If you’re reading this right now,  you are someone who wants to take their training to the next level and find the most efficient ways to reach your optimal fitness goals.

As an MMA conditioning coach I understand that combat fighters are some of the best conditioned athletes in the world. The intensity of fights are non-stop and one mistake can lead to defeat.

As important as skill training is, if you don’ t have the strength and conditioning to utilize your skills, then you are useless.

Developing peak overall physical condition is the ultimate goal while training for power, explosiveness, strength, speed, agility and muscular endurance.

This is where metabolic conditioning workouts step up to the plate and deliver.

You don’t need to be an MMA athlete to gain the benefits from these workouts. This type of training has become popular with fitness enthusiasts who want to improve their VO2 max, strength, power, and agility while burning fat and building lean muscle.

What Are Metabolic Conditioning (MetCon) Workouts?

Metabolic conditioning workouts use exercises that burn lots of calories during your workout and keep the body burning calories after your workout ends. They usually involve the entire body, short periods of rest and are designed to push the limits of your body to build strength and endurance while getting toned. The workouts below are some of the toughest and most challenging exercise plans on the planet, which means you, will improve your overall conditioning fast.

My metcon workouts are a mixture of burpee variations with strength, plyometric, core and abs movements. Each circuit consists of 10 exercises; five are burpee variations and the other five are strength exercises.

Each metabolic conditioning workout is full body and will target the following movements:

● Kettlebell or Compound Strength Movement
● Abs or Core
● Lunge or Squat
● Push or Pull
● Press

The burpee variations will also consist of these movement as well, making metabolic conditioning the ultimate workout.

The metabolic circuits consist of power training, plyometrics, strength and conditioning, cardio, muscular endurance and core development.

These metabolic circuits will help you improve your overall fitness – using your Bodyweight, Kettlebells, Dumbbells, Barbells, Medicine Balls, Stability Balls, Resistance Bands, Sandbags and other fitness equipment to jack up your metabolism, burn body fat and improve your overall work capacity.

The bi-product is usually a strong, lean and ripped body.

Finally metabolic circuits will test you mentally and push you to your physical limits. Be prepared for battle and DO NOT QUIT!

Metabolic Conditioning Workout Instructions

Perform as many reps as possible of each exercise for 60 seconds followed by a 15 seconds rest one after the other with no rest in between.

● Rest for 2 minutes and repeat for 3 Full Rounds.
● Workout Time = 41 minutes.

Warm up before and stretch after this workout.

1. MMA Metabolic Conditioning Workout

Exercise List

1. Side-to-Side Kettlebell Swings
2. Alternating Single Leg Burpees
3. Alternating Abs Bicycle Kicks
4. Plyo Push Up Burpees
5. Zercher Forward Lunges
6. Dumbbell Burpees
7. Barbell High Pulls
8. Speed Climber Burpees
9. Dumbbell Punches
10. Burpees

2. MetCon Exercises for Strength and Conditioning

Exercise List

1. Heavy Kettlebell High Pull Swings
2. Burpee Sprawls
3. Rotational Mountain Climbers
4. Side-to-Side Slalom Burpees
5. Dumbbell Side to Side Lunges
6. Double Burpees (2 Push Ups and 2 Prisoner Jump Squats)
7.  Stability Ball Roll Ups
8. Grasshopper Burpees
9. Ground and Pound – Alternating Dumbbell Rows
10. Burpee Speed Thrusters

3. Metabolic Conditioning Exercises – Metabolic Monster

Exercise List

1. Dumbbell Deadlift Curls
2. Slalom Burpees
3. Abs V-Ups
4. Double Knee Tap Burpees
5. Dumbbell Step Ups
6. Double Push Up Burpees
7. Hand to Hand KB Depth Rows
8. Quad Thrust Burpees
9. Alternating Side to Side Lateral Raises
10. Alternating Kick Thru Toe Touch Burpees

4. MetCon Workout for BJJ and Grapplers – Submit to Nothing

Exercise List

1. DB Clean And Press
2. Burpee Kick Thrus
3. Alternating Knee Hip Thrusts
4. Rotating Burpees
5. Goblet Lunge
6. Bunny Hop Sprawls
7. Inverted Rows
8. Rolling Burpees
9. SandBag Shouldering Side To Side Cleans
10. Burpee Thrusters Speed

5. Muay Thai/Kickboxing Metabolic Conditioning Workout

Exercise List

1. Alternating DB Swings
2. Mountain Climber Burpees
3. Stability Ball Knee Strikes
4. Med Ball Thai Power Thrust Burpees
5. Alternating Jump Knees
6. Burpee Switch Kicks
7.  Speed Push Ups
8. Tuck Jump Burpees
9. Shoulder 15’s
10. Alternating Burpees Knees

6. MetCon Workout for Fighters – Sucker Punch

Exercise List

1. Heavy Kettlebell Swings 36 KG.
2. Regular Burpees
3. Abs V-Ups
4. Alternating Knee to Chest Push Up Burpees
5. Dumbbell Thrusters – 30 lbs.
6. Alternating One Leg Kick Back Burpees
7. DB Renegade Row – 30 lbs.
8. Plyo Lunge Burpees (Jump Lunge Burpees)
9. Kickouts
10. Tuck Jump Burpees

7. Bodyweight Metabolic Conditioning Workout

Exercise List

1. Pull Ups/Chin Ups
2. Overhead Clap Burpees
3. Side-to-Side walking Plank
4. Sprint Burpees
5. Alternating Reverse-forward bodyweight lunge
6. Alternating Side jump burpees
7. Dive Bombers
8. 8-Count Burpees/Leg Split Burpees
9. Plyo Push Ups
10. Double Jump Squat Burpees

8. Gauntlet MetCon Workout

Exercise List

1. DB Deadlift and Curl
2. Pull Up Burpees
3. Bench/Floor In and Outs
4. Everest Climber Burpees
5. Alternating Barbell Lunges
6. Double Burpee Thrusters with Jump
7. Alternating DB Chest Press
8. Burpee Plank Raises (Bridges)
9. DB Front Raise
10. 6 Count Burpees – (Burpee – Push Up – Jump)

The post 8 Metabolic Conditioning Workouts for MMA Fighters appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Cerrone, who’s been fighting pro for 14 years, is 36. He has a wife and child now. And he’s struggled to stay in title contention in both the lightweight and welterweight classes the past few years. But with the same damn-the-torpedoes, devil-may-care attitude he’s always had, Cowboy might just be more dangerous than ever. Time hasn’t mellowed him, and family life hasn’t softened him. (He still wakeboards and races snowmobiles and dirt bikes days before big fights.)

On the eve of his bout with McGregor, Cowboy talked to us about why nothing Conor says can rattle him, why his heart is bigger than the Irishman’s, and why, win or lose, this ain’t his last showdown.

Onnit: Conor has to be your most famous opponent yet, and this is your most high-profile fight. How is that motivating you to train for it?

Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone: [Laughs] Nooo, I AM CONOR’s most famous opponent, buddy. He’s fighting Cowboy. Lucky him. I’m preparing the same as always. Making sure I’m having a lot of fun, enjoying fight camp. I’ve got great energy around me and a great team. I’m not doing anything secret, extra, or different. Same old song and dance, baby.

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Good luck to our favorite Cowboy fighting this weekend in Vegas. #UFC246⁠ -⁠ Help us wish @cowboycerrone good luck in the comments below! #CowboyUp⁠ -⁠ #onnit #getonnit #ufc #cerronevsmcgregor #cowboycerrone

A post shared by Onnit (@onnit) on Jan 14, 2020 at 12:15pm PST

You’ve always walked the line of training hard to win and doing things you enjoy to be happy. Does happiness have to take a back seat for this fight so you can perform at your best?

Hell no. I’m not laying off the extreme sports. It’s snowing up here and it’s snowmobile season, baby. But don’t let that fool you. Everybody thinks all we do is have fun at the ranch, but we train just as hard. We get it in.

Critics call you a “wild man,” but it’s McGregor who’s had a number of legal problems in the past year. Does that make you the good guy in this fight?

Oh man, I’m just as wild as him. I’m just wild in a different way. The thing that sucks is that there’s so many eyes on that guy. If he does something stupid that probably anybody else would get away with, he gets in trouble for it. It’s hard to live under a microscope all the time. I kind of feel for the guy, you know? But I’m just like him. I give my address to the ranch out all the time so people who talk shit can find me. Someday, someone’s going to show up [laughs].

But you’re a family man now. You have a wife and a kid. It would seem that he’s still out there getting in trouble in bar fights.

That’s just because I don’t go to the bars anymore. My wife won’t really let me go out. But seriously, my fun has always been extreme sports. I’d rather shoot guns, ride dirt bikes, than go out.

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Just autographing posters with danger! He put his mark on a few today. @dangeranddad

A post shared by Donald Cerrone (@cowboycerrone) on Jan 14, 2020 at 6:05pm PST

How can you get the American fans to support you the way the Irish fans have McGregor?

That’s what I want to know! I’m the all-American cowboy, baby. Jump on board. Let’s do this. Support your local cowboy. People have been asking me if I feel any extra pressure for this fight because I have America behind me. That is the only added pressure I feel going into this fight. I have an entire nation to support.

Conor has won in the past by making opponents lose control of their emotions so they make mistakes. What would it take for him to rattle you?

He couldn’t. He’d have to cross the line and say something about my kid, and he’s got a kid himself, so I don’t think he’d go that route. I’ve been down this road so many times [with trash talk], so it would take a lot. If he tries to bring up something I’ve done to make me look bad, and it’s true, I’ll be like, “Yeah, that’s true. I did do that.” But there’s not much shit he can talk about me because I’m pretty much a straight shooter and a good, all-American dude. There’s not much he can come at me with.

He’s questioned your heart in the past. He said that if you were willing to die in the Octagon you wouldn’t be able to fight as frequently as you do. You’ve got the most wins in UFC history, so what’s your reaction to that?

I go in there willing to die every time, man. Unfortunately, the refs stop it sometimes. I’ve got no control when a ref stops it. I’ve never once turned and given up. Im not sure what heart he’s speaking of, but hey, I’ve seen him tap several times.

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A post shared by Donald Cerrone (@cowboycerrone) on Oct 23, 2019 at 12:48pm PDT

What do you think is going to determine victory in this fight? Is it going to be his power, your cardio? Heart?

