There was a time early in his MMA career, Chuck Liddell admitted, when Mountain Dew and Fruity Pebbles were his idea of The Diet of Champions. But, rest assured, Liddell wasn’t consuming cartoon character cereal and soda pop when he won and defended the UFC light heavyweight title. “I always ate a specific diet when I was training for a fight,” the retired 42-year-old Hall of Famer, now UFC Vice President of Business Development, said recently while awaiting a flight to Ottawa. “I cleaned up my diet a lot during fight camps, maybe the last 10 or 12 weeks before a fight.”
In this interview, the UFC icon discusses his past and present diet, how he’s been keeping busy since bidding adieu to the Octagon, and his pursuit of a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt.
WHAT ARE YOU EATING THESE DAYS CHAMP?
Liddell: Now I eat more like I did in the off-season when I was fighting. I mostly eat clean, but I do love my food and I’ll go out to eat and order whatever I like. This morning I ate an egg white omelet. For lunch I ate a spicy vegetarian salad with noodles from a Vietnamese restaurant.
I don’t drink soda very often. I had a few sips of a blackberry soda the other day because somebody told me, ‘You have to try this.’
I eat a lot of organic stuff – my wife buys a lot of organic stuff. We barbeque fish and chicken a lot. I’ve always been a chicken and fish person, too. I have always been a vegetable person – broccoli, green beans, peas, asparagus.
DIET OF CHAMPIONS
I was averaging probably about 4,500/5,000 calories a day, so I had to eat a lot of calories. I was eating about six meals a day. When you’re eating vegetables, brown rice, fish or chicken … you have to eat a lot to eat 5,000 calories. That’s a lot of food. I was eating kind of a version of The Zone Diet (developed by Barry Sears, Ph.D, and emphasizes a diet rich in Omega fish oils and 40% carbs, 30% protein, 30 % fats, among other things).
When I first started my MMA career I worked with some guys for strength and conditioning. One of the guys asked me to write down everything I eat in a week, then he was going to assess it and write me out a diet plan. So I wrote everything down and gave it to him and he went, ‘Whew! What the (bleep) are you doing!?’ I was drinking like three liters of Mountain Dew per day, eating Lucky Charms cereal and Fruity Pebbles.
He asked me, “How can you eat like this?” So he started making me meal plans. The biggest thing he emphasized to me was, ‘You gotta’ like what you eat. If you hate what you’re eating then it’s not going to work and you’re not going to stay on this plan year-round.’
But he made it clear: “You’re not drinking Mountain Dew any more. And we’re going to have to switch your cereals.”
When you start eating clean, when you do eat bad food you can feel it when you work out the next day. Once you figure out that eating right does actually make you feel better. It makes a big difference in your training. You have a different body.
TIPPING THE SCALES AT …
I was 228 this morning. I’ve come back down. I had gotten up to about 238. But I’m trying to get down close to 220 (pounds), which would be what I looked like a week before a fight. IN YOUR RETIREMENT DAYS, YOU’RE STILL VERY YOUNG AND ABLE, WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO NEXT?
I want to open a gym, too, one that’s close to my house (in Calabasas, California) and easy to go to every day. Right now, it depends on which gym I’m going to, but my current drive to the gym can be anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour. If I go train with Jay Glazer and those guys it takes me about 25 minutes. HOW OFTEN DO YOU GET INTO THE GYM AND TRAIN MMA OR WRESTLING OR JIU-JITSU?
It depends on who I’m working with. I might just work mitts; I’m not out there doing too much sparring or anything. If I’m working with someone then I’ll do whatever he needs, might be drilling takedowns or a bunch of drills. I took some time off of sparring for a while but I’ll get back into it and get back into shape.
YOU ARE A PURPLE BELT IN BJJ. ANY DESIRE TO EVENTUALLY EARN A BLACK BELT?
Oh, yeah, I’ll get it. It’s the part of the game that is the most fun for me now. I really like jiu-jitsu. That’s another reason I want a gym close to my house, so I can get better at that.
But I think I’ve got a ways to go (to deserve a black belt from a reputable instructor). I do well at it but I’d like to be well-versed at many of the techniques, especially when I’m coaching another fighter. STILL SPORTING THE TRADEMARK MOHAWK?
Yeah. I let it grow out for a while, but I just got it cut again before this trip.
There was a time early in his MMA career, Chuck Liddell admitted, when Mountain Dew and Fruity Pebbles were his idea of The Diet of Champions. But, rest assured, Liddell wasn’t consuming cartoon character cereal and soda pop when he won and defended the UFC light heavyweight title. “I always ate a specific diet when I was training for a fight,” the retired 42-year-old Hall of Famer, now UFC Vice President of Business Development, said recently while awaiting a flight to Ottawa. “I cleaned up my diet a lot during fight camps, maybe the last 10 or 12 weeks before a fight.”
In this interview, the UFC icon discusses his past and present diet, how he’s been keeping busy since bidding adieu to the Octagon, and his pursuit of a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt.
WHAT ARE YOU EATING THESE DAYS CHAMP?
Liddell: Now I eat more like I did in the off-season when I was fighting. I mostly eat clean, but I do love my food and I’ll go out to eat and order whatever I like. This morning I ate an egg white omelet. For lunch I ate a spicy vegetarian salad with noodles from a Vietnamese restaurant.
I don’t drink soda very often. I had a few sips of a blackberry soda the other day because somebody told me, ‘You have to try this.’
