The Academy

Jason "Mayhem" Miller= Real Man

Ok, that was a realy stupid title for several reasons. 1- the "gender as definition of strength" thing is so dumb. There are strong ass women, and weak ass men.... so..... "man" as an adjective for strength is nonsense. And 2- if you DO use that type of "real man" language..... at least describe a truly strong person! Real strength is not what most would think. Jason "Mayhem" Miller has written an awesome article describing how a truly strong person behaves. It is not what the "dudes" that read Maxim would've expected to come out of a "cage fighter". Check it out. Jay:

Mayhem’s 7 Man Laws

The guys at Maxim asked me to write for them, and let me be the first to say, IT'S ABOUT GODDAMN TIME. I have been sitting here for damn near a decade with tornado of ideas spinning in around in my head of things men need to know.

Who am I? You might know me as the "bully show guy" or "Jason Ellis' friend" or "the dude on Ultimate Fighter that can take a beating." Or maybe you have no goddamn idea who I am.

Hello, my name is Mayhem. It's nice to meet you.

I’m not that Mayhem from the goddamn Allstate commercials - the one played by Liz Lemon's dummy boyfriend. I'm the actual Mayhem. I've been Mayhem for a long time. Even my mom calls me Mayhem.

I've been an MMA fighter for 12 years. My next bout is May 26th at UFC 146 at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. I also have a special on Hulu, called A Day in The Life, so when you're finished spanking it to girly pictures on Maxim.com you can go to Hulu.com and watch what I have to go through on a daily basis. Now that the boring ass introductions and shameless self promotion is over, let's get down to bidness.

You need to act like man. I can help.

Here are a few Man Laws that I gathered over my years of adventuring. I hope you will find them helpful, or at least entertaining.

1. A man needs to learn something new every day.
I am not telling you to learn useless animal factoids from the bottom of Snapple caps, so that you can recite them in order to get girls to exchange numbers with you at Starbucks, but here are some just in case you need the help:

Turtles can breathe through their butts.

A snail can sleep for 3 years.

Most koalas have chlamydia.

I'm asking you to learn something that will improve your life. Something about your job, or something that will get you out of your mother's basement. Take a business class. Apply to a  technical college. Shadow someone who does what you wish you could do.

I spent many years being a beat-up-dummy for UFC champion Tito Ortiz...for free. But constantly being around him taught me how to slam someone off the side of the cage and elbow them in the face.

Maybe you know how to make a "Purple-Eye" (three shots of espresso into a cup of coffee). It means nothing unless you have the motivation to use that knowledge. For instance, maybe you should have a cup of coffee.

2. Men don't smash their fellow man.
This should be pretty self-explanatory, but please allow me to elaborate for those of us who are oblivious, pathological 'haterz.' Run your own race. Worrying about what the guy in the next lane is doing will just get you tripping over your own tiny girl feet.

There will always be guys more handsome than you, with more money than you, and with a bigger, uh, feet than you. It won't improve your position in life to chuck stones their direction, it'll just decrease your foot-speed.

You can't smash someone down to bring yourself up. That negative attitude just begets more negativity, sending you into a death spiral that keeps you from reaching your potential. Also, nobody wants to hang out with your whiny ass.

Don’t hate on your pals at the bar. Don’t hate on people you don’t know. (Yeah I’m talking to you, anonymous Twitter douche. It makes you look weak to your 16 followers.) Don’t even hate on your enemies. Keep your eye on your own prize, and try to build up the people around you. We all push one another up with that positive mental attitude, but remember....

3. It’s every man for himself.
Just because you have a support system, doesn’t mean you need to use it for every little stumble you have. I infamously lived in a van outside a California gym for a year (remember, Tito didn’t pay me). Sure, I could’ve called my daddy and got him to cosign on a lease on some cruddy apartment. But I refused to admit to him that maybe I should have went to computer school.

Relying only on yourself will forge you into a Hattori Hanzo blade that can chop the head off of any foe that stands before you. Sure you’ve got the chips stacked against you. Your name doesn’t begin with “Kim Jong” so you probably don’t have any clout, power, or two cents to rub together, but that just means you have nothing to lose.

