Frank Mir resists retirement to figure out root of the problem

There are few athletes in any sport more insightful and self-aware than Frank Mir.

And yet it seemed the former UFC heavyweight champion was deluding only himself when he refused to announce his retirement following four consecutive mostly one-sided defeats.

Nothing seemed to work and he wasn't even remotely competitive for any significant periods in losses to Junior dos Santos, Daniel Cormier, Josh Barnett and Alistair Overeem.

Now, to be fair, they rank among the elite heavyweights in mixed martial arts, but that was also thought to be true of Mir, as well. Mir had that rare combination of size, speed and athleticism and it helped carry him to two reigns as UFC heavyweight champion.

But it was pretty obvious by watching him in his last four bouts that it wasn't the same guy in the cage. And it was also plainly obvious that testosterone replacement therapy wasn't the answer.

"My wife joked with me, 'You can't do these yoga classes that soccer moms are doing,' " Mir told Yahoo Sports.

His body was breaking down. His training partners would joke with him about the volume and frequency of his injuries. He had little speed, no power and no consistency.

He'd go to training camp a physical wreck and only get worse while trying to prepare to fight.

Mir, who inexplicably is not amongst the many UFC fighters doing television work given how good he is at it, wasn't ready to give it all up, though, and go on with his life.

He felt there was something there and that his career could yet be salvaged. He needed to get to the root of the problem.

"A couple of months before the dos Santos fight, I was trying to figure out why my fitness levels were dropping so badly," Mir said. "The quick fix was to go the TRT route. I didn't go to the doctor looking to get TRT, but that was what was recommended after looking at my blood work and listening to what I had to say. But what it was, really, was a band-aid over a bigger issue.

"When TRT was banned [in 2014], we had to do a more thorough evaluation. And it turned out that, 'Wait a minute, you're not unhealthy because your hormone levels are off. Your hormone levels are off because you're not healthy. It was the chicken and the egg situation."

Mir feels he has it under control now and will return to the cage on Sunday to fight Antonio "Big Foot" Silva in the main event of UFC Fight Night in Brazil. It will be his first appearance in the Octagon since Feb. 1, 2014.

He had always been a fierce trainer, a man who pushed himself relentlessly. He'd train two, three, sometimes four times a day. He pushed his body to the limit, and occasionally beyond, on a regular basis and soon enough, his body had its say.

It no longer could do the things that Mir needed it to do, so he needed to re-evaluate. And he's opted to change his training.

"I found out I didn't train the right way," Mir said. "I was constantly in the gym trying to kill myself. It was all-or-nothing stuff. It was like I felt I had to walk into the gym and deadlift half a house, or I wasn't training at all."

So Mir has switched the approach and he's not always trying to prove he's the world's strongest man.

"I like that when I leave the gym now, I feel good and I'm in a good mood," he said, chuckling. " … I felt a little better after I first started to take TRT, but what that was was a quick fix and I didn't put the problem in the proper perspective. But having the balance between pushing and having a hard day and then having the other days and training smart and eating the proper meals at the correct times, that's what I needed to be doing."

He said he feels much better than he has in years and said he expects his performance will show that.

He believes he'll be able to show his athletic ability and use movement, striking and his great grappling to pull out the win.

In a way, it's the first fight in a new career for him.

"The easy thing would have been to say, 'That's it,' and walk away after [the Overeem fight]," Mir said. "My wife told me after that fight I should take some time off and think and see if I really wanted to do this, and that if I did, to figure out what is wrong.

"That was great advice. I am listening to my body now and I feel like I'm in tune with what is going on. There are days when I have to push and do things like 400-meter sprints, and there's no getting around that those suck. But I have my days where I recover and allow my body to get back to where it needs to be.

"I feel like people who have seen some of my performances in the last couple of years and think that that's who I am now are going to be surprised. This is a great start for me on the way back."