Episode #53 with Strength Coach Kyle Holland

September 08, 2021

Kyle Holland is a Tactical Performance Specialist for Team EXOS and works with Special Operations in the US Military. Prior to joining EXOS, Kyle worked for 7 years at Mike Boyle Strength and Conditioning in Woburn, MA. Kyle went to college at the University of Iowa and worked as an intern with the Hawkeye Football Strength staff for three years. He also worked at the University of Louisville Football program as an intern strength and conditioning coach. Kyle also spent some time up at Adrenaline Performance Center in Montreal, Canada with Jonathan Chaimberg.

Kyle has worked with professional athletes from the NFL, NHL, MLB, Team USA Women’s Hockey, Team USA Judo, UFC and Special Operations for the Military.

“Kyle Holland is a top notch strength & conditioning coach that truly helped me become a better athlete & fighter. In a world where many high level coaches think they know it all it was great to work with someone like Kyle who had a tremendous willingness to constantly learn, evolve & improve as a coach. He is always looking for an edge to help him become as knowledgeable & helpful as possible. His attitude was a constant positive influence on me & he consistently helped me reach new levels with my training.”

– Kenny Florian – Former UFC Champion

In this episode we discuss:

Improving your craft
Learning from other coaches
Low tech ways to assess
Keeping it simple and making people better
Funny stories from past experiences
and more

3 Ways to Connect with Kyle:

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Full Transcription of Our Podcast with Kyle Holland

Interview with Strength Coach Kyle Holland talking about Tactical Performance and Team EXOS

Corey Beasley [00:00:01]: Hey guys, is Corey Beasley with fight camp conditioning. I’m on the phone here with Kyle Holland. Kyle, how are you?

Kyle Holland [00:00:07]:I’m good Corey. How are you?

Corey Beasley [00:00:09]: I’m doing awesome. Thanks so much for calling in, I really appreciate it. Kyle for everybody that’s listening, give everybody a little two senseof who you are and what you’re doing?

Kyle Holland [00:00:20]:So currently I’m a tactical strength and conditioning coach contacted through team XL. So I work with the military right now and I have done that for the last three years. Before that I spent seven years at Mike Boyle strength and conditioning in Boston. And in that time I also did an internship at the University of Louisville with the football team. I went up to John Chambers for a few months and did an internship. And I’ve also intern at the University of Iowa before that. So that’s pretty much me in a nutshell.

Corey Beasley [00:00:54]: Right. So you’ve been in a lot of different places.

Kyle Holland [00:00:59]:Yeah, I have and I’ve been really lucky. I’ve been a product of really good teachers and good a good mentors, I guess you would want to say, I’ve just been really lucky. I’ve been in the room with a lot of really smart, talented coaches, so I just tried to take their lessons and, and put my twist on them and try to help people out.

Corey Beasley [00:01:19]: Well Kyle, from your experience where did you start?

Kyle Holland [00:01:29]:So when I first started, I got interested in training. When I was in high school, I wanted to be a really good football player, so I started lifting weights and I wanted to be the best guy I could be, but I didn’t have a whole lot of help. So it was just kind of up to me to build my own programs. And I went to college, I want to say I thought I wanted to be an engineer. The math was way too hard. So I started looking into exercise science and then I saw that there was actually such thing as a strength and conditioning coach. So this is back in 2002, 2003. I didn’t even know the profession existed. But I just happened to go to a school with a really good strength conditioning program with the University of Iowa with the football team. So I just wandered in there asked if I could hang out for some training. And I think they meant I want to do an internship. So I ended up just coming back every day and volunteered my time and I figured out that what I wanted to do. So I just took it from there. So I was at the University of Iowa after that, I did an internship at Mike Boyle’s which was amazing experience. And at that time, there were just a lot of really talented coaches working there. And then they asked me to stay after that. And so I spent seven years there. And in that time I took a little brief hiatus and I went to university of Louisville and learned under Joe Cannon, Brian Dermody and Adam was there at the time as well. And that was a great learning experience. And then right at the end of my time at there, I went up to Jon Chaimberg which is called adrenaline performance center up in Montreal. And he was working with, and he still does work with a ton of NHL guys, a lot of MMA guys. And he’s amazing. So I just kind of added some more tools. I go up there and working with him.

Corey Beasley [00:03:10]: I mean, I think for a lot of people especially in a strength and conditioning world, they’ll go to maybe a certification or two and then they are just up and running and just doing their thing. So, I mean, I think the most important thing for a lot of, at least the trainers and coaches that are listening is taking that time to get around those other people and really learn, get in the trenches with them and figured out what they’re thinking and why they’re doing what they’re doing and all that kind of stuff. I think it’s great.

Kyle Holland [00:03:39]:No, it is 100%. And that’s I kind of figured, I just never have been that motivated to do grad school. So early on I just thought I’m not going to go back to grad school. I’m just going to go a bunch of places and get a bunch of experience and it’s been tough doing that. I’m going to be honest with you. I mean, I did a few, four or five internships and none of them were paid. I mean I went up to John Chambers and I spent three months up there unpaid right before I got married. So that was a little bit of a stress, but I really wanted to experience. Then I felt like he was, at the time, I felt like he was one of the best guys doing MMA. And I wanted to know everything about that. So I think it’s just about getting real world experience and putting yourself out there and not being afraid to take a risk and just learn as much as you can.

Corey Beasley [00:04:23]: Yeah, absolutely. Now, as far as the fight game goes where’d you kind of get your foot in the door for that were your interest in it?