I read some story in some old self-help book that I can't even remember, and it contained a something I will basically plagiarize in honor of this being on the Internet:

The twins of a deranged serial murderer grew up. One got heavy into drinking, drugs and basically being a social miscreant, culminating in finally murdering a guy over some petty reason. The other twin made his way through school, earning a degree, and running a small business that flourished. Two guys. The same genetic make up. They asked both, one from his office desk, the other through the glass of a prison visiting room, “Why do you think you turned out the way you did?”

They both responded with basically the same answer,

“Look at my father, what else was I supposed to do?”

It’s all in your mindset, young Jedi.

4. A man takes chances.
Of course a man is courageous - I shouldn’t have to write it as a rule. No risk, no reward. But once you take the risk, there ain't no half steppin’. Once you got the courage to commit to something you had better go balls out and take it to the limit.

5. A man is persistent.
I have everything in my life because I was unwilling to quit. I feel like in our increasingly sissified society, where everyone gets a participation trophy for showing up, we've become a bit soft on losing. You are supposed to lose sometimes.

You are supposed to be a sobbing mess, scream to the sky and wish you were never born.  Feel that sting- the unmistakable pain of your own spirit repeatedly shanking you in the kidneys with a dagger of self doubt.

Now jump forward from that image as hard as you can into the future. You’ve lived life, you took the chance and if nothing else you got some life experience from it. Take that knowledge, it counts as the one thing you learned today. Build off of it--that takes a special kind of courage, which brings us to our next Man-Law...

6. A man is honest with himself.
The hardest thing for a man to do is face the truth about himself. We all are built with a mechanism inside of us that somehow lies and tells us we are way more badass than we truly are--some of us had mothers who fed our ego entirely too much, conversely some of us were raised in an environment that beat us over the head with insults until we are convinced that we are unworthy.

7. A man figures it out himself.
Let me share something personal with you. I learned a huge life lesson when meeting one of my heroes, Chuck Palahniuk. As someone who loves to read and write and fight, I was anxious to meet the author of one of the Gospels of Man: Fight Club.

I sat through a talk on his latest book, which I later read, but didn't think it was as awesome as Survivor or Choke or Invisible Monsters. My focus was the book that made the movie that we all saw, and our GF's saw because Brad Pitt was goddamn hot in it. Fight Club, while very short, was well researched, well written, and provide some social commentary on the State of our Union, plus a nice bonus, SPOILER ALERT: The main character was batshit.

All of his books are badass, and I want to write badass books too after I'm done risking my brain in the cage, so after the lecture I hopped in line to ask Chuck a question.I made sure to be the last one in line, so I could get some uninterrupted instruction on how to make my work stand out.

When I finally arrived, I came face to face with a short, tan, smart-looking man in a pink shirt. His demeanor was focused and he had an air of flamboyant awesomeness that probably comes when you write books that Hollywood makes into movies.

I introduced myself, and poured my heart out on how his book sent my life in a crazy right turn, inspiring me to channel my youthful aggression into fighting. After that, I stammered through some specific questions I wanted answered, and first he gave half-ass answers that said "I'm tired, beat it." Then he deflected them, and focused on the fact I was a fighter. He gave me the advice, "Be careful, don't get a detached retina."

Yeah, thanks a lot for the tip pal. I didn't come here to receive an ophthalmological exam.

Dejected, I walked back out to the busy L.A. street and yelled "CHUCK PALAHNIUK DIDN'T TEACH ME SHIT!!!!!"

On the way back to the car, I was thinking more and more about the meeting, then I realized something. Without words, Chuck was saying something much larger. He was saying, “Figure it out your fucking self. I didn’t work my ass off to be an awesome writer just to give out the knowledge for free to some mouth-breather with cauliflower ear!”

I got it, Chuck.

If you can’t learn from an experience, it’s because you haven’t thought about it hard enough. I thought about this one and figured out that it’s up to you to have the courage to risk your ass trying to make your dreams come true. If you quit shy of your goals, you’re the only one that has to live with it.

There are 7 Man Laws for you. The rest are for you to write - after you make my Americano.

Paul Confirmed for Feb!!!!!

Finally. It's all confirmed! Here's the press release as featured on NEF:

Lewiston, ME (January 12, 2012) – New England Fights! And Nick DiSalvo Promotions are proud to announce the addition of a bantamweight bout between Portland, Maine’s Paul Gorman (8-7) and World Extreme Cagefighting (WEC)/Bellator veteran Anthony Leone (9-4) to their February 11th Fight Night mixed martial arts (MMA) event at the Androscoggin Bank Colisee in Lewiston, Maine.

