VIEWERS WHO STAYED awake until the early hours of this morning to watch the second episode of the latest series of The Ultimate Fighter were treated to an intriguing look at part of Conor McGregor’s philosophy when it comes to training.
McGregor, the UFC’s interim featherweight champion, currently features as a coach on TUF 22, in which he’s guiding nine European fighters with aspirations of earning a UFC contract.
During last night’s episode, McGregor put his approach to training on show to the UFC hopefuls, demonstrating his preference for light-contact sparring drills over high-intensity padwork due to it being a more accurate reflection of a real contest.
It’s a policy that is obviously paying dividends for McGregor, whose striking is among the very best in mixed martial arts today. It may also be one of the reasons why the Dubliner is rarely forced to withdraw from fights with injuries, compared to some of his fellow UFC athletes who favour a more full-on approach throughout their fight camps.
McGregor explained: “MMA gloves, gumshields, t-shirts off… and that’s it. No shinpads, no nothing. I think this type of training right now that we’re going to do is something that we should do the most.
“It’s what you’re going to experience in there: the bare body, the gloves, no shinpads… it’s good for the mind, this one, because you can feel what it’s going to feel like in there, without damaging the body.”
His team were quickly on board. German fighter Sascha Sharma said: “I just love the way Conor trains. I just love the principles he’s trying to give us. He’s so athletic and he has such special movement, and you can see this while he’s teaching it to us. Now I’m starting to understand why he’s such a special fighter.”
After the session, McGregor said: “That was a perfect pace. What my coach John [Kavanagh] would say about a session like that is: ‘You’re updating your software without damaging your hardware’. So you’re not getting injured but you’re feeling the positions.”
You can read a review of last night’s episode here or watch it repeated tonight on BT Sport 1 at 10pm and Setanta Ireland at 10.45pm.
