Aloha everybody. Welcome to the fit to fat to fit experience podcast. I am your host drew Manning and I’m your cohost Lynn Manning. And thank you guys so much for joining us today. On today’s episode we get to talk with the UFC fighter rich Franklin who is a legend. If you know anything about UFC, you know rich Franklin, he’s the one that looks like Jim Carey, but he’s an awesome guy. We actually get to talk to him not only about fighting this, I was the, not what our podcast is about, but we get to sit down and talk to him about his specific views on health, fitness, nutrition, how he maintains a healthy lifestyle. And we talk a little bit about his background.
So if you pretty much don’t watch UFC, like I don’t really watch you have,
what are you talking about? You don’t watch UFC. Everybody watches.
So I w I have actually watched, uh, you know, probably about over the years, probably half a dozen to a dozen UFC fights and they’re, they’re quite entertaining. I’m just think I’m a mom at heart. And every time I see like the blood and like the ICA and the rear naked choke. I’m like, like I want to save them. But
you’ve got to at least, man, he’s a good looking guy. Like that’s the one thing you say for the ladies out there. Yeah. Yeah. So anyways, um, it’s a great episode. You guys are gonna really gonna love it. It’s funny, it’s, it’s kinda entertaining. So, uh, but before we jump into the episode, obviously our sponsorship, today’s sponsor is none other than dollar workout club.com. Now dollar workout club.com is an online program that Lynn and I and Natalie Hodson got together and created. Um, and basically the way it works is you pay $1 per week and you get access to five at home workout videos that are for all fitness levels and there are only eight to 20 minutes long with minimal to no equipment. You get access to five new healthy recipe videos every single week and five new motivational videos every single week, you know, filmed by us. And all the cost is just $1.
Yeah, no contracts, no hidden fees. You guys, you can try it out for a month. If it doesn’t jive with you, which I would be shocked, but if it doesn’t, you can cancel. It’s, it’s really the best, highest quality program we put out there. And we wanted to put out something that everybody could do. So any fitness level and that was affordable because the biggest thing we get all the time from people when we put out programs before is, you know, it’s, it’s expensive to eat healthy and they want to find something that’s more affordable. So this is for you. Um, and just so you know, before we actually jump on with rich, we are going to put in the show notes how you can find him.
Yeah, I totally forgot to ask him. You know, at the end of each episode, where can people find you? Uh, I forgot to ask him. Yeah, just at rich Franklin, you know, rich franklin.com that’ll all be in the show notes you guys. But definitely check out dollar workout club.com. Uh, it’s not just for moms or women. All the dudes out there that are listening. Trust me, try red for, you know, one week or one day even. And let me let us know how tough it is. But anyways, um, let’s go ahead and let’s talk to rich. All right, rich Franklin. So thank you so much for joining us here today on the fit to fat to fit experience podcast. How are you doing man? I’m doing great man. Thanks for having me on it. It’s good to be talking to you again. I haven’t seen you since. Pick on, I know, I know. So for all those listening, I actually got to meet rich Franklin last year at the fit con expo out in Utah. And dude, I was stoked that you were actually out there, man in Utah. Was that your first time in Utah?
No, no, no, not my first time at [inaudible]. I think that was only the second fit con or whatever. That was the first one actually. They’re very far. Yeah. Well then then that would explain why it was my first time to fit con. Um, but no, I’m, I’m in a, I’m in Utah or I haven’t been in Utah frequently. Like, I have some friends out there. Jeremy’s Warren has a school out there. He and I have known each other for for some years, but I do work. I work with ’em. I was out there with armor jail and a Armour gel is that product I work with and I talk about that later, whatever. But, uh, American biotech labs, they had a booth there. So I was actually there at the booth that day, but that company is actually stationed, uh, in Alpine. And so I’m out there, I wouldn’t say frequently, but I’m out there on a semi frequent basis just to kind of, uh, you know, work with them a little bit.
And you’re actually, I forgot, you know, our friend from whole 30, Dallas Hartwig.
Oh yeah. Dallas and I, uh, Dalston I’ve done several, uh, military tours together. He’s, he’s, he’s a good dude, man. I’m really, really liked house. He and I spent [inaudible] J a nice romantic evening, um, at the, uh, at the Aulani resort in Hawaii together, having a beautiful [inaudible], a beautiful sunset, seaside, a, a dinner together with the, uh, with candle light. Seriously. Like he won my heart there and like he and I have like a serious bro merits going on, so I’ll have to, I’ll actually have to drop him a text after this podcast or something like that.
Yeah. I actually remember when you were in town for fit con and then you, you guys went out to eat that night, you in Dallas. And he texts me and he’s just like, and he was mentioning how you guys were, were out. He’s like, Oh, I’m actually out to dinner with my friend rich. So yeah, I remember when you were in town and he says the same kind, sweet, romantic things about you.
Yeah. Well, let me look here. Let me, let me, let me dig on him a little bit. Takes me, he took us out to eat and he bought dinner by the way too, which nice thing. But um, he took me to this, I can’t remember the name of the restaurant, but I eat like I ate one of the [inaudible] because he was encouraging it. I didn’t want the burger.
Yeah, I know. I know, right. What? I know the exact one. Yeah, you’re a nutritionist. Why are you taking me to go get it?
That’s funny. Do so. So do you eat the whole 30 like he recommends or do you just eat
Dallas doesn’t eat whole 30 so I doubt rich.
