For someone who beats people up for a living, it’s amazing how quiet Joanne Calderwood is. Her voice has the softness and pleasing Scottish purr of someone who could be an ASMR star in another life.
Calderwood started off doing Muay Thai when she was 13. It started off as a hobby, she said, but “as I got older I got the bug for it and I started wanting to do it more and more”.
She had a successful Muay Thai career – winning 19 fights and losing two – but then other competitors started to avoid her. “I started to get a little sick of that,” she said and luckily she’d already started doing jujitsu at her gym.
Then she met cage warrior campion Paul McVeigh and a few other guys who were into MMA. “So I started doing MMA,” said Calderwood, “and actually Rosie Sexton – one of the English girls who was an MMA fighter – came up to train with me and I thought, ‘Oh, I enjoy this and if she can do it, I can do it.’”
Since then she’s travelled the world and ended up joining the Ultimate Fighting Championship. It’s hard work and fitness and nutrition are crucial to it, though she’s not always been on top of it. “It means the world to me that now I know how much it means for my performance and even just for my lifestyle in general,” she said.
We asked her for a guide through a week in the life of one of the world’s best UFC fighters.
Monday
“My breakfast is always the same: two eggs, two slices of bread – one on some avocado and the other with peanut butter and jelly as a treat.
“Mondays I go in and do jujitsu at 10am for an hour, chill for a half hour, then pro class. We usually do jujitsu and cage work, cage wrestling. That's an hour and a half practice.
“Then I have a protein shake and jump in my car to go to the UFC performance institute. Have a shower, jump into the café and have lunch, then I get to chill, let my lunch settle and then I have a strength and conditioning session at 3pm. I do that for about an hour and a half and then once I've finished I jump in the tub, do some recovery and that's me done.”
Tuesday
“The same, wake up, breakfast and then I hit pads before the pro session. The pro session on a Tuesday is sparring with bigger gloves. We drill for 30 minutes to warm up, then sparring for five rounds, then bag work or low grapple to cool down.
“My breakfast is always the same. I'll have a protein shake just before I have lunch, then I'll usually have salmon or a salad. Then usually I'll do some cardio on my own, then some core and then I'll go home and that's usually by 5-6pm.
“I'm on a scheduled programme with my strength and conditioning coach. I'll turn up, check my programme and then it could be a 30-minute run with core work or it could be a VersaClimber, different circuit training, or it could just be on the bike for 30 minutes.”
Wednesday
“Same breakfast, jujitsu at 10am, pro classes at 11.30am – usually that's more grappling based. Then I'll unwind for half an hour, go off to the performance institute, have my lunch, do some strength and conditioning at 3pm. Then do my recovery and that's it for the day.”
Thursday
“Same as Tuesday: pads in the morning and it's another sparring day at 11.30am with smaller gloves, more grappling and wrestling based. Then I'll do some cardio, whatever Matt's got scheduled for me.”
Friday
“My weekend doesn't really start till Saturday. Friday is the same as Monday/Wednesday, do jujitsu at 10am, then pro class with heavy gloves, drilling, technical stand up. Then I'll go back, have my lunch and then schedule my strength and conditioning at 3pm and that's pretty much my day.”
Saturday
“Training is only once on a Saturday: strength and conditioning at 10am, especially when I'm at camp it's just mobility and active recovery, getting ready for a day off. I'll run errands, it doesn't really stop. I'll go to the cinema. Usually there's a fight show on so I'll have some nice food and watch fights.”
Sunday
“More of a relaxing day, get a massage and not do a lot. Saturday and Sunday is more relaxed on the diet, but not like I'm bingeing. It's not like I'm eating loads of junk food, I'm still having my breakfast, lunch and dinner – maybe a few snacks in between. It doesn't really come off track.”
*Watch Jojo Calderwood face Ariane Lipski at UFC® 238: CEJUDO vs. MORAES on Saturday June 8th live on BT Sport 1 with prelims exclusively on Fight Pass *
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