Fighters Only

Issue 089

June 2012

Gareth Nicholas is part of the elite sports nutrition team at Maximuscle, one of the world’s leading sports nutrition suppliers. You get out of the body what you put in. Stay on top of your health with an all-rounder fighter supplement.

As MMA has developed over the years, fighters have become known as some of the fittest athletes around, the product of many grueling hours of training in preparation for life inside the cage.

Unlike other well-known and demanding sports, such as rowing, triathlon and decathlon for instance, mixed martial artists not only have to work at extreme intensities, but also have the added disadvantage of an opponent trying to pulverize them.

For competitive sports, specific training sessions should be tougher, or at least closely replicate, the main event to ensure appropriate preparation. With this heightened demand on training, the supporting nutritional demand is equally as important. The right nutrients to fuel training, aid recovery and prevent injury should all be considered.

Move fast, hit hard

In all combat sports, agility and speed are crucial fighting attributes and styles used to gain an added advantage over an opponent. With victory being achieved by knockout, technical knockout or submission, concentrating on one particular fighting style is cursed.

A fighter needs to be as strong as possible which translates into hitting hard, but with the added attribute of being fast to avoid being hit or taken down. A fighter must be functionally strong, to be as strong as possible, but also as lean as possible. In short, the bigger you are the slower you’ll move.

Train hard, eat right

Training alone will only get you so far, for optimal gains a fighter should be as concerned with what they are putting into their body as much as what they are getting out. Being a high-intensity sport, a fighter’s diet should be predominantly carbohydrate based – to provide the fuel to train hard, maintain intensity and defend against injury/illness.

Added to carbs is the importance of protein – the building blocks of muscle growth. Protein is the keystone to muscle maintenance, recovery and growth. Spreading both these macronutrients (carbs and protein) throughout the day is the sensible solution; drip-feeding the body the nutrients it needs. Always ensure that you take on protein and carbohydrate in and around training for maximum benefit.

Supplementation

Convenience is partly the justification for sports nutritional supplements, providing you with the essential nutrients in an easy timely manner. Added to that is the opportunity to add ingredients that are either difficult or unavailable in a normal diet – the performance-enhancing supplements.

Universal’s Lava is a nutritional supplement that ticks all of those boxes providing 32g of carbohydrate and 32g of protein. This makes it an ideal supplement to top up your daily nutrition or immediately after training.

In addition, Lava also contains a number of active ingredients that will help give you a training advantage. It also contains creatine monohydrate, glutamine, HMB and zinc. All of these additional ingredients are linked with strength and muscle growth. The most evident is creatine, a non-essential dietary compound that, when supplemented, is generally accepted within the scientific literature to increase force production irrespective of sport.

Train hard, fight easy

Any fighter will testify that irrespective of the training conducted prior to a fight, this doesn’t make the main event any easier. However, the hours of training will put a fighter in the best possible shape for the fight. Success in the octagon isn’t just down to the individual, the opponent has a huge say in who will be victorious.

Remember, a training program is tailored to exploit an individual’s weaknesses and turn them into strengths.

TRAIN WITH UNIVERSAL'S LAVA

Fuel your training – Consume approximately 2,800kcal, split between carbohydrate, protein and fat
Daily recovery – Consume 1.2–1.8g/kg/BM of protein throughout the day (96–144g for a 80kg person)
Recovery window – within 60 minutes after exercise consume between 20–40g of protein