Remember that ‘Gustavo’ (again, not his real name) is the Top 10 European MMA fighter who wanted me to put together the workout that “made him work as if his life was depending on winning his next fight”…
…and those were *his* words.
So I went back to the drawing board, and put together probably one of the hardest MMA workouts I’d ever seen. I swear, I almost felt like I was trying to punish the guy or something.
But don’t get me wrong – there are a lot of workouts out there that are as ‘stupid’ as they are ‘hard’.
I like to paraphrase a top coach by the name of Joe DeFranco (he trains tons of pro football and baseball players):
“Anybody can kick the shit out of their client. It takes a real trainer to make his athletes better.”
Gustavo’s workout had it all:
- strength work
- explosive movements
- insane cardio
- specific ways to progress each element individually
- bodyweight exercises
…and all specifically chosen to improve all the necessary qualities that a fighter needs so much.
I shot the program to Gustavo (I was in the US and he was training in Europe at the time). He freakin’ LOVED the program – it was just what he was looking for.
Gustavo got to work and started seeing results almost immediately.
Now remember – Gustavo was already in pretty damn good shape. So it’s not like some fat, lazy oaf finally got off his ass and started training. This guy was already one of the best athletes in the world.
It wasn’t long before he was:
- putting his bodyweight + 30 lbs overhead for 20+ total reps
- deadlifting 2.5x bodyweight for 20+ total reps
- doing circuits that would make most hardcore dudes faint
Something else to keep in mind – Gustavo was getting ready for a fight. This meant he was doing prolly 5-6 hours of skills work, drilling and sparring, in addition to his workouts…
EVERY SINGLE DAY!
Plus, he was LOSING WEIGHT!!
Gustavo told me he had this crazy idea about not wanting to ‘cut’ right before the fight, and then re-hydrate. Instead, he wanted to weigh-in *and* fight at his normal ‘walking around’ weight.
I told him he was nuts.
Turns out – he wasn’t.
=>Click Here to find out what happened… (page 3 of 4)