I eat a lot of organic stuff – my wife buys a lot of organic stuff. We barbeque fish and chicken a lot. I’ve always been a chicken and fish person, too. I have always been a vegetable person – broccoli, green beans, peas, asparagus.
DIET OF CHAMPIONS
I was averaging probably about 4,500/5,000 calories a day, so I had to eat a lot of calories. I was eating about six meals a day. When you’re eating vegetables, brown rice, fish or chicken … you have to eat a lot to eat 5,000 calories. That’s a lot of food. I was eating kind of a version of The Zone Diet (developed by Barry Sears, Ph.D, and emphasizes a diet rich in Omega fish oils and 40% carbs, 30% protein, 30 % fats, among other things).
When I first started my MMA career I worked with some guys for strength and conditioning. One of the guys asked me to write down everything I eat in a week, then he was going to assess it and write me out a diet plan. So I wrote everything down and gave it to him and he went, ‘Whew! What the (bleep) are you doing!?’ I was drinking like three liters of Mountain Dew per day, eating Lucky Charms cereal and Fruity Pebbles.
He asked me, “How can you eat like this?” So he started making me meal plans. The biggest thing he emphasized to me was, ‘You gotta’ like what you eat. If you hate what you’re eating then it’s not going to work and you’re not going to stay on this plan year-round.’
But he made it clear: “You’re not drinking Mountain Dew any more. And we’re going to have to switch your cereals.”
When you start eating clean, when you do eat bad food you can feel it when you work out the next day. Once you figure out that eating right does actually make you feel better. It makes a big difference in your training. You have a different body.
TIPPING THE SCALES AT …
I was 228 this morning. I’ve come back down. I had gotten up to about 238. But I’m trying to get down close to 220 (pounds), which would be what I looked like a week before a fight. IN YOUR RETIREMENT DAYS, YOU’RE STILL VERY YOUNG AND ABLE, WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO NEXT?
I want to open a gym, too, one that’s close to my house (in Calabasas, California) and easy to go to every day. Right now, it depends on which gym I’m going to, but my current drive to the gym can be anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour. If I go train with Jay Glazer and those guys it takes me about 25 minutes. HOW OFTEN DO YOU GET INTO THE GYM AND TRAIN MMA OR WRESTLING OR JIU-JITSU?
It depends on who I’m working with. I might just work mitts; I’m not out there doing too much sparring or anything. If I’m working with someone then I’ll do whatever he needs, might be drilling takedowns or a bunch of drills. I took some time off of sparring for a while but I’ll get back into it and get back into shape.
YOU ARE A PURPLE BELT IN BJJ. ANY DESIRE TO EVENTUALLY EARN A BLACK BELT?
Oh, yeah, I’ll get it. It’s the part of the game that is the most fun for me now. I really like jiu-jitsu. That’s another reason I want a gym close to my house, so I can get better at that.
But I think I’ve got a ways to go (to deserve a black belt from a reputable instructor). I do well at it but I’d like to be well-versed at many of the techniques, especially when I’m coaching another fighter. STILL SPORTING THE TRADEMARK MOHAWK?
Yeah. I let it grow out for a while, but I just got it cut again before this trip.
SEATTLE – In the UFC on FOX 5 co-main event at Key Arena Saturday night, Sweden’s Alexander Gustafsson overcame a bad case of nerves to earn a unanimous decision over one of his idols, former UFC light heavyweight champion Mauricio “Shogun” Rua. …
SEATTLE – In the UFC on FOX 5 co-main event at Key Arena Saturday night, Sweden’s Alexander Gustafsson overcame a bad case of nerves to earn a unanimous decision over one of his idols, former UFC light heavyweight champion Mauricio “Shogun” Rua. The win likely earned Gustaffson (15-1) a title shot against the winner of the bout between 205-pound champ Jon Jones and Chael Sonnen, who clash in April.
Arguably the division’s hardest puncher, Gustafsson put Rua on the deck early in round one with a big right hand. The legendary Rua, a BJJ black belt, fished for a knee bar and heel hook, but Gustafsson proved well-prepared and defended. While Gustafsson has largely run through opponents and his record is littered with first-round finishes, he held up well in the kind of nip-and-tuck, down-and-dirty scraps that are par for the course for Rua. One of the game’s most exciting fighters, Rua was competitive throughout the fast-paced bout and repeatedly found a home for his overhand right. The Brazilian really seemed to find his rhythm early in the second round, but Gustafsson stole back the momentum midway. The Swede impressed with his takedowns and repeatedly landed his trademark uppercut.
Judges scored it 30-27, 30-27 and 30-26 for Gustafsson.
If there is a walkout better than BJ Penn’s at the moment, I don’t know who owns it. Accordingly, the crowd was on fire for this one, raining down chants of “BJ! BJ!” throughout, with the occasional “Rory! Rory!” for opponent Rory MacDonald making the rounds as well.
And while you’ve got to give it to the Hawaiian legend for time and again only wanting to fight the best, his desire to face the welterweight division’s Now Big Thing was not supported by his ability to beat MacDonald. The Canadian was too big and too multi-faceted for Penn to overcome, and the Firas Zahabi protégé punished Penn over 15 minutes with a vast playbook that made it impossible to know what danger was coming next.
With Penn, no matter how conditioned he is or isn’t, you always know his opponent will have to reckon with at least five minutes of fury. And you always know that BJ Penn and his immense Hawaiian pride will fight until the end, no matter how much heat and suffering comes his way.
