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In his latest blog, Dean Amasinger lifts the lid on the 'shark tank', the ultimate pre-fight training session.

One week to go. This week has been crucial in my preparation for my fight with Scott Jansen at Ultimate Challenge on October 24.

At the beginning of my fight camp eight weeks ago I had set myself some goals in all the different aspects of training.

This was the week to hit those goals. I'm not going to go into specifically what they were but they could be things like lifting a certain amount of weight in strength training or getting a certain amount of reps in conditioning.

It is a great way to measure your progress but it is also a way to focus your efforts while training. As I mentioned before Ollie Richardson from fighterstrength.com plans out my camp and is in charge of my strength and conditioning. He also sets some of the goals in S and C, but I add to that with some personal ones.

My grappling and MMA coach Nathan Leverton from Leicester Shoot Fighters helps me with my game plan and researches my opponent.

He also does this for the other Rough House fighters and he is astute at making a game plan that works to your strengths and against your opponent's weaknesses, which is essentially the essence of a good game plan.

There are so many things you can look at like fight records, how he lost fights, how he won fights, video etc but essentially I leave it to Nathan to do this for me.

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My task and one of the goals of the fight camp was to apply this game plan when sparring. It is important to familiarise yourself with what needs to be done in a live situation.

That was never more important than in Thursday's squad session, when I did the 'shark tank' session I mentioned last week - a tough thing to do, but the best way of testing yourself before a fight and really sets a marker for where you are.

It's usually three five-minute rounds with a fresh man every minute, but this time the shark tank was adjusted slightly for me. I started off doing three rounds with a fresh man each round, and then had two more rounds with a fresh man each minute. To add to my misery, my sparring partners were Paul Daley, Dan Hardy, Andre Winner, Nick Osipczak and Ross Pearson.

This type of sparring is the nearest simulation to a real fight that you can have in training. It mirrors the type of fatigue you feel in a fight and you have to show the kind of heart that will win you fights.

With your sparring partners being so fresh you'll inevitably find yourself in tough situations but working your way out of them takes heart and determination.

I worked my game plan as much as possible and I also had my corner men there shouting commands as well as all the other team-mates that weren't sparring at the time. The atmosphere in the gym was great and everyone got behind me and supported me.

After helping me out (or beating me up for twenty-five minutes!) the rest of the team did their usual training. 

When it comes to the week before their fights I'll be there for them.

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Lee Whitehead from MMA Unlimited and mmaweekly was at the gym taking pictures and he remarked at the team spirit and bond between us all.

I think having a good team behind you can be the difference in being a success or not and I couldn't ask for a better team.

Needless to say I survived the 'shark tank', all that's left now is my last conditioning circuit on Saturday and the weight cut.

Next week I'll be giving some insights into my weight cut. If you want more up-to-date information go to www.deanamasinger.com or www.facebook.com/dean.amasinger.

Dean Amasinger / Eurosport