B.J. Penn: The Ultimate Fighter's Newest Coach Reveals His Training and Fighting Secrets!
B.J. Penn: The Ultimate Fighter's Newest Coach Reveals His Training and Fighting Secrets!By Edward Pollard |
 In the world of mixed martial arts, it’s not hard to spot a winner. He’s usually holding a big, shiny belt and covered with sweat—and often the blood of his opponent. Some winners are different, and they find satisfaction in other ways. Take B.J. Penn, for instance. After making his mark in 2001 as a lightweight in the Ultimate Fighting Championship 31, he’s fought in practically every weight class, including heavyweight, and has beaten tough opponents every step of the way. His biggest recent win in the UFC came against Matt Hughes in 2004, who until then had ruled the welterweight division. Penn tested the waters of K-1 in Japan and Rumble on the Rock in his home state of Hawaii before returning to the UFC. In 2006 he fought a rematch with Hughes at the UFC 63. Penn dominated the first two rounds, then lost his momentum and the fight after an awkward injury. It was that loss, however, that cleared his schedule and allowed him to coach opposite his old nemesis, Jens Pulver, in Season 5 of The Ultimate Fighter. Black Belt spoke to Penn at the UFC training center in Las Vegas only days before the shooting of the hit reality-TV series wrapped.—E.P.
Black Belt: You were introduced to jujutsu by Tom Callos. Did you feel that it offered you secrets for gaining more control in a fight? B.J. Penn: I never thought about it as secrets; I thought of it as knowledge. I needed to know as much as I could at all times, and I always try to learn. I consider myself the forever student. I believe I’m the best, but I can never stop learning. You have to go to all the good people out there and learn what they know, whether it’s swapping techniques or just being a straight-up student. Once you forget that, you’re done. All you can do is train every single day and hope you’re current with what’s going on because things move so fast. BB: It must be difficult to stay current once you’ve risen to the top of the mixed martial arts. What methods do you use? Penn: I train in jujutsu all the time. I do some weights and some cardiovascular, and I stretch a lot and do plyometrics. Nutrition is important; you’ve got to eat the right foods. You’ve got to have a nutritionist or a friend who knows nutrition because if you’re just working out and not eating right, you’re wasting your time. Once you stop watching your nutrition, it ruins everything. Your body starts breaking down immediately. You have to combine hard training with proper nutrition. You learn so much faster because your brain functions better when it has better food. BB: What’s your training regimen when you’re preparing for a fight? Penn: I’ve done it all. I’ve gone six hours a day with three two-hour sessions. I’ve tried one hour a day. For this next fight [with Jens Pulver], I’m probably going to go three hours in the morning and an hour and a half at night. BB: Do you tailor your training to your opponent? Penn: No, it’s just my normal 100 percent raised to a higher level. My 100 used to be one hour a day every other day, but now my 100 is train in the morning, sleep all day and train at night. I really like that long break in the middle. BB: How do you develop your endurance? Penn: There are different ways—the most basic is keeping your heart rate at 70 percent to 75 percent for a certain amount of time using a heart-rate monitor. I run on a treadmill, bike uphill or do whatever gets my heart pumping. Sprints are important for engaging the anaerobic system. I run laps underwater and do 500-yard sprints. I hate sprints, but I know I have to do them. You can also do circuit training: sprint 40 yards forward, 40 yards backward, jump 10 times, walk [in a] wheelbarrow 10 yards forward and 10 yards backward, jump off your hands left and right, then do skipping back and forth. Try to build your aerobic base and start working the sprints in. It’s better to just stay in shape all year round and always be your best. When you drop out of it and then try to get ready for a fight in two months, you have to start all over. If your opponent’s near your skill level and he stayed in shape all the time, he’ll have the advantage. BB: You’re known for your flexibility. What role does stretching play in your workouts? Penn: Every day I stretch about half an hour before going to bed. I don’t stretch before practice; I just warm up to get the blood going. If I’m not too exhausted, I stretch after