In today’s performance‑driven world of combat sports and elite athletics, training harder is no longer enough. Athletes chasing peak performance, longevity, and real health outcomes need more than traditional coaching, they need data, clinical insight, and personalized protocols that work with their physiology, not against it.
That’s where the partnership between 1st Optimal and Eli Coffey comes in, uniting world‑class strength, conditioning, and combat coaching with precision medical and functional testing. Together, this team is rewriting what it means to train, compete, and recover at the highest levels.
Introduction: From Mat to Medical Data — Why This Partnership Matters
Brazilian Jiu‑Jitsu (BJJ), like all elite sports, pushes bodies to their limits. Injuries, weight cuts, chronic fatigue, and plateaued performance are all part of the territory. But what if the missing link wasn’t more hours on the mat, what if it was understanding what’s happening inside the athlete’s body?
Eli Coffey, a strength and nutrition coach known in the BJJ community for his work helping athletes peak for competition and optimize weight cuts, teamed up with 1st Optimal to do something both innovative and overdue: merge combat‑sport coaching with medical‑grade performance optimization.
This isn’t a sponsorship or a logo on a rash guard. It’s a holistic health‑performance partnership built around advanced testing, hormone balance, gut health, and personalized, medically overseen protocols that help athletes perform better and last longer.
Who Is Eli Coffey? A Glimpse Behind the Coach
Eli Coffey isn’t your average trainer. He’s a strength and conditioning coach with over a decade of experience working with high‑level competitors across BJJ, MMA, powerlifting, wrestling, and more.
Through EliCoffeyCoaching.com, Eli builds custom training and nutrition plans for clients, from everyday gym‑goers to world champions. His model emphasizes individualized programming that factors in:
- Personal goals and movement history
- Nutrition and macro structure
- Cardiovascular conditioning
- Strength programming and progression
- Supplementation and recovery strategies
His work isn’t just about making people look good or hitting PRs, it’s about moving better, lasting longer, and feeling good on and off the mat.
On social media, Eli also highlights the deeper side of coaching: gut health, recovery science, and athlete longevity. These are the areas where traditional coaching often fails, and where this partnership with 1st Optimal adds real, measurable value.
Eli Coffey: Trainer Behind Chewjitsu and Chewjitsu Open
As a coach at the forefront of modern BJJ and MMA training, Eli Coffey has worked with some of the sport’s top athletes, helping them push boundaries and maximize performance. Known for his no‑nonsense approach and emphasis on functional strength training, nutrition, and mindful recovery, Eli’s work is rooted in maximizing human potential through a comprehensive approach.
Eli’s coaching philosophy is best encapsulated through Chewjitsu, a dynamic blend of BJJ, fitness, and mental focus that creates not only world-class fighters but also athletes who thrive physically and mentally. The Chewjitsu Open, an event that draws top BJJ competitors from around the world, is just one example of how Eli has built a legacy of both community and excellence in the sport.
By combining strength and conditioning, functional training, and mental resilience, Eli’s athletes don’t just train, they optimize their performance across the board.
Check out the Chewjitsu Instagram for a closer look at the philosophy that’s transforming the BJJ and MMA world: Chewjitsu Open.
Who Is 1st Optimal? A Medical Partner Built for Performance and Health
1st Optimal is a functional medicine telehealth provider focused on helping high‑achieving adults, including athletes, optimize their health through advanced lab testing, personalized treatment plans, hormone optimization, and gut health protocols.
Unlike standard medical care that treats symptoms, 1st Optimal digs deeper. Its approach includes:
- Functional Lab Testing — comprehensive blood panels, hormone metabolite assessments, and targeted gut health testing.
- Medical Oversight — licensed clinician review and medically supervised care plans.
- White Label Services — enabling coaches and wellness professionals to integrate clinical diagnostics into their offerings without crossing scope‑of‑practice lines.
- Telehealth Access — consults, follow‑ups, and treatment adjustments done anywhere.
This blend of data, clinician expertise, and coaching support creates a new performance paradigm that bridges fitness goals with real health outcomes.
The 1st Optimal Partnership Program: Advanced Tools for Coaches and Athletes
The 1st Optimal Partnership Program gives coaches like Eli Coffey a clinical foundation for the work they already excel at. Instead of guessing what’s going on inside an athlete’s body, coaches can now:
- Order comprehensive lab testing for clients
- Get medical team oversight for interpretation
- Build data‑guided performance or health protocols
- Integrate hormone, gut, metabolic, and inflammation data into coaching plans
This turns basic performance coaching into a high‑performance health optimization system, with measurable biomarkers, not just subjective results.
Key Elements of the Partnership Program
- Personalized Lab Testing
Partners can order advanced labs — from full metabolic panels to hormone and gut profiling — directly for clients. This gives coaches real biological insight instead of guesswork. - Medical Team Support
Credentialed, licensed medical providers review results, help interpret findings, and oversee treatment adjustments. This improves clinical safety and boosts credibility. - White Label Integration
Coaches can offer these services under their own brand, enhancing client experience and business growth. - Flexible Partnership Options
Programs are customizable based on needs — from full integrations to simple clinical testing add‑ons.
