The Best Grappler You Haven't Heard Of | The Simple Man Podcast Ep 167

You're listening to the simple man with Ethan and Stan and Andrew. Stay a while if you know about the Jiu-Jitsu. If you don't, you can come too. This is B-Team. We have a very special guest. I guess we should intro real quick. I know you don't like intros. We can no, this is okay intro. These guys like to introduce each other like every podcast. We're on episode 300. Not every podcast, but podcasts where there's a guest and like that guest might give us their following, you know. What? Okay. No, no. You don't think so? Uh, anyway, I'm Ethan. Okay. It's okay, baby. Special guest Nick Matea. Um, I mean, absolutely one of the best grapplers to come out of Simple Man Martial Arts. Uh, just beat Jacob, what's his name, last name? Borderman. Jacob Borderman, uh, reigning East Coast Trials ADCC Trials champion via submission, very dominant victory. Um, and man, just kind of climbing the the Jiu-Jitsu ranks right now. Hitting your stride. We'll be like the we'll be like to see. Yes, sir. Just looking to take out as many big names as I can right now. Yeah, for sure, for sure. Yeah, man. Um, you have what, main character coming up soon? Main character, yeah, that'll be May 3rd, and I'll be taking on Marlon Tajeek, another Trials champion. So. There's a a strong argument, you go out there, you sub Tajeek, that you should get an invite. If you sub two trials guys, cuz trials is coming up, but obviously you didn't do it cuz you thought your daughter, your daughter was due that same week, right? Yeah, so the due date originally was 4/20. And then That's right. But um, she came a couple weeks early, so still, I didn't really have a camp. It'd be kind of hard to hop right into that. Yeah, you're Yes, for sure. And the no sleep makes it tough, too. So. Is that the main reason, like kind of kind of no camp? Yeah, I mean, I could hop in. I mean, the main reason is I can't really leave her alone for like four days. I would feel not good doing that. So. You're going to be like You were uh if it was an option for you to fly her out, that wouldn't be an option either, right? I don't think we could take the baby on a flight. Yeah, at 10 at 7 days old. Oh, oh, yeah. Oh, fuck. That'd be a little Would would you would you go um like just for the weekend to to do trials or no? No, with it. Yeah, I mean, I think that would still be like three full days that I'm just gone for, so. I mean, for me, my priorities are my family over Jiu-Jitsu right now. Absolutely. Yeah, bro. Not even like I'm doing this full-time, so. No, dude, you're on the you're on the way though, bro. Yeah, yeah. Like, um, dude, you get into ADCC Worlds, like that's you have a successful run, that's life-changing. Like for me, that was my thing. I went trials, and I was like, all right, I have success this tournament. I went in there with the intention to win. I only got second, my first my first attempt, but um, changed my life forever. Even like, even the first like two matches, like beating previous champions or guys that are really known, they're like, all right, now now you can say, I want this number to compete. You get consistent work, consistent competition, getting paid. Yeah, changed my life forever. Just winning trials. Uh, winning trials was a start where cuz I had a good following. I had like maybe 30 or 40,000 followers after trials. I was like, all right, I think I'm going to charge like 5K per per per event. So I get every time I step on the mats, $5,000. And then after placing second at Worlds, it was like it was start multiplying. Yeah, that'd be nice. Yeah. I mean, you already really built up a lot of like demand for yourself, and I feel like that's the hardest part of it all. Like everyone's willing to train and compete and, you know, win as as much as they can, but like the getting the getting your name to be a draw is like the toughest challenge. You've already done that. So like there's, you know, WNO's, Polarises, uh, a lot of super fights lined up for you already. I have a feeling UFC's gonna gonna reach out. Yeah. Hit me up, UFC. I'm down. I'm ready. Good good consistent work here. You have the the best style for them. They don't want guard pullers. They want guys that are going to wrestle, going to chase the submission, so that's kind of that's your style. It's always been your style, so. For sure. I'd love to get back there. I had a match against the current champ right now, like like a year ago. It was my brown belt debut, actually, yeah. Against uh Ronaldo, and I ended up getting submitted in overtime. Um, but I think, you know, right now, I just feel like I've leveled up so much compared to back then that uh that would be a complete different match right now. Well, that was at 185, though, or 170? Yeah, 185. Dude, you jumped down to 170. You end up Yeah, I walk around like 180, so I mean, 170 is an easy cut. Dude, I thought you were 185. Really? Doesn't matter to me at this point, you know. I'll kind of take on whoever, whenever. 