Valentina Shevchenko, the UFC’s reigning flyweight queen and a woman with more title defenses than most fighters have Instagram followers, has a training rule that’s left the MMA world parched: no water during exercise. Yes, you read that right – while most athletes are guzzling fluids between rounds, Shevchenko is channeling her inner Soviet scientist and keeping her water bottle firmly capped.
Valentina Shevchenko Says No Water In Training
“I don’t drink water during exercise. It comes from Soviet sports science—if you drink during intense exercise, it can disrupt your body’s rhythm. After training, you rehydrate, but during, you want everything working like a clock. Excess is never good, whether it’s water, protein, or caffeine,” she explained, in an interview with Helen Yee, with all the certainty of someone who’s kicked heads from Kyrgyzstan to Las Vegas.
This isn’t just a quirky personal habit. Valentina Shevchenko’s “no water” policy is a relic of Soviet-era sports science, where the idea was to toughen athletes up and keep their bodies running with mechanical precision. The theory? If you can train under the harshest conditions, parched and focused, then you’ll perform better when it counts, especially when water breaks aren’t guaranteed. Some former Soviet coaches believed that minimizing water intake during training would help athletes adapt to competition scenarios where hydration is limited.
But here’s where modern science throws a wet towel on the tradition. Leading sports nutritionists, including Jordan Sullivan (a.k.a. “The Fight Dietitian”), have called Shevchenko’s approach “outdated.” According to Sullivan, depriving athletes of water during training doesn’t build toughness it just makes them train worse.
Medical experts also warn that dehydration during exercise can impair performance, increase fatigue, and even pose serious health risks like heat exhaustion. Still, Shevchenko isn’t budging. She’s doubled down on her policy, even imposing it on her team during “The Ultimate Fighter” season 32, insisting that it’s about cultivating a champion’s mindset and keeping the body “like a clock.”
Critics may scoff, but it’s hard to argue with her results. And what results they are. She’s a two-time UFC women’s flyweight champion, boasting several successful title defenses in her first reign. Her resume reads like a who’s who of women’s MMA: victories over Joanna Jędrzejczyk, Jessica Andrade, Holly Holm, and Lauren Murphy, among others.
Is Shevchenko’s no-water rule a secret weapon or just a stubborn throwback? The science says hydrate, but “Bullet” Shevchenko says stay thirsty.
