The biggest fight in UFC history is scheduled for October 6th 2018 when Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov will finally square off in the Octagon for the first time.
And I have serious doubts on whether this fight will actually happen.
How could you not? Here is a list of prominent fighters that have either missed weight or pulled out of a fight due to injury in 2018:
Max Holloway, Kevin Lee, Yoel Romero (twice), Darren Till, Michael Chiesa, Mackenzie Dern, Anthony Pettis, Volkan Oezdemir, Uriah Hall, Alan Jouban, Gunnar Nelson, Ilir Latifi, and Paulo Costa
Of course missing weight doesn’t necessarily mean the fight is off, but it opens up a can of worms when you bring up the notion of fighters gaining a competitive advantage/the issue of professionalism/ethics etc. In addition, the opponent has every right to refuse the fight if he/she chooses.
I’ve been lucky enough to shadow some high level, professional UFC fighters during their training camps. It’s like nothing you’ve ever seen. They train multiple times per day, every day, HARD, in a variety of martial arts disciplines that tax the body in their own unique way. Jiu Jitsu in the morning, Muay Thai in the afternoon, Wrestling in the evening, don’t forget strength and conditioning, oh and by the way we’re sparring hard for ten rounds after those hill sprints on the beach tomorrow.
It’s an incredible amount of physical output that no other sport rivals. Hell, the NFL doesn’t even have two-a-days during training camp anymore. When I hear about a fighter pulling out due to injury, I’m never shocked, but I am disappointed. I feel like preventative measures could have been put into place. Listen, it’s a contact sport and things happen. Your sparring partner could check a low kick that breaks your foot. That sort of freak thing is seemingly unavoidable. But many injuries are a result of compounding interest so to speak, not one isolated incident.
From my experience, the issue is day-to-day recovery.
To put it frankly, most fighter’s diets absolutely suck.
Let’s take a typical UFC welterweight. Welterweights fight at 170lbs but typically walk around at about 190lbs or more. Given their size, age, body type, and activity level, they should be eating about 3,800 calories every day to sustain themselves. A typical macronutrient split would look like this:
Fat: 100 grams
Carbohydrates: 500 grams
Protein: 230 grams
Seems like a ton of food… because it is. I’ll tell you right now, 80–90% of fighters are not eating as much as they should. And honestly it’s hard to blame them. The last thing you want to do after an intense cardio session is eat. Your heart is pounding, you’re sweating, you feel borderline sick to your stomach, and you probably got kicked in the ribs a few times. But it has to be done for a multitude of reasons.
Working out is a stress. A good stress, but a stress nonetheless. When you exercise with intensity the body releases cortisol, which is a stress hormone. Cortisol often has a negative connotation, but the release of cortisol during stressful events is a completely natural reaction. It helps to regulate blood pressure and heart function. The issue is with chronically high cortisol, which can lead to lowered testosterone and impaired adrenal function. A fighter training intensely multiple times per day is a prime candidate for chronically elevated cortisol. It compounds even more when he/she is not recovering adequately with proper nutrition. An easy way to combat high cortisol is simply to consume carbohydrates. But with this new carb-phobia sweeping the fitness space, some fighters are hesitant to consume a high amount of carbohydrates. Some fighters even follow a ketogenic diet, which in my opinion is completely ludicrous. A sport as intense and anaerobic as mixed martial arts requires carbohydrates.
Beyond day-to-day recovery and proper hormonal function, a fighter’s offseason and training camp diet is critical to their weight cut. Basically, your caloric intake and metabolic rate work hand-in-hand. The more calories you consume, the higher your metabolic rate and vice versa (within reason). In an ideal situation, a fighter is maintaining their weight while eating as many calories as possible. The higher your maintenance calorie level, the more opportunity you have to adjust as the weight cut approaches. Let’s look at two scenarios leading up to the week of a fight.
Fighter A is a UFC welterweight that weighs about 190lbs. He consumes a balanced diet of 3,500 calories per day during his camp. His metabolism is great due to his high calorie intake day by day. He steadily drops carbs from his diet leading up to weigh-ins. Since his metabolic rate is high and carb manipulation is an easy way to lose water weight, he has a seamless cut and doesn’t need to take drastic measures to make weight.
Fighter B is a UFC welterweight that weighs about 190lbs. He consumes a low carb diet of 2,200 calories per day during his camp. He can’t cut carbs since he is already on a low carb diet. He attempts to cut water but his body is fighting him. Cortisol is elevated and as a result his body is retaining water. He is constantly going from the sauna to the treadmill doing whatever he can to drop weight. On the scale he looks visibly drained and exhausted.
The weight cut truly begins months before a fight, not the week of. With proper planning, a fighter can not only make the weight cut easier, but also optimize their day-to-day recovery from training.
I won’t make a ridiculous claim that changing fighter diets is the answer to all of the UFC’s problems of highly anticipated bouts going by the wayside. But it’s such a low hanging fruit that I can’t ignore it any longer. If you are on the UFC roster you are a professional athlete, act like it. Treat your body the way Lebron James would. No one expects you to hire a personal chef, but a pro athlete has to fuel their body properly. A freak injury is out of your control, but what you consume every day isn’t.