It's actually impossible to gain punching power through gaining weight and "putting on" muscle

[billeau2]

But remember: "The least of things with a meaning is worth more in life than the greatest of things without it."

Queenie is "complicated" alas it is true. Some would call it the Galileo effect: If you Slugfester, or I, had been church clergy and encountered Galileo, there is a high probability we would have thought him a lunatic. Even when he got it right (predicting the moons appearance for Jupiter) he got it wrong a whole lot... Who could have known how complex Gravity was? Yet now we know that Galileo was a genius. I put him up in the top 5 genus list: Next to Newton... compared to Darwin and Einstein were practically in the toilet lol.

In truth Queenie comes up with some great stuff, I mean that no irony intended. I consider him one of my favorite posters. Within that 5% are some real gems!

[billeau2]

Could it be, that if you put on a lot of weight, you will be facing heavier men... who can withstand heavier punches, than your lighter opponents?

For example, I find it hard to believe, that Jimmy Ellis didn't punch harder at 200 lbs than at 160. But of course at HW, he met several worldclass opponents, who likely took a punch much better than many of his MW opponents.

Also, I would assume (can't prove anything, of course), that James Toney at 215-240 punched harder than at 160... even though as a HW, he scored fewer knockouts.

Bundana,
I think it would be helpful to distinguish weight as a general category, from muscle. Fat has its own unique properties. Fat is a protectorant and weighs less than muscle. So to take a body shot, fat may be more beneficial, but at the very least, has different qualities.

With that said, certainly more mass allows one to take more force. Naturally the idea of proportion is next to consider: Does the ratio of your extra muscle/fat considering your power and tolerance to power grow proportional to your previous power and durability at a lighter weight? This gets complicated. Consider if I want to run a marathon and reason: "If I get bigger heavier muscles, my ability to use them aerobically will also increase. So even though I am bigger I am also stronger and can exert more force running." We know this is not true right?

it is much more difficult to see how much the benefit of more mass, either fat, or muscle, actually increases our yield of force and our resistance to force.

[billeau2]

Not necessarily, especially if you already started at heavyweight for instance. The extra muscle mass may give you more punch resistance, but it's more what we talked about earlier. Putting on the wrong kind of muscle mass, or not training it correctly can slow down your ability to accelerate your punches. That's the biggest factor in power. A few extra pounds, even 10 or so, is still a relatively small percentage of your overall mass anyways, and if it doesn't increase your ability to accelerate, it's actually going to hurt your power. And many, maybe even most boxers, don't really know how to maximize the mass portion of the equation. Form but not function, as it were.

And that's leaving aside the effect on gas tank, which is going to negatively impact the ability to carry power into late rounds or get TKO's.

So fighting bigger guys may be a part of it, but you also have to do it correctly. There's a BIG difference between moving up in weight by not draining yourself to make weight and actually putting on extra mass that you weren't carrying before.

Part of the difficulty is one is dealing with a virtual calculus of values with no constants. Your power has to be monitered according to developing two qualities (at least) simulteneously. Also, when we change weight our balance points often change. One has to coordinate the body to use muscle memory properly with a change in at least two variables... Easier said than done.

[Bundana]

Not necessarily, especially if you already started at heavyweight for instance. The extra muscle mass may give you more punch resistance, but it's more what we talked about earlier. Putting on the wrong kind of muscle mass, or not training it correctly can slow down your ability to accelerate your punches. That's the biggest factor in power. A few extra pounds, even 10 or so, is still a relatively small percentage of your overall mass anyways, and if it doesn't increase your ability to accelerate, it's actually going to hurt your power. And many, maybe even most boxers, don't really know how to maximize the mass portion of the equation. Form but not function, as it were.

And that's leaving aside the effect on gas tank, which is going to negatively impact the ability to carry power into late rounds or get TKO's.

So fighting bigger guys may be a part of it, but you also have to do it correctly. There's a BIG difference between moving up in weight by not draining yourself to make weight and actually putting on extra mass that you weren't carrying before.

