand main, yeah, we start with the mantra, we start with our strategy figure out how we’re going to feed that, we move into visualization, we have a hell week, we have a push the line weekwhere we’re expanding our limits, we turn to these things, we set the tone with morning and evening rituals. I mean, it’s a very structured kind of program that I guide the athlete through. And that typically takes about a week. But outside of that, I also have what’s called kind of a maintenance mode, a life mode. And this is just when life happens. I mean, I’ve talked to so many fighters were like, maybe they’ve been in a relationship. And that thing’s gone south and man, they are just — they don’t know how to process it and it shows up in their training. COREY: Sure. 10:37 CALEB: And I ve seen I ve worked with many athletes that they kind of — something’s not going right at home, and then because of that, like they’re not getting the results that they want in the gym. They’re doing the work, but they’re just — they’re not. They’re not there, right? They’re not present in that moment. So I’ve had some athletes where they didn’t really need as much structure or agenda around the fight camp. It was more processing the things of life. And when that — it’s kind of weird, it’s a weird balance, I got to know when to push and when to pull, when there’s agenda and when there’s not. And in some instances, my job is listening and helping them to process whatever is coming up in life. Whether that be their relationships, their finances, their coaching, stuff, communication, all sorts of stuff that can spring up. So it s a little bit different. 11:24 COREY: I ve seen — I mean, that’s good information to hear too because a lot of guys might think about just fight camp, like tell me how to walk through [inaudible] be confident, have no second guesses, understand exactly what I need to do and to be completely clear walking in. That’s great. That’s awesome. Right? I’ve heard people talk about being a fighter, being an athlete, right, and the fighter you know, those square up to somebody at Walmart, they look big care less, right? CALEB: Right. COREY: If the dude is 200 pounds bigger than them or not, doesn’t matter. Right? They have that mindset. Whereas the athlete is incredibly talented, physically gifted, but maybe not so strong between years. Right? Remember you hear people talk about showing up when the lights come on. Or some guys do some guys don’t as well. And that s just part of it. CALEB: Right. COREY: But that being said; Man, watching these guys and girls over the last I think decade or so you’re dead on right that a lot of the things outside the gym are crippling them. Whether they’re habits or relationships or whatever finances all these different things. I’ve seen all of those things, headline people, and I’m talking about people that are in the UFC that has had a belt around their waist. CALEB: Oh, yeah. Yeah, exactly. COREY: And it’s not like those, you know, people might think also that, oh, when I get to the UFC, everything’s going to change. But, well, it s not quite the case. 12:50 CALEB: Yeah. And I’d love to get there. I mean, I think that kind of goes into the nature of kind of why we’re competing. Yeah, like, I love what you said it. I think, I don’t know if you watch that breakdown. I think it’s Dan Hardydoes it. But you know, he said that thing like; There’s fighters who compete and there’s athletes who fight . 13:08 COREY: Right. CALEB: I love that. I know that the first time I heard that I was like, that’s a really intuitive statement. But I would counter that with saying, like, just so everybody’s clear, like neither one is necessarily right or wrong. COREY: No, absolutely not. I think it’s your way. And then competing out of that power. And that’s kind of what I mean about understanding the individual. That’s like, man, like, one of the big things that I work on with is identity and you talk about a lot of these athletes who go compete you said, who wear the belt and then life can get them sidetracked. And I mean, we don’t have to name names but you’ve seen it, everybody’s seen it. COREY: Sure. CALEB: Like where life holds them back. I think oftentimes, if you look at it, it’s because you know, I may catch little flack here, but it’s because they maybe they didn’t know who they were before they went into that cage and they were letting that experience define them. When I work with an athlete, we choose who we are by defining the results and the character, the individual that we want. I believe that each individual has a power. And that powers to express themselves almost enough in a prophetic manner like we can speak into existence who we want to be. And then when we begin to live to that existence, we back that up with action. Like it shows up in our results. And then it’s not to say that the belt doesn’t matter. But it gets to say that the belt doesn’t make or break us because we’ve already known who we are. That once again, this is kind of my way of coaching, I think you’ll find a lot of athletes who look at the cage or look at the title as a way to prove their existence or self worth or their identity. And they compete out of what I call like a desperation or a hunger. And what’s crazy is it gets results. Like it absolutely gets results. But it also creates an incredible amount of pressure to perform on a consistent basis. And a lot of pain that comes like hey, if I have a bad day sparring, or if I’m not performing then I’m a bad person, or if I lose a fight I’m a loser. If I win a fight, I’m a winner. And that identity kind of shifts on the external, on something that they don’t control. 