Interesting thing about George Saint Pierre is that he actually consistently dieted and worked out through his entire career. On Joe Rogan's podcast Firas Zahabi specified that George did not overwork himself and rather did work out not too hard, but did 6 or 7 days of the week and did not cut an insane ammount of weight as well. So it makes sense that he stayed in insane shape all the time.
yea thats the part I don't get. why do so many fighters put on so much weight before a fight and lose all of it in a couple of weeks or less? wouldn't that put too much stress on your body to the point where it hinders your performance? ideally, you would want to gradually lose that weight so the transition is easier rather than drain yourself in the fight week.
@@arman_llc624 they cut water weight right before the fight so they can gain it back immediately after to try and get a weight advantage over their opponent
@@keegan3960 that still doesn't answer my question. if you are naturally a lightheavyweight that fights at middleweight, wouldn't it be much less taxing on your body to gradually lose 20 pounds rather than do it in less than a week? either way, you'll balloon back up but at least you're not tiring your body to the max the day before the fight.
I think the fact that fighters need to hire their own nutritionists and chefs if they need them is a factor, in a lot of other sports they are provided and often mandatory too.
those things are provided and also nutritional education is almost always part of the rookie introduction process. But also most big time athletes still hire in house chefs to keep them in optimal shape year round. These guys are planning out 10-20 years in advance, not just looking at a 2 month camp. They look at their body as their greatest financial investment. I don't think combat sports athletes generally think that way.
@@dash4800 Hard to view your body as your biggest investment if you're actively choosing for it to get battered twice a year and risk permanent damage tbf
I was an amateur boxer and can confirm, although the cuts aren't as extreme as pros, I developed an eating disorder while I was competing that also lasted a little while after I stopped
Yeah was about too say the same. Especially when you develop these unhealthy eating habits from a young age as well. I started competing at 14 years old and went on extreme diets and binged like crazy after. My whole life has either been losing weight or going up in weight Im 35 years old now.
@@healthyandrew5294Well I'm still struggling with it honestly but have gotten better. Im in decent shape now though and still box to stay in shape. But I have shifted to a moderation mindsett and livestyle rather than the all or nothing mindsett I had with training and nutrition in the past. I eat healthy for the most part but have a cheat meal a couple times a weeks all in moderation.
Same here. Now what I do is instead of doing 2 or 3 hard days a week I do 6 moderate workouts a week and just moderate how much I eat. I do things like drink a cup of water before a meal or if I'm hungry and a meal is a dew hours away I'll eat a pinch of peanuts with a water + l-glutamine to keep my sweet tooth cravings away. My weight is slowly dropping but it's more sustainable as I am not used to my new diet. Although when I cut carbs and sugars from one day to the next I got these nasty headaches that I assume we're withdrawals because I was such a sugar fiend.
@@thegoat6116 stop acting like race and genetics don't exist! Floyd is the way he is because hes black and has the genetics that he has! Simple! Yeah he works out, but Floyd isn't a body builder, he's not THAT impressive physically. In boxing he performs well in old age because he has skill and muscle memory. But his body shape is because of his genetics, which just so happen to be black genetics.
I think weight cuts are even more determinant to this phenomenon. Every sport where you have to make a certain weight promotes a toxic relationship with food that ends up creating problems down the road.
Funny enough you see a similar phenomena in the Military as well. Infantrymen often spend weeks at a time in the field environment living off of field rations and tend to loose a lot of weight during those periods. After they either get promoted out of that environment or when they separate from the Military or when they get injured many 'blow up' and gain a lot of fat because of how they were relying on the 'field shred' to keep them in shape.
He went from a guy who looks like he'll win a limbo contest without any effort to a guy who couldn't look at the ceiling without falling down on his gaming chair 😂
Paddy gains unbelievable fast too. He Starts eating his favorite foods immediately after his fights. The food somehow gets to his mouth before the Post fight interview Mic does. One of my favorite fighters 😂
Probably the most insighful look into the topic of fighters weight gain post-fights, and you did it in under 8 minutes! Fighters should be fighting at their more natural weight rather than ballooning up on fight night to gain such an advantage. Look at Mayweather, he fought at welterweight for about 15 years and was beating guys naturally bigger than him.
How do you determine what is natural? They may walk around 20 lbs heavier because that’s their OFFSEASON. Should you fight when you’re not in your best shape? What is your best physical shape?
Mayweather is a defensive boxer, the best at his craft. His weight has nothing to do with it. He’s just that good. He didn’t choose to make a specific weight for a specific reason. He is simply the best boxer beating the BEST boxers that helps him make the most amount of money. Floyd MONEY mayweather.
@Ron Jeremy Literally irrelevant. Like completely irrelevant... There is no rule saying these idiots cant stay close to their fighting weight with year round training. Say what ya will about Floyd, but he NEVER stopped training this dude took his body seriously I dont understand how a professional freaking fighter could have the audacity to not treat his body with the utmost respect. Thats why those MuayThai dudes are DIFFERENT because they are always in fighting shape. Hence why they dont sparr very hard because they fight so much They know when to rest and when to go hard. Muay Thai fighters especially know how important their bodies are since fighting is literally their way to survive
@@JROB447 NBA players are over 15% body fat. Any lower than that, you’re on the territory of BODYBUILDING. That’s impossible for any athlete to be in at least 10% body fat and still compete at the highest level. If you are in your best shape, you’re around 15-20% body fat. And that’s ok
I think some of these guys form eating disorders, and I'm not exaggerating. Paul Felder said one time he would eat an entire box of donuts after his fights, that's over 3,000 calories by itself. I think during these cuts, while they starve and dehydrate themselves I can imagine the body goes into a defensive mode where once you know mentally you can eat again you just binge eat until you can't anymore. Your body thought you were dying of hunger/thirst, so it tries to pack on the pounds, I don't think it's only mental but psycho-somatic.