He’s the creator with the co-creative whole 30. I think it’s funny that, you know, he’s got, you know, he doesn’t actually eat whole 30 anymore, but it’s uh, we’ve talked to them, we’ve talked to Melissa about that before. But anyways, um, come jumping into it rich. One of the first times I actually saw you was when you fought Ken Shamrock on TV and you demolished him. And that was one of the first times I actually found out who you are. I’m like, Oh dang, who’s this new kid? And they said that you were a teacher and that blew me away. I’m like, this guy is a teacher and he’s fighting. And it was so inspiring for me. And I’ve always been curious about this. How does your students handle you as a teacher, being a fighter?
Well, it was interesting because I had quit teaching full time, um, in 2002, and then that fight was, the Shamrock fight was in Oh five. So I, I hadn’t been teaching full time, but I was still working part time at the district. I actually worked part time in an at risk program for a, it was an off campus facility for students up until about, probably about two or three weeks before my title fight, which was the fight after the Ken Shamrock fight. And so it was interesting because I was, I was fighting local shows and there were actually some instances where I would, I would literally like get out of school on a Friday, uh, I’ll probably cut out slightly before the teachers were supposed to leave and like drive to a place like Cleveland or to like Des Moines, Iowa or something like that. And then fight on a Saturday night and uh, and then, and then drive back on Sunday and be in school on, on a Monday morning.
And so you’ve got to realize like the timeframe at the time, most people didn’t even know what mixed martial arts was. Uh, so a lot of the kids would go home and they would try to explain things to their parents and, and, and I will, I will say that like my classroom on, uh, like, uh, like the uh, parent teacher night when the parents come in to meet their, their, their teachers was like packed because they wanted to, they wanted to come in and meet this guy that the students were talking about. So it was, I had a really good experience though, I’ll tell you, like the students, they were intrigued by it and they just, you know, it was like a lot of questions that I would get asked all the time they were cotton. I mean, obviously anybody would rather talk about fighting than learning algebra, but exactly.
But no, I had, I had a good support system. The parents were very, were, were like, they were curious and they wanted to come in and meet me, not curious and like, who’s this, you know, this, this Savage teaching my children at school. But, and I had a good support system from the school. Like everybody was supportive of what I was doing and everything. And when, when I, when I quote unquote retired or decided to leave teaching to pursue this, you know, I mean, even the school and everybody, they were like, man, if you ever want a job, like your position here’s is available.
Reminds me of that movie with Kevin James where he goes into the UFC to raise money for a school. Did you ever see that movie?
Oh yeah. Actually I was, uh, if you, if you rent that movie, I’m in one of the deleted scenes because they were gonna put me in the movie and then we did a scene that was not really part of the storyline. So they cut it because either that or my, my craft at the act.
Yeah. That’s funny. You’ve actually been in a few movies, which most people don’t know about. Actually, I didn’t know about until I kind of did some research on you. But yeah, man, that’s awesome. You could always be Jim Carey’s body double, right?
I think. I think so. I don’t know if I could, I just can’t move like that guy. But he’s a, he’s like a comedic Gumby.
I know. It’s so funny. You know, I, and I think we talked about this at fit con, you know, you, I know what people always say. You look like Jim Carrey and I always get confused with Ben Stiller, so I kind of have that in common.
So we’d be like, if Jim Carey is Tim Carey and in store did a movie together where they basically look like got in shape, we can play their body doubles, man, it would be so awesome.
I’ll talk to some production companies about that in LA maybe. Um, uh, so, so speaking about you being the teacher, man, I can, I want to ask you about that, cause it’s been very interesting. How did you transition from being a teacher and then kind of retiring from teaching? Was that kind of risky for you to jump into the world of MMA because I’m assuming at that time your salary w you know, couldn’t have been that much in the fighting world until you got to the UFC of course. Was that kind of risk it was at a risk for you to take going from us a set salary doing teaching to being, um, a fighter?
Nah. Well, yes and no. And people like to take a step back from this question real quick. Like, people think that I’m just, I’m teaching one day and then all of a sudden I’m like, you know what, I’m going to try this UFC thing out and see if it works out for me. Like that’s, that’s not how things went down. Like I started training when I was a senior in high school and, and I was like, I live, breathe, eat, slept. Like everything I did was, was training. Uh, all, all through college I didn’t have that like cool college life that you see in the movies and all that kind of stuff. Um, and so, you know, long story short, by the time I started teaching, like the summer between my senior year of college and my first year of teaching is when I took my first fight and in a, in an amateur show and that that led to another fight that led to another fight.
And the whole time I was teaching, like I was fighting on smaller circuits in professional shows, but it was a little shows like I said before, like I might be in Cleveland or I might be somewhere in Illinois or somewhere in Indiana. And it was all basically like stuff in the Midwest. Um, but then it got to a point where I thought like, I think I could do this full time. And so I considered that, I mean at the time, like at the time my wife was also teaching as well. Uh, so I like, for me quitting, there was at least a little bit of security there and that like we had that income to live off of. So, so yeah, I mean, because basically like I cut my salary, my, I had a full time teaching salary and within the first like six months or eight months of, of me quitting, you know, I, I probably only made a few thousand dollars in these small aisle shows. Uh, and I, there was actually just a small point in time where I considered going back to teaching. Uh, because I mean it’s just, it’s difficult to get the ball rolling. I mean, what happened to me truly is like a Cinderella story.
Wow. That’s awesome. Yeah. So what, so what helped push you through to not quit then? Was it just not the pressure your wife at the time didn’t pressure you even though you weren’t making any money, you just felt like I got to pursue this no matter what.