170, 185. Get a couple matches. Anything anything above that. Take it easy. 170, 185. Get a couple matches and then try to set up a a match between Andrew and you. That'd be a sick uh sick stylistic matchup. Yeah, I'd love to, man. Andrew's Andrew's the man. His scrambles are sick. I think me and him would have a great match. Yeah, for sure. Maybe plan your plan your call out. Your UFC call out or main character, like this guy. Maybe. Yeah. That's right. That's a proven track record. You can't argue with that. No one's done it before. Dude, if you do, honestly, that would be hilarious. And it actually would work. It did work. Yeah, you got a lot of uh heat for it, but it did work. People are still they're tagging Polaris on the UFC. They're like, yeah. Amazing. It's great. No more Polaris, huh? Yes, more Polaris. It's It's only exclusive if you have the belt. So until I face for the belt. You don't think you burn that bridge, though, after that? No, I I they we spoke to each other. They were actually super happy. Yeah, they were thrilled that I called out another guy. Didn't burn that bridge at all. I may be like I may be like set it on fire, but I put it out quick. It was day-long fire. The bridge is made of reinforced steel, so it's okay. Can't hard to burn, hard to burn. Jet fuel does melt steel beams, though. We all know that. Dude, where'd you start training Jiu-Jitsu at? So, I started Jiu-Jitsu about six years ago, Gracie Humaita, Columbia, Missouri. Shout out Professor Sean Woods. He gave me my start. Professor Sean Woods. One of the best uh coaches that I know of, you know. He gave me a really good base foundations and like uh it was mostly Gi, but um a lot of No-Gi stuff, too. And uh yeah, I started under him. And uh he really supported me a lot early on. Like I had like no money at the time. He he would like organize fundraisers to send me to Worlds and all this stuff. Oh, holy shit. And uh yeah, he competed in the Gi? Yeah, I competed What? Mostly Gi for my first like two years. Is there any footage of this? Yeah, for sure. Wow. I got uh second at blue belt Worlds in the Gi. How long have you been training for now? Uh, six years, just almost six years. Oh, dude, sick. Crazy. Yeah, so Yeah, good match. I'm do miss the Gi a little bit. It is a lot of fun. We should throw it on. It's a lot more options. Yeah, it's there's more for sure more to do. You might go viral on YouTube. We do a Simple Man Gi Gi day one day. Simple Man Gi session. I got it. It's in my trunk still. Really? You didn't wash it? I don't have one. Um. Ready at all times. So, you you also had a pretty like a long background in wrestling, right? Uh, not I mean, I have three brothers. I grew up middle child, three brothers, and uh we wrestled pretty much every day growing up. So, in that aspect, we did. But I really only wrestled organized in high school, so. 14, 18. Did you compete like in high school wrestling and? Yeah, I wasn't never even really that good, honestly. I never made it to state. Never really uh did anything. I had really good coaches as well in high school. Sean Woods. Uh, one of the Baters, actually, you know, Flo Wrestling, Bader. Master Bader. Ryan Bader. Master Bader. Uh, Mark Bader. There's like five of them, but yeah. So, he used to be the head coach at my high school. Oh, really? And uh his brother was the coach when I was there. So, he helped me a ton. My junior year, going into senior year, it would just be me and him at an open mat, like three times a week. And we would just like wrestle for an hour straight. Just you and the Bader. Me and the Bader. And we would um, I feel like I got a lot better. I really understood scrambling after that, you know. Sorry. Dude. Sorry. I'm retarded. I'm retarded. Sorry. Yeah, yeah, you are. Um, man, I remember when you first started showing up at the gym, uh, there's like a 7:00 p.m. class, and I remember Bobby was like, uh, do you remember this, no? Like Bobby was like, oh, I have Yeah, he recorded me you beating the shit out of me, basically. Yeah, early on. Well, tables have turned, my friend. The shoe's on the other foot. Um, but yeah, dude, we have we had crazy scrambles, man. Like from the get-go was uh Yeah, it was fucking sick, dude. You come so far, it's crazy. Yeah, man. Why why Austin? Cuz you were you were here before we even opened the gym. No, actually. No, really? Uh, so I moved here like 2022. Okay. Beginning of 2022. And um, so I had just gotten second at Gi Worlds, and then I got double bronze at blue belt No-Gi Worlds. And then I was talking to Sean, and he was telling me, he was like, hey, realistically, I can make you probably purple belt world champ training here. Um, mostly hobbyist at this gym. And uh he said if you really want to if you really want to be like world class and one of the best in the world, you got to move to Austin. And he said to train with Danaher and Gordon. Oh, that's nice. Cuz this was like after he you guys split up and Yeah. And all that. And I was like, all right, yeah, you know, I'll go down there. And I did. Oh, you you started there? Uh, I went to one class, and uh it was at when they were still at Henzo Austin. Yeah. And it was super small. It was like probably a third of our mat space. And there'd be like 50 people on the mat. And I just didn't really like that we would do two positional rounds and then like all drilling and then we couldn't really do anything. You'd get pretty good there, too, but you couldn't really wrestle or anything like that. It might be different now that they have a new place, but uh yeah, I just didn't like it as much. And then I came to B-Team, and like right away, we're scrambling. We're wrestling. Yeah. And then after class is over, you can just stay and like learn. Keep scrambling. Ask people questions. You can work on things you're working on. So, I think