For sure, heart. For sure, conditioning. I’m excited. I hope he’s training hard because we’re coming. I’m going to unleash an all-American ass whipping.

You’ve always put entertaining the fans ahead of strategy. Do you think your most loyal fans would be happy to see you put on a great fight and lose, or fight more conservatively and win? At this point in your career, wouldn’t the latter be the smart choice?

No, I think the entire world would rather see me have a great fight and lose than fight conservative and win. That’s shit. I’d way rather fight my ass off and end up with a loss than go out there and touch and play and bullshit around and try to get a victory.

Win or lose, at age 36, it seems like you’re nearing the end of your career….

I’m in my prime, baby!

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Yup!!!!

A post shared by Donald Cerrone (@cowboycerrone) on Dec 13, 2019 at 5:42pm PST

But will every fight now take on a little more meaning, as there are fewer ahead of you than there are behind?

No, they all mean the same thing: nothing. It’s fun. That’s all it is to me, man. There’s no other place in the world I’d rather be than in a fight. I’m going to fight until they tell me, “Cowboy, you can’t come down here on that walker. It’s dangerous. You’re clipping people with your walker walking down the  aisle.”

You’ve said that letting people down was the hardest part of being in this sport. If you lose again, who would you be letting down now?

Nobody on this one. This one’s just for me. We got a solid camp, America will be behind me. It’s going to be unreal.

At this point, do you even need to fight to support your family?

No, it’s just for me. I’ve got money in the bank.

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Well I guess it’s about that time agin!! 🤠

A post shared by Donald Cerrone (@cowboycerrone) on Oct 8, 2019 at 2:09pm PDT

How do you feel about some critics saying that you’re just a gatekeeper now? That you’re a test for younger talent.

When you’re winning, people talk good about you. When you lose, they talk bad. But if we just step back and look at all the people I’ve fought, every one was either for a title or in line for a title. I’ve been top 5 my entire career. If I was just a gatekeeper, I’d be fighting guys way down the chain. I’m happy where I’m at in my career and I just want to fight my ass off and have fun. That’s all I can ask.

When you eventually retire, what are you going to do?

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Just me wishing “AMotherFuckerWoods” . . . . . Great moment caught by @thefoxidentity 📸 . O ya and my new @onnit shit is available soon It’s the one with BMF on the sleeve

A post shared by Donald Cerrone (@cowboycerrone) on Aug 31, 2019 at 8:21am PDT

Your wife is a doctor and you’ve joked that she’ll have to take care of you one day. Do you ever imagine taking a step back and letting her be the bread-winner in the family?

She’s the bread-winner already. So, hell yeah, make that money. You mean I could just play all day and not have to worry about nothing? Go get it, mama.

You’ve said that you’ll never let your kids play video games. What kind of life do you want your son to live, and how are you going to prepare him for that?

He’s going to learn how to build. How to play. How to fix things. How to ride and how to jump. Everything I did and more.

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I like to chug my alpha brain bc I’m healthy but still like to party. 25% off of Alpha Brain Instant until August 26th @onnit

A post shared by Donald Cerrone (@cowboycerrone) on Aug 23, 2019 at 9:56am PDT

What if he’s as rebellious and wild as you were as a teenager. How are you going to handle that?

Oh, he’s going to be. He’s going to be worse, for sure. He’s already smarter than me, so he’s going to be smart and wild and it’s going to be hard to question him because he’s going to have better answers than I did. I’ll be asking about what he did wrong and probably end up like, “Damn, he got me again.”

How do you picture yourself as an old man?

I’m going to be sitting on a porch talking about all the good old times with all my buddies.

You’re a man who’s had a million adventures already. What’s left on your bucket list?

I need to go to the moon. And I don’t mean on mushrooms. That’s all that’s left.

Watch UFC246: McGregor vs. Cowboy, this Saturday, January 18, on pay-per-view. Follow Cowboy on Instagram, @cowboycerrone.

The post Cowboy Vs. Conor: Interview with Donald Cerrone appeared first on Onnit Academy.

So… how was your day?

Clements, from Austin, TX, may have been well on his way to becoming another obituary on the 10 o’clock news, but he fought back to build a successful career, a healthy romantic relationship, and a clean life. That was comeback number one. Now, at age 35, he’s returning to professional MMA competition after a two-year layoff to fulfill the athletic potential he knew he always had, and nearly wasted.

Here’s how Clements went from “Wildman” (as he’s known in MMA) to a changed man.

An Unhappy Home

“My mom felt she couldn’t take care of my brother and me,” says Clements. Her departure left the boys at the mercy of their father who, though he worked hard to support the children, was “a hard ass” with an axe to grind. Feeling he had never lived up to his own potential as an athlete, Clements’ dad tried to live through his sons’ success on the baseball and football fields. “In his eyes, if we didn’t win, we didn’t do good enough,” says Clements. “And if we did win, he had a list of things we could have done better. He was always critiquing.”

The boys were brought up in a roach-infested apartment while their dad worked a series of odd jobs. When he wasn’t watching their games like a hawk from the bleachers, he tended to not be around at all. “One time, he left us with a friend of his and was gone for a week,” says Clements. “He never told us where he went, and we didn’t ask.”

Other family members chipped in. Clements’ grandparents were responsible guardians, but an older cousin he was left with was not. “I found out later that she had been abused,” says Clements, “so I figure she did those things to me because she didn’t know any better.”

Clements turned increasingly inward, and talking about it now makes him tear up. “There’s a family photo of us all taken around that time, and you can see that I’m not happy,” he says. “I’m the only one that’s not smiling, because I didn’t have anything to be happy about. I was learning to get harder. To not let people into my life easily.”

When he was in the fourth grade, Clements’ father got together with Terry, a woman who became Sean’s stepmom. She cheered him at all his games, never missing a performance. By high school, Clements had become a standout wrestler. He made it to regionals, but lost to a kid who had been the state champion the year before.

“My dad was pissed at me,” says Clements. “But Terry was proud.” In his sophomore year, Terry passed away from cancer, but the love she had shown Clements had taken root.

“I don’t want to lose what I have,” he says. “So I try very hard to keep friendships and stay loyal to the people around me. I don’t want people I care about to ever think that I won’t be there when they need me.” He adds that even when people disappoint or hurt him, he isn’t angry about it long.

“Growing up the way I did, I learned to forgive quickly.”

Fighting For Life

Clements went to Howard Payne University for college, earning a spot on the football team, but when he discovered how much he would owe in student loans if he completed his degree there, he decided it wasn’t worth it, and left campus in the middle of the night. His dad told him not to come home. As far as he was concerned, if Sean wasn’t going to play college ball, he wasn’t going to do anything.

Clements got by. He bounced around Texas, trying to find another way to play football. He tried out for the Laredo Rattlers, an Arena Football team, and impressed the coaches enough that they offered to help him go back to college. “My grandfather had just broken his hip,” says Clements, “so I wanted to stay close to him.” He got into Texas Lutheran University in nearby Seguin, and majored in exercise science.

Though he had been a straight-edged high schooler, Clements found alcohol in college. He had the same taste for it that his father had, often downing 15–20 drinks on a typical night out with friends. He brawled at house parties, and sometimes took his clothes off for a thrill, earning the nickname “Wildman” from his buddies.

One night he was partying in a bar in downtown Austin. He saw an argument get out of hand, and a man trying to hit a woman. Clements jumped in to slug it out with the guy when he felt himself grabbed from behind. “I turned around and hit the guy who was holding me,” he says. “Then I found out it was a cop.” Clements spent three days in jail.

Though estranged from his mother, Clements had nowhere else to turn. “My lawyers wanted five grand just to take my case, and another five if it went to trial,” he says. “My mom coughed up the whole 10 grand right away. I think that was her way of making amends for leaving when I was a kid.” Clements got away with four years’ probation.

He was off the hook legally, but the criminal charge made Clements, only 26 at the time, radioactive to potential employers. “Any job I applied for, they saw my record,” he says. It read: “Assault with intent to do harm.” Clements took what work he could get, as a bouncer and then a go-go cage dancer in gay bars ($200 just to show up, plus tips), and his drinking worsened.

At the same time, Clements reconnected with a friend he’d made from his days as a high school wrestler. Roger Huerta, another Austin native, was a fast-rising fighter in the UFC. Through Huerta and other friends, he met Aubrey Marcus, the soon-to-be founder of Onnit. The group trained MMA out of Aubrey’s garage, and it was there that Clements felt he’d found his calling.

“I believed I had the athletic ability to fight professionally,” he says. “I just needed to learn the striking game, which [his drunken scraps aside] I had no background in.” Clements began competing in amateur MMA shows, scoring a knockout in his first bout, and winning in five of seven contests.

And Then There Was Ashley

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Happy Birthday to the woman of my dreams @ash.nutrition ! This day is yours to do whatever you would like do feel free to take a break from the normal day to day responsibilities 💋. Thank you for be born this day 31 years ago!

A post shared by Sean B Onnit Clements (@seanbonnit) on Oct 19, 2019 at 6:24am PDT

By 2012, Marcus had started Onnit. He gave Clements a job in the warehouse, handling inventory to help him pay his bills while he moonlighted as an MMA fighter.

Two years later, Ashley Ortega, an Austin-based event coordinator and nutrition counselor, was working a promotional event for Onnit products. Since Clements was fighting that night nearby, some Onnit staffers convinced her to come along to the arena afterward.

“He won the fight, and I was surrounded by people who were calling his name and asking to take pictures with him,” says Ortega. “He seemed to be all about it. Like, ‘Yeah, I’m the Wildman!’ I’m not interested in anybody who has a huge ego, so I was outta there right after.”

A few months later Clements and Ortega reconnected—via the Tinder dating app. He recognized her from the night of his fight, and she saw from his profile that they had mutual friends. “His profile said something about the value of connecting with people, and that attracted me,” says Ortega. “He seemed down to earth and sensitive.”

“I don’t think I’ve ever gone on a first date where I drank so much,” she says. Clements kept ordering more booze, and while Ortega had a good time, she saw it as a red flag. “Drinking that much was super unusual for me, so I didn’t know if it could go anywhere with him.” She was so wary that she kept physical distance for a bit, communicating only by phone calls for several weeks.

