Matt "Wiggy" Wiggins, of Cameron, N.C., has studied, researched, and performed strength training for over 10 years. Matt has designed strength, conditioning, and exercise programs for students, combat athletes, a variety of athletes and has also served as strength and conditioning coach for his university's wrestling team. Click here to check out his new website.

Wiggy, could you tell us a bit about your training background and how you became interested in strength and conditioning.

I started actually started exercising when I was about 12 or 13 - by force. On Saturday mornings, my dad and I would watch College Football. During the games he would pretty much "make" me do push-ups and situps. I'd like to say that I took to exercise right away, but truth is I hated it. Luckily for me, he kept "pushing" (so-to-speak!). I started lifting weights in high school like every other guy for the same reason - to get stronger for football. It wasn't until the winter of my sophomore year that I became serious about working out. After a "falling out" of sorts with the school's football, and subsequently powerlifting, coaches, I vowed to myself to be one of the biggest and the strongest guy in my graduating class. I became very interested in working out and began to read everything I could get my hands on. Unfortunately, most of what I got my hands on was professional bodybuilding magazines. I went on a very volume heavy routine, working out 3 times per day, 5-6 days per week. Luckily for me, with a combination of hard work, a lot of good food, sleep, and the raging hormone levels of a kid in high school, I made pretty good gains. By the time I graduated I reached my goal - I was 18 years old, 5'6" tall, weighing 185 lbs., benching 355, squatting 450+, putting 200+ overhead, running a mile in under 6:00, 17" arms, and just a tad over 10% bodyfat.
When I got into college, I had less and less time to work out, so I got more industrious with my lifting. I began to experiment more, and the idea of "bodybuilding" (as I knew it from magazines) began to appeal to me less and less. I started looking around the internet for different training ideas at this time, and experimented with a little bit of everything from HIT, German Volume Training, Westside variants, Leo Costa, 5x5, and more. I had found some things that worked well, and others not, and blended what I knew into programs that worked fairly well. My senior year, I was asked my university's wrestling coach to be the S&C coach for the rest of my time in school for the wrestling team. I accepted this new opportunity and loved every minute of it.
Since graduating, I've continued to train myself as well as help others with their training. I've always wanted to be able to S&C train people/teams for a living, so when I wrote "Singles and Doubles," I began to offer my services to the public.

Your new book, Singles and Doubles: How the Ordinary Become Extraordinary, sounds great. Could you tell us a little bit about it and how you came up with the idea.

Thanks for the compliment. Believe it or not, the idea just sort of "hit me" one day while driving home from work. I was contemplating training (as I often do when I drive), and the idea just sort of hit me. I had an initial thought about training with singles, and then ideas of varying rest times came into my head, and then I started thinking about how to adapt the program for different applications…the whole thing just sort of "snowballed" after that. I put my idea into practice starting that night, and knew I had something good on my hands.

Your training program seems to favor the use of sandbags. Could you tell us why this is your method of choice and about the advantages of sandbags?

I go into full detail in the book, but basically, it's because Sandbags are not a fixed weight - they move around on you. Unless you're training for bodybuilding or a kind of weightlifting (powerlifting or Olympic lifting), you will never be straining against a resistance that is "fixed" - i.e. - a solid piece, even on both sides, etc. This "odd movement" (hence the name "odd object" for implements such as stones, Sandbags, kegs, etc.) makes an exercise much more difficult. Don't believe me? Try this - the next time you're in the gym, put 200 lbs. on the bar and do squats. If this is a relatively "easy" weight for you to lift, grab a friend that weighs 200 lbs. and have him sit on your shoulders. Now squat with your buddy on your back. Not so easy anymore.
However, also as I state in my book, Sandbags ARE NOT necessary. The program is just as applicable to barbells, KBs, strands, BWE or anything else. In fact, some of the people who have had the most success using my program don't use Sandbags - they do it in the gym.

Singles and Doubles seems to be targeted towards Mixed Martial Artists, how did you design it to target their needs? Also, could you tell us a little
bit about the challenges of training people in such a unique sport?

To tell the truth, while the Singles and Doubles book was written geared toward MMAists, the S&D program is perfectly usable for anybody practicing any/all kind(s) of sport(s). What makes S&D great is the idea that you can train for brute (limit) strength, strength-endurance, and overall cardio endurance - at the same time with the same program. So, anybody that would have a need to train in the above fashion(s) would benefit. MMAists can benefit probably the most because unlike many other sports, MMAists have very drastic strength, endurance, and energy system needs. Some sports may require a lot of strength-endurance, but (comparatively) little brute strength. Or, some sports may require the opposite - a lot of brute strength, but little in the way of endurance. MMAists, however, have to be superior in all areas - this is where S&D can help them - without having to make them do multiple workouts (one for strength, one for conditioning, etc.) in a day. This leaves them more "fresh" for their MA classes and skills sessions/practices.

Do you train in any style of martial arts?

I am currently working with 2-3 individuals in central North Carolina to get a Catch Wrestling "club" started. We will be practicing techniques from Tony Cecchine's Lost Art of Hooking tape series and Tony will probably be giving us some drills to work on as well. We hope to be rolling sometime in the next couple of weeks.

It seems like Mixed Martial Artists are gaining more respect as athletes.
At first it was more of a sideshow, but the sport now seems to be evolving. Do you have any thoughts on future of MMA and where it's headed?

I think that the sport is going to go nowhere but up. As it gains more mainstream media exposure, it is going to bring in more fans, and hopefully the men and women who work so hard in all facets of MMA (be it fighter, promoter, trainer, S&C coach, nutritionist, journalist, etc.) will be able to get more recognition and be more adequately compensated.