Why all this talk about draining yourself to make weight - as opposed to filling out and not having to make a specific weight? And the negative effect on the gas tank, when you move up in weight... what has that got to do with your punching power?

Is there someone out there, who believe Jimmy Ellis actually lost punching power, when he went from 160 to 200 lbs? A very simple question, no one seems prepared to answer!

[crimsonfalcon07]

Why all this talk about draining yourself to make weight - as opposed to filling out and not having to make a specific weight? And the negative effect on the gas tank, when you move up in weight... what has that got to do with your punching power?

Is there someone out there, who believe Jimmy Ellis actually lost punching power, when he went from 160 to 200 lbs? A very simple question, no one seems prepared to answer!

If you don't understand the difference between draining down to make weight and putting on muscle mass to increase weight, I'm not sure why you're even bothering to post here. It's all been explained here several times. What you're really saying is you didn't read or don't understand, and it's probably way too much for the purposes of this thread to explain. Please do some reading and educate yourself. I suggest you learn a little about weight cutting so you at least understand the difference between that and adding muscle mass. Next step would probably be to understand the normal process that people follow as they go up weight classes, because what you're talking about is very different from the point of this thread, and if that's not clear, you're going to be very lost in this discussion.

[Bundana]

If you don't understand the difference between draining down to make weight and putting on muscle mass to increase weight, I'm not sure why you're even bothering to post here. It's all been explained here several times. What you're really saying is you didn't read or don't understand, and it's probably way too much for the purposes of this thread to explain. Please do some reading and educate yourself. I suggest you learn a little about weight cutting so you at least understand the difference between that and adding muscle mass. Next step would probably be to understand the normal process that people follow as they go up weight classes, because what you're talking about is very different from the point of this thread, and if that's not clear, you're going to be very lost in this discussion.

I can see, that your expertise obviously is so much greater than mine... so I will take your advice and educate myself, by reading up on boxing. Not that I expect to ever reach your level - but I do feel, I might benefit from a bit more knowledge!

[crimsonfalcon07]

I can see, that your expertise obviously is so much greater than mine... so I will take your advice and educate myself, by reading up on boxing. Not that I expect to ever reach your level - but I do feel, I might benefit from a bit more knowledge!

I apologize. I get too used to dealing with infantile behavior on here that I get dragged down too, I guess, but really no excuses for rudeness.

If you really do want more detail, I'll give it a go.

When a fighter drains down to make weight, it's just water weight, and they rehydrate to a weight that they walk around at, and have been training at. Because boxers tend to drain down to make the lowest weight class they can, moving up in weight classes only when they have to because they can't peel off enough weight, they're not affected because they're not actually gaining weight at any point during the process. They usually also start when they're young and their bodies aren't mature, and they'll naturally put on a certain amount of bulk that's easy to carry because it's natural.

However, sometimes a fighter will try to put on excess muscle through weight training etc, like body building, thinking it will help them hit harder. All kinds of things can go wrong with that, especially if it's done over a short period of time. As Billeau2 points out, it's a delicate balance. They're not used to carrying the extra weight, and more muscle burns more oxygen, so they need even more cardio to counterbalance the new needs of their physique. Just things like moving around the ring or doing head movement are harder and more fatiguing. And the extra bulk can actually slow them down, much like you can move around a light weight very quickly, but it's much harder to move around a heavier one, especially at the same speed. You have to train to keep your explosiveness if you're going to bulk up.

In your example, Ellis started out sick with chronic tonsilitis, and really underweight, and most of his weight gain was involved in returning to healthy weight. So it's even farther outside the discussion about whether it's beneficial for a healthy fighter at a comfortable weight to try to put on more muscle mass to try to increase punching power.

[billeau2]

Why all this talk about draining yourself to make weight - as opposed to filling out and not having to make a specific weight? And the negative effect on the gas tank, when you move up in weight... what has that got to do with your punching power?

Is there someone out there, who believe Jimmy Ellis actually lost punching power, when he went from 160 to 200 lbs? A very simple question, no one seems prepared to answer!