“The addition of The Academy’s Paul Gorman and Bombsquad’s Anthony Leone really caps off an incredible card made up of the top talent in the Northeast,” stated promoter Nick DiSalvo.  “Everyone knows that Paul Gorman is a super dangerous fighter that is capable of winning against anyone. Paul trains with the intensity of someone fully focused on making it to the next level.  As for Leone, he’s already been there as a veteran of world-famous promotions like the WEC and Bellator. This fight is going to be white hot.”

The Gorman-Leone bout was originally scheduled to take place on FightMaine.com’s January 13^th, 2012 show that was cancelled due to multiple fighters succumbing to injuries in the final weeks leading up to competition. Fight Night was able to acquire the rights to the match by working closely with the event promotions company.

“Too often today in business and politics—and especially in fight promotions—people expel a lot of energy in working against one another,” stated Fight Night matchmaker Matt Peterson. “I serve in a political arena, so I understand how nasty it can get out there. The spirit that went into preserving this fight was the exact opposite of that.  The last-minute rescue of the Gorman-Leone matchup is an example of two promotions working together. I was proud to work with members of the FightMaine.com management team to save this bout and make sure that these two phenomenal athletes will still get a chance to face off against each other and receive a paycheck in the first quarter of 2012. When Gorman and Leone enter the cage on February 11^th, it will be a real testament to what is possible when fighters and fans are put first.”

“It means a ton to me that my fight with Leone is still on,” stated Gorman. “I put a lot of hard work into not just this fight, but all of my fights and it’s always a major letdown when things fall apart. Unfortunately for the fighters it’s commonplace to have our hard work go down the drain when fights are cancelled for whatever reason, so to have my fight picked-up at the last minute is huge.”

Paul Gorman has been fighting professionally for over a half-decade against the toughest competition he can find. In his expansive professional career he’s competed in regions as remote as the Pacific and faced the likes of UFC-veteran Josh Grispi, WEC-veteran Rafael Rebello, and the top featherweight and bantamweight talent in the Northeast.  The Jay Jack trained Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu (BJJ) Brown Belt has tapped out black belts in MMA competition and taken local champions into the deepest rounds of their careers. He’s been training consistently at The Academy under MMA pioneer Jack and his wife, Amanda Buckner, for the better part of a decade and is committed to reaching the highest levels of the sport.

As for Anthony Leone, he’s “been there, done that” and is fighting to return there as soon as possible. Leone fought in the Zuffa owned WEC prior to the organization being collapsed into the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). The WEC was the world’s premiere organization for 135 and 145-pound fighters prior to the UFC’s adoption of those weight classes, so Leone has faced world-class talent and will be fully prepared for February 11^th.

A Convrsation With Roger Gracie

"What Armbar?"

My good friend, Eliot Marshall, fought last weekend in the UFC. It was probably the most important fight of his career. He's been working on being more aggressive, and really letting it all out. In that fight, he had a couple of average rounds to open with. And then, like someone flipped a switch, in the third round..... we saw Eliot. The Eliot I always knew was there. And he CRUSHED. He dropped his opponent with a punch. Had largely undefended flurries of strikes on the ground that had the ref considering stopping it. When his opponent finally managed to begin grappling as a defense to the punches, Eliot then out grappled him taking his back and rear naked choking him. His opponent was a dead gamer though, because he didn't tap for the choke and managed to escape..... right into the mount.... and an armbar. Like I said he was game as hell, and didn't tap. And that arm broke. I mean to the point where he couldn't put it through the sleeve of his shirt as they announced the decision.

Eliot lost.

Now, there's a lot of discussion as to whether or not he did enough in the third to override the the first two rounds, based on current judging criteria. I hate current judging criteria, so it's a hard discussion for me to have. Feels like I'm arguing about whether or not Spiderman could take The Hulk. It's arguing about make believe.

I think that damage should count more than anything. From this interview with Eliot, you can tell he does too!

The real kicker was when I heard what one of the judges said after the fight when questioned about the decision.The judge explained that a knockdown wasn't enough to give Eliot a 10-8 round. The questioner then said "what about an armbar that is gonna put that guy in the ER?". The judge replied "what armbar?".

What armbar? Are you kidding? Do you not know what you're seeing, or just don't care enough to look?

Unreal!

