Nick Thompson (Pictures) has eaten "chicken, brown rice and spinach to the point of nausea." He doesn’t see his friends, rarely spends time with his family and never goes out on weekends. Vacations? The man didn’t even go on his honeymoon.
This ascetic lifestyle represents only a fraction of the sacrifices professional fighters like Thompson make to compete in the dog-eat-dog world of mixed martial arts.
Training alongside former UFC lightweight champion Sean Sherk (Pictures) at the Minnesota Martial Arts Academy, Thompson pushes his conditioning to the limit day after day with the same type of insane “caveman workouts” that garnered Sherk attention at the Athletic Performance Institute. If you recall the pre-event broadcast for UFC 73 last July, those same drills had Sherk growling and gnashing his teeth like a feral beast.
Sherk caught a lot of flak for his steroid debacle, but his grit cannot be questioned. As Sherk’s training partner, Thompson feels a lot of the “Muscle Shark’s” blue-collar mentality has rubbed off on him, which, in turn, has been critical in transforming him into a consummate professional in everything from training to dieting.
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