Tag: living lean

Evolution of a Pit Bull: Improved Diet has Alves excited about UFC future
Words by David Abbou
Still just 28 years old, it’s easy to forget how much of a veteran Thiago Alves is when it comes to fighting. The UFC welterweight contender has already been a competitive fighter for half of his life. The native of Fortaleza had primarily focused on Muay Thai as a teenager, until one fateful day where he was discovered by representatives of American Top Team (ATT), the Florida-based MMA academy, that is widely considered one of the world’s best.
“I was a very particular Brazilian fighter, my background was Muay Thai. I was a professional Muay Thai fighter since I was 15, and I did a couple of amateur fights at 14,” recalls Alves who has grown to become one of the top 170 lb. fighters in the world. “I did some jiu-jitsu here and there in Brazil but it was more defensive, and really just about trying to get back up on my feet. At the time, ATT was picking fighters from all around the world and I was one of the lucky fighters from Brazil that got picked. It was a great opportunity for me to make a living, because back then not a lot of guys in Brazil were able to make money fighting in MMA.”
Alves made the journey to the U.S. at just 19 with dreams of making a living not only for himself, but being able to send money back home to his family. But in order to become a world-class fighter, he knew he needed to develop his BJJ game. Not much after he arrived and met his BJJ master at ATT –
former BJJ World Champion and esteemed Carlson Gracie black belt Ricardo Liborio – he knew he was in good hands.
“When I moved to America and I started training at ATT that’s when I started build a real base for jiu-jitsu. Now I’ve been there for about nine years and I feel way more comfortable on the ground these days,” says Alves who has worked his way up to a BJJ brown belt. “Learning from Ricardo, it’s awesome. I know I’ve gotten so much better, but at the same time, every time I’m training with Ricardo I feel sometimes like I don’t know anything…he’s on such a different level, he’s always ahead of you two, three or four moves…so it doesn’t matter how much better you get he’s always ahead of you. It’s a pleasure because you know when you’re training at ATT that the aspect of the ground game will never ever be a problem and the level of the training with Ricardo and some of the other black belts there is top notch.”
While his sights are currently fixed on becoming a UFC champion, Alves welcomes the day his Professor will present him with a BJJ black belt.
“Too be honest with you I have no idea when he will give it to me!” says Alves with a laugh. “I’ve trained with black belts a lot so if they think I deserve one I’ll take it, but if it takes a while longer that’s fine…it’s definitely something I’m looking forward to getting in the future.”
Alves’ MMA career so far has seen both high and lows, with wins over the likes of Karo Parisyan, Matt Hughes and Josh Koschek propelling him to a title shot against dominant welterweight champion Georges St-Pierre at UFC 100 in the summer of 2009. After losing that contest over five rounds, a bout in which he was mainly out-grappled, Alves lost his second straight fight to Jon Fitch. Before that bout Alves struggled to make the 170 lb. limit and knew he would need to make changes to his diet in order to stay a welterweight and still fight to his potential.
“MMA is a sport that makes you humble. If you’re not humble when you start then it will definitely make you humble,” reflects Alves, who recently decided to challenge himself and take his diet and conditioning program to a whole new level by hiring nutritional advisor and conditioning coach Mike Dolce before his most recent fight in November, where he submitted Papy Abedi with a rear naked choke.
Buying in to the Dolce Diet and conditioning program opened Alves’ eyes and he feels like a renewed fighter who is now better equipped to fulfill his life-long dreams in the sport.
“Because I’ve been a pro athlete for such a long time I thought I knew what I was doing, and now he (Mike Dolce) just changed my whole lifestyle. Today I’m very aware of what I’m eating, and know what my body needs and where my body’s deficiencies are. It’s a lifestyle so you become used to eating clean all the time, and whenever you’re allowed to have a cheat meal you enjoy that much more, but at the same time when you’re done you don’t feel good anymore and you want to eat clean again. It changed my life a lot, and also combining this diet with the strength and conditioning program, I feel great and I think the skies are the limit for my future right now.”
After a training camp, diet and condition program and the fight itself are finally behind him Alves loves nothing more than to catch up on some much needed R’n’R.
“I just love to chill and relax and give my body and mind a break and watch my favourite show ‘The Walking Dead’,” says Alves.
Soon it will be back to the gym for “The Pitbull”, as he recently agreed to headline the UFC’s second broadcast on the FX television network on March 3 in Sydney, Australia. His opponent in the main event is talented Danish welterweight Martin “The Hitman” Kampmann, who is fresh off a big win against Rick Story. Both fighters have had a similar development in the sport. Kampmann is also a strong kick boxer, and a BJJ brown belt under Robert Drysdale. Alves is expecting a great test from the Dane, but firmly believes in his own formula for success.
“I think Kampmann is a very tough and well-rounded fighter, and he beat Rick Story so he’s coming back up. But one thing I’m sure of is I’m going to be an even better version of myself not only when I fight him but for every fight after that.”
ORIGINAL ARTICLE POSTED HERE