I remember back when I was in high school being shocked that so many fighters in the bantamweight division were walking around 170 and sometimes even 180 lbs. i was also shocked to see how big their appetites were compared to other athletes.
For sure, I don't understand why fighters do this insane weight cuts in just a few weeks, being in such a calorie deficit + dehydration just after a fight can't be a good thing for health and performance
@@kossonar2663 it’s mainly for an advantage. That’s where the term weight bullies comes from. A lot of fighters do big weight cuts to fight in smaller classes. Like khabib walks around at 205 but fights lightweight. Almost all the lightweights in ufc walk around at 200 pounds even boxing they do it
@@elvis4296 yeah but I don't know if it's worth it because you're sacrificing so much (especially endurance) for just a few kg of advantage, we have seen cases of fighters moving up in weight classes and performing even better
@@elvis4296 wow!, why their fighting weight is much less than their real weight (15Kg differenence) .. they should be stronger at a heavier weight which is thier normal weight
@@kossonar2663 you gotta think there never really moving up just cutting less weight. Like chamzat when he didn’t make weight if he moves up to middleweight that’s the weight he hit trying to cut for the Nate Diaz fight
I have cut 10+ pounds a few time when I was A high school wrestler, when you cut weight everything is more difficult and less fun, one of the worst experiences of my life, however wrestling and winning matches has been one of the greatest things for me.
A lot of fighters struggle with Eating disorders because of the weight cuts and then putting that weight back on, Definitely something to be mindful of. My muay thai coach's recommendation is to stay as close to fight ready as you can with out it being detrimental to your overall well being
A trainer of mine told me something similar. He had told me if you are not at competition weight to at least stay within 10 lbs at all times. For me that would be 185 to compete around 175. Danger zone for me is if i hit 190. That dude was pushing 70 and weighed the same as he did when we was 25.
The algorithm led me to your channel and I’m hooked! As a SUPER (and I mean really) casual fan, your content is digestible and easy to watch. Currently binging through your videos, keep up the great work!
One big thing you have to realize too is if you are doing a water weight cut you are also cutting out any salt in your food so that your body doesn't use that salt to sustain and absorb water weight. So when you go back to eating normally seasoned food your body gets shocked back to absorbing and retaining a whole lot more of that water because it realizes you were depleted of it.
there's a lot of professional athletes like nba or nfl players that have trash diets health wise but they don't eat a lot and obviously train most of the year so they still stay lean, just look at DK Metcalf 😂
Colby covington is pretty much always in shape, always eats clean and only makes like a 5-10lb cut to make weight. Say what you want about his size and power but it's clear his phenomenal cardio and chin are tied to this.
This happened to me.. I was competing at 160 and I think I would usually burn around 3000 calories in training. I don't really count them. But I know it's on top of my 2000 I would normally do without it. When covid happened the gyms locked down and I kept eating the same. Boom gained 40 pounds. I'm cutting it now. I'm 180. Still got 20 to go. Won't be a problem
I think most fighters can gain weight and lose it comfortably before a fight. The problem is when fighters get short or no training camps. The weight cut for Jorge’s fight with Usman was extreme because he took the fight in a weeks notice. He was in good shape, but he didn’t have a time in a camp to slowly lower his weight.
I would for sure agree another extreme example of this is sumo wrestling they’re so big and eating a lot but when they stop sumo wrestling when they’re already big it really decreases their health fast
Good vid. And while a lot of people will say, 'Why don't people just fight in their natural weight class?' its not so simple when you are in a field where competition is so fierce, especially at the top. Any advantage that a fighter can get, they will take and only top down methods from the company they work under can fix this issue. Stuff like hydration tests, if they get widely accepted, would go a long way to remedying this situation.
The thing is, they are probably fighting people the same weight as them that also cut, like: 2 180 pounds people fighting at 150, pointless, they should remove weightclasses and be done with thiss bullshit
As a boxer and Muay Thai fighter. The first thing most trainers have told me is "your body is your temple, if you only maintain it a few times a year, the whole structure suffers no matter how hard you try."
Bro, love ur videos, probably take a lot of work to make them. Suggestion: pls make a full guide on how to become a superstar professional boxer(deals, promotion, weight divisions etc.. not necessarily technique-wise)
You're exactly right. I cut down to 155 from 180-190 and the binge eating after the fight is a huge issue that I have. I justify eating so much right after a fight to "reward" myself. I know it's bad for my long term health, but I still do it anyway. I end up eating a lot for too long and my cheat meal turns into a cheat life until I have another fight lined up.
Fun video to watch. I like the clean design and editing. At 2:40 you have Joe Rogan pictured... his doctor, Dr. Gordon, has said that head trauma can lead to weight issues. (Hypothalamus-pituitary axis damage and subsequent hormone imbalances).
If I have to summarize it, I'd probably say they use all that willpower to hang on to the camp and weightcut, so when their done with the fight they lack the willpower to avoid food.
