JRE MMA Show #32 with Firas Zahabi

1. 0:00 – 15:00

   Three, two, one. Boom.…

   1. JRJoe Rogan0:05

      Three, two, one. Boom. I don't wanna start off like this is a commercial, dude, but this fucking thing you have, this TIM TAM thing.

   2. FZFiras Zahabi0:14

      (laughs)

   3. JRJoe Rogan0:15

      This is incredible.

   4. FZFiras Zahabi0:16

      It's sick, huh? It's amazing.

   5. JRJoe Rogan0:17

      I've never... I've seen some of these different ones online, people using them, Thera things, you know, I don't know what they call them, uh, Theragun I think. But this fucking thing is amazing.

   6. FZFiras Zahabi0:29

      This is the most powerful one. It has the, the highest travel, and it's the, the best price. So I mean it's-

   7. JRJoe Rogan0:35

      Out of all the different ones of these things online?

   8. FZFiras Zahabi0:37

      Yeah, this is the best one.

   9. JRJoe Rogan0:38

      So what this is, folks, we took the battery out. I'm, I'll pop the battery back in real quick.

   10. FZFiras Zahabi0:42

       You want to pop it in?

   11. JRJoe Rogan0:42

       I'll pop it in real quick.

   12. FZFiras Zahabi0:43

       Go for it.

   13. JRJoe Rogan0:43

       Just so people can see. That's how impressed I am by this thing. So I've had this nagging muscle in my hip, and then, like, instantaneously (tim tam buzzes) this fucking thing... You, you hold it, folks, and you get it, like, right on a spot. For me it's, like, right here. I can go... (tim tam buzzes) And it just loosens that motherfucker up, like... This is so much more powerful than any of those massagers that you get, like, from a store.

   14. FZFiras Zahabi1:12

       Exactly. No, no. There's no massager more powerful than this one on the market.

   15. JRJoe Rogan1:17

       Oh.

   16. FZFiras Zahabi1:17

       Like, this is not for Mom and Dad, you know. This is for the guy doing, uh, you know, playing soccer, football, MMA, CrossFit. Like, that's for the hardcore athletes.

   17. JRJoe Rogan1:24

       And you invented this?

   18. FZFiras Zahabi1:25

       I, I started the company. I started the company. I bought one of those DMS. I don't know if you've ever heard of those. It's called deep muscle stimulator. It's kind of sim-

   19. JRJoe Rogan1:31

       We were talking about that before, and I said-

   20. FZFiras Zahabi1:33

       Yeah.

   21. JRJoe Rogan1:33

       ... "Save this, save this."

   22. FZFiras Zahabi1:34

       Yeah, yeah, exactly.

   23. JRJoe Rogan1:34

       Uh, so what is that?

   24. FZFiras Zahabi1:35

       It's a... The deep muscle stimulator, it's like a stainless steel high-powered massager that you have to plug in. It cost me three grand. I bought it. It... I had a really bad sciatica for two years. Like, I almost stopped training. Like, I almost had to take a, like, a-

   25. JRJoe Rogan1:47

       I've got a problem with that right now.

   26. FZFiras Zahabi1:48

       Really? Sciatica?

   27. JRJoe Rogan1:49

       Yeah, yeah.

   28. FZFiras Zahabi1:49

       Okay, this is gonna help you out big time.

   29. JRJoe Rogan1:51

       It comes and goes.

   30. FZFiras Zahabi1:51

       Big time.
2. 15:00 – 30:00

   Yeah. And then wh-…

   1. JRJoe Rogan15:00

      thing in your leg is all fucked up, and the next thing you know, you go to a doctor, they, "Oh, you have an MCL tear. Oh, fuck."

   2. FZFiras Zahabi15:07

      Yeah. And then wh- with that tightness, that's, it gets worse after, after 48 hours, you have DOMS.

   3. JRJoe Rogan15:12

      Mm-hmm.

   4. FZFiras Zahabi15:12

      Delayed onset muscle soreness. And then you're in the shower, you turn your neck, boom, something pops.

   5. JRJoe Rogan15:16

      Yeah, yeah.

   6. FZFiras Zahabi15:16

      You know?