Holiday season full of good MMA reads
By Chuck Mindenhall
Boxing has produced thousands of books in a century and a half, ranging from technique books, to nutritional, to reference, to literature. The latter is the hardest to come by.
Beginning with Pierce Egan in the mid-nineteenth century, boxing’s chroniclers have turned an artistic eye on what was otherwise known as “the grim trade.” Some of the best sports writing spanning back over the last century centered on the sweet science and its many characters. Why? In part because, as Max Kellerman once told me, people are naturally drawn to fights. It’s instinctive. Kellerman made the “four corners” analogy long before Dana White did — if there’s a basketball game on one corner, a football game on another, baseball on the third, and a fight on the fourth, what are people watching?
The fight. Every time. There’s something about conflict being resolved literally (fists) rather than through the use of metaphors (a ball).
Writers have realized this for a long time, and it’s why boxing has produced so many great articles and books over the years. It’s a game of countless mental and physical layers; it’s not a game at all. Start with those perceptive differences, and many boxing works stray into philosophy as much as they do the reporter’s transference of basic facts. The best of these make the two intertwine (books like Norman Mailer’s “The Fight,” A.J. Liebling’s “The Sweet Science,” Mark Kram’s “The Ghosts of Manila,” to name a few).
In 2011, there were plenty of mixed martial arts books published — more than ever. Not all of them were courting the same muse (though some are), but the five here are MMA-related books that are worth picking up this holiday season.
“Raw Combat” (Citidel Press), by Jim Genia
It’s a suspicious thing that in 2011 a book can be published that slinks to the underground to report on something as ubiquitously legal as MMA — but that’s what Genia’s book does. MMA isn’t yet sanctioned in New York, which means fights are held illegally throughout the boroughs. This is where Genia digs in, at times as a fly on the wall to bizarre scenes, at others as a regular Chuck Palahniuk plunging the fighters for their motivations. What stands out in the end? Not that the sport is illegal and therefore taboo, but that the fighters choose not to go across the river to New Jersey and do it on the up-and-up. Why? The “Fight Club” setting, that’s why. There’s a strange chemical in play throughout. Genia gets at it.
“Tapped Out” (Gotham Books), by Matthew Polly
The author of “American Shaolin” returns with a masochistic work as an everyman who, in his late-30s, undergoes training for an MMA fight. The amateur to professional gap is an often-humorous one while he trains at Xtreme Couture with the likes of Joey Varner and others, and Polly’s self-deprecation in the painful learning process stands out as much as the witty prose. It all culminates with his first professional fight. “Tapped Out” has a George Plimpton participatory thing going on, and Polly’s delivery is “Plimpton-esque.” But the true feat is that he manages to convey just how big the gap is between a regular Joe who thinks of fighting and a professional fighter who fights.
“The Principles of Unarmed Combat” (Turtle Press), by Mark Jacobs
If you know Mark Jacobs, you know the Black Belt writer has a fetish for combat sports that really outfetishes everybody (whether you’re talking empty-handed combat, or fighting with Swiss voulges). His book proves it, as it digs into concepts of not just ring technique but basic back-alley survival — kind of like Greg Jackson’s Gaidojutsu gone berserk. Throughout the 50 chapters layered into 10 dense sections, the idea he’s conveying isn’t just how to put an opponent in bad positions (or to get out of them), but the philosophies behind the ideas. If ever there was a comprehensive look at just about every scenario possible in hand-to-hand combat, whether it’s attack or defense, it’s covered here. Jacobs takes the fine-tooth comb through centuries of techniques, and updates everything to fit in today’s MMA world (and beyond).
“Living Lean” (Conrad James Books), by Mike Dolce
By now you know that Dolce has helped fighters like Thiago Alves make weight, but the thing that’s been under-stressed is that Dolce is a lifestyle changer. Bad habits, like buying out of season fruits, eating too much processed foods, and continuing this on-going charade with Teflon, are some automatic no-no’s. Now Dolce’s got a book out that will help those of you who wonder at his secrets, and it’s full of recipes and workout tips to get you into a leaner, healthier figure. The personal favorite: Bapple juice (apple, beets and chia seeds).
UFC Encyclopedia (DG Books), by Thomas Gerbasi
Very simply put, the most comprehensive look at the entire history of the UFC, from the beginning in 1993 through pre-Zuffa 2001, up until 2011. Over 1,500 pictures, bios and breakdowns of every fight to ever grace the Octagon, of every card that has gone on, of every significant moment, every record, every detail. It’s all in there. What does it say about Thomas Gerbasi, who doubles as the editorial director at UFC.com and as a beat writer for the Gotham Girls Roller Derby team? That he doesn’t sleep. And it’s the best coffee table book for an MMA fan on the market, and a tremendous resource for MMA historians.
Original Article Posted Here