Kyle Holland [00:04:32]:Yeah, so I’ve always been interested, it’s kind of a funny story that when I was in college, I remember I was watching the ultimate fighter and I remember watching Joe Lozan and Kenny Florian you know, on the shows. And then they ultimately fought. And I remember watching that from like my dorm room and thinking this is really cool. I’d love to get involved with these athletes. They’re amazing. And then I kind of started with my work career and didn’t really do anything with it, but was always a fan. And then one day Olympic Judo guy named Travis Stevens who’s down in Rio right now getting ready for the Olympics right now. And he wanted in the gym and needed a trainer. And I just started doing it for him. I just kind of volunteered. He didn’t have any money. There’s just not much money and being an Olympian, especially in Judo, so I started training him just on the side for free. And then one day Joe Lozan happened to walk in and we worked out a deal and he just started coming in as well. And then literally Jon Chaimberg had walked in the door with Kenny floor in one day. And so it just kind of all just randomly happened. And then MMA became my thing. And I’m really thankful because I have a really great passion for it and for me just being a fan of its fun to be a coach and work with these guys too. So it really all happened by accident. I never seek it out. I was really lucky that I worked at a place with a great reputation and people would just wander in and look for training, I mean, that’s really lucky. That’s not a normal thing. That’s not how people usually get connected. I couldn’t work with pro athletes if I opened my own place. So I was really lucky to work in a place like MBSC and just have these guys walk into the door.

Corey Beasley [00:06:10]: Yeah. That’s awesome. Well, I mean it’s also the decision that you made to get there. It’s pretty rare as well. Now when a new guy walks through the door and you’ve got a new athletes in front of you where do you typically start with them?

Kyle Holland [00:06:32]:So I obviously I just talked to the guy. I mean that’s common sense. He walks in the door, I just talked to him, I sort of ask him about what his goals are. But you know, as a trainer, as a coach in this field, you know that when someone sort of tells you goals you can kind of see where they’re at and what they need. And I’m not basing it off of anything super scientific. I mean I’ve done many things with the FMS before and done different performance measures, but really I kind of eyeball the guy, we will go through an active warm-up. I’ll take him through a really a basic workout and from there I can just kind of figure out what I want to do with this guy, you know? It’s funny cause we’ll get really caught up in all these screening tools and all these things that Hey, I need to do this to assess, explosive powder or power or repeatability or where he’s at, what his aerobic capacity where really when you call a fellow coach in the phone and you just ask him, he can tell you in two sentences and you sort of know where a guy’s at. They’ll say, Oh he’s like this or this guy is kind of like so-and-so and you and you always could pick up in about 10 seconds of exactly what the guy needs. Usually with a coach jus shooting you straight on. So nothing super scientific. All this eyeball them. And then from there I’ll get some performance numbers just throughout the program goes, I’ll get how many max reps on a chin up, weighted chin up or I’ll do just jump mat and different stuff, like a three mile bike time, just really basic stuff. And the more the guy comes the longer he’s with me, then we’ll get more in depth with stuff. But usually just to be completely honest with you, I’ll just eyeball, I’m taking through a basic workout and from there I can pretty much set up an entire program just based on that.

Corey Beasley [00:08:12]: Now as you setting up a workout for these guys, typical workout look like they walk in the door and they start and they do what?

Kyle Holland [00:08:22]:So I’ll walk in though always, it’s a pretty standard thing and they’ll come in and they’ll do a soft tissue work. I’ll go through this with the first day they come in, I’ll say, this is kind of our soft tissue routine. This is what we do as a fall rollers and lacrosse balls. We’ll go through soft tissue, we’ll do some type of mobility activation work right in the beginning. And then we’ll do an active warm-up, which is your pretty standard it almost looks like a track warm up a linear lateral type split with the days. And then we’ll usually go from that act of warm-up, right into a power circuit while I usually some type of plyo with a few different med ball drills, it’s all depending on the day on what’s coming up later in the list. So we’ll do a plyo we’ll do a couple of med ball drills, maybe a mobility drill mixed in there, a T spine drill. And then after the workout will goes, we’ll do usually to total body strength circuits followed by some type of conditioning at the end, which is usually interval based. And then they’re out the door after that pretty basic man. There’s nothing too crazy. I mean, there’s a lot of stuff, I try to say that basic, but I mean there’s a lot of thought that goes into it. After the guy comes in and the more advanced training that you have the more advanced you can start to get with their programming and you can have fun, have fun with it, but really a lot of the MMA community despite there’s maybe four or five gyms in the whole country that have such an elite level of guys that they, that they have to do this really like high tech stuff with them. I mean, there’s a lot of MNA guys out there just really need, just basic linear periodization, basic progression you don’t see a lot of these athletic freaks in MMA where you’re saying, he’s strong enough. We don’t need to make him stronger. Most of the time, given these guys just a steady dose of strength is going to improve all their qualities.

Corey Beasley [00:10:25]: Absolutely. I think that’s an important thing for a lot of people to hear because I think especially with social media and all this stuff that’s going out people are exposed to so many other things and they see all this stuff that these elite guys are doing, but they’re 17 years old and can’t even pick their head up straight.

