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BAGUIO CITY, Philippines -- Old school, old school and new school.
When the history of the great Manny Pacquiao is finally written in stone decades down the road, those three ingredients must surely make up the foundation of any narrative when trying to explain the hows and whys of this once in a many generation fighting machine.
It’s the first two ingredients in this explosive mix, though, that are the most obvious. The third is not, and is, in fact, relatively unknown, and, lately quite often misunderstood.
The first old school is Pacquiao himself. Pacquiao’s willingness to always fight the best out there, his insatiable training habits, his all action style, and his fearlessness against all challengers make him a boxing purist’s dream come true.
Then there’s the second old school, Pacquiao’s trainer of nine years, Freddie Roach. Roach didn’t have a spectacular career as a fighter, but he did ply his craft under the ultimate old-school boxing trainer, the legendary Eddie Futch. As a trainer himself, Roach has become to boxing what Phil Jackson has to basketball, a sort of Zen Master, quietly imparting his down to earth knowledge and psychology of the sweet science to mold raw talents into consistent winners.
Ironically, it’s the third ingredient on the list, Pacquiao’s strength and conditioning coach Alex Ariza, who has in the last two years helped to turn much of boxing, which is decidedly an old-school sport, on its head, and challenged nearly every notion of how to approach the sport. In clear complicity with these two old-school legends, Ariza, who joined Roach three years ago and helped Pacquiao for his fight with David Diaz, has been responsible for taking what was already an incredible fighter and doing things with him that were never thought possible; Pacquiao’s almost unheard of ability to move up in weight and still maintain (perhaps even increase) his already awesome speed and power.
It’s an unusual phenomenon that has people everywhere shaking their heads in wonderment, with some claiming that nobody can so easily go up in weight and do the things that Pacquiao has done. Legitimately, anyway. It’s led to accusations that surely Pacquiao must be on steroids or other illegal performance-enhancing drugs.
“It’s a compliment,” said Ariza of the lingering PED claims, while watching Pacquiao shadow box on the second day of camp at the Shape Up Gym in Baguio. “We’re doing such a good job, people just can’t understand it. They think it has to be something else. It HAS to be. People think overnight he (Pacquiao) turned into this relentless monster. But it took him two years to get to this point. The truth is that it’s just hard work, and we have a great team.”
Hard work it is, indeed, with a punishing training regime that leaves any and all onlookers in awe. But behind the seemingly endless hours of old school physical toil that are hallmarks of Pacquiao’s workouts, lies a modern and very scientific program designed to develop and maximize Pacman’s unique gifts. But the question still remains: how do you take a guy who as a fighter is a natural 140 pounder, and whose walking around weight is 146-148 pounds, and turn him into a perfectly tuned fighting machine ready to do battle with much bigger men such as Oscar De La Hoya, Miguel Cotto, Joshua Clottey, and now Antonio Margarito? The way not to do it, Ariza says, is to go old school.
“We saw with Kelly Pavlik when he tried to move up in weight,” he said. “He lost everything. He went flat, he couldn’t move, he couldn’t get up. Science has to play a role in a sport that has an old-school mentality. That’s why Freddie Roach is such an exceptional trainer. Even though he’s got old-school teachings, he pulls in the outside-the-box stuff, the more scientific comprehensive ways of training. He knows that just running five miles a day is not going to cut it, especially being such an offensive trainer that he is. You have to have that high intensity, that high level of efficiency to be able to carry out his kind of game plan.
“We’re building a body that normally doesn’t carry that kind of muscle on it. Putting on six pounds on a guy like Manny Pacquiao is like putting on 20 pounds on a normal person. That’s why when he takes his shirt off at the weigh in and he looks so ripped, people think he’s on steroids.”
Forget about the intrigues of what may or may not be inside Pacquiao’s water bottle. Ariza says; “It’s just a mixture of over the counter herbal supplements that will serve Pacquiao without any side effects such as crashing or jitters or upsetting his stomach, because he has a very sensitive stomach.
“My job is to take him where he’s never been before. Where am I going to be able to build muscles that he’s never used before, and it doesn’t hold us back? It’s going to be functional, it’s going to compliment everything else that we’re doing. We have to start building muscles that he’s never used before. Functional muscles of course. “
The regime created by Ariza to build that muscle and maintain the speed and power involves two parts. The first is what he refers to as “core training,” a phrase which has become a bit of buzzword in the last few years in the world of exercise and nutritional training, but is seldom heard in boxing. The “core” may sound like it means just abdominals, but it goes much deeper than that. The “core” is the whole area between the shoulders and the pelvis. The idea behind strengthening the “core” is that this area provides the foundation for all other areas of the body to function at its highest levels. Core training thus builds the muscles to produce explosive, powerful movements with mean and lean efficiency, and less likelihood of injury.