How Penn survived the second round against MacDonald is anyone’s guess. It is unconfirmed, but some of the media at cageside speculated that perhaps Penn’s ribs were broken or cracked by MacDonald’s relentless assault of kicks and punches to Penn’s midsection. It was downright ruthless as you could see Penn wincing and favoring those ribs, almost hunched over yet seemingly wanting to continue. Amazingly, under heavy fire, Penn kept fighting through front kicks to the face, hard kicks to the legs, and some wicked elbows to the jaw.
The heavy speculation will now commence about whether Penn will retire following back-to-back losses to Nick Diaz and Rory MacDonald.
Penn had his moments in rounds one and two, landing some crisp jabs and an occasional right hand. Fatigue did not seem to be the former lightweight and welterweight world champion’s undoing. Rather, Penn is now 33 years old, and it appears it may just be the 23-year-old MacDonald’s time. Indeed, it was the best MacDonald we’ve ever seen, as he recorded the biggest win of his career by judges’ scores of 30-26, 20-26 and 30-27.
“(He’s) one guy that I really, really looked up to, that was a huge role model to me, so he’s a hero to me,” MacDonald said of Penn. “But any man that I step inside the Octagon with is a human to me and I have to look at him like that.
“I was just calm, cool and collected at all time. BJ is dangerous at all times, so I had to pick my shots. I’m pissed that I didn’t finish him.”
MacDonald also seized the opportunity, on live TV, to call out the only fighter to beat him.
“There’s a guy who humiliated me a couple of years ago, Carlos Condit. I want a rematch, accept my challenge…allow me to get my revenge.”
Matt Brown, you might recall, had a wretched 2010 and 2011 inside the Octagon. He lost four of five fights in those years – all by submission.
But with his big-league career on life support, Brown has experienced an incredible resurgence in 2012, capping a perfect 4-0 record for the year with a dynamic second-round knockout of veteran Mike Swick on Saturday.
Brown, who has been training with the Ohio State University wrestling team, Muay Thai coach Mark Beecher and BJJ world champ Robert Drysdale in Las Vegas, landed some heavy leather in round one and took Swick down with a single leg. Brown (18-11) slickly transitioned to a deep D’Arce choke variation. Swick very patiently waited it out for a long time and then popped his head. Then Brown transitioned to a triangle choke, which Swick once again cleverly defended.
In the second round Brown roughed Swick up with right hands and some hard elbows from the clinch. A hard left hook dropped Swick and another blow put him out cold.
SEATTLE – You had the feeling this one wouldn’t go long and that presumption bore true at Key Arena Saturday night, when an Yves Edwards overhand right put Jeremy Stephens on the deck and an elbow put the naïve Iowan out cold at 1 minute 55 seconds …
SEATTLE – You had the feeling this one wouldn’t go long and that presumption bore true at Key Arena Saturday night, when an Yves Edwards overhand right put Jeremy Stephens on the deck and an elbow put the naïve Iowan out cold at 1 minute 55 seconds in their UFC on FOX 5 prelim bout.
The ending unfolded as both lightweights stood in the pocket and traded right hands; Stephens’ punch missed its mark.
“I feel really good. Experience played a big part,” said the 36-year-old Edwards, who improved to 42-18-1. “Early in the fight he hit me with a good shot. I had my hands up and I could feel the power.”
The bout was originally scheduled for October 5th, but was scrapped on fight day after Stephens (20-9) encountered some well-publicized legal problems.
Daron Cruickshank has plenty of swagger, but also the substance to back a lot of that flamboyance up. The “Detroit Superstar” rode his flashy Taekwondo kicks to a highlight reel knockout over Greg Jackson-trained Henry Martinez.
In defeat, however, Martinez stood out for his uncommon resilience. The New Mexican lightweight survived serious danger in round one, when Cruickshank battered and bloodied him before stunning him with a temporarily paralyzing kick to the midsection. Cruickshank (12-2) unloaded on the embattled fighter, even clobbering him with a hard high kick to the head that brought the crowd at Key Arena alive, but could not seal the deal. How rocked was Martinez? He didn’t know where his corner was when the round was over.
But to Martinez’s credit, he weathered spinning backfists, spinning heel kicks to the leg, combinations to the head, and a copious amount of hard kicks to his pudgy midsection. Cruickshank can be very awkward with his array of strikes and at times looked like a matador against Martinez, who tried in vain to take matters to the ground and seemed to have only a puncher’s chance standing.
The brutality to the body would come in handy for Cruickshank. Martinez was hurting, especially to the body. So when Cruickshank fired a certain kick midway in the second, no one could condemn Martinez (9-3) if he thought to protect his ailing midsection. But that would have been a mistake, because Cruickshank instead went upstairs to the chin –boom! – putting Martinez out at 2:57 of the second stanza.
Lightweight Ramsey Nijem won his third straight in the UFC, outworking Joe Proctor en route to a unanimous decision victory.
Nijem escaped several guillotine chokes and was hurt by a Proctor left hook in round one, but he controlled most of the contest. The Ultimate Fighter 13 finalist had gone toe-to-toe before being stunned by Proctor, then settled in and used his wrestling, top control and methodical standup as the blueprint to victory. Nijem also bloodied and dropped Proctor with a front kick to the face in round one.
In a battle of Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belts, Raphael Assuncao and Mike Easton engaged exclusively on their feet, with Assuncao winning a unanimous decision by scores of 30-27, 30-27 and 29-28.
