Issue 139

March 2016

Use Ido Portal’s revolutionary training to unlock your potential and move like Conor McGregor.

Featherweight champ Conor McGregor has always been an advocate of unique training. Peel back the Dubliner’s brash exterior and there’s a true mixed martial arts student who’s becoming the pioneer for a new movement revolution in the fight game. Under the tutelage of Ido Portal, a self-taught movement coach and creator of his own system, ‘The Notorious’ has learnt to flow like an animal en route to the top. And millions worldwide witnessed the fruits of their labor at UFC 194 when he ended José Aldo’s decade of dominance in just 13 seconds. Isn’t it time you unleashed your inner animal? 

“Conor McGregor is bringing fluidity, rhythm and angles to the cage that are unorthodox and they allow him to assume different postures and to reach the unreachable and to almost telegraph himself to appear in places that is not expected,” Portal explains to FO. 

“His management of distance, movement and pattern recognition are just some aspects. He will use kicks and footwork that appear risky but he is actually performing the right timing at the right distance and it creates a sense of pressure that is very useful for a counter puncher like him.” 

If you watched the UFC Embedded series ahead of the Aldo fight you will have seen Portal and McGregor practicing locomotion conditioning and movement training during fight week - moving in linear patterns and angles. 

It’s an organic movement form that flows through your body to enhance your fighting arsenal. This method aims to improve balance, coordination, strength and footwork and it will help develop other skills so you can become a complete martial artist.  

LOCOMOTION CONDITIONING & MOVEMENT TRAINING

Walk like an animal, fight like a beast

Duck walk 

Sit from a staggered squat. Your back foot should be on the ball with your butt resting on your heel. Your front foot is placed flat in front of you and is used to initiate the motion. Pull yourself using your hamstrings and transition from the ball of your foot to the flat foot. 

Used to: decreasing patella-femoral stress (knee pain)

Half au cortado 

From the squat position, lean into a half cartwheel, pause for a moment and push off the leg on the ground into a small hop to feel the weight shift onto your hands. Keep your arms slightly bent and move with the natural flow and weight of your body. 

Used to: increase athleticism, develop unique kicking angles

Lizard walk 

Start in a high push-up position. Move one hand and the opposite foot forward. With your leg bent to the side and off the ground, do a push-up. After the push-up, move the opposite limbs in the same way and repeat to advance forward.

Used to: improve core control and hip mobility

Frog stand

Start in a low squat, place your hands a bit more than shoulder-width apart, fingers pointing forward on the ground. Rest your knees on your elbows and lean forward, without your head too low to the ground. Breathe, balance and hold. Go back to squat and repeat. 

Used to: improve body equilibrium

Ido Portal’s Squat Challenge 

Resting Squat Position: 30 minutes x 30 days – divided throughout the day 

“The squat challenge was to re-learn and visit the basic human resting position, the squat, the deep squat. No weight, not going in and out, not doing repetitions, not burning calories but simply spending 30 minutes divided throughout the day in that resting squat position. This can be the first step. There is no one entry point. It has proven to be a very good first step.

“I make the fighters squat between sets, in the morning warm-ups and throughout the day. I keep their legs loose by asking them to squat with me throughout the day. What happens is that people can’t squat flat-footed because their knees are injured. Their kicks are miserable and they cannot move because of something like a simple human resting position: a squat. You are not going to do effective takedowns or high kicks if you can’t squat properly.”