Leg strength and explosiveness

[Abe Attell]

Power-Cleans are good...leg presses, squats, leg-curls, etc.

Sprinting is your best bet...varitey of distances: 40, 100, 200, 300, and even 400 yards...go up hills, add a weighted vest, jump over things, etc.
Even Run backwards.

Follow what football players do for their legs...it's about explosive speed/power.

[BrooklynBomber]

Power-Cleans are good...leg presses, squats, leg-curls, etc.

Sprinting is your best bet...varitey of distances: 40, 100, 200, 300, and even 400 yards...go up hills, add a weighted vest, jump over things, etc.
Even Run backwards.

Follow what football players do for their legs...it's about explosive speed/power.

I might do that and explosive squats with dumbbells.

[-Antonio-]

I used to play football and the main exercise for explosiveness was power cleans. Im telling you, try it.

Also try doing box jumps. You can do different variations with the box.

[fraidycat]

+1 on the power cleans.

Compound lifts like squats, cleans, and deadlifts work many muscle groups in concert; I read someplace that the squat, properly performed, works 75% of the muscles in your body. The benefit to boxing is that compound lifts condition your body to chain together muscles in explosive movements. They won't make you big unless you go big and heavy on the weights and pack in the protein and calories.

Don't listen to Potatoes on this; I've been doing squats, cleans, and deadlifts for six months now, and I haven't gained any weight -- in fact, I've LOST 20 lbs since I started a routine of Olympic lifts and my boxing has improved considerably. I hit better, move better, and people hate to clinch with me.

I use light weights (comparitively -- I lift 50-60% of my max for 6-8 sets of 6-8 reps) and concentrate on form; blasting through the lifts in a quick and controlled fashion and going slow on the eccentric. I'm not doing massive weights, and more than anything I'm conditioning my body and building endurance, not trying to gain mass. I do one day of squats, one day of power cleans, and one day of deadlifts, and I box on the other days.

The only downside (I've mentioned this before) is: if you go to a yuppie gym (Bally's, etc.) and blast through 6 sets of textbook power cleans, you will draw a crowd by the time you're done. Be prepared to have people come up to you for training advice.

[fraidycat]

In a full clean and jerk, the bar ends over your head. Clean is the part from the ground to your shoulders, where the bar ends up in a front squat position. Very explosive movement.

The power clean is less than a full clean. In a full clean, you do an explosive shrug with a jump and catch the weight in a front squat only about 1/4 of the way down.

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/exer...me=Power+Clean

video at: http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/vide...powerclean.wvx

[1_Punch_KO]

not trying to diss anyone, but 99% of you guys that do olympic lifting arent using perfect form.

olympic lifting is a sport in its own. im mroe than positive without a trainer, your forms are bad

id suggest to do dynamic box squats and dynamic speed bench presses to get explosive.

[blockburna944]

Pretty much everything mentioned here is a way to get better explosion, so i wont add too much.
i will say, though, in high school when i played basketball, a lot of plyometrics, sprints, and high rep inclined leg press got me about a 37 inch vertical and the best sprint speed i ever had.

a good site i found a while ago for this kind of stuff is http://www.stackmag.com/Default.aspx. i guess its a training mag aimed for hs coaches and athletes, but pretty much anyone can benefit from it. if you search through the issues, you'll find workouts and advice from various trainers and coaches from different mainstream sports (bball, football, etc.) and a lot of stuff on explosiveness, agility, etc. its pretty helpful. ive only found 1 true boxing targeted workout in there tho (from Andre Ward's trainer).

[PunchDrunk]

not trying to diss anyone, but 99% of you guys that do olympic lifting arent using perfect form.

olympic lifting is a sport in its own. im mroe than positive without a trainer, your forms are bad

id suggest to do dynamic box squats and dynamic speed bench presses to get explosive.

I trained Olympic lifting with a couple of lifters from the national team here. They were actually amazed at how good my form (and one of my fighters who trained in the same place as well) is. I) can do the O-lifts as good or better than any lifter with 5 years experience. Since then, I've had about 5 years experience teaching O-lifts to athletes. From swimmers to soccer players, to my boxers. My experience is that for a talented boxer, it takes about 2 months to achieve acceptable form on the power clean. It's nowhere near as difficult to learn, with the proper guidance, as you and many other people would like to make it out to be.

Yes, it's a sport on it's own, but so are squats,deadlifts and bench press. You don't need to beas good as an elite weightlifter, or put up the numbers they do, to get great carry over to your sport.

[PunchDrunk]

not trying to diss anyone, but 99% of you guys that do olympic lifting arent using perfect form.

olympic lifting is a sport in its own. im mroe than positive without a trainer, your forms are bad

id suggest to do dynamic box squats and dynamic speed bench presses to get explosive.

Oh, and on the subject of box squats, here's some pretty smart commentary on that from Charles Poliquin;
"The problem I have with box squats is that their application is limited to powerlifting. The reason being is the goal of powerlifting is to lift the highest amount of weight for the shortest amount of distance within the rules. Essentially in the box squat, your shins don't travel forward. Now I don't know of any sport where the shins don't travel forward for propulsion. So the mechanics of the box squat aren't found in sport.

Do you think all the Westside people are up in arms yet and have me on their hit list? But it's the Bruce Lee principle again: use what is useful and reject what is not. Box squats are the only thing in the Westside system I don't agree with. They only have applications for powerlifting.

Also, any sort of restricted movement pattern tends to change soft tissue integrity. One thing you'll find with people who do a lot of box squats is that they're abnormally tight in the piriformis muscle, for example. In sports where you have to change direction a lot, the box squat will actually decrease your power because you won't be able to use those muscles efficiently.

Finally, most of the athletes I have are highly paid. There's a risk when doing box squats of the athlete bouncing on the box due to lack of concentration. The trauma that can result on the sacral vertebraes could be tremendous. There are just better alternatives. If you're a powerlifter, they're great. If you're any other type of athlete, stay away from the box squat. "

[FeelTheA-Force]

what i dont understand is.. why do ppl do weights when they can just do burpees and alternate squats and **** like that..