Weight Lifting and Boxing - Good or Bad??

[EzzardFan]

I believe in doing what works for you. Bodyweight, weights, hell if wrestling with wolves really gets your cardio up, then God bless, and keep it up.

I agree with this part.

Yes, you are another exception.

All I'm saying is that more often then not people get better results in boxing with weights. But this is just the general population, and I personally do much better with bodyweight.

I just feel bad for those people who see hershal walker, decide to do bodyweight exercises, then feel bad, because they dont turn into hershal walker.

In the words of Brad Pitt's portrayal of Tyler Durden, "Do what you like, man."

I completely disagree with that part though. Boxers predominantly trained using bodyweight right through until the mid-1980s when use of weights gradually started to increase.

Bodyweight is advantageous in the same way skipping is. It builds body awareness and the cardio is working harmoniously with the movements. When working bodyweight exercises, pushups in particular, you never know which is going to crap out first your strength of your gas. Bodyweight also links leanness to performance. The lighter and more muscular you are the better your performance will be.

Weight training is a whole commercial culture in itself. It creates a requirement for equipment, special food, special supplements, gym membership, gadgets, special clothes. All these things cost money, much of it repeat business, and it's a huge market. It gets advertised on TV, in magazines, you name it. Sports personalities are paid big bucks to promote this stuff (much like red bull). When was the last time you saw a pushup being advertised, or a cyclist promoting drinking water?

All this creates pressure on people to adopt weight training, the implication being that otherwise they will somehow be left behind like they were when everyone did steroids. In actuality much of the reputation of weight training was built at a time when steroids were rife, but knowledge of steroids was not. People training using other methods (there are many calisthenics, kinetic tension, isometrics, yoga, wrestling wolves, you name it) looked at those training weights and thought "WOW those results are REALLY impressive. Then when (like me) they tried to replicate them they failed. They failed because they weren't using steroids. They were set a false expectation.

True weight training may have cleaned up it's act as far as drug abuse is concerned, although I'm not entirely convinced. But in my experience it offers zero benefits, and a whole host of downsides like cost, time, risk, limited effectiveness and injury.

Someone training bodyweight may not end up like Herschel - we are all built differently. They may end up like Ken Norton or Rocky Marciano or John Peterson, or Joe Louis, or Harry Greb, or Willie Pep. But if they train it correctly, and that means devoting some effort to learning how to do it properly and well, then they will certainly succeed in building the best body they are capable of building. I know because I have. And so did thousands of other boxers before me.

[SplitSecond]

I agree with this part.



I completely disagree with that part though. Boxers predominantly trained using bodyweight right through until the mid-1980s when use of weights gradually started to increase.

Bodyweight is advantageous in the same way skipping is. It builds body awareness and the cardio is working harmoniously with the movements. When working bodyweight exercises, pushups in particular, you never know which is going to crap out first your strength of your gas. Bodyweight also links leanness to performance. The lighter and more muscular you are the better your performance will be.

Weight training is a whole commercial culture in itself. It creates a requirement for equipment, special food, special supplements, gym membership, gadgets, special clothes. All these things cost money, much of it repeat business, and it's a huge market. It gets advertised on TV, in magazines, you name it. Sports personalities are paid big bucks to promote this stuff (much like red bull). When was the last time you saw a pushup being advertised, or a cyclist promoting drinking water?

All this creates pressure on people to adopt weight training, the implication being that otherwise they will somehow be left behind like they were when everyone did steroids. In actuality much of the reputation of weight training was built at a time when steroids were rife, but knowledge of steroids was not. People training using other methods (there are many calisthenics, kinetic tension, isometrics, yoga, wrestling wolves, you name it) looked at those training weights and thought "WOW those results are REALLY impressive. Then when (like me) they tried to replicate them they failed. They failed because they weren't using steroids. They were set a false expectation.

True weight training may have cleaned up it's act as far as drug abuse is concerned, although I'm not entirely convinced. But in my experience it offers zero benefits, and a whole host of downsides like cost, time, risk, limited effectiveness and injury.

Someone training bodyweight may not end up like Herschel - we are all built differently. They may end up like Ken Norton or Rocky Marciano or John Peterson, or Joe Louis, or Harry Greb, or Willie Pep. But if they train it correctly, and that means devoting some effort to learning how to do it properly and well, then they will certainly succeed in building the best body they are capable of building. I know because I have. And so did thousands of other boxers before me.

fighters of the past -- practice technique, spar
nowadays -- liftweights, it'll give you all the strenght and speed you'll need


i dont see monkey's liftin weights, and even the small ones are about 7 times stronger than your average man

calisthenics = having what your meant to have
bodybuilding = pushing the boundaries, causing you to be unbalanced and perform at a lower level

[Phenomkidd]

Weight lifting does not cause a need for special food, clothes, supplements, etc.

