Phil Daru Record, Net Worth, Weight, Age & More!

Who Is Phil Daru?

Phil Daru is a strength and conditioning coach and former mixed martial artist and college football player. He is known for training some of the best UFC fighters, boxers, NFL football players, and Olympic athletes. Phil was named the Best Strength and Conditioning Coach in the State of Florida in both 2012 and 2013. In 2019 he was named Trainer of the Year by World MMA Awards.

Who Is Phil Daru?

Phil Daru is a strength and conditioning coach and former mixed martial artist and college football player. He is known for training some of the best UFC fighters, boxers, NFL football players, and Olympic athletes. Phil was named the Best Strength and Conditioning Coach in the State of Florida in both 2012 and 2013. In 2019 he was named Trainer of the Year by World MMA Awards.

What this article covers:

• Who Is Phil Daru?
• How Much Is Phil Daru Worth?
• Phil Daru’s Career

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Phil Daru was born in Broward County, Florida and began his martial arts training on kenpo karate at the age of 4. When he turned 8 he began playing football, and began his weight lifting journey at the age of 12. He worked his way up to play Division 1 college football and a strong safety as well as a special teams gunner for Alabama State University.

During his sophomore year of college he began training MMA at an American Top Team affiliate under his first coach Din Thomas. He also had the opportunity to train under Tony Montgomery. While playing football and training MMA, Daru also earned two degrees in Sports Medicine and Exercise Science during his time at Alabama State University.

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How Old Is Phil Daru?

Born November 20, 1988, Phil Daru is 32 years old.

Phil Faru’s Family

Phil Daru is married to Mirella Daru.

How Much Is Phil Daru Worth?

Phil Daru is worth approximately $400,000.

How Tall Is Phil Daru?

Phil Daru stands at 5 feet and 8 inches tall.

How Much Does Phil Daru Weigh?

When Phil Daru fought MMA, he competed in the lightweight division and weighed 151 pounds.

Phil Daru’s Career

Daru fought MMA as an amateur and professionally between the years of 2009 and 2014 before he decided to retire from fighting and pursue a full time coaching career. He turned pro at age 21 and had his first fight under the XFC organization. He had two fights for XFC before signing and having two more fights with the Real Fighting Championships promotion.

While he was still fighting at age 22 he opened his first gym. He retired from fighting MMA in 2014 to focus on his full time coaching career. Just after he retired he began his coaching career as a strength and conditioning coach at American Top Team. After 6 years with the organization he stepped down from coaching for American Top Team in 2020.

Phil Daru is the founder of his organization, Daru Strong, and is a world renowned strength and conditioning coach. His mission and the point of his organization is to help peoples performance, life, longevity, personal growth, and to help them become the best version of themselves. As you look at his coaching style this is more than evident.

Phil is the owner and operator of the Daru Strong Performance Center in Boca Raton, Florida. Daru has been using his abilities to improve power, strength, speed, agility, mobility and endurance in top athletes for over 10 years. He has worked with some of the highest level fighters and athletes in the world such as Dustin Poirier, Jr. Dos Santos, Colby Covington, as well as so many other NFL players, World Champion Boxers, UFC stars, and celebrities. 

Phil is widely considered to be the best in the business when it comes to training strength and conditioning for combat sports. His methods have been featured on ESPN, Spike TV, Fox Sports, The NFL Network,  UFC embedded, as well as tons of other books and podcasts all around the world.

When training MMA fighters, he focuses on their ability to throw powerful punches and kicks, how to withstand being battered and bruised for 5 minutes straight, manhandling their opponent on the ground, and instilling the level of focus and athleticism it takes to be a step ahead of their opponent.

His opinion is that the difference between knocking someone out cold and collapsing after a big shot is the incorporation of proper strength training. His opinion speaks for itself when you look at some of the fighters he has trained and their records. His time spent training some of the highest caliber fighters has given him more and more insight on what it takes to be successful in the art of fighting.

When trying to gauge the strength levels of two fighters, Phil looks at several things. How is still energized in the fourth round and who looks like they are drunk driving? Who is throwing powerful strikes and who is flailing their arms? Who is able to control their opponents body and who is the one being controlled? He has found that all who represent the latter of these qualities and those who did not spend enough time in the weight room.

Some concepts that Phil has come to understand include that punching with weights does not increase knockout power or speed. He believes that shadow boxing with dumbbells is a waste of time and energy. Instead, he believes in the utilization of movements that are more specific to a fighter's unique physical demands. Another misconception he finds is the large amount of cardio fighters believe they need to do. He believes this is butchering their performance in the octagon.

Insteadhe helps them discover the amount of muscle mass they need to be effective in the octagon. He does this in different forms of circuit training and more endurance training rather than cardio. He built a personal, full body approach which can be tweaked from person to person.

He also created an MMA body weight program called body armor. Body armor was created with the intent for the world's top fighters to be able to continue training in any condition without fancy equipment. Numerous MMA fighters use this program to stay in shape at home, while they are in hotels, or any other time they can’t access a gym.

He has also focused on specific strength and conditioning training for Jiu Jitsu practitioners. He has focused on learning the mean weaknesses that plague grapplers. He found three main weaknesses, the first being the lack of isometric strength. Jiu Jitsu is all about control, and good isometric strength is the key to control.

Without good isometric strength, practitioners get their guard passed, lose their grips when they are trying to pass the guard, have people escape from their submission attempts, and greatly struggle in controlling their opponent. Phil developed specific exercises to combat these weaknesses.

The second weakness he found is when practitioners have a weak posterior chain. This includes the glutes, the back, and the hamstrings, all of which grapplers are lacking power from. Strength in these areas are proven to help all aspects of a practitioner's Jiu Jitsu game.

The third weakness he found is a lack of mobility. It is common knowledge that Jiu Jitsu creates unnatural positions and body distortions. Most people would combat this weakness with stretching, but Phil has developed a system of strength training that plays right into increasing mobility. By figuring out which parts of the body are most commonly injured with the movements of Jiu Jitsu, he focuses on strengthening those areas to not only increase power but also to protect against injury.

Is Phil Daru Retired?

Phil Daru retired from professional MMA in 2014, but is still very much involved with training athletes and running his facility.

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