Intentional Domination

The Juice Compound Rolls Out Martial Arts Test Camp

U.S. Olympian and camp co-host Stephen Lambdin

On a Friday afternoon in a training hall in Mansfield, Texas, a crew of black belts—each multiple medal winners in national competition—sat quietly and nervously in folding chairs just beyond Pinaroc Taekwondo’s mat.

 

“Are you ready?” one athlete whispered to another.

“I don’t know,” the teammate replied while twirling a wristband that read “2017 Domination Camp: When winning isn’t enough…”

“I’m kinda nervous.”

The Juice Athlete Compound, a fledgling athletic performance company, is intentionally testing traditional martial arts training regimens to devise the best methods to help today’s athletes dominate the competition—and its first strike was via a test camp in an equaling fledgling community in Texas.

“It’s different,” said Tim Thackrey, nine-time U.S. Taekwondo Team member and coaching and mentoring programmer for the Juice Compound. He folded his arms and a bearded grin slowly appeared.

 

The camp schedule alone was ambitious, covering mindfulness and mobility, flexibility and footwork, strength and conditioning—and even ice baths to mimic mental conditioning and breathing techniques learned by camp co-host and U.S. Olympian Stephen Lambdin.

 

Most of the 25 athletes—who traveled from Montana, California, Virginia, and all over Texas—were veterans of elite-level training camps and seminars, but when Thackrey told them to put their sparring pads away, eyebrows tensed.

Two athletes practice a mental exercise on setting intentions.

Intentional Power

Dr. Karen Cogan didn’t coach the athletes through a high-octane warm-up in Session 1. Instead, the sports psychologist for the U.S. Olympic Committee sat them in semi-circles to talk about mental toughness.

Cogan, a former gymnast, has worked with U.S. athletes in six Olympic Games.

 

“What separates good athletes from great?” she asked the camp. “A mental game.”

Mental preparation as an afterthought is a mistake, she said, adding that at the Olympic level, where competitions are lost by miniscule margins, athletes need to dedicate time to prepare for dealing with the pressure.

 

Elite athletes need to set aside “time when you’re not doing anything else: Your phone’s not ringing, you’re not texting,” Cogan said. “We’re looking for the edge. (Mental conditioning) is one thing that can give you that edge.”

Athletes paired up for exercises to test the power of setting an intention, and amid giggles of nervousness, some seemed surprised by the results.

 

Cogan cited Michael Jordan’s “flu game” as an example of competing with an intention, regardless of life’s circumstances. Twenty years ago, despite Jordan having the stomach flu, Jordan scored 38 points to help the Chicago Bulls win that night’s NBA finals game. The Bulls ultimately won the 1997 NBA Championship.

“Some people call it grit—resilience,” Cogan said. “You gotta stay tough, no matter what’s happening around you.”

 

She recommended athletes begin a daily practice of doing a body inventory; practicing breathing exercises, progressive muscle relaxation, and positive imagery; and moving in mindfulness. Lambdin said these mental conditioning strategies helped him prepare for the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

 

“I’ve seen much more talented athletes (than me) crumble under pressure,” he said. “It really helped.”

But can athletes completely rid themselves of anxiety?

 

“There’s no way that’s going to happen,” Cogan said, adding that implementing a daily mental conditioning practice is the key. After that, “you just accept where you are.”

A Thousand-Dollar Kick
Session 2 began not on a Taekwondo mat—but on a sidewalk.

In the humid night air, Thackrey and Lambdin gathered the athletes on the cement path leading to the school to prepare them for the upcoming sessions. They began with their training history.

“We joke around,” Thackrey acknowledged, but stressed that when it’s time to train, “in order to mimic competition, training must reach a heightened state.”

Out on the sidewalk, Thackrey encouraged the athletes to set the following intention for the weekend: “Get comfortable being uncomfortable.”

Lambdin concurred, adding, “The second you enter that room, we’re intense.”

The athletes quietly filed one-by-one into the training hall, and formed four uneven lines.

Lambdin began the evening session’s drills with a quick and curt order to sprint to the other side of the mat.

He led the athletes through fast-paced footwork drills of steps, side steps, front-leg kicks, back-leg kicks, and highly technical combinations, taking the time to emphasize proper hip rotation and foot positions. The athletes went through the drills multiple times. Sweat dropped from chins and T-shirt colors darkened.

“We’re going to hammer this home,” Lambdin said. “(The fighting scenario) has to be real. If it has no intent, we’re wasting our time.”

Lambdin stopped practice to make this point. He offered a female participant a paddle with the following intention: “Kick as if the Olympics was on the line.” She hit the paddle with a sharp pop.

Lambdin offered the paddle again: “Kick as if I were going to hand you a thousand-dollar bill for your hardest kick.” She hit the paddle with a louder, sharper pop.

“Why was the second kick harder?” he asked the athletes. “You can imagine what that bill feels like in your hand. Players need to make their Olympic training as real for them as that bill. They need a thousand-dollar kick.”