15:08 And so when I work with athletes, I like to focus on the internal, but we build that up and they say, Hey, I’m here to show the world who I am. And to compete out of that sense of individual power, love and sound mind. And you guys are going to recognize that or not, but either way, I know who I am. So we build on solid ground rather than kind of on the shifting sands of popular opinion. 15:29 COREY: Right. Let’s talk about that. Because you did talk about the word pressure .You mentioned it a couple times, you talked about stress. You talked about all these different things. Pressure, I think that’s a pretty common thing that everybody’s dealing with, you know, whether they compete or not, whether they’re in a cage, whether you’re on the mat, whether you’re just working and you re having family do all these different things, pressure exists everywhere. And, can you talk a little bit more about that. How you kind of view it and help people through some stuff? 16:03 CALEB: Sure, yeah. I can tell you my thoughts on this subject. And I’m going to use a lot of words, not just pressure, but fear, doubt, anxiety, right, all of those things that kind of fighters face before they enter the ring. When I first started my career as a coach, I was overly ambitious and enthusiastic, I probably still am to a degree but either way we live and learn. But man, as I started off, my career was like, we’re going to break the neck of fear, we’re going to crush this thing, and go out there and just dominate. And as I began to kind of evolve in my training, I started reading some Daoism, like some Dallas concepts, and I started studying under psychologists. And I personally developed this belief that once again, it’s just energy. And furthermore, it’s not to be vilified. Like when I look at fear, doubt, pressure or anxiety, sometimes we perceive them as like it s negative thing that we don’t want. And we try to block them out and I’ve heard somebody say like; Hey, if I told you don’t think about a white polar bear. What are you going to think about? 17:04 COREY: Right. [Giggles] The first thing is visual in your head, exactly. CALEB: Yeah, exactly like because it’s like, hey, so don’t feel pressure, don’t feel anxiety, don’t, you know, don’t feel fear. Well, a lot. A lot of times the athlete, it’s like, Okay, I know I shouldn’t be feeling this, but I feel this. So their experience is inconsistent with what their brain is telling them. And furthermore, now, like they’re in their own head, because now they’re playing both judge, jury and executioner as they’re going through this experience. So I realized like you know, maybe this isn’t the best approach to be telling people like not to feel. COREY: Right. [Laughs] CALEB: It’s probably that what we want. COREY: Yeah. CALEB: Kind of impossible, right? But maybe we can instead use that energy towards our purpose. So when I think about pressure, fear, doubt anxiety, I realized these things are not inherently bad. In fact, if you really look at them, they’re just one side of a two sided coin. Like, you could not have courage, you could not have bravery, you couldn t feel a sense of pride or accomplishment without doing something, without feeling fear, without feeling and facing that fear, without feeling a pressure to perform. 18:14 And if you doubt me, like, just look, you know, ask any athlete to just fight some bomb off the street. And after they work themselves and how good they feel. And maybe some say this out they d be like, Oh, I feel awesome. But I think the majority of us would recognize that there’s no honor in that, it doesn’t feel that great. But if you [Inaudible] again opponent, somebody who is trained and ready, and you face them on a national stage in front of millions of people, wow, there’s a lot of pressure, but there’s also a lot of room or potential for glory. 18:44 And so I think the first thing that we kind of do is when we look or assess this pressures is to kind of understand what it means what it means to us, and maybe not to vilify it, but to process it. We don’t try to block it or keep it out. But we learned how to channel that towards our purpose. And if you’ve been working with me, we’ve established our purpose eight weeks ago. Like we know what we’re there to do when we step into that cage. This brings me to kind of my next point like when it comes to control, I personally, I’ve got some pushback on some coaches at this. I personally don’t feel like we control the win. 19:19 Now we can throw the fight, we can absolutely lose. But when it comes to winning, there’s two people on that cage. And there’s a lot of random chaos, fate, whatever you want to call it. 19:30 But I do think that we control our strategy, our preparation, our attitude, our techniques, our skills, our strength and conditioning, nutrition, cardio, like these things, I think we can control and when we spend energy focused on what we can control, we’ll rob that energy at the sake of things that we can’t control, such as winning or the expectations or concerns of other people. When we focus on what we can control, that’s exercising a spirit of power and we will nail that. Like, we’re going to nail the things that we can control. And we’re going to feed that. Remember I said earlier in our conversation, What you feed, grows. So through intentional brain training at the beginning stages of our camp, we