There has been a video circulating around the media outlets that show Conor McGregor and his movement coach, Ido Portal, using a deck of playing cards as a training tool.

Athletes, including mixed martial artists, have begun to take part in a trend that is almost disturbing: using non-sport specific movements as a method of training and improving upon one’s chosen sport. Let me clarify.

Cross-training within martial arts has risen from taboo and odd to commonplace and expected. Over the past decade, cross-training has begun to creep into other sports, e.g. it is not uncommon to see an Olympic swimmer doing Crossfit workouts or an NFL football player swimming. There are benefits to such actions but by and large, the best way to get better at a sport is to simply practice that sport.

I was a high-level swimmer and I had a highly decorated swim coach. He asked me one day, in the midst of a conditioning routine in which I was using a racquetball to increase reaction time, Jacob, do you want to swim fast? I, of course, answered with an enthusiastic yes. He said to me, It’s real simple Jacob if you want to swim fast, practice swimming fast.

The premise of that message has impacted my training extensively. Much like my racquetball exercise, Conor McGregor has introduced an odd piece of workout equipment into his bag of tricks as well…a deck of playing cards.

I am a proponent of alternative training methods; however, once all other traditional methods have been utilized, i.e. when I coach swimming for a triathlon I do not let my athletes use pull buoys or fins until a certain level of achievement has been accomplished.

Will the drills in the video below improve your boxing? Not if you have never learned the basics of boxing; however, with a solid base the drills seen below definitely have the potential to improve your boxing game, so sit back, grab yourself a deck of Bicycle’s finest playing cards and learn to train like Conor McGregor.

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Jacob C. Stevens is a lifelong athlete and cerebral martial arts enthusiast who is also skilled in the art of linguistic manipulation, his published work, Afterthoughts and Handgrenades, can be found here…