Issue 162
December 2017
How Demetrious Johnson became the world’s best mixed martial artist.
What kind of conditioning makes you one of the most finely-tuned athletes in MMA?
It’s all different. If I’m not in camp, I just focus on staying healthy, strengthening tendons and all that kind of stuff. As far as the cardio aspect, I do a lot of running and swimming. I punch and kick the bag. I do Muay Thai and other striking. I ride the bike. Everything helps in that area.
What does your sparring consist of?
It’s a little bit of everything. Sometimes, I go nice and soft. I mix things up. There are times I focus on details and a particular opponent or particular fight. There isn’t just one way to do things. We don’t hit hard to the head at all. We do hit hard to the body and legs because that won’t hinder your mental performance long term.
You’ve pulled off submissions against BJJ black belts, so what do you want to achieve next with your grappling?
Just to keep getting better and to keep learning. I want to flow better and learn and land submissions better. There is so much to learn, especially from guys like Bibiano Fernandes. He is a five-time world champion. It’s just about doing different things and learning along the way.
What weight and strength training do you do to stay strong without losing agility?
I’m not a big fan of lifting weights during training camp. You are already doing so much to your body. When I’m off, I focus on beach body muscles. I work chest, back, legs, biceps and triceps – the usual.
How strict is your nutrition plan before a fight?
I don’t cut much in camp, I just cut out alcohol. I believe you’re working out so hard that if you start depleting your body and counting your calories and carbs, you just hinder your body. That is how you will get more injuries. I eat whatever I want. The biggest thing is that I make sure I only have some types of protein at night with a green. I might do some carbs too, with a sweet potato, yam or brown rice.
The week of the fight, I still have carbs. I just have them in the morning and then have protein, maybe salmon, with greens and a few gallons of water.
What motivates you to go to the gym and train every day?
There’s going to come a point when my body’s not going to be able to do what it’s doing now, so I appreciate every single second in there. It’s all based on my preparation for the fights.
I take my preparation very seriously. I give myself 12 weeks to get ready. I’m always training and staying healthy, so I make it natural – switching from southpaw to orthodox, whatever I want. It’s thrilling.
How do you transition so smoothly between different martial arts?
I started at 19 years old. I joined a gym and learned how to throw my first punch and learned how to kick when you’re punching. I took advanced boxing classes, kickboxing and Muay Thai. I already knew how to wrestle, so I didn’t need that. I then learned how to do submission grappling. Once you get all those, you start applying it to controlled environments, like sparring, and you start amateur fights.
I’ve had an amateur boxing, Muay Thai, shoot box, kickboxing, I’ve had multiple grappling tournaments. I started doing all that stuff when I was an amateur. That way, if you’re fighting a guy who is a stand-up artist but not very good on the ground, you should be able to find their deficiencies and where they’re not very good and take them there.
Is your success mostly down to your ability or your coaches?
I think it’s the specific guys. Don’t get me wrong, I think I’m a great athlete, I think I would have done well everywhere, but I think I’ve done amazingly good because of the coaching staff I have. My coach (Matt Hume) has wrestled all his life.
He has a Muay Thai record. He actually fought in MMA back when fights were stopped on a cut because they didn’t know what sort of things could be passed from one bleeding fighter to another. My second guy, Brad Kertson, has been with Matt since he was probably 16 years old. He’s 37 now. What we’re working on is the same stuff that has been in-house and made Matt successful.
Now it’s just being transferred over to me. It’s worked out perfect.
Can Matt still mix it up with the high-level guys at AMC Pankration?
Oh, yeah. There have been times when he came home from Singapore and I was in the best shape of my life and he would jump in there and tool me up. Matt is a specimen. Even in his 50s, he hasn’t missed a beat. It’s one of those deals where the body in motion stays in motion.
I think age is just a number to him. He tears us up all the time. I told him he could take three months off and come in here and beat us up and he said, ‘Yeah I know, right?’
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