

LAS VEGAS – Junior dos Santos stretched out his entire 6-foot-4 frame, filling an oversized chair in a locker room at the MGM Grand Garden. Minutes earlier, he'd completed a surprisingly intense workout, just days from his three-round heavyweight bout Saturday against Mark Hunt in the co-main event of UFC 160.



He furrowed his brow and took a deep breath as he pondered a seemingly bizarre, but now pertinent, question: Would he quit, or at least change his methods, if he knew for certain that his job could create health issues that would last the rest of his lifetime?

He wiggled in the chair and clasped his hands behind his head.

"That's a good question," he said. "That's a really good question."

A period of silence ensued before dos Santos shifted in his chair and began to answer. A smile began to crease his face.

"You know, I think it's worth it," he said. "This is my life. This is everything I have. People don't know how hard we [work] and what we sacrifice to [be successful]. MMA athletes train so much, you know. I would continue to [do what I'm doing]. I want it so badly. I want to give everything I have to this. This is everything to me."

His life changed at 21 when, by happenstance, he decided to take a jiu-jitsu class. He hadn't been a very good athlete, but wanted to get into shape. Something clicked with jiu-jitsu and it altered his life.

The eight years since have seen him become one of the elite fighters in the world. But the sacrifices he's made and the suffering he's gone through to reach the top of the UFC nearly defy belief.

Antonio Silva and Junior dos Santos pose for a picture during a dinner. (Yahoo) More

He admits that he vastly overtrained for his title defense at UFC 155 on Dec. 29 against Cain Velasquez. He peaked, he said, 15 days before the bout.

He took a severe beating in losing his heavyweight championship to Velasquez via a five-round decision. The morning after the bout, his urine was a very dark brown, the color of Guinness Stout beer.

He wasn't urinating blood, as some fighters do after a grueling match. Rather, the brown coloration of his urine was due to rhabdomyolysis. His muscle fiber was breaking down and getting into the blood steam.

It is a treatable condition, but it can be fatal under certain circumstances. There are numerous causes, but one is extreme physical exercise. Dos Santos trained so fiercely that he was pushing his body well beyond its natural limits.

He's consulted with experts at Nike, and brought in Alexandre Dortas, a Brazilian physiologist, to monitor various levels in his blood. After the loss to Velasquez, doctors found that his creatine kinase (known as CK) level was far too high.

Creatine kinase is an enzyme in the blood that can be used to diagnose rhabdomyolysis. The average adult male has a CK level under 300, Dortas said. He said an elite athlete can get that level as high as 350. But after the Velasquez fight, dos Santos said his CK level was over 1,400.

"He just wasn't getting enough rest," Dortas said.

During the training camp for the Hunt fight, Dortas has been a familiar presence. He approaches dos Santos several times during a workout and pricks a finger to draw blood, which he uses to test seven levels in dos Santos' blood to make sure that he doesn't overexert himself.

Dortas has recommended two, 75-minute practices a day and only a two-month training camp. That, he said, would be sufficient for dos Santos to get into elite condition, but it would provide his body with enough recovery time to avoid negative complications.

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