“I got to know him as a person, and I started to really like him,” says Ortega. “But then I started getting phone calls at three in the morning. He was saying he was in such and such place and could I come and pick him up. I had to take care of him a lot because he was drunk and lost or stuck somewhere.”

“Sometimes she would actually come out and find me and stay overnight with me in my car,” says Clements, with visible emotion. “I started thinking about all the other girls I’ve dated and how many of them never actually put the effort in to be with me. Other girls didn’t take the time to stay with me or try to see the better side of me. They just moved on to the next person. But she didn’t do that.”

Ortega couldn’t deny her attraction to Clements’ sensitivity, which included an almost extreme reverence for life—even of the insect variety. When wasps and cockroaches wandered into his home, Clements spared them. “He’d just catch them and put them outside,” says Ortetga. “He really believes in karma, and he had this nice calm about him when he was sober. He was thoughtful and considerate. I thought that aspect was the biggest part of him, and that the drinking was just a bad habit.”

It was, in fact, a habit that completely changed Clements’ personality. When he got drunk, he’d become angry. He cursed at people, including Ortega, especially if they suggested he’d had enough to drink. He drove drunk, flipping his car over three times one night (although, miraculously, escaped with only minor injuries). When one of Clements’ best friends was stabbed to death at a house party turned melee, Clements mourned by drinking himself crazy and driving recklessly. Police pulled him over and arrested him.

“I had to rescue him again and I thought, ‘This is the last time I’m going to do this,’” says Ortega. “But when he talked to me about Hugo he cried, saying how he felt he could have done so much more to help him and prevent his death. Sean’s drinking was to deal with the pain that he had pushed down inside himself. It was a coping mechanism.”

The last straw came at Ortega’s sister’s wedding. She warned Clements not to get carried away, but he kept ordering drinks. When she confronted him about it, he lost his temper and punched through her car window. Ortega told him she’d had enough.

“She was going to leave me,” says Clements. “I had to make a decision about what was more important—someone who was going to be there for me, even when I screwed up, or continuing to drink and probably never finding a good path in life.”

Clements made Ortega watch as he poured out all the bottles of booze he had saved in his house. “When I tell somebody I’m going to do something, I stick to it,” he says. He hasn’t had a drink in two years.

In May of this year, the couple married.

Comeback #2

Clements became a trainer at Onnit Gym when it opened in 2014. Today, he works with a range of clientele, including women, day traders, and weekend warriors. Included in that last category is Brad Marcus, a sales director for Experian Partner Solutions. As Marcus neared his 49^th birthday this past summer, he decided to mark the event by competing in a strict barbell curl contest in Venice, CA.

“I invited him to come along,” says Marcus, “but I didn’t take it that seriously.” Clements did. Not only did he design a program that helped Marcus peak his biceps power in only four weeks, he accompanied his client to Venice and cornered him throughout the contest. “He brought a bar and bands out there for me to warm up with,” says Marcus. “He acted like he was coaching me for an MMA fight. He went above and beyond.” Marcus curled 150 pounds, finishing second to a competitive strongman who outweighed him by 60 pounds. “Now we have to figure out what I’m going to do to celebrate age 50,” he says with a laugh.

Clements turned pro as a fighter in 2016, debuting with a win in the Bellator promotion and running up a 3–1 record in the lightweight division over the next year. He trained with UFC veterans, including Urijah Faber, Danny Castillo, and Justin Buchholz. But a 2017 car accident herniated discs in his neck and lower back, leaving his fight career uncertain. He trained clients for the next two years and rehabbed his injuries, but planned to ease back into competitive athletics with a sprint triathlon, and, if that went OK, return to the cage in 2020. But this fall, a representative from Bellator called Onnit Gym’s front desk, offering Clements a fight on its November 8 card in Thackerville, OK. He accepted.

Clements will face Aaron McKenzie, a strong grappler fighting out of Rafael Lovato Jr.’s academy in Oklahoma City. Clements, who walks around at 185 and 8.5% body fat, will cut to 155 for the bout. “He’s a good matchup for me,” says Clements, “because he’s a grappler and I’m a wrestler. I’ve been out for a while, and he’s the hometown boy, so I’m definitely the underdog, but I don’t mind that at all. I feel better than ever. I’m recovering from workouts better than ever. And this will be my first fight where drinking is not a part of my life at all.”

At 35, Clements doesn’t have ambitions of being a world champion. He just wants to test his skills in another fight or two, and see where it leads him. “This may be his last fight, unless he gets offered a contract,” says Ortega. “I completely support him fighting, but I would like a family one day. He’s in tune with his body and what he can do, so I trust him to do what’s right for him and make the right decision when it’s time.”

Clements says his main priority is still training clients at Onnit. “Fighting is just a bucket-list thing for me,” he says. “If I have kids, I want them to know what I’ve been through, and I want to be able to say that I realized my potential before it was too late.”

If you’re thinking that Clements seems too nice to be dangerous, you may have a point. “Once the cage closes and the ref asks if you’re ready to go, the first thing that goes through my mind is that I don’t want to hurt this guy, because he’s never done anything to me. But then I shift into a mindset that says this is what I’ve trained for. This guy’s trying to hurt me, so if I don’t hurt him… But I don’t try to hate my opponent. I get amped up by thinking about my childhood. Things I did to myself, and things that were done to me.”

Because the traumas of his youth are never far from his mind, Clements is particularly motivated to help Austin’s underprivileged kids get more advantages than he and his late friend Hugo had. Every summer, he hosts what he calls “character-building” workshops at Onnit, where he takes middle- and high school kids through basic workouts and talks to them about getting an outlet through sports.

“I want to be someone these young men and women can talk to outside of school and their parents,” says Clements. “So they have a safe place.”

To discourage bullying, Clements reminds them that a kid they’re picking on now could one day become the CEO of a company they want to work for. “If you’re applying for a job, whether you get it or not may depend on how you’re treating that person now,” says Clements. “Because no matter how good you are at something, or how much knowledge you have, who you are as a person is more important.”

“The fact that I’ve survived everything I’ve been through makes me think I’m here for a purpose,” says Clements. “Maybe fighting is a way to get my message across. Maybe somebody will see me fight, or training somebody in the gym, and be inspired to do something positive.”

See Clements in action at Bellator 233: Salter vs. Van Steenis, on November 8. (Prelims begin at 6:45 ET, and are available on the DAZN streaming app.) Follow Clements on Instagram, @seanbonnit.

The post Wildman: How MMA Fighter Sean Clements Made His Comeback(s) appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Why then does Johnson, 32, get so little recognition? For one thing, he’s not as physically impressive as a Brock Lesnar or Tyron Woodley, and he’s not as outspoken or outrageous as Conor McGregor or Jon Jones—but he’s OK with that. The flyweight king is now fighting in Asia for the up-and-coming ONE Championship, where he hopes to dominate the flyweight grand prix (he’s already beaten Yuya Wakamatsu in the quarterfinals), and wind down his career with some of his most exciting performances yet.

We spoke to Mighty Mouse about the legacy he hopes to leave in MMA, his training and diet, and his first foray into martial arts—playing the Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat video games.

Onnit: You’ve said that you’re even more passionate about video games than you are fighting, and you’ve been playing for cash via Twitch, a live streaming service. How did you get into gaming?

Mighty Mouse: I come from a very poor background, so gaming was a very cheap form of entertainment. You could buy a used game like Mortal Kombat cheap, and I’d sit there for two hours playing it. I used to play with my mom. We’d play Super Contra for Nintendo together and beat it over and over. I just stuck to it, and now, through Twitch, I’ve got a way to monetize it. Gaming will always be a part of my life—longer than mixed martial arts will be.

Are there any games that frustrated you as a kid that you’ve been able to beat as an adult? Some of our staff recently beat Tyson in Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out, and it was a long time coming.

I just beat Ninja Gaiden II for NES, which I could never beat as a kid because it was hard as hell. It took a long damn time. And I didn’t even beat it legit! The way it works is if you lose to the last boss, you have to go three stages back and work your way up again. So I would save the game when I got up to the boss, anticipating that I would die, then die, and reload the game. It took a long time. A long time.

Yeah, too bad you couldn’t save the game back in 1990. Are there any characters you really like to as play as in games? Say, in Street Fighter or Mortal Kombat?

Back in the day, I liked to play as Ryu and Ken in Street Fighter. I played as T.J. Combo in Killer Instinct, and I liked Sub Zero in Mortal Kombat. Nowadays, I like Nash in Street Fighter because he’s good about getting in and out, closing the distance, and throwing projectiles. I kind of hope that’s what I’m like as a real fighter [laughs].

Speaking of real fighting, you’re widely regarded as one of the best MMA fighters of all time, but you’re not as well known as other stars. Why?

I think I’m just a plain-Jane kind of guy. I go home to my wife at night. I drop my kids off at school. I’m not on social media blasting people and saying derogatory things. And that’s fine with me. I’d rather have the respect of true mixed martial arts fans who love the sport than have to go out and cause chaos to get recognition.

You’re the first fighter the UFC has traded. Do you think that set a precedent?

I don’t think so. I think most fighters believe that where they’re at is the best place for them. Everybody’s journey is different. For me, I feel like I accomplished everything I could in the UFC and in North America. Now I have an audience that appreciates the smaller weight classes and a guy like me who lives by a code.

Why do you think the ONE Championship fans respond so well to you?

The average height of a male in North America is bigger than I am. I’m 5’3”, so I’m not for everyone. The Asians are generally shorter, so they relate to a guy my size better. And they have a long history of martial arts. It’s embedded in their culture like football and basketball are here, so there’s a bigger fan base in general.

They cheer for me loud over there and they’re not known for loud cheering. In my first fight there, I fought Yuya Wakamatsu in Japan. He’s Japanese, but the people cheered for both of us.

A lot of people seem to think that the weigh-in process ONE uses is fairer to the fighters.

When I fought in North America, I’d walk around at 142 pounds, and I’d cut down to 125 for the fight. Then I’d rehydrate and go into the Octagon at about 140. That’s very unhealthy, to lose that much weight in a short time and then blow back up. At ONE, the flyweight division is 135 pounds, so I only have to diet down about five pounds. And yes, the weigh-ins are more honest.

They do two weigh-ins, 24 hours apart. You can cut down, but they check your hydration. If you miss the hydration check because you’re dehydrated but you still make weight, it doesn’t matter. You have to do it all over again. You have to be hydrated AND make weight. And you have to do this twice. I don’t go into fights thirsty or hungry anymore, or needing sodium. Everybody fights closer to their walk-around weight. I don’t have to worry about going into the ring against a monster.

