Some Mma fighters say they don't spar, do they only mean hard sparring?

Holloway, Jones and Cerrone say they don't spar..

But surely they do light, touch sparring with grappling intertwined with it?

I can't imagine not sparring at least a little before heading into a fight, there are aspects of fighting that just can't be emulated in drills.

 

They probably do positional/technical sparring. What they mean is they're not trying to take each other's heads off during practice

 

The whole reason to "not spar" is to not take damage,so whatever they are doing,its to avoid that.


Personally i think you have to spar,but guys with long careers take breaks,and increase their longevity.

 

I assume they roll plenty and practice light striking with headgear and pads

 

After enough profiency I don't see why sparring is needed if you're taking more damage than sharpening your skills. Maybe like recalibrate if you're missing punches? But if its muscle memory then why even continue so much? Makes me think of how inefficient chute box guys were.

 

When youve had as many fights as guys like donald cerrone, hard sparring has diminishing returns.

 

I feel like the more fights/experience you have, the less you need to hard spar. Fighting should be done on fight night to preserve the longevity of one's career.

 

Maybe one or two sessions towards the end of camp. Not often needed though

 

connor used to spar hard relying on his chin

 

All of those guys sparred quite a lot

 

The source:

 

Well, if they focus on technique, repetition, etc. instead of getting “battle tested” it would explain why all three of those guy aren’t known to have a bunch of injuries.

 

They probably do light technical sparring and not hard sparring anymore. They know how to fight already so they just need to focus on technique/timing/conditioning. Save the damage for the fight. Sparring is mostly important for fighters starting out to learn how to handle getting hit hard, and not losing yourself in those moments. Get your body accustomed to damage, remaining calm, and still thinking clearly during heated exchanges. Once the muscle memory and pain conditioning is established, you don't really need to take the extra damage. You already know how you will react to it in a fight. You just work on your timing/conditioning. Less injuries this way too. You don't spend most of your time with injuries from sparring and you can actually train and work on your conditioning more.

 

Cody Garbrandt told Rogan he’s not sparring anymore, but corrected himself when Rogan asked if he’s not even doing technical sparring or light sparring. He has people throwing quick stuff at him so he gets used to it, but no hard sparring at all. So it’s just to get the feeling & technical sparring.

I think he said something about dodging stuff while doing padwork, too.

 

Just no hard sparring bro, plenty of technical sparring just no TMT style sparring

 

Maybe they don't want to take unessesary blows to the head?

You can roll 100% but going 100% in the stand up is just asking for an injury.