that that was the biggest uh determinant for me. Sometimes you you learn more just from the peers. Just talking before after after training. Absolutely. I learned a lot of that from like Joseph and Kenta and all the European guys when they came. Like, it's almost like reverse drilling. Like you roll first and then afterwards you're like, how did you do that? Can you show me that? You break it down and you might need to drill something and then like workshop it a little bit. They call it like tinkering. Tinkering. Yeah. Which it's a great word. That's true. It's kind of like the like the normal class just played out backwards. Like you start with, you know, you warm up and you scrap and then you figure out the problems from that scrap instead of like just going in, drilling, then rolling and leaving. Yeah, I think it's a lot more personalized that way, too, you know. And um you can kind of like actively see in real time the the problems you're having. Yeah. So, I do like that. And then solve them right after, yeah. Damn. So, what's next? You said Tajeek? What's his name again? Marlon Tajeek. Marlon Tajeek. He won trials at 88. Is that European? European trials. I think he trains at Atos, maybe. Oh. One of those fellas. Oh, I think I know. Yeah, yeah, I know those I I mean, I don't know him, but yeah, I've seen I saw his uh his trials run. Yeah. Fuck, yeah. Just going to go in there. Grab him. Take him down. Take his back. Strangle him. Fuck, yeah. Game plan's pretty much the same regardless of opponent. Yeah, yeah. Uh, but yeah, this is no different. Let's talk about the uh the little Jacob uh match. So, Yeah, cuz it was it was kind of like a comeback a little bit. That's what people are saying. So, like what was going through your head? Um, obviously, we're all there. We're actually I was teaching. But I was there in spirit. Just watching. Yeah, so he came out the opposite he came out at trials. Trials, he comes out super slow, scores at the end. Here, he came out try really, you know, strong and fast and tried to score early and then tried to cruise afterwards. Yeah, I think um just watching him and game planning for the match, you you can just tell he's super explosive, super strong. Like his grips are just like 100% intensity. So, um I knew that he was going to come out hard right away. And even at trials, I would say he did for the most part. But um, just through the hand fighting and stuff, I feel like I was able to fatigue him. I think one of the most fatiguing things in a Jiu-Jitsu match is failed takedowns. Oh, yeah. And also failed submissions, but especially the takedowns. If you're used to just like every time, it's just automatic getting the takedown, and somebody defends it even a little bit, I think you're going to get very tired doing that. And I could feel that, you know. Um, I could have done a little bit better job of hand fighting and like actually getting the shots, but he was just so strong for the first like five minutes that uh every time we would hand fight and have a little exchange, I could feel him getting a lot weaker, a little slower. And um, Something that I think we do we really advocate for in Simple Man Martial Arts is uh long sequences. So, like we never just attack once. It's like two, three, four, five, six attacks or re-attacks and we have long scrambles. That's why our guys, like, the longer, the more Jiu-Jitsu that happens in the match, the better, cuz we're accustomed to that style. Yeah, I feel the same way. Um, about those long exchanges, too, for sure. And I think that's a skill in and of itself, to like not gas out and not use all your all your gas in the scrambles, you know. Just stay safe, kind of making the guy get tired. And then when I felt good, I felt like he was pretty fatigued. It was something like two minutes left. Yeah. I went uh elbow tie, knee pull to the kosoto hook and the tight waist. Took him straight over. I think he stayed on the front headlock probably a little too long, but um, It's a game of decisions. Yeah, yeah. He's he's able to get on top and I felt that he was pretty fatigued. The second uh Jiu-Jitsu started happening, it was like it was steep steep uh downhill for him. Yeah, I was kind of trying to force it early on, even pulling guard a little bit, too. Just trying to get some things going. You just need a connection sometimes. Yeah, I think that's the biggest thing. And he that's one thing that he's really good at is uh preventing that connection, you know, being able to like stay safe. Put up those emotional walls. Yeah. Dude, I think sometimes like when I have guys that are just super anti-Jiu-Jitsu, I'm like, I bet if I just pulled bottom turtle and let get them let them get on top of me, like I would just sub them. Yeah, just to get a connection. Sometimes it's not a bad move, you know. And um, yeah. Feel like that's something that like wrestlers do pretty well. It kind of fucks up pure Jiu-Jitsu guys sometimes when they they're like they're grip fighting, so they they won't let you get a grip at all. They won't let you make a connection at all. That was me for the first couple years. I was like anti-Jiu-Jitsu. Stop it all. It's it's effective, but it is hard to actually generate your own offense. Yeah. So, you went out there, uh, took him down, strangled him. That was fuck that was that was awesome. That was crazy. That was so good for for for you. Like, yeah, for your brand. That was