Weight lifting and boxing?

[Spartacus Sully]

You need a lot more strength needed for a powerful punch than just enough to keep your fist straight. You need enough upper body strength to transfer your torso's momentum into your opponent as well. If your pecs and shoulders are weak your shoulder would give more and your body's momentum would be wasted.

I wasn't bringing up Foreman to talk about his boxing ability. It was merely to show that you can have a guy that throws slow punches that are powerful. If speed was the most important factor in punching hard he should be feather fisted instead of knocking people out.



My point wasn't about whether he lifted weights or not. It was to show that slow punches can be powerful.

a punch is an impact, it lasts only a moment, a push is a push, learn the difference, if you want to take MMA do your strength training, where strength is very important.

Idealy the heavy bag dosnt really move when you hit it, unless you want it to move so you can also pratice foot work and head movements.

if you want to box, there is nothing wrong with doing some heavy compound lifts once a week or once every other week.

3 times a week, as suggested in this thread, is a waste of energy and will degrade your boxing potential and progress.


as fara s slow punches i had made this post in the history section concerning the advantages of lighter heavy weights:

a faster punch does more damage than a heavier slow punch.

A faster chin rolls better than a heavier slow chin.

the only real weakness is when your opponent counters your bodys momentum.

like you've got the heavy slow punch of foreman vs the bobing fraizer, so foreman has 2 options, he can hit frazier so hard with a right, fraziers whole body moves to frazier's right, then forman can throw a left to counter the forced momentum of fraziers body driving foremans slow punch into frazier. then the second option is to pick up on fraziers rhythm, as fraizer slips to his left, forman can throw a right countering the momentum of fraziers bobbing driving his slow punch into fraizer.

comparatively ali takes some very hard body punches, but rolls off most of the slow punches from foreman.

though this isn't so much a case of a lighter opponent vs a heavier one but rather in foreman vs ali a slow puncher vs one of the best people at rolling punches and in fraizer vs foreman a slow puncher using the opportunity to counter into the momentum of his opponets body to do devastating damage.

both these aspects and lighter vs heavier are all clearly evident in conn vs Louis. Louis one of the hardest p4p punchers, had incredible speed to his punches, but conn at several pounds lighter had even more speed, rolling with the punches of Louis with little problem, taking viscious uppercuts seemingly unphased just momens before KO. then there is the KO, Louis lands a left, conn's head is sent to conn's left, part in effort to roll the punch, part due to the force of the punch. Louis throws a right as conn is still trying to roll the left hook he just received, the right lands countering the momentum of conns head, and conn drops.



so, being lighter and faster allows you the inherent ability to roll punches better than some one of the same skill level but at a heavier weight.

on the other side of things is the lighter faster person that can roll punches incredibly well, how do you connect with your punches? well you can counter their momentum as described above for foreman, or you can punch fast enough that they cant roll out of the way in time. A lighter slimmed down body with few unnecessary muscles other than what you have sculpted through years of training is your best chance of this.

take this a step further, and you have the faster you punch, the more you connect with your opponent. the more solid and longer you connect with your opponent, in most cases the more damage you do. so if your doing good damage to some one who can roll their head out of the way with the best of them, the damage your going to do to some one like Jess Willard, whos head movements are achingly slow, is many many many times more than what you could do at a comparable weight punching just as slowly as Willard. (the bigger they are the harder they fall)

you do more damage at a slightly lighter weight, you roll punches better at a slightly lighter weight, and you are many many times more susceptible to being knocked out by punches that counter your bodys momentum at a slightly lighter weight. (you can run but you cant hide)

I think of it as a sheet of paper hanging from a string, a thin light sheet of paper is much harder to connect solidly with than a heavier piece of cardboard. while also the faster you punch the easier it is to connect with the thin light sheet of paper.

[HedonisticFrog]

So you retract your punch as soon as you make contact? You'll never have power if you don't try to punch through your opponent.

You delve into something entirely different when you go into different weights of boxers in the heavyweight division. That's fine to talk about but isn't really the point, you can be a small or big heavyweight whether you strength train or not.

Why does weight advantage seem to go out the window once people talk about the heavyweight division? For every other division people try to be as big as they can for their weight class for a reason. Weight is a significant advantage even past 200lb, there's a reason the heavyweight division has steadily gotten heavier and heavier.

Talking about skills and how you can increase the impact with counter punching or decrease it with rolling with punches is besides the point. You can do both whether you strength train or not. How well you can make the punch land is also besides the point since your hand speed doesn't decrease as you get stronger.

I would never advocate slow punches to gain more power unless your opponent is wide open for them, it was just an example of how speed isn't the only factor in punching power.

[Spartacus Sully]

So you retract your punch as soon as you make contact? You'll never have power if you don't try to punch through your opponent.

a good opponent is going to start moving away from your punch before it even hits, and most opponents are going to move away the moment you impact. at a point punching through becomes pushing and is near worthless.

if you have proper distance for a punch you cant punch through, maybe a couple inches in, but not through. You really want full extension of the punch before impact.

making a fist at impact naturally turns the knuckles in and adds all the follow through necessiary along with additional inelasticity in the forearm and wrist.

