Training at Home - Goyito Blog

This week has been pretty quiet. After last week's strength and conditioning workouts, my body feels dead when I walk, so I'm recovering. This Saturday was my first day off in a long time, as I'd gone three straight weeks without a rest day. Saturday I took an ice bath and Saturday I rested all day.

Sunday I started my diet in full force -- I cut back the carbohydrates, kept my protein the same and started doing different training exercises. Less weight lifting and more jogging and checking my weight every day so I don't lose too much and arrive too skinny.

This process is very different for each fighter. I know my body and I know I’m not doing any more hard cardio in the coming weeks, it’s more to refine the techniques we’ll use during the fight. I'll only be training two or three days per day -- instead of four -- to let my body recover. I know when I reach my breaking point and also when I am overtraining and need to stop, otherwise on the day of the fight if you get tired on the first round, you'll suffer Also you should know what weight you should be one or two weeks before the fight.

Over the next few weeks, many fighters at Greg Jackson's gym will be fighting. Jon Jones and Carlos Condit will headline events, and Diego Brandao, Clay Guida, Diego Sanchez, Cowboy Cerrone, Travis Browne, Frank Mir and Bubba McDaniel have also been getting ready.

Many of them give me tips and advice. I try to train just as hard as they do, and sometimes I tell them I'll take days off even when that's not the case, because I'm a little stubborn. The truth is that it's incredible to be there, and I want to be champion like Jon Jones or to be able to keep up with Carlos Condit. It feels good to be in their presence and to train with the best, so I'm here.

You may think there is a certain type of tension with so many important fights -- for example, Travis Browne's win could earn him a title shot, while Brandao was trying to crack the top ten and Jones has to defend his belt. Nope! The truth is that there's no pressure from anyone. We feel more pressure during the week of the fight when we are cutting weight and acclimating to the event city than there is when we are training. Here we're relaxed, like family, laughing and training together.

You learn a lot being among them, of course. Diego Brandao is my training partner, so I ask him a lot about jiu-jitsu -- how to do something, how to defend something. Clay Guida gives me grappling tips all the time -- every time he takes me down, I ask him to show me how he did it. It's a constant learning. We're sharing tips all the time.