With talk of a handful of champions moving up in weight, Strikeforce powerhouse Alistair Overeem reveals how he went from a 205lb nearly man to dominating the heavyweight elite.
When Alistair Overeem was just 15 years old he was slashed down the side of his face by a 23-year-old man in a street fight.
The broken glass tore through his skin like butter, leaving a huge scar that remains visible today. As strange as it may sound, the brutal attack would ultimately prove good fortune on Alistair’s behalf.
Soon after the assault, with so much rage and aggression built up inside of him, the young boy would take up martial arts.
Fast forward 15 years and he’s now one of the most dangerous men on the planet; a gargantuan 265lb wrecking machine who can boast a seasoned 45-17-1 fight record.
He’s also the first person in history to hold both the Strikeforce and K-1 heavyweight titles and is currently tracking complete domination in Strikeforce’s first ever heavyweight tournament.
While ‘The Demolition Man’s path to success is well documented, his training methods and fight mentality are shrouded in secrecy.
The MMA industry’s best kept secret now reveals for the first time in detail what has shaped him into such a monstrous, lethal weapon.
Born in Hounslow, England, to a Jamaican father and Dutch mother, Alistair moved to Holland when he was five. Although having, by his own admission, a relatively good childhood where “food was always on the table and clothes were always clean,” as a teenager he would find himself constantly caught up in street brawls.
“I was a rebel when I was younger. I was in a lot of fights,” he states pensively, giving the impression he is not proud of his past. “I had too much energy and nothing to release that energy onto, so I fought in the street. I was never picked on. In fact, I was a bit of a bully and was usually the one to pick on other people.”
The street battles soon caught up with him and it quickly became evident that Alistair needed something to focus his aggression on.
“I was glassed when I was a young teenager. He came from the side.
I didn’t see it coming otherwise I would have obviously dodged it, but I was furious,” states the 30-year-old. “I realized that it wasn’t Amsterdam that was rough; it was me making it rough.”
Concerned about Alistair’s thickening rage, his older brother and fellow Strikeforce heavyweight Valentijn took him to Chris Dolman’s gym to learn kickboxing and wrestling.
Dolman was a Dutch multiple-time world champion in sambo, judo and wrestling – the perfect candidate to instill some discipline in the volatile young man.
Alistair quickly adopted martial arts into his lifestyle as a place to channel that “extra energy.” Three years later, inspired by Valentijn’s success in the Japanese promotion Rings, Alistair made his first foray into the world of mixed martial arts.
“I looked up to my brother a lot. He was the second generation of Dutch MMA fighters after Bas Rutten, who held two styles instead of one,” says Alistair. “I trained the same, with two styles. That’s what I loved about MMA – it didn’t have restrictions, you could do what you wanted.
Of course, it has rules, but there’s a lot more techniques you can utilize.”
Over the years Alistair would grow into a fast and rangy six-foot-five light heavyweight. Although an accomplished kickboxer, he was an all-rounder. Overeem earned the adulation of millions of Japanese fans during his MMA career in Japan under the Pride promotion.
And gained greater recognition in the West after beating Brazilian sensation Vitor Belfort when he debuted under the now Zuffa-owned Strikeforce banner as a heavyweight.
As he fluctuated between fighting as a kickboxer and a mixed martial artist in Japan under K-1 and Dream, respectively, while also making a name for himself in Strikeforce, Alistair ground out epic battles with the best fighters in the business. “I fought everybody,” he says.
“I won or I lost. I beat Vitor twice, I lost to ‘Shogun.’ It became a dead end for me. I’d done everything I wanted to do.” It was following three successive losses back down at light heavyweight against Rogerio Nogueira, Ricardo Arona and Mauricio Rua, that Alistair decided to listen to his body and allow himself to grow completely into his more natural weight class.
“I’m a natural heavyweight,” he says. “At 20 years old I was walking round at 220lbs but I decided to go down because I would be a small heavyweight. There I learned the technicality and the speed that would later make the transition back up to heavyweight easier.
Also, while the weight cutting worked well at the beginning, as I got older I got naturally heavier so it was costing me much more energy to make the cut. I couldn’t weight lift and dieting all the time took its toll.
In the end it was a great move for me. It was inevitable anyway.
It was just a matter of when.”
The mounting personal problems Alistair was experiencing also took their toll. The same year his mother had fallen ill to cancer, only to later make a full recovery, and ‘The Reem’ finally admitted to himself that he needed a fresh approach to his seemingly struggling MMA career.
And so it was in the summer of 2007 that his career took a dramatic turn as he began his journey into becoming the behemoth he is today.
Alistair shifted from a somewhat Spartan and draconian diet and nutrition plan to a full-on intensive program to pile on the pounds.
“I was eating eight full meals a day, with four whey protein shakes in between,” he reveals.