I'm going to keep this anonymous and not say which judge, or who told me. I'm not trying to start an issue. But this just shows that you can talk all day about what criteria should be used, but unless you use judges that have enough integrity to actually watch the bout and understand what they're watching well enough to make a decision, its not going to matter what the criteria are.

I have always loved the idea of MMA. But I hate what it's being allowed to turn in to.

-Jay

More Celebrity BJJ!

From time to time you get to train with random famous people. I trained with the guitarist from Avenged Seven Fold one time. The lead singer from Tool swung by the Sundy morning class at my Alma Mata, Easton BJJ, after a concert the night before. Cool stuff. Even cooler, is when those celebrities get the opportunity to become the fan. Here's an interview of the Legend, Rickson Gracie, done by Maynard Keenan (Tools lead singer). Very cool interview. Because of who it is and what's said. Check it out -Jay:

BALANCE:

This simple concept seems to be the underlying answer to all questions posed to Rickson Gracie (pronounced Hickson) this morning. Rickson, a native of Brazil, is one of the older brothers of Royce Gracie (three-time champion of the popular pay per view event "The Ultimate Fighting Championship"). With a record of far more than four hundred straight wins, Rickson is considered to be the most formidable of the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu practitioners. Steve and I asked at great length what, in his opinion, made it possible for him to achieve such a status. Much to my pleasure, it had nothing to do with being a three hundred pound hairy ape on steroids. It had nothing to do with lifting weights till you achieve stretch marks or eating any and everything all day long. Nor did it have anything to do with hatred, psychosis, or whateveraphobia. It did, have everything to do with balance.

Rickson: Jiu-Jitsu is like a philosophy. It helps me learn how to face life.

Maynard: In what way?

Rickson: In every way. To understand our society, to relate myself to people, to compete in an actual self defense tournament, to feel confident, to walk on the street and to be able to help people, to be strong enough to forgive…

BALANCING THE JUSTICE SCALES:

Maynard: Do you think it is better to avoid a fight rather than to provoke a fight?

Rickson: I believe that you must do what you believe you have to do. If I don't believe I should fight, I'm not gonna fight. My decision is based more on my personal honor than it is on who I'm channeling my anger towards. For example, if I see a guy smacking an old lady I'm going to do something about that. I don't care who it is. It's a moral concern. I cannot live with this on my mind without taking action just because I don't know who it is. In cases like this my honor, my dignity, and my moral code is much more important than my physical body.

AGGRESSIVE NATURE AND PHYSICAL LIMITATIONS:

Maynard: Do you think that Gracie Jiu-Jitsu has something for the person who doesn't have a natural talent?

Rickson: Definitely. I can't think of anyone with less physical ability than my father, Helio Gracie. When my father was twelve the doctor said that he couldn't do any exercise because of the vertigo. If he ran 200 yards in a sprint, he would pass out. But he is a very short tempered, tough guy. So with the impossibility of using power while training with his uncle in Jiu-Jitsu, he was forced to develop his own technique thus balancing his inability. We like to say that Einstein was to mathematics what Helio Gracie is to Jiu-Jitsu. He totally invented 80 percent of the Jiu-Jitsu we have today. Leverage and sensitivity and using the opponents energy against himself are basic to Jiu-Jitsu, but the application of these principles was never done in the way my father developed them. My father broke the mold. He initiated a different perspective. It used to be that when someone told you, "Hey, there's a tough guy coming here to kick your ass," you imagined this big guy with an ugly face. He's 280 pounds and has big fists. You don't imagine a guy who weighs 135 pounds in shorts and sunglasses.

BALANCING WANTS AND NEEDS:

Maynard: I don't know if you realize how significant it is but, seeing your whole family showing up in support of Royce at the UFC's is a very moving image for many people. It seems that you don't see that kind of family love and pride much anymore.

Rickson: Especially in the big cities. People don't make the time to give to each other. I think that's just a sign of our times. Smart people are the ones who try to preserve those old elements. People today just want to make money. I understand that and respect that but...I find myself in a very fortunate position because I love what I'm doing and I'm good at it. So, I make a living.

Maynard: It seems that here in the states, people are more concerned with doing something to make money than they are with doing what it is that they love to do. They decide that money is the goal and then begin to figure out what they've got to do to get it. They forget to listen to themselves to find out what it is they really are not only best suited for but are passionate about as well.

