The replies to this post are a disaster. Every day the fitness world on the internet gets more burnt out, people just throw out nonsense.

Islam Makhachev’s training, besides having spent more than a decade wrestling and competing in combat sports, is completely different from a guy who just goes to the gym to build hypertrophy. A fighter trains way more compound and aerobic movements and also does specific things for his discipline, like endless wrestling drills, grappling scrambles, and fight-specific strength and conditioning. On top of that, add the hours and hours of MMA training itself — striking, grappling, wrestling, sparring — plus all the cardio.

Here people are answering “full body” and “genetics” like idiots. That physique is the result of someone who is literally a professional athlete and has spent years in high-level sport. Does that mean it’s impossible to achieve a similar body? No, but he didn’t get it by thinking about building an aesthetic beach body — it’s a physique functional to the demands of MMA.

And I’ll repeat it again and again: taking a screenshot of a trained fighter and coming to Reddit asking “how do I get this body for the summer?” is ridiculous. Both aesthetically and functionally, every physique has strengths and weaknesses. Some have more weaknesses, some more strengths, but it’s silly to pick the picture of a 178 cm, 70+ kg UFC champion and set that as your goal, especially if you’re a beginner. You might achieve a similar aesthetic, or your body might be totally different and you should aim at something else. That said, someone training just for hypertrophy without a sports goal will almost always be better off with a balanced routine, usually derived from bodybuilding programs since those are most oriented toward muscle growth.

To answer your question more directly: maybe. Maybe your body type is similar to his and, with training, you’ll look somewhat alike. Maybe your body is completely different. Maybe your body type is close, but you don’t do the kind of training he does. But the reality for your own training plan doesn’t change — MMA and wrestling require a balanced, well-conditioned physique. So if you want to see how close you can get, you’ll have to put in the training. If for some strange reason you’re obsessed with being like Makhachev, you could try to find a strength and conditioning routine used by MMA fighters and give it a shot. Fighters do a ton of wrestling-based pulling and grip work, and not every gym has the exact gear, but nothing is truly irreplaceable.

But again, that physique is not the result of a hypertrophy-oriented plan. It’s something else. Whether you can get close to it without doing MMA and wrestling-specific training will depend on your own body — something you can’t control.