EliteFTS Spotlight: Joel Jamieson
By
Landon Evans
For readers who aren’t familiar with you, talk about your career path, and
how you ended up where you are today.
My career as a strength and conditioning coach essentially began at the
University of Washington when I interned under a great coach named Bill
Gillespie back in the late 1990s. Bill was the head strength coach there at the
time and although I had been studying lifting and training for many years, Bill
gave me an opportunity to get the experience of training high level athletes and
build a solid foundation in understanding how to build max strength. As a
multiple time world record holder in powerlifting, with a 700+ pound drug-free
bench press, it’s safe to say Bill knows as well as anyone how to get an athlete
strong and explosive.
During those early days, I also spent a great deal of time traveling and
trying to learn from as many different people as I could. I spent a week or two
at the late Dr. Mel Siff’s house learning directly from him, traveled to the US
Olympic Training Center in Colorado to learn the Olympic lifts and attended
various conferences all over the world. This background exposed me to a wide
variety of methodologies and training philosophies, and I think it really helped
shape my current views on the training process as a whole.
I also spent some time with the Seattle Seahawks, working under strength
coach Kent Johnston, before I opened my own gym about six years ago. Since then,
I’ve trained a wide variety of athletes of all levels from many different
sports, but in the last few years I’ve really focused my training around MMA and
energy system development in particular.
You’re now regarded as one of the premier physical preparation coaches in
the nation for mixed martial arts athletes. How did you get involved with MMA?
Who are the fighters on your MMA resume?
I got involved with MMA through my relationship with AMC Pankration and their
head coach Matt “The Wizard” Hume. Soon after I opened my gym, I began working
with one of their fighters, Ivan Salaverry, for a fight in the UFC.
To be honest, in the beginning I knew very little about the sport and
probably didn’t even know what an armbar was. When I first began working with
Ivan, my inclination was to just make him stronger because to me he didn’t seem
very strong or powerful.
Fortunately, I started doing a little MMA training myself and quickly learned
what the sport is really all about and the importance of conditioning. Anyone
who has ever trained in MMA comes to learn the difference between strength in
the weight room, and the ability to maintain your strength over the course of
fight.
I think without actually learning the basics of MMA, it’s a difficult sport
to program correctly for. I’d advise anyone training fighters to actually spend
some time learning the sport, even if it’s just the basics.
As far as fighters I’ve worked with, most readers will probably be familiar
with guys I’ve trained and worked with such as Rich Franklin, Hayato Sakurai,
Spencer Fisher, Chris Leben, Jens Pulver, Matt Brown, KJ Noons, Akira Shoji,
Maurice Smith, Josh Barnett and Yoon Dong Sik.
When Pride was still around, I served as their strength and conditioning
coach, so they’d frequently send guys for Matt to work with and he’d do all
their skill work and I’d do all their strength and conditioning. It was
unfortunate that Pride wasn’t able to keep things going. I loved their product
and went to Japan several times for fights.
Could you expand on your training philosophy? Also, with that, you and I
both have been heavily influenced by Val Nasedkin from Omegawave. Could you
expand on your relationship with Val and explain how he has helped to shape your
training philosophy as well?
In a nutshell, my training philosophy revolves around increasing the specific
energy production potential an athlete is capable of, and then transferring that
energy into the skills of an athlete’s particular sport. Along those lines, I
evaluate the different energy systems of an athlete to find out where their
strengths and weaknesses are, and then I design training programs to eliminate
weaknesses and maximize strengths.
Sports performance really comes down to two broad components: technical skill
and speed of movement. All things being equal, the difference between a low
level amateur and a top pro in any sport is simply the level of technical
proficiency of the pro and the speed at which they are able to do things
compared to the amateur. When college players are rookies in the NFL, the thing
you always hear them commenting on is how much faster the game moves.
In order for an athlete to be able to execute their technical skills faster
and with greater power, they have to be able to generate more energy. This is
where I believe strength and conditioning should come in, to increase how much
energy the athlete is capable of generating and to make sure it can be used
correctly in the athlete’s sport.
I think far too many coaches in the field today spend too much time working
on little details of training and movement without fundamentally addressing the
need to increase energy production. To me, this is like putting the cart before
the horse and this strategy fails to recognize what performance is really all
about.
As you said, this training philosophy has been heavily influenced by Val from
Omegawave and other European coaches and scientists. I first met Val about 8
years ago and he was able to fill in a lot of the gaps I had in my knowledge
when it comes to athletic performance, but probably most importantly, his
methodology influenced me to study the European approach to training in much
greater detail and learn how to apply it with my athletes.
It’s been invaluable over the years to have someone with his knowledge and
experience to bounce ideas off of and even though his answers usually end up
leaving me with even more questions, it’s been a great learning experience and I
think it has given me a very unique insight into the processes of adaptation
that most coaches simply don’t have. Over the years, he’s probably had more
influence on my training philosophy and system than any other single person.
You own an Omegawave system. Can you explain how you utilize it within
your system?
