JON JONES’ strength and conditioning coach has revealed how much he’s expected to weigh in his octagon return.
Jones, 35, will make his long-awaited return to the cage at heavyweight this weekend in the main event of UFC 285 in Las Vegas, where he’ll lock horns with Ciryl Gane.
GettyJon Jones will return to the octagon this weekend at heavyweight[/caption]
INSTAGRAM@JONNYBONESBones has packed on several pounds of muscle ahead of his heavyweight bow[/caption]
INSTAGRAM@JONNYBONESJones reached a whopping 260lbs at the peak of his bulk[/caption]
INSTAGRAM@JONNYBONESJones is expected to weigh around 240lbs (117kg) on fight night[/caption]
The former pound-for-pound king used his THREE-YEAR hiatus to build the frame required to mix it with the big boys at heavyweight and reached a whopping 260lbs (117kg) during the peak of his bulk.
But he’s expected to be 20lbs (9kg) lighter than his peak size come fight night and weigh in at around 240lb, or just over 17st.
Strength and conditioning coach Stan Efferding told SunSport: “The last six weeks of training is pretty intense.
“I think he’s going to be around 240lbs, which is what I predicted when we first got together.”
UFC Hall of Famer Jones weighed close to 240lbs when he first started working with Efferding but has put on a considerable amount of muscle since they teamed up.
And his strength has gone through the roof since he started lifting with the 2010 Mr Olympia World’s Strongest Pro Bodybuilder.
Efferding said: “He’ll be stronger at that weight than what he was two years ago when we started with him.
“Significantly stronger.
“What we said from the get-go was that Jon could get as heavy as he wanted as long as his performance wasn’t impaired.
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“We saw that with Vasily Alexeev at the Olympics.
“The coaches would say, ‘Look, as long as you’re getting stronger, we don’t care how heavy you get.’
“And the way we measured that, initially, was with his broad jump.
“And if his broad jump was continuing to increase, then the weight didn’t matter.
“The last thing we wanted to do was put some weight on him that caused him to be slower or him to perform worse.
Jon Jones will bid to become a two-division champion at UFC 285Getty
“Those are the things we measured.
“And those are the metrics we used to make sure that the body weight going on him was good weight that was going to be productive in the octagon.”
Jones’ insane growth was fuelled by a whopping 4500 daily calorie intake.
Efferding said: “The 4500 would be on high-fatigue training days and the 4000 or 4250 would, say, be on the weekends, days off or days when he did only one low-fatigue session.”