I was recently told that many of the great boxers and just about all before the recent years did not lift weights at all because it slows down hand speed.
The thing is guys like ali, tyson, ray leonard and many of the boxers pretty much have great backs, shoulders and arms.
Which makes me wonder how did they build them without weights. I was led to believe that doing bodyweight exercises, after a certain time, even if you keep increasing the number will only build muscular endurance and not size.
Tyson lifted weights. I don’t know if Leonard did. He did weigh in at all of 147 lb at his best. He later did weigh 168 e.g. for his fight with LaLonde, in some bizarre deal where LaLonde was forced to weigh less than the light heavyweight limit despite the fact that that title was on the line. At this point Leonard was far from his best. But that is not on account of weight training, if any.
My main points are that first, you’re not considering that these men regardless of appearance were not that big. Ali for example was 205 at his best, e.g. when winning the title from Liston, and he was 6’3". Not exactly a bulk monster. Later he was 215 in good shape: basically any time he weighed more than this, he was soft.
Second, particularly when considering the heavyweight title you’re inherently talking about a one or a few in a million (or something like that) sort of athlete in the first place. What is the marvel that such were able without lifting weights to be not that much over 200 lb while typically well over 6 feet?
Anyway, boxing’s anti-weightlifting bias is a thing of the fairly distant past.
Sure, Ali and Leonard weren’t very thick, some of their opponents looked considerably bigger though, like Haggler in Leonard’s case and Foreman in Ali’s. Some guys just have the gene for it, others have indeed done weight training, especially in the modern era.
[quote]arzoo wrote:
I was recently told that many of the great boxers and just about all before the recent years did not lift weights at all because it slows down hand speed.
The thing is guys like ali, tyson, ray leonard and many of the boxers pretty much have great backs, shoulders and arms.
Which makes me wonder how did they build them without weights. I was led to believe that doing bodyweight exercises, after a certain time, even if you keep increasing the number will only build muscular endurance and not size.
Yet these guys seem to have great muscularity.
[/quote]
[quote]Bill Roberts wrote:
Tyson lifted weights. I don’t know if Leonard did. He did weigh in at all of 147 lb at his best. He later did weigh 168 e.g. for his fight with LaLonde, in some bizarre deal where LaLonde was forced to weigh less than the light heavyweight limit despite the fact that that title was on the line. At this point Leonard was far from his best. But that is not on account of weight training, if any.
My main points are that first, you’re not considering that these men regardless of appearance were not that big. Ali for example was 205 at his best, e.g. when winning the title from Liston, and he was 6’3". Not exactly a bulk monster. Later he was 215 in good shape: basically any time he weighed more than this, he was soft.
Second, particularly when considering the heavyweight title you’re inherently talking about a one or a few in a million (or something like that) sort of athlete in the first place. What is the marvel that such were able without lifting weights to be not that much over 200 lb while typically well over 6 feet?
Anyway, boxing’s anti-weightlifting bias is a thing of the fairly distant past.
[/quote]
Not really, the sport is starting to come around to strength training but it’s not particularly advocated.
point of lifting weights is to damage the muscles enough for trauma and growth. The point of skill work and training is to increase speed and accuracy, if your practicing your speed while you’re recovering then you are training at less then full speed. Essentially teaching your body to operate at that slower speed.
can it work… yes… but it would have to be integrated so carefully, that it would be difficult to assess if your losing speed or just a little worn out that day. Which case you have a fight 1 month away and the other guy has already surpassed you in training while your playing around with weights.
They do use it to gain weight since you don’t want to gain fat if your going to the next weight class, but you have to limit it when staying in the same weight class.
Plenty of fighters lift weights, but most likely aren’t open about it because of the stigma attatched to “bodybuilding” in the boxing world.
And resistance training will not slow you down, that’s a load of shit. Unless you’re training like a bodybuilder and aiming purely for hypertrophy, I doubt you’ll wreck any athletic qualities. Fuck look at Roy Jones, that motherfucker isn’t slow, and he didn’t get slower as he got bigger over his career. IIRC from an interview, Roy was at one point, lifting every 2nd day.
