Fight Ready

by Santino DeFranco

The ultimate fitness guide by former high ranking fighter and one of the top MMA trainers in the country, Santino DeFranco—with a foreword from the two-division UFC champion Henry Cejudo.

To be “fight ready” is to exist in a state of optimal physical and mental preparedness that enables a fighter to execute and perform at a peak level at any moment. In Fight Ready, Santino DeFranco draws on his expertise from training world-class mixed martial artists and UFC fighters like Henry Cejudo, Tracy Cortez, Kamuela Kirk, and The Korean Zombie to show listeners how to become fight ready inside and outside of the cage.

Through healthy, gimmick-free, easy-to-understand techniques, Fight Ready helps listeners learn how to lose weight and keep it off while improving their strength, endurance, and mental outlook towards their health. Highlighting successful and safe practices for listeners at every stage of their fitness journey, Fight Ready simulates a customizable professional fight camp experience for listeners to achieve their own diet and fitness goals—whether or not they ever intend to compete in MMA.

In a market saturated by faux science and magic-bullet diets, Fight Ready cuts through the noise to provide clear, practical diet, and fitness advice that is actionable, sustainable, and battle-tested—all while offering VIP, behind-the-scenes access to the world of mixed martial arts and the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

So, are you ready to become fight ready?

Genres: Nonfiction, Self Help

336 pages, Paperback

Published May 19, 2026

Reviews

[Bernie Gourley · Rating 4 out of 5]

MMA fighter turned coach, Santino DeFranco, offers an insightful and pragmatic overview of the process of getting one's body shipshape, including: getting sleep, dealing with injuries, strength and conditioning practices, nutrition, and more. The book attempts to be of broad appeal, not just relevant to MMA and other competitive fighters, but to athletes of other sports and non-athletes as well. It was not clear to me that the book achieves said broad appeal. One of the most fascinating and engaging chapters dealt with the process of cutting weight, an activity that applies to few outside weight-graded combative sports. (And an activity which the author, with the pragmatic approach that makes the book so useful, attempts to dissuade general readers from attempting.) The book does discuss the calories-in-and-calories-out basics of nutrition in a more generally relevant manner, as well. And there is certainly wisdom to be gleaned for the non-fighter, but, overall, I don't know that this would be a good book to send a person toward if they were a typically unathletic person trying to lose a few pounds and be in better shape. (Though I do acknowledge a sort of aspirational motivation that a book might have for such readers, particularly UFC fans.) [And it's completely out of my wheelhouse to know how generally applicable strength and conditioning approaches are for completely different sports, but I can't help but have doubts.]

That said, I did come across many thought-provoking tidbits of wisdom in this book. The author is clearly one prone to look to the science and established best practices and to challenge the fad-laden fitness influencers and not dive headlong into the trend du jour. The book uses stories and anecdotes to increase the book's readability and relatability. Here I'd say the results are mixed, but the aforementioned Tracy Cortez weight cut story is one example of when it is done very well.

If you're curious about the training life of professional fighters and are looking for a few health and fitness concepts you might apply in your own life, I'd highly recommend this book.

[LM · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fight Ready: An MMA Coach’s Guide to Losing Weight, Getting Strong, and Kicking Ass by Santiago DeFranco is unlike any fitness or wellness book I’ve read before—and that’s saying something. As a former bodybuilder, I’ve consumed countless books and articles in pursuit of a competitive edge. Most of them recycle the same talking points: protein intake, creatine, cardio timing, and marginal tweaks that rarely address the bigger picture.

This book genuinely caught me off guard—in the best way. DeFranco delivers far more than surface-level advice. Instead, he presents a comprehensive, thoughtful framework for achieving peak performance and long-term health. While strength training, cardio, nutrition, and supplementation are all addressed, they’re treated as pieces of a much larger system rather than the entire solution.

What stood out most to me was the emphasis on foundational elements that are often overlooked, particularly sleep. Yes—sleep. It sounds simple, but DeFranco makes a compelling case for how critical sleep is to recovery, performance, and overall athletic longevity. Athletes don’t just benefit from sleep—they depend on it. He also highlights mental resilience, sustainable habits, and the importance of focusing on the whole athlete rather than obsessing over minutiae.

DeFranco thoughtfully layers these building blocks to show how true performance is developed from the ground up. This isn’t just a book for fighters or elite athletes—it’s equally valuable for anyone looking to improve their physical health, mindset, and consistency.

I highly recommend this book to athletes and non-athletes alike. It’s motivating, practical, and refreshingly honest.
Thank you to Santiago DeFranco, St. Martin’s Press, and NetGalley for the ARC.

[Kylee Doyle · Rating 2 out of 5]

Thank you to St. Martin's Press for the gifted ARC!

I'm going to start by saying I have an issue with how this book is being marketed. It's called "Fight Ready: An MMA Coach's Guide to Losing Weight, Getting Strong, and Kicking Ass." As someone who's working on exercising more, eating healthier, and losing weight, I picked this up with high hopes that it would contain some interesting nuggets about fitness and nutrition from someone who's spent most of his life around elite athletes. Early on in the book, though, it becomes clear that the author expects the reader to already be a seasoned athlete. He also spends a lot of time using football analogies (he's an MMA coach, not a football coach) and other sports references that I didn't connect to. He includes a lot of the science behind recovery, training, and nutrition, but it often felt like he was just reciting information from a textbook (complete with charts), instead of presenting it in a way that would be accessible to most readers. I did appreciate DeFranco's focus on building a solid foundation for wellness, especially his emphasis on sleep, which often gets overlooked, but at the end of the day, the book is about 300 pages long and less than 50 of those pages focus on weight loss and nutrition for someone who isn't a professional athlete.

If you're an athlete looking for additional tools and tips for gaining a competitive edge, this might be one for you. But I honestly don't think the average person looking to lose weight and get stronger will benefit from this over most of the other fitness books on the market.

[Bakertyl · Rating 4 out of 5]

The marketing for this book sells a false product, but the product is good. This book is described in the marketing language as a "weight-loss guidance" from someone who trains professionals, and it is technically that. But really, this is a book for a competitor. Advice on how to choose a trainer or nutritionist, building a competitive mindset, etc., really good advice that wasn't what I was looking for. DeFranco seems to know his stuff, but if you're going to but your book in a lane, stay in it. Still, good advice for most adults.

[Dawn McGill Dalrymple · Rating 4 out of 5]

Being a person who works out a lot i enjoyed this one. Thank you to St Martin's Griffin for sending me an arc to read and review! Some fave quotes: "Success is 90% mental"
"Believing in success is paramount"
"Success is nothing more than mindset"

[Bossmanaries Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is not a book for beginners yet it is for athletes that are seasoned, I recommended this book to my nephews who played football in high school and gleaned tips from the information.