It just, I I think, I think you go through like you go through a phase, anytime you’re trying to accomplish something, you go through a phase where you’re super energetic about it and everything’s going to work out and all that kind of stuff and then you start hitting roadblocks and
anything worth accomplishing in life is going to be difficult task. Like if anything that you do in life, if it wasn’t difficult to do then you need to raise your standard or step outside of your circle of comfort or whatever it is that you’re going to do and you start hitting those roadblocks and you start having those little moments of doubt and then those little moments of doubt. As that continues, they become bigger moments of doubt and bigger moments of doubt. I mean this, this is the kind of things I experienced when I’m getting ready for fights as well. And if you let those moments of doubt, like turn into like those thoughts become like basically thoughts that will stop you in your tracks, then then you basically, you’ll, you’ll, you’ll turn from whatever the challenge is. It’s like, Oh well I’d rather just take the easier route in life.
I’d rather live in my circle of comfort then to continue stepping through something. But you know, you start having these moments of doubt and when you start considering like, well maybe this isn’t the right choice. And for me I had to basically I was going to give it a year. I mean, I could have always substitute taught for the year that I’ve taken off, but school doesn’t start until the following year again anyway. And you know, there was a time where some things changed a little bit and I started making a little bit of money and then, and then I finally had a fight or two in the, in the UFC and then things were moving in the direction even even still, I wasn’t making great money. I mean it’s entry-level fights aren’t, aren’t great anyway, but at least things were moving in the right direction. But then there was a, I had basically after I fought a couple of fights, I took a fight outside of the promotion.
I wasn’t contracted and I ended up losing that fight and it really like for some time derailed me. Um, and I, and I never knew if I was going to truly get my career back on track the way that, well, I don’t know if I would call it a career at that point in time, but I just didn’t know if it, if I was going to end up with that, you know, that that basically fairy tale ending of like this great career. And once again I started questioning things but you just push through that stuff and push through it. And eventually the openings came and it was basically all about resilience.
Man, I love that. I love what you talk about. You know, you’re going to hit those rough patches. It’s always going to be hard if it’s not, you should definitely reevaluate what you’re doing. But I also like what you said about, you know, you lost that fight and you kind of, you know, had a moment where you were shaken by that. And I know you’ve given an amazing talk about how to be a loser. Can you talk a little bit about that topic? I think it’s such an important topic because we’re also afraid of failing. But the truth is, is unless you don’t try something, you’re, you’re always going to be failing at different.
Yeah. Yeah. I have, um, I have, um, the theater Roosevelt on my, on my, on my wall. It’s not the critic who counts. It’s not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or how the Dewar deeds could have done that. But you guys are familiar with this quote. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Okay. So the end of the quote says so that, so that I shall not be among those cold and timid souls who know neither victory nor defeat. And it’s basically about being too frayed to try. And so at least like I would much rather in, in my life, at least put myself out there and fail. Like, I mean, that’s what it talks about, like fail at something and fail greatly then to have never it all.
And at the time in my life when I lost, like I lost that fight. I was, I was probably like 16 and Oh as a professional and I lost my first fight and I wasn’t a good loser then. And it’s a, it’s a funny way to say things, but, and I, and I just didn’t have the proper tools to deal with that like I did. I didn’t know how to deal with the loss. And, and I don’t think that at that point that the loss really impacted me. But basically like the Ted talk was about having those tools. If not, it’d be grown up. You’re just told like, don’t be a sore loser. And it’s basically about having the proper tools to deal with the loss, to take a loss or to take a failure, extract the information that you can from it and, and utilize that and get rid of the rest. So it’s not weighing you down. You don’t have these, like, like having like shackles tied to your feet with these weights so that you can’t move forward in a progressive manner. And it’s also about having the proper mindset with, with different things like a Champion’s attitude towards, towards different stuff and just understanding that life is going to life is going to throw these, these setbacks and failures at you.
Yeah. And you know what, we’ll put a link to that Ted talk in the show notes so people can download it. And it’s a, it’s an awesome, I think it’s only 15 minutes long, but it’s an awesome 15 minutes. And I noticed everybody gave me a standing ovation afterwards and I did too, man. I was like, wow, this is so good. It was really powerful man. And I love that you spoke on that and so, uh, yeah, we’ll definitely share that with everybody. Kind of switching gears here a little bit, cause we, you know, we talk about about fitness and nutrition. I know that you’re a huge proponent of eating healthy and staying healthy. Um, I kinda want to talk to you about your specific training and how it compares to how do you train for life now versus how, how you trained as a fighter because you’re not fighting anymore, right. Hopefully not that we know.
No, no. I actually, I officially announced, I officially announced retirement about three months ago. Um, but, but my training, so my training, the volume that I do has changed. I obviously don’t need to do as much now as I do when I’m getting ready for a fight. But th the things that I do, they basically stay the same. Like I, I maintain a pretty strict training regimen and a pretty strict nutritional regimen. We’ll talk about both of them, but yeah. But, um, but no, you know, like, I mean today I went in the gym and, uh, and, and I went in and my, my coach put me through my strength conditioning coach, uh, um, put me through this. He set up a circuit. It was just like way beyond anything that I needed. And I actually was, was sitting down with, with my mom today at lunch after, after the workout.
