How does a HW gain strength?

[Elroy1]

First of all the injury rate of powerlifting is very low. It's actually less than badmitton. http://www.exrx.net/WeightTraining/Safety.html

Even if very high reps does increase angiogenesis it doesn't matter since your the blood vessels in your muscles are not the limiting factor in cardio.
http://jp.physoc.org/content/366/1/2...e2=tf_ipsecsha

Strength training actually increases your range of motion if you come from a sedentary background. It certainly won't reduce your range of motion like you claim.
http://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article...engthflex.html

The only reason someone would tense up when punching is if you don't know how to throw a punch. Even when I was doing purely bodybuilding my hand speed was fast since I was strong and knew how to throw a punch. Now that I do powerlifting with calisthenics such as one armed pushups with a 10lb plate behind my back my punches are even faster.

The only weightlifting program that adds unnecessary mass is bodybuilding since some of the muscle mass gained from it is mitochondria which doesn't increase strength. Nobody here is advocating that though.

There's plenty of scientific research out there so there's no need for arguments based solely on opinion.

But you haven't provided any evidence for heavy weight lifting and boxing.

1/ never claimed weight lifting would reduce range of motion. Heavy weightlifting definitely does produce stiffness, that is proven.

2/ I wasn't talking about cardio, I was referring to muscular endurance. During boxing, the white fibre muscles exhaust quickly and build up acid, the redder ones are much better at getting rid of it.

3/ Pure lifters might not get injured much as they only lift. Sports athletes who use lifting might definitely get injured more and obviously do (check out all the injured boxers today, they always cite weight training.)

Again, the power generation and delivery of a punch comes from the ground, gravity and body weight. The only time the muscles forcefully contract is the moment of impact.

The strength part of it is concerned with stopping your body on a time and transferring the power. It does not make you faster.

In fact, I can actually show what I am talking about with some stats.

Take any highly weight trained boxer like Holyfield for example who has moved up in weight (it works with all of them as it's a universal principle). As he gained muscle mass through heavy lifting and steroids, his strength grew but his power did not grow proportially. As a result of the increased weight he gained crude power but his punching power as a HW was quite weak as evidenced by his KO ratio. Keep in mind, being naturally smaller and faster and having a well rounded game from CW should have given him an advantage in delivery, but he still could not produce single shot KO power. You will find when you analyse all such "muscled up" boxers that they do not carry their power with them.

Another thing to consider is to look at all the fastest boxers at HW where different shapes of boxers are together.

Most of the weightlifting types are slowest.

Most of the non-weightlifting types are fastest.

[HedonisticFrog]

But you haven't provided any evidence for heavy weight lifting and boxing.

1/ never claimed weight lifting would reduce range of motion. Heavy weightlifting definitely does produce stiffness, that is proven.

2/ I wasn't talking about cardio, I was referring to muscular endurance. During boxing, the white fibre muscles exhaust quickly and build up acid, the redder ones are much better at getting rid of it.

3/ Pure lifters might not get injured much as they only lift. Sports athletes who use lifting might definitely get injured more and obviously do (check out all the injured boxers today, they always cite weight training.)

Again, the power generation and delivery of a punch comes from the ground, gravity and body weight. The only time the muscles forcefully contract is the moment of impact.

The strength part of it is concerned with stopping your body on a time and transferring the power. It does not make you faster.

In fact, I can actually show what I am talking about with some stats.

Take any highly weight trained boxer like Holyfield for example who has moved up in weight (it works with all of them as it's a universal principle). As he gained muscle mass through heavy lifting and steroids, his strength grew but his power did not grow proportially. As a result of the increased weight he gained crude power but his punching power as a HW was quite weak as evidenced by his KO ratio. Keep in mind, being naturally smaller and faster and having a well rounded game from CW should have given him an advantage in delivery, but he still could not produce single shot KO power. You will find when you analyse all such "muscled up" boxers that they do not carry their power with them.

Another thing to consider is to look at all the fastest boxers at HW where different shapes of boxers are together.

Most of the weightlifting types are slowest.

Most of the non-weightlifting types are fastest.