Kyle Holland [00:10:46]:Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. I think there’s disconnect out there between what you hear on a lot of podcasts. You’re reading a lot of books or articles to what people are talking about and then what’s actually happening at the gyms with these guys. I mean, all you read about is a million different energy systems and I’m all for it. I love reading about this stuff. I’m fascinated by training. It’s part of the reason why I do what I do. But after a while I get burnt out of reading about every single energy system. There’s like 30 different energy systems, it’s like I can’t follow it after a certain point like High intensity, a lactic low intensity, a lack of what’s the difference? I mean, are you doing steady States or are you doing interval? Alright, are you using sleds or are you doing this? And the athletes don’t care, they have no idea what you’re talking about when you start talking about with language like this, you say, Hey, we’re doing slight pushes today cause this is going to help you shoot, take downs and not get super tired vice versa. You try to elate with them and then they’re going to buy into your training more. So I think it’s tough you really get stuck with trying to keep up with the Joneses as far as making your training super scientific when we’re really it’s just the basics that they need a lot of these guys.

Corey Beasley [00:12:04]: Yeah, absolutely. So you got your workout broke down and you got a pretty good rhythm going as far as that goes, just keeping that simple template. What’s a typical week look like? Are these guys coming in? They seeing you two days a week. Could I see any four days a week?

Kyle Holland [00:12:22]:I used to always see the guys three days a week. When I was training a lot of MMA guys and that was really good. That’s good out of camp in camp two days a week will seem to work the best. And even out of camp sometimes we drew it back and just always made it two days. And I would just make the two days a little bit more challenging when there’s not a fight on the schedule and that’s for guys that I’ve been working with for a long time, but three days for guys that have a really young training age. And then kind of two days after that, a lot of MMA guys don’t really love straight take initiative, so sometimes less is more, and if I could get them at two days where I can get a really solid two day on top of all their other training they’re doing, then I’m happy with that, but for a newer trainee I’d rather have them in three days and push them pretty hard when they’re out of camp. I mean, I think you hear a lot about over-training now and with MMA it is common, guys, especially high level guys that have the pressures and the demands of, of some guys there in the UFC they, they will over train. But a lot of these guys, if they have a really young training age and they’re a young guy they need to be pushed they’re going to be sore a little bit. I mean that’s sort of, we’re applying a stress and then they adapt. I think you’re always hearing minimum effective dose. Well, I mean with a lot of young trainees, I think you sort of want to have the maximum effective dose that you can still recover from. I want to really push them and make them adapt and get stronger because they have a long way to go. So I don’t think it’s always so bad to push these guys a little bit, especially out of camp and really try to make your gains there.

Corey Beasley [00:14:12]: Well I agree. And I think when you’re talking about out of camp versus in camp, not from my experience, I’ve had quite a few guys that were talented and that were big names that everybody knows that had the curse of talent and they would show up when they had a fight. And then when they didn’t have a fight, we weren’t getting any better. And they were like a ghost town. So especially the young guys getting in the habit of being consistent with their training and getting improving in between each fight I think is a huge point for a lot of people.

Kyle Holland [00:14:51]:I totally agree. And it is one of those weird things I always battled with too. As far as keeping guys come in regularly after fights because in other sports, I mean, they’re trained in your route, I mean, you’re going to see a football, especially now, I mean, even in the NFL, guys aren’t taking giant chunks of time off in the off season and in other sports, I think so there’s something about MMA where guys sometimes make excuses or not or not show up where it’s just pretty common place that you’re going to train you around and other sports. And I think MMA guys, you see them hit really similar numbers as far as their strength conditioning, as other sports. They just kind of fall off the wagon or they just never really started as young and trained quite as hard and maybe don’t know sort of what consistent training, especially being in the weight room all the time is all about just because they don’t always like it and that they like to roll and do other stuff. They don’t always like to lift weights and condition like they shit.

Corey Beasley [00:15:51]: Yeah. I was talking to somebody we were talking about how football guys and other professional athletes do have that drive a little bit more than most. And I think what we kind of discussed and boiled down to was that a lot of the football guys that I’ve been around they’re very aware that there’s 50 other guys vying for the position and at their razors edge away from being gone. And I think it’s made very apparent to them that that’s the case, so they take it incredibly serious, most of them to get there and stay there.

Kyle Holland [00:16:35]:I’ve never really thought about it like that, but I think you’re right on that. And there’s not a ton of other guys. I mean, you do have a few guys here and there and the UFC and MMA that have come from different sports and done really well. But you know, a guy that comes right up the bat because he was in a big fight not long ago was [Inaudible 00:16:53]and he played football at Tennessee. So there’s a guy who went through tough he must’ve been a great high school football player to go to Tennessee and then he goes and spend four or five years at Tennessee and strength trains the whole time. And he’s a great athlete they always talked about his athleticism and how strong and fast he is. And it’s like, he spent a long time on serious strength training programs. I know nothing about what they are doing at Tennessee at that point. But I know that it doesn’t matter what football program you are in the country. I mean you’re showing up four or five days a week and you’re lifting weight. So I just always think it’s funny and you go back and forth and it’s interesting, the guys with the best cardio that they say are always have the best cardio. Always just seem to be the best athletes too. They moved the best or the most efficient. So I mean, there’s something to be said. I don’t even know where I’m going with this, but I’m just kind of piggy backing off of relatedness with other sports where maybe they’ve put more time in as far as going to practice doing the runs, doing the drill. And they’re better athletes and they’ve just trained harder. But the last thing I want to do is come on the podcast today and start dumping all over the athletes that were training. But this is just some of them. This isn’t everybody because I’ve plenty there plenty of really good athletes and super hard workers even to their detriment.