I can hardly stand up because my legs are just so, so messed up. So I mean, but that was a conditioning routine. So he had me, you know, doing battle ropes and sprints, like ladder sprints on the turf and uh, flipping tires and jumping through it and plyometric stuff and, uh, speed ladders on the ground and then lifting a little bit of weight on top of that. And so it was about an hour and 15 minute training session that just, it put me on my butt before I left. And then of course, like for me, everything’s all about my nutrition. I woke up this morning and pretty much every morning I have, I’ll have a green drink that I make with like some random ingredients, but usually like some kale, some spinach, I’ll use a little mint. Parsley. A tumeric is another good thing. It’s great antioxidant and great clam towards it doesn’t sound like it tastes good.
Yeah. All I do. So all you do is you just throw enough fruit in there so that it’s palatable to you. Right. And so, um, I’m, uh, I’m, I’m you, I’m a big fan of grapefruit. I’m kind of off my grapefruit kick right now, but, uh, but I’ll use grapefruit a lot. I like that bitter, that bitter flavor, but I’m like, today I had three blueberries in it and you just, you know, you might, you might need 10 ounces of blueberries to make it taste good. I might need, you know, five ounces of blueberries to make it taste good, so on and so forth, but that I basically do something like that. Uh, and then I had, um, for my breakfast, I had, uh, three whole eggs, uh, about another 10 egg whites and then a sweet potato in half, and that was my pre workout meal.
Okay. Then of course, I went to the gym and, uh, and when I came back I was, I was so smashed that I needed a, I needed some more sugar. So I basically, I made another green drink, but instead of using fruit, I used a coconut water as my base. Gotcha. Uh, got a little, got a little sugar from the coconut water and then I had, um, some homemade chili that I make with, uh, oftentimes the ground deer. But I’m out of, I’m out of deer for this season. I’ve, I’ve, I’ve not done a good job hunting this season. I’ve done a great job missing apparently. Um, and uh, and I had, and I had two more sweet potatoes cause I did so many legs today that I’m kinda trying to catch up on some, a carbohydrate replenishment.
Gotcha. And so how, how, how often, uh, how many days a week do you train that hour and 15 minutes? Is that five days a week, six days a week, seven?
Uh, no, I’ll do that. I usually do like a, some sort of conditioning slash lifting like my, when, when I, when I talk about being in the gym, like my, um, my routine, sometimes it’s like, you know, explosive plyometric stuff. Sometimes speed stuff, sometimes it’s strength stuff or whatever. But I usually do that three days a week and then I’ll maintain, uh, another three days a week where I’m in the fight gym. Like, uh, yesterday I was probably at the gym a good hour and 45 minutes between my warmup, I cooled down and, uh, did a little bit of drilling and then did some sparring yesterday, uh, yesterday I went and did some boxing and, uh, it’s about hour and a half hour and 45 minute workout yesterday. And so that’s the problem. You know, honestly, I retired and I worked for, um, you know, I worked for one championship, which was an MMA organization based in Singapore for the listeners in the States that don’t know. And, uh, and for the first time in my life, like I retired from fighting, but I feel like I have two jobs now because, because I, I still train, like I’m fighting and then I have another job on top of it. So I’m twice as busy now as I was before. I wasn’t fighting.
Yeah. Uh, and that’s, that’s awesome though, man. And I was actually curious to ask you, do you feel like your, so you, do you feel like you’re in just as good a shape now as you were when you were a fighter? For the most part, or do you, when you’re a fighter, are you doing two, three days when you’re prepping for a fight? Like how, what does that look like? That training regimen look like a four or five?
Yeah. I actually,
I actually include this about preparation in a, in one, like I do like motivational talks and stuff like that and then corporate talks and whatnot. And I, and I talk about preparation and one of the things I talk about is my fight prep. And it’s, it’s pretty interesting like when I do this talk because basically like I spend about about 22 hours a week just doing training and that’s, that’s, uh, 22 hours on the mat. That doesn’t include like if I, if I’m going to do an ice bath or if I’m going to watch film or, you know, any of the other time that I put into my nutrition, it’s like time on the mat and time off. So like a typical Monday for me would look like. Like I would get up in the morning, I do my road work, which is usually like a fiveK and then, um, I would have my first training session, which on Mondays would be like kind of what I just described.
It would be one of my conditioning sessions. And you know, when I, when I was a 25 year old athlete, I used to be able to go do that conditioning session. And then if you like it, if you called me up and said, Hey rich, can you help me come move my couch. Like I could go help you move your couch and then show up to my evening session as well. But now like when I’m done with that training session, it’s time for a nap. Um, and then I’ll usually, I’ll usually go back to the gym and I’ll do my second training session that evening. Now as a, as a fighter, I would never do two back to back, like high intensity training sessions. So if my, if my morning session of conditioning stuff was like, you know, on a scale of one to 10, like a 10 or nine or 10 workout, then my evening workout would be like, you know, maybe some pads or some situational drilling and some semi live goes and it would be kind of toned down just a little bit.
Uh, and that’s, that’s how I would do that. But, and, and so basically like each day would be like that. Like, you know, I would do morning conditioning four days a week. I would do doubles, um, four days a week, like double sessions the way I just explained. And then, um, and then, uh, Wednesday I would do a single session and then Saturday was our sparring day and Saturday was set up to take fight day. And I can talk about how that actually unfolded and all that kind of stuff. But, um, you know, with the visualization that we would do and all those kinds of things. But by the end of the week, I would put in about about 20 to 22 hours of physical labor. And you know, and I tell people, I’m like, you know that if you do the math on that over a 10 week camp, it’s, it comes out to eight. I, I prep eight hours for every minute. I’m scheduled to be in the cage for a championship. Basically when drew was sitting here contemplating because you’ve retired, he’s like, you know, I wonder if I could take him now I’m in better shape. So basically, no, no, he couldn’t.