It was the third straight win for Assuncao since dropping to bantamweight. Easton, teammate and close friend of UFC bantamweight champ Dominick Cruz, lost for the first time in four UFC fights. The contest was fought at a very methodical pace, with fans at times booing. Easton (13-2) marked up the Brazilian’s left leg with leg kicks but had trouble going upstairs against Assuncao, who occasionally switched from a conventional to southpaw stance. Both men attempted takedowns but were rebuffed.
Easton’s best moment in the second came via a body kick, with Assuncao scoring a right hand that caused Easton to retreat and apparently mouth the words, “you poked me in my eye.” Easton continued with his leg kicks and Assuncao landed a nice front kick to the face.
Assuncao (18-4) definitely seemed busier in the third, with his best moments coming on another front kick and hard kick to the body.
Stepping up for the injured Tim Means (who fell in a sauna and hurt himself before Friday’s weigh-in) after his own fight against Michael Chiesa was scrapped, Marcus LeVesseur ran into a buzzsaw in the form of the hard-charging and downright nasty Abel Trujillo, whose barrage of vicious knees and elbows eventually wore out the Minnesotan and prompted a TKO stoppage at 3:56 of round two.
Early in round one, LeVesseur scored with a leg kick and a beautiful and lightning-quick double leg takedown. He scored another brief takedown but also spent a ton of energy trying to put Trujillo on the deck. While LeVesseur was holding on to a leg in pursuit of a takedown, the fiery Floridian was firing away with nasty elbows that at times seemed close to the back of the head.
In the second round, with LeVesseur’s face already welting, Trujillo sunk in a deep guillotine choke, then transitioned to a north-south choke that LeVesseur was fortunate to scramble out of. As the action returned to the standup realm, the Blackzilians team member stormed and dropped LeVesseur with punches. A noticeably fatigued LeVesseur got up, only to be buckled by a straight right hand. With Trujillo (10-4) stalking evermore, LeVesseur (22-7) ended up in turtle position against the cage, obviously tired and with nothing little else to give — just eating hard knees to the side until the referee intervened.
Quite succinctly, it was the Dennis Siver show from start to finish. The one-sided performance sent a loud-and-clear message to every other featherweight on the UFC roster: Keep an eye on Siver.
The 33-year-old German did whatever he wanted in this fight, with the exception of finishing a very game but physically and technically overwhelmed Nam Phan. The judges’ extraordinary scorecard totals – 30-24, 30-25 and 30-26 – reflect the kind of relentless beatdown Siver administered over their 15 minutes together inside the Octagon.
It almost seemed like a sparring session for Siver, an utter tank of a man (it could said of him that even his ears have muscles) who seemed to be north of 170 pounds and appeared to outweigh Phan by a good 15 to 20 pounds in the cage. Siver settled into an ultra-aggressive groove right out of the gate, punishing Phan every few seconds with hard leg kicks, hard right hands, a crisp jab, and memorable front kicks to the face and spinning backkicks to the midsection. Siver briefly dropped Phan (18-12) in the second round.
Siver (21-9, 2-0 at 145 pounds) spent nearly all of the second half of the fight taking down the Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt and ravaging him with a torrent of ground and pound. Unofficially, Siver landed in the neighborhood of 145 punches on the ground alone, which is an astounding volume of ground strikes landed when you consider they spent maybe seven minutes or so on the mat.
The NBA has the famous “buzzer-beater” embedded in its lexicon. NFL has the “as-time-expires” win.
And with Scott Jorgensen’s rear-naked-choke of John Albert with literally 1 second left in the first round … perhaps we should introduce the phrase “horn-beater” to UFC? Just a thought, of course.
It was a rare submission so late in a UFC round – and it came courtesy of a tap from Albert (7-4), who had been immobilized belly-down after Jorgensen (14-6) flattened him. The dramatic finish snapped a two-fight losing streak for the Boise State University grad.
The former Division I wrestling standout leaned on his grappling roots early, taking down The Ultimate Fighter season 14 alum less than 30 seconds in. Albert, a Washington state product, executed a nice hip bump sweep from his closed guard but got greedy trying to take Jorgensen’s back, enabling Jorgensen to scramble and regain top control. The 30-year-old Idahoan, who fought for the UFC bantamweight title in 2010 but lost a decision to Dominick Cruz, landed some hard shots to Albert’s body and touched him up with some elbows.
Albert proved very crafty, taking advantage of Jorgensen’s aggression and trapping him in a triangle. Jorgensen was in some danger, but he stayed calm and did a good job of eventually regaining his upright posture and wiggling free. In the final 10 seconds, a scramble ensued and Jorgensen took Albert’s back with one hook in. It didn’t seem plausible that the end was near, but Jorgensen came up big in his race against the clock.
“I knew there was short time and I knew I had to squeeze my butt off,” Jorgensen said. “We drilled that because we knew we could take his back real easy, so…”
Jorgensen’s advanced scouting report was apparently right on point.
“He got the sweep early, I recovered,” Jorgensen said. “I was never in danger, I got a great jiu-jitsu coach. The triangle was very tight, but we knew he threw a lot of triangles and we drilled that every single day.”
SEATTLE – Benson Henderson, who has boldly voiced his desire to eclipse Anderson Silva’s record for consecutive title defenses in the Octagon, moved a tiny step closer Saturday night at Key Arena by shutting out No. 1 contender Nate Diaz over five …
SEATTLE – Benson Henderson, who has boldly voiced his desire to eclipse Anderson Silva’s record for consecutive title defenses in the Octagon, moved a tiny step closer Saturday night at Key Arena by shutting out No. 1 contender Nate Diaz over five rounds in the UFC on FOX 5 main event to retain his UFC lightweight belt.