phenomenal. For sure. It's like the like coming back from the adversity of like you were behind two uh judge favors, right? Yeah. That just like that kind of story is just always I think people like Dude, that was J-Rod's trials run. Just lose every second and except for and then dominate the last minute. Yeah, that was insane. Yeah, that was insane. I mean, you you weren't you weren't as bad, but Jay was like would get fucked up for like five minutes. And then come back and then sub them. I'm like, dude, come on. You popped the top after. Popped the top. I did pop the top, yes. After lengthy conversations with my sponsor. He advised against popping the top. However, Don't do that. And and at trials, I told him I wouldn't do it. And you didn't do it. We saw your Yeah. I held it back. I buried it deep down. You should have did it. Yeah, I should have. If I would have won with a submission in the finals. Come on. The top's gone. You know what I'm saying? It's I was getting popped, dude. And there's nothing I can do. You couldn't stop it if you tried. In this life, you only get so many moments. That's the top. That's the top. That's true. Tell tell the guys like, so, like who's your sponsor? What's uh you know, tell us the deal. So, my sponsor, shout out Pronoia. Um, pretty much Sal. And uh they hooked me up with rash guards, and he told me to not pop the top specifically. I had been popping the top. And here's the here's the thing, guys. I only pop the top if I win a tournament or win a match with a dominant submission. Yeah. You know. It's fair. It's fair. It's giving the people what they want, you know. They want that emotional ending. Yeah. That's what they want. That's what Exactly. C4 and big plates. C4 and heavyweights. And explosive traits. And some impressive rates. Strong like primates. You'll say, ah, great when your deadlift dominates. Was that good? No. It was incredible. Really bad. But this, this is good. One thing that changed my recovery that no one talks about. Gut health. If your gut is not right, you're not recovering right. You're inflamed, you're not absorbing nutrients, and you're constantly playing catch-up. Especially if you train hard. This matters way more than people think. Meric Health helps you actually see what's going on internally and fixes it with a plan. That's the difference. So head to merichealth.com and use code Simple Man for 10% off. Exactly. You have a a rare physique for a white man. Extremely. You're 0.5%. You know what I mean? There's not a lot of white out there that have a physique like you, so. Mostly they're What demographic? What? What demographic are they? They're they're anti-white. They're black. Yeah, I mean, I definitely have a uh pretty good base of like strength and conditioning, yeah. Black physique and white skin. Uh, yeah, dude, I mean, that's a you used to be um, I mean, I don't know if you're a powerlifter, but you did a lot of years of powerlifting. Your your numbers, your lifts were pretty pretty crazy. Yeah, so after high school wrestling, I made the decision to not wrestle in college. I figured if I would have qualified for state, I would have wrestled in college and kind of had that been my thing. But I was cutting a ton of weight and I was so burnt out just from that. And those like Yeah, I'd cut from like 155 to like 138. Yeah. Oh, shit. In high school? Yeah, in high school. And you would have to um, maintain that. Yeah, it's like two-hour weigh-ins. Oh, fuck. But you'd have to weigh in damn near every week for three months. Yeah, so you'd have to keep that weight. Yeah, yeah, you couldn't you couldn't do that. And honestly, I feel like that stunted puberty and stuff for me and for a lot of other guys. Yeah, yeah. I tell I tell the young athletes, even Jiu-Jitsu, like don't cut that much weight. More so the parents. Like, listen, don't you don't need your kid to be cutting weight at like 10, 12, 13 years old. No, they're growing still, you know. As big as possible. And also it's there's so much to be said for just like spending that energy building skills and like getting better at grappling compared to like losing weight. Like there's a um, a guy who trains with us, 16-year-old kid. He was like 175 on Friday night. And he's doing 66 for trials. Yeah. This week. No, fucking Dean. Oh, wow. I forget his last name. But I was trying to tell him, I was like, brother, just be 77. You're big enough. Yeah, and he's going to grow to be 88, probably. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. So, it's like that shit definitely I mean, I don't know if it's too late, but it's too late now. I don't know. I mean, no, it's not. He could probably. He's 175 now. He's 175 now. I think he's a little lower now, but this was like after he ate and everything, but still, it's like Dude, that's too young. Just have that just take that variable of cutting weight out of it. And it's not like we have 24 or 36-hour weigh-ins. We have 12-hour weigh-ins essentially for trials. Well, no, no, no. It's it's the day before. Yeah, but it's it's Friday at like 7:00 p.m. And then you compete in the morning on Saturday. So, it's like, you do have time to rehydrate and stuff, but it's not as much as like It's not it's like night before. Yeah, that's not. No, we'll definitely tell him uh to not fucking do that. Yeah. But yeah, so taking out the the additional stress of weight cutting, like, come on. You that I think that there comes a time