20: Data Driven Training in UFC – with Roman Fomin, Director of Sport Science at Ultimate Fighting Championship – Ep. 20

Firstbeat Sports Podcast

Roman Fomin is the Director of Sport Science at the Ultimate Fighting Championship. He is based at the UFC APEX, a state-of-the-art, 130,000-square-foot production facility in Las Vegas that opened in 2019.
Roman has a Ph.D. in Physiology and more than 20 years of experience in sports science, technology, and performance.
He has been with the UFC since 2018, and prior to that he worked as Director of Research & Science Innovations for Omegawave, and as a Senior Research Scientist for the Research Centre of Sports Medicine in Moscow.

• Roman’s background (2:00)
• Roman’s role in UFC and tools they use (3:38)
• Over 50 different technologies with UFC athletes - how is it balanced? (7:25)
• Are UFC athletes interested in their performance data? (14:08)
• What does Roman mean with “Biological money”? (17:31)
• Has Roman seen athletes out of shape before training camp, but ended up dominating UFC after camp ended? (22:20)
• What made Roman and UFC go with Firstbeat? (30:38)
• What Firstbeat metrics does Roman focus on with UFC athletes? (37:28)
• How much does external and psychological factors affect training data? (41:07)
• Roman’s career tips to young sport scientists (43:56)