Lambdin kept up the conditioning pressure. The drills were challenging for even these athletes, who regularly practice conditioning at their home schools. Periodically, Lambdin would stop to make a point, and the athletes could catch their breath.

Conditioning is vital, Lambdin said, relaying the story of a match he once watched in which the player won despite being down 12 points with seconds left.

“He didn’t stop kicking and he stayed with his opponent,” Lambdin said. “He shouldn’t have won that match. But his opponent wasn’t conditioned.”

Lambdin, left, coaches athletes on the art of fighting from the clutch.

Small Things Win Big Matches
Every session of the camp began on time. Day 2 was no different. Again, camp leaders set an intention. Day 2 was going to be physically challenging, filled with brainy, technical movement drills that challenged athletes to think and move fast. Thackrey, who has a comical side, was unrelentingly serious during the morning sessions.

“Do one more, guys,” he barked, as athletes rested hands on hips. One by one, the athletes each took off down the mat, practicing the drill with focus and determination. During speed drills, the athletes’ feet kicked up so much air that the school’s flags—representing the United States, Republic of South Korea, Philippines, and World Taekwondo Federation—swung and flapped against the gray wall.

Nine-time USA Taekwondo Team member Tim Thackrey keeps athletes light on their feet during ladder drills.

Thackrey, an energetic coach who speaks with his hands, moved with the pace of the athletes. He periodically broke the tension with well-placed humor or encouragement.

“If it feels goofy, good,” Thackrey said, encouraging the athletes to embrace a more relaxed motion and to think outside the box of traditional Olympic-style training regimens.

Then he spotted a struggling athlete. “Did you get that (combination)?” he asked a boy from Houston. The preteen shook his head in disappointment. Thackrey encouraged homework.

“O.K. Go practice at home. You’ll get it,” Thackrey said with a smile and tap on the shoulder.

A smile emerged from the athlete’s lips.

Lambdin remembers when he tapped Thackrey on the shoulder in 2013 with questions about how to improve his competitive performance. He was the Juice Compound’s first client—before the company officially existed.

At Juice Compound, Thackrey, along with Dr. Jason Han and Antony Graf, offers remote coaching, youth empowerment systems. When they started the company, they came up with a five-point vision:

1. To help athletes and ordinary individuals find meaning in their paths;
2. To bring passion into working with athletes;
3. To provide a platform for athletes to succeed in impactful ways;
4. To push the envelope forward with personal and athletic development; and
5. To be grateful, and help others live with gratitude as well.

Lambdin said he spent years searching for a program to meet both his sport and life goals.

“The real blessing is that the Juice Compound fit both of those requirements,” Lambdin said, adding, that “nobody knows martial arts and strength training like they do.”

Since joining the Juice Compound, Lambdin says that his injury rate has plummeted. “I’m in better shape, and I feel better than ever,” he said, adding, “They are the reason I made the 2016 Olympic Team.”

Rolando Marin, 10, of Houston gave up a birthday party to attend Domination Camp.

The Best Birthday Present
As the day progressed, Thackrey and Lambdin put athletes through more advanced and challenging drills, making them digest and execute complex movements in real time.

During ladder drills, in which coaches expanded two ropes with evenly spaced rungs, the athletes’ feet quickly tapped the ground, at first sounding like a hard rain, then morphing into a low rumble. Some athletes flew through the rungs effortlessly. Others struggled, missing rungs as they tired.

“Start out slow, then pick up speed,” Lambdin advised. “It’s the small things that win big matches."

As the Olympian’s words echoed across the mat, the smallest athlete in the room was listening. Ten-year-old Rolando Marin of Houston already thought outside the box to get to the camp. As the youngest participant, Rolando felt lucky to be there.

His home school was destroyed by Hurricane Harvey just a month earlier.

“We lost everything,” said his mom, Irasema. “He hasn’t been able to train.”

Rolando desperately wanted to train with Lambdin, who he met at the 2016 U.S. Taekwondo Championships in Detroit. Irasema said that before her son met Lambdin, he wanted to quit Taekwondo. But Lambdin had such an impact on Rolando that he stuck with the sport.

“(Their meeting) changed him,” Irasema said, noting that the Olympian’s humble, down-to-earth nature “made a difference.”

Rolando even sacrificed his tenth birthday celebration to attend the camp.

“He didn’t want a birthday cake or anything. He wanted this instead of a party, so I said, ‘We’ll do that.’”

Master of Mobility
Cory Hill, former member of the U.S. Taekwondo team, strode across the mat in gym pants and perfect posture. Hill, a certified trainer for Physicality—GymnasticsBodies in Washington, D.C., was there to help athletes improve strength through mobility.

He paired athletes in an exercise of bending over one vertebrae at a time and then curving their back up in the same methodical manner.

Hill demonstrated a seemingly effortless pike, then led athletes in a drill meant to strengthen their ax kicks.

Cory Hill leads athletes in mobility drills.
 

