How UFC champ Israel Adesanya prepares for a fight: from meditation to posing with pizza, losing to Jan Blachowicz won’t get the Nigerian-born MMA fighter down
He still has his middleweight belt thought, which Adesanya pledged to defend soon, telling fans after the March 6 defeat that “we’re just stopping for gas. If you want to stay on, I promise I’ll make you proud.”
Here’s how he gets into the fight zone ahead of Octagon go-time. From fine-tuning his style to meditation, Adesanya is able to make waves for a reason.
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He detaches from those around him
As the mixed martial artist gets ready for a fight, he says it feels like he is getting ready for war. In an interview with My Protein, he said that he has to get ready knowing that anything can happen and prepare for the unknown. In the week leading up to a big fight, Adesanya says he starts to detach from everyone around him and just focuses on the big fight.
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Meditation is critical
Adesanya says that much of his fight prep is mental. In a video interview with My Protein, he explains how he wakes up every morning, presses snooze once and then heads to his window to meditate. In the same interview, the UFC star said that meditation helps set him up to win. He admits that he doesn’t do it daily, but says that when he does, it really makes a difference.
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He taps into his skills as a fast learner
Adesanya’s strength and conditioning coach Sunz Singh told a UFC interview that it was his client’s ability to learn and adopt a new movement that makes him such a phenomenal fighter. He said that the Nigerian-born fighter is very quick to understand and put things into action. When prepping for a fight, his coaches watch reels and reels of footage of his opponent. His training is then designed around that and includes a mix of strength work, technique and fitness. Adesanya has joked that the biggest reason for mastering such intense training was “not wanting to get your ass kicked.”
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His background in dance helps him
The Last Stylebender, as he is known to fans, has a unique fighting style thanks to his background is dancing. The fluidity of his movements and his ability to calculate things in advance are what make him so great, says head coach Eugene Bareman. But just because he is a UFC champ, doesn’t mean he gets special treatment. All fighters have to be on time and when Adesanya was late to training, even before a big fight, he wasn’t allowed into the gym for that session, Bareman told New Zealand’s Metro Mag.
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He has control of his weight
In the lead up to his fight against light heavyweight champ Jan Blachowicz, a number of pundits suggested middleweight Adesanya would struggle to make weight. But he was unfazed, with both him and his head coach Bareman saying that nothing much had changed in the fighter’s diet plans and he wouldn’t be trying to pile on the pounds to match Blachowicz in size and strength, preferring to stay lean and fast instead. He nevertheless gained around 7.5kg of muscle since his last fight against Paul Costa at UFC 253 in September, and even joked around by posing for pictures with a pizza during his weigh-in.
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- The Last Stylebender may have lost his recent UFC 259 battle against Jan Blachowicz but he pledged to defend his middleweight champion belt soon
- The Nigerian-born New Zealand fighter has a pretty tight daily routine, but on days where he lacks discipline head coach Eugene Bareman keeps him in line