Corey Beasley [00:18:22]: It’s interesting though when you are talking about it, I mean when you’re talking about strength and conditioning for these guys a little bit it’s very new. It’s kind of in its infancy still and then you have all these different qualities that these guys need and you are working with a wide variety of people, and these days like when, I don’t know about you, but when I was young, I was outside all day long and running around and racing my buddies and riding bikes and climbing trees and playing in the Creek and goofing off and doing all these different things. Now, all that experience helped me learn stuff about movement, which now is a big thing. All the movement training and moving around and just doing stuff. Well, in my opinion, I think a lot of that should’ve been done when you were a little kid. But maybe a lot of people these days don’t get that stuff, so they don’t have that? I think from my experience, a lot of the kids that, I asked them, when did you play outside when you were little, were you outside? I served and skated and did all these different things and played around. And then you ask them to do new things and they usually pick it up pretty damn quick as kids, a video game guy, you ask them to do stuff and they don’t. They just, they just don’t quite put things together quite as well. And maybe that’s because they were less active in those growing times in their life or something. I’m not sure. But it’s interesting to think about.

Kyle Holland [00:19:50]:No, for sure. It’s something as a dad, and I know you’re a dad too Corey, it’s like the fight to like keep the iPad and like all the crazy technology like out of your kid’s hands. Because you don’t want them to grow up like that. You want them to grow up and move a lot more. But it is interesting. And MMA and strength conditioning, it definitely kind of early stages. I’m really interested to see what happens as far as like fight teams go. I mean because I know there’s a lot of fight to fight teams out there, but you’re seeing more and more guys, breakout and I know that elevation fight team out in Colorado, they have Loren Landow who you’ve got on the podcast. And it seems like he’s kind of a central figure for them. For their training. He’s going to handle their athletes, like a sports team wouldand then you have Jon Chaimberg works a lot of the APC guys or with a lot of the Tri-Star guys, but not of them and you have a few teams throughout the country that do it like that, but there’s still not that many, there’s not, I mean, and even you always think, it’s getting better. The train is getting better. It’s not really getting that much better there’s a few places where guys are doing a really good job. But for the most part still it’s still a battle as far as trying to get a coaches on board as far as all that, jiu jitsu, the boxing coaches. I’ve been really lucky because I’ve worked with coaches and they’ve always been free reign and just letting me do whatever and they would never intervene, which is pretty rare. And I’ve been pretty happy with that, but it still is hard to get everybody on board with one coach and then so you can treat them like a team of athletes. It’s just so much better to train them that way.

Corey Beasley [00:21:40]: Well. I talked with Corey peacock at Blackzilians who’s the head performance coach there and but he came from university of Miami football. So he had an experience with a big team kind of a facility there, that the environment and you sounds like from my experience, we just talking with him and Jake Bonacci that’s out there. They’re like one of the only places that has everybody under one roof and a well-coordinated effort to get their guys where they need to be. A lot of other places, guys are going to multiple different gyms or all the skill guys are under one roof, but maybe the strength and conditioning guys not, so I think a big part of it is getting everybody on the same page and coordinating their efforts so that these kids don’t just get smashed all the time.

Kyle Holland [00:22:37]:Yeah. That is hard to do. And like we were saying, there’s barely anyone that does it. And it’s really important. And so since most people aren’t in that situation, I think it’s important you definitely want to do your best to coordinate stuff with a boxing or other coaches. But in reality, most of the other coaches don’t really get what we do, I mean, they see us as maybe the newcomer to the group that he’s going to try to have him do some different stuff or the coaches kind of get a little possessive of their guy, which I understand maybe they’ve been with this fighter since he was fighting down to the casino. I told them again, they done this journey for a long time together. So instead of, I guess try to make a coach, drink the Kool-Aid, maybe you sort of have to do baby steps and start with, all right, he can go do his road work with you. And you just have to sort of do the best with the hand that you’re dealt too many of strength conditioning coaches are so passionate about what they do that they really get all butt hurt when someone doesn’t see their perspective. And all I’m just trying to do by her guy you’ve got to pick your battles and if you want to be on the team, if you really care about the guy, I mean, you’ve got to put up as a little crap, and you have to deal with people that just truly don’t get it and they’re never going to get it. And that’s fine. Just figure out how you can best serve as the guy despite everything else. And hopefully in the end it all works out.

Corey Beasley [00:24:06]: Yeah. And several people that I’ve talked with have said the same thing. And the more I think about it, like these days after dealing with so many people over the years, I tend to be a little bit more reserved when I meet people at the beginning. I’ll be polite, it’ll be quiet and I’ll be respectful, all that type of stuff. But to be really honest, like it takes me a long time to build trust with someone. And I don’t think too many of these coaches are much different they’ve probably seen like one of the main coaches I work with out here in Southern California, he’s an old school Muay Thai coach and he’s seen a million people come through the doors and it took me years of helping out his boys and now him and I are much more close, but I’ve earned his respect over time and it just took time and me doing my job and helping support those guys, like you said, however I could and coordinating where I could and helping out and giving suggestions. And everybody got better a little bit over time.

