If you want to perform like Conor McGregor, you’re going to have to train like him.
Well now you can – after the UFC featherweight champion released the training plan that helped him get in optimum physical condition for his rematch against Nate Diaz at UFC 196.
McGregor has released the Fighter Aerobic/Anaerobic System of Training (F.A.S.T) programme on his own Mac Life website.
This 12-week plan was born after the Irishman was forced to revolutionised his strength and conditioning work in the wake of his crushing defeat against Diaz at UFC 96.
McGregor’s fitness was found out in that fight as he gassed in the second round and found himself choked out by the Stockton native.
Sports scientists told us that McGregor was going to have to improve his lactate threshold (the point at which lactic acid increases exponentially in your muscles) and his V02 max (the maximum volume of oxygen an athlete can use) if he was going to survive another five-round war with Diaz.
But that’s exactly what McGregor did. In just three months he increased his cardio endurance to the point he managed to go five rounds with one of the fittest athletes in the UFC…and win.
Now he has released this training plan, which he says he developed with leading sports doctors and exercise physiologists, and anyone can try it.
McGregor explains in a video on the site:
In March 2015 I suffered my first UFC defeat. I was dominating he contest from a skills perspective, the contest was going very easily for me.
But midway through the second round my gas tank emptied and I could not clear the lactate from my body and I began to drown in the middle of the octagon. I eventually succumbed to defeat.
After the contest I questioned everything – I questioned my heart, I questioned and blamed everything.
What I done was I reached out to leading experts in the field of sports performance and devised a plan.
It took me 12 weeks to go from being unable to last two rounds to outlasting a triathlete with a weight advantage over me over the course of five rounds.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BL2AgPABkFV/
It’s clear that McGregor’s new approach to training his fitness levels was incredibly effective. There is limited information of what exactly the training plan entails on the site.
But it does offer a brief explanation here:
”The F.A.S.T system optimises the training zones specifically for you using so that you will get super high yield returns for the amount of time that you put in.
”By strategic timing of both aerobic and anaerobic workouts in the F.A.S.T system it is possible to keep training the stimulus ongoing for the different metabolic aspects but also allowing more time for the recovery of individual systems.
”This makes F.A.S.T training ideal if your time is limited or if you need to devote some of your energies into other sport specific training.”
What this means in plain English is it uses high intensity interval training (anaerobic) and lower intensity (aerobic) workouts to improve your performance levels and build up your body’s lactate threshold and V02 max.
The programme uses readily available gym equipment as the tools to build a level conditioning putting you in the ‘optimal training zones’, according to the site.
A heart monitor will also be needed to track performance through the three-month workout programme.
It says heart rate data is used to calculate your most efficient heart rate zones to work out, adding ‘by training in your personal target zones you will maximise your gains and minimise the risk of overtraining.’
It doesn’t come cheap though. If you’re looking to sign up it’s going to cost you $295 (€265).
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