BJJ and Men’s Health: Why Athletes Need More Than Sweat and Grit
Brazilian Jiu‑Jitsu pushes the human body in unique ways: frequent intense rolls, repeated joint stress, fluctuating training loads, and weight cuts that push the limits of hormonal and metabolic stability.
Casual athletes might shrug off fatigue or digestive issues as “just part of the sport,” but chronic internal imbalances lead to:
- Poor recovery
- Suboptimal performance
- Injury risks
- Hormonal disruptions
- Energy crashes
This is where a functional, laboratory‑based approach can change the game.
Hormones and Athletic Performance
Performance isn’t just physical. Hormones act as the body’s internal messaging system. Testosterone, cortisol, thyroid hormones, and others directly impact:
- Muscle growth and repair
- Stress adaptation and recovery
- Sleep quality
- Energy metabolism
Athletes often push these systems to the edge without knowing it, until it shows up as stagnation, fatigue, or injury.
Through advanced hormone testing (e.g., DUTCH or metabolite profiling), 1st Optimal reveals patterns that standard labs often miss, giving athletes and coaches actionable insights to optimize performance.
Gut Health and Recovery: The Hidden Performance Driver
Elite training demands peak nutrient absorption, immune health, and inflammation control. Problems in the gut, even subtle ones, can derail all of these.
1st Optimal uses comprehensive gut health panels and clinical protocols to:
- Measure microbial balance
- Detect inflammatory markers
- Identify pathogens or imbalances
- Guide personalized healing strategies
In the world of combat sports, where inflammation and stress are constant, this level of insight means faster recovery, fewer training interruptions, and consistent energy.
How This Partnership Changes the Athlete Experience
Before:
An athlete trains hard, follows generic plans, and hopes results follow.
After:
An athlete trains intelligently, guided by:
- Personalized biometric data
- Clinician‑verified plans
- Targeted recovery protocols
- Ongoing adjustment based on labs and performance feedback
This means realistic, measurable gains in strength, endurance, recovery, and long‑term health.
Real Results: How Athletes Benefit
Both Eli Coffey’s community and 1st Optimal clients report measurable outcomes that go beyond typical descriptors like “feeling better.”
Some documented benefits include:
- More precise weight cuts with less stress
- Faster recovery after tough training cycles
- Improved hormone balance and energy levels
- Reduced inflammation and GI discomfort
- Better sleep patterns
- Enhanced muscle adaptation
These are not just training wins, they’re health wins that compound over time, enabling athletes to train harder, longer, and with less risk of burnout or injury.
The Future of Performance: Data‑Driven, Clinically‑Backed Training
Sports performance is evolving. The future belongs to athletes and coaches who understand that biology matters as much as training.
Functional testing and medical oversight levels the playing field by giving every athlete, amateur or pro, the tools to optimize not just their workouts but their physiology.
In this environment, partnerships like Eli Coffey + 1st Optimal are more than programs. They’re blueprints for how coaching and medicine can work together to unlock peak human potential.
Why This Matters for You
Whether you’re an athlete, coach, parent of a competitor, or fitness enthusiast:
- Performance depends on health
- Data replaces guesswork
- Personalization beats templates
- Clinically backed solutions protect longevity
- Partnerships like this are the future of elite training
If you want to train smarter, recover faster, and live healthier, this model gives you a roadmap that’s rooted in data, validated by clinicians, and powered by real coaching experience.
Interested in a Health Optimization Partnership?
Elevate your coaching business and transform client outcomes by joining the 1st Optimal Partnership Program, the industry-leading medical-backed collaboration that equips wellness and health coach professionals with advanced lab diagnostics, personalized treatment protocols, and expert clinical support to deliver measurable health results.
Health Coaches, Trainers, Gym Operators, Nutrition Coaches, Fitness Professionals, and performance-focused wellness leaders can now stand out in a crowded market by integrating data-driven health optimization, hormone testing, GI-MAP analysis, and ongoing medical oversight into their service offerings, boosting client retention, revenue, and credibility. Partner with 1st Optimal today for fitness business growth and medical-back coaching at https://1stoptimal.com/partnership-program/ to access turnkey onboarding, flexible partnership options, co-branded marketing support, and the competitive edge your business needs to help clients optimize longevity, performance, and wellness.
About Us
1st Optimal is a functional medicine and performance health clinic dedicated to helping high-achieving adults optimize hormone health, weight, energy, and longevity. Follow 1st Optimal on Instagram
Founders:
- Joe Miller – Expert in functional medicine, hormone optimization, and health coaching. Follow Joe on Instagram
- Amber Miller – Operational leader specializing in patient experience, clinic growth, and holistic health. Follow Amber on Instagram
At 1st Optimal, we combine advanced diagnostics, personalized protocols, and coaching partnerships to deliver sustainable health results for midlife adults.