Gaining 40lbs of lean mass in three years by constantly fueling your body with excessive amounts of protein is not a simple task.
Alistair’s diet had to be extreme if he was to gain such huge amounts of muscle. “Meat played a massive role in building me up,” he says.
“I love meat. I spend over 200 euros a month on meat from the supermarket and then I go out for dinner regularly and have steak.”
To put this in perspective, based on an average price of supermarket meat in Holland, Alistair would roughly consume around 50lbs of meat per month – that’s a fifth of his own body weight.
It wasn’t just the typical fighter’s staple of beef and chicken that Alistair was rapidly devouring; his appetite for meat spread much further than the flat fields of Amsterdam. “I would eat any meat that was available to me. I’ve had ostrich, shark fillet and endless amounts of sushi,” he reveals. Of course, probably his most documented culinary preference is his passion for horse meat. “It’s packed with protein and very lean,” he says. “I understand that it is not for everybody but in Holland you can just go to the supermarket and buy it.
People think I’m strange for eating horse meat but it’s the rest of the world who are crazy. Holland is the only sane country,” he laughs. Alistair is also keen to share his nutritional secret weapon when it comes to building mass: a Dutch dish known as Boerenkool.
Alistair swears that it vastly contributed to his Trojan frame. “It’s like potatoes, cabbage and meat such as steak or beef sausage in a stew. It’s so good and healthy.
I could even put horse meat in it and it could become my signature dish,” he laughs.
Of course, to maintain a healthy diet Alistair would have to balance it out with a range of vegetables. Eating solely too much meat can – in some cases – prove deadly. Many MMA fans will recall when Brock Lesnar infamously suffered from diverticulitis and nearly lost his life due to his body not having enough fiber to help all the meat he was consuming pass through his gut. “I eat plenty of vegetables,” states Alistair.
“I eat them raw whenever I can for the nutritional benefits.
My mother told me I had to eat them to grow up big and strong – she was right.” Accompanying his love of vegetables is also a passion for French fries with tomato ketchup and cookies.
“As a heavyweight, I can afford to treat myself to that kind of food every other day as long as I balance it out with intensive training,” he says – a comment which will frustrate every professional fighter on the planet that dare not even dream of passing junk food through their lips.
Not only does Alistair eat excessively, but his training regime is also agonizing. To become a man of such statuesque proportions, Alistair had to immerse himself in a grueling and exhausting strength and conditioning program.
“My training is very intense,” he reveals. “It’s a hardcore schedule of strongman training, plyometrics and speed and agility training.”
Alistair’s strongman training is as primitive as it gets.
“An exercise I regularly employ into my regime is lifting huge concrete Atlas balls (as seen in the World’s Strongest Man TV series).
Some weigh up to 220lbs and because they’re round you have to improvise a bit because they don’t have any handles,” he states.
Much ike our ancient ancestors would easily surpass us in the strength stakes, Alistair is clearly another advocate of the hugely popular Caveman Training to gain primal power.
He is also a huge fan of ViPR’s – giant metal tubes with handles set inside that are lifted through a range of motions to provide a full-body workout, targeting and building multiple muscle groups while improving the cardiovascular system.
Though strongman training is evidently effective, Alistair’s success in the ring cannot be pinned down to simple strength exercises.
He is still a fast and deadly fighter that shows explosive power and agility uncommon for a man his size.
“To keep my speed and develop explosive power I work on a range of plyometrics from squat jumps to burpees. I also employed a lot of Dramatic Training Principal (DTP) training into my regime when building my mass,” he says.
DTP training has revolutionized the MMA fight game, providing the solution to any fighter who wishes to bulk up without losing speed and agility. Based on the principle of training both fast- and slow-twitch muscle fibers, it ensures a fighter can remain explosive and go the distance, generating muscle growth while also burning fat.
DTP training requires a fighter to lift weights quickly aiming for an incredibly high number of reps until absolute failure is achieved (in other words, keep going until you cannot lift anymore).
It isn’t just Alistair’s power that makes him such a formidable force. Compared with the heavyweight elite, Alistair still remains incredibly fast and agile. His rapid increase in size presents an obstacle when it comes to speed and flexibility. His solution?
Much like Randy Couture and Georges St Pierre, Alistair is yet another muscle-bound pugilist that is adopting yoga into his game.
“Because of my size it makes it harder for me to throw high kicks than when I was at light heavyweight so I incorporate it into my training now to keep me flexible,” he says. “It relaxes your body and helps with your breathing. It also stretches your muscles and helps you improve on the other areas of your game.”
Alistair also credits his genetics towards his ability to stay both fast and agile. “I’ve got good genes and I have long-term muscles that are flexible,” he says.
