Sometimes, even if you put everything in place right, athletes don’t do what they’re supposed to do and hopefully learn from those mistakes.

In Joel’s fourth presentation at The Seminar, he gives us a glimpse into how he prepared one of the best pound for pound fighters in the history of the UFC.

This talk starts out by Joel giving an overview (including definitions and how he works off those definitions) of the principles behind what he does. This include: programming, training variables, testing and assessment. These lead him directly into how he defines training block, and how he sets up each block for DJ. This also includes what he looks at, including durations of general and specific blocks.

He then touches upon periodization of the week, and training load monitoring. Both of these are highly impacted by the late Charlie Francis. Joel then ties it all together by sharing with us his “Programming Worksheet.” This includes what he’s looking at and into to help prepare his athletes.

The programming of DJ follows right after this. Joel gives us a bit of background on DJ, where he came from and a good look into the process he went through to get where he is now. He then shares with us how he and Matt break down and assess the program based on the upcoming fight. These also include specific evaluations they do just with DJ. That brings us to DJ’s camp, and what the prep set up actually looks like. Joel has it copped up in 2 week “blocks”, and gives examples of how each of these blocks flows into the next. This rolls straight through from general prep to the weight cut/taper right up to him walking out to fight.