The triumph marked Henderson’s second successful title defense, meaning the well-rounded Arizonan must now defend his title at least nine more times to surpass Silva (assuming Silva does not continue to win and raise that total).
“I’m not going nowhere!” the amped up champ yelled as he began the walk back toward his dressing room. “How many more do I have to win? 12?”
The former collegiate wrestler put on a wrestling clinic, taking Diaz down at will each round and landing some heavy leather on top. Henderson (18-2) also dropped the Stockton, Calif., fighter with an overhand left in round two and a booming right hand in round three. The latter shot came after Diaz had daringly dropped his haunts and taunted Henderson by yelling, “What!?”
As always, despite a badly swollen right eye, Diaz continued to scrap and mix it up the entire way. He threatened with foot locks and heel hooks but could not sink them in against Henderson, owner of some of the game’s best submission defense.
“It’s just a matter of being well prepared and being in the gym as much as possible,” said Henderson, noting he had entered the cage “with a heavy heart” because a teammate’s mother is battling lymphoma and another friend’s teenage son recently died in a hiking accident.
“Fighting is cool but … there’s a lot more to life,” he said. “Cherish your loved ones. Life is a lot shorter than we think. I fought with a heavy heart tonight.”
Judges scored the fight 50-43, 50-45 and 50-45 for Henderson, who has now won six straight.
One thing we know about George Lockhart – the guy ain’t lazy. He’s crammed a boat load of professions into his 29 years. He’s served as a sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps and as a martial arts instructor at the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, V…
One thing we know about George Lockhart – the guy ain’t lazy. He’s crammed a boat load of professions into his 29 years. He’s served as a sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps and as a martial arts instructor at the Marine Corps Base in Quantico, Va. He has fashioned an impressive 10-4 record as a welterweight pro fighter, most recently competing on this season’s “The Ultimate Fighter,” where he lost to Bristol Marunde in a bout where the winner assumed one of the 16 slots in the house.
A married father of three, Lockhart is also lead instructor at Brian Stann’s Warrior Legion Gym in Atlanta. These days, the chiseled and assertive Lockhart is best known as the nutrition architect for many amateur and pro fighters, including the aforementioned Stann and Rory MacDonald, who battles BJ Penn Saturday night in Seattle (UFC on FOX, 8 p.m. on East Coast, 5 p.m. on West Coast). Past Lockhart clients have included UFC light heavyweight champ Jon Jones and Kenny Florian. We caught up with Lockhart recently for his unique insights on fighter nutrition, touching on Rory MacDonald’s camp and how it feels to manage the diets of two fighters – Mike Easton and Raphael Assuncao – who happen to be pitted against each other this weekend in the city that gave us Jimi Hendrix, Pearl Jam, Nirvana, and Alice in Chains.
EASTON VS. ASSUNCAO
I’ve worked with each of them a long time. My job is to make them feel in top shape, and that’s it. I brought it up to them … everybody laughs about it. They’re cool with it.
ON RORY’S WEIGHT CUT:
The weight cut for Rory is a joke. He really doesn’t have a lot of weight to cut because he is very nutritionally disciplined. It’s not that he’s light – he’s actually a good-sized 170-pounder. He has so much muscle mass. But cutting 20 pounds for Rory is a walk in the park.
BREAKFAST
An hour before Rory goes to the gym he’ll have some Kefir (fermented milk probiotic), which is nothing but protein and probiotics, some berries, and a little flaxseed oil.
LUNCH AND/OR DINNER
Avocado, greens, spinach, quinoa. We advise our athletes to eat raw vegetables, but it’s up to them. My athletes will eat until they go to bed. You need energy from the moment you wake up until the moment you go to sleep. So you’ve got to fuel your body a lot. A typical dinner might be broccoli, cauliflower, a big salad, avocado, Mahi Mahi, Salmon, Tuna, or Tilapia.
Right before Rory goes to bed, during fight camp, he might eat 1 or 2 tablespoons of almond butter. It has fat so his body stays anabolic and has something for his body to eat off besides muscle.
STAPLES
One big thing we give fighters is fermented milk, Kerif, because it’s got a digestive enzyme. It has more probiotics than any other food out there.
Sodium bicarbonate, which is basically baking soda, is a leading supplement I recommend to increase endurance.
I recommend Chia Seed, flaxseed oil, which gets rid of inflammation. I don’t recommend almonds or peanut butter much because they cause inflammation. Omega 6 fatty acids cause inflammation. So we recommend walnuts, macadamia nuts because they have lower Omega 6 and more Omega 3’s. Now, understand, there are exceptions. During fight week they eat almonds because it has magnesium and it helps keep their Ph balance high, which allows their body to release water a lot easier.
Rory eats Wild Alaskan Salmon, which is higher in Omega 3s.
CARBS
During fight camp, hormones in the body change. During aerobic exercise, your body runs off mostly fat. Your brain runs mostly off glucose, so we have to fuel the brain. We have to fuel the brain without spiking insulin, so we eat apples, blackberries, strawberries, grapefruit, spinach, broccoli, asparagus.
The fructose will go to the liver without spiking insulin. If you spike insulin then your body will store energy, which if your body is already full, will be stored as fat.
PRE-WORKOUT
We give them simple sugars and easy-to-digest protein before a workout (either via Kefir or a shake).
