Boxing strength and conditioning
For some, learning the skills, getting a sweat on hitting bags and pads will be enough. That’s absolutely fine. Regular drilling will get you fitter. If you want to progress beyond that, you must condition your mind and body to make improvements.
Strength and conditioning professionals are highly qualified practitioners. They meet in person and check their client’s aims. They consider physiology, strengths, limitations and weaknesses. From there they produce a bespoke plan.
It would be disrespectful to try and address this in one article. It’s a subject in itself and there are many excellent books out there that cover it. But I’ll give you some broad strokes on the concepts of boxing strength and conditioning. This should make you are aware of the benefits and pitfalls.
You must develop strength and conditioning in a similar way to how you acquire skills. It takes time, patience and a solid platform to build from.
It would be unreasonable to ask you to throw a four punch combination before learning stance and guard. It’s just as unreasonable to ask you to try exercises that your body is not conditioned to perform. It is also very hazardous.
This is where a little knowledge can be dangerous. Any Tom, Dick or Harriet can publish a YouTube video. That doesn’t qualify them to do so. Some will take something that works well in context but use it in the wrong situation or with the wrong people.
There are many factors to consider when asking people to perform physical activities. Age, gender, medical history to name a few. Children — who are progressing through different developmental stages — are a case in point.
Strength is all about progression and letting your body acclimate to each step. You can’t dive into advanced strength and conditioning without having a solid base. You have to lay the groundwork first.
Strength
There are different types of strength. These classifications can get complicated, so let’s keep things as simple as possible.
It boils down to this:
How much strength can you generate?
How quickly can you use that strength?
How long can you continue to use that strength?
In many team sports, strength and physical attributes fit a certain position. As a well-rounded boxer you don’t have that luxury.
You must be able to:
generate strength
use strength quickly and explosively
use strength from different positions and angles
use strength over long periods of time
Developing and integrating these into a cohesive unit isn’t as easy as it sounds.
Generate strength
How strong are you? That’s a relative question. It all depends on your size and weight. It comes down to physics — mass moves mass. The beauty of boxing is that if you weigh 140 pounds, you don’t need to lift a car. As a boxer you must be strong in relation to your task. Any muscle gain must not interfere with your technique.
Use strength quickly and explosively
So you’ve trained and gotten strong. But what’s the point if your opponent can see that strength coming from a mile away?
Newton’s second law tells us all we need to know: Force = Mass x Acceleration.
How quickly you can deliver your strength to the target is paramount. When you work explosive power into the mix, things get interesting. Manny Pacquiao and Naoya Inoue started their careers boxing at around 110 pounds. They are both around 5ft 6 inches tall.
It might surprise anyone who didn’t know them to learn they put people to sleep for a living. These guys have explosive, powerful strength.
Use strength from different positions and angles
Okay. Now you’re strong and you can deliver your power quickly and explosively. Our sport is all about movement. A competent opponent won’t oblige you by standing still. They will move in different directions and try to be elusive. As a boxer you must be able to deliver your power from different angles and in different situations. This involves rapid changes in direction and momentum. If you can only punch in straight lines or in one direction, you are at a disadvantage.
Use strength over long periods of time
You’ve put three of the four jigsaw pieces into place. You’ve got the power. You can deliver it with explosive agility from different angles. But can you do this over a sustained period?
A power-lifter lifts the weight and then puts it down. They then go off to recover before their next lift.
Boxing does not work that way.
Conditioning
There is no point in having maximal, explosive and agile strength if you are too tired to do anything with it. “Gassing out” is a term you will often hear.
Sometimes you will see it levelled at muscular, hard-hitting boxers. The implication? They have invested too much in developing strength and scrimped on conditioning.
So, what is conditioning? It’s difficult to pigeon-hole. The best term I found when trying to convey this was “everything that isn’t skills or strength”. That’s a bit simplistic but it’s somewhere near the mark. It’s a combination of strength endurance and cardiovascular training. It equips your body to perform the skills and strength you’ve acquired.
Conditioning will improve your overall fitness. But it must also be specific to the activity you train for. For a boxer, an example would be hitting a heavy bag with intensity for six rounds.
There is a big difference between general conditioning and sport specific conditioning. I experienced this myself. Having resolved to try boxing, I set about getting fit first.
I wanted to hit the ground running so I could concentrate on skills acquisition. I worked my backside off for three months. Lot’s of running — I could do ten miles standing on my head. It paid off and I was able to hold my own in those early months in the gym.
I felt confident the first time I stepped into the ring for some light sparring. Imagine my surprise when I was gasping for air after a minute. I was well conditioned, but not for boxing.
Our bodies create energy through two cellular respiratory systems — aerobic and anaerobic. The aerobic system creates lots of energy, but slowly. This makes it perfect for steady state activities like jogging and other “aerobics”.
The anaerobic system fuels short, intense bursts of activity. There is less of this to call on and it soon depletes. This is why you can’t sprint at 100m pace for half an hour. It also explains why I gassed out in my inauspicious ring debut. My aerobic system was in great nick, but my anaerobic system was sadly lacking. I wasn’t conditioned to work in short intense bursts.
You must condition yourself for boxing. To do that, we need to do a bit of task analysis. What does a boxer do and what physical attributes do they need to do it?
A boxer must have:
fast, agile feet
strong legs to move and generate power
a strong core to support attack and defence
strong, durable arms
flexible, powerful shoulders
a well developed respiratory system that can work at fluctuating intensity
Putting it together
Break this down and you can see an emerging strength and conditioning checklist:
general physical conditioning — callisthenics
maximal strength training — weights and advanced body weight exercises
explosive strength training — plyomterics
core conditioning
intermittent training — interval training, speed and speed endurance
steady state training
It’s worth emphasising that this is strength and conditioning only. Your skills and technical sessions should always come first. Strength and conditioning is only the means to the end of performing those skills.
How you fit the jigsaw pieces together depends on different factors. Understand that you can’t train full on all the time. Your body needs rest, good nutrition, hydration and adequate sleep.
Professional boxers at the highest level will have an idea of when and where they will compete. They can prepare in specialised training camps and peak at the right time. These camps are very intensive. They could not train like that all year round. Having said that, the best boxers stay in shape year-round and don’t blow up in weight between fights.
Amateur boxers don’t have that luxury. They box over a season. Here in the UK, this is around September to May. They must be ready to box at any time during that period. Boxers compete in different weight classes. For the amateur boxer, it’s important for their weight to remain stable over the course of the season.
Amateur coaches will navigate this with seasonal training. In the off-season they may work on steady state conditioning. It’s also a great time to work on developing strength. As the season progresses they can add specific conditioning and skills.
It’s important not to look at strength and conditioning in a modular way. If you train one aspect only, then move on to others you will lose any gains you made over time.
The art of a good training programme is training everything concurrently. Make wholesale gains in performance and fitness. Schedule training activities so that they don’t adversely affect each other.
And remember, there is nothing glamorous about boxing strength and conditioning. It can be brutal. It will push you to your limits. But the payoff is massive.
Enjoy the journey and embrace the challenge.
