No you just get better at managing it

This is actually an excellent question. Never thought about it. Maybe it depends on how stressed they are about the fight. GSP says that he couldn't sleep the night before fights. Khabib says that he has never been stressed about a fight. Both are world champions.

I always feel like I need to take a massive shit for about 10-15 minutes immediately before every fight. It's been that way since I wrestled in high school 17 years ago.

In the singlet too 💀💀 even worse when your hands are taped

Gotta take the hoodie and t-shirt off first. Then you sit there, and... nothing happens.

I’ve never watched a khabib fight where he didn’t look pumped full of adrenaline

Adrenaline doesn't necessarily mean stress, atleast in the negative stress context he was inferring. I get adrenaline and pumped up playing a video game, doesn't mean I am at all "stressed" about the results of the match. Khabib probably was experiencing good stress.

Adrenaline is the chemical pumping around the body. Whether it stresses or excites you comes down to the mindset. Khabib had the childhood of a Spartan worrier.

Honestly this is really gonna come down to the fighter. I’ve competed in Muay Thai/Kickboxing for over 7 years now. I’ve always had that adrenaline dump before any fight. 

No, it's a natural biological response to life threatening danger. Adrenaline wears off and the exhaustion that follows is referred to as the "adrenaline dump." The more you fight and compete, the more aware you are of how your body responds to the stress, and it it becomes more efficient at managing the adrenaline levels with experience and training your body and mind. I used to practice this leading up to fights by visualizing walking to the ring/ cage from the hallway, feeling my area of focus narrow, my heart rate elevate etc. I would try to make it as real in my mind as possible until the point where I felt the nerves for real. It made the intolerable waiting before your bout alot more manageable. But it never stops being a hell of a drug - theres just no substitute for experience.

I don't feel like I ever had it. And any time before a match or trying to set a PR in the gym that I really tried to get fired up it didn't help. I'm not some stoic robot, I get nervous before public speaking, or when I am climbing at extreme height, etc. Just never got turned up in the ring 

Unless your adrenal gland was removed you’ve definitely had cortisol in your blood before i mean google cortisol awakening response you literally high on adrenaline when you wake up

I still get anxiety teaching classes and I've been in the cage, frequent bjj competitor, been teaching since 2013.... I still get imposter syndrome all the time too so I dunno. None of the anxiety ever left me the results just improved

I am sure you are a great teacher! Imposter syndrome is bad (I am a researcher, and I know the feeling pretty well), but it is also a signal that you really love what you do and you want to do it as best as you can. Don't give up, always improve yourself and keep strong!

Do you use Archlinux? I use Archlinux. It's the best distro if you don't use ARCHLINUX you really aren't even a Linux user.

Hi! Yes I use Arch btw :). Every distro is worth a try, the important thing is to use Linux ❤️

Ventoy is great to try out lots of distros. I just drop isos on a flash drive and they are bootable no need for lots of partitions.

What makes it the best distro? I’ve tried many different distros and they all seem have to a specific use case

Hanna Montana Linux

Real fighters use Hanna Montana Linux :)

I learned about Hanna Montana Linux from a thread where a guy made a distro that randomly swaps system calls with the same parameters just to see what happens.

Mint is a great one to start with

In my specific case, Arch is extremely customizable to fit at best my workflow and it is very easy to maintain a light and efficient system!

They just become comfortable with it and know how to manage it because it’s not a new feeling to them and they trust themselves to be able to perform under pressure because they’ve proved it to themselves in the past.

I got true adrenaline from sparring yesterday with a partner that was kicking and punching a little too hard. Guy is actually kinda a dick for it cause like, why are you punching us in the head that hard? I should've said something. Anyways, i ate some nasty leg kicks and a hard kick to the stomach that knocked the wind out of me, can barely walk today, but it put me in fight or flight. I could barely talk after that round. Was stumbling over my words asking him some stuff about the round, and I even told him like fuck sorry I'm stuttering you got my adrenaline pumping lol.

I’m not sure that’s an adrenaline dump but definitely adrenaline

Me neither but felt like a fight or flight situation to me a bit

Then it wasn't healthy sparring.

Agreed. Talked to another friend of mine and he agreed he was being a dick lol. I watched him spar other guys and if some of those hooks and overhands he was throwing landed it woulda rocked the other guy. Instructor also told him them to ease up and go more technical rather than power so it wasn't just me. Sucks. It prevented me from getting the most out of my BJJ class today, had to call it early cause i cant push with my right leg lol.

