Martin Horský lost 62kg and started fighting in MMA!

[Author: Martin Horský]

By the time I was 22, I weighed only 75 kg, so I started exercising. At first I didn't enjoy it and always preferred to have a fry-up with my friends instead of exercising. After a while, exercise caught on and fries replaced fitness foods like cottage cheese, eggs and protein. My surroundings started noticing how I had gained weight and started praising me, so I pushed harder. I wanted to be the biggest in Strakonice and I worked as hard as I could. I reached an incredible weight of 155 kg and people who had been training for a really long time acknowledged that I had made huge progress. Then I found a girlfriend from Prague and moved to the capital to be with her, where of course I liked the fact that even here in the big city people admired me for how big I was, and I continued that pace until I was 33. Slowly but surely, after that length of time, I got tired of it, started to see my weight as overweight and decided to do something about it.

My first cardio looked like I was just walking around our village, because it was definitely not for running. Gradually I started to get used to walking. I shocked my body by adding running to my walking and alternating it so that I could even breathe. I remember the most I could run was 300 meters and I couldn't run anymore. At the time, I was bar-hopping in Prague and despite arriving home at 3am, I got changed and went to complete the walk. I remember exactly how excited I was to run my first kilometre in one piece. It seems totally unbelievable now, but when I ran that first mile in one piece, I called everyone close to me with joy that I had really made it. Thinking back on it, I've come a really long way as I've managed to run 3 half marathons under two hours since then. I was really working hard at the time and it lasted for about half a year. By that time I was about 20 kilos lighter. Once I had run 3 km in a row, I got a mountain bike and added cycling.

My friend Bernard Plavec (a pro MMA fighter who fights in the RFA organization) took me to his first boxing training, who has ever done this sport, knows how demanding it is on the physique and it gave me a new impetus. On top of everything I was doing, I added the occasional boxing training session, which I was incredibly hooked on. After training at the X Gym for a while, I wanted to try and get in the ring and I didn't care if I won or lost, I was going for my dream of getting in the ring. I won my first fight, my second fight and it went on like that until I racked up seven wins in total. When we were training, we would also meet a bunch of guys who were fighting in MMA and they would always talk me into trying to take them on the ground, but I wasn't into it at all and I dedicated myself to my boxing. Eventually they talked me into it and slowly but surely I started pulling with them in training and I got into it. Since I felt confident in my stance due to my bulk and power in my punches left over from the heavy weight I was carrying, I started piling on the ground.

My next meta was amateur MMA, where as back then in boxing I had a dream to get in the ring, so now I wanted to fulfill that dream of getting in that cage and matching strength with someone. In amateur MMA I've gone a total of ten or eleven fights and I've won them all. After a year of wrestling in MMA, I was number one in the amateur rankings and I had a fight for the national championship, which unfortunately didn't work out, so I was just a multiple national champion. I still haven't forgiven my opponent for that loss and I'm waiting for him to go pro so we can have another shot. In the time I've been doing martial arts, I've nodded to every fight they've offered me. Whether it was boxing, MMA or even K1, where I fought during the pandemic.

Now I fight in MMA as a professional and I weigh 97 kg. At the moment I'm making weight for a fight at 93 kg. I don't train in just one gym, but I rotate and pend a lot, but I have PriMMAt Gym as my heart gym, which I also compete under. My other such home gym is Hron Gym and Gauny Team's, under the great leadership of Tomas Hron. I train with really good fighters such as Leo Brichta, Bernard Plavec, David Kozma, Matej Peñáz and others, who you can know mostly from the Oktagon MMA or RFA organization. As long as my health serves me, I will continue in this sport, because I love it! If someone reads this who doesn't feel satisfied with himself, I'll be very happy if he takes my story as an example and starts working even if slowly like I did back then. Even a guy like me who went up to an unbelievable and unhealthy 155 kg just did it, it just takes a strong will and going for it! If you want to start martial arts too, but you're afraid you're too fat for it or you don't know how to do it, then put all that behind you and definitely get to one of the aforementioned gyms. All are welcome!

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