Issue 113

April 2014

Mixed martial arts is so young that each year we witness substantial changes, whether they be training camps, breakthrough fighters, new champions, or even new practices. But 2013 seemed pivotal due to the amount of serious injuries that occurred in training. 

BRIAN STANN

The ex WEC champ, UFC middleweight, current Fox Sports analyst and this year’s Awards host on the increase in MMA’s serious injuries

I define serious as any injury requiring you to postpone a fight or miss significant training time of more than three months. These injuries cost fighters money. Despite all the intangibles, at the end of the day, we fight for money and have personal goals requiring that money. 

The past year, both coaches and fighters began to realize the importance of training smarter, both to ensure you fight healthy and have a longer and more lucrative career.

I was just as guilty as anyone during my tenure. Early in my career I remember taking leave from the Marine Corps to train in Las Vegas. I would hit multiple gyms each day to maximize the amount of butt kickings I endured during my valuable leave time. 

The main session was at Randy Couture’s gym in which we would get into groups of three and each guy would do a minimum of three five-minute rounds with the other two switching in each minute. If it was an MMA day, we would always start in bad positions (side mount, mount, back mount). 

On sparring days you would start standing, but the guys would always sprint for a minute, then get a minute’s rest, so the person enduring the rounds ended up basically working on survival. 

There were so many great fighters there (Forrest Griffin, Frank Mir, Mike Pyle, Randy Couture, Roy Nelson, etc.) that I assumed it was necessary to train this way to win. Even during my prime, I would train three times a day, and by the time Friday rolled around I could barely move. This type of training not only causes you to be over-trained come fight time, it limits your career. 

My last year of fighting I dislocated a shoulder, tore a ligament in another shoulder, sustained a concussion and tore a hip – all in training. And I am far from the only fighter that trained like this and endured such damage. 

Last year marked many serious injuries, such as those to Dominick Cruz, Michael Bisping, Anthony Pettis, TJ Grant, Cain Velasquez and Luke Rockhold. In fact, there were a total of 101 serious injuries sustained by UFC fighters alone during training in 2013. 

The great news is that an evolution has started. Each new event I cover as an analyst I speak to more fighters and coaches that are training smarter. The ultimate goal is to ensure fighters win the fight they are getting paid for, not the one in the gym. 

Fighters are headstrong with large egos. Those qualities are almost a requirement to be successful in such a tough sport; however, coaches must also be leaders and not just technicians.

The responsibility is on both fighter and coach to hold each other accountable during training, but the coach is the ultimate authority and many times the only person the fighter will listen to. More standardization and individualized training plans need to occur, because each fighter is different in what they require to peak for a performance both physically and mentally. 

Sparring partners do not always need to be elite-level fighters who are also training for their own fights; this causes tremendous competition between two large egos, which equates to unnecessary damage (especially head shots) occurring in training. Fighters have shelf lives, and they need to be prepared for the fighter they are fighting in their bout, not always their buddies in the gym. 

MMA is a very young sport. Ultimately, the fighters are in charge of their own careers and need to select their trainers with diligence. Certain gyms have coached champions with long and lucrative careers, and those are sometimes the best evaluation tool aspiring athletes can use to select their coaches and teammates. 

Indeed, 2013 was a year the sport learned some harsh lessons, and with those lessons comes maturity. Hopefully, fighters will continue to evolve and train intelligently, while surrounding themselves with the right people so they can reach their full potential.