Joe Rogan once said that you fight “correctly.” You always move forward but you don’t get hit. Is that a teachable style?

It is. [AMC Kickboxing & Pankration founder and head trainer] Matt Hume taught me that. But you really have to teach yourself. That’s how Matt learned how to fight. He took things he liked from different fighters and he would make them his own. That’s what I’ve done in my career. And you have to fight smart.

I got into a brawl one time in the ring and Matt said to me afterward, “What the fuck was that?” I said I wanted to bang. It was the first time I had ever fought someone who was 5’3”, like me, so why not? He said, “That’s the stupidest fucking thing I’ve ever heard in my life. Why do that? Why give the person the opportunity to hit you and knock you out? You might get hit and not think you’re knocked out, but your body will shut down on you.” He told me my greatest attribute is being able to flow between different martial arts disciplines without being hit—so let’s use that and have a long career.

I’ve stuck to that since and I’ve been successful.

You were flyweight champion for six years. Is it a relief not having to defend that title anymore?

It is and it isn’t. I feel the same way now as when I was the champ. It’s a relief to not be champ but, at the same time, I feel pressure because I’m in a new organization and, with all the things I’ve accomplished, they expect me to keep on doing that stuff.

I hope I’ll have my best run yet at ONE. But I was champ for six years and I’m more about having a good time now. I want to enjoy my last few years of fighting. I think I’ll be out of the sport within five years. Georges St-Pierre is an inspiration to me, and he got out when he needed to. He was smart enough to leave before opponents started to build a legacy off of him. Everybody wanted to be the guy who could say, “I beat GSP.” I don’t want to be marked like that. He was welterweight champ and middleweight champ and then said, “What else do I need?” I hope I’m disciplined enough to do that when the time comes, and then pursue other ventures.

GSP said if you were in the same weight class, he thinks you’d beat the shit out of him.

I would beat the shit out of him! [Laughs] I think what made him successful has made me successful as well. I think if we fought it would be an amazing fight between two great martial artists, but it won’t happen in this life.

Right now, I’m looking for exciting fights and I’m excited about competing abroad. My next fight is in a ring as part of the ONE grand prix, so I have to train inside a ring instead of a cage. All the best guys ever—Anderson Silva, Fedor Emelianenko, Rampage, Cro Cop—they all competed in a ring and in the cage at some point in their careers. Most of them started in a ring in Pride [Fighting Championships], and I’m doing the opposite.

You’ve said that you feel ONE allows you to be yourself. Can you explain?

If someone were to come into Onnit and throw a dolly through a window, Aubrey [Marcus, Onnit founder] would tell the guy, “You’re fucking fired! You hurt our employees? You’re done.” But if Aubrey used that as a commercial to showcase [the pre-workout supplement] Total Strength and Performance—as in, “Look how strong it made this guy; he can throw a dolly through a window!”—that wouldn’t sit well with me.

When Conor [McGregor, former UFC featherweight and lightweight champion] did that, and he hurt UFC employees, the UFC used that footage to sell that fight between him and Khabib [Nurmagomedov, UFC lightweight champion]… I get it. You’re trying to make money. But at the same time, I watched that unfold and I was like, “I’m over it.” I want to fight somewhere where they’re not going to use negativity to build a fight. ONE doesn’t take fighters with criminal records.

Chatri [Sityodtong, founder and CEO of ONE Championship] is more focused on selling stories. He likes getting the hometown hero from a city or country and promoting that about him. The Asian fans love a humble guy who came from nothing and made something of himself. That suits my morals more. I go to work and I take care of my family.

What can you tell us about your nutrition regimen?

I use MCT oil a lot. I put it into my yogurt, and I’ll make a concoction of coconut water and Mineral Electrolytes, like a Gatorade thing, and add MCT oil to that. I’m really conscious of hydration, because I train so much and I don’t want to cramp or tear a muscle because I’m dehydrated. Breakfast might be eggs and oatmeal, and I’ll take krill oil with that, and spirulina. I take Total Strength and Performance before workouts. When I get home, I take the Key Minerals. The magnesium helps me relax at night.

I think MMA fighters should take supplements because our bodies are burning through nutrients all day long—magnesium, zinc, sodium. So by the time you get home at night, you need to replenish yourself. Some people are scared to take supplements, and I was one of those people. When I first met Aubrey, he offered to send me some supplements and I said, “No, man, I’m caveman style. All I need is beer, sex, and sleep, and I’m good to go.” But then, as I got older, I noticed that my body doesn’t recover the way it used to. I started taking creatine and I added the other stuff later.

How about your strength and conditioning?

Going into any fight, I’ll typically spend the first two weeks of camp getting in shape, getting my heart rate up to 150–175 [beats per minute]. The next two weeks we work on power and explosion. Then it’s two weeks of heart rate variability training, where I’ll do something as hard as I can, let my heart rate come down to 120, and then go again. I’ll do circuit training with exercises like jump squats, sprints, pushups on a med ball, pullups, and wall climbs. Do all that to jack my heart rate up, and then rest down until my heart is at 120 beats again.

See Johnson face Tatsumitsu Wada at ONE Championship’s Dawn of Heroes event, Friday, August 2, at 7:00 a.m. EST, on Pay-Per-View. Follow him on Twitter, @MightyMouse.

The post Q&A With “Mighty Mouse” Demetrious Johnson appeared first on Onnit Academy.

In addition to being a top-ranked MMA star, the indisputably beautiful Frey, of Arlington, TX, is also a radiation therapist with a master’s degree to boot. She visited Austin in January to co-headline the Onnit Women’s Sparring Party, a female-only event developed to build community and connections for female fighters of all skill levels. Afterward, Frey took time to discuss cyberbullying, body image, and education, proving that she kicks just as much ass in everyday life as she does in the cage.

Q&A with Jinh Yu Frey

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Friday’s are for flexing 💪🏼 right?! #champion #mma #invictafc #athlete #girlswithmuscle

A post shared by Jinh Hei Yu-Frey 유 진희 (@jinhyufrey) on Mar 29, 2019 at 1:01pm PDT

Onnit: What got you into fighting?

Jinh Yu Frey: Originally, I got into MMA just to stay in shape, but I’m such a competitive person, and I don’t really do anything half-assed. Once I start doing something, I’m like, “I’ve got to be the best at this!” [laughs]. Even if it’s just walking down the street behind someone, I’ll think, “I have to beat this person!” When I first started training, one of the girls I was training with was going into her first match and, watching her, I thought to myself, “I can do this.”

When you are in the middle of a fight, hitting and getting hit, what does it feel like to you?

It’s like a rollercoaster. I feel so much pressure, because I train so hard and my coaches have put so much time and energy into working with me. I feel that I have to do something amazing in there. At the same time, fighting is also very freeing. When I was younger, I thought I would be a regular artist. But fighting, being a martial artist, is still creative, and you still have a chance to express yourself and test your abilities. It’s a double-edged sword, because I’m so stressed out when I prepare for fights [laughs], but then fighting itself is so amazing because it’s my time.

What kind of supplements do you use to stay in shape?

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Thanks to all of you who took the time to vote, and thank you for supporting me on this wild journey.

A post shared by Jinh Hei Yu-Frey 유 진희 (@jinhyufrey) on Jan 15, 2019 at 10:55am PST

First and foremost, I try to avoid anything synthetic or not natural. I really like that everything is natural at Onnit. Alpha BRAIN® and New MOOD®️ are ones I use on a regular basis.

Your sister-in-arms, fighter and fellow Onnit Pro Tiffany Van Soest, has been vocal about taking on cyberbullies on social media. How do you handle internet haters?

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The quiet moments after training with @cynthiavancejp 🤣🤤🍕 @alliseeisgold said it best – Nothing tastes better than championship pizza. 📷: @enkrypt_losangeles

A post shared by Jinh Hei Yu-Frey 유 진희 (@jinhyufrey) on Aug 6, 2018 at 9:02am PDT

I try to look at the big picture. Maybe this or that comment is hurtful, but everybody is entitled to their own opinion, and not everybody is going to like me and what I do. But those people are not in my social circle. They don’t see the work that I put in or the ups and downs that I go through. They don’t see the obstacles and struggles. So what do they matter? Who cares what they think? Am I losing sleep over it? No.

I’ve actually had to tell my husband to stop defending me online. For a long time he thought he had to be my knight in shining armor and I’m like, “Stop. You can’t be on social media for three hours going back and forth with people. Just put your phone down and let’s watch a movie. Let’s hang out.” Social media becomes a problem when it takes up that much of your personal life. It doesn’t matter.

I usually get on social media just to post what I need for sponsors, and then I shut it down.

How did you balance your fighting career with school?

Man… I did not get a lot of sleep! [laughs] I thought I would fight until I got accepted into graduate school, but then I got signed by Invicta FC. At that point, I thought I would fight just until I was done with school. But Invicta was such a great opportunity, and I decided to keep fighting.

My Mondays were insane! I would get to work at 8 a.m. and leave at 3 p.m. Then I would run to UTA [University of Texas at Arlington], which was right around the corner, and I would go to wrestling practice for an hour. Then I would shower and drive to Fort Worth to go to more classes from 6 to 10 p.m. I was going for 12 hours a day straight. But I was passionate about everything I did, so it wasn’t as hard as it sounds.

Education is important to me, and I really wanted to get my degree so that I could have something to fall back on. Fighting was something I didn’t want to give up, either, because I was really starting to get some momentum in my career and there were so many great opportunities for women that weren’t there when I first started as an amateur. I think when you are passionate about things, you find a way to make it all work. Maybe you have to sacrifice a bit of sleep… or maybe you have to sacrifice a lot of sleep [laughs]. Maybe you don’t get a lot of time to do things on the weekends that you would want to do. You just have to prioritize and figure out what is important to you and what makes you happy.

You mentioned that you wanted your education to give you something you could fall back on. What are you career goals outside of fighting?