   7. JRJoe Rogan15:17

      What do you do in terms of, do you take circuminin or curcum- curcuminin, that's how you say it, right? Curcuminin, turmeric, (clears throat) anti-inflammatory, you know, herbs and things along those lines, um, th- I know that, um, there was, Rhonda Patrick just put something up about, uh, I think you say, I think you call it curcuminin. Circuminin or cur- curcuminin? Anyway, it's turmeric, it's the active ingredient in turmeric and she just put something up on her, uh, Twitter page a couple of days ago about how important this stuff is, (clears throat) and to make sure that you have, uh, bioavailable. It improves memory and mood as well.

   8. FZFiras Zahabi15:54

      Well, I'll have to try that, haven't tried it.

   9. JRJoe Rogan15:55

      Yeah, it's just turmeric. It's, uh-

   10. FZFiras Zahabi15:57

       Really?

   11. JRJoe Rogan15:58

       Yeah, and that stuff is fantastic for inflammation. People that have soreness and, you know, like nagging injuries and nagging inflammation, having that as a part of your daily diet is fantastic, along with fish oil. (clears throat) Fish oil's really good for that. You know, of course, and then watching your diet and making sure you're low in inflammatory foods like sugar and alcohol-

   12. FZFiras Zahabi16:19

       Right.

   13. JRJoe Rogan16:20

       ... and, you know, things along the, really, it's amazing how much of a difference it makes.

   14. FZFiras Zahabi16:23

       It's huge.

   15. JRJoe Rogan16:23

       If you have any sort of, uh, back injury or inflammation. I talked to this lady who was a therapist a few years back and she was saying, "You know, you should really try going gluten-free if you have issues with your, uh, with your back." I was like, "Listen to this wacky bitch." (laughs) That's what I was thinking. (laughs) All I was thinking is like, "Oh, she's talking woo-woo w- crystals nonsense." And I was like, "Wait a minute, really? Gluten?" She's like, "You'd be amazed at how many people, um, when..." And now that I've thought about it more and with all that I know, talking to various nutritionists and, and actual clinical researchers, I think it's as much gluten as it is just y- just sugar, refined carbohydrate- hydrates and, refined carbohydrates and sugars and all these different things just create inflammation. There's just no way around it.

   16. FZFiras Zahabi17:08

       Mm-hmm.

   17. JRJoe Rogan17:08

       Especially the, the levels that normal Americans eat 'em in.

   18. FZFiras Zahabi17:13

       Oh boy.

   19. JRJoe Rogan17:13

       Yeah.

   20. FZFiras Zahabi17:13

       Now you're talking about-

   21. JRJoe Rogan17:14

       We're the worst.

   22. FZFiras Zahabi17:15

       ... yeah. It's, it's tremendous amount of sugar.

   23. JRJoe Rogan17:17

       Yeah, it's just-

   24. FZFiras Zahabi17:18

       Like, you, you don't know it until you get off sugar-

   25. JRJoe Rogan17:20

       Mm-hmm.

   26. FZFiras Zahabi17:20

       ... and then you go f- see everybody who's eating the standard amount of sugar and you're like, it blows your mind.

   27. JRJoe Rogan17:27

       Yeah.

   28. FZFiras Zahabi17:27

       You don't need that much sugar.

   29. JRJoe Rogan17:28

       There's no way.

   30. FZFiras Zahabi17:29

       It's-
3. 30:00 – 45:00

   Yeah. Recovery is everything.…

   1. JRJoe Rogan30:00

      time do you spend on working on his recovery from the workouts, like, like h- do you, you bust out the Tim Tam machine and ice things down? Like how, how aware of you are w- are you guys of like, do you have a, I guess, a regimented program of how to recover from exercise?

   2. FZFiras Zahabi30:17

      Yeah. Recovery is everything. So it's, it's stress plus recovery equals adaptation. Stress plus stress equals detraining-

   3. JRJoe Rogan30:26

      Mm-hmm.

   4. FZFiras Zahabi30:27

      ... and injury.

   5. JRJoe Rogan30:27

      Yeah.

   6. FZFiras Zahabi30:28

      A good trainer, a good trainer, he understands supercompensation, right? You have stress, you have recovery, and then you have a new, uh, level of skill or, uh, ability.If you don't go through the recovery phase, you will not reap the rewards of your training.

   7. JRJoe Rogan30:42

      Right.

   8. FZFiras Zahabi30:42

      There has to be a recovery phase.

   9. JRJoe Rogan30:43

      Right.

