Last week I had the pleasure of interviewing Kickboxing legend Rick “The Jet” Roufus as he prepares to face Mighty Mo in the 2012 K-1 Rising U.S. Grand Prix Championship on September 8^th in Los Angeles, CA. Beginning this week, Roufus will detail his training and whatever else he has going on in his life as he gets ready to battle for a $1 million payday.

Right now I am feeling awesome both mentally and physically. I have about four weeks left until my fight with Mighty Mo and I am in tip-top shape. I am getting as fine tuned as a church choir right now!

I’ve been running and boxing three to four times every week. I work three times a week on my game plan with Coach Shihan Nico here in Phoenix. He is putting me through some drills to help me prepare for Mighty Mo. Certain days we are sparring, certain days we are running drills. We also watch a lot of video and breaking down my opponent. I get up at 5:30 in the morning because it gets so hot here that I have to run that early.

I try to eat a balance diet of protein and carbohydrates. I need the carbs especially because this sport takes up a lot of my energy. My body is constantly calling for more fuel because we are training at such a high intensity. It’s not like I am trying to lose weight or anything. I eat a clean diet and when my body needs more carbs I will eat more carbs.

There are certain things I like to do to keep my mind off of the fight. At night I teach at the MMA Lab where Benson Henderson trains. I spend a lot of time with my wife and kids, my son loves baseball so I try to go out and play catch with him. We go to a batting cage and other days I spend with my daughter. At least twice a week we try and do a family day where we are all together. It’s so hard for us to get together during the week so we try and do things on the weekends.

I’ll be watching the UFC this weekend because Ben is fighting against Frankie. We’re going to a friend’s house to watch the fights. Other than that I always have something going on so I don’t get to watch a lot of television. This week my wife has family in town so we will be spending most of our free time with them. There’s more to life than fighting, my family is more important than anything else and they will always come first.

I have always been a huge Packer fan because I grew up in Wisconsin so I am looking forward to the season starting in September. I watch the Diamondbacks quite a bit because my son can never get enough baseball. We try and take in as many games live as we can. He’s always got baseball on his mind so that’s what we like to do together. We’ve had record heat here so most of the time we go to an indoor batting cage to stay out of the heat. He just finished his first season which had the coaches pitching to him, but next season he will be batting against the other kids so we have to get him prepared.

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