Well, it’s, it’s fun because I’ll go into the gym sometimes and here’s, here’s the one thing that I’ve learned. Like, you know, you guys, you asked me if I’m in as good a shape as I like when I was fighting. And the answer is like, I mean even when you’re fighting, there’s on season and there’s off season. Like if I, if I’m not in as good a shape, 12 weeks out of a fight as I am when I’m, when I’m four weeks out of a fight, obviously, because you know, your conditioning ramps up and all that kind of stuff. But I will say this, that as I’ve gotten older, the one thing that I have learned is that nothing trumps experience, like good experience. And I, I can go into the gym and I, and to answer your question, like I always maintain really like good shape.
Like I always keep myself in good, uh, physical condition. Like today I got on the rower when I started and I still, I wanted to start with a 10 minutes sprint basically. And I’m coming back from a couple week vacation. So naturally I’m not moving really well. But I got on the rower and I did a just a shade under a 20, 150 meters in 10 minutes. And I was sh and I was shooting for 3000 and, and like, and I was like, when I got off, I mean about, about fielding a little too much Christmas food, but, but I maintain that kind of shape. Um, and you know, and, and maybe not when I’m in fight shape, but there are times when I go into the gym now and I’m working with young guys, guys that are two, three weeks out of a fight and they’ll, there’ll be two, three rounds deep with me, you know, stand up sparring or maybe grappling or something like that. And, and these guys, like they look like they’re about to vomit and I haven’t even hardly broken a sweat. And it’s, a lot of it is just, it’s because you have such experience, you learn an efficiency of motion and wind to preserve your energy and when to use it properly and, and all that kind of stuff. So even when, even when I’m not in the greatest shape, like guys that are, that are conditioned fairly well, most of the time, like I can still go in and, and, and handle myself.
And that’s awesome. I think that’s so important to cause I tell people all the time, if this is the lifestyle you need to make this a lifestyle change and still just a a 30 day, 60 day, 90 day crash diet or even fighters who do the 12 week prep and getting really good shape. And then after the fights over, they don’t have a fight for another eight months, then they just let themselves go for a couple months, get out of shape. But so many people do that and they’re in their lives where they just do these 60 day crash diets after the new year and then they don’t know how to make it a lifestyle change. So I love that you’re a great example, uh, for the lifestyle, for living a healthy lifestyle. And I kinda want to talk to you rich, about how nutrition has evolved over the years. Um, in MMA specifically, cause back when you were fighting, there’s a lot new science. Now there’s, you know, uh, Mike Dolce has got the Dolce diet. He, he, uh, helps a lot of, uh, fighters get in shape and there’s not more science. Now that goes into fighters nutrition. Um, I kinda want to talk to you about, or can you talk to how nutrition has evolved or what you’ve noticed over the years of how nutrition plays a role in a fighters, uh, in, in the fighters?
Yeah. Well, when I first started this game, like I graduated high school in 93 and um, and when I graduated I was six foot tall, 155 pound kid, uh, not very big. And then I hit a growth spurt late my freshman year of college. I grew another inch. And, uh, and by about midway through my sophomore year, I probably put on about 35 pounds. So, you know, I went from like one 55 to one 90 and looked like a completely different guy. And at the time, I mean, it’s all about nutrition. You can lift and exercise all you want, but really just exercising does the damage to the body. And it’s the, you know, the nutrients, the building blocks that you put back in it to rebuild the tissue that you damaged is where the growth comes in. Yeah. And, and so at the time, like I was those deepened muscle magazines and stuff like that and look it up, nutrition.
And it was all about, you know, everything’s protein, protein, protein, and granted you do need protein to build muscle. But, um, that’s what that was all about at the time. And I’m reading all these like, well, this body builder eats this and that bodybuilder eats that. And, and so, and while that does help put on, put on muscle, I mean, there’s some truth to that obviously, because this is what these guys do for a living. If you’re looking at overall performance, um, there’s much more to the game than that. Like, you know, you’re looking at things like on a cellular level and, and given, you know, given your, you, your blood cells, like enough oxygen to replenish muscles while you’re in activity and stuff like that. And, and, and, and, you know, the proper nutrients that, that, uh, cells need in order to, to repair, you know, internally.
And, and not just for like lifting weights, but to actually perform at an optimum, you know, at an optimum level. And, and so it takes like, it took me a lot of time to learn this kind of stuff because, you know, you just, ah, I’m the kind of person that just knows deepen and everything that, that, that I see. And so you learn like, Hey, life isn’t to be a good athlete lifestyle all about proteins and, and just carbohydrates. Like you have to eat some green vegetables and different vegetables of different colors and, and so you kind of learn these things and you pick up little tidbits here and there and all that kind of stuff about, you know, eating the proper nutrients when you need them, like giving yourself enough carbohydrates to recover from workouts at the right times and when not to eat things and stuff like that. And so it has, it has evolved quite a bit and it’s especially evolved like, you know, for me, like a big part of like cutting weight during my, my, my career dealt a lot with my nutrition and stuff like that. So, um, it’s, it’s, it’s evolved, uh, quite a bit. And that’s like, you know, you mentioned Mike Dolce like Mike Dolce is, is kind of a, you know, known for that kind of stuff. Is being able to be able to, to help fighters cut weight when it seems like the cut is nearly right.
