11 Major Differences: Jeff Chan & @GabrielVargaOfficial (Approach to Training & Diet)

0:00 Jeff Chan from membershed and as you can see I'm here in Victoria, British Columbia with six time kickboxing world champion and we're here at this iconic background as we've been hanging out for the day and got to know about Gabriel a little bit and vice versa and we thought we'd make like a fun video about how different we are. First fun fact I'm sure you guys already know is Gabriel's got when he spars he's super tight clean textbook style. Everything's by the book. If the elbow flares, the hands drop, uh, me on the other hand, I break the rules all the time. But it works for you. But it works, right? It works. But it is a very, very polarized style. Second one, coming off of the first one is you're a pressure fighter. You stay tight and you pressure forward. I'm on the outside. I like to keep the distance and I like to use a lot of head movement. Yeah. Very different on that aspect. I basically use that pressure

0:46 because I'm trying to push the pace of the fight. Push the pace of the fight. Difference three is you like to throw high volume boxing combinations. Yeah. Once once I've done the work to get to the inside, it's like there's no point in doing one. Yeah. Why? Why one? I got to work work work work work work. And that for me at least means something's going to land at least. Well, I mean, you get the guy to shell up and then you let it rip. For me, I like to keep the range. I have to throw one shot and I like to pull to see your reaction so I can counter the counter. Or I like to throw the one shot, pull back, you come forward, I shoot for the double leg. In MMA, I kind of expect the guy to not shell as much. So I I need to throw those one shot one shot. Yeah, it's definitely something that uh that I've become known for is those long combos and we train them. We train them in padwork, not just not just hitting the one twos, the one we try to build those

1:32 three, four, five, six, sometimes even seven uh piece combos and if you can get them off in a fight, man, it feels awesome. It does. It does. Difference four, speaking of sparring, you hate sparring. I I don't like sparring. this might change once I retire and I'm not taking the sparring so seriously. But if you if you could tell me one thing I could give up and it wouldn't affect my fights and people would be like, "Oh, you give up like the burpees or the 400 meter sprints." I'm like, "No, man. I'm giving up the sparring. I don't I don't want to do that." I'm the complete opposite. All I do is spar. Like I love sparring for the content itself. But I have a good group of like controlled sparring guys just like you do. And that's why I'm able to spar a lot. And I've learned to use communication to spar light. It's just fun. Yeah, it can be fun. I think I think the difference for me now is I associate sparring with fights. I spar when there are fights.

2:20 And that means when I go in, I'm I'm nervous. To me, a sparring day is like, "Oh, I have to do my best. I can't make mistakes cuz if I make mistakes now, I'm going to make mistakes in the fight." So, that's all that same association. Hopefully, down the road, I'll get back to liking sparring. But, I have not liked it for probably 15 years now. 10 at least. Hopefully. I'm I'm trying to convince him to post more sparring footage cuz his sparring is super entertaining. Difference five, he is a cardio machine and as he gets to the second, third, fourth round, he gets even better. Yeah, I'm the opposite. The first round I'm explosive. I'm fast. I move. Second round a little bit slower. Third round. Third round, I start shelling. I normally never shell, but I'll shell cuz I get tired. Cuz you get tired, man. I mean, everybody's got different things that affect them in a fight now. I push the cardio in camp

3:06 like it's something my life depends on. But also, as we mentioned uh previously in the day, man, I've dialed in my warm-up because I know going into the fight and not having that perfect warm-up can make you fatigue so hard in the later duration. But yeah, for me, round three, round four, one, round five, if somebody said to me like, you can do eight round fight, I'd be like perfect, perfect. I'm going to crush people in those later rounds because I'm I I just keep picking up speed. And people say that in padwork. They're like, "How did you start round number one like up here and you finished up here in terms of output?" I'm like, "I don't know. What are we at? Five or six now?" Uh, six. Which would be you have some crazy discipline and I don't. And the reason why I say that is because you're telling me that when you are by

3:54 yourself, you train harder. You push harder. Yeah, that's true. That's true. So, I went over to Ontario one time to do uh some some training over there for a couple weeks. And when I went and reflected after, I'm like, "Oh, I did the classes. I did what I was told and I probably did 70 or 80% of what I would normally do for myself." And then I realized like, "Oh, maybe I'm better off in Victoria pushing myself." If somebody runs with me and they can't keep up or they can only do, you know, five sprints and I want to do 10, sometimes I'll ease back. But if I'm by myself, it's like my expectation is up here and I have to meet that that ridiculous expectation. I'm the opposite. So, I was working out with Allan, um, the guy who's filming us right now. And, um, he's looking at me like I'm crazy cuz like we're we're doing sauna, then we're going to the hot

4:39 tub, and then we're like lifting weights, and I'm like doing so many sets and reps before I had sparring session. I had a sparring session like an hour later, and he's looking at me like I'm crazy. And I'm like, Allan, I actually wouldn't do this if you weren't here. I push harder when I have a friend working out with me or I have a of a friend or a coach that's watching me. If I'm being honest nowadays, I don't spar unless the camera's on. In my head, I'm like, why am I taking any brain damage if I'm not going to get a collection of it? That's so different than me. Up to the point where I do my best training sessions when literally there's not an eyeball on me. If I go to the soccer field and I'm doing sprints and there's somebody there and they're looking at me, there's something about it where I'm like, I look like an idiot if I sprint to the point where I'm like on the ground fatigue, so I don't do it. But if I'm in complete and utter like loneliness, I'm

5:27 at my best. When I'm tired and lazy, I'll put the Muay Thai style back. Yeah. And the coach Kemps here. Difference seven. What do you do for cardio? Run. Mostly. Mostly run. It has been up to the point where I've done six six days a week of running. I don't remember the last time I ran. I spar for cardio. Spar for cardio. Man, I mean, when you spar for cardio, based on what you said before, where you have more of a distance-based style, but I have the pressure style. How do you get your cardio? I mean, to be honest, I don't train for cardio. I hit pads when I have a paddle. Like, I mean, this really depends on the season or not season, but depends on on, for example, before I had a kid, I was hitting pads. I was doing other things.