   10. FZFiras Zahabi30:43

       Now, every athlete has a level of recovery that they can, they can achieve. So as you get, as you get more experienced as an athlete, your body can, can... As you become, uh... As you're, as you're more and more fit, I should say, your body can recover from more stress. So I have to gauge how good my s- my student is. It has to be challenging but manageable. If I make it too challenging, I'm red-lining him. He's gonna break. His knee's gonna pop, he's gonna be unmotivated. If it's too easy, he's gonna be bored. I have to find the right amount of stimulus. So when I'm in the practice room, if I see George is just mauling guys and destroying them, I have to make it... I have to scale the workout so that it's harder. But I don't wanna scale it so high is that I injure him and break him or that he made it out of practice by a hair and, uh, he's not motivated to do another camp. You know, we, we reach those high intensity levels periodically throughout the year and they have to be done in a certain way that it's fun. Like, y- you know George was like, uh... You know, he was on your show and he was saying I would try to kill him in the practice room.

   11. JRJoe Rogan31:40

       (laughs)

   12. FZFiras Zahabi31:42

       Now, I... It's true, he's right. But I do it so rarely. I do it so periodically and I make it a joke. That's why, like, what he was trying to say is that I brought in the guys in the, in the room and I was watching them spar with George and they don't wanna touch his face. This is when he was, like, a mega star, like, he was the champ, and nobody wants to try to double leg him. Nobody wants to try to hurt him, because they're like, "I'm not gonna come here in his house and try to show him..." There's a respect thing, there's a, there's a... They're star-struck, you know, these young kids. So I would bring them in and I'd be like, "Listen, guys." I would give a speech. "The first guy to double leg him, the first guy to put him out..." I would put, like, a $5,000 reward. Uh, if they-

   13. JRJoe Rogan32:19

       To knock him out?

   14. FZFiras Zahabi32:19

       ... to w- hurt... "If you knock George out, I'll give you $5,000."

   15. JRJoe Rogan32:22

       Jesus Christ. (laughs)

   16. FZFiras Zahabi32:23

       "If you put George on his back, if you put George on his back, if you take him down and put him on his back, I'll stop the whole practice and praise you for 20 minutes in front of everybody in the gym." And, and, and students don't get praised by me very often.

   17. JRJoe Rogan32:33

       (laughs)

   18. FZFiras Zahabi32:34

       So George would be like, "Oh, man. These guys are, they're coming after me." And he would get riled up. And I would do this periodically. Rarely, right? We're we're we're talking about world cl- world title fight, you know, stuff's on the line. And I need these guys to actually show me where George is missing something. 'Cause when you have this perfect practice and you win all the time-

   19. JRJoe Rogan32:51

       Mm-hmm.

   20. FZFiras Zahabi32:52

       ... what do you work on? Well, nothing went wrong.

   21. JRJoe Rogan32:54

       Right.

   22. FZFiras Zahabi32:54

       There's nothing to fix. So I mean, there are times where we really red line him.

   23. JRJoe Rogan32:58

       Have you ever had anybody knock him out-

   24. FZFiras Zahabi32:59

       No.

   25. JRJoe Rogan32:59

       ... in practice and take that money?

   26. FZFiras Zahabi33:01

       (laughs) Now, uh, he's been dropped once in practice pretty badly and, um, it's a funny story but the, the money wasn't on the line that time. (laughs)

   27. JRJoe Rogan33:09

       Ah.

   28. FZFiras Zahabi33:09

       There was no prize for that. (laughs) One time, he got dropped in practice and, um, I wanted to stop the... I wanted to pull the plug. It was for a world title fight. He was fighting Dan Hardy two weeks before his fight. I, I was sure he was concussed and I said, "George, I'm pulling the, the round." There was one more round. He said to me, "Coach, let me finish the round. I'm okay. Let me finish the next round." And I felt that if I pulled him, I would've killed his confidence.

   29. JRJoe Rogan33:34

       Right.

   30. FZFiras Zahabi33:35

       I would've killed his confidence, totally. So I said, "Okay, you could do the next round." And I told the other guy he was sparring with, "Don't land a single glove." Like, I whispered it to him. "Not a single glove on him. Just take a mauling." And George went in the next round not knowing that the other guy's not allowed to hit him at all.
4. 45:00 – 1:00:00

   Mm-hmm. …

   1. FZFiras Zahabi45:00

      make any sense. And, like, head kicks and-

   2. JRJoe Rogan45:02

      Mm-hmm.

   3. FZFiras Zahabi45:02

      ... things along those lines. He's, like, very stiff in his legs with throwing kicks. I'm like, that's, that- That's a easy fix.

   4. JRJoe Rogan45:07

      Yeah, that's an easy fix. Mm-hmm. Why wouldn't you fix that?

