Who are the toughest training MMA athletes ever? Do they train as hard as top working boxers?

[Rubios]

So I have two... questions, or topics, or whatever.

#1 It's well documented how insanely tough the training regimes of some top boxers are/were. Usyk swimming 10k in a lake every day and doing apnea until being close to pass out and his trainer pulls his head, B-Hop beyond crazy sessions, Hagler infamous grueling camps, Floyd running 10 miles at 6' pace, +1000 push-ups a day and 30+ minutes rounds in sparring...

Any MMA pros get to these levels of Spartan routines? Would it be counterproductive?
An MMA athlete will not fight 12x3' rounds, pace is not so intense, they won't throw so many strikes...
But they need to master a much broader skillset: maybe they don't need so much time drilling physique, and more time drilling technique.

TL;DR Does MMA require such a high level of fitness as boxing? Is in fact wrestling/grappling training EVEN MORE physically taxing (almost zero experience here)?


#2 Who are in your opinion the toughest training MMA athletes ever? I have no clue, so I'm just going full Captain Obvious naming Khabib, Islam and... Cain, maybe?

P.S. I'm not talking about "work ethic", repeating a technique 1000x or spending time at the gym.
10 hours playing piano every single day is hard, sure. But not grueling.
I'm asking about the toughest, most hardcore physically demanding working MMA athletes from your knowledge.

And I know harder doesn't mean better not smarter.

 

[KAZSoliloquy]

mma fighters would gas in a boxing ring and boxers would gas if they had to wrestle in mma. it's two different things. i don't know why no one seems to understand this.

 

[wildbulls]

Grappling and striking require different energy systems and probably need real experience in the cage/ring. You can see how some wrestlers (e.g Chandler) try to strike and just default to throwing 100 percent power on every shot just to gas out immediately - even though their cardio is actually fine if paced appropriately.

Strikers desperately trying to scramble against a wrestler/grappler and just gassing after the first grappling exchange. It's just experience down the line because everyone at the top level probably has good cardio if they just stick to what they know.

 

[Frode Falch]

I think every athlete who are trying to earn alot of money and glory, train as much and hard as their body can take. No matter what kind of sport.

 

[Hymen Crusher]

I think as time goes on mma becomes more serious. Boxing has a 100 year head start so that helps.

 

[Rubios]

I think every athlete who are trying to earn alot of money and glory, train as much and hard as their body can take. No matter what kind of sport.

There's lots of examples of elite, even elite of the elite athletes not being professionals.

But, besides that, there are pros and there are total psycho machines. Do you think Jamahal takes training as seriously and with the same level of sacrifice as... Islam, i.e.?

 

[Daniel Henry]

GSP even when retired he's still training. Khabib got fat real quick.

Diaz brothers. Known to do multiple marathons

 

[dog y]

Sean Sherk took it seriously. Very intense.

 

[thecoldbloodedone]

Plenty of MMA fighters out there who worked like maniacs, obsessed and often overtraining, sacrificing a reliable day job so they can add extra training sessions each day and cover all skill bases on top of both grappling and striking conditioning.

It would be hard to know for a fact who the hardest workers were....many would even be guys you never heard of.

 

[TriangleMonkey]

Even a routine I would call pretty “basic” for a good pro boxer

5 miles a day running minimum
20 min jump rope minimum a day
Several hundred pushups/situps a day

And do all that and still go to practice or practices. Like everything above doesn’t even count, its standard daily shit, even an “off” day has it

Typical MMA fighters would be considered lazy bums in contrast but the mixed rule-set allows a lot of variety for successful bums

 

[Bend NvR Break]

Wrestling practice is the hardest thing any combat athlete can do.
Here's my high school wrestling practice.
1. Run 20 minutes straight no stopping at all at a good pace.
2. Hit the weight room for a workout circuit. For those that don't know what a circuit is there is basically 12 or so stations set up. Bench, squat, jammer machine, pull ups, knee extensions, etc. a 3 minute timer is set up and you might be in a group of 2-3. Basically you take turns doing a set number of reps before the next guy rotates in. Do that for 3 minutes and then rotate to the next station. Entire circus takes 30 minutes to 45 minutes depending on the specific circuit. So now you're about an hour into practice and you've done nothing but conditioning and work out. Not a lick of wrestling. And you're dead tired and muscle fatigued.
3. Now it's time for wrestling techniques. 20-30 minutes of instruction and practice.
4. 30-45 minutes of live wrestling.
5. Cool down 20 minute non-stop jog.

2 and a half hour practice.

Hardest shit ever. And I did an off season conditioning college football program. That was bad. Wake up at 4:30am in February to get to the gym at 5am to do stadium stair runs or suicide sprints or caterpillar runs or whatever sadistic shit your S&C coach can come up with for an hour then hit the weight room for the 1st of 2 daily workouts. To then hit the shower by 7am and go to team breakfast to start the day. Athletes went to cafeteria between 6:45am and 8am for special meal service. All other students would gain entrance at 8am. Same thing at dinner. 6:30pm to 8pm was exclusively for athletes. Regular students had to eat between 4:30pm and 6:30pm then 8pm to 9:30pm.

