Former marine and fighter, George Lockhart, is the man Paddy Donovan and Joseph Parker share so much gratitude for as their respective careers hit their peaks.
Lockhart works on getting his fighters in shape, dialling in nutrition and preparing their strength and conditioning routines.
He’s previously worked with Tyson Fury, too, but says much of his success has come from teaching the fighters the basics and educating them.
“A lot,” asked about whether it was the simple things that had made a big difference. “I mean it was crazy when I got to work with boxers, you know it [boxing]’s been around for so long so I just automatically assume like they have it all down pat, [but] I realized that it’s archaic, they do things traditionally not because you know there’s a reason or rhyme but behind it like a lot of guys will go run and you’re like, ‘why?’ ‘Because that’s what we always do.’ ‘We’re gonna hit the bag.’ ‘Why?’ ‘That’s what’s always been done.’ Teaching like bio mechanics, like when you punch, how do we optimize power, nobody breaks that down with them. It’s like Usain Bolt, fastest runner of the 100m, right, but they don’t have to run the 100 over and over and over again. They break down this form and say, ‘Okay, doing this is going to increase this stride, decrease this.’ With a boxer, they’ll just hit the pads over and over again. They’re like, ‘Okay, where are we losing power, connectivity, aerobic capacity,’ none of these guys understand it. Having the tangibles, having something for him to look at like, ‘Oh man, I am in better shape.’ Not just a feeling but cold hard facts, it’s vibrant for training, because when you see yourself growing, you’re like, ‘hell yeah,’ versus going and doing the same thing over and over and over again. It gets redundant, it gets very boring without seeing the results.”
Lockhart is this week finishing up with Donovan ahead of his fight with Crocker in Belfast on Saturday, and he is in camp with Joseph Parker, training for his important heavyweight date with Fabio Wardley in October.
“Joe’s power is insane right now, power then volume,” said Lockhart. “Some guys have a lot of power, but once he throws he has to take time to reload again, whereas some people have a lot of volume, like Agit Kabayel.
“With Joe, we work each specific thing, we work phases. That’s what we’ve been doing for the last six months, power-strength phase, building, then how do we take that strength and endurance and then how do we turn that all into power, which is what a fight camp’s all about.”
And Lockhart stays on his fighters. He teaches them and changes their lifestyle habits.
“Every time I see Paddy and Joe, it’s like every little thing,” he went on. “We look at mobility, ‘your punch is losing X, Y, and Z,’ ‘you’re wasting energy on this step,’ working movement steps, stuff like that.”
Donovan is in immaculate shape for the Crocker return.
“Andy was saying it does give Paddy a lot of confidence,” Lockhart explained. “Because I’m very open, like, ‘Okay, this is good, this is not good, we need to work on this,’ and this time I came out here with Paddy, Andy is like, ‘He’s on point, his form, his movement, his power, his conditioning,’ and the thing is, you can have all the physical attributes, but you have to have that it factor, whereas Paddy, you put him in front of a lot of people, he thrives off that. Some people under the bright lights, they don’t rise to the occasion. Joe’s the same way. As soon as those lights come on, I’m like, ‘Oh crap.’ Joe's dancing and he’s loving it. He loves to fight, and same thing with Paddy. So this is gonna be good. Paddy’s gonna win the IBF world title on Saturday, and we’ll move on to Joe, and hopefully work on undisputed.”
The camp is buzzing, but that was not the case in March, when Donovan was disqualified against Crocker having dominated the fight.
Lockhart saw the effect it had on the fighter.
“Well, it’s a downhill spiral, you feel bad, you eat bad, you feel worse, then you eat worse, and eat more often,” the trainer said. “He was in a down spot, because this is something that will change his life. He’s put in the time and it’s all come to fruition, and once this became a world title fight, I was so happy for him. He’s got that drive, he’s got that belief in himself, and he’s got the right team. He’s got all the components, so it’s gonna be a great night. I do think that he’s gonna end it pretty early. In terms of footwork, connectivity, he’s gonna be better at everything than he was, and if you saw the fight, he did everything perfectly. I know Andy’s made a few adjustments, so Paddy doesn’t have any issues. With the way Crocker was getting beat, he would have to change, and four months is not gonna be enough time. I think it's just enough time for it [the last fight] to be fresh in his head, and you see him at the press conference, he doesn’t sound like the same confident Crocker that he was. I think he’s hoping for a miracle, like last time, and I don't think it’s coming this time.”
