Gil Guardado

XCMMA Strength & Conditioning

Coach and his brothers and getting after it at in Chino Hills, CA.
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Training while traveling can be inconvenient sometimes, but with a little planning ahead of time, it’s not difficult to find a good place to get some good training. Whether it’s a smaller private gym, a big chain facility, a sparse hotel gym or even the park with a few easy-to-carry tools, there’s almost always a way to get it done!
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How do you get your workouts in when you’re traveling? What problems do you usually run into? Let us know in the comments!
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XCMMA Strength & Conditioning

From coach :
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In my experience, exercises that directly train the glutes and hamstring are very popular with female trainees but are very underutilized by male trainees. Why that is, I'm not sure. There's tremendous benefit to targeting the hips/hamstrings directly.
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In my mind, we don't train these exercises to make our legs and ass look good (though they do help with that). We work the hips/hamstrings to protect the spine. When the hips don't work properly, people will substitute hip extension for lumbar (low back) extension. That will lead to or exacerbate back pain. Therefore, the first thing we teach clients is how to use the glutes to drive hip extension.
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Once clients learn how to use their glutes, we can progress in a number of different ways:
- add mini-bands
- elevate the feet
- use an unstable surface
- elevate the torso (more weight shifted to the lower body)
- reduce the base of support (use one leg)
- Add resistance in opposition of gravity (I'm using a .training.systems Bulgarian bag in this video)
- Any combination of the above
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These exercises help us train the glutes/hamstrings in a much more functional way than machines will allow and help us keep our athletes posteriors strong and healthy.
Typically, we'll pick one variation and do 2-4 sets of 8-12 reps for a few weeks before progressing.
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Got any questions? How do you train your hips and hamstrings? Let us know in the comments!

XCMMA Strength & Conditioning

Some footage recorded live during one of our 6pm classes

XCMMA Strength & Conditioning

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Quick coaching with coach about lateral mini-band walks. Different positioning of the band creates a different amount of tension by increasing the lever length between the hip joint and the band. Even if someone only has one type of mini-band, we can create more/less resistance as needed. We can also increase difficulty by adding sets, reps, isometric holds, etc. we typically use band walks as part of our warm-up, but they can also be included in strength sessions as an accessory or prehab/corrective exercise.

Special thanks to for helping with the demo!

XCMMA Strength & Conditioning

Quick coaching in real-time with coach . Special thanks to member for helping with the exercise demo!

XCMMA Strength & Conditioning

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Push-ups are a fundamental exercise. It's usually one of the first exercises people are ever introduced to. It's a fantastic exercises that offers great benefits in upper body endurance, strength and power as well as great benefits in core stability and injury prevention if done correctly.
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Like most exercises, it's one that can be easy to do incorrectly if you've never been coached through it. Three big mistakes I see most often are 1) elbows flare out too far 2) lack of core activation (stomach sagging/low back arch) and 3) reps not done with a full range of motion.
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For a more shoulder-friendly push-up, the elbows should be more or less in line with the ni**le line of the chest. Some people can get away with elbows wider or narrower. Different widths will work the upper body differently. The important thing is that you can do your reps in a pain-free manner.
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For core activation, the belly button should be sucked in toward the spine and kept drawn in away from the floor throughout the movement. Hips and shoulders should stay aligned through the spine throughout the movement.
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Partial range of motion is great for working on weak points in the movement or for getting a few forced reps past fatigue (depending on goals). Otherwise, I prefer my clients/athletes do all their reps with a full range of motion.
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I always start people with a version of the push-up that they can complete pain free with a full range of motion for at least 8 reps. For beginners, elevating the hands can help us get some good reps in at a lower intensity while we work toward a standard push-up. Once they can do a few sets of 12-15 regular push-ups with no problem, we can increase the difficulty in a number of ways
- use an unstable surface
- elevate the feet
- reduce our base (one leg up)
- use external load (weight vest, plates, bands, chains)
- any combination of the above
The number of possible variations for push-ups is almost endless!
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What's your favorite push-up variation? Got any questions? Let us know!

