Cardio Training for UFC Championship Fights
I’ve been doing a fat loss for the past few months and decided to see where I am fitness/cardio/mental-wise and go for the UFC Championship belt. We’re talking 5 5-minute rounds, with 1 minute rest periods. I don’t have a fancy gym like Sherk or Brock has for Caveman Training, but I do hill sprints for my difficult cardio so I figured I’d give it a shot to see if I can go all-out for a fight. I know it’s different since there’s no grappling, punching, etc. involved, but it’s still a heck of a test since it’s still a very high intensity cardio session.
I’ll probably set this as a once-a-week log because I always push myself harder each time I do cardio, so if I can get more hills, increase my avg. heart rate, max heart rate, go 5+ rounds, etc., I feel a sense of accomplishment. 
About Me:
Age: 29
Height: 5′7″
Weight: 159 pounds
Set Criteria:
Warmup: Light jog around 400m track (approx. 5-6 minutes)
Hills: Grass hills, approx. 40 yards uphill, approx. 40 degree grade, hill faces due north
Method: Uphill - 90% effort sprints, Downhill - fast walk
Cooldown: 1 lap walk around 400m track
Heart Rate Monitor: Polar F6
Today’s Criteria (7/5/09):
Temperature: 69 degrees F
Humidity: 64%
Wind: From NNE at 10mph (I had to fight the wind uphill today 
)
Time: Around 9:30am
Food: 1.5 scoops of whey protein prior to cardio (keep in mind, I’m doing this only for fat loss. If I were really going for the belt, I’d have a nice blend of simple/complex carbs and a small amount of lipids [fats] prior to a fight).
Cardio:
Warmup
Round 1: HR* Start - 130, HR End - 181, Hills - 10
Round 2: HR Start - 148, HR End - 188, Hills - 11
Round 3: HR Start - 160, HR End - 189, Hills - 11
Round 4: HR Start - 167, HR End - 188, Hills - 10
Round 5: N/A
Cooldown
*Heart Rate in BPM (Beats Per Minute)
Totals for workout:
Duration (including warmup & cooldown): 39:44**
Max Heart Rate: 191
Avg Heart Rate 163
Calories Burned: 516 (I never pay attention to this, but thought some members might be interested)
**I made a mistake and didn’t turn off my heart rate monitor for my first 4 stretches, but my HR was still 144 when I shut it off. Stretching still keeps the HR up if you’re stretching hard.
Overall, I think if I’d of had some carbs in my system to give my muscles some glycogen, I could have handled 5 rounds, remember, I only had some whey protein prior to this. By hill #7 on the 4th round, I bent over to catch myself, then told myself “get up pu***!” (literally did that, lol). Plus, I had to fight 10mph of wind in my face today.
Next week, I’ll give it a shot with a nice simple/complex carb mixture about 30-60 minutes before my cardio to give my muscles some glycogen for fuel; I really felt that was the problem as I was fine mentally and could still breathe pretty good, but my legs tired too much near the end of the 4th round, so I felt it was just best to “fight another day” 
Great workout, that was a lot of fun! 