I finished my master’s degree and then, right after that, I quit working full-time, which I know is weird. Now that I have had more personal time, I really value that time versus being stuck in the 9-to-5 rat race. Once I’m done fighting, I would like to find a way to make a living, maybe teaching in a gym or something else. It would be great if I could use that expensive-ass degree [laughs] so that I don’t feel like it’s for nothing. But fighting is what I am focusing on right now. The clock is ticking! I have a limited amount of time that I can fight. I want to enjoy my later years, so, ideally, I would like to get out of the sport before I have any major injuries in my knees, back, or neck. I don’t want anything to happen that will be chronic or limit what I can do in my later years.

How do other women who aren’t fighters react to what you do?

It’s mixed, but I would say the reactions are mostly positive because cultural norms lately have really shifted. People want to see strong, athletic women. I still hear that I must be on performance-enhancing drugs or that I have the body of a 14 year-old boy, but I do what I love and my body is made to be a machine. I don’t care to impress anybody; I’m just here to get in the match and beat somebody’s ass [laughs].

Sometimes, when I dress up, I wish I could be more curvy and feminine, but this is what I got. This is what I have to work with.

What advice would you give women struggling with low self-esteem?

I think you need to find what it is that makes you feel beautiful, strong, and empowered. If I didn’t fight and I just had this straight, no-curves body, I would probably feel more self-conscious about it. But I’m fine with it because my body is a machine for fighting right now. I put it through hell, and this is the product. This is what it looks like so I can do what I love. So as long as you find what makes you happy, you will find acceptance within yourself.

You once said in an interview that many people think fighters aren’t smart and can’t do anything else. But you’re living proof that that’s false. How can we dispel that myth?

Get more people involved in martial arts. Martial arts speak to people from all walks of life. It is not necessarily just for people who are uber aggressive. Training is a great equalizer. I go to my jiu-jitsu school and have physicians and lawyers in my classes. The values martial arts teach speak to all people.

Outside of your sport, what are you passionate about?

Travel! I love to travel. I visited Iceland recently and it was pretty awesome. I actually spent the tail end of one of my fight camps there. It was a pretty wild experience.

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You know, cause it’s hump day and I have a thing for camelids. Experiences>things #cairo #pyramids #pyramidsofgiza #peru #inkatrail #kiss #adventurer #travel #backpacker #wanderlust

A post shared by Jinh Hei Yu-Frey 유 진희 (@jinhyufrey) on Feb 27, 2019 at 9:27am PST

How so?

The head coach was this seven-foot tall Viking and he would just be screaming at me in Icelandic! I had no idea what he was saying but I got the message. I thought, “OK, go harder!” [laughs] But Iceland was beautiful; it’s like a calendar everywhere you look.

Follow Frey on Instagram, @jinhyufrey.

The post Q&A with Jinh Yu Frey appeared first on Onnit Academy.

I would like to begin by saying that I don’t recommend that anyone should follow this way of eating for more than two weeks. As an athlete, you will not continue to see results with this kind of extreme eating.

These dietary suggestions are mainly for MMA fighters and boxers that need to drop 10-15 pounds in order to make weight. I don’t ever suggest that you should wait until the last minute to drop a bunch of weight because it’s not always safe and the weight can easily come right back.

People will, however, try anything, even when they know the dangers. Trust me, I’ve heard it all. Some people have told me that they essentially starved themselves for two weeks, some just drank lemon water with cayenne pepper, while others only ate protein.

All of these can be very dangerous. I would never design a nutrition program like that for anyone because it is not a lifestyle, it’s a temporary way to lose weight that will spare as much muscle as possible.

The reality is, when you go on an extreme diet and lose weight quickly, you will lose muscle along with the fat.

While you are dropping weight quickly, you will need to cut down on your training significantly, otherwise this will not work. When you drastically reduce your calorie intake, your training can suffer since you won’t be properly fueled for grueling workouts.

Use this time to train lightly while focusing on the easiest way to shed the weight. Keep in mind that the first few pounds that come off will most likely be water weight; the rest will be fat and some muscle.

For the next two weeks, focus most of your meals on high-quality, lean protein such as fish, chicken, turkey, eggs, or Greek yogurt. Because you need to reduce calories, you will need to go for the lower fat items.

Rather than 3 whole eggs, take out at least 2 of the yolks in order to lower the calorie content. Since MMA fighters, along with most people, live on the go and don’t always have time to cook, protein powders are allowed but should only be used right before or after a workout session.

Stock Up On Lots Of Vegetables

Reaching for the higher fiber content vegetables will allow you to feel fuller and more satisfied for a longer period of time. Always having vegetables on hand is an amazing way to keep your hunger at bay between meals.

For this plan, you will want to make sure that you are not stocking up on the starchy vegetables, but focusing more on eating the highly fibrous ones; i.e. cucumbers, spinach, celery, red peppers, asparagus, broccoli, zucchini and cabbage.

A few other things to keep in mind:

You will want to make sure to eat a small amount of fat. You can take a fish oil or a DHA supplement throughout this period. In the sample meal plan, I will include some natural, healthy fat sources that won’t hinder your weight loss.

Fat will be the one thing that you really want to measure out on this program. When eating lots of salads, it’s very easy to pile on the oils which can cause weight gain.

It’s important to measure portions throughout your two-week diet.

Water is Also Going to be Essential For You

When reducing your carbohydrates to this low amount, you will lose a lot of water as well as important electrolytes. Drinking clean water on a regular basis is mandatory.

You can add fresh squeezed lemon or just a touch of pink salt to each liter in order to add back the magnesium you are losing. You can add some pink salt (lightly) to your vegetables as well, but not too much.

I am a huge fan of fruit because they contain so many vitamins and minerals. For this particular diet, however, you will not be eating them very often. Fruit will primarily be your sugar source right before and/or after a workout. THAT WILL BE IT!

If you feel that you are going to fall off the wagon and develop a crazy sweet tooth, then I suggest that you eat apples, pears, and bananas as opposed to ice cream or cookies, but remember this is for only two weeks. Suck it up and you will get your reward during or after your event.

Depending on your starting weight and how much you have to lose, you can tailor these ideas so that they fit your specific goals. If you are a very large male, then you may need much more than what I’ve written down here.

On the other hand, if you are a tiny female, then you may need only half as much. Here is a sample day with a scheduled morning workout.

The Fighter Diet Plan

Wake Up
16oz Water with Lemon

Breakfast (Pre-Workout)
Green Protein Smoothie
1-2 cups Spinach, 1 banana, 1 serving of Grass Fed Whey, Sprouted Brown Rice or Pea protein powder, blended with ice and water)
1 teaspoon of Fish Oil taken separately (or 2 capsules of krill oil)

Post Workout
Organic Plain Nonfat Greek Yogurt
2 Tbs of Chopped Walnuts
1/2 cup Organic Blueberries

Lunch
Large Green Salad made up of 1 cup Baby Romaine, 1 cup of Spinach, 1 cup of Cabbage topped with Cucumbers, Tomatoes, Mushrooms
Protein can be mixed in. 1 Can of Wild River Tuna. Just tossed with vinegar, mustard, green onions and celery.
Dressing for salad can be LIGHTLY tossed with Olive Oil, lemon, and vinegar.

Snack
1-2 Red Peppers and 1 Sliced Cucumber
3 Hard Boiled eggs with 1 yolk

Dinner
1 bunch of Grilled Asparagus and Zucchini lightly tossed in Olive Oil and Himalayan Pink Salt
3-4 oz of Organic Chicken or Turkey grilled, baked, or slow cooked.
1/2 cup Organic Low Sodium black beans topped with Pico De Gallo

Evening Snack (Only if hungry)
2oz of Organic Chicken or Turkey
Sliced cucumbers and celery

Keep in mind that you can get as creative as you’d like with this program. Always remember to drink fresh water throughout the day. If you end up doing a very hard workout while on this diet, then you might want to sip on coconut water.

Stick to the main concept of low starchy carbohydrates, lots of vegetables, and lean proteins, along with some fruit and small amounts of healthy fat, and you will see amazing results. If you do try this program, I’d love to hear how it goes for you.

Good luck and stay focused!

The post 2-Week MMA Fighter & Boxer Diet Plan appeared first on Onnit Academy.

The life of Tim Kennedy is not for the faint of heart. Actually, it’s not really for anyone—except Tim Kennedy. The former UFC middleweight contender spent 15 years fighting in a cage while at the same time shooting terrorists as an Army Ranger-qualified, Green Beret sniper. When he found out he had made Isis’ hit list, Kennedy went on TV to offer the extremist group his home address and an open invitation to pay him a visit.

Though he’s now retired from MMA, Kennedy, age 38, still can’t play it safe. He’s risking life and limb like never before on national television with his new Discovery Channel show, Hard To Kill, in which he takes on some of the most dangerous jobs in the world to not only see if he can, but in the hopes that doing so will inspire you to do something amazing too.

Interview With Tim Kennedy: “They buried me in an avalanche”

Kennedy took our call at 12,000 feet in the Rocky Mountains—after digging himself out of an avalanche—and shared the simple secret to developing an iron will and an epic life.

Onnit: What do the bravest and toughest people you know have in common?

Tim Kennedy: A sense of humor, for one thing. Special Operations forces don’t smoke. They don’t drink very much. They have sex like rock stars, and they’re committed to their ideals. They’re not as different from other people as you think. It’s their ability to handle stress that makes them different, whether it’s gunfire, RPGs zipping by, or seeing death in front of them. They’re able to process that stuff in a healthy way. The further you get up into the tip of the spear in the military, the more similar you’ll see that all the guys are. It’s almost like it’s the same guy in a different body over and over again.

What is the ability that allows these guys to handle the kind of stress you’re talking about? Is there any way the rest of us can develop that, even a little bit?

Some of them are born with a predisposition to handle a lot of tough things. Some other guys learn how to do it along the way. But there’s no easy path. There aren’t really any drills you can perform or meditations that prepare you. It is a painful process that’s like the act of making a sword. You have a piece of steel that has a ton of impurities in it and you have to keep pounding it and heating it to get them out. It’s a process rooted in agony. But what makes it possible is committing yourself to something that’s bigger and better than you are.

What was that big thing for you?

I saw planes slamming into a building on 9/11 and I wanted to go and kill everyone who was responsible. That’s not an inspirational story—that’s a revenge tale. I don’t know that I want other people to be inspired by that because it was a motivation that came from thoughts of anger and vengeance, but that’s how it started for me. You know, everybody who goes into Special Forces does it for a different reason. People have a chip on their shoulder, like me, or they have childhood fantasies of being badass warriors that they want to realize. But all of that gets burned away in that refiner’s fire and the thing that remains is a love for the person standing next to you and an admiration for being part of something that’s more important than you are.

