Former UFC lightweight champion Islam Makhachev (27-1) moves up to the welterweight division to challenge 170-pound titleholder Jack Della Maddalena (18-2) in the UFC 322 main event on Nov. 15.
Makhachev successfully defended the lightweight title four times before vacating the championship to pursue a second UFC divisional championship. Moving up in weight class, Makhachev made changes to his training camp.
“This camp is really hard. I gained weight. I became big. And my opponent, my sparring partners, I changed there some. Some guys they’re so very big. That’s why it’s a very hard camp,” Makhachev told ESPN MMA.
“We did like first camp for the, we did like, from the lifting, it’s the weights which I use in the training. Everything is changing, you know, it’s become very hard. Now I feel good. Just still a little bit jet lag after the flight. A couple of days more and I will be good.”
“We changed like many, many things,” Makhachev continued. “We sat with the coaches and we made the plan, you know. And (it was) very difficult to gain the weight. I finally became a little bit big now because I tried to like the last couple of months. It’s very hard. I used like creatine, protein after every training. You try to eat more, but it’s very hard when you train twice a day. When you’re training hard it’s very hard to gain weight.”
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Makhachev wanted to add pounds and had his sights set on a specific weight. No longer having to cut down to make 155 pounds, the 34 year-old wanted to walk around near 192 pounds.
“I want to walk around 87 kg (191.8 pounds),” he said. “Fight week I want to be like 83 kg (183 pounds). It’s going to be very easy (to) cut weight honestly, I think. And we’ll see. I still keep in touch with the UFC nutritionist guys. They give me good supplements, good advice also.”
“When I changed the weight division, my life is changed. Always, like all my life I have to think about what I’m going to eat, what I have to eat for the dinner, you know. Now I can enjoy my camp, eat whatever I want, and smile in training.”
Makhachev believes that having to cut down to 155 was affecting his performances at lightweight. Entering those fights, he didn’t feel near 100 percent.
“No one from the hard, like who cut like 10 kg (22 pounds), like more than 10 kg, they never recover 100 percent. I still feel my recovery for the fight like maybe 70-60 percent because it’s so hard to recovery by 30 hours,” he said. “Now I’m very excited to see how I’m going to feel in the cage.”
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