As you know, the Omegawave is a tremendously powerful tool for purposes of
assessment and management of an athlete’s training program. Not only does it
give me very specific insight into where an athlete’s training needs to be
focused, it allows me to objectively gauge adaptation and determine if an
athlete is responding well to their training program or not.
What this really does is eliminates a lot of the guesswork that most coaches
are forced to deal with in their programming. The Omegawave gives me as a coach
the ability to make changes to an athlete’s program, on a daily basis if
necessary, to fine tune their adaptive responses and thus ensure their program
is individualized and optimized to their specific needs and goals.
It’s hard for me to imagine training athletes, or anyone for that matter,
without having the Omegawave to use.
On your website (www.8weeksout.com),
you’ve announced you are coming out with a new book. Discuss why you decided to
write this book, why the book is different, and when it’s coming out.
I decided to write the book mainly because I think there is so much
misinformation out there when it comes to training for MMA. As the sport has
grown over the last few years, I think a lot of “fitness experts” and coaches
have jumped on the MMA bandwagon and started writing articles and books despite
the fact that they’ve never really trained any fighters or done any training
whatsoever themselves in the sport.
I think this has led to a lot of fighters training incorrectly for the sport
and I wrote the book to help set the record straight. I think what really makes
it different is that it’s not just a collection of exercises put together like a
lot of books out there, but rather it provides a comprehensive view of training
and performance as a whole and the science behind energy system development.
I’ve tried to answer the question of not just which exercises to do for MMA,
but rather which methods to use, why you should them, and how they should all be
put together in a specific training program. After people read this book I
believe they will know more about energy system development than most strength
and conditioning coaches out there.
The other unique thing about the book is that I’ve detailed a lot of specific
training methods that you just don’t see written in English or used in training
in the US. A lot of these methods I’ve learned over the years from Val and other
Europeans and they are incredibly effective and my book will be the first, I
believe, to outline how they work and when a fighter should be using them.
The book is set to ship in the next 2-3 weeks and people can order the book
online right now on my website www.8weeksout.com
You and Matt Hume work very closely together with the preparation of his
fighters. Explain your relationship with Matt, and talk about how you two work
so well together.
I have to say I owe a great deal of my success as a strength and conditioning
coach in the sport of MMA to Matt and I’ve been very fortunate to work with a
coach who is truly one of the best, if not the best there is, in the sport of
MMA. He’s definitely given me opportunities to work with top level fighters and
opened doors for me that I would not have had access to without him.
I also think this close working relationship is a big part of the success of
the fighters we’ve worked together with because we’re able to create one solid
training program that integrates everything I do in the weight room with
everything he does on the skill side of things.
We spend a great deal of time going over training programs and coordinating
everything that we do so that our work compliments each other and the end result
is that the fighter gets better. I think too many fighters look at their
training as two separate programs, strength and conditioning on one hand and MMA
training on the other, and this is a mistake. A fighter’s program must be looked
at as a whole, not in separate pieces, for the best results.
Since Matt has been in the sport essentially since MMA began as a sport, I’ve
also been able to learn a great deal from his experience and knowledge of the
game and this has greatly helped me learn the specific needs of MMA. I would
advise any strength and conditioning coach to build a strong working
relationship with whoever is doing the MMA training for their fighters because
this will pay off and result in a much more effective overall training program.
Matt Hume vs. Joel Jamieson. How long does it take until Matt embarrasses
you?
Seriously? It would probably take about 10-15 seconds (maybe 20 if I was
lucky) for him to take me down, pass my guard, and submit me with whatever he
feels like. Fortunately, it doesn’t take him much longer than that to do the
same thing to many of the top pros I’ve seen him train with, so I don’t feel too
bad.
In 6 years of watching him roll and train with some of the best in the sport,
many of whom have held world titles and championships, I have yet to see anyone
even pass his guard. Yes, he’s really that good.
The funny thing is that my first experience ever in ground work was when we
were in Japan once in the old Pride gym. Brazilian Top Team was there also using
the gym and I think they pretty much all watched Matt proceed to roll me up like
a pretzel and tap me out from submission after submission – ones that probably
don’t even have names – for about 20 minutes straight. It was a humbling
experience to say the least.
The floor is yours. Any closing thoughts?
I’d really just encourage any fighter who is serious about improving their
performance to take the time to educate themselves on the strength and
conditioning side of the equation. A growing trend in MMA is this idea that
since MMA looks chaotic and unpredictable that training for it should be the
same way.
A lot of fighters out there are doing workouts that are totally at random and
are nothing more than different exercises all thrown together with no rhyme or
reason. Contrary to what CrossFit type places are selling, performance is not
the result of this generalized one size fits all approach, and you absolutely
must individualize your training program around your specific strengths,
weaknesses, and goals if you want to continually improve as an athlete and a
fighter.
Other than that, I’d just like to thank Landon and the guys at Elite for
asking me to do this interview and contribute to the site. Anyone interested in
learning more about my methods or my book can visit my site
www.8weeksout.com