During the workout they can have can have candy to prevent their insulin from going down. Licorice is loaded with dextrose. Rice Krispie Treats are awesome, too.
POST-WORKOUT
It’s not hard for an MMA fighter to burn 800 calories in a workout. After a workout we give them a fast-acting, simple carbohydrate such as dextrose or Fat Free Pringles. You want a 4 to 1 carb to protein ratio when you replenish the body. We like to use a protein shake with whey protein isolate plus dextrose because it’s fast-acting and easy to digest. Our athletes have a 20-minute window after a workout to take the shake. One hour later they eat a specific meal to recover.
ORGANIC
I have worked with guys from Jon Jones down to amateurs. Some guys at the amateur levels are just trying to scrape by so I’m not going to tell them they have to eat organic. If you’ve got the money, get the top grade stuff. If I see the benefit then I’ll tell my guys to get it.
But if you look at the hard science, I can see both sides. So I’m not really for (organic) or against it.
DON’TS
The biggest thing I’m against is hydrogenated stuff, trans fats. I don’t let my guys near that s—. I try to keep ‘em away from processed foods. So no protein bars, no white bread, no pastas, anything like that. Basically, if it comes from the ground, we eat it, with the exception of pharmaceutical grade dextrose and stuff like that.
HYDRATION
Brian Stann drinks 3 gallons of water the week before his weight cut (to train his body for water dump before weigh-ins). Rory will be closer to 2 and ½ gallons. He normally drinks 2 gallons a day. Yeah, they put down at least 16 pounds of water a day.
(Insert name of pro athlete ) Tears ACL, Out For Season.How many times a year do you come across that headline? It seems to be one of the most common headlines in sports, year after year.We immediately empathize with the limping wounded, of course. The…
(Insert name of pro athlete ) Tears ACL, Out For Season.
How many times a year do you come across that headline? It seems to be one of the most common headlines in sports, year after year.
We immediately empathize with the limping wounded, of course. The uncertainty that races through their mind jumps to ours as well. You ask – we all instinctively ask – the most obvious question: Will he ever be the same again?
We wondered that when UFC welterweight champ Georges St-Pierre blew out his knee last year. We speculated again when bantamweight kingpin Dominick Cruz ruptured an ACL during a training session in May. And we’ve thought about former light heavyweight champ Mauricio “Shogun” Rua, who has endured and defiantly bounced back from three ACL tears, and battles Sweden’s Alexander Gustafsson = in the co-main event on Saturday’s UFC on FOX 5 card.
In the case of Cruz, most unfortunately, his return to championship form was recently interrupted after another gut-wrenching setback. The 27-year-old San Diegan had hoped to battle interim champ Renan Barao early next year. Last Thursday, however, Cruz underwent his second ACL surgery in 8 months (on the same knee). A rough timetable for his recovery has been set at six to nine months, standard within the industry.
“He’s over the shock part,” Cruz’s head trainer, Eric DelFierro, said Tuesday. “He had an MRI recently and it revealed the ligament was basically detached. His body rejected the cadaver. It just didn’t take the way it should. From what the doctor said, the cadaver has a 20 percent failure rate in an athlete. Better to get it done now and just get over with.”
Cruz said on UFC Tonight (FUEL TV) Tuesday night that he reinjured the knee during light shadow boxing sessions with a teammate. He pivoted, mildly he thought, and heard a pop.
Far worse than the physical pain has been the emotional toll.
“It is like you get dumped by a girl that you love very much or you lost a family member,” Cruz said on the show.
Cruz choked up during the broadcast while recalling the outpouring of support from fans on his Twitter account @TheDomin8r.
“If the fans out there could know how much that helps me,” Cruz said. “Thank you guys so much.”
It will come as no comfort to Cruz, one of the sport’s most mentally stout and sincere figures, that his extended misery is not the norm. When the three most dreaded letters in sports strike again – sidelining an astonishing 100,000 or more American athletes each year – the popular knee-jerk reaction of “Will he ever be the same again?” assumes that full recovery boils down to a coin toss of sorts. But where ACLs are concerned, it is well past the time for popular perception to catch up with reality. And the present reality is this: An ACL reconstruction today is usually not career-threatening or career-altering to a pro athlete. In fact, over the past seven years or so the odds of a full recovery have heavily shifted in the athletes’ favor.
World renowned orthopedic surgeon Dr. Tarek Souryal, head team physician for the NBA’s Dallas Mavericks, spelled out that overwhelmingly positive trend during an interview with ESPN’s “Training Room.”
“It used to end athletic participation both on the professional and recreational level,” Souryal said of ACL tears. “Now with arthroscopic surgery and proper strengthening and rehabilitation techniques, the future is much brighter. National results show a 96 to 98 percent return to sport.”
Yet the doomsday stereotype among fans, largely unjustified by present-day statistics, continues to cast a large shadow because the sports landscape HAD BEEN littered with some very high-profile ACL horror stories dating to more than a decade ago. Men of a certain age remember a time when a violent buckling of the ACL derailed the career of Terrell Davis, culminating in his retirement at just 29 years old (yeah, the military-saluting Terrell Davis who was once voted MVP of the NFL, rushed for 2,000 yards in a season and led the Denver Broncos to two Super Bowl titles). We remember when Jamal Anderson of the Atlanta Falcons was never quite the same after ACL surgery. We remember when Ki-Jana Carter of Penn State University was drafted No. 1 in the NFL, tore his ACL in a preseason game and totaled less than 1,200 yards rushing over a seven-year career.
