In his six-year MMA career Michael "The Count'
Bisping has stepped into the cage 21 times, won 18 of his fights, and
knocked out 11 opponents.
Right now he is a few weeks away from his main event battles UFC120
at the O2 Arena in London. With renowned Japanese fighter, Yoshihiro
Akiyama, the other man in the octagon, Bisping is training hard to win
easy. Men's Health will be catching up with him in the run-up
to the fight on October 16th to find out what it takes to prepare to
succeed in the world’s toughest sport. First things first: conditioning...
Being an all-round athlete
You’d expect most mixed martial artists to have the basic skill set
for combat – and at the top level they certainly do. They all know how
to box; they all know how to wrestle; they’ve all got a ground game. But
what’s starting to set the fighters apart is being a better athlete.
The faster, stronger, fitter guys are starting prevail, and now our
business is getting recognised as a sport and the guys that do it as
proper, professional athletes.
My weekly routine
Take my schedule, for example. On Monday, Wednesday and Friday I run
in the morning, then go to the gym and do an hour and a half of
wrestling and jujitsu, then an hour of boxing. I eat and rest and sleep
all afternoon, then in the evening I do my sparring. On Tuesday and
Thursday, I get up and go straight to conditioning then in the afternoon
I do Thai boxing or a little jujitsu.
Improving my stamina
I go to a place called Strength and Performance in Stockport.
With the fight drawing closer we’ve switched from heavy weights to
stamina work, so I’m doing three, eight-minute circuits of dynamic,
explosive full-body movements – clean and press but with sandbags; box
jumps for power and throwing medicine balls around. We never do anything
that isolates one muscle group. No matter how big your biceps are they
are not going to help you in a fight situation. You need overall
functional strength.
Honing my core strength
Akiyama is a good judo fighter. This means I am going to need a very
good core and strong lower back as he is going to try and tip me off
balance and pull me over. He’ll look to throw me over his hips, over his
back or trip me up and take me to the ground. I’m going to need the
core strength to counter that and keep the fight where I want it.
To watch Bisping's pre-fight video,
click here.