WARNING: VIDEO CONTAINS EXPLICIT LANGUAGE

Canada’s Showdown Joe spoke with Mike Dolce about the coach’s international best seller, The Dolce Diet: LIVING LEAN

LISTEN TO PODCAST
Interview begins 29:00 in

 
 
by Maggie Hendricks
Today, we look at Mike Dolce, the peak performance coach who is known to help fighters improve their nutrition, and in turn, the way they fight. After working as a strength coach for 20 years and appearing on the seventh season of “The Ultimate Fighter,” Dolce has worked with fighters such as Quinton “Rampage” Jackson, Thiago Alves, Chris Leben and Vitor Belfort.
Cagewriter: What is your job like on a day-to-day basis?
Mike Dolce: I’m running multiple training camps from afar. Right now, in Vegas, I’m running Vitor Belfort’s training camp and Mike Pyle’s. I also have Thiago Alves coming up, and I’m his head coach. I cover so many hats with him, but Vitor and Pyle, I work specifically with their nutrition and weight management issues.
I say more peak performance coach because I do the meals, I do the weights, I do the overall training management. I’m the filter for the other coaches. I set up the training schedule from day to day. I even structure in their business meetings and social function as they get closer to fight time.
CW: Thiago, for example, you set his day?
MD: With Thiago, I literally set up his 24 hours, seven-day a week schedule. Which coach to go to, when he’s not allowed to train, because that can be a problem with him, so I have to pull him back a lot. I have to schedule in massage therapy or alternate therapies to make sure he’s not going to go to the gym.
On Sundays, I would schedule “Man-Day.” He and I would go have a nice breakfast, and then go to a spa. We’d get a haircut, massages, get our feet and hands fixed it, even the random facial. It’s important. I incorporate all those things to make sure my fighters are well-rounded.
I try to keep what I call “the positive bubble around fighters” and not let any negativity in. With Mike Pyle, I would get breakfast ready as he watched a fishing show on Versus, but now the Tour de France is on. It broke our rhythm, so instead of watching fishing, he switched to another channel with Maury and the Jerry Springer show. I’m in the kitchen, 20 feet away and I can feel the negative energy come out of the TV. I had to change the channel just to watch something more positive. You can’t start your day with that kind of negative mind frame.
CW: What is a fight week like for you?
MD: I try to get to town a day prior to the athlete, then I set up the hotel room and do the food shopping. For Chris Leben, he got into town on Monday night, and before he even got here, I packed a huge cooler with the proper foods that Chris was going to need. I made sure he had everything he was going to need, coordinate with his team, talk about what his weight cut process is going to be. On weigh-in day, I will be with him through the weigh-ins, and then go back to his room for the rehydration process. That carries all the way through to the minute he steps in the cage, performs, and then even afterwards, when I give him the food and fluids that need to go in his body to help him repair and recover from that. My job typically doesn’t end until Sunday morning.
CW: What is the best part of your job?
MD: The best part of my job is spreading health. My primary focus is not world titles, and it’s not money, or any of those things. It’s to make my athletes as healthy as possible. That’s the most rewarding part: seeing kids like Thiago Alves, not so much go out there and have a dominant performance, but it’s for him to feel so good and be so happy with himself because his body is in a positive state. Performance is just a by-product of that.
CW: But what’s the worst part?
MD: I wouldn’t point to a worst part and say that it’s bad, but the hardest part is dealing with the ups and the downs of the sport. You can work with an athlete, and have a great training camp and he’ll go out there on fight night, and something doesn’t work. I’m so emotionally attached to my fighters that it’s a hard roller coaster. For me, it’s multiple times in a single night.
Actually, the worst part is the time away from my family, but it’s a choice, but I’m not going to be a victim to it. It’s something we’ve decided over the next few years to do this.
Original article posted on Yahoo Sports here
 