where you're, okay, you're not growing anymore. You're at the, you know, the full swing of your career, then okay, you're you're going to ADCC, then okay, it makes sense if you're within range, go to 66 or if you're too big or whatever, 77. But like when you're growing, like you're saying, like that's what it makes way more sense to just take that out, compete as much as you can, but at the weight class you naturally fit into and focus, you know. When you're in the gym, you shouldn't be thinking like, oh, I'm starving. I can't train well or I don't want to train with this guy cuz I'm tired or whatever. Yeah. Um, but yeah, you so you had you had years of of powerlifting after. Yeah, so after wrestling, I decided to uh Yeah, I'm done cutting weight. Yeah, I'm done cutting weight. I just want to get big, you know. I graduated high school at like 155. So. What? Coming into high school, I was a pretty late bloomer, so I was like 90 pounds my freshman year. Oh, shit. What's freshman? I don't know. 14. 14. Beginning year, high school, yeah. I was like the same weight. Yeah. Yeah. And now you guys are the same weight now. And now we're Yeah, exactly. That's right. That's it. But uh yeah, I grew up a little bit and then I just wanted to get big, you know. I was tired of being small. Me, too. Yeah. So. Now look at us. I was just uh powerlifting. I did I lifted probably five times five, six times a week for like 13 years. So from like 14 to like now, pretty much. And I did the same thing with arm day. Arm day. Yeah, yeah, for sure. And uh when you say like I mean, we don't have to get too detailed into it, but like you're you're not just I feel like you had a a pretty intricate program of those 13 years, you said? Yeah, where'd you learn how to lift? Uh, right away from there was an older guy, shout out Andrew Hoffman. He helped me out a lot. He's a year older, two years older, and he was on the wrestling team. So, like off-season, we would lift together all the time. And he showed me a lot of like just like fundamental technique things and like just general programming concepts that uh were super helpful at the time. And then since then, I started being kind of obsessed with that idea of like progressive overload and like just like long-term strength gains. So, I've really prioritized like squat, bench, and deadlift specifically. And yeah, over the course of like six years, I've probably put like 300 pounds on my deadlift, 200 pounds on my bench. From what age range was that? I started lifting at 14, but I really hit it hard like after wrestling, so like 18 to like right before Jiu-Jitsu, like 18 to 23. So, from 18 to 23, you put on 300 pounds on your Yeah, I was in college and I uh I was just eating a shit ton. Hamburger Helper every day. Were you shredded? Were you shredded still? I was pretty lean. I was a little thicker, but um, I've always been pretty lean, just genetically. But also pretty active. You're the most genetically gifted of your brothers? No, not at all. Yeah, my younger brother. Has six arms. Youngest brother. He's like uh he's pretty strong, too. I'm obviously stronger, but he is like uh taller and longer. He's probably like 6'3. Yeah. And um, Tell him to come train, brother. Way more athletic. Like he was really high-level soccer player and all that. I used to be a soccer player, too. What? Wow. My whole family, they were all like played in college and everything. No shit. And I thought I I went my whole life thinking I was going to be a soccer player. Yeah. And then I got cut from my freshman team. Why? Oh, jeez. I just wasn't that good. I was fast, but I was not good at soccer at all. You just like I guess we're wrestling now, you know. At least there's weight classes. Wow. Too small for football. So, what's your brother do? Like a computer engineer? He's a dentist. And uh he trains. Oh, shit. Where at? He's in dental school in Kansas City right now, so he he trains out there. Tell him to quit everything and train Jits. Yeah, with the family. Does he have a family? I mean, does he obviously has? He has a girlfriend, but no. Okay. No kids. Yeah, I'm trying to get him to move down here. I'm trying to get all my brothers to move down here. Yeah. Dude, that's the One of them is already coming in a few months. Maybe up to three years. Another Matea. He's going to hop in the gym with us. Yeah. Oh, sick. Trying to get them all. I'm trying to get all. Older or younger? Uh, one of the other middle one. So, I have two younger brothers, one older. Okay, okay. And uh trying to get a family compound going. Yeah. You know. That's what I've been saying. Trying to get a plot of land. Dude, yep. Maybe some trailers, maybe some houses. Maybe some trails for the ATVs, maybe. Dude, that's what I think you you buy some land, you get some trailers, you can always build the house on on it down the line, bro. Dog, you can get a nice double-wide. Dude. For like 70 grand, 60. That was a thought before getting this house. That was that was a Yeah, yeah. I know I know a spot that's not too far from here, 10 acres for less than 400. Yeah, and people talk shit on trailers, you know. But the thing is, these double-wides are going to be nicer than most apartments. You know. One man's trailer trash is another man's trailer treasure. That's right. That's right. So, who knows? Who knows what's going to happen in the future? Did that happen like the idea that uh you want your family to move out