Soaring UFC heavyweight Tom Aspinall has credited cold water therapy for helping him stay calm during his recent wins.
Aspinall, 29, looks for his sixth consecutive UFC win next Saturday against fellow top-ranked contender Curtis Blaydes. The fight marks another return to The O2 arena for the Brit having submitted Alexander Volkov at UFC London in March. Aspinall said that part of his ability to stay calm during his fights comes from implementing ice baths and cold showers in his training regime.
"It's something I've been doing for the past year but I feel the benefits massively," he said. "If you can stay calm when you're absolutely freezing the chances are more likely that you're going to stay calm in other situations as well. I do it mainly for the mental aspect.
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"I think it's part of the reason I stay so calm, especially in my last fight. Obviously it was a massive fight and I was in the ice baths every day then, as I am at the moment. I just try and use it to stay calm because immersing yourself i n freezing cold water is that not easy and neither is fighting in front of 20,000 people. So if you can stay calm in one aspect, it helps you to stay calm in other aspects."
The Mancunian has enjoyed a change of scenery for his current fight camp, spending time training in the North East of England. It's allowed Aspinall to test out the cold English waters, something he is used to after putting himself through routine ice baths during his past training camps.
"I don't usually do it in the sea as I'm about an hour away from the sea, but I do cold water stuff every day," he added. "I've got an ice bath, I do cold showers and all that stuff. I've been training in the North East a little bit, I've been going up there to spar and stuff right on the beach so I've been getting in the sea a bit as well."
"The ice bath in my back garden is the coldest thing I've been in, it's four-degrees. I've done a few wild ones, a couple of lakes and seas but it's the wrong time of year for it. I'll try it in the winter as well and see how that goes."
