Jon Chaimberg is a guy I’ve always wanted to talk to. Actually, that’s an understatement, because I what I really wanted was pick his brain mercilessly until he gave me all the secrets of his incredible approach to MMA conditioning.

Jon has worked with many top Mixed Martial Arts fighters, including Georges St-Pierre, Denis Kang, Rashad Evans, Nate Marquardt, David Loiseau, Keith Jardine and many others. Here’s a circuit he put together for Denis Kang, and in a second clip he’s working with GSP, Loiseau and Kang.

I wanted to get to the bottom of why so many top MMA fighters hold this guy in such high regard and make him a central part of their fight preparation.

Recently I took the bull by the horns and called him up. We talked for almost a whole hour, and I asked some very detailed and specific questions about MMA conditioning. Jon pulled no punches and shared much of his approach for working with fighters.

We talked about specific exercises, periodization, crossfit, aerobic vs. anaerobic work, program design, overtraining, initial assessment of an athlete, and a whole lot more. You might be surprised to hear what he had to say about the mistakes that some big name fighters make in their conditioning program.

And you can listen to the whole interview right here, in the brand new Grapplearts Podcast!

I plan on creating other episodes and adding other interviews to the podcast periodically (alas, not at predictable intervals though).

If you want to download future episodes automatically then click here to sign up for Grapplearts Radio in iTunes – it’s completely free and totally simple.

Click the player below to listen to the whole interview