Follow Mike Dolce on Twitter at @TheDolceDiet

DOLCE REVEALS WHAT SEPARATES HIM FROM THE REST
by Stephanie Daniels, Crooklyn’s Corner
Mike Dolce is a name that pops up frequently in MMA. Whether it be from fighting professionally, guiding the top athletes to healthier lifestyles or writing books, more and more people are recognizing him, and his contributions to the sport. TapouT Radio conducted a recent interview with the nutrition guru, and was able to extract the recipe for success, the Dolce way.

“What people don’t realize, is that I’ve been working with elite level athletes for over 20 years. I currently work with the best athletes in the world, on a daily basis. My guys are in the top 3 or top 5 in their weight classes, in the world. My skills, my techniques, my philosophies, my education, and my experience is constantly being refined among the world’s most elite. When you have a relationship with somebody, you experience and you absorb parts of that relationship. I deal with elite athletes, that are on elite teams, with elite coaches, coaching systems and techniques, and they themselves have decades of elite training behind them. I am constantly on the forefront of the sport. I can say that with the utmost confidence. I know what I do in a given day, and I hear when world champions point at me and say the amazing things that they say about me, and how revolutionary my techniques are. That’s why people know the Dolce Diet. That’s what separates me from the rest. Now there’s people that spend a lot of time, sitting in school and getting degrees and all those great things, and that’s nice, but that’s just a very small piece. The experience of being in the trenches, of course, is the most important thing, you know, what actually does work, in a real world setting. Then I take that information, and I add it to the next elite athlete. I have constant petri dishes. I have my experiments, all over the world. My athletes are at the top of the heap, and I’m a part of their performance.”
 
With a new book, websites, family and a full schedule, working with the likes of Chael Sonnen, Thiago Alves, Chris Leben, Jay Heiron, Jake Ellenberger, and Keith Jardine, one has to wonder if Mike has a clone or two stashed in a closet. When asked how he manages to keep all theses components in balance, and if he might be taking on too much, he stated,

“Am I spreading myself too thin? Absolutely not. I’m actually very efficient in blocking out my time. When I deal with an athlete, I deal with them in very specific terms, so each one I work with, retains me for very specific features or responsibilities, and I’m able to professionally maintain all my relationships and fulfill all my duties to them. The area that takes the biggest hit, is my home life, but I’m blessed with a wonderful family that supports me, and allows me time to focus on my work with the athletes, and getting these guys in the best shape of their life. I’m pretty close to the end of my ability to bring on new athletes, though. I’m a loyal guy, and I’m going to stick with the guys I currently work with, with very rare exceptions.”
 