Anyway wrestling practice was the hardest thing I ever done

 

[joy2day]

I'm sure there are plenty of MMA fighters that push themselves to the limit.

Training smart is just as important. GSP had a great concept when he trained; he would always do it in 25-minute increments so that he would always be familiar with how hard he could push himself during the time frame of a fight.

 

[fedorthegoat777]

I think the conditioning for boxing is more intense at the upper levels. I mean you are fighting for 30 million dollar paydays, not 500k and a chance for a Dana backroom bonus and Reebok t-shirt.

But MMA training is no joke.

 

[fedorthegoat777]

Wrestling practice is the hardest thing any combat athlete can do.
Here's my high school wrestling practice.
1. Run 20 minutes straight no stopping at all at a good pace.
2. Hit the weight room for a workout circuit. For those that don't know what a circuit is there is basically 12 or so stations set up. Bench, squat, jammer machine, pull ups, knee extensions, etc. a 3 minute timer is set up and you might be in a group of 2-3. Basically you take turns doing a set number of reps before the next guy rotates in. Do that for 3 minutes and then rotate to the next station. Entire circus takes 30 minutes to 45 minutes depending on the specific circuit. So now you're about an hour into practice and you've done nothing but conditioning and work out. Not a lick of wrestling. And you're dead tired and muscle fatigued.
3. Now it's time for wrestling techniques. 20-30 minutes of instruction and practice.
4. 30-45 minutes of live wrestling.
5. Cool down 20 minute non-stop jog.

2 and a half hour practice.

Hardest shit ever. And I did an off season conditioning college football program. That was bad. Wake up at 4:30am in February to get to the gym at 5am to do stadium stair runs or suicide sprints or caterpillar runs or whatever sadistic shit your S&C coach can come up with for an hour then hit the weight room for the 1st of 2 daily workouts. To then hit the shower by 7am and go to team breakfast to start the day. Athletes went to cafeteria between 6:45am and 8am for special meal service. All other students would gain entrance at 8am. Same thing at dinner. 6:30pm to 8pm was exclusively for athletes. Regular students had to eat between 4:30pm and 6:30pm then 8pm to 9:30pm.

Anyway wrestling practice was the hardest thing I ever done

I loved wrestling practice.

Separates the men from boys. Puts hair on your balls and makes you a man if you can finish it.

 

[Iroh]

mma fighters would gas in a boxing ring and boxers would gas if they had to wrestle in mma. it's two different things. i don't know why no one seems to understand this.

Plenty of people understand that.

 

[MarioLemieux]

I hate to keep glazing Team Khabib but obviously Team Khabib which is why they're the best. They don't party or live for anything but fighting which is why they have champions, #1 contenders and p4p #1 fighters and Khabib is said to be a nightmare of a coach. More strict and pushing them harder than even his father.

How does that compare to the hardest training boxers, I don't know, do they have social lives?

 

[KAZSoliloquy]

Plenty of people understand that.

not OP, clearly. nor the hundreds of white and yellow belts who've made this thread over the last decade

 

[Iroh]

not OP, clearly. nor the hundreds of white and yellow belts who've made this thread over the last decade

Sure, but that's no reason to discount the many people that do.

Also, this thread isn't so much about cardio specifically, or who is doing it better, it's just who in MMA has the most physically grueling training regiments? And do they stack up in intensity to boxers? Which we really couldn't answer, TBH, because we're not there at their camps. We don't really know how hard they really train. And just going by statements and stories isn't really reliable at all, IMO. They aren't gonna tell you if they slack off once in a while and shit gets exaggerated all the time.

And there is also not really a good metric to measure these things by that I'm aware of, and to your point, it does matter how much you are used to certain training for how grueling you will find it if you have to go through it, so it's really subjective.

 

[KAZSoliloquy]

Sure, but that's no reason to discount the many people that do.

Also, this thread isn't so much about cardio specifically, or who is doing it better, it's just who in MMA has the most physically grueling training regiments? And do they stack up in intensity to boxers? Which we really couldn't answer, TBH, because we're not there at their camps. We don't really know how hard they really train. And just going by statements and stories isn't really reliable at all, IMO. They aren't gonna tell you if they slack off once in a while and shit gets exaggerated all the time.

And there is also not really a good metric to measure these things by that I'm aware of, and to your point, it does matter how much you are used to certain training for how grueling you will find it if you have to go through it, so it's really subjective.

that's fair i gravitated more to the TLR section

"TL;DR Does MMA require such a high level of fitness as boxing? Is in fact wrestling/grappling training EVEN MORE physically taxing (almost zero experience here)?"

they both require insane fitness and it wouldn't be fair to say one is MORE taxing than the other. to be elite at either, you need to be in the gym working constantly. i think considering boxing's training regimen (versus pure grappling) includes sparring which inevitably means head trauma, i'd say boxing is harder on the body. but they are equally taxing on cardio. any boxer who gets on a wrestling mat and vice versa will gas immediately though. they are different forms of cardio.

 

[Bend NvR Break]

I loved wrestling practice.

Separates the men from boys. Puts hair on your balls and makes you a man if you can finish it.

Wrestling put me in the greatest shape of my life ever.
I could've went straight from wrestling season to BUDs and been a Navy seal. That's the type of shape wrestling got me in.