UFC king Jon Jones focused on 'muscular endurance' over having a six pack in his 50-pound body transformation to join heavyweight class

• Jon Jones returns Saturday to the UFC Octagon for the first time in three years.
• The former light heavyweight king has been training to compete in a new weight class — heavyweight.

LAS VEGAS — After more than a decade of dominance at light heavyweight, UFC star Jon Jones will make his heavyweight bow Saturday in the main event of UFC 285 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.

Thrust into a UFC title fight against Ciryl Gane, Jones weighed in Friday at 248 pounds — approximately 43 pounds heavier than he used to be for his fights at the lower weight class he used to dominate.

Jones even weighed more than his opponent, Gane, who scaled 247.5 pounds.

Speaking to Insider and other reporters this week, the former light heavyweight champ explained how he's transitioned into an MMA fighter with a far bigger frame, and gave hints as to how that will prove useful against Gane.

"I feel like I move really well and have great pride in my endurance," said Jones.

"I do a lot of endurance training — rowing machine or the pool, the bike, sparring, heavy mitts, jiu jitsu, and jogging. I feel like a stronger version of myself."

Jones ran a gauntlet at light heavyweight, emerging victorious over a who's who of fighters, including Alexander Gustafsson, Glover Teixeira, and Daniel Cormier, and staking a claim as the No. 1 fighter the sport has ever seen.

Should he maintain his hot streak against weekend opponent Gane, in a new division and become a two-weight UFC champion, then Jones would add another punctuation mark to his claim as the UFC's all-time king.

To do so, he has spent three years on his comeback to ensure he enters heavyweight at the optimal weight.

His body, therefore, is completely different to how it looked at light heavyweight.

This is how he looked ahead of his last bout in 2019:

Here he is more than a year later, training to become a heavyweight:

Jones has continued to develop his musculature through the years and, this week, hinted that his physique is more functional than aesthetic.

Ripped heavyweights, like boxing stars Evander Holyfield and Anthony Joshua, are somewhat of a rarity in mixed martial arts and, for Jones, it was more important to have, what he called, "muscular endurance." He wanted to be able to play the part, rather than merely look it.

To help him get ready for Saturday's showdown, he enlisted American powerlifter Stan Efferding, nicknamed "The White Rhino," to live with him for nine months and work on modifying his heavyweight build.

"I'm not super lean," Jones said this week. "I don't have a six-pack like I used to and that took me a while to get used to.

"Back in the day, I would judge my fitness levels by how I looked in the mirror, but I'm a heavyweight now. It's not about what you look like, it's about how you perform. And I feel like I perform really well."

Jones said that he's knocked sparring partners out in his training camp, which is something that wasn't happening as frequently at light heavyweight, and he's got a near-100% takedown rate when it came to drilling wrestling routines.

He said: "[Efferding] taught me about lifting hard, lifting heavy."

Jones ate rice for breakfast, lunch, and dinner to bulk up, he said

Efferding helped ready Jones for muscular endurance, which the fighter described as "lifting heavy for lots of reps, which you see guys often lift 600-pound deadlift — but only lifting it once.

"These guys had me lifting 500 pounds for sets of eight, sets of 10, and really working that muscular endurance."

Efferding also helped when it came to eating like a heavyweight.

Jones said: "You've got to eat if you want to gain size, so I was eating rice with eggs in the morning. Rice for breakfast, lunch, and dinner — six meals a day, three protein shakes a day.

"The importance of sleeping early, staying hydrated, and living the lifestyle of an athlete" was also important, Jones said.

Jones is so confident with his new build that he said if UFC held a CrossFit-style event for all the heavyweight fighters on its roster, he'd finish first.

He said his numbers in certain lifts are 640 pounds for a deadlift with reps and that he could bench press reps of 500 to 520 pounds.

"There may be guys who can bench press a little bit more than me, deadlift more, squat more … but when it comes to running long distance, running fast, lifting big numbers, and having muscular endurance — I believe I'm a total package athlete right now," he said.

"I'm by far the most versatile athlete" that Gane has "ever faced, and the most experienced athlete he's ever faced," Jones added.

"I feel like Ciryl is the most incomplete fighter in the top-5 right now. He has really good striking, and he has really good footwork, but I've watched his fights and he got tired in his last fight against Francis Ngannou.

"One or two takedowns, and make him earn getting back to his feet, tire him out," Jones continued. "I'm a wrestler, and I wrestle people a lot. It's a different type of endurance. … I can't see Ciryl handling a guy like me."

Jones fights Gane for the UFC heavyweight championship atop the 14-bout UFC 285 card that airs on ESPN pay-per-view.