Because you can rehydrate thus if you choose to stay at your weight you don't actually fight someone your weight you fight someone 15+ pounds heavier same day weigh ins made things worse anyway since people still wanted reach and bone density advantages but went in without sufficient hydration and some major deaths occured
The stress caused by the insane pressure for weight cuts probably also plays a role. Thats 6 weeks of just pure pressure all the way up until fight night. The dopamine crash combined with the binging probably has a huge impact. Ik just for me and ny normal life a chocolate bar never fails to lift my spirits.
My cousin was a gimnast from a very young age.Around 17 years she quit for some reason I can't remember.She got huge really fast(she was very slim) for a couple of years.She managed to recover but I was so surprised how fast and how fat she got :).
One of the reasons why boxers 50-60 years ago performed at a much higher level than today, they were so active and had to stay trim year round or else fight heavyweights lol
boxers 50-60 years ago did not perform at a much higher level than today though. boxers today perform at a much higher level than 50-60 years ago. you and the 22 people who upvoted your comment are wrong
@@specialK312nah man the greatest boxers and trainers came from the era where boxing was its most active and competitive. theres a reason why dinosaurs like Ray Arcel, Eddie Futch and Cus Damato were so prominent in the 70s-90s. Boxing will be a relic of the past one day were in the last stages of it
@@JeffPenaify boxers back then we're not that good. it's almost as if they were amateurs, matter of fact if I had to guess then I would say professional boxers back then are more comparable to today's amateurs then today's pro's. they just weren't that good technically. they were just swinging hoping to hit something, watch some of those fights, they look ridiculous
@@specialK312 you got it completely backwards, todays fighters are more comparable to amateur system, because thats where they get the bulk of their experience the opposite was the case back then, fighters didnt have lengthy amateur careers instead opting for lengthy pro careers, thats why they were much better at inside fighting, investing in the body, slipping and weaving over eating it on the high guard and adapting across 10-15 rounds.
You have to compare the mentality to, it's very hard to stay motivated in vien and train/eat to "just look good" When usually during camp you have an opponent that wants to kill you giving you all the motivation to eat right n train hard. Speaking from experience
id like to see your breakdown on the logic of weight cuts. it seems like there are multiple health related reasons not to do it, and i can only assume that fighting below someones "walking around weight" grants strength and size advantages to weight cutters.
something i think might be a factor is how likely former pro athletes are to keep playing their sport at an amateur/social level. i imagine most pro fighters are probably a lot less likely to compete as an amateur again after retiring than other pro athletes, and that without regular competition giving them a reason to train, that a lot pretty much stop entirely. by comparison i imagine a lot of former pro basketball players probably play enough basketball to keep reasonably fit, even if they're not training at all. it seems to me too that pro fighters tend to be much more focused on muscular fitness over CV fitness (both in terms of body type and training) than a lot of other pro athletes, and that body types like that tend to be more susceptible to weight gain if they're inactive than other body types are.
Could another explanation be that other athletes don't have to stay below a certain weight? Like a football player walks around at 220 pounds, retires, stays at 220. He didn't gain any weight. But that same guy as a boxer could need to stay below 170 for his weight class, retires, and goes up to 220. Suddenly he "got fat".
There was a guy called gleison tibau who fought at lightweight in the ufc who would cut down from i shit you not 220lbs to 155lbs and he wasnt fat at 220lbs easier since he absolutely juiced to the gills...most of what he cut was just water and muscle and only missed weight twice in 20 ufc fights by no more than 3lbs mindboggling
@@SoyElta meh stuffing takedowns aren’t enough to win fights for me. Watch the fight again and it’s still a Khabib decision. Tibau defo won rounds tho.
Basically its the difference between yoyo dieting and creating a sustainable lifestyle. They can extreme diet and train for 2 months but they don't learn any long term healthy habits that will stick with them for life. An interesting inverse of this is offensive linemen in football. They have to be over 300 lbs for their sport and so they have to eat huge amounts of calories to keep their weight up. But once they retire they always get shredded. This is because they are used to doing all this exercise but no longer need all those calories. So when they just switch to a more normal diet they weight drops off.
One of the biggest parts that doesn’t really get spoken about is the effects these big weight cuts have on one’s metabolism. With the decrease in food, your body slows down the rate at which it digests food resulting in many putting on more weight after their cuts
It’s funny that you mention reaching a spiritual level when you’re cutting because I instantly knew that feeling, I cut 6 pounds one day and it reduces are your thoughts and instincts to a primal and killer state, to this day if I’m in need of a mind reset I’ll hit a fast and a run just to regain that raw thinking ability
I’m doing boxing, after watching this video it kinda help my remind myself that it’s alright if I’m not sparing or training but doing something is better than being lazy. They had to go extreme because of fight I’m not going pro just doing it because it’s fun but I know I don’t wanna gain weight so it’s best to do calisthenics so you got something to do rather than sitting down eating your food and watching Netflix.
When I was taking boxing seriously I ate way more than I do now. I was sitting at 126 and my fight weight was 125. When I stopped I just stopped eating so much because eating food when I’m not hungry makes me feel sick lmao. I’m sitting at around 145 now and feel great
Hey Can You Make A Video On Explaining Why Retirement Is Hard In Boxing, MMA & Even Pro Wrestling As Why They Always Comeback After Saying They Retired
3:36 never heard of him -or rather not really attuned to the fighting scene in general- but absolute madlad. man is bob from tekken, but reversed. can't imagine the discipline during the training camps to get back in shape that fast
It happens with some professional cyclists as well, e.g. Bradley Wiggins, Greg LeMond, Eddy Merckx, they also have very extreme diets and would go into races like the Tour de France at the absolute minimum weight possible
As a boxer, when I no longer have to diet, I can swallow two 12 inch dominoes pizzas. I also used to get 3 huge burritos and I could eat those in one sitting. My enormous hunger eventually settles and I can barely fit one burrito. I walk around at 180 and the most I’ve weighed was 203.
