Boxers who never did weights/pushups?

[mickey malone]

Well that's a good question. SRR would have always had the length and speed to really give a guy like Jake trouble, but the thing Jake had that troubled Ray was his strength and aggression. I suppose there is a chance that if LaMotta was that bit stronger he would have taken another fight off Ray or least given him that bit more trouble.

I'd say that's a fair assessment..
Training at the end of the day, is training, & provided your willing to put your body to the peak of it's physical endurance, then you can only be positive..
Modern dieticians would also play a key role, had they been around in LaMotta's day..

[{Darko}]

Old Time Welterweight Great Tommy "No Arms" Mcgee











































For obvious reasons

[Suckmedry]

I'd say that's a fair assessment..
Training at the end of the day, is training, & provided your willing to put your body to the peak of it's physical endurance, then you can only be positive..
Modern dieticians would also play a key role, had they been around in LaMotta's day..

Yeah, agreed.

[PowerPlus]

Properly being minimal, then I agree in total..
But i'd still put movement, isometrics, sparring, pads, bagwork, skipping and running way infront, in terms of priority..
A fighters muscles should be long and 'quick twitch' not compact, so if this can be maintained aswell as improved with the use of heavy weights, then fair enough, but i still say that weight training shouldn't be a major part of any boxers training program..

As a point of interest, do you think LaMotta would have got the better of SRR, had he trained with weights properly?

Intersting thread here. I just rewatched Raging Bull a few nights ago and was amazed by the incredible Jake Lamotta. I also have done a lot of weight training and worked with athletes. In every case, weight training enhanced athletic ability. Those who were great athletes were better. Those who were not great athletes, perfomed better also.

In LaMatta's case, I think weight training would have helped him. For one, his issue seemed to be holding his weight down. He was a big eater. Since muscle burns fat even at rest, Jake could have ate to his heart content, built more muscle, reduced fat and either stayed as a middleweight or gone up to the next weight class. Think how deadly he may have become with the extra size and power. He would have dominated the lightheavies like he did the middleweights.

As for SRR, in my opinion, JM lost his desire in that last fight. He seemed consumed by personal issues and keeping his title was no longer that significant. Perhaps fighting to hold his weight down was getting old too.

By the way, the proper way for LaMotta to have trained I believe, should have included a good overall bodybuilding program and Olympic style lifting, power snatches, power cleans, clean and jerks, high pulls etc. to build explosiveness. Then perhaps circuit weight training for cardio. And of course the sparring, hitting the speed bag and other training boxers do.

I sincerely believe that weight training would have been much more beneficial than the archaic high repittion 1,000 pushups and situps that the old time boxers used to do.

Anyway, just my opinion based on training other athletes.

Jake LaMotta was an awesome fighter. I think weights could have made him even better.

[IronDanHamza]

Harold Johnson apparently never did any weight lifting.

You'd think someone of his physique would lift weights.

[billeau2]

The reason modern fitness methods are so good has nothing to do with weight training per se. I can tell you that years ago as a martial artist working with others as a trainer, I used to stress working the core muscle areas....the abs, back, large muscles of the hips/legs, shoulders etc. What we did then and they do now is emphasize effort to stabilize the core muscles. This effort is what actual working strength consists of....In other words, the construction guy lifting heavy bags to his shoulder, he has to lift the bag, then stabilize his body as he puts the load to his shoulder....this is different than simply lifting the bag for maximum load (straight up and back down under controlled circumstances).

Weights is a means to an end....Pilates is also a means to an end, as is isometrics, etc. The use of the big muscles in the core make people more powerful....Calesthenics can be used this way as can extreme strength exerscize in weights....its the goal of the fitness and the ability of the body to incorporate balance and stabilization re-action to an initial movement that creates useful work performed.

Isolated muscle toning under controlled circumstances is what people did before and if you think about it, these exerscizes are not effective to build useful strength. Whether you benchpress 1 pound or 1000 you do not use your chest to lift heavy weight...in grappling you seldom would physically lift a person off of you, rather strength used would be your core muscles when applying techniqhe. This is the difference.

For example: When I work on a chest exerscize I take a relatively heavy set of barbells and I arch my back. I then have to hold my position with my abs, as I support the lift from my chest. Instead of building chest muscles in isolation the main goal of this exerscize is to build te back mscles (arching) the ab muscles (stabilizing to steady the dumbells) the chest and arms (pulling against gravity and lifting the dumbells) and finally, the legs, stabilizing the body. I use this example to show a modern fitness weight lifitng activity....the actual work of lifting the weights becomes the least important part of the exerscize!

oops forgot the main point! Basically the old guys used a lot of things like Pulleys, running, jump rope, calesthenics all of which tend to work the core muscle areas. Isolating a muscle with weights was not adapted because of the half truism that weights build bulk and make one slow. my point is that ANY activity that isolates one muscle group at the expense of balance, control and stabilization will make one ackward, slow and unbalanced. So weights do not make one anythng in particular....Think of it this way: would you rather have the arm strength of a body builder with gigantic arms, or of a parapylegic who has learned to use a manual wheelchair to race around town? the body builder is bigger but in a contest of working strength the parapylegic would own the body builder.

[Bodyshot3]

I think Mayorga's a candidate.....unless you count picking-up a full ashtray as a kind of weight-conditioning. Guess he kept himself fit by always being involved in a scrap outside the ring. Fascinated by that guy, smoked like a Chinese factory chimney and yet sometimes fought like a demon.

Some really good technical stuff here on the potentially damaging use of weights and it reminds me of Frank Bruno who was a very muscular guy even as a teenage amateur; Bruno did use weights but was always instructed to use very light loads and in short bursts because Terry Lawless and George Francis knew that Frank's issue was stamina and flexibility. I think they even had Frank going to tap dancing lessons to improve his movement....which must have been a sight.

[Luccio]

Harold Johnson apparently never did any weight lifting.

You'd think someone of his physique would lift weights.

he was probably just a liar....

[The Old LefHook]

"Think of it this way: would you rather have the arm strength of a body builder with gigantic arms, or of a parapylegic who has learned to use a manual wheelchair to race around town? the body builder is bigger but in a contest of working strength the parapylegic would own the body builder."

Bilbo has given an apt illustration here which pretty much points up the issue.

[JERMELL_CHARLO_]

Mikey Garcia.