A prominent study by Dr. James Carey and University of Pennsylvania (Department of Orthopedic Surgery) studied NFL players who tore their ACLs from 1998 to 2002; one out of five of those players never returned to the NFL, the study found, and a sizable number of players who returned to the field saw a decline in production.
A decade later, a pro like Dominick Cruz, still grinding away in rehabilitation and deprived of what he most enjoys, will nevertheless be inspired by the large number of professional peers who have returned to their domains and dominated.
Evidence of this encouraging trend:
Exhibit A – The Beast who is turning everyone’s head and blowing everyone’s mind and whose sheer awesomeness is having the greatest universal impact to make everybody rethink ACL tears, Mr. Adrian Peterson of the Minnesota Vikings. Before wrecking his knee near the end of 2011, Peterson was widely regarded as the NFL’s best running back. A mere eight months after rising off the surgical table, the human freight train returned to the gridiron and has averaged a whopping 5.8 yards per game to lead the league in rushing. To which I declare, “Are you kidding me!!!??” Best believe that thousands of Fantasy Football players out there deeply regret passing on Adrian Peterson early in round one of their league drafts. I should know; I’m one of ‘em.
Exhibit B – Georges St-Pierre, UFC welterweight champion. What I witnessed Nov. 17 was truly eye-opening and the absolute motivation for this column. Think about it: If GSP had lost to No. 1 contender Carlos Condit, what would the storylines have been? GSP’s knee! His knee! His knee! Without a doubt, that’s all we would have heard about, not how dangerous and talented Condit is. The backup alibi would have been “ring rust!” … ring rust! … ring rust … referencing, of course, the Canadian superstar’s 19 months away from the octagon.
In the interest of full disclosure, I didn’t expect to see such a rejuvenated, well-conditioned and supremely confident GSP at UFC 154. Only 10 months removed from major surgery, I expected there to be some psychological compromise, some doubt in the recesses of GSP’s mind as to how his knee would hold up in a live fight. Some hesitation and huffing and puffing in round five seemed natural for the 31-year-old. After all, potentially career-threatening, right?
Let me tell you what – that might have been the best GSP I’ve seen yet. It certainly shed the most light on the strength of his character. Considering how deep GSP had to dig within himself, how he needed to pick himself off the canvas in the third round; it was definitely his finest performance, and it came when he needed it most and against the most dangerous opponent he’s ever faced. Whatever GSP may have lacked in timing while in the Octagon a few weeks ago, he compensated for with the most palpable fire to win we’ve ever seen from him. Prior to that night, even some of the champ’s most loyal supporters were left with the feeling that he was holding a lot back inside the cage and had much more to give. Certain comments seemed to shadow GSP even as he racked up wins. Rather than fighting to win, he seemed to be fighting not to lose. Fans still adored and admired the welterweight prince, but many couldn’t resist thinking, “His fights are boring …. He fights too conservative … But he doesn’t finish fights … But he doesn’t like to get hit.”
A blood-soaked, 25-minute scrap against Condit quashed all of those criticisms. We saw GSP in a dogfight, his face as marked up as we’ve ever seen afterward, and saw how badly he wanted to win. Unlike other recent title bouts, GSP laid everything on the line against Condit and made good on his pre-fight promise: “All those who doubted me will have a reality check, because I’m better than ever.”
Exhibit C: Jamaal Charles, Kansas City Chiefs. One of the NFL’s premier speedsters, Charles tore his ACL last September. Thus far in 2012, the University of Texas alum ranks eighth in rushing and is on pace for a very commendable 1,350 yards.
Exhibit D: New England Patriots QB Tom Brady. In the 2008 season-opener, the NFL’s then-reigning MVP went down with ACL and MCL tears. A year later, the game’s most famed sixth-round-pick-turned-superstar posted his second-best season as a pro up until that point and again made the Pro Bowl. Good as new. Like nothing ever happened.
Exhibit E: Tiger Woods. The greatest golfer of my generation underwent ACL reconstruction in mid-2008. The Stanford grad rebounded nicely and was ranked No.1 in the world through late 2010. Despite some other well-publicized hurdles, Tiger remains one of the top three golfers in the world.
An interesting aside: Dr. Neal ElAttrache, the Los Angeles-based orthopedic surgeon who performed surgery on Brady, also repaired GSP’s ACL.
More outstanding recoveries that signal the “New Norm” for ACL outcomes:
• The case of New England Patriots wide receiver Wes Welker. Tore his ACL in Jan. 2010. Eight months later started first game of the season and scored two touchdowns. The reception machine made the Pro Bowl that season and again in 2011.
• The resurgences of NFL running backs such as Frank Gore, Jamal Lewis, Willis McGahee and Edgerrin James, who each became very successful NFL running backs despite ACL tears in the early 2000s. These guys were actually pioneers who started to change perceptions, enlightening doctors and ACL-injured athletes about the possibilities for recovery.
Yet, for the most part, UFC fighters have rebounded well from ACL surgery and registered some of their best performances after having that all-important ligament stabilizer reconstructed. Some prominent cases stand out, including:
• “Shogun” Rua was out 16 months after back-to-back ACL tears in 2007. Though three major knee surgeries have limited the Brazilian dynamo to just nine fights in the past five years, Rua has knocked out Lyoto Machida (to win the UFC belt), Chuck Liddell, Forrest Griffin and Brandon Vera in recent years. And Rua’s dramatic five-round clash with Dan Henderson at UFC 139 is widely considered one of the most exciting contests in UFC history.