I fought 3 amateur fights last year back to back, two muay thai and one mma I went from 205 to 270 lol, but the weight gain happened after a foot injury and lack of training. When i’m training and eating I try to be flexible with my diet although I rarely have cheat meals i’ll usually walk around 212-218
Let's be honest the Wight gain happened because you couldn't stop over eating Being injured has never anybody fat 😂 eating fat makes you fat NO Excuses
@@jaybiedayy3347 you’re right! What I didn’t mention was the foot injury caused me to stop training therefore I had no motivation to stay in shape. Good news is i’m back training & i’m back down to 240 hopefully I can make a comeback early next year
I think if boxing had a "season" or like more torunaments, people would fight closer to their natural wieghts and would have a better effect on fighters' long term health, physically and mentally.
It’s so important, because you’re not going through fat camp the first month of training camp. Plus you’re not training as well when you got the extra weight.
Worth noting in the good old days elite professional boxers fought way more frequently than elite level boxers today who generally average 1-3 bouts per year, for example Willie Pep fought 13 times in 1943 as the reigning Featherweight champion, hard to blow up in weight and then cut down for fights if you have to fight in the same weight class all year round. Of course, there's some exceptions like Duran and Toney who did 'stay busy' fights above the weight classes they were campaigning at. Toney in particular literally ate his way from middleweight to heavyweight as an active pro yet remained as slick as the layers of blubber he put onto his frame over the years. Elite fighters today should emulate the old timers more, fight more often and around their natural fit weight instead of making drastic weight cuts once or twice a year.
Rocky Marciano also got a little husky after he retired. It's perfectly understandable, food is delicious and boxers are used to burning tons of calories.
Always assumed it was because they continued to take on the same calories as they did when they were training but just weren't expending the same amount any more. Other than in Paddy's case when he goes fucking mental and tried to eat everything in existence!
Paddy post-MMA should do a food show called Paddy the Fatty. He's definitely got the personality and charisma for it.
Been addicted to watching him eat recently
I'd watch it 😂😂
Paddy “lad, i doooont caaaaree”
British Guy Fierei minus the cringe and frosted tips
افضل الصلاة والسلام على النبي صلى الله عليه افضل افضل وسلم
Interesting thing about George Saint Pierre is that he actually consistently dieted and worked out through his entire career. On Joe Rogan's podcast Firas Zahabi specified that George did not overwork himself and rather did work out not too hard, but did 6 or 7 days of the week and did not cut an insane ammount of weight as well. So it makes sense that he stayed in insane shape all the time.
also gsp walks around in the 170s now as well so he is in even better shape then when he used to fight consistently
the guy is just a pro
That's why he's the 🐐
yea thats the part I don't get. why do so many fighters put on so much weight before a fight and lose all of it in a couple of weeks or less? wouldn't that put too much stress on your body to the point where it hinders your performance? ideally, you would want to gradually lose that weight so the transition is easier rather than drain yourself in the fight week.
@@arman_llc624 they cut water weight right before the fight so they can gain it back immediately after to try and get a weight advantage over their opponent
@@keegan3960 that still doesn't answer my question. if you are naturally a lightheavyweight that fights at middleweight, wouldn't it be much less taxing on your body to gradually lose 20 pounds rather than do it in less than a week? either way, you'll balloon back up but at least you're not tiring your body to the max the day before the fight.
I think the fact that fighters need to hire their own nutritionists and chefs if they need them is a factor, in a lot of other sports they are provided and often mandatory too.
those things are provided and also nutritional education is almost always part of the rookie introduction process. But also most big time athletes still hire in house chefs to keep them in optimal shape year round. These guys are planning out 10-20 years in advance, not just looking at a 2 month camp. They look at their body as their greatest financial investment. I don't think combat sports athletes generally think that way.
Yh aldo didnt have a nutritionist till he dropped to 135
Most fighters probably cant afford that ngl
@@saahil3744 ❤❤ewwwo rr😂r😂temteettetteet🎉k😂t
@@dash4800 Hard to view your body as your biggest investment if you're actively choosing for it to get battered twice a year and risk permanent damage tbf
I was an amateur boxer and can confirm, although the cuts aren't as extreme as pros, I developed an eating disorder while I was competing that also lasted a little while after I stopped
Damn. Thanks for the insight
Yeah was about too say the same. Especially when you develop these unhealthy eating habits from a young age as well. I started competing at 14 years old and went on extreme diets and binged like crazy after. My whole life has either been losing weight or going up in weight Im 35 years old now.
@@Fabi_87 what did you do to correct it. I dealt with the same.
@@healthyandrew5294Well I'm still struggling with it honestly but have gotten better. Im in decent shape now though and still box to stay in shape. But I have shifted to a moderation mindsett and livestyle rather than the all or nothing mindsett I had with training and nutrition in the past. I eat healthy for the most part but have a cheat meal a couple times a weeks all in moderation.
Same here.
Now what I do is instead of doing 2 or 3 hard days a week I do 6 moderate workouts a week and just moderate how much I eat. I do things like drink a cup of water before a meal or if I'm hungry and a meal is a dew hours away I'll eat a pinch of peanuts with a water + l-glutamine to keep my sweet tooth cravings away.