“Actively getting into and back out of position helps with our kicking,” Hill said.

Athletes also practiced a series of stretches to challenge their core.

“Hold for 30 seconds,” Hill coached as athletes grimaced. “It’s hard, I know. It’s called Domination Camp for a reason.”

Hill glided from athlete to athlete, gently moving legs and adjusting torsos to correct posture.

Hill challenged athletes to work on mobility and flexibility.
 

“Make sure you breathe,” Hill said with a smile. “Breathing is a good thing.”

Hill stressed the difference between flexibility (the ability to stretch muscles) and mobility (elements that allow movement with a full range of motion).

Athletes got plenty of time to practice both, and at the end of the session, they gingerly walk back to the edge of the mat to hydrate and commiserate. It had been a long, grueling day, but there were smiles.

Most admitted that they rarely focus on mobility.

“I’ve never done these exercises before,” said Lydia Rosbarsky, 14, daughter of Missoula Taekwondo Center school owner Steve Rosbarsky. “Just to get my hips to open up more…. I felt stronger. It was so helpful.”

Rosbarsky said she's excited to take the mobility exercises back home to her team in Montana.
Athletes who take advantage of Hill's expertise will be ahead of the game, Lambdin said.

“I discovered him super late in my career,” Lambdin said, adding, “(Mobility) is a huge advantage.”

Ice Baths, etc.
Months before his Olympic debut in Rio, Lambdin traveled to the mountains of Poland to meet and train with Wim Hof. Nicknamed “The Iceman,” Hof is famous for using meditation and breathing techniques while sitting in ice baths—consciously hyperventilating to raise his heart rate, adrenaline, and blood alkalinity. The immediate overall goal is to gain mental control over the body to optimize performance. The long game benefits reportedly include more energy, reduced stress levels, and a stronger immune system.

Lambdin leads athletes in an early morning ice bath.
Photo credit: Jeff Pinorac

 

On Day 3, Lambdin led athletes to sit in a bin of ice water and practice Hof’s controlled breathing method.

Rosbarsky said she hates being cold. Though she had attended Lambdin-led seminars before, she had never taken the ice plunge challenge.

On Sunday, Rosbarsky submerged slowly into the icy plastic bin.

“(The ice) made your muscles want to tense,” she said later, “but the whole point of the exercise is to breathe through it. You don’t want your muscles to tense.”

Rosbarsky said she and other ice bathers tried to keep their minds off the fact that they were cold.

“We engaged in conversation with other people about how cold it was,” she said. “They were trying to get me to laugh.”

She stayed in the ice bath for about four minutes. (“It felt like 10!” she laughed.) Did she notice a difference?

“For me, it helped to not focus on the actual cold and instead make my breathing normal,” she said.

Rosbarsky said that when she returns home, she plans to apply what she learned in the rivers in Missoula.

Elijah Tatum of Texas asks for clarification on a drill during a question-and-answer session.

Stamina Stretch

It didn’t take long for the athletes to get warm blood pumping again through their icy veins. The day’s conditioning drill was intended to push the athletes to exhaustion, starting with running increasing rounds of laps.

One by one, athletes took a seat when they reached the end of their stamina.

In the end, four were standing.

Elijah Tatum of Dallas wasn’t one of them. But he wasn’t disappointed.

Sweat pouring down his forehead and his previously light gray T-shirt darkened with effort, Tatum was happy with his results.

“I made it to 16 (rounds). A year ago, I would have only been able to do 11 or 12. So I’m getting better.”

Thackrey and Lambdin agreed that conditioning should be a standard part of every athlete’s training.

“Why don’t (you) have power in the third round?” Thackrey asked the winded athletes. “Why do (you) burn out in the third round? Conditioning.”

Elite athletes can’t afford conditioning to be an afterthought, Lambdin said, adding that they shouldn’t think “just because you’re good at (sparring), that that’s going to be enough.”

“You just can’t slap (conditioning) on the end” of training preparation, Thackrey said. “Real conditioning is years in development.”

Finally, the athletes donned sparring gear for the final two-hour session. Amid the sound of the thud of a good kick to the chest guard, their movements were slower than when camp began. Faces were softened by exhaustion—and relaxation. The atmosphere lacked the pre-camp anxiety. Still, the mental intention and focus that the athletes set outside on the sidewalk on Day One remained.

What Next?
Time and competition results will tell whether the camp and its future iterations are a success, Thackrey said. In the meantime, the coaches left the athletes with some last pieces of advice.
Lambdin emphasized three things:

1.     Be responsible: “You’re the only one who will be awake in the middle of the night, 20 years from now, if you don’t achieve your goals.”

2.     Have a spirit of servitude: “People don’t remember what you won, but they will remember how you made them feel. Go out of your way to give back.”

3.     Don’t give up: “I was never the smartest, fastest, or best athlete, but I persevered where others quit…. Stay with it. It’s worth it!”

Thackrey kept it simple:

“Get good people around you, and hold them to the highest standard.”