To accomplish this, twice a week, Ariza has Pacquiao doing punishing isometrics, where he has to hold a certain position for an extended period of time. In addition he has Pacquaio performing plyometrics, grueling drills involving quick bursts of energy, such as sprints on the track, high intensity cone and ladder drills, even swimming.
“We’re focusing on faster-twitch muscle fibers,” Ariza says, “getting them to fire, feet complimenting the hands, hands complimenting the feet, balance, coordination. “
The exercises are often mind numbingly repetitious and painful beyond imagination. Ever the warrior, Pacquaio says he doesn’t mind core training, but Ariza said that in reality, he actually hates them.
“You see this is something that Manny has been doing since he was five years old,” Ariza said referring to traditional boxing drills such as hitting the mitts, sparring and running. “His muscles are accustomed to being able to push and drive and drive and drive. What I would like to see is that kind of determination and intensity when we’re doing the hard stuff, things that he’s never done before; the track, the swimming pool, the speed drills, the foot drills, things that aren’t easy, things that he hasn’t been doing since he’s five years old. It’s one thing when you say, ‘Oh I did 17 rounds on the mitts.’ Well you should be able to do that. You’ve been doing that since you were five, asking for another round. I want to see him ask me for another drill, ask me for another lap, ask for me another sprint, ask me for something.”
The second part of Ariza’s training module involves extremely high caloric intake. He has Pacquiao consuming over 7000 calories of food per day, alternating between high protein solid foods and then liquid protein shakes. Pacquiao is forced to eat at least every two hours, whether he’s hungry or not. Contrary to the myth that Pacquiao enjoys fighting at higher weights because he can eat all he wants, Ariza says the constant consumption of food actually gets to the fighter, even if he’s eating his favorite Filipino dishes.
“Manny tells me, ‘You know when I grew up, I never ate. Now I’m eating all the time and I’m miserable.’”
However, Ariza says Pacquiao soldiers on through the pain and tears, especially when the stakes are huge.
“Our best camp ever I believe was the Cotto fight because I honestly believe that Manny had a little bit of fear of Miguel. His height, his strength, his power. Manny took him a lot more serious. He was up at five o’clock in the morning. He was listening to me when it came to the drills and the speed work and the swimming. He didn’t want to leave any rock unturned. He wanted every advantage he could get. And his conditioning showed in the Cotto fight. He took Cotto’s best beating and then when we got past the sixth round, well now we’re gonna see who really, really did the work. Manny just never stopped. “
****
BAGUIO CITY, Philippines -- Old school, old school and new school.
When the history of the great Manny Pacquiao is finally written in stone decades down the road, those three ingredients must surely make up the foundation of any narrative when trying to explain the hows and whys of this once in a many generation fighting machine.
It’s the first two ingredients in this explosive mix, though, that are the most obvious. The third is not, and is, in fact, relatively unknown, and, lately quite often misunderstood.
The first old school is Pacquiao himself. Pacquiao’s willingness to always fight the best out there, his insatiable training habits, his all action style, and his fearlessness against all challengers make him a boxing purist’s dream come true.
Then there’s the second old school, Pacquiao’s trainer of nine years, Freddie Roach. Roach didn’t have a spectacular career as a fighter, but he did ply his craft under the ultimate old-school boxing trainer, the legendary Eddie Futch. As a trainer himself, Roach has become to boxing what Phil Jackson has to basketball, a sort of Zen Master, quietly imparting his down to earth knowledge and psychology of the sweet science to mold raw talents into consistent winners.
Ironically, it’s the third ingredient on the list, Pacquiao’s strength and conditioning coach Alex Ariza, who has in the last two years helped to turn much of boxing, which is decidedly an old-school sport, on its head, and challenged nearly every notion of how to approach the sport. In clear complicity with these two old-school legends, Ariza, who joined Roach three years ago and helped Pacquiao for his fight with David Diaz, has been responsible for taking what was already an incredible fighter and doing things with him that were never thought possible; Pacquiao’s almost unheard of ability to move up in weight and still maintain (perhaps even increase) his already awesome speed and power.
It’s an unusual phenomenon that has people everywhere shaking their heads in wonderment, with some claiming that nobody can so easily go up in weight and do the things that Pacquiao has done. Legitimately, anyway. It’s led to accusations that surely Pacquiao must be on steroids or other illegal performance-enhancing drugs.
“It’s a compliment,” said Ariza of the lingering PED claims, while watching Pacquiao shadow box on the second day of camp at the Shape Up Gym in Baguio. “We’re doing such a good job, people just can’t understand it. They think it has to be something else. It HAS to be. People think overnight he (Pacquiao) turned into this relentless monster. But it took him two years to get to this point. The truth is that it’s just hard work, and we have a great team.”
