In many combat gyms, it is still common to see “old-school” warm-ups in involving the following: Laps around the mats, Static Stretching, Foam Rolling Whilst this does an okay job in elevating the heart rate and mobilising the joints there is generally limited structure behind these practices.

Ramadan is the Islamic practice in which individuals fast from sunrise to sunset for up to 30 days during the ninth lunar month of the Islamic calendar. Individuals can eat at Suhur (meal before dawn/fasting) and Iftar (breaking fast after sunset). Jordan Sullivan (The Fight Dietitian) has written a blog on our website on nutritional tips for Ramadan.

With the recent acquisition of our Vald ForceFrame, it was the perfect opportunity to run a little case study on improving neck strength. The Vald ForceFrame provides the option of measuring strength for flexion, extension, and lateral flexion. I measured the neck strength of 4 athletes (2 male (1 BJJ, 1 MMA) and 2 female (2 Boxing)) with the aim of running a 3 phase neck protocol.

We’ve all heard of classic cases of athletes who just simply do too much in one day or one week.

A real life example of an amateur boxer's daily training routine before they come to train with us at Ethos Performance.. 1.5 hours on the rower, THEN 11km run @ 5:00/km, SIt Ups + Push Ups + Shadow Boxing.

THIS WAS COMPLETED BEFORE 8AM!!

As an athlete, you may have heard about or participated in “performance testing.” You might have been at a club or an organisation where it was just part of the process. You didn’t really know the reason why they wanted to test you in the first place and went along with the flow doing what you were told.

or those that follow the Marvel superhero series, you would know of the greatest super-villain of all time. His name is Thanos. In his quest to wipe out half of the world’s population, he possesses an “infinity gauntlet” which fits six “infinity stones” that are tied to different aspects of the universe.

A revisit of some of the Avengers movies led me to a realization that these infinity stones fit perfectly…

I have always taken a fond interest in how data is being used to influence success across all sports. My most recent role here at Ethos Performance has provided me with the opportunity to work with some of the best upcoming MMA fighters in Sydney. I admit, I am still fresh to the fight game. To better understand the sport, I was curious to see what performance indicators were associated with winning in MMA. I encountered 2 papers by James and colleagues which investigated the evolution of tactical strategy in MMA [2] as performance characteristics dictating wins in MMA [2]. They acquired data from FightMetric which are the official company responsible for data collection during bouts in the UFC.

The running demands for a fullback are very rarely entirely linear in nature during rugby league gameplay. Therefore, practitioners should consider curvilinear running as a complementary training modality to linear running training.