054: Duncan French on mixed martial arts Supporting Champions

Duncan French is the Vice President of the Ultimate Fighting Championships. Mixed martial arts is a sport that has had an accelerated rise into the public consciousness over the last couple of decades. It seems to have captured the imagination, created interest and intrigue about the unpredictability of the contest. And so has followed a professionalisation of the bouts, the events, and the support they receive.
Duncan’s focus is to provide the very best support to the fighters, sometimes supporting two fighters that are about to fight each other. We get into an interesting discussion about the ethics of aiming to help someone do a better job of hurting someone else to the point of submission or unconsciousness, versus the unhealthy neglect that would result if fighters were left to their own devices. Combat has been with us since the dawn of time – way before we were human and it was one of the earliest activities we’d call sport – and let’s be realistic it’s probably not going away any time soon.
Duncan is a world renowned conditioning coach, rightly respected and sought after. As I fully expected from Duncan he sheds light on this territory with lucidity,  acumen and wisdom. If you’re not into MMA (which I’m not actually but I’m interested) my expectations are that you’ll take a great deal from Duncan’s ideas.
 
Show notes
Introducing Frankie French!
Duncan’s background in strength and conditioning, particularly in the field of combat
The challenge of the PhD
Working and identifying as a sport scientist
The move to Connecticut and the moving into understanding the role of strength and conditioning
Duncan is a hybrid, shouldn’t we all be?
Nuns with arthritic wrists
Filtering the noise – it’s time consuming and takes effort but it’s important to focus on creating a quality track record and reputation
The pendulum swings from the coaching domain to the science domain, a blend of both is required
Combat based sports GB boxing
Changing the trajectory of a young sport the training and standards
Degrees of freedom
We don’t want to take the wild out of the stallion!
Uniquely supporting athletes both sides of the ring, the trust, support and opened required and operating within boundaries that are fundamental
The ethical challenges of supporting two people who are fighting the aim of which is to knock out their opponent: making the environment as safe a possible such as equipment design, physical development and training, rehabilitation, rules, regulations in order to make the sport as safe as possible for the fighters  
Changing the standards of combat sports beyond mixed martial arts
Maximising deliverables
Fighting is in our DNA we get it and we like it 
Duncan’s mantras!
 
Links
Duncan on Twitter https://twitter.com/duncanfrench
Supporting Champions on Twitter www.twitter.com/support_champs
Steve Ingham on Twitter www.twitter.com/ingham_steve
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