For the last 6 years I have trained my body far too hard at times with little rest.

After pulling out on very late notice of MMA Attack 2, which would have been a highlight in my MMA career, I’ve taken a few weeks out of training and spent time looking at how I can change my training schedule and routines in order to keep in the best condition possible whilst remaining relatively injury free.

I have been training so hard without a break for a long time, very rarely taking a day off and always training pretty hard. Competing at a high level of MMA you need to train so many different disciplines as well as different aspects of conditioning it is hard not to overtrain.

Right now I have a rotator cuff issue in one of my shoulders, leaving it with very little outward rotation strength and a compression on a nerve in my back/neck which is causing a little strength loss, a numb arm and especially hand and a lot of pain.

Two huge fights have been missed this year, versus Tom Niinimaki on Cage 18, and then against Sebastian Grabarek on the huge MMA Attack 2. This one was particularly painful. I had physio and chiro treatment desperately trying to get into shape for the fight but ultimately had to pull out on the day of the weigh in.

So now it’s time to heal, work on conditioning that doesn’t involve lifting weights, some light pads and drills as well as technique. The days of overtraining are now gone. Any training that doesn’t add value to my conditioning is gone. Less Volume in lifting weights and sparring, and less sparring with partners 10 + kgs bigger. A tweak here and there, a little less volume, some smaller sparring partners and I will be back within 3 months to get some sharpness back before a tough fight at the end of the year.

Hopefully I will be fighting in the highlands in July on Caledonian Combat and then later on in the year on MMA Attack 3.

In the meantime I’ve got my hands full helping Olympians MMA Fighters first get ready for Tear Up 9, and then Fight UK, June 9th and June 23rd respectively. Our 18 year old bantamweight Toby Meech, as well as two of our Polish fighters Lukasz and Piotr both around the light-heavy mark make their C-class pro debuts. Also 2-0 at C-class Mitch Fry looks to add another win, and Wes Murch fights Mamour Fall for the lightweight Tear Up belt over 5 rounds in what will be a very tough test. Then Toby Meech, LJ Adams and Guy Lewis will be fighting C-class on fight UK in Leicester. So the team is really busy just now and we have a lot of guys coming through.

Finally just a note about the MMA in Poland. This is how MMA should be done. MMA Attack was huge, the show is brilliant, and after watching KSW 19, take away the main event and the show was first class. The production on these events are quality, they get huge crowds, it’s on mainstream TV and they have excellent fighters on display.

The difference is massive, I’ve fought on a lot of shows in a few different countries and nothing comes close. MMA Attack were brilliant bringing my wife and daughter to Poland for the show and treating us with VIP treatment after I couldn’t fight.