because you're having the kid? Or you having? Is that like Uh, I mean, yeah. It'd be nice for all of us to be here and like be able to raise our kids together. I think that would be really nice. Also, just have family around. Um, but yeah, we'll see. Bro. We'll see what happens. That's how you do it, man. Yeah. That's fucking the dream, man. Um, we can't we came here no fam. Make it. Little by little, you know. Just the boys. Yeah, just the boys. Yeah. Well, your family's going to visit, your family might come down, my family's moving down. Yeah. They're all moving down. Yeah, pretty much. Uh, parents. Parents and grandparents. Well, yeah. Austin's a great city, man. Just to it's expanding so fast. Yeah. Just every direction. Who would have thought we'd end up here, you know, while we were all up in Jersey. You know. I have no idea. Montreal, Jersey, Puerto Rico, Austin. I actually didn't think I was going to end up in Texas eventually. You really? Yeah, when I first started Jiu-Jitsu, I don't know why I was telling my parents, I think I'm going to end up in Texas. Wow, I I didn't think I was going to end up in Texas, but I've heard people say like, oh, I'd love to move to Texas. And I I would say, but I never actually thought that it was going to happen. I was just trying to be cool. Like I was like, oh, yeah, I mean, cuz guns are cool. Yeah, Texas. Yeah. Texas. Yeah. I want to, too, also. I love Texas. My buddy. The only thing, there's no uh like public land here. It's all private. Could be good and bad. There's there's good and bad of everything in life. That is true. But you want public land to ride? Yeah, but yeah, where we ride, it's not that bad. It's an hour away. Who who owns that land? The construction sites. It's private. Yeah, who owns it? Somebody privately owns it. You probably buy that shit. Um, 2,000 acres there. Take out a mortgage. This is a real option. No. They're too profitable. I don't think that's they'd sell. So, anyway, here you go. Wait, I do want like if you can cuz obviously, we've had lots of discussions about lifting for Jiu-Jitsu on this podcast. We've had guys like Mike Israetel. We've had guys ranging from, you know, left, right. We've lifted with them. And I feel like it's a big, you know, topic of contention. And you're you're freaking strong. For your weight and just you're strong period. So, like if you could sort of give like a summary of like what you think the best way to lift for Jiu-Jitsu is, just so like, you know, our listeners can hear what Nick Matea thinks. Yeah, so, uh, I think it's going to depend entirely on your goals. Like, you really have to factor in how much you prioritize getting better at Jiu-Jitsu versus how much you want to get stronger. Cuz they are kind of competing with each other, you know. You only have so much energy. You have so much throughout the day, yeah. Yeah, and even the week and month. So. And the cardio is kind of the anti-gains. I was that was going to be my next. Yeah, like we the cardio we're doing, like we should talk about that after and see what you think. Yeah. I mean, you're saying like Jiu-Jitsu, it's like training for an hour of Jiu-Jitsu cardio. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It makes it more like you need more calories in order to recover from the Takes away from lifting. Yeah. Definitely. So, I would say completely depending on your goals, but for like, I'll say for me, for example, I'm prioritizing Jiu-Jitsu way more than than lifting. I have a lot of lifting in my past, so I feel like I'm already strong enough. I don't I I kind of just need to maintain at this point what I've already gotten. So, I lift right now two days a week. Um, ideally, I'd do like three or four, but two works for me. And the way that that's broken up is a heavy it's uh essentially like a condensed conjugate method. Throughout high school, I did a lot of conjugate, which is like Westside Barbell. Um, they do a max effort lower body day and a max effort upper body day. And then a speed upper day and then a speed lower day. So. So, like four sessions throughout the week? Yeah, yeah. And then you can add cardio or general preparedness days, too. Okay. Rest in peace. Westside Barbell. Oh, yeah. Yeah. RIP. Louie Simmons. Louie Simmons. Louie Simmons. Yeah, so I I kind of condensed it into uh doing a speed upper day and a heavy lower day and then the reverse for the second day. Okay, so you're so you're cramming that into two lifts. Yeah, exactly. Okay. So, and you it really, you know, it doesn't really take too long. The max effort is like you work up to a heavy single, double, or triple, and then you take 80% of that and do three sets of five or five sets of three of like squat, bench, deadlift. Yeah, so lower day, I'd do a deadlift or and the reason I like conjugate a lot, too, is that you can change the lift. The lifts change every week. It's not It's not always squat, bench, deadlift. It's not always squat, bench, or squat every single time. You can uh pick variations. And this is super helpful with Jiu-Jitsu because a lot of times I'm banged up. I might have like, you know, injuries to my hands or wrists and then I can't I can't deadlift, but I can still like Zercher, you know. Or I can I've been saying Zerker all this time. It's Zercher. I think it's Zercher. Yeah. Now, I'll I'll switch to saying Zercher. You're you're squats, you're going 90 or below? Uh, I like a box squat these days. Like