During his career Georges St Pierre was criticized for being a fighter who placed the importance of winning the fight over the sheer beating his opponent. But in defeating Carlos Condit at UFC 154, critics praised St Pierre for showing an urgency he hadn’t displayed for some time.
Head trainer at St Pierre’s Tristar gym, Firas Zahabi, explains how they ensured that was the case through training methods, not direct game-planning, in a way that’s useable by anyone. “We changed the way we approached training to resolve that issue,” Zahabi says.
“I’d come to realize either you train very intensely or you train in high volume. If you train with intensity you sacrifice conditioning and endurance, but you promote explosiveness, aggression, and vice versa… You have to find a good balance and I think we found that balance.
“I think we were too much on the endurance side. Remember he’s always fighting 25 minutes, we’re always planning for a long, hard fight so we just cycled the training a bit differently and put Georges more on the end of explosion and being aggressive.”
PUNCH SHY SYNDROME
Fans and critics also marveled at how Georges was able to bounce back within minutes from a third-round head kick that sent him reeling. Zahabi explains why that was a good thing, and how he believes fighters can become ‘punch shy.’
Firas Zahabi: “I don’t like my fighters to get hit but that was one instance where I think it was a positive thing. Because I saw right away Georges go into assault mode and there was no longer any doubt; he was fighting 100%. There was no more hesitation. From the beginning he was looking really good but after that kick I think he kicked it into overdrive.
“Now he remembers what it is to get hit. One of the hardest things with training a striker is getting them to get over their fear of getting hit. I’ve trained many guys who looked so good on the pads, so good in sparring, but then when it’s fight night they don’t pull the trigger and the look like they’re beginners.
“I really believe because they don’t have the big gloves on, they don’t have the headgear on, they don’t have the safety of a partner sparring with them, they don’t have the comfort of sparring with someone they know. It’s just the fear of getting hit. I call that being ‘punch shy.’
Was Georges going to be punch shy? That was my question.
After he got hit it answered the question. He went back and traded with Carlos.”