My weight is slowly dropping but it's more sustainable as I am not used to my new diet. Although when I cut carbs and sugars from one day to the next I got these nasty headaches that I assume we're withdrawals because I was such a sugar fiend.
its crazy how floyd is 45 years old and still look better than most people
he's always working out because he enjoys it. Beast.
He’s gotta be ready for another heist when they ask for him
Plenty of black people look like that. They age fine and they have strong genetics
@@mushroom11g55 yeah i dont think it got anything to do with race, but mostly him working hard all the time.
@@thegoat6116 stop acting like race and genetics don't exist! Floyd is the way he is because hes black and has the genetics that he has! Simple! Yeah he works out, but Floyd isn't a body builder, he's not THAT impressive physically. In boxing he performs well in old age because he has skill and muscle memory. But his body shape is because of his genetics, which just so happen to be black genetics.
I think weight cuts are even more determinant to this phenomenon. Every sport where you have to make a certain weight promotes a toxic relationship with food that ends up creating problems down the road.
Funny enough you see a similar phenomena in the Military as well. Infantrymen often spend weeks at a time in the field environment living off of field rations and tend to loose a lot of weight during those periods. After they either get promoted out of that environment or when they separate from the Military or when they get injured many 'blow up' and gain a lot of fat because of how they were relying on the 'field shred' to keep them in shape.
That's what happened to my husband. He was a Marine from age 18 to 26. Left the service at 5'8", 155. Now he's 31 and weighs 305.
@@300biggirl Ouch, I feel sad for your husband. Hopefully he'll get his diet back on track and develops better habits to help manage his weight.
@@300biggirl omg are you serious 😳 💀 you gotta be joking i need proof he's 305 now
cause dudes aern't eating the entire ration.
Lies again? Furious Fat
Naseem hamed had the most extreme body transformation I’ve ever seen from a boxer.
is lik a before and after of the apple jacks guys
He went from a guy who looks like he'll win a limbo contest without any effort to a guy who couldn't look at the ceiling without falling down on his gaming chair 😂
He ate Allah
Stress
Much like matt sera he's only like 5"4/5"5 so an extra 50lbs looks like 150
Paddy gains unbelievable fast too. He Starts eating his favorite foods immediately after his fights. The food somehow gets to his mouth before the Post fight interview Mic does. One of my favorite fighters 😂
@Zarp Sterr he’s gonna hurt himself, you can tell he has mental health problems. Food is his comfort.
Man, we just know paddy goes home and has 3 bowls of pasta, a tub of ice cream, and a helping of fish n chips after as dessert😂
@@anon2427 mental health problems aren’t funny.
Must be beer as well. He looks so bloated off season
Love the way your videos are formatted. Simple but informative
Very informative. The difference between lifestyle and diet.
Probably the most insighful look into the topic of fighters weight gain post-fights, and you did it in under 8 minutes! Fighters should be fighting at their more natural weight rather than ballooning up on fight night to gain such an advantage. Look at Mayweather, he fought at welterweight for about 15 years and was beating guys naturally bigger than him.
Yep, that is why he preferred to outbox them rather than "try and knock them out" as most fans wanted.
How do you determine what is natural?
They may walk around 20 lbs heavier because that’s their OFFSEASON.
Should you fight when you’re not in your best shape? What is your best physical shape?
Mayweather is a defensive boxer, the best at his craft. His weight has nothing to do with it. He’s just that good. He didn’t choose to make a specific weight for a specific reason.
He is simply the best boxer beating the BEST boxers that helps him make the most amount of money. Floyd MONEY mayweather.
@Joske Vermeulen
Fax. Even DC can’t beat Jon Jones. That guy is tall lengthy skinny dude that plays the outside game.
They should have to make weight a week, a day and an hour before the fight
Basketball players DON'T need to stay in weigh classes that's the difference
Teams will have weight limits for players. The Miami Heat have a body fat % requirement too
True. They are also training year round too.
@Ron Jeremy
Literally irrelevant. Like completely irrelevant...
There is no rule saying these idiots cant stay close to their fighting weight with year round training. Say what ya will about Floyd, but he NEVER stopped training this dude took his body seriously
I dont understand how a professional freaking fighter could have the audacity to not treat his body with the utmost respect. Thats why those MuayThai dudes are DIFFERENT because they are always in fighting shape. Hence why they dont sparr very hard because they fight so much
They know when to rest and when to go hard. Muay Thai fighters especially know how important their bodies are since fighting is literally their way to survive
@@JROB447
NBA players are over 15% body fat.
Any lower than that, you’re on the territory of BODYBUILDING. That’s impossible for any athlete to be in at least 10% body fat and still compete at the highest level.
If you are in your best shape, you’re around 15-20% body fat. And that’s ok
@@alohatigers1199 you can be 12% body fat and still perform at peak levels fr.
I think some of these guys form eating disorders, and I'm not exaggerating. Paul Felder said one time he would eat an entire box of donuts after his fights, that's over 3,000 calories by itself. I think during these cuts, while they starve and dehydrate themselves I can imagine the body goes into a defensive mode where once you know mentally you can eat again you just binge eat until you can't anymore. Your body thought you were dying of hunger/thirst, so it tries to pack on the pounds, I don't think it's only mental but psycho-somatic.
