boxing training
 

this summer I started training at gleason's gym, which is a famous boxing gym in brooklyn. it's a great gym, very old school, and I work one on one with a trainer there. I took lessons with several guys before choosing a trainer, and noticed that everyone takes a very similar approach to boxing training.

from what I've experienced so far, this wikipedia article is a fairly accurate summary. my workout is something like:

- 4 rounds of jump rope
- 4 rounds of heavy bag
- 4 rounds of combinations/technique (trainer wears mitts)
- 3 rounds of footwork
- 3 rounds of speed bag an/or floor to ceiling bag

pushups/situps at the end, also sometimes weights, but I do roadwork and other weights outside of the boxing gym so I don't always do weights.

I find this type of workout fairly tough and very addictive, I have never enjoyed training for anything so much. I also find in interesting that everyone in my gym does almost everything in rounds, which wasn't obvious when I first went there to observe. I am obviously very aware of the bell now, but it's easy to miss if you aren't listening for it.

anyways, I was hoping this would generate some discussion from people who box/have boxed and maybe others could post their routines.

a few idosyncratic things my trainer has pointed out:

- I throw the ugliest right hook ever. the hook was the hardest punch for me to learn and I still have to work on it a lot.

- I have had an excellent left cross since day one (I fight southpaw)

- when I have told my friends I've been training, they almost always throw a right hook. the only exception is my wife, who faked a jab then threw an uppercut.

Re: boxing training
 

A wife who fakes you out? Awesome!

Are you a lefty, or do you just prefer strong-side forward?

Re: boxing training
 

How much do you guys spar? How hard do you go?

Re: boxing training
 

blarg - lefty

danvh - I am still pretty new so I haven't really sparred except with my trainer. at gleason's, there are always people sparring and you can basically spar as much as you want. as a general rule people will take it easy, but the skill/experience range is wide and you can in general find someone to go as hard as you want to.

two other things I've noticed:

- we are all saying "guys", but I am surprised at the number of women who train. the guy who trained hillary swank for million dollar baby, hector roca, is a trainer there.

- a large majority of people that train there are in very, very, very good shape.

Re: boxing training
 

3 minute rounds?

Re: boxing training
 

bump, because I am sparring pretty regularly now and going at it pretty hard, at least with a few people. I thought I might get sick of the workout or lose interest, but I absolutely love the training and sparring is pretty exhilirating. definitely a whole other level in terms of adrenaline and getting tired.

been training 3-4 days/week with my trainer, and lifting on the other days. so far, no bad side effects from training/sparring. I'm definitely in the best shape of my life, feels great.

Re: boxing training
 

[ QUOTE ]


- we are all saying "guys", but I am surprised at the number of women who train. the guy who trained hillary swank for million dollar baby, hector roca, is a trainer there.



[/ QUOTE ]

flying to the wsop last year i sat next to Ann Wolfe. i didnt know who she was. she struck up a conversation w/ me and we talked for about an hour. ann said she was flying to vegas for a fight i belive.

she was very mild-mannered but i was starting to understand she was a well known boxer. she told a bit about her history that she homeless at one point, was hit by car while walking, and an acquaintance bought her a gym to run. she said a i asked her if she ever fought Laila Ali, my only point of reference for women's boxing. she said she had tried for some time but ali would not because ali didnt want the loss on her record. i kind of took her comments w/ a grain of salt after that.

i looked her up the next time i was by a computer and discovered how good and well-known she is in the boxing community. btw since then Mike Tyson has said that he wants to fight Ann (which will never materialize im sure).

Re: boxing training
 

Q: Should I stay away from boxing if I broke my 5th metacarpal (Boxer's fracture) a few years ago?

Re: boxing training
 

Sounds great turnip.

I'm gonna do some mma (well, bjj + probably some kickboxing) once my back heals. I hope I can handle 3 workouts a week + lifting 3 days a week at my age (32). I also hope the gym won't be filled with younger studs that will laugh while they pummel me into the ground while the hot girls watch (there's surprisingly many girls in the classes).

Re: boxing training
 

that sounds cool wolf, you should be fine if you are pretty careful and wear the appropriate safety gear when sparring. at my gym there are lots of young people, but also a fair amount of middle aged guys who are mostly tough as nails.

bwana - cool story.

Re: boxing training
 

[ QUOTE ]
Q: Should I stay away from boxing if I broke my 5th metacarpal (Boxer's fracture) a few years ago?

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I guess it depends, but I would stay away. boxing can be a little hard on your hands, and your hands are important [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]. if I thought I was going to hurt my hands boxing I would definitely stop.