you're you're not advocating like ass to grass, like full. You can. I mean, so again, it depends entirely on your goals, but I think doing squats to full depth are good if you have the mobility that can handle it. A lot of times you see guys that don't have the mobility. A lot of times it's your ankles. It's your ankle mobility preventing your like uh shins from going over your toes. Yeah. So, those guys typically will squat a little bit higher. I would say just do whatever you can control, you know what I mean? Not like dive bombing your squats where you just like lose all tension and just bounce out of the bottom. Like, try to control that as best you can. Um, only work within the range of motion that you have, you know. So, I think that that's helpful for preventing injuries. Do you stretch at all? No. Uh, no. No. I think uh just lifting weights through a full range of motion is sufficient for flexibility. Yeah, training stretching. That's lifting weights is like yoga. Yeah, I would say it's better than yoga even because you're strengthening those end ranges of motion. And that's that's one thing that they talked a lot about in physical therapy school is that um, if you do like a stretch or like a passive range of motion exercise, you want to follow that up with uh resistance training. You want to like put some get some strength in that newly built range of motion so that you can maintain it over time. Cuz like if I just like worked on my splits and I got a little bit deeper, if I did nothing after that, it would go away within like 30 minutes, an hour, you know. But if you would like put some weight into it and like work on like maybe deep range, like isometric exercises. Like carry a I don't know, kettlebell like while you're trying getting into those splits or something. Yeah, yeah, or kind of just depending on what you can tolerate at that time. It doesn't have to be super heavy, but even just like holding it against your body weight sometimes can be enough to build strength in that deep range of motion. So, like for your two days, uh you know, you're doing the conjugate method. How many lifts are you doing for we'll say for like the heavy portion of it? Like how many lifts does that entail? And then how many lifts of the speed uh how much like, you know what I'm saying? Yeah, so the max effort day the max effort portion of the day will be a max single, double, or triple. And then whatever that is, I take 80% of that number, and then I do three sets of five for like back down sets, just for some more volume. And that's my max effort. And then the speed is just going to be like, depending on the exercise, it'll probably be like eight sets of three, 10 sets of two. Eight sets of three. Holy shit. Yeah, and the goal is just to move the weight as quickly as you can. So. What percentage? So, you're going to do about I alternate I switch between 45%, 50%, and 55%. Like over three weeks. And uh you really want to have around 50% for your power work because the goal is not to move a lot of weight. A lot of weight. With the weight as fast as possible. Correct. Yeah. And you're not in once you start going above 50%, you're not training for power anymore, you know. The goal is to move the weight as quickly as you can. So, even if um, and you want to rest as much as you need between those sets. Uh, if you feel like you're slowing down a lot for the speed days, you want to take a little bit more rest, make sure you're moving the weight as quickly as you did from set one. And I think that that really helps. And then also on top of that, I like a lot of plyometrics to warm up. I think that that's super helpful for like tendon health. And especially with Jiu-Jitsu, we get so banged up. I think um, just doing some basic plyometrics, some hops, skips, even jumping some rope. Things like that can jump. Things like that can really help uh prevent injuries over the course of your career. Well, we should probably implement some of that shit. We just kind of I mean, I almost just go to failure on squat, bench, deadlift every time I lift. I don't really How often do you do that? As as much as I can. It's like it ends up being maybe three to four times a week. To failure? Yeah. But like I'll always wait till I'm not sore. So, like if I'm, you know, I'm not going to bench again before I'm like I feel like fully, you know, ready to bench. Are you still getting stronger doing that? Little by little, but then like I'll take a break for something. Like I don't know, either a little injury, like elbow thing or I go compete and I'm like, you know, I'm like not lifting that week. And then uh I just you lose it quick. And then I kind of like restart, have to rebuild it. So. That's what's frustrating for me, but. