UFC Lightweight champion Conor McGregor is known, among many things, for his excellent durability. When competing at featherweight, the Irishman famously said, these featherweights, they hit like flyweights. So it’s nice down there just destroying them and killing that whole division.

The only time McGregor has struggled inside the Octagon was when he fought UFC lightweight Nate Diaz at a whopping 170 pound weight limit. In fact, the two fought twice at 170 – McGregor losing the first engagement and winning a hard fought decision in the second.

But even at 170, his difficulties did not come from his opponent’s power so much as it was to accumulation of volume punching and lack of cardiovascular capacity. We have never seen an opponent rock McGregor a single shot, though we often see McGregor rock his opponents with a single shot.

For UFC 205, McGregor fought for the UFC Lightweight belt at 155lbs against blood-and-gust brawler Eddie Alvarez. Fans were excited to see if Alvarez could survive McGregor’s shots with his own durability and deal enough damage to hurt the Irish superstar, who had run through every UFC opponent below 170 lbs.

Alvarez undoubtedly had power and there was a question to how McGregor would take it. In the fight, though Alvarez landed, he could not so much as stutter the Irishman’s steady onslaught, and fell in the second round.

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This ab routine was preformed at the UFC 205 open workouts. It’s is designed to build up resistance to body strikes. McGregor does elevated crunches, then tenses his abs as his striking coach Owen Roddy strikes him in the abdomen. McGregor exhales when hit to increase the bracing force of his diaphragm. Then he rolls over to his stomach to stretch out. It’s a brilliant look at the core training of one of the most durable fighters in the game.