Kyle Holland [00:25:16]:Yeah. For sure. And that is like the long game these changes don’t happen overnight. And building with these coaches I think over time you’re trying to earn their trust and you’re trying to drop these nuggets in their ear about, Hey, let’s maybe we can try to set up camp this way or let’s do this on these days and let’s let our guy recover. And then over time you’re going to be able to give your input buy in, but building buy in is a hot topic right now. And Bret Bartholomew is on your, on your podcast and he’s great. He’s a really good friend of mine and we talked about that. And by end really is not, it is a long grind. It’s not exactly you’re really only you’re just trying to build trust as the biggest thing they don’t care how smart of a coach you are. If they don’t really like you and they don’t trust that you’re looking out for their best interest. And, and it’s a long process. It doesn’t happen right overnight. No matter how many big words you can throw at them and tell them about your training and show them everything fancy that you’re going to do, it takes a lot of time and over time, hopefully you can do a little culture shift within that team and get them on board with some smarter training. And really, I think that’s kind of how these other teams are built to like with what Loren’s doing and some of these other guys around the country that are doing a great job with specific teams. I mean, that didn’t happen overnight either, so I know those guys had been trained in MMA guys for a long time. So it looks like they’re brand new to doing this, but they’ve been in the trenches building buy in for years and years

Corey Beasley [00:26:51]: For sure. Absolutely. So with all the different places that you’ve been, you’ve met all these different types of people, different personalities and for the coaches that are listening or the athletes right now as far as for their development or if they’re looking to change their program or maybe get into the industry at all. What are some tips from all the different places that you’ve been for new coaches? Like what did they need to be doing? What did they need to be focusing on?

Kyle Holland [00:27:22]:I really think to tell them that they’re going to need to have to shovel some crap for the first few years. I mean, they’re going to have to go somewhere and do a few internships and really try to get their feet wet by volunteering and it’s got to suck, but you have to do it. It’s a part of it. And they want to definitely try to pick a good place to do their internship you can do an intern everyone wants free help. So there’s a lot of really bad places that you can go that aren’t going to teach you anything, aren’t going to connect you with people to sort of help you with your career down the road. And I’m not plugging, I’m just because I worked for him now or anything, but I think if you could possibly get into EXOS, that’s great. I know Mike Boyle, strength conditioning is good. I know Brett Bartholomew does a great job with interns. It’s really important to pick a good place where you’re going to learn. They’re going to be respectful of you as an intern and really kind of help you advance the whole mentoring thing. It’s tough to find people out there that wants to help you out with your career. I’ve been at some really good places that I’ve been at some really bad, bad spots too. And you can learn a lot from the bad spots, but you definitely want to want to try to find somewhere that’s going to help you develop. So I just really try to seek out good internships, work really hard and try to talk to the coaches as much as you can. No one is just waiting to be your mentor out there you have to really seek it out show people that you want to work hard for them. And then they’ll give you some help along the way. And I’ll get emails sometimes from coaches that just want something or want to sort of ask, how’d you get your job? I got my job it’s sucked forever trying to get this job it was a long, hard road And you have to do that people aren’t just looking to just hand it to you, you got to go out and you’ve got to find a really good place. You got to work really hard for it and you’ve got to seek out stuff. And I think it’s easier now than it used to be. I mean, there’s so much exposure out there now the internet and you can just look up someone’s email address and easily just send them a message and find out where they’re at or read their book or see all their posts. I mean, there’s a million posts right now. It’s so hard to almost keep up on all the good stuff people are doing. So if I could give them any bit of advice would be, it’d be read as much as you can. Keep your nose to the grindstone and really talk to people and figure out where a good place to go, where you can really settle in and work hard for a while and just put your head down and hopefully it comes out where you’ve built some great relationships and they’re going to help you get on the right path.

Corey Beasley [00:29:58]: Very good. And for anybody that’s wanting to reach out and learn more about what you’re doing, Kyle, what’s the best way for them to do that?

Kyle Holland [00:30:08]:Best way for them to do that. So I have a website that’s a little bit out of date. It’s Kyletrains.com, but I’m also setting up a new one that’s called Kyleholland.net. That should be out there in the next month or so. But they can always shoot me an email [email protected] and I’ll always get back to them. I was just sending a guy who shot me a direct message on Instagram the other day. I shot him over some programs just to play around with just because he a direct message me and he wanted to ask for help. So I’m also on social media. My Twitter is @Kyletrains and that’s my Instagram as well. And as people could feel free to reach out to me on any of those mediums.

Corey Beasley [00:30:50]: Awesome man. Well, Kyle, thank you for thanks for chatting with me and sharing some of your experiences and stuff like that. It sounds like you’ve got a lot of great experience and you’re doing a lot of great things these days too, so we look forward to hearing more about it.

Kyle Holland [00:31:05]:Corey, thanks a lot. I really appreciate you bringing me on and you’ve been an awesome resource for me over the years too, so thank you very much.

Episode Transcript

Full Transcription of Our Podcast with Kyle Holland
Interview with Strength Coach Kyle Holland talking about Tactical Performance and Team EXOS

Corey Beasley [00:00:01]: Hey guys, is Corey Beasley with fight camp conditioning. I’m on the phone here with Kyle Holland. Kyle, how are you?

Kyle Holland [00:00:07]:I’m good Corey. How are you?

Corey Beasley [00:00:09]: I’m doing awesome. Thanks so much for calling in, I really appreciate it. Kyle for everybody that’s listening, give everybody a little two senseof who you are and what you’re doing?

Kyle Holland [00:00:20]:So currently I’m a tactical strength and conditioning coach contacted through team XL. So I work with the military right now and I have done that for the last three years. Before that I spent seven years at Mike Boyle strength and conditioning in Boston. And in that time I also did an internship at the University of Louisville with the football team. I went up to John Chambers for a few months and did an internship. And I’ve also intern at the University of Iowa before that. So that’s pretty much me in a nutshell.

Corey Beasley [00:00:54]: Right. So you’ve been in a lot of different places.

Kyle Holland [00:00:59]:Yeah, I have and I’ve been really lucky. I’ve been a product of really good teachers and good a good mentors, I guess you would want to say, I’ve just been really lucky. I’ve been in the room with a lot of really smart, talented coaches, so I just tried to take their lessons and, and put my twist on them and try to help people out.