know what we’re there to do. We know how we’re going to win, what we can’t control it, we absolutely know how we’re going to do it. And we set up parameters for ourselves. But this is what we’re going to accomplish in that ring and do that is in my control. This is the experience that I’m going to have when I get there. By feeding these things, remember I said we are a vessel, by feeding these things in advance, our vessel is kind of already full of what we dictated it should be full of. 20:40 And here’s another kind of major important thing. I’m not certain, at least in my experience that we can eradicate fear pressure doubt. Furthermore, I’m not certain we want to. I think that’s part of that experience. But I can say that when you work with me, you’re going to be prepared how to manage that, how to channel that into your purpose. COREY: Sure. CALEB: Does it make sense? COREY: Yeah. And I’ve heard people from the military, to top fighters, to public speakers. I mean, any of these people that are at a high level, every single one of them says that they’re nervous or that they are anxious or fearful or whatever, before they go and do whatever it is that they do. They don’t lack that. But how they react in that moment is the differentiator. Right so I think that’s important is like when we saw like the video that pops up in my head, you know, as far as you know, MMA or UFC fighters is Donald Cerronetalking about that stuff. CALEB: Yeah. COREY: You know, how does he feel before fight? CALEB: Exactly. COREY: And honestly, that’s the most honest thing I’ve ever seen which is why I think it went so viral. Because everybody feels that way. Everybody. CALEB: Right. COREY: Every single one of them. You know when they re at backstage before getting ready. I can’t remember who it was but some big ass huge heavyweight monster that every single time the day before the event or before weigh ins and stuff like that he sits up in the — he freaks out in the hotel room. CALEB: Yeah. COREY: And he’s like, What? Why am I doing this?Like what the hell’s wrong with me that dude is enormous he’s a killer. And i mean I think that’s great for people to hear because that little dude on your shoulder can whip your ass if you think that you’re just the only one that s doing it and you re pussy because you feel that way. Right? 22:33 CALEB: Right.That’s I think you hit the nail on the head. It’s like, as we start judging ourselves for the way we feel and now we’re not even on board with ourselves. It’s like we don’t even trust ourselves. Like I shouldn’t be feeling this way because a strong man or a strong woman wouldn’t feel this. COREY: Right. CALEB: You channel that feeling into your purpose, into the results that we want. 22:55 COREY: Right on. Cool. CALEB: Yeah. COREY: Now for you, are there — for everybody that’s listening, we ve given them a lot of information, a lot of things to think about, obviously that there — we’re discovering all these different things about ourselves where we’re creating that mantra or those habits that we’re doing day in and day out to kind of build those muscles between our years. We’re understanding the fact that fear and doubt and anxiety and pressure and stress and all these things aren’t inherently bad. It’s just a simply a side of the coin, as you said, and we’re able to channel that energy if we practice it. CALEB: Right. COREY: Now, as you do that, for everybody listening, is there anything that you can give them today that’s going to go okay, cool. Hey, guys, in the next five minutes, I want you to try this. And then that gives them something to do. Is there anything you have that s sort of along those lines that can give them something they can do right now? 23:56 CALEB: So I think the question is can I give you kind of like a quick fix or something before you get into competition so that you can maybe perform a little bit better? COREY: Competition before practice when you wake up and don’t want to get out of bed, whatever. Or, just to give people something that they can walk home with and be like, oh, hell yeah, I want to do this right now. CALEB: Okay, yeah. I mean, there’s a lot of things that I could give. COREY: Of course. CALEB: One that comes to mind, BJ Fogg, Stanford Professor of Psychology studies habit building, and he said one of the most powerful habits that has shown the most downstream influences in an individual’s life is at the beginning of every day before your feet hit the floor to tell yourself; Todayis going to be a good day.And what that does is it kind of sets the tone for your day before anything else like I said; The universe is a chance to fill your vessel with something else and I’ve literally seen this happen. I’ve got a floor event in the in our bedroom floor, and I’m a big guy by stepped on it and I just cracked this plastic thing. So I flipped it upside down and told my wife and my wife don’t walk here in the middle of the floor of it because I gotta go to Home Depot get this thing fixed. Well, sure enough, like we wake up the next morning, I hear her rustling about and then bam, I heard her kick this vent and like a string of expletives, right. I wake up I’m like, what is going on and she’s cut her tail. At that moment she’s pissed, just pissed, getting ready, slamming doors, getting dressed like, I love my wife. She’s beautiful person, she hates the story. But she’s getting ready she goes to work. And as she goes to work, like you know has this day gets home almost in tears from this stressful day. 25:39 And