Bodybuilder and four-time Mr. Universe champion Mike O’Hearn recently appeared on The Ariel Helwani Show, where the conversation turned to UFC star Ateba Gautier.
During the interview, Ariel Helwani brought up Gautier specifically, noting that the UFC athlete has claimed he barely works out despite possessing an incredible physique. O’Hearn immediately pointed to Gautier as an example of someone whose genetics defy what most people believe is naturally possible.
“So you got a guy right there,” O’Hearn said. “He runs cardiovascular. He goes and punches for an hour and a half boxing. He’s grappling. He’s doing all these things. In the world of fitness, the small minds of the health and fitness would go, ‘Oh, that guy’s on something.'”
O’Hearn strongly rejected that assumption and argued that Gautier’s training style should actually make it harder for him to maintain that kind of muscular build.
“That guy’s the pinnacle of not. He doesn’t train like it,” O’Hearn said. “He does everything to lose muscle. He’s overtraining, which UFC athletes or MMA athletes have to overtrain. It just goes with the territory. There’s too much to do. Your body’s not recovering.”
Despite that, O’Hearn said MMA stars like Ateba Gautier still end up looking physically elite because of genetics.
“So they shouldn’t have physiques like that to the normal person,” he continued. “But this is what I’m talking about. These guys are out there. They’re walking around. He probably doesn’t even eat that well. And he still looks that way.”
The discussion tied into a point O’Hearn had been making throughout the interview about the physiques of UFC athletes in general and how different their training is from bodybuilding.
“First of all, UFC athletes, there’s some freaky physiques,” O’Hearn said. “Those guys in no world train like a bodybuilder. They’re running. They’re training four times a day in different styles and everything. They shouldn’t have that type of physique, but they do. That’s the reality of life. There’s just some mutants walking the streets.”