Corey Beasley [00:01:19]: Well Kyle, from your experience where did you start?

Kyle Holland [00:01:29]:So when I first started, I got interested in training. When I was in high school, I wanted to be a really good football player, so I started lifting weights and I wanted to be the best guy I could be, but I didn’t have a whole lot of help. So it was just kind of up to me to build my own programs. And I went to college, I want to say I thought I wanted to be an engineer. The math was way too hard. So I started looking into exercise science and then I saw that there was actually such thing as a strength and conditioning coach. So this is back in 2002, 2003. I didn’t even know the profession existed. But I just happened to go to a school with a really good strength conditioning program with the University of Iowa with the football team. So I just wandered in there asked if I could hang out for some training. And I think they meant I want to do an internship. So I ended up just coming back every day and volunteered my time and I figured out that what I wanted to do. So I just took it from there. So I was at the University of Iowa after that, I did an internship at Mike Boyle’s which was amazing experience. And at that time, there were just a lot of really talented coaches working there. And then they asked me to stay after that. And so I spent seven years there. And in that time I took a little brief hiatus and I went to university of Louisville and learned under Joe Cannon, Brian Dermody and Adam was there at the time as well. And that was a great learning experience. And then right at the end of my time at there, I went up to Jon Chaimberg which is called adrenaline performance center up in Montreal. And he was working with, and he still does work with a ton of NHL guys, a lot of MMA guys. And he’s amazing. So I just kind of added some more tools. I go up there and working with him.

Kyle Holland [00:03:39]:No, it is 100%. And that’s I kind of figured, I just never have been that motivated to do grad school. So early on I just thought I’m not going to go back to grad school. I’m just going to go a bunch of places and get a bunch of experience and it’s been tough doing that. I’m going to be honest with you. I mean, I did a few, four or five internships and none of them were paid. I mean I went up to John Chambers and I spent three months up there unpaid right before I got married. So that was a little bit of a stress, but I really wanted to experience. Then I felt like he was, at the time, I felt like he was one of the best guys doing MMA. And I wanted to know everything about that. So I think it’s just about getting real world experience and putting yourself out there and not being afraid to take a risk and just learn as much as you can.

Corey Beasley [00:04:23]: Yeah, absolutely. Now, as far as the fight game goes where’d you kind of get your foot in the door for that were your interest in it?

Kyle Holland [00:04:32]:Yeah, so I’ve always been interested, it’s kind of a funny story that when I was in college, I remember I was watching the ultimate fighter and I remember watching Joe Lozan and Kenny Florian you know, on the shows. And then they ultimately fought. And I remember watching that from like my dorm room and thinking this is really cool. I’d love to get involved with these athletes. They’re amazing. And then I kind of started with my work career and didn’t really do anything with it, but was always a fan. And then one day Olympic Judo guy named Travis Stevens who’s down in Rio right now getting ready for the Olympics right now. And he wanted in the gym and needed a trainer. And I just started doing it for him. I just kind of volunteered. He didn’t have any money. There’s just not much money and being an Olympian, especially in Judo, so I started training him just on the side for free. And then one day Joe Lozan happened to walk in and we worked out a deal and he just started coming in as well. And then literally Jon Chaimberg had walked in the door with Kenny floor in one day. And so it just kind of all just randomly happened. And then MMA became my thing. And I’m really thankful because I have a really great passion for it and for me just being a fan of its fun to be a coach and work with these guys too. So it really all happened by accident. I never seek it out. I was really lucky that I worked at a place with a great reputation and people would just wander in and look for training, I mean, that’s really lucky. That’s not a normal thing. That’s not how people usually get connected. I couldn’t work with pro athletes if I opened my own place. So I was really lucky to work in a place like MBSC and just have these guys walk into the door.

Kyle Holland [00:06:32]:So I obviously I just talked to the guy. I mean that’s common sense. He walks in the door, I just talked to him, I sort of ask him about what his goals are. But you know, as a trainer, as a coach in this field, you know that when someone sort of tells you goals you can kind of see where they’re at and what they need. And I’m not basing it off of anything super scientific. I mean I’ve done many things with the FMS before and done different performance measures, but really I kind of eyeball the guy, we will go through an active warm-up. I’ll take him through a really a basic workout and from there I can just kind of figure out what I want to do with this guy, you know? It’s funny cause we’ll get really caught up in all these screening tools and all these things that Hey, I need to do this to assess, explosive powder or power or repeatability or where he’s at, what his aerobic capacity where really when you call a fellow coach in the phone and you just ask him, he can tell you in two sentences and you sort of know where a guy’s at. They’ll say, Oh he’s like this or this guy is kind of like so-and-so and you and you always could pick up in about 10 seconds of exactly what the guy needs. Usually with a coach jus shooting you straight on. So nothing super scientific. All this eyeball them. And then from there I’ll get some performance numbers just throughout the program goes, I’ll get how many max reps on a chin up, weighted chin up or I’ll do just jump mat and different stuff, like a three mile bike time, just really basic stuff. And the more the guy comes the longer he’s with me, then we’ll get more in depth with stuff. But usually just to be completely honest with you, I’ll just eyeball, I’m taking through a basic workout and from there I can pretty much set up an entire program just based on that.

Corey Beasley [00:08:12]: Now as you setting up a workout for these guys, typical workout look like they walk in the door and they start and they do what?