There is no doubt genetics certainly play a large part in Alistair’s success. His genetics are what made the man mountain such a thing of wonder to the diminutive Japanese, so much so that he’s launched an incredibly successful documentary following his exploits in the Orient and across America. Titled ‘The Reem’ (adopting similar branding that worked so well for ‘The Hoff’), the documentary originally followed Alistair as he prepared for his fight with Fedor Emelianenko.
As every MMA aficionado will recall with a sour taste in their mouth, the fight never came to fruition. Regardless, endless film of Alistair’s life and training beyond Strikeforce – paired with wacky videos of him lifting small Japanese girls up with his biceps – attracted countless fans and secured a second series of The Reem.
It now follows him as he prepares for the Strikeforce heavyweight tournament as he sets his eyes on beating Fabricio Werdum, the first man to truly topple Fedor’s reign.
Yet with Zuffa (the UFC’s parent company) recently buying out Strikeforce, fans are sure to set their sights on the first real unification of the two promotions. “I’ll win the Strikeforce heavyweight GP and I believe the winner will be set to take on the UFC’s heavyweight champion,” says Overeem.
“In my opinion, the winner of the Strikeforce GP is the number one in the world but if I had to fight Cain [Velasquez] it’d be a very interesting matchup. I’d definitely be the aggressor and I’d be the one coming at him and hitting him harder.
I always say I’m going for the knockout and he wouldn’t be any different. If that’s what the fans want to see then it’s what I want to see.”
Fans are sure to dream of such an epic collision course; a true clash of the titans to finally end the big debate as to which promotion has the best heavyweight in the world. In the meantime, however, Alistair insists he is solely focusing on his fight ahead with Werdum and that he is currently training with the passion and ferocity that has seen him skyrocket to superstardom.
Before he dashes off for his daily nap (two o’clock on the dot) sometimes followed by a horse meat sandwich, ‘The Reem’ is keen to make a promise to the fans.
“While I’m a very laid back guy I was born with a vicious streak so trust me, whoever I fight in the next year I can guarantee – it’s going to be a war.”
Dumbbell Curls
Alistair is known for having some of the most impressive guns in the game, helped by good lifting form. Maintain a strong grip and a straight back with a slow and controlled raise for pythons with proper punch.
Forearm Curls
Strong forearms are paramount for unbreakable grip, helpful for guillotine chokes, kimuras and americanas. For this exercise place your forearms onto a bench with your palms up, curl the iron as far as possible and then lower until you feel a slight stretch down your arm.
Top Five Stongman Training Methods
Atlas Stones
Want to pick your opponent up and slam them like ‘Rampage’?
If so, Atlas stones are for you. They are fantastic at developing hip extension, explosive starting strength (simply to get them off the ground) as well as developing tremendous crushing strength in your arms.
All whilst engaging your erectors, lats, rhomboids, shoulders and pecs.
Tire Flip
Easy to source and a fantastic full body killer, tire flips develop your posterior chain as well as enhance leg drive, flexibility, endurance and explosive strength. All whilst teaching you to lower your body and explode.
Yoke
A very challenging tool that requires you to constantly correct your position under the bar whilst moving forwards as fast as possible. A true ‘head to toe’ workout in one, yoke carries are fantastic for enhancing core strength, reaction time and coordination in MMA athletes.
Farmer’s Walk
A full-body blast that is fantastic for improving muscular endurance, anaerobic capacity, grip strength, ankle strength, as well as upper back, trap and core strength.
Heavy Sled/Car Pull
Strength work should be the foundation of all MMA athlete programs. Heavy pulls with such equipment are simple yet brutally effective at developing strength in your quads, glutes, hamstrings and calves. Ensure that you are using a truly heavy weight. So much so that you must adopt a forward lean and explosive drive through your legs to be able to initiate the movement.
Moments That Make A Fighter
Although he regularly engaged in street fights at a young age, it wasn’t until Alistair Overeem was attacked in the street that he decided to take up martial arts. Look at other fighters whose tribulations turned them towards throwing on a pair of gloves and bringing the beatdown for a living.
Fabricio Werdum
Now known as the man who successfully toppled Fedor Emelianenko, Werdum’s fighting prowess hadn’t always been so well refined.
It is said that he once got into a fight with his ex-girlfriend’s boyfriend and fell victim to a triangle choke. Embarrassed and angry, he plunged himself into intense jiu-jitsu training and has never looked back since.
Mike Tyson
As a shy and retiring boy, ‘Iron’ Mike’s best friends were his pigeons. The self-styled “Baddest Man On The Planet” would keep a number of them to race and developed a special bond. Yet the softly spoken stocky school child snapped when a local bully ripped the head of one of his prized feathered friends and Tyson reacted by throwing his first ever KO punch. After the incident he took up boxing and became arguably the most enthralling fighter the world has ever seen.
