James Tognarini - Front Line Conditioning

These are my non-negotiables.

How many of these do you already focus on?
For me, tempo is one of the points that has the more variability; you can change things around to prioritize a certain type of result. Time under tension also works on a continuum so you shouldn’t be worried about things being perfect.

From there you can eventually progress to isometric time under tension as well.

The game is: how can I always have high quality sessions?

That’s really what makes the biggest difference. Work to build as much tolerance to fatigue and improving measures of recovery.

More time in the weight room and on the mats + higher quality average sessions = feeling like you’re super human.

Don’t be the easy roll because of your cardio.

The good news is that if your aerobic output is terrible, it can only get better if you work on it - PROPERLY.

I feel like a lot of people jump too quickly into what they see already conditioned athletes doing when in reality the best thing you can do for efficiency is to figure out your current level and run the protocols associated with that level.

Go over to flcgrappling.com (link in bio) and get yourself on the list for The Greater Grappler: Conditioning Guide - it’ll change the way you train.

Point 4 is 💰💰

I can’t tell you how many of my clients felt completely different once we started dialing in their nutrition and for some of them it had more to do with how we distributed their calories over their day rather than nitpicking on which foods they were eating.

I think it’s important to eat healthy, but when performance is your goal, you have more wiggle room, especially when you’re training multiple times per day.

Lock in your maintenance calories, follow this cheat sheet, and thank me later.

Which points were your favorite?

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Ideal and realistic aren’t the same thing, even if you think you “should” be training more, we need to play the hand we’re dealt.

Besides, with good coaching and programming, you can still 100% get jacked, strong, and see a difference in your performance.

From Ep. 11 on

Outside of strict timelines and goals close to competition, you need to look at your nutrition on a longer timeline.

Especially if you’re lifting, doing multiple training sessions in a day, coaching, etc. chances are that you actually have a lot more room to play with and trying to be restrictive all the time might harm you in the long run.

Be disciplined when you need to for certain periods and be lenient with yourself in the other times.

You’re never more than one “good day” away from being back on track.

Good programming will change your career

Focusing on progressive results lets you stop worrying about what you should be doing and instead allows you to focus on getting the work done and enjoying the results.

These 3 methods can be run back to back. There are a few different ways to implement them, so let me know if you’re curious.

This was from a recent Q&A, and I think it’s important.

You can absolutely get ridiculously strong without your weight getting out of control. In fact, you’d be surprised at how far you can actually push this ratio.

Gymnasts and Olympic weightlifters are great examples of this, and I think grapplers are no different.

Welcome to the club.

One coaching principle that I believe is extremely important is not to change too many variables when starting to work with an advanced athlete.

What do they already do well?
What movements are they comfortable with?
Can we make improvements in those movements?

From there it’s about getting small and consistent wins that continuously add up; before you know it, you’re looking and feeling like a whole new person and your teammates start checking your bag for needles.

If you gas out quickly in sparring…
Then performing intervals that also make you gas out quickly won’t do very much for you.

Doing 10 rounds of high-intensity sprints will not improve your cardio if you continuously generate less power or cover less distance.

Find a pace or intensity at which you can hit consistent numbers, then hit those numbers until you can’t.
The next week, see if you can hit those numbers for an additional round. If you can: congratulations, you got better.

Full conditioning guide coming soon…

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Nothing worthwhile ever comes from taking the easy way out.
Sometimes being able to push through an extremely hard session brings you results beyond just getting bigger of stronger:
It teaches you how far you can push yourself.

Where is your perceived limit now?
Where do you wish it could be?
That’s the gap you have to close and it’s done in a very ugly but rewarding way.

If you struggle with willpower, this is your fix.

Your environment will always play a bigger role in the actions you take (or don’t take) every day.

Get specific.

Most of the goals you probably have are vague outcomes that you’d like to achieve but have trouble following through because you don’t know where to start.

This is step 1.

Easy cuts.

If you have the time to structure weight cuts properly, you can make sure they’re easy enough to see progress long term.

Eventually you can make them more difficult, sure, but there’s no need to be overly restrictive if you don’t have to (especially if you’re new to it).

The biggest mistake I see is people obsessing over cheat meals. Refeeds are the least of your worries if you can’t even make it 4 weeks without binging.

Work smarter.

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The Double Progression method is simple and extremely effective. It’s not fancy, but that’s the point.

The clients I’ve seen do incredibly well using this method are the ones that know how to consistently put in work and not jump from program to program because it isn’t as exciting as it used to be.

Hard work is rarely exciting.

Should every athlete lift?

Yes - without a doubt.

The simplest reason is to keep your body resilient and less prone to injury. Even if you don’t want to be strong, fast, or powerful, you need injury prevention.

Everything after that is considerably more advantageous for you. Improving athleticism, cardio capacity, strength endurance, and even coordination and reaction times.

If you feel you feel like your technical skills hit a plateau, this will help you bust through it.

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My goal is always to work on my athletes’ mindset as well as their physical prowess.

You don’t need to have a perfect mindset, and realistically that probably doesn’t even exist outside of a handful of incredible performers.

You just need to do the work to get better than you were and deserve the wins that come with it.

How to use fatigue to your advantage

I believe in the need to learn to push yourself, however, we also need to know when we’re overreaching and getting better versus when we’re running ourselves into the ground.

If you create a specific framework for yourself with subjective and objective measures, you’ll be able to see consistent progress for a long time.

Here is the simple formula:

- Figure out how many total calories you need to eat
- What kind of food will you be eating
- Can you comfortably eat all of those calories when you have evenly split meals?

If you can’t, then add another eating time.

Typically I find most of my clients do better with 4 meals/day to start. Then we change the plan depending on how many sessions they train in a given day.

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5 real questions I’ve been asked during training in between us all trying to murder each other.

I guess the questions come out more often here because it’s easier to be reminded of what you want to improve on while in training.

Besides, even when I’m gasping for air I’m always happy to answer some questions!

Modify protein like a pro

The main goal with protein intake is to hit your leucine threshold, help with protein synthesis, and recover optimally.

You don’t need to be eating ridiculous amounts of protein either. It’s more important to hit the right amount you need in relation to your training and caloric constraint.

If you hit the right amount, you will leave enough space for carbs and fat that will help you way more with exercise and sport performance.

Effort and consistency.

It’s the only way to know if something is working or not.
Mindfully trying to progress and push the envelope even when it’s not fun to show up and do it.

Choose the right exercises

And by that I mean: what makes sense for your goals.

Sometimes we feel so emotionally tied to certain lifts or systems that we don’t want to see anything else even if it’s more efficient and probably better long term.

It’s like when functional fitness became an important craze and tons of people thought that if you trained with a machine that was somehow worse for you because
“It’s gotta be functional BRO!”

Nah, it’s actually “just gotta actually work long term, bro”

Start with what you want to achieve and work backwards, filling in the gaps with exercises, progressions, reps, and loads that make sense.

Or if you’re unsure, just DM me and ask. If you know me, you know that I answer every single question.

Win the game, train properly.

Athletic performance improvements require you to look at what else you can be doing.

Eating, training, and recovering properly are all highly important, but knowing where to start for each of these points is key.

Get assessed, understand what your needs are, cover your bases, and use these data points to build a tailored plan that will improve your performance notably and consistently.