Former Pride champion, UFC Light-Heavyweight contender and all-round MMA veteran Wanderlei "The Axe Murderer" Silva has been using techniques out of the Cuban boxing and wrestling teams ahead of his upcomming clash with Keith "The Dean of Mean" Jardine.

Wanderlei's physical trainer, Rafael Alejarra brought a few new techniques to Silva's the Las Vegas gym where he is currently training. This new kind of training is called 'Hypoxia' training, which is basically circuit training - with a snorkel.

"All fighters breath through their mouth and nose in a fight, with Hypoxia I close his nose making it harder to breath, the body demands more oxygen, but the intake is not enough to fulfil the demand, which produces more lactic acid faster and he will get more fatigued." - says Alejarra.

To ensure maximum safety, but the ultimate training regime, Silva begins by fixing a heart monitor, a weighted vest (45 lb or 20 KG) and then has his nose completely sealed forcing him to only breath through the snorkel.

"You don't use your nose, just your mouth, so it makes it much more difficult. Training 15 minutes with the snorkel is the same as training 2 hours without" Said Wanderlei, "After I'm done, all I want to do is eat and sleep, I am very, very tired."

All this training, and with reduced Oxygen intake, his muscles produce incredibly large amounts of Lactic Acid.  This simulates the last few rounds of a fight.

"After every round, my blood is tested. This is to measure the level of my conditioning, and make sure that I'm not over or under training".

The following is a sample of Wanderlei's training circuit:

First Circuit

Clean & Jerk (8 x 110lbs)
1m Jump (30 seconds)
Punch Machine (16 x 55lbs)
Stairs (3 flights, 40 seconds break)

Second Circuit

Pull Downs (12 x 198 lb)
Resistance Sprints (elastic, 4 shots across ring)
Plyometrics (30 seconds)
Stairs (3 flights, 40 second break)

Third Circuit

Clean and Jerk (8 x 110 lb)
Pull downs (12 x 198 lb)
Sprawl Drills x 5
Stairs (3 flights, 40 second break)

"The final round is very hard, I only have 40 seconds rest between each rounds and after two 10 minute rounds, the last 5 minutes are almost impossible. Your body is in such pain, but you need to keep going because in a fight, you can't stop".

"Some fighters train for month, 5 hours a day, and after 2 minutes in a fight they get tired. This sport is hard, you're going so hard and so fast that you need to keep going so much harder to keep pace".

At the end of all of this 20 minutes circuit training, he hits an Ice Bath for 2 minutes. This helps to cool the muscles and recover faster - to continue pushing his training at this intense level.

"The circuit training causes a lot of pain in my muscles, the ice helps reduce the pain and speed up my recovery time so I continue training a lot sooner. The first few seconds in the ice are very hard to handle because your body is very hot and your hard is beating so fast, but soon you start to focus and the coldness goes away".