Yeah. And I’ve kind of noticed this, uh, across all sports nutrition has played a bigger role and I think it allows, in my opinion, it can allow these players to play longer in the, what most people used to be able to play their sport for. And I, I don’t know if you met Ray Lewis at the, at fit con last year, but he agreement he gave an excellent speech about the recent, he, he attributes his, uh, his playing level for so many years was his nutrition. He would have these 20 year old dudes, you know, talking trash to him, eating, you know, hamburgers and fries and like candy all day because they could get away with it at that time. But he’s, he’s over here eating fish and vegetables, you know, playing linebacker, which is a tough position to play, you know, well into his later years still be successful at it. And I’ve kind of noticed that even at MMA there’s a lot more emphasis on nutrition, nutrition, nutrition, uh, because it, it makes a difference.
The thing that’s always been really confusing to me, and maybe you can kind of shed some light on this is, you know, drew, I, I’ve watched a little bit of UFC, obviously not as much as drew, you know, but I’m, and probably because whenever I’d be watching it in a room for old guys, I’d ask questions and everyone would be like, sh, but um, you know, they would explain like the weight classes to me and how people were paired up based on their weight. And when I would talk about it, people would be like, well, you know, like yesterday they basically weighed 10 pounds more, but they had to do this crazy death cutting, you know, to be able to like fit into their weight class, you know, did, doesn’t that affect like your performance if you have to do like this extreme cutting? Like why is that even necessary? And you know, I’ve heard, you know, drew was mentioning that they’ve kind of changed things a little bit.
Well, it’s, you know, things are, things are changing. Um, I work for an organization called one championship and we just implemented a new way in procedure before I talked about that. Let me back up. Yeah. I mean, I, I’m, I’m a product of that entire environment. Um, initially when I started my fight career, and not a lot of guys were cutting weight at that point in time, but when I first started my fight career, um, I was, I was basically fighting at 205 pounds. And, uh, but I probably walked around it maybe to 10 to 15 and then I, then I decided, and I wasn’t, I wasn’t very big. Like, well, what ended up happening is like guys started dropping weight classes and I wasn’t very big for that weight class. So what I basically did was I decided I needed to drop to 185 pounds.
Well, that’s my fight weight. What am I walk around weight on a daily basis is, um, you know, say, say right around two Oh five, two Oh five, two Oh seven, maybe just, uh, just a, uh, just a shade above two Oh seven. And, and, and that’s where I walked around. So what I would do is I would keep my weight there. I would nutritionally adjust some things, uh, several weeks out of the fight. But ultimately the bulk of the weight was lost during fight week and, and prep. And, and even during fight week, most of that weight was lost the night before the fight or the night before, the weigh ins or the day of the weigh ins. And so I would enter fight week, uh, sometimes 20 pounds above my weight limit. Like I would, I would enter in, you know, crazy. It was my goal. It was always my goal to come in and at two Oh three on the Monday morning, if I woke up Monday morning of fight week and I weighed two Oh three, that meant I only had 18 pounds a cut.
And I guess for me, probably a lot of that was just cycle. Logically. I knew I was confident in that. That wouldn’t be, I don’t want to say not a difficult cut cause it’s difficult to strip your, your body of 18 pounds, but that it would be well for sure that I would not, I wouldn’t be second guessing myself because as a fighters psychologically, like the weight cut itself becomes its own event. It’s just as stressful sometimes as the actual fight. Um, and, but yeah, I mean there’s a ton of research out on this stuff and I’ve kind, I’ve kind of a really educated myself a little bit on, on the research that’s out there recently because we’ve implemented this new system with, even though like, because what would end up happening is the night before the fight and, or the night before, the way in and the day of the way, and you end up sitting in a sauna.
A lot of guys sit in saunas. I used a sauna. There are other methods you can do like hot baths and stuff like that and, and, and there are other ways to do things, but you end up dehydrating yourself because you’re going to take 20 pounds off your body. I mean, you’re either losing fat, you’re losing muscle, you’re losing water, you have to lose something and you don’t want to lose muscle for sure. And you can’t lose fat that quick. So yeah, regardless of how you do it, you’re pretty much stripping water out of the body. Um, and so you end up losing like 15 pounds of water overnight, basically is what I would do. And so, yeah, even, even when you rehydrate yourself, because I had a whole process as to how I rehydrated, um, with in, at the time, like we, we do IVs, like we, we would do a saline solution Ivy or whatever to, to rehydrate properly.
But when you read this, read these, uh, read some of the journals on it, like the medical journals and stuff, like you’re not properly rehydrated in, in a 24 hour period, which affects, it can affect like, uh, athletic performance up to like 35, 40% of your ability, strength, speed, whatever. And the big thing is it like inside your head, there’s a lot of fluid in your head that protects the brain and dehydrating like that actually, there’s some ramifications to, uh, like concussions and, and things of that nature as well. So, yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s not the healthiest process. And so basically, uh, you know, we’ve kind of implemented a new system at one championship to try to avoid all that.
Yeah. Yeah. And so, um, do you feel like this is the direction that maybe, you know, UFC might take into consideration because of this? I know that there was a, I feel bad, I forgot his name, the fighter that died in one championship, right?
Chinese kid, his name was a yanking bang. I don’t know if I said that properly.
Yeah. I don’t know the pronunciation either, but I saw his name. I was reading about it. And that’s, that’s scary. And, and now there’s probably all this pressure on the organization to look into this, uh, because it is dangerous. Right. And so that’s what you’re saying and that’s the type of change you guys are trying to make in one championship.