it’s because she didn’t show up with intention. It’s because we didn’t get on the beginning side of that we that experience get ahead of us. So a lot of times many athletes who have a fight or something coming up I walk them through an exercise called Setting the Tone.Give yourself permission to the great. When you have a competition like there is so much that we don’t control. But if you look and like I said, I think the worst thing to do is to wait until the night to do all this stuff, which is I like whether it’s me or somebody else, like, get a mental coach, get somebody who’s actively working this beforehand. COREY: Yeah. CALEB: But you know, two weeks before a fight, I’ll have an athlete set the tone, and they give themselves permission to be at their best, to execute on their goals and have some fun doing it. And then every morning, when they get up, we start that day with gratitude, and intention; Today, I’m going to be at my best. I can’t wait for the fight. I’m so excited about this opportunity to perform and do what I love. And then every night is they’re going to bed. They’re continuing that practice. Tomorrow is going to be a good day. Man. I can’t wait to get up tomorrow and crush it in practice. By getting ahead of it, like at night and in the morning and that is a powerful combination that will literally change your life. Like if you do this every night where you tell yourself about the expectations you set the tone of what you want, why you want it for maybe some future competition in advance and then you wake up with that abundance mindset saying, Man, it s good to be alive, good, be healthy, I m glad I have a bed that I can sleep in, I’m glad that I’ve got people who care about me or training partners or coaches or I can do what I love, whatever it is start just listening things you’re thankful for and then set the tone. Today is going to be a good day. Today I’m going to show up at my best I’m going to show up powerfully. We can’t control whether we feel sick or have a cold or it’s raining or the sun is shining, or we have taxes due or we got a refund like none of that stuff like that. It’s so much external, but I mean we can control our attitude, and we can control our expectation. And the brain, it’s like when you kind of put it out there. It’s kind of that law of attractionstuff when you put it out there, we begin to live up to that expectation. So if every night before we’re going to bed and every day when we wake up in the morning, we’re expecting to perform at our best and especially for those guys and gals who have a competition, if we’re saying that competition is going to go really well, and in that competition, we’re going to be at our best. We’re setting that expectation and living up to it. 28:16 COREY: Nice, this is perfect. So Caleb, if anybody’s wanting to get more information about who you are, what you’re doing, what’s the best way for them to find you? 28:28 CALEB: Sure, you can visit my website mentalsensei.com, that’s S-E-N-S-E-I, you can email me there. But I realized most people won’t leave Instagram or Facebook. So I m on Instagram and Facebook at Mental Sensei, you know, mental and then sensei, S-E-N-S-E-I. It s difficult to spell. I misspell it all the time. So just remember. S-E-N-S-E-I. 28:50 COREY: I’ll put those links down below guys. So you guys can click over and stay in touch with Caleb and learn more about what he’s doing. But yeah, Caleb thank you so much, dude. I know this is a huge vast topic that we could probably talk about for a couple of more hours. But I think that at least gives everybody a little bit of intro to who you are and what you’re doing but also some things that they could probably think about this weekend and improving their game. CALEB: Yeah, man, thank you so much for the opportunity. Like just this exposure I was looking at the list of folks that you’ve had on this podcast and you know, props to you for giving the people a hub to get some great information. I’m honored to be included. COREY: Of course, man, honestly it’s probably one of my favorite things that I get to do. Because I love just talking, shopping and learning from everybody. So yeah man, I appreciate it. And, guys, if you found this useful, definitely head over to iTunes and give us a five star review. Tell people your thoughts, share it with your friends, training partners, coaches, whoever you think might get some value out of it. And we’ll keep pumping them out. And you know, bringing guys like Caleb in here to share their experience and expertise. So Thanks again guys. Have a great day. CALEB: Take care. The post #96 with Caleb Rogers aka Mental Sensei appeared first on Fight Camp Conditioning. .........

Episodes of This Show

Stitcher for Podcasts

Get the Stitcher App

Take your podcasts on-the-go!

Get the Stitcher App

Send a link to your phone to take
your podcasts on the go.

We Sent You a Link

Did you get it?

Retry

Close

MMA Strength and Conditioning

About This Show

Listen Whenever

Related Shows

Most Recent Episode

#96 with Caleb Rogers aka Mental Sensei

Episodes of This Show

Stitcher for Podcasts

Get the Stitcher App

Take your podcasts on-the-go!

Get the Stitcher App

Send a link to your phone to take your podcasts on the go.

We Sent You a Link

Did you get it?

Retry

Close

MMA Strength and Conditioning

About This Show

Listen Whenever

Related Shows

Most Recent Episode

#96 with Caleb Rogers aka Mental Sensei

Episodes of This Show

Send a link to your phone to take
your podcasts on the go.