[SplitSecond]

All I'm saying is that more often then not people get better results in boxing with weights.

because we can see the boxers of today are definitely more athletic and non-robotic compared to their previous counterparts

nowadays there is barely any slick fighters, and these slick fighters happen to be the best in the sport

back in the days you had to be more than slick to get by, but damn were there a lot of slick guys

[EzzardFan]

Weight lifting does not cause a need for special food, clothes, supplements, etc.

I said "creates a need" not "causes". In the same way that riding bicycles creates a need to day-glo clothing and isotonic water bottles, or that golfing creates a need for funny shoes.

[rskumm21]

I said "creates a need" not "causes". In the same way that riding bicycles creates a need to day-glo clothing and isotonic water bottles, or that golfing creates a need for funny shoes.

I think you're referring to bodybuilding. Working out with weights for boxing is a completely different regimen. Where not saying you have to look like Swarzenaeger; I don't think that kind of work as any business in boxing, but routines that require you to use weights in a similar fashion to say working out with medicine or kettle-balls are not going to hurt. Yeah years ago they didn't use weights to train. But years ago they also thought attaching leaches to people with diseases would make them better. Times change, science and nutrition evolve, and there are safe ways to use weights within boxing. If that wasn't the case top level elite fighters would stay the hell away from them. I'm sure training without weights can work for a lot of people. But if you train properly with them, it is totally safe and beneficial.

[Double Jab]

I completely disagree with that part though. Boxers predominantly trained using bodyweight right through until the mid-1980s when use of weights gradually started to increase.

Bodyweight is advantageous in the same way skipping is. It builds body awareness and the cardio is working harmoniously with the movements. When working bodyweight exercises, pushups in particular, you never know which is going to crap out first your strength of your gas. Bodyweight also links leanness to performance. The lighter and more muscular you are the better your performance will be.

Weight training is a whole commercial culture in itself. It creates a requirement for equipment, special food, special supplements, gym membership, gadgets, special clothes. All these things cost money, much of it repeat business, and it's a huge market. It gets advertised on TV, in magazines, you name it. Sports personalities are paid big bucks to promote this stuff (much like red bull). When was the last time you saw a pushup being advertised, or a cyclist promoting drinking water?

All this creates pressure on people to adopt weight training, the implication being that otherwise they will somehow be left behind like they were when everyone did steroids. In actuality much of the reputation of weight training was built at a time when steroids were rife, but knowledge of steroids was not. People training using other methods (there are many calisthenics, kinetic tension, isometrics, yoga, wrestling wolves, you name it) looked at those training weights and thought "WOW those results are REALLY impressive. Then when (like me) they tried to replicate them they failed. They failed because they weren't using steroids. They were set a false expectation.

True weight training may have cleaned up it's act as far as drug abuse is concerned, although I'm not entirely convinced. But in my experience it offers zero benefits, and a whole host of downsides like cost, time, risk, limited effectiveness and injury.

Someone training bodyweight may not end up like Herschel - we are all built differently. They may end up like Ken Norton or Rocky Marciano or John Peterson, or Joe Louis, or Harry Greb, or Willie Pep. But if they train it correctly, and that means devoting some effort to learning how to do it properly and well, then they will certainly succeed in building the best body they are capable of building. I know because I have. And so did thousands of other boxers before me.

After sleeping on it yesterday and reading your post, I believe you are right. Especially when it comes to marketing weight training and all its equiptment. I gathered my info just from all the training videos I've seen of fighters, and each time I always see them with weights and using machines, but what I didn't take into account, is that most bodyweight exercises are not that interesting, and would waste film for someone making a video of a workout. My common sense also points towards lots of bodyweight exercises, considering every single gym I have went to, advocated it first and then weight training second.

Thank's for helping me check myself, sometimes I find more enjoyment in defending an arguement simply from egoism, rather than step back, realize I could be wrong, and use my head to think about it.

So now I would like to rephrase my original post with a new viewpoint. *ahem*

Alot of fighters, professional and amatuer, do a great deal of bodyweight exercises for a high level of fitness, and weight training can either be treated as a workout supplement, or skipped entirely if the person does not recieve enjoyable and applicable results. But, no matter what, do what works for you, even if someone tells you different.

[italianboxer]

u must be alla fking crazy..how the **** can u say u train without some weight lifting? sht i think it's a part of the training as well as others and if u don't know how to do it let me say do at least 20 x 3 and then do 2-3 rounds boxing with light weights (1 kg for hand ). I can tell from 58 kg up anyone has to do some weightlifting just to build up the body ..after that if u've being boxing and weightlifting for more thn 10 yrs i think u can stop it (judging by other boxers)

[Phenomkidd]

I said "creates a need" not "causes". In the same way that riding bicycles creates a need to day-glo clothing and isotonic water bottles, or that golfing creates a need for funny shoes.

It doesn't matter what you said create or cause, its still a false statement

[keepthemhandsup]

Bottom line is its beneficial for you when done properly, ie no bodybuilding routines, power/strength routines will help you. Run a search and you should come up with some good information in this forum.

agreed,,,,,,,,,,,,,