Kyle Holland [00:08:22]:So I’ll walk in though always, it’s a pretty standard thing and they’ll come in and they’ll do a soft tissue work. I’ll go through this with the first day they come in, I’ll say, this is kind of our soft tissue routine. This is what we do as a fall rollers and lacrosse balls. We’ll go through soft tissue, we’ll do some type of mobility activation work right in the beginning. And then we’ll do an active warm-up, which is your pretty standard it almost looks like a track warm up a linear lateral type split with the days. And then we’ll usually go from that act of warm-up, right into a power circuit while I usually some type of plyo with a few different med ball drills, it’s all depending on the day on what’s coming up later in the list. So we’ll do a plyo we’ll do a couple of med ball drills, maybe a mobility drill mixed in there, a T spine drill. And then after the workout will goes, we’ll do usually to total body strength circuits followed by some type of conditioning at the end, which is usually interval based. And then they’re out the door after that pretty basic man. There’s nothing too crazy. I mean, there’s a lot of stuff, I try to say that basic, but I mean there’s a lot of thought that goes into it. After the guy comes in and the more advanced training that you have the more advanced you can start to get with their programming and you can have fun, have fun with it, but really a lot of the MMA community despite there’s maybe four or five gyms in the whole country that have such an elite level of guys that they, that they have to do this really like high tech stuff with them. I mean, there’s a lot of MNA guys out there just really need, just basic linear periodization, basic progression you don’t see a lot of these athletic freaks in MMA where you’re saying, he’s strong enough. We don’t need to make him stronger. Most of the time, given these guys just a steady dose of strength is going to improve all their qualities.

Kyle Holland [00:10:46]:Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. I think there’s disconnect out there between what you hear on a lot of podcasts. You’re reading a lot of books or articles to what people are talking about and then what’s actually happening at the gyms with these guys. I mean, all you read about is a million different energy systems and I’m all for it. I love reading about this stuff. I’m fascinated by training. It’s part of the reason why I do what I do. But after a while I get burnt out of reading about every single energy system. There’s like 30 different energy systems, it’s like I can’t follow it after a certain point like High intensity, a lactic low intensity, a lack of what’s the difference? I mean, are you doing steady States or are you doing interval? Alright, are you using sleds or are you doing this? And the athletes don’t care, they have no idea what you’re talking about when you start talking about with language like this, you say, Hey, we’re doing slight pushes today cause this is going to help you shoot, take downs and not get super tired vice versa. You try to elate with them and then they’re going to buy into your training more. So I think it’s tough you really get stuck with trying to keep up with the Joneses as far as making your training super scientific when we’re really it’s just the basics that they need a lot of these guys.

Kyle Holland [00:16:35]:I’ve never really thought about it like that, but I think you’re right on that. And there’s not a ton of other guys. I mean, you do have a few guys here and there and the UFC and MMA that have come from different sports and done really well. But you know, a guy that comes right up the bat because he was in a big fight not long ago was [Inaudible 00:16:53]and he played football at Tennessee. So there’s a guy who went through tough he must’ve been a great high school football player to go to Tennessee and then he goes and spend four or five years at Tennessee and strength trains the whole time. And he’s a great athlete they always talked about his athleticism and how strong and fast he is. And it’s like, he spent a long time on serious strength training programs. I know nothing about what they are doing at Tennessee at that point. But I know that it doesn’t matter what football program you are in the country. I mean you’re showing up four or five days a week and you’re lifting weight. So I just always think it’s funny and you go back and forth and it’s interesting, the guys with the best cardio that they say are always have the best cardio. Always just seem to be the best athletes too. They moved the best or the most efficient. So I mean, there’s something to be said. I don’t even know where I’m going with this, but I’m just kind of piggy backing off of relatedness with other sports where maybe they’ve put more time in as far as going to practice doing the runs, doing the drill. And they’re better athletes and they’ve just trained harder. But the last thing I want to do is come on the podcast today and start dumping all over the athletes that were training. But this is just some of them. This isn’t everybody because I’ve plenty there plenty of really good athletes and super hard workers even to their detriment.

Kyle Holland [00:19:50]:No, for sure. It’s something as a dad, and I know you’re a dad too Corey, it’s like the fight to like keep the iPad and like all the crazy technology like out of your kid’s hands. Because you don’t want them to grow up like that. You want them to grow up and move a lot more. But it is interesting. And MMA and strength conditioning, it definitely kind of early stages. I’m really interested to see what happens as far as like fight teams go. I mean because I know there’s a lot of fight to fight teams out there, but you’re seeing more and more guys, breakout and I know that elevation fight team out in Colorado, they have Loren Landow who you’ve got on the podcast. And it seems like he’s kind of a central figure for them. For their training. He’s going to handle their athletes, like a sports team wouldand then you have Jon Chaimberg works a lot of the APC guys or with a lot of the Tri-Star guys, but not of them and you have a few teams throughout the country that do it like that, but there’s still not that many, there’s not, I mean, and even you always think, it’s getting better. The train is getting better. It’s not really getting that much better there’s a few places where guys are doing a really good job. But for the most part still it’s still a battle as far as trying to get a coaches on board as far as all that, jiu jitsu, the boxing coaches. I’ve been really lucky because I’ve worked with coaches and they’ve always been free reign and just letting me do whatever and they would never intervene, which is pretty rare. And I’ve been pretty happy with that, but it still is hard to get everybody on board with one coach and then so you can treat them like a team of athletes. It’s just so much better to train them that way.