B,
Heres a good way to look at. Speaking purely on a basic biological level, most of "you" is water. The way fighters quickly lose and gain weight has everything to do with this water weight and nothing to do with losing fat, or muscle. part of a biological en****** survival mechanism, along with homeostasis (regulating body temp) is NOT losing muscle, and especially not losing fat. From a biological perspective, when we do something to the body that changes the operating temperature we can throw off the whole biochemical balance that promotes good bacteria flourishing, the system that regulates gut bacteria (waste) etc. For example: If you see a body of water with green algea, sometimes just a slight change in temp, or one chemical can totally wipe out every bit of the algea... Why is this important?

Fat regulates temperature, it produces things like cholesteral that coats our neuralogical pathways, so chemicals can zoom across the dendrites (nerve cells)... Fat makes sure we do not freeze... its often a joke that the fat obese people one sees are the "survivers" because when humans could not eat regularly, having so much fat made sure they survived. For this reason our body will generally burn muscle, before fat in a starvation situation. To lose fat is a gradual process that takes a major change...

Muscle while different than fat also takes a lot of changes to get rid of. Muscle does take more calories to maintain than fat, another biological adaptation... But in either case: A fighter controls weight primarily through water and through the actual poundage that any meal may produce in the body. If I am trying to lose 5 pounds at a weigh in the reason why eating a pound of steak and perhaps another pound of carbs... and perhaps the weight of any drinks I take in, might harm my efforts is simple: The actual weight of the food. it has nothing to do with how that food will metabolize in my system.

If you look at Ryan Garcia for his last fight, this will show you how dramatic weight loss via water can be... and how dangerous it can be. Ryan could easily have been dehydrated. People die when their kidneys fail and when the body overheats... Ryan looked like he could easily have been bereft of a good deal of water weight and he fought like it also.

[max baer]

It's not impossible, but it IS unlikely, because a lot of fighters end up training it wrong and putting the mass on wrong. You especially see this when a fighter goes above their natural weights on the first few fights, because it takes at least a year to really adapt the gas tank to the new demands of the body. More muscle consumes more oxygen.

So in fairness to the OP, it's pretty rare to see people actually get more knockouts from putting on muscle mass because they usually end up compromising something else, and it's almost always more beneficial to improve technique.

i agree with you, you write well informed.

[them_apples]

Some good posts here.

also factor in the more muscle put on, even if they are fast twitch - will kill your reflex time as more fibers are being engaged and in turn make your punches telegraphed. As fatigue sets in it gets even worse. I think this is the sole reason Mayweather dominated Canelo and avoided every blow (he saw them coming so easily).

when you are at your natural weight, everything works better.

you will hit your hardest when your body has matured and your weight is as low as possible (with proper training, not starving). You will be both strong and fast, and able to get the most leverage out of your body when you are limber.

Also when a fighter moves up in weight, he has to adjust his timing and style to a bigger slower fighter. He may be able to land easier at the higher weights, and will be able to sit down on punches better - where as a smaller quicker opponent can only be hit by shorter quicker punches. Bigger fighters however in general can take a better shot for the most part, and will be able to push a smaller fighter around - knocking them off balance. And the end of the day the quality of the fighter overall is the most important factor, not a few lbs or height.

this is why you see Joe Louis obliterate a 6 ft 7 250 lb buddy Baer while only weighing 200 lbs. you give a guy like Joe room to land by nature of having such a huge body, he can actually hit you harder than he could say, a guy like Billy Conn.

the Jimmy Ellis situation, Ellis naturally gained weight. This thread is about bulking up and moving up a weight class. Jimmy Ellis never looked blown up in his entire career.

if we look at Holyfield at 205 and compare him at 220. Holyfield at 205 is a much better fighter and puncher at 205. Faster, better technique and more snap. A harder puncher. You look at Ken Norton, at 205 he’s hitting much better than at 235, where he looks like a sluggish body builder lobbing his arms. Failing to stop anyone, even smaller fighters. These are 2 prime examples of fighters who bulked and lost a lot.