Hard work it is, indeed, with a punishing training regime that leaves any and all onlookers in awe. But behind the seemingly endless hours of old school physical toil that are hallmarks of Pacquiao’s workouts, lies a modern and very scientific program designed to develop and maximize Pacman’s unique gifts. But the question still remains: how do you take a guy who as a fighter is a natural 140 pounder, and whose walking around weight is 146-148 pounds, and turn him into a perfectly tuned fighting machine ready to do battle with much bigger men such as Oscar De La Hoya, Miguel Cotto, Joshua Clottey, and now Antonio Margarito? The way not to do it, Ariza says, is to go old school.
“We saw with Kelly Pavlik when he tried to move up in weight,” he said. “He lost everything. He went flat, he couldn’t move, he couldn’t get up. Science has to play a role in a sport that has an old-school mentality. That’s why Freddie Roach is such an exceptional trainer. Even though he’s got old-school teachings, he pulls in the outside-the-box stuff, the more scientific comprehensive ways of training. He knows that just running five miles a day is not going to cut it, especially being such an offensive trainer that he is. You have to have that high intensity, that high level of efficiency to be able to carry out his kind of game plan.
“We’re building a body that normally doesn’t carry that kind of muscle on it. Putting on six pounds on a guy like Manny Pacquiao is like putting on 20 pounds on a normal person. That’s why when he takes his shirt off at the weigh in and he looks so ripped, people think he’s on steroids.”
Forget about the intrigues of what may or may not be inside Pacquiao’s water bottle. Ariza says; “It’s just a mixture of over the counter herbal supplements that will serve Pacquiao without any side effects such as crashing or jitters or upsetting his stomach, because he has a very sensitive stomach.
“My job is to take him where he’s never been before. Where am I going to be able to build muscles that he’s never used before, and it doesn’t hold us back? It’s going to be functional, it’s going to compliment everything else that we’re doing. We have to start building muscles that he’s never used before. Functional muscles of course. “
The regime created by Ariza to build that muscle and maintain the speed and power involves two parts. The first is what he refers to as “core training,” a phrase which has become a bit of buzzword in the last few years in the world of exercise and nutritional training, but is seldom heard in boxing. The “core” may sound like it means just abdominals, but it goes much deeper than that. The “core” is the whole area between the shoulders and the pelvis. The idea behind strengthening the “core” is that this area provides the foundation for all other areas of the body to function at its highest levels. Core training thus builds the muscles to produce explosive, powerful movements with mean and lean efficiency, and less likelihood of injury.
To accomplish this, twice a week, Ariza has Pacquiao doing punishing isometrics, where he has to hold a certain position for an extended period of time. In addition he has Pacquaio performing plyometrics, grueling drills involving quick bursts of energy, such as sprints on the track, high intensity cone and ladder drills, even swimming.
“We’re focusing on faster-twitch muscle fibers,” Ariza says, “getting them to fire, feet complimenting the hands, hands complimenting the feet, balance, coordination. “
The exercises are often mind numbingly repetitious and painful beyond imagination. Ever the warrior, Pacquaio says he doesn’t mind core training, but Ariza said that in reality, he actually hates them.
“You see this is something that Manny has been doing since he was five years old,” Ariza said referring to traditional boxing drills such as hitting the mitts, sparring and running. “His muscles are accustomed to being able to push and drive and drive and drive. What I would like to see is that kind of determination and intensity when we’re doing the hard stuff, things that he’s never done before; the track, the swimming pool, the speed drills, the foot drills, things that aren’t easy, things that he hasn’t been doing since he’s five years old. It’s one thing when you say, ‘Oh I did 17 rounds on the mitts.’ Well you should be able to do that. You’ve been doing that since you were five, asking for another round. I want to see him ask me for another drill, ask me for another lap, ask for me another sprint, ask me for something.”
The second part of Ariza’s training module involves extremely high caloric intake. He has Pacquiao consuming over 7000 calories of food per day, alternating between high protein solid foods and then liquid protein shakes. Pacquiao is forced to eat at least every two hours, whether he’s hungry or not. Contrary to the myth that Pacquiao enjoys fighting at higher weights because he can eat all he wants, Ariza says the constant consumption of food actually gets to the fighter, even if he’s eating his favorite Filipino dishes.
“Manny tells me, ‘You know when I grew up, I never ate. Now I’m eating all the time and I’m miserable.’”
However, Ariza says Pacquiao soldiers on through the pain and tears, especially when the stakes are huge.
“Our best camp ever I believe was the Cotto fight because I honestly believe that Manny had a little bit of fear of Miguel. His height, his strength, his power. Manny took him a lot more serious. He was up at five o’clock in the morning. He was listening to me when it came to the drills and the speed work and the swimming. He didn’t want to leave any rock unturned. He wanted every advantage he could get. And his conditioning showed in the Cotto fight. He took Cotto’s best beating and then when we got past the sixth round, well now we’re gonna see who really, really did the work. Manny just never stopped. “
****
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