I remember back when I was in high school being shocked that so many fighters in the bantamweight division were walking around 170 and sometimes even 180 lbs. i was also shocked to see how big their appetites were compared to other athletes.
I would bet that the fighters that stay much closer to fighting weight perform better for longer - have a better career.
For sure, I don't understand why fighters do this insane weight cuts in just a few weeks, being in such a calorie deficit + dehydration just after a fight can't be a good thing for health and performance
@@kossonar2663 it’s mainly for an advantage. That’s where the term weight bullies comes from. A lot of fighters do big weight cuts to fight in smaller classes. Like khabib walks around at 205 but fights lightweight. Almost all the lightweights in ufc walk around at 200 pounds even boxing they do it
@@elvis4296 yeah but I don't know if it's worth it because you're sacrificing so much (especially endurance) for just a few kg of advantage, we have seen cases of fighters moving up in weight classes and performing even better
@@elvis4296 wow!, why their fighting weight is much less than their real weight (15Kg differenence) ..
they should be stronger at a heavier weight which is thier normal weight
@@kossonar2663 you gotta think there never really moving up just cutting less weight. Like chamzat when he didn’t make weight if he moves up to middleweight that’s the weight he hit trying to cut for the Nate Diaz fight
I have cut 10+ pounds a few time when I was A high school wrestler, when you cut weight everything is more difficult and less fun, one of the worst experiences of my life, however wrestling and winning matches has been one of the greatest things for me.
A lot of fighters struggle with Eating disorders because of the weight cuts and then putting that weight back on, Definitely something to be mindful of. My muay thai coach's recommendation is to stay as close to fight ready as you can with out it being detrimental to your overall well being
A trainer of mine told me something similar. He had told me if you are not at competition weight to at least stay within 10 lbs at all times. For me that would be 185 to compete around 175. Danger zone for me is if i hit 190. That dude was pushing 70 and weighed the same as he did when we was 25.
Maidana blew my mind. I had no idea he got that big
The algorithm led me to your channel and I’m hooked! As a SUPER (and I mean really) casual fan, your content is digestible and easy to watch. Currently binging through your videos, keep up the great work!
i love your videos so much, the chill vibe they always have
One big thing you have to realize too is if you are doing a water weight cut you are also cutting out any salt in your food so that your body doesn't use that salt to sustain and absorb water weight. So when you go back to eating normally seasoned food your body gets shocked back to absorbing and retaining a whole lot more of that water because it realizes you were depleted of it.
there's a lot of professional athletes like nba or nfl players that have trash diets health wise but they don't eat a lot and obviously train most of the year so they still stay lean, just look at DK Metcalf 😂
DK is also a freak of nature
And don't forget the secret sauce ;)
Colby covington is pretty much always in shape, always eats clean and only makes like a 5-10lb cut to make weight. Say what you want about his size and power but it's clear his phenomenal cardio and chin are tied to this.
Yup he can easily cut to 155 but that would probably effect his cardio
I don’t think Colby cuts that much weight
@@anon2427 He does, said it himself in an interview.
I’ve been watching a lot Paddy, so this is very well timed for my recommended 😅
Please keep the videos coming man. Your channel, kiyon kimora and the modern martial artist videos always make my days better. Love
This happened to me.. I was competing at 160 and I think I would usually burn around 3000 calories in training. I don't really count them. But I know it's on top of my 2000 I would normally do without it. When covid happened the gyms locked down and I kept eating the same. Boom gained 40 pounds. I'm cutting it now. I'm 180. Still got 20 to go. Won't be a problem
Covid was 2 years ago and you've only lost 20 lbs???
@@mustang8206 its not a problem
Yo dude....I'm really loving your videos. Good topics and nice editing, just great stuff
Another video man love the passion and the attention to detail in your videos absolutely great material and production overall.
Love you videos man🙌🏾, your one of my favs on CZcams now.
Much Love❤
And keep up the great work!
TJ,
Your content is really intelligent & thought provoking. Thank you for the knowledge, Sir.
no way that's Saunders in the thumbnail 😂
Couldn't believe it either
I think most fighters can gain weight and lose it comfortably before a fight. The problem is when fighters get short or no training camps. The weight cut for Jorge’s fight with Usman was extreme because he took the fight in a weeks notice. He was in good shape, but he didn’t have a time in a camp to slowly lower his weight.
I would for sure agree another extreme example of this is sumo wrestling they’re so big and eating a lot but when they stop sumo wrestling when they’re already big it really decreases their health fast
Good vid. And while a lot of people will say, 'Why don't people just fight in their natural weight class?' its not so simple when you are in a field where competition is so fierce, especially at the top. Any advantage that a fighter can get, they will take and only top down methods from the company they work under can fix this issue. Stuff like hydration tests, if they get widely accepted, would go a long way to remedying this situation.
The thing is, they are probably fighting people the same weight as them that also cut, like: 2 180 pounds people fighting at 150, pointless, they should remove weightclasses and be done with thiss bullshit
As a boxer and Muay Thai fighter. The first thing most trainers have told me is "your body is your temple, if you only maintain it a few times a year, the whole structure suffers no matter how hard you try."
Awesome video man! I love your editing style!
Great work bro.
Supporting from Yuma, Arizona!
Bro thank you so much for these videos. Keep up the good work 👍
You deserve more subs keep up the good work brother loving the content.
