Behaviors

Use seesaw press as an overhead pressing pattern to improve shoulder range and as one of the pressing patterns Kelly considers non-negotiable.

Use dumbbells or kettlebells overhead to improve overhead shoulder expression.

When time is limited, do 10 air squats, 10 kettlebell swings, and 10 pull-ups at 10 p.m. for 10 minutes.

Insert brief sets of exercise between daily tasks such as making dinner.

Do four kettlebell swings every minute for 20 minutes as a simple exposure and loading protocol.

Use rope flow as a playful warm-up to integrate upper and lower body, speed, stance, and varied positions; even five minutes of messing around can help you feel better.

Do a shoulder spin-up daily as homework if you have shoulder or neck pain; it is also one of the recommended morning 8 to 10 minute spin-up options.

Pick up a barbell and do a complex as part of a dynamic warm-up.

Include breath hold work in warm-ups to challenge respiration and prepare for high CO2 levels; examples given include dynamic apnea, about seven hypoxic events, and a five-minute bike protocol with a 10-second inhale, maximal hold, and nose-only recovery each minute.

Avoid lying on the ground and foam rolling as your pre-fight or pre-training warm-up strategy.

Use soft tissue work strategically: do 2–3 minutes before exercise if in pain to desensitize tissues, a little in the evening or within 10 minutes before bed to reduce soreness and improve adherence, and generally limit work on one tissue to about five minutes. During mobilization, keep breathing and use volitional contraction; if pressure is too much, back off, and at a stiff or uncomfortable spot, stop, contract the muscle for about four seconds, breathe in position, slowly relax with a long exhale, and repeat the contract-relax cycle two or three times.

A few times a day, bridge the fingers together and pull the chin back to counter forward posture.

Adopt a bigger-breath posture to improve trunk organization and movement output; get into the biggest position in which you can take the biggest breath.

Use sun salutations to get the system going and expose the body to positions early in the day.

In the morning, spend 8 to 10 minutes doing one spin-up: hip spin-up if your back or knee hurts, shoulder spin-up if your shoulder or neck hurts, or breath spin-up otherwise.

Mobilize the abdomen, obliques, endopelvic fascia, and pelvic floor with a ball, especially from belly button south if there are pelvic floor issues or discomfort. Stay away from the openings; if anything hurts to compression, contract and relax there. One implementation is sitting on a coffee table or similar surface and placing the ball around the pelvis, glutes, and pelvic floor.

For trunk training, hang from a bar and curl up rather than relying only on floor crunches.

Train the trunk in long-lever positions, not only short-lever crunch patterns.

Do spinal engine work such as side bending and twisting with a PVC pipe to train trunk function beyond rigidity.

While hanging from a bar, bring the right foot to the left hand or similar cross-body patterns to add rotation.

Use the couch stretch to assess and improve hip extension; start with one knee in the corner by a wall or couch, foot vertical, then progress to more upright positions. In the position, squeeze the glute, keep breathing, and if breath gets small that indicates a limitation. You can camp out there, take some breaths, and use contract-relax or resisted isometrics.

Use big forward or backward lunges to train hip extension.

Use overhead pressing as a non-negotiable movement pattern; one variation mentioned is pressing from a front-foot-elevated split stance to expose hip extension limitations.

Structure training so that 80% of workouts are at about 80% of what you could do that day, 10% at 90%, 5% at 95%, and 5% all-out 100% efforts.

Avoid always training to complete exhaustion; leave some reps in reserve so you can show up the next day.

Be able to kip as well as do strict pull-ups; Kelly says inability to kip suggests something is wrong.

Maintain the ability to jump and land as you age; lower-level exposure can include trampolining.

Use resistance training to become stronger and better at running rather than treating the gym as a closed loop.

Sprint once a week; ideally use hill sprints and repeats if tissue tolerance and range of motion allow. If running sprints is not appropriate, use a bike to measure and train peak wattage.

Treat workouts as concentration-building time rather than interrupting them with social media or texting; if using audio, listen through an album, podcast, or book chapter sequentially rather than fragmenting attention.