6:13 Now that I have a kid, I'm training like once or twice a week max. If I'm going to train, I I rather spar and make content. Sometimes I'll hit pads, but it's it's really opportunity based at at the moment. But right now, as we speak, I don't run and cardio I spar. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that makes sense to me. You have you have to pick and choose where am I going to get my training? What do I enjoy most? Um, but for me, I'm I'm like a big advocate on the channel. If somebody can't run, I'm like, okay, here are all the alternative cross training. But don't try and just prepare for your fight in terms of sport specific stuff. mostly because I find the sport specific stuff gets easier and easier. Whereas the cross training is always hard for me. I don't know why, but I've done so much, you know, so much punching and kicking that I feel like I can hit kind of a flow. You put me in a pool and say

7:00 like do 40 laps and be in a flow state. I'm like I mean maybe maybe that's why I like sparring because I'm comfortable. I'm not working my cardio. Difference seven or eight by now. You eat multiple meals a day. How many again? I probably eat six to eight meals a day. That's crazy cuz that speeds up your metabolism weight cutting time. Um I would rather eat like a couple almonds and then you know 30 minutes later eat a little bit of this and then being like okay Gabriel get two small meals today but at least there's pretty well proportion on weight cut week I'll just kind of graze but I'll never have an actual meal. On the other hand I like to eat three massive meals breakfast, lunch, dinner. I eat so much that I honestly like fall into a coma. Like I like to eat until I'm

7:47 uncomfortable stage. Yeah. And the reason being is growing up I've always been the smaller guy and I've always wanted to get jacked. If you're a bodybuilder, you would know you want to eat as much as you can and it's a time limit. So if you eat really quickly, you'll you'll be you'll keep eating until that time. With that said, I'm a new father. I don't get to train as much. I am gaining some extra weight. So I've cut down to two meals, two massive meals. I don't eat breakfast anymore. I fast in the morning. Difference eight, nine. You eat super slow. We had just had sushi. I I legitimately could probably sit down and eat a meal like a normal size meal, but not a big meal. Probably like 40 minutes. I just like a sloth just kind of eating. I take a bite, put my chopsticks down, just sit there for a little bit. Me and uh Allan, we were watching and we're just

8:35 like and then we decided that we we decided to take a break before we took another bite. You guys watch Goku. Do you know what Dragon is? Uh I haven't watched it before. A no Dragon Ball Z fans. Goku just swallowed down. That's me. I have a couple people that I eat with around town in general, like my buddies, and I just go and I'm like, you know what? I've got to eat as fast as I can. gone to meals and been like, I'm going to eat as fast as I can so I don't feel odd because they're done their meal and I only have only a quarter through and I've gone and eaten as fast as I can and still they're done and I still have half my food left and I felt like I was stuffing my face. Difference 9 or 10. You're a quality eater. You're saying you're so picky that you went to a restaurant, didn't like it, went what was it? I went to a restaurant, I didn't like it, and then I'll just be like, "No, I'm not eating. I'll make food when I go home." It's like it's got it's got

9:22 to be food that's worthy of me eating. I'm the opposite. I'm the type of person that will literally eat anything that's in front of me. And I'm like quantity over quality. And this is because you again, I used to be skinny. Still am skinny. And I always wanted to gain that weight. Just being so spoiled my whole life with my dad being a a French chef when when he was in his 20s that just whenever we have family meals and such, it's just like, "Oh, it's so good." And then I learned how to cook a little bit through him and I'm like, man, if it's not good, I don't even want it. And final difference, I learned that you don't need to train all over the world at the biggest and best gyms to be a world class fighter. I got my core group. It's very small. Many people go, "Oh, you must have so many more people that you train with." But no, I mean, in terms of sparring partners, I got off

10:07 the top of my head, I've probably had like four consistent ones. Now, that's not to say that occasionally, you know, once every six months I won't scoot to Vancouver. last training camp. Uh I was all my gloves. So I'm like, "Yeah, that's the last fight." I went over and I did one day of sparring in Vancouver with somebody new. Um me on the other hand, I'm all over the place. Like in my hometown, I got four gyms that I'll visit. I'm always traveling to a different country or city, cross train. But the truth is that's really more for the content, right? But yes, my training regime is is to cross train with as many people as I can, which is good because different looks give you more skills. I think mine mine is pretty much based on the fact that I don't want to spar with people whose skill levels down here. I'm like, it's a waste of my time. And I don't want to spar with people whose skill levels up here, but outweigh me or

10:54 going to try and kill me or don't have control. And I've basically been like, there's there's like four dudes in town that that can give me give me looks that that I need. And a couple of them are boxers, couple of them are kickboxers, but I take what I can get. Well, I hope you guys enjoyed this fun fact about how different I am than Gabriel Varga. Yeah, that was fun. A little different, but yeah, we still make it work. [Music]