Rickson: Yes. I think exactly the opposite. You need to make money but it should never be the priority. What you like to do is what you should try your best at doing. The money is gonna come. That's the way people really get rich, you know? They just enjoy what they do and the money comes in some way. It's the same with the work out. Some people think that the workout is to increase heartbeats or flexibility or endurance or coordination. So they make up exercises to improve one or more of these areas. When I'm doing exercises, what I'm trying to do is meditate. Get in a state that I feel a balance between body, mind, and spirit. It's just enjoyment. When I train in Jiu-Jitsu I don't have a clock in mind. I'm just feeling and flowing. When playing or surfing or hiking there are no timings or special rules. If you love it you just get into it with your whole body. You don't care that it's exercise.

Maynard: And the endurance comes.

Rickson: I can't imagine going on a stair master or lifting weights or whatever to get in shape.

BALANCING THE DIET

Maynard: I heard that the Gracies also follow a specific diet.

Rickson: Yes. It doesn't have as much to do with what or how much you eat as it does with how you combine your foods. You can eat vegetables, fruit, rice, beans, meat, or whatever. But the most important thing is the food combinations. The digestive process is the biggest workout your body does on a daily basis. You use energy to digest. You can save energy by choosing foods that digest better in certain combinations, and you can absorb more nutrients and gain more energy by choosing foods that use compatible enzymes to digest.

Maynard: So, in the reverse…if you eat something that is difficult to digest and has no nutritional value…

Rickson: Exactly. You waste even more energy. We are not cows. We don't have to eat all day long to maintain. We eat, digest, absorb, then rest. For me, I think three meals a day is enough. I spend at least four hours in between without anything but water.

Maynard: A very traditional Brazilian dish is black beans and rice, but in your diet this is a bad combo.

Rickson: That's right. What you really want to fight in your body is the fermentation process. Fermentation basically is a bad combination between acids you produce to digest your food. For example, when you eat rice, your mouth produces specific acids to break down the rice so your stomach can begin the digestive process. When you eat ice cream, or an apple, or watermelon juice, your mouth produces completely different acids. And that can create a bad chemical reaction in your body. You feel heavy or sluggish which is not good. It's not only uncomfortable, it's counter productive.

BALANCING PERSPECTIVES/POINTS OF VIEW

Rickson: I believe that you should have an evolutionary point of view. You must meditate, you must pray, you must be thankful, you must give. I think those things are very important spiritually for you to be at peace with yourself. Once you've tried to improve spiritually, physically and mentally you are in a good way. Even if I lost my two legs now I don't think that it would make me lose the sense of life. Of course I'm not gonna be a fighter anymore, but I'm ale to allow myself to do other things. I'm gonna try to swim. I'm gonna try to surf. I don't know what else, but I'm definitely going to still be in love with life and learning. The mind is so beautiful and so wild and you can have so many different things. There's always a good side to everything. Nothing is totally desperate. Like "Oh…I lost my job." You lost your job? Go to the beach, man. Get some waves.

Maynard: If you have a clear mind like that, and if you have confidence in life and in yourself you're going to get fed.

Rickson: Definitely. You can't be negative all the time.

Maynard: You can, but don't expect for things to come to you very easily.

Interview taken from sherdog.com

Workout of the Day

Bottoms up - curl to press with kettlebell

5x5

5 on left, then 5 on right = 1 set

Short Interview - Rosi Sexton

I had the pleasure of meeting Rosi during the filming of the second season of BodogFight in Russia where she fought Carinna Damm from Brazil.  Rosi hails from Manchester England and has a 5-1 professional record in MMA (not including this last fight since we can't reveal the result yet).  On top of being a mom to a 2 year old son she also has a PhD in Theoretical Computer Science and is now studying to be an osteopath.  Enjoy her great insights. 

AMMA: Tell us a little of what you would consider to be a solid performance nutrition diet.

RS: I think the most important thing is to eat a really good, balanced diet. I try to include loads of fresh food, especially fruit and vegetables. I used to eat a fair bit of processed food, but when I was pregnant I became much more conscious about what I was eating, and now I do a lot of cooking. This has the advantage that I know exactly what I’m eating. When I’m training hard, I make sure my diet has plenty of carbohydrates, enough protein and is fairly low in fat.

I think timing of meals is important too – a good breakfast is essential, and I make sure I get something as soon as possible after training (either a protein drink or a snack, followed by a full meal). I generally eat every few hours during the day.