training. But often I’ll go home, eat, relax, take a shower and then stretch before going to sleep. A good routine is to start from your head and go down to your feet, stretching everything you want to stretch. Flexibility is essential. That’s why so many people have such a hard time taking me down, passing my guard and reversing me when I’m on top. It’s important to have strength with your flexibility. At the gym, you often see strong, stiff guys and weak, flexible guys. To become a force in fighting, you need to combine those. BB: What’s an average day like for you when you’re preparing for a fight? Penn: I get to the gym by 6 a.m. and get out by 9 a.m. so I can rest all day, like eight hours straight. Every couple of hours, I eat organic, healthy food—nothing processed. I focus on good carbs, no bad fats, low sodium and two gallons of water a day. BB: How do you schedule your training around eating that frequently? Penn: I wake up, drink a shake, go train for two hours, eat an orange to get my insulin level back up, maybe do an hour of cardio, eat again, then just try to stay home. I might wait another two hours until I eat again, or I might come home and eat a cup of brown rice, six egg whites, a chicken breast or something like that. It all depends on the stage of my diet. If I’m trying to drop body fat, it might be a chicken breast in the morning, then tuna and rice with two cups of organic vegetables in the afternoon. BB: How do you cut weight? Penn: I just cut down on my food and try to make whatever I eat as healthy as possible. After 6 p.m., I cut the carbs, and then as I start getting closer [to the fight], I eat lighter things like rice and chicken, then maybe just fish and greens at night. Everybody knows: Cut the carbs and cut the fat, and you’ll be looking good in no time. BB: What if you’ve only got 48 hours to lose several pounds? Penn: I don’t like to do that, but a lot of guys do it. The No. 1 thing: Don’t eat anything salty because sodium attracts water weight. Don’t use sports drinks for the same reason. The week of the weigh-ins, flush your system by drinking two or three gallons of fresh water every day. You can lose more weight by sitting in the sauna and letting the sweat get all that salt out. BB: Not many athletes are able to move up and down between weight classes. Why do you do it? Penn: To me, that’s part of what MMA is about. That’s especially what jujutsu is about—the little man being able to fight the bigger man. BB: Do you have any favorite techniques that help you fight bigger men? Penn: My game has hundreds of moves, and I do all kinds of advanced stuff, but I call what I do “advanced basic.” I take the most basic moves and make them as advanced and as strong as possible. For example, if I’m grappling and I’m on bottom, I’m either going to sweep or submit you or stand up. If I’m on my back, I’ll try a submission. If that doesn’t work, I’ll move on to sweep, pass your guard, mount, choke or armbar you. Anything that happens in between those moves, I’ll take, but this is the way I try to go every time. When I’m fighting, I come in, punch you, grab you, put you down, pass, mount, choke, armbar. That’s the game plan. If I’m on my back defending from the guard and you’re on top trying to pass or punch me, I’ll look for a submission. It could be a triangle or arm lock from my guard, and if I can’t get that, I’ll look for a sweep to put you on your back. The guy on top controls everything. He controls the weight he’s putting on you, and you’re constantly pushing him away. Of course, I always want to be on top, but when I’m on bottom, I might try to go for one of the five sweeps I really know. The same thing applies to reversals. BB: When you’re on the ground, do you feel any sense of urgency to win, or do you not worry because you have a great ground game? Penn: When I’m on my back, I’ll go for a couple of moves as quickly as I can. It’s not like self-defense, where I can take my time. It’s a sad fact of the sport that you’re fighting the clock as well as your opponent. It takes away some of the purity of the sport and the martial arts, but that’s today’s world. You have to be in great shape to push and win. BB: Which techniques do you think are most effective for MMA? Penn: You have to learn all the different martial arts if you want to succeed in this sport. The three basic things to learn first are kickboxing, wrestling and jujutsu. You have to build a base and a style so you have something to fall back on in case anything goes wrong in a fight. Your base is your instinct, and