Love your videos
Crazy channel bro. This another one of those I am here at 20k and a few months down the line you be at 200k. Good luck bro
happy this channel is coming up
Bro, love ur videos, probably take a lot of work to make them. Suggestion: pls make a full guide on how to become a superstar professional boxer(deals, promotion, weight divisions etc.. not necessarily technique-wise)
You're exactly right. I cut down to 155 from 180-190 and the binge eating after the fight is a huge issue that I have. I justify eating so much right after a fight to "reward" myself. I know it's bad for my long term health, but I still do it anyway. I end up eating a lot for too long and my cheat meal turns into a cheat life until I have another fight lined up.
keep up the good work bro love ur vids
One of my favorite channels
"Its entirely possible that thats the most difficult thing Ive ever done" 😂😂😂😂😂😂
This is why weight classes & clauses exist, to protect fighters. Drastic cuts like that wreak the body.
Great video! I love how ur targeting both mma and boxing fans
love this channel
I love how redditors are the fat boxers weight all year round
LOL and discord mods😂
And they would have the audacity to mock them
@@anon2427 damn u should be a comedian
Very interesting, glad this vid came about
Fun video to watch. I like the clean design and editing. At 2:40 you have Joe Rogan pictured... his doctor, Dr. Gordon, has said that head trauma can lead to weight issues. (Hypothalamus-pituitary axis damage and subsequent hormone imbalances).
This is easily the best boxing channel on YT pls do a video on "why Fighters lose so much weight to fight in lower weight classes"
If I have to summarize it, I'd probably say they use all that willpower to hang on to the camp and weightcut, so when their done with the fight they lack the willpower to avoid food.
Or they see it like they earned it, which tbh they pretty much did
please make a video about why boxers cut so much rather than just fight in their catagory
Because you can rehydrate thus if you choose to stay at your weight you don't actually fight someone your weight you fight someone 15+ pounds heavier same day weigh ins made things worse anyway since people still wanted reach and bone density advantages but went in without sufficient hydration and some major deaths occured
The stress caused by the insane pressure for weight cuts probably also plays a role. Thats 6 weeks of just pure pressure all the way up until fight night. The dopamine crash combined with the binging probably has a huge impact. Ik just for me and ny normal life a chocolate bar never fails to lift my spirits.
Great vid bro, which software do you use?
That's why I respect fighters who stay in the gym year round basically
My cousin was a gimnast from a very young age.Around 17 years she quit for some reason I can't remember.She got huge really fast(she was very slim) for a couple of years.She managed to recover but I was so surprised how fast and how fat she got :).
One of the reasons why boxers 50-60 years ago performed at a much higher level than today, they were so active and had to stay trim year round or else fight heavyweights lol
boxers 50-60 years ago did not perform at a much higher level than today though. boxers today perform at a much higher level than 50-60 years ago. you and the 22 people who upvoted your comment are wrong
@@specialK312nah man the greatest boxers and trainers came from the era where boxing was its most active and competitive. theres a reason why dinosaurs like Ray Arcel, Eddie Futch and Cus Damato were so prominent in the 70s-90s. Boxing will be a relic of the past one day were in the last stages of it
@@JeffPenaify boxers back then we're not that good. it's almost as if they were amateurs, matter of fact if I had to guess then I would say professional boxers back then are more comparable to today's amateurs then today's pro's. they just weren't that good technically. they were just swinging hoping to hit something, watch some of those fights, they look ridiculous
@@specialK312 you got it completely backwards, todays fighters are more comparable to amateur system, because thats where they get the bulk of their experience the opposite was the case back then, fighters didnt have lengthy amateur careers instead opting for lengthy pro careers, thats why they were much better at inside fighting, investing in the body, slipping and weaving over eating it on the high guard and adapting across 10-15 rounds.
@@specialK312 you have no clue what youre talking about lol
You have to compare the mentality to, it's very hard to stay motivated in vien and train/eat to "just look good"
When usually during camp you have an opponent that wants to kill you giving you all the motivation to eat right n train hard.
Speaking from experience
id like to see your breakdown on the logic of weight cuts. it seems like there are multiple health related reasons not to do it, and i can only assume that fighting below someones "walking around weight" grants strength and size advantages to weight cutters.
TJ we need a face reveal and boxing career reveal man, you're piking my curiosity way too much.
something i think might be a factor is how likely former pro athletes are to keep playing their sport at an amateur/social level. i imagine most pro fighters are probably a lot less likely to compete as an amateur again after retiring than other pro athletes, and that without regular competition giving them a reason to train, that a lot pretty much stop entirely. by comparison i imagine a lot of former pro basketball players probably play enough basketball to keep reasonably fit, even if they're not training at all.
it seems to me too that pro fighters tend to be much more focused on muscular fitness over CV fitness (both in terms of body type and training) than a lot of other pro athletes, and that body types like that tend to be more susceptible to weight gain if they're inactive than other body types are.
Could another explanation be that other athletes don't have to stay below a certain weight?
Like a football player walks around at 220 pounds, retires, stays at 220. He didn't gain any weight.
But that same guy as a boxer could need to stay below 170 for his weight class, retires, and goes up to 220. Suddenly he "got fat".
In boxing there’s a weight limit
In football you need to be massive or your body will shatter.
Chino maidanas transformation always gets me 🤣
As a college wrestler. It gets crazy. A lot of us Ballon up after we are done.
There was a guy called gleison tibau who fought at lightweight in the ufc who would cut down from i shit you not 220lbs to 155lbs
and he wasnt fat at 220lbs easier since he absolutely juiced to the gills...most of what he cut was just water and muscle and only missed weight twice in 20 ufc fights by no more than 3lbs
mindboggling
Some say he should have won the decision against Khabib.