AMMA: Excluding the obvious (boxing gloves, wrestling mat, etc), what would you choose if you could only have three pieces of training equipment.

RS: An exercise ball (one of the big inflatable ones), a bungee harness and a foam roller.

AMMA: Tell us about a great conditioning workout you do.

RS: I never seem to do quite the same workout twice…. Karl, my coach, has me doing some great conditioning stuff that actually feels like being in a fight. He’ll really mix things up – floor bag and bungee harness, agility drills, clinch, pad work, shoots and sprawls, intervals, you name it, it’s in there. Three five minute rounds of this, and usually I’m not even sure which way is up. It’s a really fast way to get fight fit though.

AMMA: As someone who only weighs around 130lbs you must have the experience of training with people much bigger than you. Can you give some advice to other people in this position on how to make the most out the training sessions where you may be getting muscled around a bit?

RS: Training with bigger, stronger people can be really useful, especially for getting your basics solid. I know I’m a better fighter for having that pressure – in a way, it’s much easier for us than for heavyweights, who sometimes struggle to find training partners who can push them. It’s important to get a balance, though, otherwise you can end up as quite a defensive fighter.

It’s a frustrating place to be, no doubt about it. I’m the worst for this. I’ll roll with someone who’s 20 kilos heavier than me, well conditioned and with a good level of skill and then wonder why I can’t tap them out.

I think the main thing I try and do is treat it as an exercise in dealing with frustration. There are always going to be times in a fight when things aren’t going your way, and there are always things that are beyond your control – it’s about being able to give it your best performance despite that.

Another thing I find useful is to go into each round with a game plan and an objective. If I’m sparring someone much bigger, I might aim to work on movement and defence, or to avoid getting taken down and ending up on bottom. I find that if I give myself a specific goal to work on, then I get more out of the round.

AMMA: What one sports supplement could you not live without?

RS: Glucosamine sulphate is my biggest must have, closely followed by fish oil (or some other omega 3 oil).

AMMA: Tell us one drill you do in training (any sport)?

RS: One of the most useful drills we do has to be where I’m working a specific objective against a series of fresh opponents for a 3 or 5 minute round. It’s all about making sure I can do what I need to do, getting the technique right and not making mistakes even when I’m really tired.

Short Interview - Mike Brown

This is the start to our short interview series.  Every couple of weeks we will post a short interview with one of the many great people in bjj/mma/mt/crossfit.  These interviews will be a bit different than your standard interview in the sense that we won't be following the usual format of "tell us all about yourself".  Instead we will be trying to pick the brains of our subjects for some great info that will help us all get better in some aspect of our training.  For our first chat we chose Mike Brown since he is fellow Mainer (even though he has fled for the warmer weather of Florida).  Mike has been fighting and training his whole life, is a UFC vet, and has fought all over the world including Japan and Russia.  He is a member of American Top Team.  Enjoy!                                                            



AMMA:  In what ways has learning sports like wrestling, bjj, and boxing changed your life and do you think you'd be a different person today if you had never been exposed to them?

MB: Wrestling to BJJ to MMA has been my life for the past 18 years or so. I couldn't even imagine what type of person I would be without these sports. It's my hobby, my passion, and my career.

AMMA: Since you come from a wrestling background tell us what would be the first three things you would teach someone who wanted to learn how to wrestle (in other words what are the three most important basics)?

MB: In the sport of wrestling the 3 most fundamental things that should be taught IMO are #1 Stance. #2 Penetration Step #3Sprawl.

AMMA: Tell us about a great workout/drill you do?

MB: I really like sparring or grappling live. I guess I've always kind of been that way since a kid. I should probably do more technical training or drilling, but most of the time I'm sparring. For boxing I do lots of shadow boxing with a partner. We do everything we would normally do for sparring, but stand far enough away not to make contact.

AMMA: Give us an idea of a great conditioning workout you do?

MB: I think Running is the conditioning workout for me. I usually run 3-4 miles about 4 times a week and I run it at a hard pace.

AMMA: What sports supplement could you not live without?

MB:I don't really take supplements. I've tried many, but I honestly can't tell much of a difference.

AMMA: If you could create the perfect atmosphere in the training room what character traits would the people in the room have?

MB: Hardworking and Upbeat!!! No negativity, it's contagious.