• Joe Lauzon, who tore his ACL against Jeremy Stephens during a February 2009 bout, returned 11 months later. The aggressive Bostonian has since fashioned a 4-2 record with signature wins over Melvin Guillard and former World Extreme Cagefighting champ Jamie Varner.
• Former WEC champ and UFC fighter Miguel Torres shredded his knee in mid-2002. The mullet-haired bantamweight returned over a year later, winning 17 of his next 18 fights to earn mention as one of the sport’s top pound-for-pound fighters.
• Like Rua, UFC vet Javier Vazquez suffered multiple ACL tears (famously rupturing his ACL while throwing a punch in the early seconds of a 2003 fight against Alberto Crane and amazingly fighting until the end to lose via decision). After a few years away from the cage, the Gracie Jiu-Jitsu black belt returned and scoring memorable victories over Jens Pulver and Joe “Daddy” Stevenson.
• Kurt Pellegrino, now retired, is another ACL success story. The scrappy New Jerseyian tore his ACL in the first round of a July 2010 match against George Sotiropolous, yet showed great determination to still finish the bout (losing a unanimous decision to the Aussie). Pellegrino returned to the Octagon just eight and a half months later, giving the immovable object known as Gleison Tibau all he could handle but still losing a split decision.
• UFC veteran Alessio Sakara, who fought in Montreal last month, tore his ACL in late July 2011 and returned to the cage eight and a half months later.
• Welterweight Duane Ludwig is presently recovering from a torn ACL he suffered in an October fight with Che Mills.
Other Noteworthy Points of Emphasis About ACL Tears
• Roughly 70 percent of all ACL tears are non-contact injuries that occur when an athlete pivots, cuts or plants sharply, or lands awkwardly on their knee
• Females are two to four times more likely than males to tear an ACL. This is due to many of them having a narrow channel where their ACL resides, and possibly hormone changes that can increase chance for a rupture during certain parts of their menstruation cycle (Source: Dr. J. Martin Leland, assistant professor of surgery at University of Chicago Medicine, quoted in “Science Life” interview for University of Chicago Medicine and Biological Sciences) http://sciencelife.uchospitals.edu/2012/05/01/qa-dr-martin-leland-on-acl-injuries/
• Fascinating: There are two common ways for orthopedic surgeons to repair an ACL – via an autograft (using part of a patellar, hamstring or Achilles tendon from the injured patient’s own body) or an allograft (donated, frozen tendons from someone else’s body). Several studies have found that ACL surgeries using the allograft or “cadaver” grafts – the same method used to repair Cruz’s ACL the first time — carries a much higher risk for athletes 40 years old and under.
“The allograft is still a good option for many people and probably works fine for people who have moderate activity and are really not stressing their knee, particularly in the first year or two after surgery, but physicians should be aware that it has a very high failure rate for young patients,” Dr. James C. Tucker told the Arkansas Medical News during a 2008 interview.
The Arkansas Medical News article referenced two studies, one from researchers at the University of Kentucky in 2007 and another Mississippi Sports Medicine and Orthopaedic Center study (2008). The Kentucky study found that with cadaver ACL reconstructions “37.7 percent (of patients) required repeat surgery (and) the failure and repeat surgery rate for patients under 25 was 55 percent.”
The Mississippi study chronicled 64 patients and found that 23.4 percent experienced failed cadaver graft surgery. Their findings were presented to the American Orthopaedic Society of Sports Medicine.
“The allograft (cadaver) failure rate in this young active population is exceedingly high when compared to the 2.6 percent failure rate in our previous study of patients older than 40 years old,” said Dr. Gene R. Barrett, a senior author of the study, told the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons (AAOS) Now website. http://arkansasmedicalnews.com/popular-cadaver-grafts-dangerous-for-young-acl-patients-cms-675
“From what the doctor told us, the cadaver has a 20 percent failure rate in an athlete,” Del Fierro said.
Cruz’s second surgery was not from a cadaver. Rather, it involved “a patellar tendon from Dominick,” DelFierro said. GSP’s ACL reconstruction was also repaired using a patellar tendon from his own body.
“I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy,” Cruz said a few weeks ago of the ACL recovery process.
Cruz is one of the most determined athletes in the world’s hardest sport. It would unwise to bet against such a driven workaholic who has already defied almost everyone’s expectations by becoming world champ in the first place (almost no one saw that coming five years ago). Most pro athletes recover well from ACL tears. You have to expect that Dominick Cruz, when it’s all said and done, will come back better than ever. Just as GSP did.
“Just want to say thanx to all my supporters through this humbling time,” Cruz posted on Twitter Tuesday evening: “I WILL b back 100% this will only be a stepping stone in my life after I push through.”
For further, interesting reading on the subject of ACL’s try these links: http://www.txsportsmed.com/acl.php
There was a time early in his MMA career, Chuck Liddell admitted, when Mountain Dew and Fruity Pebbles were his idea of The Diet of Champions. But, rest assured, Liddell wasn’t consuming cartoon character cereal and soda pop when he won and defended the UFC light heavyweight title. “I always ate a specific diet when I was training for a fight,” the retired 42-year-old Hall of Famer, now UFC Vice President of Business Development, said recently while awaiting a flight to Ottawa. “I cleaned up my diet a lot during fight camps, maybe the last 10 or 12 weeks before a fight.”
(Insert name of pro athlete ) Tears ACL, Out For Season.