If you only knew the blood, sweat, and toil behind this prize money, you would say, ‘He deserves £50,000!” I’ve been coaching Conor, a lightweight MMA fighter, and full-time electrical engineer, since 2024. Conor is based in Manchester, and I’m in Canada, so we check in every week, digitally, to see how he’s getting on. I send him videos each week, coaching him on how to improve, build upon his weaknesses, and get more out of his physicality and his fighting career. He's hungry to have a promising career in the fight game, and I've enjoyed developing him into a human weapon for the last couple of years. At the tail end of July 2025, it all paid off, and it’s a keeper of a story if you ask me... 9 months ago, I asked Conor this simple sentence; “Would you like to get on a call early next week and discuss preparation for your potential 8 man tournament?” “Yeh mate, I’ll book.” He obliged, and we made a plan; - Get strong as fucking possible for a lightweight.  - Set numbers, criteria, standards.  - Build an iron set of lungs so we can cook our opponents if we need did to, knocking them out in the last round if we have to.  - Check in every week so we stay on track. 3 fights in 9 months. Winner takes £5000. Conor felt he could win it and we had 2 months until his first fight. We got to work but it was far from a smooth sea to sail. We battled; - The smoke of a building fire, that caused Conor’s lungs to shut down and admitting him to hospital. - Bouts of acute fatigue, as a result of working full-time hours as an electrical engineer, getting up and training at the crack of dawn before work, going to work a full day, then training after work.  - The gruel of smashing through 3 stages of a tournament, with 3 fights  3 weight cuts, 3 camps, in 9 months.  Conor couldn’t deserve it more, winning this prize fight tournament, especially when you know what he went through to get it. Congratulations to Conor and his coaches for their victories.

Often combat sports coaching is filled with awful advice, but every now and then a gem shines through that you never forget. So I'm genuinely interested, what is one of the best pieces of advice your coach has ever given to you? Sound off in the comments and let's see what we're left with 👇🏻

1. If you have a resting heart rate *over* 60BPM, you should spend 8 weeks building a better foundation - you will get better results in the long run if you have a basic level of aerobic fitness. If you check out the ‘How to weaponise your gas tank’ section on Skool, you can run my free 8 week Base programme - 2 days per week, escalating durations across the 8 weeks. 2. If you have a resting heart rate *under* 60BPM, you can get stuck in to some more intense conditioning that will yield benefits in as little as 2-4 weeks. Start with 2 conditioning sessions per week; 1 session should be short durations with longer rest periods (Alactic emphasis) 1 session should be medium durations with medium rest periods (Lactic / Aerobic Power emphasis) 3. Do your conditioning after lifting sessions (if you still have the energy), or after skills (if the skills session was not too brutal), or on a different day entirely. Your conditioning sessions for Alactic, Lactic, and Aerobic Power emphasis should not last more than 30 minutes, total. If you have to work on your endurance, then 30-60 minute sessions are fine. 4. To make sure you are emphasising the right area of your gas tank, get familiar with work:rest ratios, otherwise you will be wasting your time thinking you’re training the right area when in fact you’re missing the mark; Alactic - 1:12 - 1:20 Lactic - 1:3 - 1:5 Aerobic - 1:1 - 1:3 5. Prioritise your *worst* areas with your conditioning Struggling with repeated bursts of power, recovering sufficiently between them? Focus on your Alactic Power and Capacity Struggling with longer exchanges, scrambles, and sequences? Focus on your Lactic Power and Capacity Struggling with pushing the pace or recovering between rounds and training sessions? Focus on your Aerobic Capacity and Power And then make sure you are TESTING your gas tank every 8 weeks. If you don’t test, you don’t know if you’re working at the optimal intensity for you and where you’re at.