Chiropractic Care and the uFC Athlete Working with elite mixed martial artists feature I t is Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) 34 and Carlos Newton is prepar -ing to defend his World Championship welterweight belt against Matt Hughes at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. For the past five days, Carlos has been on a strict regimen of media interviews, light training, and chiro-practic care, and a diet most professional athletes wouldn’t dare to dream of. His weigh-in is on the day before the event and he must weigh in at the 170-pound limit. Dr. Paul frequently lectures on high-performance sports nutri-tion for the elite athlete and has a private multidisciplinary practice with his wife, Dr. Renata Biondich, in Mississauga, Ontario. In addi-tion to working with UFC fighters, Dr. Paul has worked with players from the NHL, MLS, CFL and ath-letes from numerous Canadian National Team programs. He has also designed a pain and heal-ing gel called Bionica and pat-ented the I2 hockey mask that is licensed under Bauer / Itech and used by both NHL and amateur hockey players. For more informa-tion, visit www.dixiehealth.ca. THE SCIENCE OF WEIGHT With the average fighter dropping be-Dr. Paul Biondich with world champion tween eight and 18 pounds in a period of UFC welterweight, Carlos Newton just over five days, the science of “cutting weight,” and more importantly the science of “refuelling” (post weigh-in), has never been more critical for success. In my opinion, a great many fights have been actually won or lost right on the scales, ironically, even before the fight has begun. A poor weight cut can cause a brutal and gru-elling eight-week training camp to simply go to waste. Incredibly, today’s UFC fighters are still having great difficulty simply meeting weight specifications. The consequences for not “making weight” range from losing 20 per cent of your purse; to cancellation of the fight; to, in world title fights, losing the belt, regardless of the outcome. However, making weight is only half the battle. The other half, and the most impor-tant component affecting the fighter’s performance, is “refuelling.” Although you have many days and even weeks to prepare for the weight cut, you have only 24 hours to put the eight to 18 pounds back on (since the weigh-in is 24 hours before the fight). So, the nutritional protocol that is designed for a fighter has to account for every nutrient that is lost through the process of dieting and dehydration, and also, more importantly, which specific nutrients are consumed when the body undergoes extreme stress. Consequently, having an intimate understanding of the body’s response to stress is essential to setting up an effective nutritional protocol for elite mixed martial artists. THE EXPERIENCE OF SuPPORTING THE ATHLETE Fast forward to UFC 129 and there are 55,000 fans at the Rogers Centre in Toronto, a North American record. An awesome crowd, no doubt, but still shy of the 65,000 fans who would routinely watch a Pride Fighting event in Japan, the type of event Carlos Newton had been accustomed to competing in. Meanwhile, preparing for his UFC Toronto debut is Mississauga’s Claude “The Prince” Patrick, who will be taking on Daniel “Ninja” Roberts. Minutes before the fight – and despite the fact that I’m not the one fighting – my heart is pounding and my stress re-sponse is rising uncontrollably (ironically, exactly the response I have designed to control in my fighters). Just as the referee is getting ready to say “Fight!” a retrospective flash goes through my mind, and I review the eight weeks of preventive chiropractic care, sports performance-enhancing strategies and the pre-and post-weigh-in nutritional program. Could I have designed it better? How is his system going to react? These are questions that I hope I know the answers to, but despite my experience and my use of current research, I still wonder if I may have missed something or if I could have done something better. Claude Patrick is victorious at UFC 129, with a dominating three-round unanimous www.canadianchiropractor.ca Paul Biondich, BScKin, DC 18 • Canadian ChiropraCtor | JULY/aUGUSt 2011
Chiropractic + Naturopathic Doctor July/August 2011: Page 18
