Workout of the Week: Fight Gone Terrible

Challenging workout structure with an even more difficult twist. Stamina-based physical challenge focused on developing mental, physical, and spiritual resilience.

Fight Gone Bad

Fight Gone Bad is one of my favorite workout structures simply because it’s extremely challenging.

A standard mixed martial arts fight in the UFC is three 5-minute rounds separated by 1-minute of rest. If you watch a professional fight, you’ll rarely see both competitors going full tilt for an entire round. When you do, I can assure you that output will be significantly less in the subsequent round(s).

Five minutes is nothing for most tasks. When trying to maintain high exertion, however, five minutes is an eternity.

Elite performance is extremely difficult to sustain when coupled with maximal exertion.

If you’re having to continuously work really hard without brief moments of recovery during a five-minute fight, things aren’t going well.

Fight Gone Bad simulates a tough round of fighting without needing to get punched in the head.

Intense, chaotic, stressful, this structure will test your limits.

Benefits include improved cardiovascular health, muscular endurance, stamina, speed, and power. More importantly, your mental toughness and resilience will be put to the test.

Fight Gone Terrible is my way of taking the already challenging structure of Fight Gone Bad and kicking it up a few notches.

The workout I’m sharing below is one of the ones I used to prepare for my first tournament at brown belt where all of my opponents were black belts that were bigger, stronger, and younger than me. This old man (in competition years, not maturity…) was able to push the pace and beat my first opponent. I attribute my mental toughness and confidence in my gas tank, in part, to workouts like Fight Gone Terrible.

You don’t need to be an elite athlete to perform any of my workouts. You don’t even need to be in shape. Modifications both to the exercises and exertion levels are always offered with videos.

Beneficial suffering is the stimulus that optimizes resilience.