While I was able to make it through the selection process for Special Forces, when I got to my team, I didn’t deserve to be there. All of the guys there were faster, stronger, more educated, and better at everything than I was. I was the new weak link in the chain. And my aspiration shifted from someone out for revenge to someone who would be able to stand next to those other warriors with his head held high. All the guys who want to get there just so they can look cool and say that they’re a Navy SEAL or a Green Beret, they don’t last. Ever.

Can you put that in civilian terms? What could motivate the average man or woman to be mentally tough and capable of heroic achievements?

People just need to be committed to being better versions of themselves for something or somebody. That might be their kids or wife. They might want to take a trip to Africa to dig a well or work for a non-profit that feeds the poor. It might be working with PTSD vets. To be a better version of yourself, you need something positive to work for and a willingness to make sacrifices in the process.

Let me talk a little bit about sacrifices. I get up at 5:30 every morning and go to bed at 11:30 at night. I work out two or three times a day. I go to the shooting range four or five times a week. And any time that I’m not doing those things, I’m with my family. It’s just discipline. If you want to get in shape so you can be a better provider, a better protector for your family, maybe your sacrifice is getting up 30 minutes earlier so that you can do 50 pushups, 50 situps, and take a walk before you have to leave for work. Maybe you decide you’re going to give up donuts or that shitty coffee from Starbucks. When you want to change your life, it’s a matter of picking small battles that you can win in the beginning. You win one, and then you pick another battle and another.

How do you avoid being weak and succumbing to temptation?

Those little battles you win, the good decisions you make, add up over time and keep you moving in the right direction. It’s also about putting yourself in positions where you won’t be tempted and it’s easier to make the right decision. If you’re married, and you believe in monogamy, and you’re traveling for work, you may have to decide not to go to the hotel bar at the end of the day. Don’t order that second drink. Don’t invite the intern who’s working the convention with you to dinner. Those little decisions will set you up for success.

Another example: if you know you like fried food, choose a different route on your way home so that you don’t drive by Chick-fil-A. When you get up that morning, give the money you’d usually spend on a sugary Starbucks coffee to your kid so that he or she can get something at the cafeteria that’s healthy. Those decisions are discipline. It’s a circle that builds on itself. The bigger decisions are easier when you’ve made the little ones.

For myself, I schedule training partners for my workouts so that if I don’t show up at the gym that day, I’ll hear about it for weeks to come. And because I know I’m training later, I’m going to decide to have a healthy breakfast that morning. To make sure I get up early to make breakfast, I’m going to go to bed at a decent time the night before. Then, because I have to go to bed early, I’m going to make sure I take care of my wife so we can both sleep beautifully and wake up and have a good day. You see how these things complement each other? One thing builds on another and life keeps getting sweeter and better.

Over time, you get stronger and faster. And then, maybe, one day when you’re in Las Vegas at a concert and gunfire starts, you’re going to be able to do the right thing. Maybe you can put a tourniquet on somebody who’s been shot or pick them up and run to an ambulance before they bleed out.

You’re not overseas at the moment, but you’re still risking your life for your Discovery Channel show, Hard To Kill. Can you describe what it entails?

I’m in the Rockies right now shooting it. I’m at almost 12,000 feet elevation. I took a PT [physical training] test where I ran a mile with a 2,000-feet elevation change wearing a backpack that had 50 pounds of weight in it. After that I went to the bottom of a hill and dug into the side of it and they made an avalanche collapse on top of me so that I was buried under the snow.

The only way it’s possible for me to do these things is because of the little choices I made years ago. They build a foundation from which you can do extraordinary things.

What brought you up there? What are you hoping to accomplish with the show?

There are ski patrol guys here who use explosions to cause controlled avalanches so that they don’t have uncontrollable ones that kill hikers or skiers. It’s a crazy, dangerous job, and they save so many lives every year. My mission was to come here and experience what it’s like to be them on their best and worst days.

Sounds terrifying! Why risk your life like this, after all you’ve already been through?

There are these groups of people—like these ski patrollers—that nobody recognizes, appreciates, or cares about. But they do remarkable, special things, every day. People go skiing, they get on the slopes, and they think, “This is a beautiful day.” They never realize that there was somebody there earlier that morning at sunrise risking their life before the lifts even open to try to make it safe so that other people can enjoy themselves.

Pilots are another group. Everybody walks onto a 747 anxiously awaiting their peanuts and beverage service, but they don’t think about the guy who, 100 years ago, got into the cockpit of a machine that had never been flown before and said, “Fuck it, I’ll give it a whirl.” There are no crash test dummies for an airplane. There’s just a pilot with a big set of balls. So, what I’m saying is, there are all these jobs that people are doing that make America this amazing place. I am trying to pay homage to the people that do these things that allow us to get up, have a cup of coffee, drive our kids to school, and live blissfully. The reality is that we’re able to do those things because there’s someone else who is bleeding, sweating, and getting buried alive so that you can do them.

Why should I be the one to pay that homage? Because all of those other things that I’ve done in my life—all those decisions I made—have prepared me to do things that most people can’t do. So I’m the man for the job.

How do you control fear?

Everybody has fear. Last week, for the show, they put me inside of an R22 helicopter and they took me out over the ocean in the arctic and they crashed the helicopter into the water. I had to get out of my seatbelt, take off my headset, escape the helicopter, and swim to an iceberg. Do you think I was scared to have that helicopter plunge into 34-degree water? Damn right. But the thing that made me know I wouldn’t freeze to death or hyperventilate or drown was, again, all the little decisions I’d made before. You control fear by asking yourself what you’ve done in preparation.

Lots of guys fancy themselves bad asses. Is there some kind of test people can take to measure their readiness as a warrior?

You should be able to pick up your kids and run as far as necessary till they’re safe. You should be able to protect your wife. When somebody comes to take what’s yours, you should be able to stop them. Those are the standards of measurement that I would use to describe somebody as a warrior. It’s not being able to do 100 pushups. It’s more like, if you walk into my house and I didn’t invite you, you’re going to be going out the same door you came in and nobody behind me is going to get hurt because I have the physical capability to defend them.

You’ve sacrificed and devoted so much of your life to protecting America and Americans. Does it bother you that so many of us are ungrateful, effete, and unable to do the things you just described?

No. It’s all about potential. We as a people still have the potential to do the things that made us the greatest country in the world. To do the things that put us on the moon, that built the Golden Gate bridge, dug the Panama canal, and stopped fascism and communism. The people I see today are the same people who did those things then.

Have you reached your full potential yet?

No. I’m just getting started. I think with the platform that I have on TV, the opportunity I have to affect people’s lives is going to continue to grow. And personally, I still think I’m going to get stronger, I’m going to get faster, and I’m going to shoot better. I’m going to be a more dangerous version of myself. Plus, I’ll be a better father and brother, a better lover to my wife, and a better teammate.

Watch for Tim Kennedy’s new show, Hard To Kill, debuting July 31 on The Discovery Channel. Visit Kennedy at timkennedy.com and follow him on Instagram, @timkennedymma

The post Interview With Tim Kennedy: “They buried me in an avalanche” appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Gi training involves a lot of grabbing collars, lapels, and sleeves, so it’s a crazy forearm workout. My hands and forearms were constantly sore to the point where I would have to submerge my hands in ice water.

The Kettlebell Solution for Jiu-Jitsu

Enter the kettlebell, I was introduced to kettlebells, and I developed my Kettle-Jitsu training system. This reinvigorated my love for training (at least the conditioning aspects of it). Along with the gi, it is the best tool for increasing grip strength and conditioning. Below is sample template on how I incorporate the kettlebell into my class’s training week, using the kettle-jitsu technique.

Step 1: Warm Up for Kettlebell Training

My classes always start with a 10 to 15-minute joint mobility/light bodyweight warm up. The goal of this portion of the workout is to increase your core temperature by performing basic movement skills and calisthenics. Once you’ve broken a sweat and your muscles are warm, I suggest performing ground-based mobility drills. This will ensure no injury will occur during your kettlebell workout.

Step 2: Movement Practice for Kettlebell Workouts

Once you are nice and loose, it’s time to mimic the actions in the ring with 3 to 5, 1-minute rounds of Shadow-Jitsu (the bodyweight training variation of Kettle-Jitsu) combinations. Some combinations you could use for your Shadow-Jitsu workouts can be seen here:

Step 3. Kettlebell Workout Schedule for Jiu-Jitsu

We then do a light kettlebell warm up, followed by 3 to 5, 2-minute rounds of kettlebell circuits. Below is an example of how you could organize your training week:

Monday: dynamic warm-up/mobility; Shadow-Jitsu; double kettlebell training
Wednesday: dynamic warm-up/mobility; Shadow-Jitsu; a heavy single kettlebell routine
Friday: dynamic warm-up/mobility; Shadow-Jitsu; light kettlebell routine

If I’m feeling my oats, I will squeeze in another day of kettlebell and bodyweight. This is the general format I have been using at my gym for some time now, and everyone loves it! Both my women’s and men’s classes have been packed!

Step 4. Get Started Adding Kettlebell Workouts into Your Jiu-Jitsu Schedule

3-4 days of kettlebell training should not interfere with recovery for your grappling or fight training. If you want to improve your grip strength and take your MMA or BJJ game to the next level, it is essential you incorporate the kettlebell into your training week. Incorporating the kettlebell into your training will greatly benefit you, unfortunately not so much for your opponent! Give these two workouts a shot next time you have a chance:

Kettle-Jitsu Kettlebell Workout

Double Kettlebell Workout with Kettle-Jitsu

The post 4 Steps to Add Kettlebell Workouts for Jiu-Jitsu into Your Schedule appeared first on Onnit Academy.

A twangy acoustic guitar starts playing behind me and a country voice begins to sing: “If I could have a beer with Jesus…” I’ve been exploring the 40-acre BMF Ranch in Edgewood, New Mexico, and now, sensing from the music that its owner is beginning to unwind, I follow the sound inside the sprawling ranch house. I pass a plaque in the kitchen titled “The Code of the West,” a frontier-style 10 Commandments that outline how Donald Cerrone lives his life.