   5. FZFiras Zahabi45:10

      Hmm... Ah, it's a good question.

   6. JRJoe Rogan45:12

      But, but also the mindset of a champion in this same guy who-

   7. FZFiras Zahabi45:19

      Mm-hmm.

   8. JRJoe Rogan45:20

      ... just, just, "Ah, fuck it. I c- I'm not flexible." Like, I don't even understand how those things live together in the same mind.

   9. FZFiras Zahabi45:26

      If I was training him, I would make him head kick. Like, that's what I would insist on.

   10. JRJoe Rogan45:29

       All day long.

   11. FZFiras Zahabi45:29

       Head kicks have to be there.

   12. JRJoe Rogan45:30

       Yeah.

   13. FZFiras Zahabi45:30

       Because he doesn't knock guys out with his hands, so he, the head kick has to always be a possibility, always a threat.

   14. JRJoe Rogan45:34

       Yeah.

   15. FZFiras Zahabi45:34

       And then you will knock out guys with your hands because they'll have their high guard up 'cause they don't want that kick, and then an uppercut will come, the body shot will come, the back kick will c- I'll make him back kick for sure. Like, if you don't have power in your hands, you need to back kick. You need to head kick. Those are two weapons that can always knock a guy out.

   16. JRJoe Rogan45:49

       Hmm.

   17. FZFiras Zahabi45:49

       So you don't back kick, you don't head kick, you're never scoring knockouts.

   18. JRJoe Rogan45:52

       Right. Yeah, that's a good point, man. It's, uh, when... Did you see this Stephen Thompson thing with Darren Till where he wants them to outlaw that side kick to the knee?

   19. FZFiras Zahabi46:01

       No, I didn't see that.

   20. JRJoe Rogan46:02

       Well, apparently his knee got really fucked up in the Darren Till fight.

   21. FZFiras Zahabi46:05

       Mm-hmm.

   22. JRJoe Rogan46:06

       You know, what do you, what do you think about that side kick-

   23. FZFiras Zahabi46:08

       The oblique?

   24. JRJoe Rogan46:08

       ... to the knee that everyone's doing? Not even the oblique kick, just the front leg side kick to the knee. The same way Yoel Romero used it-

   25. FZFiras Zahabi46:14

       Right.

   26. JRJoe Rogan46:14

       ... on Robert Whittaker, fucked up his knee in the first fight.

   27. FZFiras Zahabi46:16

       Right.

   28. JRJoe Rogan46:16

       And then Whittaker used it on Romero, like, right away-

   29. FZFiras Zahabi46:19

       Beautiful.

   30. JRJoe Rogan46:19

       ... in the second fight-
5. 1:00:00 – 1:01:21

   Mm-hmm. …

   1. FZFiras Zahabi1:00:00

      I give you a gem too early, if I give you another technique too early, I'm flooding your system. I'm flooding the, your game. It's, your game is just, it's diluted. It's just too weak. So with George, we're always reinventing George for the next fight. We're always adding one new or two new gems, depending on how much time we have. But there's always an X factor. When you fight him, he's not gonna do the same patterns we did the last fight. You could watch his tape. That's why I told George, "Why is it harder to be champion than to become champion?" Because when you're champion, everybody's watching you and studying your patterns.

   2. JRJoe Rogan1:00:28

      Mm-hmm.

   3. FZFiras Zahabi1:00:28

      It's a matter of time be- before you're old news. So you gotta reinvent yourself before the next fight. That's why I didn't want him fighting three times a year. I told him, "You fight twice a year." And they were making a comparative with Chuck, I got a lot of heat for that. They're like, "Chuck fights three times a year, George should fight three times a year." We're like, "We'll see what, how, how our careers go." But yeah, I want George to fight twice a year, because to reinvent him takes six months. We're gonna do that twice a year. That way he'll be champion longer. I told him, I, I, I used to tell him, when he became champion, I said, "I want you to be champion for 10 years." It happens in boxing, it's gonna happen to, in MMA for the first time. There's gonna be a champion for 10 years. I used to tell him that when, when he first won the belt. And he was like, "Really, how are we gonna do that?" You're gonna re- we're gonna cycle, we're gonna do only training camps that last six months. You can only really do a training camp every six months, if you wanna hit, hit a new level. It takes six months. Every fight, you're gonna be at a new level and you're gonna do something nobody knows, th- they haven't seen it before.

Episode duration: 3:18:24