Joe Rogan - What's the Biggest Nutrition Mistake UFC Fighters Make?

What do you see in terms of the way they fuel themselves? It's like the biggest error. Sticking to one style of feeding regardless of the training style that they're engaging in. So MMA athletes, they have to do high intensity training sessions, strength and conditioning. They have to be doing sparring. They have to be doing pads rounds that are crazy hard. In every athlete, each one is going to have a different intensity relative to their body type. And so if somebody is doing pads, it's a nine or 10 out of 10 in terms of intensity. And they're doing that fasted or they're doing that without carbohydrates available to do that work. They can't they can't a hit those training intensities repeatedly. And then they can't adapt as a response to that training. So they end up just getting slower and more beat up instead of faster and more powerful. So if they're doing high intensity, we need to fuel the body in the specific way that supports that training effort, and then the longer term adaptation to that bout. Additionally, if they're doing lower intensity, we can adjust our fueling strategies based on what that dictates. You know, if it's if it's a kind of a base aerobic training session, or if they're doing skills and drills, we want to be feeding the body to adapt differently than if they're doing the high intensity, sparring, strength and conditioning or pads or whatever that might be. So for every athlete, we're looking at how their body uses substrate energy, the energy that they're using the substrate between carbs and fat at each of these intensities. And then we also need to base it based, we need to base our recommendations on where their body fits into the division. If they're, if they're 20% out from their weight division four weeks out, then we're going to have a little bit of a more aggressive strategy nutritionally, because if weight becomes a primary factor, if they're 10% out four weeks out, then we're going to have a little bit of a different conversation and prioritization around the fueling strategies. And all of these conversations integrate within our strength and conditioning program, so that we're working in a concert and tying in the workload into our own system, as well as the training load that they're engaging with, with their skill specific training. Now, when you vary the diet that you give them independent, dependent of the workout, what is what is that based on? Is that based on a hard accepted science of carbohydrate versus protein versus essential fat, essential fatty acids? Like, how do you determine that? So we use a philosophy, a system called metabolic efficiency, you could call it metabolic flexibility, I've heard it called as well. And essentially, the body will use different substrate at different intensities. And at low intensities and at rest, the body can and likely should be adapted for our for our sports athletes to fat at rest. Now, it depends on the sport type. Again, if we're a shop putter, or for 100 meter sprinter, then we're going to be much more dependent on carbohydrates and really the creatine phosphate system, we're not even getting into the glycolytic system. And Duncan could talk a lot more about the energy systems, but essentially, we're reliant upon glucose and ATP for energy at the lower intensity bursts, right? So to hit repeated max or sub max efforts, we require blood sugar. And without it, we will deplete our our initial stores. And then we can't, we can't we can no longer hit 90 or 95% of our max, we start hitting 80 and 70 and 60. And in diminishing our ability to do these high intensity efforts. Now, do you guys see anybody come in and try to fight on a ketogenic diet? Because I know quite a few guys were doing that for a while. I know Brian care. We did it. Matt Brown. Yeah, that's right. He has fought, but he varies. And I think he he yeah, well, I talked to him, I think he did one pretty pure. And then he did, you know, he did the one where you, you know, you might take in 60 or 80 carbs, but then you work them off to stay kid. I don't some of those guys like Zack Bitter. He's a ultra marathon runner. He he he does eat ketogenic most of the time, but then on days of big races, he'll consume a lot of sugars. Yeah. And yeah, and again, I'll influence certain stability too. Yeah. So essentially, the more we can regulate blood sugar at rest and low intensities, then we can expand and to support the development of that kind of aerobic oxidative system. And by adapting to use fat as a primary substrate, we're doing a number of things. One, we're balancing blood sugar at rest so that we can really limit the insulin spikes and essentially adipose development, in addition to really driving the body towards the oxidative and or the oxidative aerobic system. And then as we increase in what we do is we assess how the body adapts through the training intensities. And we'll repeat that kind of on a monthly basis, see how the athlete changes. And then as they increase in the intensity of a training effort, then we will adjust the ratio of fat to carbohydrates as a fuel substrate.