Just four years ago, Conor McGregor was an amateur MMA fighter from Crumlin in Dublin. Today is one of the most famous athletes in the world.
His fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr on 26th August 2017 earned him up to $100,000,000 and also earned him a lot of respect from the boxing world (even with a record of 1-0-1).
What was most impressive about Conor was his pre fight physique.
You’re probably asking yourself how to get a body like Conor McGregor, and the answer is that you probably can’t. Wait! Don’t leave yet.
Allow us to elaborate, Conor McGregor is a 153lb (69kg) man at a height of 5 foot 9 inches. If you are a 300lb man who is 6 foot 7 inches tall, then you will never look like Conor.
But that doesn’t mean that you can’t get a physique similar to him.
Conor is incredibly lean and muscled, he has immense power, and he has the ability to gain/lose weight to suit his goals.
This is a fantastic way to live, and it is what we will try to emulate in this article. We are going to give you an idea of how to train and diet to stay lean year round, and to peak for special occasions (fight night …. or a summer holiday).
Prepare Like Conor
One of the best kept secrets in personal training is the importance of preparation.
Goal setting is crucial, as is following an effective training program, deciding your calorie intake (based on your weight, current activity level, predicted activity level, and goals), and creating a realistic schedule.
Boxers need to hit a certain pre-fight weight or they can’t compete. They don’t just coincidentally hit that target, they prepare like crazy (or have their coaches do that).
As we alluded to in the previous paragraph, to set effective goals, and create a realistic training/dietary program you need to first assess your current lifestyle.
This is the time to be brutally honest with yourself. Start by counting your steps (literally) this will help work out how active you are.
Then work out how many calories you consume each day (check out our guide to cutting) and measure your body weight and circumference (arms, legs, chest, abs, hips).
Once you have all the relevant information and a rough idea of what your current energy balance is (how many calories you consume versus how many calories you burn), you can create your plan.
If you are hoping to become as lean as Conor then you will want to cut weight.
Depending on where you are starting (ranging from too skinny to morbidly obese) you will either have to increase activity, decrease calories, or both (particularly if you are very overweight).
How to Train Like Conor McGregor
You’ll then want a training program that suits you.
Because it is impossible to create a training program for every single person reading this (due to everyone having different bodies, different goals, and different requirements), we will compromise.
The program we will demonstrate is a fat loss training plan that will have you retain strength and muscle.
If you’re a total beginner, you will be able to gain muscle while getting shredded on this plan since you still have “noob gains” to take advantage of.
The trick with fat loss is to keep your rest periods quite short. While a strength training program can have rest periods of up to 3 minutes between sets, a fat burning program requires around 45-60 seconds.
You will want a combination of resistance weight exercises (barbell squats, deadlifts, bench presses etc) and cardio (either high intensity interval training or low intensity steady state).
Here is an example workout that you could follow, three times per week with a day’s rest in between each workout:
Session One
• Bench Press 3 x 12-15
• Bent Over Row 3 x 12-15
• Seated Shoulder Press 3 x 8-12
• Barbell Squats 3 x 15-20
• Romanian Deadlifts 3 x 12-15
• Leg Extensions 3 x 12
• HIIT cardio (10-20 minutes)
Session Two
• Push Ups 3 x 20
• Pull Ups 3 x As Many As Possible
• Leg Curls 3 x 15-20
• Deadlifts 3 x 6
• Walking Lunges 3 x 20
• HIIT cardio (10-20 minutes)
Session Three
• Low Intensity Cardio 20-60 minutes
• Ab Crunches 3 x 20
• Plank 4 x 20 seconds
Diet Like Conor McGregor
Without going into too much depth, your diet should involve lots of protein, and it should hit a certain calorie threshold each day.
This means that you need to determine what your calorie target is. To do that you can use this calorie calculator from Precision Nutrition [1].
It’s one of the best tools out there for finding out how much you should be eating based on your current activity levels and you goals.
Then you need to start logging in your calories, this may feel like an arduous process at first, but it’s actually quite easy.
The longer you do it, the easier it gets as the database will be filled with your favorite foods. When you want to drop your body fat you can slowly lower your daily calorie target (while keeping protein high).
Final Thoughts
Conor McGregor is a different person to you, with different ambitions and different circumstances.
You don’t want to be following his exact training program because 1) You are not a professional athlete, and 2) You are a different size and shape to him.
But you can follow the spirit of his training. You can get in amazing shape, it will just take hard work, discipline, and a solid plan.
Best of luck champ!