Conor McGregor Training Philosophy
Rinse and repeat, the age old philosophy for mastery… But is that the truth? Conor McGregor thinks otherwise, but what does current science say? Thank you for joining me as I explain.
Always mix up your training equipment and your training patterns to keep your workouts fresh. The engine knows no different. The engine simply knows it is being called upon to work. Never become a specialist in one area of training. A specialist is simply a rookie in every other area.
There’s an old assumption that training the same motor skill, or technique, piano piece etc over and over again is the ideal way to master it, but Conor appears to go against that very grain, implying we should always keep what we do fresh, always mix it up to ensure we don’t become a specialist only doing one thing too many times.
For a lot of you, this may already sound like blasphemy, but could there be any truth to what he’s saying? That constantly mixing up your regiment is the ideal way to learn and grow?
John Hopkins University actually tested this, exploring the difference between doing the same thing over and over again versus consistently mixing up your regiment or task.
They took 86 volunteers to learn a new skill, and the volunteers were split into three groups. Each spent 45 minutes practising the skill. Six hours later one of the groups was asked to repeat the same training exercise again, while the other group performed a slightly different version, while the third group only completed the first training session to act as a control.
Constantly Modifying Your Training
When the training period was over, everyone was tested on their ability to perform the new skill, and of course the control group did the worst, but amazingly, the people who constantly mixed up their training by consistently modifying it, did twice as good as the people who just kept repeating the task over and over again.
It is theorised that the reason for this is reconsolidation, a process where existing memories are modified with new knowledge.
I’ll leave a link for this down bellow.
But non the less, this shows, Conor McGregor is somehow ahead of the curve when it comes to his training philosophy, and I don’t know how he figured this out, but by keeping his workouts fresh, by what I believe using reconsolidation, he appears to have gained a learning advantage when it comes to developing his fighting skills.
Cub Swanson expresses his experience with mixing up regiments here as well.
Another reason could be it helps keep your motivation up by keeping the training sessions always interesting, so you always have interest thus motivation in working hard to master that skill…
But another important reason to ensure the diversity of your training regiment could be to mitigate the pruning of your existing skills also known as synaptic pruning. When you don’t use skills for too long, say riding a bike, playing the piano, doing that sick 360 kick, your brain prunes away at the pathways you aren’t using, and so perhaps in a way by Conor always mixing up his training.
He’s ensuring he’s always keeping his skills fresh as well, thus, it’s probably safe to say that what Conor McGregor is doing and telling us is the truth, and through this knowledge, I hope you find an edge for your own path, because, at the end of the day, we are all warriors one way or another.
Music:
- Meluran – I Need You (No Copyright Trap Music)