I make note of them and walk past a taxidermied rattlesnake and trophy antlers to find Cerrone—a man who, with one more win, ties the legendary Georges St. Pierre for the second most victories in UFC history. He’s redoing the trim on a windowsill in his guest bedroom.

Take Pride in Your Work

Cerrone is the kind of fighter that hardly exists anymore. He’s willing to fight anyone, anytime, anyplace, and while that’s a macho cliché, Cerrone actually has it written on his sandals. “Any” appears on the right shoe, while “one,” “time,” and “place” are printed on the left. (Probably not an item available at your local Walmart.)

Cerrone, whose mixed martial arts record is 31–7, is arguably the most exciting fighter in the UFC, and certainly the most active, logging four bouts per year since 2013. He’s renowned for taking fights on only a few days’ notice, winning them more often than not. He’s fought practically everyone who is anyone—Nate Diaz, Anthony Pettis, Eddie Alvarez—in both the lightweight and welterweight divisions.

No matter what you look for in a fighter as a fight fan, Cerrone has it covered. You want raw savagery? Watch his merciless leg kicks on a downed Myles Jury at UFC 182. Heart and gameness? See his recovery from an early attack by Melvin Guillard at UFC 150, when he came back with a head kick to set up the KO. Most recently, he enunciated his technical prowess with the awe-inspiring jab, cross, hook, and kick combination that gave Rick Story—his last victim at UFC 202—an unhappy ending. Cerrone has earned bonus payments for outstanding performances a record 18 times—the most in the history of Zuffa (former parent company of the UFC and its offshoot WEC).

He’s the rare type of athlete who would rather lose fighting his way than eke out a win by any means necessary, and he refuses to fight conservatively for fear of disappointing fans. By all logic, Cerrone should be only a win or two away from a welterweight title shot.

And yet the man dubbed “Cowboy” because of his straw hats and flair for riding bulls in rodeos seems, at the moment at least, far more interested in finding his tape measure than in talking about his next opponent. (Cerrone is set to face Matt Brown at UFC 206 on December 10.)

“I always thought supplements were bullshit, but I tried them for 20 days and damn, man, I honestly feel the difference. I wake up not as sore. I have more drive to train. When I take the Total Strength and Performance and the Shroomtech, it gives me energy without Red Bull or candy. Experimenting with Alpha BRAIN® and New MOOD® have helped too. “My mood is more consistent. I’m more focused. I feel fucking good.”

I ask him about the street fights, his grandmother who at age 80 still attends all his fights, and how he came to own this massive expanse 30 minutes east of Albuquerque. Flies that have wandered in from the stable just outside the front door to the house (where Cerrone keeps three horses, two pigs, geese, and goats) buzz around our heads. Animal skulls from past hunting expeditions lie on a dresser, baring their fangs at us and almost staring with their hollow eye sockets. Several elite MMA fighters that comprise Cerrone’s team wander in and out of the house performing various construction tasks for their host. And, of course, Thomas Rhett is blaring on the stereo. But it’s my questions that seem to be distracting Cerrone.

“Who measured this? Jesus!” he exclaims, reacting to a piece of trim he knows full well he measured and cut himself but mysteriously does not fit the window. He could easily blame me for taking his mind off the project (please don’t knock me out, Donald), but he just shakes his head and goes back to the living room and its rotary saw to cut the plank again. “We do it nice because we do it twice,” he says. “That’s the motto around here.”

As an undersized kid (Cerrone claims he was little more than 100 pounds throughout high school), he felt the need to prove himself regularly—usually with his fists. He was diagnosed with ADD, and when Cerrone’s rebelliousness became more than his parents could tolerate, they sent him to live with his paternal grandparents in Denver at age 14. Cerrone doesn’t blame them. “I was the worst kid ever,” he says.

With his grandparents, however, Cerrone received unconditional love. “Whatever I wanted to be or do my grandparents would support me 100%. I got into magic as a kid and they bought me all the expensive tricks. I wanted to go four-wheeling, so my grandpa built me a machine.” When he got interested in bull riding they attended every rodeo, and when he had his first pro kickboxing match they flew to New York City to see him compete (he won).

“They never really cared about me fucking up. Whenever I got in trouble my grandmother would always say, ‘You know what you did.’” Acknowledging his own mistakes had the effect of making Cerrone feel more accountable, and he believes it helped save him from himself. “I could never lie,” he says.

When You Make a Promise, Keep it

In between answers Cerrone has been finishing the windowsill. His jiu-jitsu coach is on his patio staining the wood Cerrone cuts with Minwax and it’s coming together nicely. I shouldn’t be surprised. Cerrone has built almost every structure on his property himself since he bought it in 2008, with some help here and there from fighters he’s mentored along the way. He installed the electrical lines and plumbing too, but he downplays the accomplishment.

“It’s all from being a fuck up,” he says. “When you can’t hold one job, you learn a lot of jobs. You learn how to plumb. You learn roofing.” Cerrone still relied on construction work well into his tenure at the WEC—the smaller organization that the UFC used as a farm system for talent in lighter weight classes, until the two merged in 2010. These skills are just a few of many abilities he hopes to foster in the up and coming fighters he welcomes out to the ranch twice per year.

“I loved street fighting because I didn’t have to think about it beforehand. You’d be at a bar, see somebody, and be like, ‘What’s up, motherfucker?’ and just fight. This next fight I have [with Matt Brown], I have to think about him every day. It’s the fear of letting everyone down. That’s the hardest part of the sport.”

For $1000, green MMA pros can ascend the nearly 8,000 feet above sea level to the BMF Ranch (if you know anything about Cerrone, the meaning of the initials should be obvious) and train with Cowboy. They also get access to the nearby Jackson-Wink MMA Academy, which originally drew Cerrone to New Mexico and remains his primary fight camp. When they’re not learning the fight game, the men will learn the trades that kept Cerrone going until his UFC career took off. They live in a two-level 54’x24’ dorm—food is included—and can pick Cerrone’s brain on everything from fight strategy to how to obtain sponsorship and good management; “I tell them what to do and what not to do,” says Cerrone, whose Octagon success has allowed him to invest what he estimates to be upwards of $400,000 in the ranch over the past eight years. Guests usually stay for a month, and past visitors have included welterweight Jonavin Webb and rising UFC lightweight Paul Felder.

Cerrone started the ranch as a business, but his generosity to struggling fighters makes it impossible to turn a profit. He says he doesn’t make any money on his coaching. Fortunately, he does on his pigs. “I can get $400 for that one,” he says pointing to an obese hog that waddles past the window. Assuming he doesn’t eat it himself first.

Do What Has To Be Done

Cerrone has finished the windowsill and even hung some curtains over it. With his domestic duties complete for the day, he’s ready to do some training. Erik “Esik” Melland, Onnit’s master steel mace coach, is staying at the ranch tonight. He introduced Cerrone to the steel mace a few months ago—a thick bar with a solid round ball on one end, akin to something you’d imagine one of Cerrone’s ancient ancestors using to cave in a skull during a village raid. The fighter took to it right away, and Esik is going to lead Cerrone and his buddies through a mace workout that he can then incorporate into his strength and conditioning going forward.

The fighters gather in Cerrone’s gym, a separate building across from the house that includes a regulation-sized Octagon. “Mama Tried,” by Merle Haggard, plays on the stereo. Each grabs a mace as they assemble on the mat in a circle to turn their attention to Esik in the center, who shows them how to swing it. The movements are effective for opening the shoulders and improving range of motion, and the off-set nature of the load—the ball is on one side only—forces maximal core tension to prevent loss of balance.

“It builds grip strength and rotational power,” says Esik, “which translates to striking, wrestling, and jiu-jitsu.” Just holding onto the mace so the momentum doesn’t cause it to fly out of your hands and kill someone nearby provides a grip workout. “It’s primal,” adds Esik. “It builds confidence in what your body can do.”

After about a minute of mace work, Cerrone pretends he is ready to tap. “Anybody need a break?,” he asks his men. “It’s hard isn’t it?” Admittedly, it is, but it feels as if the levity is a way to pull himself out of the fire, which makes me think of one of the harshest criticisms fans and pundits alike have leveled against him: he doesn’t take fighting seriously enough.

“We’re coming into turkey season right now, and then it’s pheasant and duck. If someone called me tomorrow and said let’s go hunt this weekend, I’d be fuckin’ out of here.”

“I’m the biggest pussy in the fuckin’ world,” Cerrone says, again being self-effacing and vulnerable. It’s not what you expect from a man who buzz-sawed through 11 of his past 12 opponents as easily as he did the lumber he used to build his windowsill. Is Cerrone—deep down—hungry enough to win the world title we all know he possesses the raw talent to? Or does he lose focus, give in to temptation, and let opportunities go by?

Much has been written about Cerrone’s wild life outside the cage. He says that he hasn’t gotten on a bull in two years since UFC president Dana White forbade him to, but he still wakeboards, hunts, sky dives, and enjoys a drink or two (as well as fruit rollups) whenever the mood strikes him—even on days leading up to a fight.

I ask him if he can live up to his potential dividing his time like that, and taking potentially career-ending risks.

“I don’t know,” he says, turning his head away. “I guess that remains to be seen.” And while I hear a twinge of doubt in his voice, I don’t hear regret. “We’re coming into turkey season right now, and then it’s pheasant and duck. If someone called me tomorrow and said let’s go hunt this weekend, I’d be fuckin’ out of here.”

It’s talk like that that has led to White making comments that Cerrone is “inconsistent,” failing to win the big fights when his career is most in need of them, such as his lightweight title shot against Rafael Dos Anjos (Cerrone lost by TKO) and against perennial contender Nate Diaz (a performance that nonetheless earned “Fight of the Night” honors).

Cerrone doesn’t disagree, but counters that life is about more than fighting, and so is he. “I’m sure if I dedicated my life solely to it I’d be great, but I’m young and there’s too much life to be lived. Being the greatest in the world sounds good but it takes more than people think, and maybe it’s not that fulfilling.” But maybe it is.

Remember That Some Things Aren’t For Sale

According to Hector Munoz, Cerrone’s jiu-jitsu coach and training partner since 2007, Cowboy’s problem isn’t that he needs to buckle down—rather, he has to lighten up. “What he needs to work on most is just believing in himself. He’s already figured out the formula.”