you build on it. Jujutsu players add wrestling and kickboxing. If you’re a kickboxer, add a good takedown defense and some jujutsu so you don’t get submitted easily if you do end up on the ground. Really, it’s about making yourself well-rounded—in stand-up, in takedowns and on the ground. BB: Your base is jujutsu, isn’t it? Penn: I was introduced to it before wrestling. Jujutsu is not the perfect martial art for beating today’s high-level UFC athletes, but I still feel that it’s one of the best self-defense arts. If you don’t want to fight and some guy’s trying to punch or kick you, you can still run away. If the guy chases you down and tackles you, you have ground-fighting skills. Jujutsu’s weakness is that a lot of players don’t have good takedown defense, which is something you can learn from judo or wrestling. BB: Which techniques do you find most effective? Penn: I like to do chokes. Somebody who’s caught in an armbar can let his arm break, but if you’ve got him in a choke, he’s going to sleep. If I’m on top and punching you, I might go for an armbar, but most of the time I’m going for a choke. From your back, you’ve got to be able to do armbars and triangles, too. With submission skills, you can extend your career. That’s why it’s important in MMA to save your body and protect your brain. You can win using armbars, locks, slams and takedowns. You don’t need to punch each other in the face all day. BB: Can you sum up your fighting strategy? Penn: Go straight in and always give a higher output than the other guy. For anything in life, you should just do more than the other guy. No matter how much he does, you do more. Everybody can break, so try to break him mentally. If he throws five punches, you throw 20. If he throws 20, you throw 40. If he defends against 15 takedowns, you do 17. That’s just what you have to do every single time you get in there. It’s pretty tough to maintain that level, so you’d better be in shape. About the author: Edward Pollard is Black Belt’s managing editor. For more information about B.J. Penn, visit www.blackbeltmag.com. Master Plan Some mixed martial artists adopt a strategy that entails fending off every attack their opponent launches while waiting for him to make a mistake. Once he does, it’s time to exploit the opening. That strategy is fine, B.J. Penn says, but what if the other guy doesn’t make a mistake? "That’s when you have to force it on him. When you get good, you don’t have to wait for him to make a mistake. You just force your will on him because you know his options are limited." —E.P.
The Ultimate Fighter, Season 5 With the fifth season of Spike TV’s The Ultimate Fighter under his belt, B.J. Penn is relieved to be able to return to Hilo, Hawaii, for some downtime before he begins training for his rematch against the show’s other coach, Jens Pulver. In January 2002, Penn lost a majority decision to Pulver at the UFC 35 and let the championship belt slip through his fingers. The loss served as a catalyst for greater deeds, as Penn went on a six-win tear that saw Paul Creighton, Matt Serra, Takanori Gomi, Matt Hughes, Duane Ludwig and Rodrigo Gracie chalk up losses. Penn claims the experience of coaching a team of fighters was like parenting. “Being on a show where so many people are competing in so many fights every day, I had to separate myself emotionally from it because it’s an effort,” he says. “During the first couple of fights, I was in an emotional knot. After a while, I accepted that this was going to continue for weeks and I couldn’t put myself through that every day. It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do.” —E.P.
Teach and Train No matter whom he’s gearing up to fight, B.J. Penn manages to dedicate time to furthering his jujutsu. “You don’t know a move until you can teach it,” he says. “I don’t care how well you can do it; you don’t really know it if you can’t make someone else understand why it works.” Penn mentors students of all ages five days a week at his gym in Hilo, Hawaii. Does giving instruction help solidify the knowledge he already has? “It just gives me something to do in the daytime,” he says with a laugh. “I never picture myself as a teacher. I’m just like another training partner there.” While he’s traveling the world, he always makes an effort to train with the best jujutsu, wrestling and kickboxing practitioners he can find. Most recently, he’s taken pointers from Rigan Machado, Randy Couture and Matt Lindland. “If you stop learning because you think you know everything, you’re making a big mistake,” he says. |
