I tried doing a quick search, so apologies if this has been discussed, i’m sure it has.
What does your training schedule look like? How do you space out, strength, fitness and technical work?
So my current art of choice is boxing, done various things in the past. I currently do a combination of the reddit recommended routine (my strength routine), boxing and steady state cardio like cycling and running (more cycling because it’s easier on the knees).
I don’t always stick to this, sometimes i mix it up, but the basic idea is:
Monday strength
Tuesday Boxing
Wednesday strength
Thursday boxing
Friday Strength
Saturday boxing / cycling
Sunday i take a long walk on the golf course (18 holes) … and sometimes do some light technical work in the evening.
Meant to be stretching every night.
I don’t always get all the stretching sessions in and i sometimes do a double session on Thursdays of boxing (morning fitness, afternoon sparring). Sometimes i throw in a Manny Pacquiao core workout there are a bunch of them on youtube, did this one last night, quite like them.
Comments would be appreciated, or even insight into what you are doing. I mix it up every few months, so constantly looking at where i can tweak improve or do something different.
Edit: there are one or two sets i can’t finish in that video, don’t want to oversell … haha.
On the stretching, a good warmup can include dynamic stretching. Same with a cool down. Static stretching is not so necessary, if that is what you are doing.
That way you are stretching twice per workout session.
Recovery time is important for progress. There are a lot of relaxation exercises you can do in between strength, cardio, boxing sessions that will help.
Whatever it is, chocolate milk is proven to be the best post workout drink, so make sure to fit that in your schedule too.
Yeah for sure. I do dynamic stretching before I start, i don’t want to loosen up my joints too much before training. I prefer static stretches in the evening, i feel certain muscles like lats and quads only ease up after a bit of a more prolonged stretch. Also if i have problem areas i feel like i have more control over a static stretch. Static stretching also helps with my recovery. I’m definitely a fan of both.
Yeah finding that balance is tricky for me. If i notice i’m getting depro and feel emotional, i usually take a day off. I take it as a hint my CNS is depleting. I take a ton of stuff for recovery, i know there are different views on how well which supplements work. I have a mate that says i’m wasting my time and i should just go on TRT. I’m 39, so i guess i’m trying to hedge my bets. I don’t like messing with hormones though, so not trying the TRT.
MSM and omega oil for joints
Beta-alanine (some studies show it also helps for endurance), creatine, BCAA, turmeric, whey protein, COQ10, l-glutamine for recovery
Vitamin D for helping with testosterone.
I take a magnesium fizzie after heavy sessions (not part of my daily)
Of those, the ones that have been tested the most with proven results is probably the whey protein and creatine.
I love milk, so i’ll definitely check out the chocolate milk link. Thanks for that.
I don’t train to failure in the strength sessions, the sessions are full body, trying the approach of getting in reps and volume in over time, as apposed to failure in a split program. I’m also not doing pure strength due to the tradeoff between strength and speed. So reps are in the region of 6 - 9 per set with a rest period of 3 min between sets, e.g. set of chest, rest 90 secs, legs 90 secs, back to chest. Don’t really do isolation, mostly compound. I’m hoping the cardio nature of the boxing vs. the long rest cycles of the strength targets the body in such a way that it doesn’t deplete the muscles because you are working different attributes. The part that does get hit though in both instances is the CNS.
I don’t really want to get involved in this. But it looks like from what you posted you’re not training seriously. I don’t know what you’re training now but you said you were taking boxing but no mention of roadwork. You can lift weights and do your regular martial arts training on the same day. Which according to you you weren’t. You could probably take on @W.Rabbit if you actually took your training seriously.
No stress, there are a few posts I’ve been meaning to get back to, I’ve just started my holiday so been running around (In South Africa our big break is over December) . I think @W.Rabbit and I had a bit of a misunderstanding, but i think that’s sorted now.
At the time of writing i was training really hard, as i’ve mentioned my coach left for the US and i haven’t found a new place to box at, so at the moment I’m not training as hard. The boxing training was really intense, so I personally couldn’t do a second session on many of those days. The plan was to get to two a day sessions, but i never got consistent with that. We did some roadwork as warm-up in the mornings. I hate running which my coach used to give me grief over, as i mention above i’d do cycling for steady state cardio. I’d also fit shorter sessions in here and there, but it wasn’t part of my consistent routine. I’d do things like skipping and rowing, but i hate running, so i’ve never really run further than a few km. My cardio was as good as the guys doing lots of roadwork, so i personally believe roadwork is not the only way to develop boxing cardio. I prefer this kind of cardio training which we did loads of at boxing.
Not to mention all the ladder drills you do, bag drills, sparring, shadowboxing, etc. So you work a lot of cardio, in fact i’d say basically your whole workout is cardio at boxing.
