Steve the Spartan gets ready for Cage Warriors

How do you prepare for a major fight?
To find out, the LUTA team spoke to Steve “The Spartan” O’Keeffe during a training session four days before his appearance at Cage Warriors 45.

Regardless of whether he has a fight coming up or not, Steve goes to the gym at least five days a week to train in MMA, BJJ, boxing, and wrestling, as well as strength and conditioning. But with a bout looming, his routine changes.  “I’ll usually up my strength and conditioning work. Probably about 12-14 weeks before my fight, I’ll be working predominantly on strength, both functional strength, such as dead lifts and squats, as well as explosive strength.” As the day gets closer, the focus shifts to conditioning with high intensity exercises to get his heart rate up, and keep it there for longer periods. “As a round is five minutes long, I need to be able to keep my heart rate at that intensity for at least five minutes. And so that’s what I focus on nearer the day,” he explains.

Steve also has to factor in making weight for the fight. He competes at 66kg, ten less than his usual 76kg so nutrition also plays an essential part in his preparation. To ensure he loses weight but not muscle mass, he follows a healthy, sensible and balanced diet. A typical day includes porridge and scrambled eggs – with extra egg white to increase the protein intake but not the fat – for breakfast, and fruit as a mid-morning snack. Lunch is usually 250g of brown rice or sweet potato with grilled chicken breast, followed by an afternoon snack of wholemeal bagel with peanut butter. For dinner, grilled fish with steamed vegetables. “As part of my nutrition, supplements are also massively important for me. I’ve got a degree in Sports Science, so I’ve been working with nutrition and training for a long time,” says Steve. “In order to get the most out of each session, I take two different shakes. I drink pre and a post workout shakes and I also take 100% whey protein shake throughout the day to maintain my protein intake.”

After all the hard work that’s gone into preparation, Steve is looking forward to his fight on Saturday. “There’s a lot of pressure on this one, because of all the media around it, but I feel confident. I can see me winning the fight in the first round, taking the guy down by submission. I’ve studied my opponent (Conor Mcgregor) and I know what to do. I’ve also learned a lot from my last fight, where the fighter had a similar style as Conor. I definitely won’t be making the same mistakes as I did last time,” he confides.

Steve trains in the MMA fight shorts and LUTA rash guard.

Cage Warriors 45 will be held in London on Saturday, 18th of February. The tournament will be broadcast online exclusively by MMAJunkie.com and on television via Sky Sports (UK), Fight Now TV (USA) and The Fight Network (Canada), among others.