MMA Star Kayla Harrison In Workout Gear Is "In My Hiking Girl" Era

MMA fighter Kayla Harrison is active even during her down time, but she's making it fun. Harrison, 34, shared a video of herself wearing leggings and a sports bra, hiking in the gorgeous Utah mountains. "In my hiking girl (and no days off) era. 😌 My fight camp for #ufc307 continues here in #utah with a few of my favorite people. 🩵 📌10.5.24 #slc #hiking #outside #outdoors #mma #mmatraining #kaylaharrison," she captioned the post. Here's how the fighter stays strong, healthy, and happy.

Harrison says all athletes have days where they question if the hard work is worth it. "I do a lot of visualization and positive thinking as part of my routine," she told the Los Angeles Times. "Even when I'm not physically training, I'm training my mind to believe that I am a winner and believe that I'm the best. I visualize myself winning tournaments and winning the Olympics. And at night I go home and cry because it's been such a bad day and I feel like I can't do it anymore, but then I go through my little mantra and I visualize and listen to the right song, and then I feel a little bit better."

Harrison is never not training. "I train year-round anyway, so it's not like, Oh, I'm back in the gym, or I take a longer time off or something like that," she told the New York Post about preparing to fight Larissa Pacheco. "And the reality is, Larissa fights very similar to Cris Cyborg; she fights very similar to Amanda [Nunes]. These are heavy strikers. These are front-runners. These are girls who I'm thinking about all the time when I'm in the gym. So I've been preparing for this fight for a lot longer than three months, and I'm ready."

Harrison's training routine changes depending on what her goals are. "I was fortunate to be able to work one-on-one with a strength and conditioning coach three to five days a week," she told the Los Angeles Times. "We also run sprints and intervals three to five days a week, and we do judo every single day. Judo doesn't have a season per se, but there are down times when I really need to focus on building my strength, but before competition I need to focus on conditioning and getting in as good shape as possible. Sometimes I do Olympic-style lifts, and others I do a lot of circuit training. It depends where I am in the year and what I'm peaking for."

Harrison lets herself splurge after a fight diet-wise. "Post-fight, I love nachos. And I always get chocolate cake after I weigh in" she told the New York Post. "Chocolate cake is a must. … I'm a lightweight for a reason: I'm known to eat (laughs). [If] it's not nailed down, I'll probably eat it. But I'm lucky. I don't live to eat; I eat to live."

Harrison says her number one goal is to be healthy. "I try to instill a healthy lifestyle into my children, more importantly," she told the New York Post. "Maybe before I had my kids, I didn't think about it as much. But now that I have them and I am so conscious of [diet], I want them to grow up and be healthy and capable of making good choices and understand the difference between the choices they're making, I'm much more health conscious. And we have a pretty clean household. On the weekends, we tend to let our hair down a little bit."