@@SoyElta meh stuffing takedowns aren’t enough to win fights for me. Watch the fight again and it’s still a Khabib decision. Tibau defo won rounds tho.
Basically its the difference between yoyo dieting and creating a sustainable lifestyle. They can extreme diet and train for 2 months but they don't learn any long term healthy habits that will stick with them for life. An interesting inverse of this is offensive linemen in football. They have to be over 300 lbs for their sport and so they have to eat huge amounts of calories to keep their weight up. But once they retire they always get shredded. This is because they are used to doing all this exercise but no longer need all those calories. So when they just switch to a more normal diet they weight drops off.
One of the biggest parts that doesn’t really get spoken about is the effects these big weight cuts have on one’s metabolism. With the decrease in food, your body slows down the rate at which it digests food resulting in many putting on more weight after their cuts
It’s funny that you mention reaching a spiritual level when you’re cutting because I instantly knew that feeling, I cut 6 pounds one day and it reduces are your thoughts and instincts to a primal and killer state, to this day if I’m in need of a mind reset I’ll hit a fast and a run just to regain that raw thinking ability
Quality content.
I’m doing boxing, after watching this video it kinda help my remind myself that it’s alright if I’m not sparing or training but doing something is better than being lazy. They had to go extreme because of fight I’m not going pro just doing it because it’s fun but I know I don’t wanna gain weight so it’s best to do calisthenics so you got something to do rather than sitting down eating your food and watching Netflix.
When I was taking boxing seriously I ate way more than I do now. I was sitting at 126 and my fight weight was 125. When I stopped I just stopped eating so much because eating food when I’m not hungry makes me feel sick lmao. I’m sitting at around 145 now and feel great
Hey Can You Make A Video On Explaining Why Retirement Is Hard In Boxing, MMA & Even Pro Wrestling As Why They Always Comeback After Saying They Retired
I’d love that video about why fighters cut so much weight
Earned a sub
3:36 never heard of him -or rather not really attuned to the fighting scene in general- but absolute madlad. man is bob from tekken, but reversed. can't imagine the discipline during the training camps to get back in shape that fast
The uppercut did it, nice. Just chillin but they’re still eating still
TJ!! Not sure if you saw my message before, but would it be cool if I reacted to some of them? All your videos are great. Respect.
Ahhh the best channel on CZcams... Keep it up or I'll be mad 😡
It happens with some professional cyclists as well, e.g. Bradley Wiggins, Greg LeMond, Eddy Merckx, they also have very extreme diets and would go into races like the Tour de France at the absolute minimum weight possible
As a boxer, when I no longer have to diet, I can swallow two 12 inch dominoes pizzas. I also used to get 3 huge burritos and I could eat those in one sitting. My enormous hunger eventually settles and I can barely fit one burrito. I walk around at 180 and the most I’ve weighed was 203.
Been here before 1mil subs
i lvoe ur videos man keep doing this shit no one does this for boxing
I fought 3 amateur fights last year back to back, two muay thai and one mma I went from 205 to 270 lol, but the weight gain happened after a foot injury and lack of training. When i’m training and eating I try to be flexible with my diet although I rarely have cheat meals i’ll usually walk around 212-218
Let's be honest the Wight gain happened because you couldn't stop over eating
Being injured has never anybody fat 😂 eating fat makes you fat NO Excuses
@@jaybiedayy3347 you’re right! What I didn’t mention was the foot injury caused me to stop training therefore I had no motivation to stay in shape. Good news is i’m back training & i’m back down to 240 hopefully I can make a comeback early next year
New subscriber
Video suggestion : dmitry bivol vs artur beterbiev?
I thought the pic of Saunders on the thumbnail was world’s strongest man Tom Stoltman lol!
I think if boxing had a "season" or like more torunaments, people would fight closer to their natural wieghts and would have a better effect on fighters' long term health, physically and mentally.
Fighters who stayed in shape year round usually stay in shape after they retire. Mayweather Hopkins Ward etc
Now we should really appreciate dagestani fighters who only add extra 5-6kg and are always in shape and make weight for all their fights
It’s so important, because you’re not going through fat camp the first month of training camp. Plus you’re not training as well when you got the extra weight.
Worth noting in the good old days elite professional boxers fought way more frequently than elite level boxers today who generally average 1-3 bouts per year, for example Willie Pep fought 13 times in 1943 as the reigning Featherweight champion, hard to blow up in weight and then cut down for fights if you have to fight in the same weight class all year round.
Of course, there's some exceptions like Duran and Toney who did 'stay busy' fights above the weight classes they were campaigning at. Toney in particular literally ate his way from middleweight to heavyweight as an active pro yet remained as slick as the layers of blubber he put onto his frame over the years.
Elite fighters today should emulate the old timers more, fight more often and around their natural fit weight instead of making drastic weight cuts once or twice a year.
Rocky Marciano also got a little husky after he retired. It's perfectly understandable, food is delicious and boxers are used to burning tons of calories.
Always assumed it was because they continued to take on the same calories as they did when they were training but just weren't expending the same amount any more. Other than in Paddy's case when he goes fucking mental and tried to eat everything in existence!
Man I walk at 258 and cut to 230 for fights and it surprising how quickly the weight gets ya' on the off season.
I trained at Victory too. I was there from 2012-2015. What years were you there?
I heard that paddy pimblets ballons but @3:44 actually made me say goddamn out loud