Yeah. Basically what we decided to do is that the system for us works like this, and this is new. This is a, I’ll call it a cutting edge system, but, uh, the NCAA has been doing things like this with wrestling for some years now because they’re, there were, you know, in the, uh, in the 90s, there were some deaths related to weight cutting in, in a NCAA with wrestling. And so they started, uh, becoming more stringent on this stuff. But basically what we do with, with our fighters now as we, we’ve begun tracking fighters weights on a daily basis. They have to enter their weights into a web design. Um, and then, and, and that’s, I mean, that’s on them. We don’t have a way to, to us monitor their weights on a daily basis, but when they come and fight week, the crux of the matter, and there’s some details that I can skip over here, but the crux of the matter is when they come in fight week, they get weighed in.
When they show up that the night of, um, after they land and they have to be within the parameters of the weight class. And then the, and then the next day we do a, we’ll use a, uh, a machine to test the hydration through the specific gravity of their urine to make sure that they’re within a, within a hydration limit. So even if they show up, even if they show up, um, within their weight class, if they’ve dehydrated themselves to be there, it doesn’t, it, they’re going to get caught. So they have to be within these, within these set hours of hydration limits. And then we will weigh them every day or the week of the fight to make sure that their weight is where they said it would be. Which is why it doesn’t, it doesn’t behoove them to lie about their weight, you know, 10 weeks out of a fight or something like that, because in the end it’ll come back and bite them.
Yeah. We weigh them every, every, every day of the week of the fight, and then three hours, within three hours of the event, they have to do another hydration test. And if they’re not properly hydrated, the, their fight will be scratched from the card. Now w we also have some other rules on, like, you know, basically like fighters need to be within their fight weight. Uh, they need to be within the parameters of the weight class with, uh, by three weeks from the fight. And there’s [inaudible] you’re only allowed like to drop so much weight, uh, per week. So, you know, because w we, we tried to make allowances for like guys let themselves get out of shape a little bit when they’re not in fight camp. And it’s like, well, what we’re trying to avoid is, like you talked about before, is a, is these guys that, that basically yoyo, um, you know, you’re, you’re in your, you’re at your fight weight on fight night.
I, uh, like, you know, me fighting at one 85 at fight night cause I don’t want to let myself go up to two 30 in the off season. Um, you know, I need to stay within, within the parameters of where I need to be. And so that’s a, that’s the whole idea. So there are allowances for them to gain a little bit of weight because they’re obviously not, they don’t have as much volume of activity. Um, but, but those allowances are set so that you’re losing a healthy amount of weight each week and you can’t do that. You basically, you can’t do any crash dieting or any crash cutting of water or anything.
Yeah. Well I’m super interested to see how this goes and I kind of want to follow it a little bit and even maybe, uh, maybe I’ll have on one of the fighters to see how they like this versus the old method and kind of see from a fighter’s perspective. So, uh, yeah, I think this is a great step in the right direction and I’m interested to see how it goes so you have to keep us posted on that rich. Sure. Yeah. We’re kind of running out of time. I know you’ve got to go. We have one last question before we jump into our lightning round, which is really quick. Uh, but I kind of want to talk to you about Armour gel because we haven’t had a chance to talk about it. And when I was at fit con, I was mostly talking to you about UFC. Obviously I didn’t get a chance to discuss what armor Joel is and what you do for them.
Yeah. Armour gel is a, it’s, it’s, um, it’s, uh, a hydro gel, which is a gel that’s water-based, um, made. It’s the Nana silver hydro gel. And basically the gel is, is primarily it’s designed is for like, cuts, scrapes, burns and things of that nature. And if you know anything about silver, like silver is a highly antibacterial metal. Um, it’s like traditionally, like for example, like you, you know, like, um, like the, the, you walk up to a fountain and you throw a coin in the fountain and you make a wish, like if you’re at the mall or something like that, that that came from, like when people used to have Wells, they used to put silver coins in their Wells to keep the water from going rancid, um, because the silver coins would kill the bacteria in the water. Um, and so this, this gel is made with silver.
Silver is used to, to make, um, medical instruments and whatnot. Like, cause like I said, it’s highly anti-bacterial. And so the gel has a FDA claims against, um, Murcia and staff, uh, VRE, uh, in, in different kinds of, uh, fungus like candida. Um, I’ve personally, like I, I seriously literally do, I do not travel without my armor gel. I use it for so many different things. Um, uh, like I was, I was training on AstroTurf one day and I, and I got scraped real bad. And I mean, staff staff is a big, big thing, especially if you’ve been following the NFL. Like there’ve been several teams who have had major, major problems with staff infections and stuff like that, uh, Mercer or whatever. And so, like the moment I cut myself, like I was like, you know, I’m going to, I’m going to rub some armor gel on this. Or like when I’m grappling if I have a car, I’ll put some armor gel on it before I start grappling. Um, there are times actually like, like I was in Cambodia one time teaching a seminar and when I walked into the school and looked at the mats, I, I in my head questioned whether or not they had ever had those mats ever been sanitized. And so I’ll tell you, I took my JL and covered my whole body and I was like, you know,
sorry. Yeah. You know what’s funny is actually wrestled in high school and I got ringworm one time and I couldn’t uh, wrestle that night cause you, you know, they trick you for ringworm and uh, I remember crying, it was my freshman year, my first year of wrestling and I’m like, Oh so armored show would helped me out in that situation.