Re: boxing training
 

just out of curiousity, how much does it cost to do this?

Re: boxing training
 

gym membership is 80 bucks a month, trainers charge different rates but most are 100-300 per month. how it works is, your trainer keeps regular hours in the gym and you can go whenever you want during those hours and train. sometimes you'll do some stuff with other fighters that train with your trainer, like spar or footwork or something.

I really can't believe how cheap it is to have a personal trainer, although I guess it's not 100% personal all the time because sometimes there are multiple people working out. still, it's very cheap.

Re: boxing training
 

The way boxing training works is really cool. They should have the same thing for powerlifting where you can just go into a gym and work out, but your coach is in there and will keep an eye on everyone and help you out and stuff.

Re: boxing training
 

agreed, it's a very nice system and would really work well for something like powerlifting. I was a little skeptical when I first started, like do I really need a personal trainer, can't I just take a class? but a class would have probably sucked, and having a trainer has been a great experience because workouts are tailored towards you and your trainer is always pushing you to go a little extra or whatever. which, if you work out by yourself, it's easy to get in a rut without someone pushing you.

Re: boxing training
 

I have been taking boxing twice a week. It's a two hour class that goes through basically what you posted, then you spar for around a hour. It's pretty bad ass workout.

It gets you in great shape and teaches you how to throw punches. Boxing technique and footwork are really hard to master.

I was also suprised by the number of girls in my class. There is a 14 year old girl that is so sick.

Re: boxing training
 

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There is a 14 year old girl that is so sick.

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http://images.usatoday.com/Wires2Web...IS_HANSENx.jpg

Why don't you go have a seat over there?

But yeah, boxing is some of the most fun you can have working out.

Re: boxing training
 

Definitely. Working out just to work out is much harder to me than working out because you have a sports-related goal. Boxing gives you as good a goal as anyone could ever want -- to not get punched in the face!

Re: boxing training
 

[ QUOTE ]
Definitely. Working out just to work out is much harder to me than working out because you have a sports-related goal. Boxing gives you as good a goal as anyone could ever want -- to be able to punch somebody in the face effectively!

[/ QUOTE ]
fyp

Re: boxing training
 

I don't think as many people want to do that as want to avoid having it get done to them, but YMMV. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: boxing training
 

what's amazing to me is how effective slipping punches is. there are a few guys I spar with that can slip even really fast jabs like nothing. I am pretty slow in terms of reflexes, and even I can slip punches better than I thought would be possible for me.

Re: boxing training
 

That's one of the things that elevates boxing so high as a sport and makes people call it chess with muscles. You have to learn to read people, and quick!, which is endlessly fascinating and razor's-edge stuff against a good or sometimes merely really fast or non-telegraphic opponent. And on the other end, you have to learn to be deceptive and non-telegraphic yourself. It's a great war being waged on a mental and physical level at the same time. Once both you and your opponent have your tools pretty well down, unless there's a big disparity between your physical abilities, a fight can turn entirely on who reads and plays the other guy better.

Re: boxing training
 

you are totally right on re: strategy. I sparred a heavyweight today who is training for a fight on wednesday. he was taking it easy on me but him at 50% is worse than most people at 100%. a few interesting things I noticed:

- I used to have "tunnel vision" and as a result would get hit by a lot of punches I never saw coming (a bad feeling). now I am much better keeping everything in sight.

- usually, I am the slow guy who punches hard. today the roles were reversed, and I really had to dance around the ring a lot more. it's a whole different approach to fighting, like night and day.

- we did a fair amount of work on the ropes, and that's a whole different dynamic.

Re: boxing training
 

I keep wanting to close my eyes when I get punched.

Re: boxing training
 

Very natural and for a lot of people it can be very hard to get over. It doesn't necessarily fix it right away, but it helps if you keep reminding yourself that you shouldn't worry about getting hit or hurt because you WILL get hit or hurt, and that the only way to keep it to a minimum is by gutting it out and fighting through it. You have to be very aggressive even about getting hit.

Re: boxing training
 

Boxing is definitely chess with muscles... also if your interested, it appears someone has already combined the two.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chess_boxing

Re: boxing training
 

There was an article on that in the BBC the other day:

Chess boxing

Funny thing was, the idea actually sounded less and less hilarious as the article went along -- and it wasn't the first one on this subject I had read. By the end, I was rooting for the, er, sport.

Re: boxing training
 

[ QUOTE ]
There was an article on that in the BBC the other day:

Chess boxing

Funny thing was, the idea actually sounded less and less hilarious as the article went along -- and it wasn't the first one on this subject I had read. By the end, I was rooting for the, er, sport.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is awesome