You claimed that it makes your joints stiffer and shortens your muscles. If this was the case it would decrease your flexibility. Proven by what? cite some evidence for gods sake instead of spewing your opinion again.

You claimed that high reps promotes angiogenesis which assumes that it's beneficial since that's what you advocate. I was pointing out that it doesn't even matter if it's true since it doesn't effect performance. Angiogenesis doesn't effect muscular endurance either.

Strength training is beneficial for endurance running. The same principle can be applied to boxing and the muscles you use for punching etc.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18978605

Again you provide no evidence whatsoever, just anecdotal evidence of some unnamed fighters blaming weight lifting.

Do you even know what scientific evidence is? The "evidence" you gave is just rambling about various things. What you gave is called anecdotal evidence and holds no weight whatsoever.

Also, Evander Holyfield had a one punch knockout of Buster Douglas. At least know some boxing history.

[KennisTheMenace]

I found this article to be interesting, written by Ross Enamit. http://www.rosstraining.com/articles...htraining.html

Basically stating that there is no one way to strength train and that a fighter should incorporate all of the methods, and their plan should be tailored specifically to their needs.

This is all well and good, but for the lowly amateur boxer certainly leaves a lot of questions when particularly tailoring a program. I just tried squatting with a barbell and used just the bar to warm up and added 25lbs weights to each side on the rack and carefully went through the movement for maybe 4x10. Have had an annoying lower back pain the past two weeks ever since. Thankfully it's not debilitating and I can still get through my boxing workouts, but this stuff certainly gets complicated.

[HedonisticFrog]

This is all well and good, but for the lowly amateur boxer certainly leaves a lot of questions when particularly tailoring a program. I just tried squatting with a barbell and used just the bar to warm up and added 25lbs weights to each side on the rack and carefully went through the movement for maybe 4x10. Have had an annoying lower back pain the past two weeks ever since. Thankfully it's not debilitating and I can still get through my boxing workouts, but this stuff certainly gets complicated.

Make sure you aren't rounding your lower back at the bottom of your squat or bending forwards excessively. If you are you need to not go down as far until you have more flexibility. Your lower back shouldn't be getting sore or in pain from squats.

[jas]

You do some resistance training and eat a lot

Explosive training also

[KennisTheMenace]

Make sure you aren't rounding your lower back at the bottom of your squat or bending forwards excessively. If you are you need to not go down as far until you have more flexibility. Your lower back shouldn't be getting sore or in pain from squats.

When you say "rounding your back" is that the same as "bending forwards excessively"? Always confuses me. Anyways, I've watched squat form videos on YouTube and decided I should just go with body weight squats until I do things correctly and don't feel this back pain.

[HedonisticFrog]

When you say "rounding your back" is that the same as "bending forwards excessively"? Always confuses me. Anyways, I've watched squat form videos on YouTube and decided I should just go with body weight squats until I do things correctly and don't feel this back pain.

Rounding your lower back is different than bending over excessively. Rounding your back happens at the bottom of the squat and your hips tilt backwards which rounds your back.

[KennisTheMenace]

Rounding your lower back is different than bending over excessively. Rounding your back happens at the bottom of the squat and your hips tilt backwards which rounds your back.

Gotcha. I think I had a straight back but was bent forward excessively. Thanks.

[HedonisticFrog]

Gotcha. I think I had a straight back but was bent forward excessively. Thanks.

I forgot to mention that bending forwards excessively can be a result of not enough flexibility for the range of motion you are trying to do. I think it's calf flexibility if I'm not mistaken, so work on stretching your calves after workouts and reduce your range of motion until the excessive bending forwards stops. As you increase flexibility increase your range of motion as well while still avoiding bending over excessively.

Also make sure you keeping your weight as far back as possible throughout the squat.

[Spartacus Sully]

I feel strength is most important for HW, but how does one gain/maintain strength when boxing and doing all that cardio?

Most Heavy weight boxers use Plyometrics and body weight exercises in their routine for strength gains.

tire flips, tire slams, depth jumps, medicine ball slams, jump squats, burpees, push ups, clap push ups, pull ups, ect

here is some of ali doing some wood chopping Plyos:





and here is Dempsey getting ready to do some tire slams: