I feel strength is most important for HW, but how does one gain/maintain strength when boxing and doing all that cardio?
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How does a HW gain strength?
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The best way to get stronger while doing boxing training is to add in a little power lifting. This basically means lift as much weight as you can for 4-6 reps. Since it's low volume you won't be too sore to do boxing drills. It's also important that you do primarily compound lifts since they provide the most benefit with the limited amount of lifting you'll do.
A good starting program would be bench press, seated rows, dips, lat pull, squats and abs each for two sets each two or three times a week.
Developing strength is difficult considering the amount of cardio involved with boxing but you can still do it.
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Originally posted by theGr8test View PostI feel strength is most important for HW, but how does one gain/maintain strength when boxing and doing all that cardio?
In either the clean or cheat method, periodization of training is a must. Strength should only be developed early in the sequence and not emphasised before a fight.
Lower level ammy's and pros who cannot make a living out of boxing and only have so much time to train should basically omit heavy strength training.
Finally, your initial assumption is a bit off the mark. Sure you are right that a HW can afford to pack on slabs of muscle where as a lower weight fighter cannot unless moving up. However at top level strength training is also very important for any limited boxer as it's primary function is to strengthen the body and provide a base to withstand the high intensity and high impact boxing training that is to follow (and to rebuild after this phase and the fight).
Muscular strength DOES have an affect on power but the neural effects of strength training can also have a negative effect on power too. In many instances it does not matter whether the weight is muscle or fat as power is more closely related to weight rather than muscle strength (unless the boxer is pushing their punches). Of course strength is very valuable in a match for other reasons too like being stronger in the clinch.
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Pro heavy weights, who have a set date when they are going to fight, should be lifting with heavy compound movements (deadlifts, squats, overhead press), and also include some explosive olympic lifts (clean and press, jerk, etc), 2-3 times per week, as stated earlier, minimal reps, 1-5, focusing on strength. A good program template like Jim Wendler's 5/3/1, only without the accessory movements would do fine. As the fight draws near (2-3 weeks out), taper out the lifts, only keepin in some light explosive movements for speed and power.
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If you're Evander Holyfield, just take some steroids and work out in the gym lifting weights. (sorry Evander, I love you, but you were caught pretty blatantly...but people forgive you because you beat Mike Tyson and everyone hated Tyson back then..because he was a "bully", which I never understood. I'm not gettin ****** into this argument again, never mind.)
If you're Mike Tyson, he never lifted weights until he was in his mid-late 30's. All he did was run, do push ups, sit ups (over 2500 per day) and calisthenics and hit the bag and spar. Look at that body he had in the 80s and 90s...that is all from eating right, running 4-6 miles per day, walking another 6-10 miles (he talks about all this in his book, he used to walk 10 miles per day AFTER running. He'd run all the way up, and walk all the way back, and he talks about why he did this. Get the book, it's amazing...and I'm not a Tyson fanboy).
Nutrition and a daily routine are your best friends. Sleep, too, but that goes with routine. Wake up and go to bed the same time everyday.
There is also the GOMAD thing...google it...aka Gallon of Milk A Day...it's supposed to make you gain a ton of weight in a month by drinking a gallon of milk everyday. I'm allergic to milk, so I only drink almond or soy milk...unfortunately they have like no protein in them. If I drink a glass of milk I will get clogged sinuses and possibly a sinus infection. If I drank a GALLON everyday fora month I would probably die, or just kill myself from the unimaginable physical pain and overall discomfort I would be in.
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I found this on Yahoo Answers
Up until he fired Kevin Rooney in 1988, his ONLY diet was steak, pasta and fruit juice. How's that for discipline?
Daily Regime (7 days a week):
5am: get up and go for a 3 mile jog
6am: come back home shower and go back to bed (great workout for those huge legs of his)
10am wake up: eat oatmeal
12pm: do ring work (10 rounds of sparring)
2pm: have another meal (steak and pasta with fruit juice drink)
3pm: more ring work and 60 mins on the exercise bike (again working those huge legs for endurance)
5pm: 2000 sit-ups; 500-800 dips; 500 press-ups; 500 shrugs with a 30kg barbell and 10 mins of neck exercises
7pm: steak and pasta meal again with fruit juice (orange i think it was)
8pm: another 30 minutes on the exercise bike
then watch TV and then go to bed.
(Before jogging in the morning he did a lot of stretching followed by 10 jumps onto boxes and 10 bursts of sprints, then he went jogging. At 12pm he sparred. At 3pm he did focus mitt work or heavy bag work inside the ring. He warmed up for all ring work with light exercises such as skipping or shadow boxing or speed ball. At 5pm Tyson did 10 quick circuits, each circuit consisting of: 200 sit-ups, then 25-40 dips, then 50 press-ups, then 25-40 dips, then 50 shrugs, followed by 10 mins of neck work on the floor. What an animal! Tyson said that the shrugs "built his shoulders up" to help unleash punches with his short arms whilst at the same time building endurance in the neck. It should be noted though that Tyson couldn't do any more than 50 sit-ups a day and 50 press-ups a day when he was 13, but gradually increasing the reps each week got him to a higher level over many years, so that he was doing 2000 sit-ups inside 2 hours every day by the time he was 20.)
Mike told Ian Durke (Sky commentator) his above workout regime when he visited England to watch a Frank Bruno fight in March 1987. Durke told Mike that Bruno trained like a bodybuilder and asked Mike about this, but Mike said that floor exercises and natural exercises work better. Mike explained that his punch-power comes from nothing more than heavy bag work "works your strength through the hips" he said, despite doing shrugs with a barbell he said that lifting weights has about as much resemblance to punching as "cheesecake" (contradicting himself though due to doing shrugs). But his mentor Cus D'Amato realised that, due to Tyson's style, he needed punch-power (not that he didn't have it naturally anyway). So Cus got Mike very heavy bags to hit for a 13 yr old, and Cus gradually increased the weight of the bags Tyson used over time so that by the age of 18-19 Tyson was ****ing bags that no other man could budge! Also, Cus used to order Tyson to go jog 3 miles with 50lbs on his back because he didn't want Mike growing any taller (because it didn't suit his style)!
He did mostly bodyweight exercises but did use some barbells to do his 500 odd shrugs with lol
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I'd like to point out that anecdotal evidence is pretty much worthless. So pointing out that certain fighters did or did not lift weights isn't a good argument. Earnie Shavers hit hard and lifted weights but that's not a valid argument either.
Also, saying calisthenics is completely different than weight lifting is ridiculous. Just because you use your body weight instead of iron for resistance doesn't change what it is. For a heavyweight to bench press 250lb or do a one armed pushup the resistance is about the same.
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Really frustrating for me as a SHW amateur because of all of the conflicting advice online. I wish I could just find a good fight performance coach to go to that focuses on that functional strength/speed/power.
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If you read Elorys post in conjunction with Hedonistic's you've got your answer. A lot of the time different people don't give conflicting advice, they just give different parts of the same answer.
I'll add my part by saying that it is important to keep track of your calories and make sure you eat enough. Even if you do not lift weights, if you eat more calories than you burn you will gain weight. A part of that weight is going to be fat, but a part of that is going to be muscle as well. Sure if you lift weights and work out a bigger part of that will be muscle, but if you don't it's not like you will gain 100% fat. You won't be very easy on the eyes, but I feel nutrition is the most important aspect, especially if your time is limited.
The opposite however is true: if you start lifting weights now -regardless of how you do it - and you don't change your nutrition to sustain it, you will start losing weight because your maintenance level will increase while your calorie intake does not. So either way nutrition is the most important aspect.
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