Coach Cyril Gan and Francis Ngannou’s former coach Fernand Lopez spoke about how his fighter gained strength and muscle mass for the fight on January 22.
“Our task was to give Cyril physical strength, not just an explosion,” Lopez said on the La Sueur Youtube channel. “I can improve Cyril’s explosive ability two days before the fight. There is such a method of voluntary (or conscious) muscle contraction, with the help of which you can add in an explosion a day or two before the fight. But we can’t add strength a day or two before the fight. This requires a full training cycle of 8 weeks. In general, it’s not that Cyril has a lack of strength.
If you watch the fight with Derrick Lewis – Cyril weighed 112 kg, Derrick – 120 kg, but nevertheless, in every clinch, Cyril had the last word. So it’s not that bad with strength, but since we had time, and Cyril was at home for a long time, because he had a child – then I suggested to him, let’s gain strength and see how it improves you. The task was not to gain strength only under Francis, but to gain strength in general – until the end of his career. To beat Francis, on the contrary, you need to be lighter. This is not the kind of opponent that you need to fight, standing next to toe to toe. If you pump up to Francis, he will be more likely to figure out your movements, because kinesthetics, tactile sensitivity, work here.
That is, when two fighters come into contact, the body of the other, even if this fighter is not smart and not technical, will still feel where you are moving. It’s called kinesthetics. Therefore, the less contact we have, the less your body feels my movement. In that case, you already have to use your brain to catch me and lure me into a trap. Therefore, we cannot work with Francis in the body vs body format. Kinesthetics are very important. I assure you, if you take all the top 10 lightweights to Khabib Nurmagomedov one by one, he will beat them with his eyes closed. Because kinesthetics will decide everything, and then he will work on the ground on the machine.
But, I repeat, if there is time, if the battles do not take place every 2-3 months, it can be devoted to gaining strength. We had five months between Lewis and Francis. It takes at least 8 weeks to gain strength. How does this process take place? You first “zero out”, as if breaking muscles and then start a new construction to reach a new level of strength. This process is impossible to establish when you fight every month. In this case, you will feel tired. In the end, we used the time, and Cyril gained 4 kg of pure muscle mass, while maintaining his mobility. He will weigh 114-115 kg in the fight.”
Ngannou and Gan will fight on January 22 at UFC 270 in Anaheim.
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