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"Power" is often a misunderstood concept. In the simplest terms, power = strength x speed. Powerful athletes are able to display a large amount of force in a short amount of time. The big piece that's usually missing from that equation in most people's programs (especially combat athletes) is STRENGTH.
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You have to have a good level of relative strength (strength to bodyweight ratio) before you can be powerful. You don't necessarily have to be a monster in the weight room, but a good base of strength will bring about greater gains in power. In our programs, the power phase will almost always follow a max strength phase.
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There are many ways to develop power. One of my favorite ways to develop power, however, is through what is called contrast training. Basically, this is a superset of a strength and a power exercise for the same movement pattern/muscle groups. This way, we recruit as many muscle fibers as possible with a heavy lift in the 1-5 rep range, then use those same muscles in an explosive/speed exercise for 5-10 reps.
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Some of my favorite pairs are squats w/squat jumps, lunges w/split jumps, bench presses with medicine ball chest throws, and pull-ups with medicine ball slams. There are many, many more exercises and combinations we can use in addition to these.
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A WORD OF CAUTION: This method is not for beginners or deconditioned individuals. A good training base should be built with at least 4-6 weeks of conditioning, hypertrophy or strength training before attempting contrast training.
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Got any questions? How do you train for power? Let us know in the comments!
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Whether I'm training athletes, fitness clients, or groups, it's extremely rare that we do single exercises at a time. Pairs, tri-sets and quad-sets are frequently used to make the best use of the time we have available to train.
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Pairing, tri-setting, and quad setting exercises helps us cut our rest periods while still allowing us to work with heavier loads and maintain adequate recovery between sets while increasing the total amount of work we can accomplish in a given time. For example, we might have someone perform a heavy set of squats for 5 reps. Rather than sit around for 3 minutes waiting for the next set, we'll rest 60-90 seconds, perform a non-competing exercise (ex. Pull-ups), rest another 60-90 seconds, then go back to our squat. We can take this a step further and add in lower intensity work such as stretches for the non-working muscles, mobility exercises, core exercises, etc.
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Many people see this and think we're doing endurance circuit training. While we can definitely accomplish that, strength and power can also be improved tremendously depending on how many exercises we sequence, what exercises we're using and how long we're resting.
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As another example, this video shows me performing high-intensity hang cleans tri-set with a low-intensity mobility exercise for my hips/hamstrings and a moderate-intensity core exercise (nicknamed the bodysaw). The cleans were performed in a descending pyramid (5-4-3-2-1). After each set, I'd rest 45-60 seconds, perform my mobility work, do my core exercise, rest another minute or so, then do the next set, increasing the weight for the clean as the reps dropped each set.
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While this is a great option for athletes and fitness clients, there are certain situations where I would not use this method and go with a traditional setup of one exercise at a time with plenty of rest, usually if I'm working with strength and power athletes (powerlifters, Olympic lifters, etc) whose training intensity demands plenty of rest between sets
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Questions? Let us know!

XCMMA Strength & Conditioning

From coach
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The squat is a fundamental movement pattern. It's also an exercise that's really easy to do poorly. Many people opt for squats that they're not prepared for (usually back squats) due to poor mobility of the ankles/hips or poor stability of the knees/lower back. Many times, people choose a stance that is either too wide or too narrow for their skeletal structure. More often than almost anything, people just start with way too much weight than they can properly handle.
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When first introducing someone to lower body strength training, we often start with bodyweight squats and kettlebell sumo deadlifts. If someone can't do these exercises well, we'll work to correct the movement before adding weight. Once we have the basic pattern down, we can add very light loads to the front of the body (goblet squats) to reinforce strong posture throughout the movement. For this, we usually use a dumbbell and try to maintain 2 points of contact (top/bottom of the dumbbell) for the entire set.
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After this, we can progress further or we can correct other deficiencies. Here's a sample progression we might use:
- Heels elevated: great for people with short range of motion due to ankle mobility restrictions.
- Mini-band around the knees: great for people whose knees cave in.
- Box squat: ensures consistent depth for each rep. For most people, we always try to squat at or just below parallel (which, for the record, means crease of the hip joint at or below parallel with the top of the knee).
- Double-kettlebell front squat: typically lets us use more load than a single dumbbell would allow.
- Offset front squat: adds some instability through what is called "asymmetrical loading." We try to maintain the same squat pattern even though the movement isn't loaded evenly.
- Barbell front squat: one of my favorite lower body strength exercises. Puts far more load on the quads than the lower back, but requires good wrist, shoulder and hip mobility.
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What's your favorite squat variation? Got any questions? Let us know in the comments!

