My guest this week is Israel Halperin, who is an expert on training for sport, especially combat sport. Isreal has traveled the world competing in kickboxing, coaching elite level combat athletes, and doing research as a sports scientist. He is currently an assistant professor at the Tel Aviv University School of Health.
I started following Israel's research more than five years ago, when he started publishing about the effects of foam rolling, external versus internal cues, and non-local muscle fatigue. One thing that I really like about Israel's mindset is that he frequently references the complexity of the subject matter, and is willing to admit when he is uncertain about something.
In this podcast we talked about Israel's experiences in combat sports, the differences in training methods used in different countries, whether resistance training is needed to compete in elite combat sports, why athletes perform better when they can choose their exercises, the complexities involved in accurately measuring an athlete’s level of fatigue, internal versus external cues, and the replication crisis in sports science. I really enjoyed this conversation.
Listen on:
Links
Israel’s website
Israel’s research
Israel on Twitter
Israel Halperin on the Science of Training for Mixed Martial Arts