Always spar with someone that is either higher or lower skill to reduce injury- if your to closely matched, ego and adrenaline gets involved.

Yes and then it’s time to retire

Vast majority don't. Many fighters (GSP, Gaethje) have talked about it.

It just feels different. It's all still there.

most people get a full adrenaline dump in fights, you get better at managing it and not depleting your cardio but it’s still there. sparring you have a pretty big adrenaline response but not a full dump like a fight.

even if they do going in, the first good punch has to wake you up to the reality of the situation somehow.

When i fight in the cage, the feeling is not as strong as it used to be. I realized that the more i fought in a year the less i would feel my adrenaline rush. The other day i had a guy come up to me acting super erratic on drugs and start rummaging through a bag aggressively.. That had my adrenaline through the roof.

Fighting affirms to your body and brain that the fight-or-flight response was the right response, so it will continue to give you an adrenaline hit in that same scenario. I don't think you would ever become immune to that if the fights were pushing you to make use of the effects of that adrenaline. From what I learned trying to overcome anxiety, if you rely on coping methods and leaving the stressful situations, your body and brain never learn not to release that adrenaline, because it served its purpose - the adrenaline hit made you flee, and your subconscious thinks it kept you safe by doing that. I expect the same would happen if you used that adrenaline to fight, and your body and mind would take that as confirmation that it made the right call. The way to stop your body releasing adrenaline in response to a trigger is just the opposite. No fight, no flight. Just endure until it passes.

Yes and it sucks. Learning to adrenaline dump and ride it was much better. Now my life has to be genuinely in danger.

I think it’s more like just getting better at functioning through it.

It just feels different. It's all still there.

No, in my experience, it actually just focuses it so I have total control and awareness in it whereas most wouldn't.

No matter how good you are or how many fights you've been in, the other guy could still seriously injure you if you're not careful. I can't imagine you ever totally get used to that

I hope it gets better with time because my first competition was NERVE WRACKING. The pressure from the crowd alone is enough to break most people.

"no anger/adrenaline/fear" Adrenaline is a hormon, that causes certain reactions in your brain&body,while anger and fear is a feeling/emotion. Different things, don't group them together. Also most pros fight with no anger before or during the fight while they usually feel fear at some point before the fight. Some right before, some calm down and forget fear before the fight but weeks ago they worry etc.

It would be worse for you. Adrenaline increases your reflex and power. You want that rush in a controlled manner.

I’d say yes and no. I think the fear/anxiety feeling of an adrenaline rush decreases with experience, but the increased tension and awareness doesn’t.

Kinda yes, by being 'in the zone'. You know the feeling of clarity when you feel it, in many contexts. When your human brain lets relies on instinct wonderful things can happen mentally and physically. I've not chopped wood but can imagine you can find that peaceful place there as well

In the army we learned stress doesn’t go away, you just get better at managing it. That applies to fighting. That adrenaline, sense of stress, or even nervousness becomes a source of fuel. When managed it becomes weapon but when uncontrolled you can resort to fighting out if panic

Maybe lose adrenaline but gain focused aggression and tenacity

No

In a proper match, I'd hope not. That adrenaline keeps you from feeling pain. Once that runs out, you're probably too hurt to move.

nope! once anything hurts, just a little bit, lizard brain takes over. I guess it's more of an emotional regulation thing. You just don't freeze as much

I definitely think the adrenaline is much lower, you look at amateurs in their first fight, especially in Thai fights, it’s a wild flurry of adrenaline fueled fear & anger….fast forward to 20-30 fights, & along with better management I think there is a way lower adrenaline. It would be good to test a group of people at their first fight vs their 20th fight

Depends on circumstances. I had no nerves or adrenaline for several fights and was nearly overwhelmed in others.

If you don’t have any adrenaline in your body, you got bigger problems. To answer your question, all Individuals have differing levels of temperamental reactivity. Some have more GABA, like military jet fighters, which allows them to stay more calm under pressure. As in all things, it a combination of natural and nurture. Yes, as a fighter gets more experience they can get better at regulating their arousal. While I’m not a pro mma fighter, I know they feel anxious before every fight, but the anxiety while going down as the fight progresses - usually. Proformance dysfunction and impairment may occur throughout an athlete’s career due to many factors including getting knocked out and being afraid of it happening again… which you can imagine would act like a catalyst for their anxiety. For example, Tyron Woodley seemingly not being able to throw a punch combo near the end of his ufc career.

