This past Saturday I was down in sunny (and way too hot) Las Vegas for UFC 116 and wanted to share a few of my thoughts on the show. Most would agree the main card had a lot of great fights on it and it was one of the better UFC cards in recent past, but beyond that, there was a a very valuable lession that can be seen from the fights as well.
Lesson from UFC 116 Conditioning wins….and loses….fights!
All you have to do is look at the two main fights, Leben vs. Akiyama and Lesnar vs. Carwin to understand just how important conditioning really is. I would say there is little doubt that if Akiyama hadn’t been totally gassed and unable to do much of anything for most of the 3rd round (and probably the latter half of the 2nd round as well), the fight most likely would have ended in a decision.
You can never really tell what the UFC judges are going to do, but it’s obvious that being a better conditioned fighter gave Leben a huge advantage that he was able to take advantage of. His win netted him 45k (or something like that) and the fight of the night bonus was 75k. Don’t quote me on the exact figures, but they were around there. In other words, conditioning played a key role in Leben winning over 100k!
Not only that, but 2 weeks ago Aaron Simpson gassed himself out (classic wrestler with too much lactic development) against Leben and he again got a big win largely thanks to his being in better shape. These last two weeks have been huge for Chris and he’s now sitting on a two fight win streak, one over a very highly regarded opponent, and has a large chunk of change in his pocket. If either of his opponents had been in better shape than he was, things could have turned out very differently.
Even though I haven’t directly trained Leben for quite some time now, since he moved to Hawaii a couple of years ago, I still root for him to do well and hope he makes the most of the opportunities these last two big wins have given him. Chris is a good guy with a good heart and when you get to know him he’s not the guy most people think he is. I have to admit I was on feet cheering when Akiyama tapped and he got the submission. It was one of the crazier and more entertaining fights I’ve seen in a long time.
After Leben’s fight was the main event, Carwin vs. Lesnar and perhaps no fight better demonstrated how important conditioning really is than that fight! I have had people ask me how it’s possible that a fighter could possibly gas out after one round in the biggest fight of his career. “Don’t they train for 5 rounds when they spar?” The reality is that nobody with as much muscle mass as those two guys have is ever going to last 5 rounds at a high pace. It’s simply physically impossible to provide that much muscle with enough ATP to maintain a high pace for very long.
In fact, watching big men gas demonstrates one of the main principles of my book very well…the more energy you produce anaerobically, the faster you gas. Both of these guys are anaerobic monsters, that is why they are so explosive and powerful, plain and simple. But this massive strength and power also comes at a price and that price is endurance.
Because of the way the body was designed to create energy, there will always be a trade off between maximum power and endurance. Nobody will ever run a mile at the same speed that you can run 100m, no world class Powerlifter or Weightlifter will everend up running a marathon (at least not in any kind of respectable time) and no 265lb heavyweights will ever be able to maintain the same pace for 5 rounds as lightweights can.
Unfortunately, the body was just not designed to ever be able to have the physical qualities needed to be able to produce massive power and endless endurance at the same time. Anyone who ever tells you differently is either A) stupid or B) trying to sell you something (and perhaps most likely C) both.)
I have no idea whatsoever Carwin did or didn’t do in his training program leading up to the fight or if there were other factors involved that played a role in his gassing so quickly, but understanding the ultimate tradeoff between power and endurance is a valuable lesson. I would also say there is little doubt that many other fights probably would have been stopped because of the beating Carwin was giving Lesnar in that first round, but this wasn’t one of those fights and it ended up costing Carwin the fight. In this case, Carwin’s biggest asset, his physical strength and power, was also his biggest liability because he was unable to maintain it long enough to win.
As a whole, I thought the main event card from top to bottom was obviously entertaining and had a lot of good fights. I was very disappointed that my fighter, Matt Brown, made a gameplan mistake and ended up losing his fight to Lytle, but he will learn from his mistakes and become a better fighter. Matt is a very hard worker and his last two fights have not shown the performances I know he is capable of, although he did do well and followed the gamepla in the first round of the Lytle fight and it showed. He will be back in the gym soon training as hard as ever and I hope he gets some time before his next fight to really work on his skills.
This is the part of the blog where I really should include a lot of pictures from the fights and/or being in Vegas at the UFC in general, but I have to apologize for simply not being good at taking pictures. Half the time I forget my camera at home! I’ve just never been one of those people that takes pictures of everything whenever they leave the house. I will work on it though and am happy to report I have a new intern at the gym and part of his job is to take more pictures of guys training so I can put them up on here.
On another note, I will have a long awaited announcement very soon that I am sure everyone who is reading this will be very excited about. Stay tuned for more info on the way…