Wanderlei Silva
Wanderlei is known all over the world as the explosive fighter who always delivers the most brutal of tear-ups. His recent move to middleweight has seen him cut weight and look in career-best shape. Ironically, Wanderlei was a podgy child and was bullied for his paunchy figure. The years of torment are sure to scar; evident when he knocked out hated rival ‘Rampage’ Jackson in Pride. Perhaps he even imagined the bully was Jackson as his body laid seemingly lifeless, his limbs twisted between the ropes. Revenge is a dish best served cold.
Dutch Boerenkool – The Way Mother Cooks It
Overeem accredits his colossal frame to his mother’s Boerenkool dish. Try this recipe for stacking up and knocking out.
Serves 4 (or one Overeem)
Ingredients:
> 3 lbs potatoes
> 2 onions
> 1 bay leaf
> 1 lb kale
> 1 pinch salt
> 1 pinch ground pepper
> 1 lb smoked sausage
> ½ cup of milk
> 2 tablespoons of butter
Directions:
1. Peel and dice potatoes and onions.
2. Clean, trim and slice kale.
3. Add the potatoes, onion, kale, a bay leaf, a pinch of salt and just enough water to cover all in a three-quart pan.
4. Cover and boil gently for about 25 minutes.
5. Meanwhile steam the smoked sausage for the same amount of time and slice.
6. Remove the bay leaf, drain the vegetables and mash them.
7. Add milk and butter.
8. Stir in the hot, sliced smoked sausage, add salt and pepper to taste and serve.
The Reem’s Gargantuan Meat Intake
Based on what Overeem has revealed regarding his meat consumption, he roughly eats up to 600lbs of meat a year – that’s the equivalent body weight of 1.2 cows or 2,400 ¼lb burgers.
The average person would take up to four years to consume a whole cow.
Building The Reem
Roberto Flamingo - Alistair’s stand-up coach
Q: How long have you known Alistair?
Roberto: “I’ve been training Alistair’s stand-up for eight years now. We’ve both grown together.”
Q: What’s Alistair’s work-rate like?
A: “He’s a very hard working guy who’s extremely dedicated to his sport. He never stops training. He’s incredibly focused and it’s amazing what he’s achieved in such a short space of time.”
Q: Has his training changed since his increase to heavyweight?
A: “Alistair is a special breed. His training hasn’t changed too dramatically in stand-up because he’s managed to still maintain his speed and agility. If you look at his fights there are no other heavyweights that can do the things he does. He still fights with the speed he used to even though he’s a lot heavier.”
Q: What’s he like to spar with?
A: “He’s a good sparring partner. He likes to go hard when needed but we’ve got a lot of heavy guys at Golden Glory so they can just about take it.”
Q: How confident is he?
A: “He’s very confident and very relaxed. He’s been around in this sport for a long time so he knows what he’s doing and believes in himself.”
Q: What gets him motivated?
A: “If I tell him to do something he never says ‘I don’t want to do that,’ yet he knows what he wants to do and what he wants to achieve so also does everything for himself.”
Q: What’s his character like?
A: “Alistair enjoys life. He likes to play pranks when we’re all together. He’s always running up behind me, grabbing my legs and taking me down when I’m not looking. He’s a joker.”
Martijn De Jong - Alistair’s ground coach
Q: How did get to know Alistair?
De Jong: “He’s been training with me for 11 years now. In Holland everybody knows everybody in the fighting scene. Back ten years ago, MMA wasn’t as big so it was a very close community. He came every week with his brother to train and has been dedicated ever since.”
Q: When he first walked into the gym was there anything you noticed about him that was different to other fighters?
A: “He was very aggressive at fighting, in a good way. He was very intense and he had very good balance. It was very hard to sweep him or take him down. He was a natural talent.”
Q: As a big guy, how does Alistair manage to stay flexible to perform certain jiu-jitsu moves?
A: “When he first came to me he was about 93kg, so he was already very athletic. He created a very good grappling base for himself and as he shifted up in weight, he kept on training his flexibility. He had that base before he moved up in weight and was already a complete mixed martial arts fighter unlike, say Bob Sapp, who was simply just very big and strong, so he could keep it going.”
Q: How has his training changed since he made the transition to heavyweight?
A: “He’s much more confident at heavyweight so therefore he is now more disciplined in his mind. When he was a light heavyweight he was impetuous and would dive straight into things. Now he paces the fight a little bit more and judges the fight.”
Q: Does he like to spar hard?
A: “Yeah we get together and get all the heavyweights in the ring on Wednesdays and just let them go for it. We’ll put the 16oz gloves on and let them at each other. There’s been quite a few knockouts so we have to limit it to once a week [laughs].”
Q: What’s Alistair like as a person?
A: “He’s always joking around. He cares about people a lot. He’s very team orientated. He always looks after his teammates and keeps everyone’s moral up. He’s also a great guy to hang out and party with.”
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