Joe Warren is known as the “Baddest Man on the Planet” and he earned it! First from his days as a NCAA Division I wrestling All American, then a Greco Roman Wrestling World Champion, and next a Mixed Martial Arts World Champion. He has done it all and his experience is the foundation for his insightful commentary and coaching on Spike TV’s “Fight Master”,a mixed martial arts based reality show featuring 32 fighters competing for a spot in Bellator’s welterweight tournament. Warren is also the poster child for the emerging Phase IV Combat Sport Scientific Training Initiative.
To prepare for comeback into the Octagon on September 7 against Nick Kirk, Joe has begun to train again. And, at 36 years old, Joe knows that time is not on his side as he makes this final push to win the Bantamweight belt. Leaving nothing to chance, Joe has enlisted Phase IV Scientific Training and Performance Center in Santa Monica, California to give him the fitness edge he needs to succeed in this youth dominated sport.
“The world of mixed martial arts is just now facing the fact that the constant, hard nosed training, that characterized combat sport preparation for centuries, is out dated and counter productive,” says Phase IV Founder and CEO, Robert Forster PT, himself a former NCAA wrestler and coach. “The belief that because fighting and wrestling are the most physically demanding endeavors known to man, they require a constant diet of high intensity training is a recipe that causes over training and injury. Our work with other elite and Olympic athletes shows us there is a smarter and more scientific way to train.”
Forster equates the science used to train for the no holds barred efforts of Olympic sprinters and rowing athletes to the fitness required for fighting. “Our Olympic gold medalists and world record holders in sports like track and field and rowing would never get near a podium if they trained the way fighters have in their sports over the years. To peak fitness for a rowing event where the athletes must produce a 5-7 minute all out, total body effort similar to fighting five minute rounds, the high intensity training is saved for the last training cycle before competition. It takes months of lower intensity training to build the physiological infrastructure needed to truly peak performance in high intensity sports. This approach is called Periodization training and it is based on scientific fact, proven by research, not just another opinion”
The results prove the science. Forster and his team at Phase IV have helped train champions in a variety of sports, including: track and field world record holders Jackie Joyner Kersee and “FloJo,” as well as tennis great Pete Sampras, and NBA superstar Kobe Bryant. And over the last five years Forster has applied this scientific training methodology to his first love, combat sports. Starting at the lowest competitive level, training high school wrestlers to several state championships, he has progressed to helping BJ Penn, Chael Sonnen, Scott Jorgensen and others in MMA to improve their fitness training techniques. Forster now works with Joe Warren and his coach Marc Montoya at the FactoryX Muay Thai gym in Englewood, Co. where he has helped Montoya create the most comprehensive and scientific approach to training and weight cutting available today.
In Forster’s system, all fighters first undergo VO2 fitness testing to determine the most productive heart rate zones for training all aspects of their fight preparation. “The basic premise is that each athlete’s fitness is developed with a personal approach based on their past training experience and genetics as revealed by the testing. Their fitness is then developed in a sequential manner, within specific heart rate training zones over the course of the weeks and months leading up to a fight. The second premise is that we don’t fight to get shape for fighting. Fitness is developed outside the ring with heart rate specific running, hitting, technique work and strength training and then this fitness is brought into the ring to fight. This reduces the wear and tear on fighters including brain trauma, which is a big concern, and extends the athletes longevity in the sport.”
“We have improved our entire training regimen thanks to the science of Phase IV and Forster Physical Therapy” reports Coach Montoya. “Joe Warren has already made incredible gains and now we have applied the same science to train our highly ranked UFC fighters Scott Jorgensen and Chris Comozzi for their upcoming fights.”
“Human physiology will react in characteristic ways in all athletes when approached in a personalized and scientific manner, we see this time and time again in all sports. In science we trust!” says Forster. MIXED MARTIAL ARTS GET SCIENTIFIC
Joe Warren is known as the “Baddest Man on the Planet” and he earned it! First from his days as a NCAA Division I wrestling All American, then a Greco Roman Wrestling World Champion, and next a Mixed Martial Arts World Champion. He has done it all and his experience is the foundation for his insightful commentary and coaching on Spike TV’s “Fight Master”,a mixed martial arts based reality show featuring 32 fighters competing for a spot in Bellator’s welterweight tournament. Warren is also the poster child for the emerging Phase IV Combat Sport Scientific Training Initiative.
To prepare for comeback into the Octagon on September 7 against Nick Kirk, Joe has begun to train again. And, at 36 years old, Joe knows that time is not on his side as he makes this final push to win the Bantamweight belt. Leaving nothing to chance, Joe has enlisted Phase IV Scientific Training and Performance Center in Santa Monica, California to give him the fitness edge he needs to succeed in this youth dominated sport.
“The world of mixed martial arts is just now facing the fact that the constant, hard nosed training, that characterized combat sport preparation for centuries, is out dated and counter productive,” says Phase IV Founder and CEO, Robert Forster PT, himself a former NCAA wrestler and coach. “The belief that because fighting and wrestling are the most physically demanding endeavors known to man, they require a constant diet of high intensity training is a recipe that causes over training and injury. Our work with other elite and Olympic athletes shows us there is a smarter and more scientific way to train.”
Forster equates the science used to train for the no holds barred efforts of Olympic sprinters and rowing athletes to the fitness required for fighting. “Our Olympic gold medalists and world record holders in sports like track and field and rowing would never get near a podium if they trained the way fighters have in their sports over the years. To peak fitness for a rowing event where the athletes must produce a 5-7 minute all out, total body effort similar to fighting five minute rounds, the high intensity training is saved for the last training cycle before competition. It takes months of lower intensity training to build the physiological infrastructure needed to truly peak performance in high intensity sports. This approach is called Periodization training and it is based on scientific fact, proven by research, not just another opinion”
The results prove the science. Forster and his team at Phase IV have helped train champions in a variety of sports, including: track and field world record holders Jackie Joyner Kersee and “FloJo,” as well as tennis great Pete Sampras, and NBA superstar Kobe Bryant. And over the last five years Forster has applied this scientific training methodology to his first love, combat sports. Starting at the lowest competitive level, training high school wrestlers to several state championships, he has progressed to helping BJ Penn, Chael Sonnen, Scott Jorgensen and others in MMA to improve their fitness training techniques. Forster now works with Joe Warren and his coach Marc Montoya at the FactoryX Muay Thai gym in Englewood, Co. where he has helped Montoya create the most comprehensive and scientific approach to training and weight cutting available today.
In Forster’s system, all fighters first undergo VO2 fitness testing to determine the most productive heart rate zones for training all aspects of their fight preparation. “The basic premise is that each athlete’s fitness is developed with a personal approach based on their past training experience and genetics as revealed by the testing. Their fitness is then developed in a sequential manner, within specific heart rate training zones over the course of the weeks and months leading up to a fight. The second premise is that we don’t fight to get shape for fighting. Fitness is developed outside the ring with heart rate specific running, hitting, technique work and strength training and then this fitness is brought into the ring to fight. This reduces the wear and tear on fighters including brain trauma, which is a big concern, and extends the athletes longevity in the sport.”
“We have improved our entire training regimen thanks to the science of Phase IV and Forster Physical Therapy” reports Coach Montoya. “Joe Warren has already made incredible gains and now we have applied the same science to train our highly ranked UFC fighters Scott Jorgensen and Chris Comozzi for their upcoming fights.”
“Human physiology will react in characteristic ways in all athletes when approached in a personalized and scientific manner, we see this time and time again in all sports. In science we trust!” says Forster. 
