Johny Hendricks Already Back in the Gym Preparing for Georges St-Pierre

Top UFC welterweight contender Johny Hendricks suffered a hand injury in his UFC 158: St-Pierre vs. Diaz co-main event bout on March 16 against Carlos Condit, but is already in the gym training in preparation for an eventual showdown with champion Georges St-Pierre.

“I injured it on the cage with the last takedown of the first period. I dislocated a couple fingers and when I was walking back I couldn’t squeeze,” Hendricks explained to MMAWeekly.com content partner Knockout Radio.

“So what happened was, whenever I hit Carlos in the second period I popped them back in. And I don’t know how much you know about popping fingers back in, but it feels like you might break your hand, so I didn’t think about that. I was thinking, oh crap, I might have hurt my hand.”

The hand is now fine.

“Once I popped the fingers back into place, it was sore about three days,” he explained.  “It just scared me at that point, and when they were cutting off my gloves, it hurt as well. So those are always scary things.”

“Here’s the thing, what if GSP wanted to turn around and do another four-month fight? If that would have happened, I would have had to train a little bit with a broken hand for the fight,” added Hendricks.  “So that was my main concern, to make sure my body is healed and nothing is really wrong with it, and move on from there.”

Move on he has, returning to the gym.  He wanted to face St-Pierre in August, but that time frame seems unlikely with St-Pierre on location filming Captain America: The Winter Soldier, likely tying him up with the Marvel film project until the fall.

“I’m just going to work on things that I could have done better (in the Condit fight),” said Hendricks about his waiting period.

Hendricks is adding something extra to his training while he waits for a firm date for the St-Pierre fight.

“I’m actually going to lift during this camp, during this off-season. Last off-season I didn’t, so I’m actually going to start lifting again, trying to get up a little more power for this next fight,” he said.

Johny Hendricks with more power is a scary concept, especially considering the two-time national collegiate wrestling champion and four-time NCAA wrestling All-American has finished more than half of his fight by knockout.

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