Mike’s new book, Living Lean is releasing in September, via his website. He gave a little insight on it, saying,
“It’s kind of a beginner’s story about myself, getting into the industry and to the business. There is a little bit of a story to it. The story is meant to coach and to teach very specific principles that I want you to walk away with. I get into nutrition, and I show you how you can eat as an athlete, a vegan, a gluten free practitioner, or if you’re just concerned with health and wellness. Those four different nutritional types are what I discuss. I also get into exercise programs, for general wellness or professional athletes. Truly, it’s to build a profile of very lean, healthy, vibrant and energized lifestyles.”
Story written for CrooklynsCorner.com

“Keith Jardine Returns to Strikeforce in Dec; Brings on Mike Dolce for Move to Middleweight”
By Damon Martin
‘The Dean of Mean’ Keith Jardine will be back in action this December in the Strikeforce cage, and he’ll have some extra help as he makes his move to the middleweight division.
Jardine first announced that he expected to fight on the December card via his website.
“It looks like I’ll be fighting again for Strikeforce in December,” Jardine wrote. “It’s a little ways off, but it feels good to have a date.”
The card Jardine will appear on will also likely be the landing destination for the upcoming lightweight title fight between Strikeforce champion Gilbert Melendez and challenger Jorge Masvidal.
While the fight for the former ‘Ultimate Fighter’ 2 competitor is still a few months off, Jardine has been promising a move to 185lbs ever since his last fight in Strikeforce. In that bout, Jardine battled to a draw with former champion Gegard Mousasi.
Following the match-up Jardine announced his intentions to drop down to middleweight after a long career that was spent at both heavyweight and light heavyweight.
To ensure that he has the easiest weight cut possible, Jardine has employed the services of famed MMA nutritionist MIKE DOLCE to lead the charge.
Dolce has worked with several high profile fighters either in an initial weight cut process, or those who have had trouble making weight in the past. In all instances however Dolce’s reputation has made him one of the most sought after trainers in the business.
Jardine told MMAWeekly.com in early August that he would love his next fight to be against former Strikeforce middleweight champion Cung Le, but any big name would suffice because his ultimate goal is to get a shot at the 185lb title.
“I’ve fought so many guys that have had the belt, but never fought for the belt myself,” Jardine said. “I’ve probably fought five world champions before, and it’s about time I fight for the title.”
News on who Jardine might face in December has not been released yet, but sources have indicated that the card is still being put together by Strikeforce matchmaker Sean Shelby.
Follow Damon Martin on Twitter @DamonMartin

Matt Mitrione Adds Mike Dolce to Camp for UFC 137 Preparation To Face Kongo
Posted on August 25, 2011 by Damon Martin
Mixed martial arts has become a lot like football over the last few years in the spirit of being a game of inches.
The skill level has hit new heights and once a fighter reaches the point of being in the UFC, the difference between being a winner or a loser can be as simple as eating the right kind of foods before a weigh in or during training camp.
It’s for that very reason that former ‘Ultimate Fighter’ competitor Matt Mitrione is the latest competitor to bring nutritionist guru Mike Dolce on board as he prepares for his next fight against Cheick Kongo at UFC 137 in October.
The creator of ‘The Dolce Diet’ has worked with some of the best fighters in the game, but generally speaking most don’t think about dieting or nutrition when it comes to the heavyweights.
That very perception is what Dolce hopes to change by working with someone like Mitrione, who has shown tremendous athleticism and improvement while building a 5-0 record in the Octagon.
“He and I became friends during TUF 10 and danced around the issue of working together since then, but the timing wasn’t right. Until now,” said Dolce when speaking with MMAWeekly.com on Thursday.
Mitrione was on the 10th season of the ‘Ultimate Fighter’ where Dolce served as an assistant coach to Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson.
Now as Mitrione gets ready for his bout with Kongo in October, he adds another piece to the puzzle that he hopes will get him ready for one of the biggest fights of his young career.
“Nutrition is the only missing piece of me truly achieving my potential,” Mitrione stated.
Coach and athlete will work together leading up to the UFC 137 event in Las Vegas. Mitrione has worked there as well for his camp in the past, training at Xtreme Couture, but has also continued with teams in Indianapolis and Cincinnati to get ready for the bout.
Damon Martin is the lead staff writer and radio host for MMAWeekly.com
Follow @DamonMartin on Twitter