XCMMA Strength & Conditioning

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Morning S&C session for Randy Couture and Mindy Robinson today with coach . Some of the exercises on today's menu: banded kettlebell swings, alternating dumbbell bench press, TRX rows, cable single-leg RDLs, TRX grappler twist and goblet carries. Tri-sets, quad-sets and giant sets are utilized with these two all the time because they like to keep moving. We'll typically sequence an upper body and lower body exercise with core work and maybe a mobility exercise or a stretch as active rest. This way, we still keep the movement quality high and help avoid failure due to fatigue. We'll also progress/regress exercises as necessary on an individual basis so they each can work to their own fitness level.

XCMMA Strength & Conditioning

Coach Gil getting some work in between clients with -- A few clips from my own workout today. After foam rolling, stretching and dynamic warm-up, I did:

- Hex bar deadlift (4x3) paired w/kettlebell swings (3x10)
- Weighted pull-ups (4x5) paired w/medicine ball slams (3x10)
-Weighted push-ups with feet elevated (3x10) tri-set with single-leg squats (3x5 each leg) and farmer carries (2x75yds)

Nothing fancy. Just good training.

XCMMA Strength & Conditioning

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Kettlebell swings. From coach :
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While I love Olympic lifts and their variations to develop lower body power and athleticism, they're not for everyone. It's very rare that I do Olympic lifts with my general fitness clients for a multitude of reasons (permanent postural changes due to age, poor mobility, lack of lower back stability, lack of coordination, not conducive to client's goal, etc). With my athletes, we only do full lifts if they have prior lifting experience or if I have a long time to work with the athlete and develop their technique.
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If you don't want to or can't do Olympic lifts but still want to increase lower body power in the weight room, kettlebell swings are a great alternative. This is an example of how I might progress a client with a basic swing.
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First, we'd make sure that the client doesn't have a history of lower back pain. If something hurts, we find an alternative exercise and work to alleviate the pain over time. From there, we'd work on mastering the ability to hinge at the hips while maintaining a strong, stable back. Once the hinge looks good, we'd work on maintaining stability through the swing by practicing a kettlebell "hike" (like a football center snapping a football) or single reps of hike-to-swing.
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Once we progress to a full, continuous swing, some of the important things we're looking for are that we're using our hips and not "squatting the swing," we're maintaining a stable, straight torso throughout the movement, and we're not forcing the kettlebell up with the shoulders (focus on swinging away from the body).
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Other variations include single-arm swings, alternating swings, banded swings, double kettlebell swings and many more. Typically for power, we do between 2-4 sets and keep the reps under 10, making sure to recover completely for the next set.
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What's your favorite variation of the kettlebell swing? Got any questions? Let us know in the comments!

XCMMA Strength & Conditioning

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From Coach Gil Guardado:

The medicine ball is one of the simplest and safest ways to develop total-body and rotational power. If you participate in any kind of striking sport (boxing, kickboxing, MMA, baseball, tennis, golf, etc), medicine balls are one of the few ways to train for power in sport-specific positions.
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This is a sample progression of medicine ball rotational throws that we might take someone through over several phases. For most rotational throws, emphasis should be on internal/external rotation of the hips and/or shoulders, not the lumbar spine.
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In early phases, we start in kneeling and half-kneeling positions to emphasize hip/core stability before we progress into standing positions. From standing positions, we can further progress into more unstable positions (split stance, single-leg, balance board, etc) until the desired level of balance and stability is reached or start working on adding dynamic movement and speed into the throws by adding steps or shuffles.
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Medicine ball throws and other power exercises are usually performed first in a training session immediately following a thorough warm-up (see previous post. I typically have people do 2-3 sets of 8-10 reps per side. These can also be paired with other exercises for time efficiency.
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What's your favorite variation? Have any questions? Let us know in the comments!
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XCMMA Strength & Conditioning

Make sure you follow XCMMA Xtreme Cross Training on Facebook and on Instagram. Much more in the works!