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it sounds like a lot of to failure. You know. A lot of to failure, yeah. And even the guys that are like the strongest in the world, they're not necessarily taking all Yeah. All every single set to failure. So. Who knows? Maybe back out a little bit and see if you feel better doing that. Especially with all the training. And you it's not like you're going easy in the gym, the Jiu-Jitsu gym. You're banging pretty much every day, right? Six days a week, seven days a week. Yeah, we try to tell this guy like, yo, take a zone two day. He's like, yeah, yeah. Once you get in there, yeah. So, you're doing all these to failure and then you guys are doing your gay cardio, too, on top of that. And we're doing the gay cardio. So, you're going to failure like twice a day every day. Sometimes. No, not twice. If I if I'll do the gay cardio, I ain't lifting that day. There's Yeah. Or maybe I am. I don't know. You can't, dude. Come on. I can't. It's it's that's crazy. I can't, but it would suck. I wouldn't want to. Yeah, that's just sounds like a lot of time in like zone five, like max heart rate range. It's stressful. Plus, you know what's crazy? The Whoop, I'm not wearing it now. It died, but uh I'll wear the Whoop during these gay cardio sessions, during the lifting, during uh Jiu-Jitsu. And at none of these workouts, do I get more red zone, like zone five cardio than when I take the ATV to with these guys somewhere. I don't know if it's the the vibrations or something like making it malfunction. Spider-Flats, the life or death. It could be the nerves, right? Yeah. It's dude, it it's like 10 minutes, 15 minutes overall throughout the day in zone five. None on no other work. No matter how exhausted I get in the cardio thing. Like other things that that make me stop. Other things are failing, but yeah, I don't know. Just trying not to die the whole time. Yeah. Probably not as efficient either. Maybe not as efficient, yeah. We had so much fun. That was insane. Um, okay, that's that's good insight on on lifting. Cuz you're crazy strong, bro. And it's like, you know, everyone wants to know what's going on. What's going on under the hood? Should I have him talk to uh Liam about power? Where do you lift then? They they do. I mean, I lift at LA Fitness right now. Oh, yeah. Uh, probably going to leave there pretty soon, but it's just packed constantly. Yeah. Crazy. Yeah. It's like on Lamar, it's huge. But uh there's just so many people. Oh, the one next to In-N-Out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, right there. What's that? What's that, Ali? Yeah. What time of day? Depends. Um, if I if I'm doing it after work, it'll be like 7:00. Why there not like Golds? Golds is a little closer. Or like yeah, Golds is a little closer. Golds gets crazy, too, honestly, around that time. That's Yeah. Um, yeah, either that or if I'm off during the weekends, I'll lift like a little earlier. Yeah. After training, though. I prioritize the Jiu-Jitsu stuff a lot more, so. Yeah. I'm going to make sure I hit like get all my skill building stuff in and like really focus on the hard rounds if I needed to do them that day before I do lift. Cuz for me, lifting is just on the top. And a lot of times, the same thing. I'm like, bro, stop lifting before training. This is like Technical at 8:00 a.m. Lift and then do. It's crazy. Yeah. Yeah. I don't like to do anything before Jiu-Jitsu just cuz I prioritize that. But honestly, so many times with a lot of guys, too. I don't know about his stuff, but less is more, I think. With uh Dr. Mike specifically talks a lot about that like stimulus to fatigue ratio, which is I think a super important Yeah. concept of like just stimulating what you want to stimulate and not just annihilating it. Like we could go in like max out our deadlifts, but like It's not necessarily We're going to be we're going to be fucked for like three, four days, you know. Just stay just stimulate those tickle the deadlift. That's right. All you need is get the stimulus. Get the stimulus. And then you and then your body responds to that. Yeah. Little by little. Um, we should do a lift all all of us together at some point. You know, we should do like whatever Yeah, we should do that. We should film one. Yeah, film it and do whatever your, you know, the plyos, the percent ranges. He did one uh what, maybe two months ago, right? Yeah, yeah. And uh that outdoor gym, yeah. You guys didn't film it? Nah, not something happened. Ali was like, uh It was your fault. He was like, uh He had to eat a salad or something. That shit was busy. Unbelievable. Yeah. And I think that'd be great. Yeah. We all would actually. Yeah. Yeah. That's why people died so young. Yeah. That's why people died so young. Yeah. Like 30. You know how easy it'd be to get staff in like in like the 40s, you know. Yeah. Touch your foot. Yeah. Yeah. Some bullshit or something. Yeah. On the street. That's scary. Infection. Yeah. That's how they die. Infection and fever. Infection and fever. Yeah. That was it. That was it. Yeah. That was it. Yeah. You hear somebody sneeze. They're like, oh, he got six weeks. Bless you. Bless you. That's why you say bless you. May God bless you. Dude, Julius is gone. See you. King Julius. Is that how he died? Infection. Is it? I don't know. I just made up that name. Alexander the Great died from uh like uh something like that. Like a mundane fever or some shit. Was on a Tuesday. Probably wasn't mundane. Maybe it was on a Tuesday. Yeah. I was good. That was my joke. That was my joke. I stole it. How long have we gone for? An hour and five. Oh, wow. We're good. I'm fucking good, dude. Called it. Damn. All right. Um, you're competing soon. What's your Instagram, bud? Uh, Nick Matea, BJJ. All right. Nick Matea, BJJ. Follow Nick Matea BJJ. And then also for the viewers that watched to the end, we have the guest tell them to leave an emoji. So, what emoji should they leave in the comments? What emoji? Yeah. Let's go fire. That's my go-to. All right, leave a fire emoji in the comments if you guys watched to the end. Guys, you've been simplified.