[Spartacus Sully]

Why does weight advantage seem to go out the window once people talk about the heavyweight division? For every other division people try to be as big as they can for their weight class for a reason. Weight is a significant advantage even past 200lb, there's a reason the heavyweight division has steadily gotten heavier and heavier.

this is incorrect, back in 2012 martinez was something like 10 pounds lighter than JCC jr.

there are alot of fighters not in heavy weight that fight where they are comfortable rather than cutt and blow up to have a weight advantage.

[HedonisticFrog]

a good opponent is going to start moving away from your punch before it even hits, and most opponents are going to move away the moment you impact. at a point punching through becomes pushing and is near worthless.

if you have proper distance for a punch you cant punch through, maybe a couple inches in, but not through. You really want full extension of the punch before impact.

making a fist at impact naturally turns the knuckles in and adds all the follow through necessiary along with additional inelasticity in the forearm and wrist.

Strength training is going to make your punches more powerful regardless of what your opponent does. Talking about different skills isn't the point at all. If your opponent rolls with your punches you'll hit him harder with strength training, if you counterpunch your opponent you'll hit him harder with strength training.

If you fully extend before you hit you won't have much force on it at all. You should be almost fully extended before you hit and extend into them for last couple of inches.

Again you say that you only need strong forearms which is ridiculous. You lose much more power through your shoulder than your wrist if your wrist stays straight. The momentum of your torso at impact is much more than you can transfer with one hand so strengthening your upper body allows you to transfer more of that momentum.

[Spartacus Sully]

Strength training is going to make your punches more powerful regardless of what your opponent does. Talking about different skills isn't the point at all. If your opponent rolls with your punches you'll hit him harder with strength training, if you counterpunch your opponent you'll hit him harder with strength training.

If you fully extend before you hit you won't have much force on it at all. You should be almost fully extended before you hit and extend into them for last couple of inches.

Again you say that you only need strong forearms which is ridiculous. You lose much more power through your shoulder than your wrist if your wrist stays straight. The momentum of your torso at impact is much more than you can transfer with one hand so strengthening your upper body allows you to transfer more of that momentum.

training proper distance on a heavy bag is going to make your punches more powerful.

Pull ups, Push ups, sit ups.

take a weekly free day, if you want to strength train with heavy compound lifts, feel free, but i wouldnt do it more than once a week.

[HedonisticFrog]

this is incorrect, back in 2012 martinez was something like 10 pounds lighter than JCC jr.

there are alot of fighters not in heavy weight that fight where they are comfortable rather than cutt and blow up to have a weight advantage.

Just because one fighter beat a guy bigger than himself doesn't meat that weight doesn't matter.

The main reason fighters go to a weight class that is higher than they can make weight for is that it's more prestigious and makes them more money. Fighters typically fight in their optimal weight class and then move up once they beat all the competition and think they're skilled enough to fight guys bigger than themselves.

[HedonisticFrog]

training proper distance on a heavy bag is going to make your punches more powerful.

Pull ups, Push ups, sit ups.

take a weekly free day, if you want to strength train with heavy compound lifts, feel free, but i wouldnt do it more than once a week.

I agree that proper distance is critical to hard punching.

Doing light weight exercises isn't going to increase your strength that much, and the high volume will make you more sore than high weight strength training. I personally do the program I recommended three times a week and it doesn't limit my boxing drills at all.

Strength training benefits from high frequency so if anything you should do shorter workouts more often instead of longer workouts less often.

[Spartacus Sully]

Just because one fighter beat a guy bigger than himself doesn't meat that weight doesn't matter.

The main reason fighters go to a weight class that is higher than they can make weight for is that it's more prestigious and makes them more money. Fighters typically fight in their optimal weight class and then move up once they beat all the competition and think they're skilled enough to fight guys bigger than themselves.

fioghters fight in optimal weight classes, but fighters also cut and then bulk up 20 lbs out of their weight class over night. this is not a garuenteed win over some one who comes in at their most comfortable weigt.

[Spartacus Sully]

Doing light weight exercises isn't going to increase your strength that much,

you do light weight exercises for speed and endurance, not strength unless you want to consider speed and endurance types of strength which is fine.

as i first posted:

1 rep 95-100% 1 rep max 1-3 sets = maximal strength

1-3 reps 80-95% 1 rep max 1-3 sets = explosive strength and maximal strength

3-5 reps 60-80% 1 rep max 1-3 sets = explosive strength and maximal strength slight hypertrophy

6-20 reps 40-60% 1 rep max 3-5 sets = bigger muscles

20-40 reps 20-50% 1 rep max 4-6 sets = better endurance slight hypertrophy

30-50 reps 15-30% 1 rep max 3-5 sets with each movement taking about 1 second (like if your curling weights that's up 1 second down 1 second up one second down one second...) = maximal speed

id hope 25 reps at 20% your 1 rep max for 4 sets is not going to make you too sore to train tomorrow. as i already mentioned, John L Sullivan did a morning routine that consisted of 4 different shoulder exercises (4 sets, 1 for each exercise) done with a 2 lb weight, 40 times for each exercise (40 reps).

40 reps of 4 shoulder exercises with a 2 lb weight, is that really all that much?



and to note when i say slight hypertropy in both occurances, it is very very very minimal, the main muscle growth is from an increase in blood flow to the muscle, and im mainly talking about sarcoplasmic hypertrophy.