Warm-up.

From coach :

The warm-up is one of the most important yet most neglected aspects of training. Typically, the most common warm-up I see (if one is performed at all) is a light jog on a treadmill or a steady ride on the bike.
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While this might get your heart rate up a bit and help you break a sweat, this is hardly enough to get you ready for the rigors of a training session, especially training sessions like the ones we run here at . In addition to getting your heart rate up and warming up your muscles, pre-training activities should also take your joints through a full ranges of motion to prepare for what's coming in the session.
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I'm a big fan of the joint-by-joint approach to training popularized by Gray Cook and Mike Boyle. Basically, each joint has specific needs. Joints that need stability require resistance to create stability. Joints that need mobility require motion. In this video here's what you'll see:
1. Foam rolling/stretching for overly tight muscles
2. Activation/stability work for the hip flexors, hip rotators, hip extensors, and deep core stabilizers
3. Mobility work for the hips, upper back and shoulders
4. Dynamic movements to get the heart rate up and excite the nervous system
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This is only one example of one of my go-to warm-ups. This can be customized and lengthened/shortened to fit individual needs, group needs or equipment limitations. Sometimes warm-ups will include other exercises such as dynamic stretches and crawling. We can emphasize linear or lateral movements. The possibilities are endless.

XCMMA Strength & Conditioning

Hey everyone. I'm going to start doing a lot more social media stuff for strength and conditioning. However, most of it won't be posted on my personal pages. To see the stuff we'll be cranking out, make sure you follow XCMMA Xtreme Cross Training here on Facebook and on Instagram so you don't miss anything. Let me know if you like what you see and feel free to send any questions or requests my way.

From strength & conditioning coach :

Planks are a great exercise for developing the ability to prevent extension of the lumbar spine. While not the "sexiest" ab exercise, they may be one of the most important exercises to start with in a training program.

However, they tend to be something people progress at very quickly. Once someone I train can hold a solid plank for more than 30 seconds with no issue, it's usually time to graduate to something more challenging.

A simple way to make it more difficult is by adding weight. The approach I tend to take, however, is to progress by adding movement of the arms and/or legs while still maintaining a stable torso. Here are some simple progressions (and one kick-ass progression) to try once planks become too easy. While I use dozens of variations, these are a few of my favorites that can be done with little equipment/space.

1. Plank (start here)
2. Plank w/weight
3. Stability ball rollout
4. Plank w/slide reach
5. Plank slide reach w/push-up (KILLER)

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and with the pro practice technique of the day. &P

Training The Natural and actress this morning at . Final circuit for the day with a core/upper body emphasis: TRX fallouts, .training.systems Bulgarian bag swings and 3/0/3 tempo push-ups. Hope everyone is training hard & training smart!

I've had people ask me several times what I do for my workouts, so I put together a little video to show how a typical session goes. Nothing fancy, just good training.

Part 1- Activation/mobility Warm-up (This was preceded by 10-12 minutes of foam rolling and stretching).

Part 2- Dynamic Warm-up/Agility ladder, jumps, medicine ball throws. Exercises vary from workout to workout.

Part 3- Power/Strength training. Exercises vary day to day. Typically a variation of an Olympic lift followed by exercises for major movement patterns (squat, lunge, hinge, push, pull, rotation). Non-competing exercises are put in pairs or tri-sets for time efficiency. "Rest periods" are used for core/mobility work. The goal is to make the best use of the time available to train.

Usually finish up with 10-15 minutes of interval training (air bike, slideboard, rower, versaclimber, treadmill, battle ropes, etc).

Working on my hang clean rep speed this morning. 160 lbs for 3 sets of 5. Emphasizing bar speed and technique for a couple weeks before going back to heavy doubles and triples.

Big thank you to Bridgette from .training.systems for taking time out of her schedule to come down to to put a few of us through an awesome Bulgarian Bag refresher course! Great workout!