Kyle Holland [00:22:37]:Yeah. That is hard to do. And like we were saying, there’s barely anyone that does it. And it’s really important. And so since most people aren’t in that situation, I think it’s important you definitely want to do your best to coordinate stuff with a boxing or other coaches. But in reality, most of the other coaches don’t really get what we do, I mean, they see us as maybe the newcomer to the group that he’s going to try to have him do some different stuff or the coaches kind of get a little possessive of their guy, which I understand maybe they’ve been with this fighter since he was fighting down to the casino. I told them again, they done this journey for a long time together. So instead of, I guess try to make a coach, drink the Kool-Aid, maybe you sort of have to do baby steps and start with, all right, he can go do his road work with you. And you just have to sort of do the best with the hand that you’re dealt too many of strength conditioning coaches are so passionate about what they do that they really get all butt hurt when someone doesn’t see their perspective. And all I’m just trying to do by her guy you’ve got to pick your battles and if you want to be on the team, if you really care about the guy, I mean, you’ve got to put up as a little crap, and you have to deal with people that just truly don’t get it and they’re never going to get it. And that’s fine. Just figure out how you can best serve as the guy despite everything else. And hopefully in the end it all works out.

Kyle Holland [00:25:16]:Yeah. For sure. And that is like the long game these changes don’t happen overnight. And building with these coaches I think over time you’re trying to earn their trust and you’re trying to drop these nuggets in their ear about, Hey, let’s maybe we can try to set up camp this way or let’s do this on these days and let’s let our guy recover. And then over time you’re going to be able to give your input buy in, but building buy in is a hot topic right now. And Bret Bartholomew is on your, on your podcast and he’s great. He’s a really good friend of mine and we talked about that. And by end really is not, it is a long grind. It’s not exactly you’re really only you’re just trying to build trust as the biggest thing they don’t care how smart of a coach you are. If they don’t really like you and they don’t trust that you’re looking out for their best interest. And, and it’s a long process. It doesn’t happen right overnight. No matter how many big words you can throw at them and tell them about your training and show them everything fancy that you’re going to do, it takes a lot of time and over time, hopefully you can do a little culture shift within that team and get them on board with some smarter training. And really, I think that’s kind of how these other teams are built to like with what Loren’s doing and some of these other guys around the country that are doing a great job with specific teams. I mean, that didn’t happen overnight either, so I know those guys had been trained in MMA guys for a long time. So it looks like they’re brand new to doing this, but they’ve been in the trenches building buy in for years and years

Kyle Holland [00:27:22]:I really think to tell them that they’re going to need to have to shovel some crap for the first few years. I mean, they’re going to have to go somewhere and do a few internships and really try to get their feet wet by volunteering and it’s got to suck, but you have to do it. It’s a part of it. And they want to definitely try to pick a good place to do their internship you can do an intern everyone wants free help. So there’s a lot of really bad places that you can go that aren’t going to teach you anything, aren’t going to connect you with people to sort of help you with your career down the road. And I’m not plugging, I’m just because I worked for him now or anything, but I think if you could possibly get into EXOS, that’s great. I know Mike Boyle, strength conditioning is good. I know Brett Bartholomew does a great job with interns. It’s really important to pick a good place where you’re going to learn. They’re going to be respectful of you as an intern and really kind of help you advance the whole mentoring thing. It’s tough to find people out there that wants to help you out with your career. I’ve been at some really good places that I’ve been at some really bad, bad spots too. And you can learn a lot from the bad spots, but you definitely want to want to try to find somewhere that’s going to help you develop. So I just really try to seek out good internships, work really hard and try to talk to the coaches as much as you can. No one is just waiting to be your mentor out there you have to really seek it out show people that you want to work hard for them. And then they’ll give you some help along the way. And I’ll get emails sometimes from coaches that just want something or want to sort of ask, how’d you get your job? I got my job it’s sucked forever trying to get this job it was a long, hard road And you have to do that people aren’t just looking to just hand it to you, you got to go out and you’ve got to find a really good place. You got to work really hard for it and you’ve got to seek out stuff. And I think it’s easier now than it used to be. I mean, there’s so much exposure out there now the internet and you can just look up someone’s email address and easily just send them a message and find out where they’re at or read their book or see all their posts. I mean, there’s a million posts right now. It’s so hard to almost keep up on all the good stuff people are doing. So if I could give them any bit of advice would be, it’d be read as much as you can. Keep your nose to the grindstone and really talk to people and figure out where a good place to go, where you can really settle in and work hard for a while and just put your head down and hopefully it comes out where you’ve built some great relationships and they’re going to help you get on the right path.

Corey Beasley [00:29:58]: Very good. And for anybody that’s wanting to reach out and learn more about what you’re doing, Kyle, what’s the best way for them to do that?

Kyle Holland [00:30:08]:Best way for them to do that. So I have a website that’s a little bit out of date. It’s Kyletrains.com, but I’m also setting up a new one that’s called Kyleholland.net. That should be out there in the next month or so. But they can always shoot me an email [email protected] and I’ll always get back to them. I was just sending a guy who shot me a direct message on Instagram the other day. I shot him over some programs just to play around with just because he a direct message me and he wanted to ask for help. So I’m also on social media. My Twitter is @Kyletrains and that’s my Instagram as well. And as people could feel free to reach out to me on any of those mediums.

Kyle Holland [00:31:05]:Corey, thanks a lot. I really appreciate you bringing me on and you’ve been an awesome resource for me over the years too, so thank you very much.

Episode #53 with Strength Coach Kyle Holland

Full Transcription of Our Podcast with Kyle Holland

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