Not loving posting those, they were from a reddit post a few years back. I don’t look like that at the moment though, so not trying to be missleading. Just trying to say i do like training hard and was training hard.
That’s a fair point. I guess to lift really heavy acceleration and explosive power is big part of that (especially to get the weight moving). Pure strength training has a heavy emphasis on training the nervous system (activating fibers) which is why you have the long rests to get as much muscle recovery as possible between sets. Would that carry over to explosive punching power though? I’m not 100% sure will need to go read up a bit again. Due to the fact that you can only move heavy weights so fast, isn’t there a difference in the rate of fiber activation? I mean the body is great at adapting to stress, to the point that the sequence of activation matters. So I still don’t know if you’ll be faster, based on the load, and how you are activating, i still don’t think you’ll punch faster.
Another issue for me with boxing would definitely be that pure strength and high cardio / endurance are on opposite sides of the spectrum, and because they are so far removed (energy systems used, oxidative pathway, glycogen, etc. / neural stimulation differences), i don’t think you get an optimum benefit combining them. So i don’t think it’s what i’d go for, but would be cool to hear comments. I wanted to do some research before responding, but thought i should respond to Tomiki and didn’t want to leave this one hanging.
I’ve changed this as well. I take whey, creatine, l-glutamine, omega 3, aswagandha, a multi-vitamin and started experimenting with lion’s mane for concentration. Going to start taking a collagen / MSM combo for joints again, although yoga has done more for my joints than any supplement i’ve tried. There have been a few large scale studies on multivitamins that have been quite surprising. Also some good studies on brain benefit of creatine. Sorry lazy posting without links, just trying to comment on a few things i saw off the cuff.
Watch this video. It’s not mine, but these are both friends of mine. You can hear the power, and it looks slow compared to the people 100lbs lighter, but those people would tend to go to the ER against someone in the Infinite division, which is why we have weight classes . Put any of us on there with the 120lb people, they should be running.
Both are kung fu guys who cross train, yellow is a West Point plebe boxer who defeated me (also have my age and possible an adamantium endoskeleton)
I almost fought Blue (he is the reason I won bronze in this division because he concussed the fuck out of my next opponent). He became a pro MMA fighter. I think he dropped from about 300 down to 260 for his pro fighting weight.
Incredible strength, and amazing cardio. Linebacker size and ability, former US Army guy who went to help out after the Japan Tohoku earthquake and tsunami that killed 20,000+.
So basically Godzilla. And we are generally slow at this weight class (see the second video for the small fast lightweights) but here’s the catch: most of those lighter weights are not even going to damage us heavier and infinite weights, and definitely aren’t throwing us off the platform.
Blue in that first clip has good hands and hits hard, looks a bit like a boxer. I actually think he ended that fight in the first round, he stuns yellow quite badly at the end of the first round (2:50), you can see legs don’t want to move, then the bell goes. He was already stunned a few times by that point. Dude definitely hits hard.
Size is always going to be a thing, it’s dangerous to put boxers against different weight categories, people die like that, so it’s understandable that you would too. I slimmed down a lot for boxing, heavier weight categories are where the dragons be, haha. I’d prefer to be heavy for a weight category than inching my way into a heavier one.
When i was talking about pure strength training i meant more, low rep ranges (2 -3) with like 80% of what you can lift with rest cycles of like 6 min. I don’t think strong people are slow, or that strength is detrimental to speed if you know what i mean. There are many big guys with great hands, look at tyson fury.
Edit: I also have respect for these comps just to be clear, I only entered one comp similar to that, and it cost me a kneecap. I competed in sanda, which i think is lighter than this. The shoes and smaller gloves definitely add something. I had no shoes on and boxing gloves. Big kick to the knee and it was over, so not much to talk about really, prefer not to think about it tbh. haha.
I’m not sure what to make of that. I saw another member asking about boxing so added a few good conditioning clips here which i didn’t have the opportunity to raise in another thread. Raised a point about roadwork and cardio (different approach to boxing for me) and made a point that i was in fact training hard, figured if i didn’t people might not want to engage on the topic. It’s not a you vs. rabbit thing, it’s also not a me vs. rabbit thing. Just how the posts turned out.
In typical Sanda/Sanshou, you don’t have a 2-3 foot drop off a platform, which is the whole point of Lei Tai. Max points for throwing or knocking someone off.
There’s being punched, kicked, kneed, or otherwise beaten, and then falling to your death, literally or figurative.
For the record, I was never thrown off, because I have legs of iron, but I can dance like Kevin Bacon.
I saw a guy at that same tournament get thrown and it fucked up his leg so bad, but he was smiling. Same guy had his kung fu school corner me. Kansas City, I Think.
. Put any of us on there with the 120lb people, they should be running.