Gosh, it’s crazy that you mentioned that though. Cause actually like I’ve been scared for like, people always freak me out before I go into the water here. I was going surfing with a girlfriend before we got in. She was like, just be really careful not to hit the coral underneath and get scratched because their staff in the water. I was like, like, okay freak the crap out of me right before we get in the water. All right, I’ll be extra careful. I need that. I need that in my life.
We had more time. I would tell you a story about a time that I cut my shin and uh, and yeah, it was, it was quite funny. I told the doctor that I hit my shin on some coral and stuff like that and, and I did. And uh, but I didn’t realize the ramifications of that state
because I didn’t realize how much bacteria and stuff, water and whatnot. That’s funny.
But yeah, I’m, I’m telling you this, this product, it truly is like, I’ve, I’ve used it on like cuts that I’ve had, it helps with healing time, uh, scope barring and everything else. It’s just, it really is a truly amazing product. Some of the guys in the company actually uses gel. It’s not a great tasting gel, don’t get me wrong. But there have been guys that have used this like, because they got food poisoning and that’s from a bacteria obviously, who have used the product when they were traveling and they just like squeezed an entire bottle of it in there.
Oh wow. So it’s safety eat even. That’s crazy. Yeah. I didn’t know that.
If you, if you squeeze the bottle of it in your mouth, it would have a bit of a metallic taste to it. But metallic silver is not a, it’s not a toxic metal to the body. Um, but there’s nothing toxic in it. It’s a water based gel. You put it on if, if you rub it on your hands or wherever you have a cut within five, 10 seconds, you can’t even tell you rub something on because it’s just, it’s not a petroleum based, it’s not an alcohol or anything like that. It’s just, it’s a water-based gel. It’s, it’s really good stuff. So I encourage people, especially people in the athletic world, you know, if you’re like CrossFitters or, or like, you know, power lifters, if you’re dead lifting a lot, like scraping up your shins, good product to have on hand because those bars and stuff in the gyms, they just think like, Oh, this is a little cut. Well, just so you know, Murcia and staffer are our little bacteria.
Dang. All right. I need some of that for my crazy staff ocean that I got going on here.
I’ll send, I’ll send you guys, I’ll send you a little care package. Okay.
Oh, I love it. Awesome. Love it. All right. We’re coming in to the very end. It goes by really quick. It’s called the lightning round. Okay. So basically I’m going to ask you several questions. They literally have no relevance. They’re just stupid questions that I want to know. You have to answer them as honestly as possible and as quickly as possible. So the first thing that comes into your mind, are you ready? Are you ready? All right. Most embarrassing moment.
Uh, the time I got droopy or D pants in front of the, the girls gym class when I was a junior.
Oh man. I love that. All right. All right. Worst date you’ve ever been on.
I’ve never been on any very many bad dates, but I’ll just say that when I was in, uh, w when I was like first my first year teaching, I was, I was dating this girl and she punched me and yeah.
Did she, did she, did she like knock you out? Be honest. You’re like, I’ve taken worse.
Yeah. There’s a whole story behind it. But the, but the like, basically I was like, yeah, that’s the last time I’ll see you.
She’s like, I’m just helping you with training. All right. Favorite TV show? Oh, game of Thrones. Ah,
we’re watching season one, so I don’t ruin anything for me.
Gave them, you know, I, I’m like giving him clues without giving them clues cause I’m up to date. Winter is coming.
Um, okay. So I have a couple of questions for you, rich. Um, and these are kind of funny. What do you think you could beat Dana white in a fight right now I’m a professional fighter. Doesn’t he train at all or no? Does he not train? I thought I’d try, but he’s not a professional. Okay. What about, okay, what about Joe Rogan? He’s, he’s not a professional, but he trains pretty decently, you
know, I’ll tell you what, even if I could beat each though that, that I think that would be a costly fight in Joe’s got like a streak of mean in him too.
He does. He does. From what I’ve noticed. And, and he’s, he’s, he’s a bad ass man. He trains hard. He really does. Yeah.
Yeah, he does. I’ve seen, I’ve seen his videos on YouTube, so yeah, I’ll get, I’ll give you, I’ll give Joseph respect. I look and I give Dana some respect too, but he travels a lot. So
that’s funny dude. Okay. Um, last question. I know that you’ve always been in shape for the most part and you kinda like maintain this healthy last. Would you ever do what I did and do a fit to fat to fit on purpose gained 75 pounds?
Absolutely not.
I’m telling you right now, you could, somebody could come to me with a seven figure check in that. I don’t think I would say yes to that.
Well, I wished someone did that for me, uh, as someone gave that to me when I did it. But no, I kinda did it obviously for different reasons and I learned a lot from it and I definitely wouldn’t want you to put your, your body and your mind through that cause it was hell. Uh, it was, it was fun for a minute, but I, I definitely would not do it again. But I,
well, I’ll say this, a wise man learns from his experiences, but a wiser man learns from another man’s experience.
I love it. I’m good learning from you buddy. Yeah.
Tisha, Tisha, thanks so much, rich. That was a, that was awesome man. And uh, we appreciate you coming on the podcast. We know you have to go. We’ll have to have you on again in the future cause I love how you’re a big proponent of, of a healthy lifestyle and, and fitness and nutrition. It’s awesome to talk to you.
Yeah, for sure man. I’d love to come back on so anytime you know how to get ahold of me bro. Yeah, I appreciate that so much man. Okay, bye.
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