With 10 years of pro MMA experience under his belt, Cerrone has the technique and mindset he needs to win, and he’s never lost a fight due to poor conditioning, or—God forbid—quitting on himself. None of his coaches or training partners have ever reported him showing up to workouts hungover, or even late. And since Cerrone’s move from the 155-pound division to 170, which is closer to his natural walk-around weight of 175–180, Munoz says he’s happier than ever, and happiness is the key to victory.

“The diet messes with your head. It makes you not yourself. Now that he doesn’t have to cut weight, he’s happy. And when Cowboy’s happy, we call that ‘styling’. He’s styling out there, walking around with confidence. When he believes he’s the best in the world there’s nobody who can touch him.”

“You meet a lot of these fighters and most of them aren’t very intelligent. Donald is. If he doesn’t know how to do something, he’ll learn. And he learns to the extreme.”

Munoz also argues that Cerrone’s extra-curriculars aren’t so much a distraction but a necessary part of a work-life balance that keeps him enjoying the sport. And just because he’s out on some adventure in the morning doesn’t mean he won’t be back to bust his ass in the gym at night. “Some days we’ll get up, do a swim workout, then go for a three-hour Harley Davidson bike ride to the lake. Rip through the lake all day, then ride the bikes three hours back home and have a monster MMA workout. A lot of people wouldn’t want to train at that point, but he does.”

Onnit’s founder, Aubrey Marcus, who has been working closely with Cerrone since his meteoric rebirth at welterweight, sees a parallel to Olympic gold medalist Bode Miller. Famous for indulging in late nights before ski races, and pickup basketball games before world championships, Miller has had similar accusations of reckless behavior made against him despite having medaled at three different Olympic Games. “What people don’t realize is that at the level of Bode or Cowboy, the performance is 95% mental,” says Marcus. “If something outside of the sport offers a 10% mental boost and a five percent physical detraction, it’s still the right thing to do. Donald does what he has to in order to get his head right. It’s when those guys stop having fun that there is a problem.”

Live Each Day With Courage

Like many fighters, Cerrone’s ability to face up to danger gives him both a tremendous competitive edge and a penchant for self-destruction. In 2006, he was racing motorcross and missed a jump. “I stood up and my guts fell into my hands,” he says, and, picking up his shirt to show me the scar, I can tell he’s not exaggerating.

Doctors told him he’d never fight again, and that one body shot could rupture his spleen and he might bleed out without even knowing it. Of course, Cerrone ignored the advice and was fighting again—still with two broken ribs—a few months later.

He’s just as reckless with his mouth. When he called UFC light-heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier a “faggot” for his careful handling of Anderson Silva at UFC 200, one of his main sponsors threatened to drop him. “I don’t mean it like a homosexual,” he says. “I mean it like ‘you’re being a faggot!’ It’s just a word I had a habit of using. I meant Cormier was being a bitch. But I’m not homophobic, and I didn’t mean to offend anyone. You can suck any dick you want—it makes no difference to me.”

Brash, yes. But fearless? No. Cerrone freely admits that he’s “deathly scared” before a fight, but not from the threat of pain, injury, or humiliation. He’s a victim of his own imagination. “I loved street fighting because I didn’t have to think about it beforehand. You’d be at a bar, see somebody, and be like, ‘What’s up, motherfucker?’ and just fight. This next fight I have [with Matt Brown], I have to think about him every day. It’s the fear of letting everyone down. That’s the hardest part of the sport.”

At age 33, it’s unclear how many wars Cerrone has left in him. If he beats Brown, he’ll almost surely fight for the welterweight title next year. A greater concern, perhaps, is his health. Cerrone estimates the number of concussions he’s suffered at “a million,” not just from blows received in the Octagon but accidents in his other activities. As a result, he rarely spars anymore, preferring pad work and drilling instead. “I’ll probably be a slobbering idiot one day,” he says. All the wear and tear led Cerrone to meet with Onnit founder Aubrey Marcus, and ultimately to try a range of supplements that he swears have helped.

“The diet messes with your head. It makes you not yourself. Now that he doesn’t have to cut weight, he’s happy. And when Cowboy’s happy, we call that ‘styling’. He’s styling out there, walking around with confidence. When he believes he’s the best in the world there’s nobody who can touch him.”

“I always thought supplements were bullshit,” he says. “But I tried them for 20 days and damn, man, I honestly feel the difference. I wake up not as sore. I have more drive to train. When I take the Total Strength and Performance and the Shroomtech, it gives me energy without Red Bull or candy.” Experimenting with Alpha BRAIN® and New MOOD® have helped too. “My mood is more consistent. I’m more focused. I feel fucking good.”

If, however, Cerrone’s future is as grim as he fears, it seems he’s chosen the best possible partner to help him navigate it. Lindsay Sheffield has been his girlfriend for the past six years, and the two live together on the ranch. An ICU nurse now studying to become a doctor, Cerrone jokes that if he ultimately has medical problems, “she’ll take care of it.”

“We met at a bar in Texas,” Sheffield says. “My friend and I were playing pool, and the winner got to pick somebody for the loser to dance with. I lost and my friend picked Donald.”

Every bit the adrenaline-junkie Cerrone is, Sheffield says the pair do everything together, from renovations on the house to workouts with the team. If he should ever tire of the fight game or be forced to leave it, Sheffield says Cerrone has more options than he’d ever give himself credit for.

“You meet a lot of these fighters and most of them aren’t very intelligent. Donald is. If he doesn’t know how to do something, he’ll learn. And he learns to the extreme.”

I ask Cerrone how he’d like to be remembered outside of fighting and he stares me down with blue eyes that remind me of a gas burner on low. “Just as a wild motherfucker who was down for anything, always.” Then he softens a bit. “Someone you can count on. I always do what I say I’m going to do and I’m always on time. It’s all in the cowboy code I’ve got hanging in my kitchen.”

Cerrone faces Matt Brown at UFC 206 on Saturday, Dec. 10, only on pay-per-view.

A Look Beneath the Hat of Cowboy Cerrone.

The post Anyone. Anytime. Anyplace. A Look Beneath the Hat of Cowboy Cerrone. appeared first on Onnit Academy.

Onnit hung out with the “Cowboy” on his New Mexico ranch as he prepared for his fight against Matt Brown at UFC 206, and he revealed the mindset that has made him arguably the most exciting fighter in the UFC, and, simultaneously one of its loosest cannons.

1. What was the first fight you can remember getting in?

Oh, shit. I think it was fifth grade with a kid who’s one of my best friends today. We fought each other in the hallway of middle school. He was talking shit and we both just dropped our bags and got to throwing down. I was a little-ass dude, maybe 100 pounds all through high school, so I was always having to prove myself.

2. Did you win?

I don’t know if anybody won. We just both punched each other. In sixth grade, there isn’t much winning or losing going on. I think he still tells everyone he beat my ass.

3. What do you love about a hard fight?

I don’t know if I like hard fights anymore [laughs]. It’s just fun. Testing yourself. Getting hit and hitting back. I can’t really get into a fight until I get hit. Then it feels real.

4. Is it true you never go into a fight with a game plan?

I never have one. That’s the cool thing about training with Greg Jackson. He never gives me a game plan. He says, ‘Go out there and be you, Cowboy.’ We never say, “OK, we’re gonna go out there and take this guy down.” We always just let loose and have fun. That’s just for me, though. Everyone else [Jackson trains] has a game plan. But he trusts me to have the right instincts.

5. You’ve admitted to being frightened before fights. How do you manage fear?

I look at fear like, if you’re walking down a dark alley, you’re not sure if someone’s gonna jump out and try to mug you and your girl. Those little hairs that stand up on the back of your neck—that’s fear. If you were just happy, skippy, walking down the street, you wouldn’t be fucking ready. With the fear you’re alert and aware—all your senses are heightened. You have to accept that that’s a normal part of the process in a fight. My first 10 or so fights were all first-round knockouts.

6. How does it feel to know you can walk into just about any room on the planet and kill anyone in it if you had to?

I’ve had that mentality since I was a kid, which is what got me into so much trouble. There was only so much I’d take from any man. I always thought when I’d see people on the street, “Oh yeah, I’ll fuck that dude up.” I used to exercise that right a lot, but now I don’t. I’m older, there are legal reasons, and it’s not worth it anymore. And I’ve mellowed out a lot. But if somebody came into a room poppin’ off, I’d still settle it.

I carry a gun everywhere just in case. I have a little .380 I carry. I’d get out and fuck someone up before I’d shoot him, but I’d kill somebody if I had to. You just never know.

7. Do you have a dream fight?

Robbie Lawler or GSP would be a dream match. I’d fight Bruce Lee just so I could beat his motherfucking ass.

8. You’re known for taking fights on short notice because you love to throw down, but is there such a thing as too short notice?

Not for me. I always say yes. If I got knocked out the day before in training camp I’d still go in there and throw down.

9. You had a nearly career-ending injury when you had an accident with a four-wheeler. What happened exactly?

It was 2006. I was racing motorcross and there was a big-ass triple. I didn’t make it and the quad smashed me in the back and spilled my guts out. Broke all the ribs on both sides. My spleen was ripped, my stomach fucked up. I stood up and my guts fell into my hands. I was like catching them. It wasn’t even bloody—I saw grayish pink guts. I just sat there and waited for them to get me.

Doctors said you’d never fight again.

They said if you ever take a serious shot to the spleen again it could tear. That I could rupture my spleen and I wouldn’t know—I’d just slowly bleed out. I was like, “Whatever.” I fought with two broken ribs on one side a few months later. I’m not afraid of it. Fuck it.

10. You’re probably the most entertaining fighter in the UFC, but does your insistence on giving the fans the nonstop action they want hurt your chances of winning?

For sure. But that’s what the people want to see. That’s my legacy. I want people to say, “Oh, Cowboy’s fighting? Shit, let’s order it. He always throws down.” Being the People’s Champ is more important to me than anything.

11. You have a role on an upcoming Netflix series. What can you tell us about this Godless show?

[Veteran UFC fighter] Keith Jardine hooked me up with it. He’s been doing a lot of acting since he quit the UFC. I know nothing about it, except Jeff Daniels is the star. It’s a fucking western so I’m doing it. I’m part of this train robbing gang. We ride horses and rob trains. Should be fun.
[Godless premiers in 2017]

See Cowboy Cerrone in action at UFC 206 on Saturday, Dec. 10, only on pay-per-view.

Q&A With Donald “Cowboy” Cerrone

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