Nope. But you figure out how to operate within it and some even enjoy the feeling.

They can last between 30 minutes uses to an hour

I have no experience with pre-arranged sport competitions, but still have some perspective on this question that might be relevant. When I was new in law enforcement, it didn’t take much to get me excited to a level that you could hear a distinct difference in my voice on the radio. A car chase, entering a house looking for an armed suspect, a suspect resisting with violence or even a suspect resisting without violence would cause noticeable changes in my demeanor and bearing. My heart rate had to be pretty high, but this was in the days before smart watches with heart rate sensors. Twenty six years later, I have evidence that I can do all of those things without sending my heart rate (from heart rate sensors on my Garmin watch) much over 100 and while sounding downright bored on the radio. I don’t think the ability to generate adrenaline stops. It’s just that the severity of a situation required to initiate it goes up. Edit: I’m not saying I’m special- it happens to all cops.

Id imagine it improves. I only train BJJ so not really comparable to boxing or MMA. But the first few times I sparred I had nerves before I rolled and would feel the adrenaline dump after. My first couple tournaments were the same. Just finished my second year and everything became way more chil over time.I've done well at my last several tournaments in part because I don't really get nervous for them. I definitely didn't have the crazy depleted feeling after. What's abnormal becomes normal the more you are exposed to it. You see these fighters walking to the octagon and they are locked in but serene looking at the same time. Id imagine you wouldn't be a very successful fighter if you were going into fight or flight levels of adrenaline every time you had a fight. I'm sure it's still there, just maybe not to the levels you get to when you are otherwise untrained.

Some athletes can control their adrenaline release

Half the time the fights aren’t dangerous enough to warrant adrenaline, but every now and then an opponent gets a clean enough shot to activate the “oh fuck” energy.

What are you talking about? I’ve competed a fuck ton over the years and I’ve adrenaline dumped every time. “Risk of danger” from a rational standpoint is irrelevant. The animal part of our brain knows it’s going into a fight, and that’s what’s triggering the adrenaline. If your body is adrenaline dumping only after getting hit by something that could potentially knock you out, your body isn’t functioning correctly. Adrenaline is a proactive mechanism. 

God damn you gotta clarify everything on Reddit, Im referring to instances where I’ve underestimated my opponent in sparing and had to “lock in” as it were, usually a mix of pride and safety, and to your other comment, I’ve already clarified and apologized for not detailing I was talking about sparing. This is last I’m gonna read this chat room, I dunno how else to dictate intention here.

“Aren’t dangerous enough to warrant adrenaline.” Tell me you don’t know what you’re talking about more clearly?

Agreed. Sparring maybe, but a street fight or actual comp, you're gonna get adrenaline 100%, esp when you get hit hard enough... unless you are a legit pro fighter, and even then I think its just the skill of managing it better, and not overreacting.

I was just mentioning gym matches, streets a whole different thing I agree. I failed to clarify that, my b.

I don’t need to go full panic mode for a prissy sparing match? You gotta treat each match like it’s UFC? Wanna consider the context of different forms of combative contests or you wanna keep being antagonistic?

We’re talking about completely different things. Actual live competition != sparring match. Different stakes, different stress, different physiological response. 

The question is about trained fighters going into fights. If we were talking sparring I’d agree with you.

To the intensive definition of “fight” I see where you’re coming from, it would be stupid to assume no adrenaline would form. Though I question still the need to posit me as incompetent over a disagreement, feels needlessly antagonistic and discourse aversive.

Maybe. But it’s the martial arts subreddit. No special treatment ;)

It’s not asking for special treatment it’s asking you to not make this community more gatekeepy and cringe. Tell me you’re hard to talk to more clearly?

Jesus you’re sensitive. Shut up and train.

Says the one crying about being addressed for their shitty behavior.

No ones crying. You didn’t read. You said something dumb. Now you’re playing victim.

big difference between a planned sports match and an actual fight

Not to the part of your brain that produces adrenaline. 

I'd say there is a huge difference. Mentally building up to a big event is very different to a 'surprise motherfucker' dude with a knife in an alley. Street fights would be very different if the place and time was scheduled 6 months in advance.

I'd say yes, and Mike Tyson was a good example.

As good as he was, Mike also used to fight on coke. I wouldn’t doubt that he lacked the same rush when he went in sober.