[quote]Aussie Davo wrote:
Plenty of fighters lift weights, but most likely aren’t open about it because of the stigma attatched to “bodybuilding” in the boxing world.
And resistance training will not slow you down, that’s a load of shit. Unless you’re training like a bodybuilder and aiming purely for hypertrophy, I doubt you’ll wreck any athletic qualities. Fuck look at Roy Jones, that motherfucker isn’t slow, and he didn’t get slower as he got bigger over his career. IIRC from an interview, Roy was at one point, lifting every 2nd day.[/quote]
I know Roy was lifting regularly while training to fight John Ruiz. All the current HW champs lift weights: David Haye and the Klitschkos.
Boxing really isn’t a sport that has welcomed strength training, it’s not as judgmental of it as it used to be though. The biggest reasons trainers oppose it aren’t even plausible, they think you’ll gain a lot of weight, put on a lot of muscle rapidly, things of that nature. It’s really just ignorance.
There plausible, Mosley’s power tanked, Hatton sucked when he moved and started lifting, Pacman was said to be sluggish when he started doing plyos and lifting.
Hatton was weight training from 2001 until after the Lazcano fight, he only started complaining about weight training when Floyd beat him.
Unless you focus 100% on weight training you’re not going to have any problems. Even then, most of the reasons trainers don’t want you to lift would take years to become a reality. No fighter is going to pack on enough muscle to effect his mobility in training camp.
Unless you’re very advanced doing anything but boxing to improve your boxing is a waste.
If you want to get bigger weight training is a proven method of doing that.
If boxing is a priority, make sure your weight training doesn’t interfere with your boxing.
If getting bigger is a priority…
The biggest reason it’s “unimportant” is the stigma attached to it, people think you’ll gain 10 lbs of muscle in a couple months then wont be able to make weight and will lose all your hand speed.
Unless a fighter hires a strength coach they probably wont of ever attempted to lift, then they’ve been training so long they don’t want to try something new. Recovery actually isn’t too bad either, if you’re lifting right.
Weight training wont interfere with boxing unless you make it. The thing is that a lot of people lift weights and box, they don’t lift weights to improve performance. Think about Usain Bolt, he lifts weight but he does it to assist his performance in track, not for hypertrophy.
[quote]arzoo wrote:
I was recently told that many of the great boxers and just about all before the recent years did not lift weights at all because it slows down hand speed.
[/quote]
Old boxing dogma. But most did not lift weights.
Keep in mind that you’re watching them on TV… they really just have incredibly low bodyfat with a small amount of muscle on them. Ali only had 15 inch arms, Leanord was a small fighter, Mayweather doesn’t lift… most greats never really do. It’s the constant plyometrics combined with running heavily and constantly working out.
Muscularity doesn’t equal size. On Tyson it did, but he’s a genetic freak… most fighters, as I said, are just lean, muscular guys with little real “size” in terms of how this website looks at it.
yeah pacman looks like a brick house on TV, but he really is just lean as fuck which makes him seem bigger than he is. I would also say the same about Yuriorkis Gamboa
[quote]cutthoat25 wrote:
yeah pacman looks like a brick house on TV, but he really is just lean as fuck which makes him seem bigger than he is. I would also say the same about Yuriorkis Gamboa[/quote]
This is true. Gamboa looked like a tank next to Mtagwa the other night. I had to remind myself he is only 130 lbs with some change left over. Someone of short stature can appear pretty big on TV. Even someone like Wlad isn’t very “muscular” big by the standards some people have here; he’s 240 at 6’6
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
Muscularity doesn’t equal size. On Tyson it did, but he’s a genetic freak… most fighters, as I said, are just lean, muscular guys with little real “size” in terms of how this website looks at it. [/quote]
We should keep in mind though, that this website is extreme in it’s views. This is the kind of place that you are “small and frail” unless you’re 300lbs at 5’5. In all seriousness, it’s ridiculous, but the information and articles, people and thoughts on this website are cool, so I hang.
Now that’s in comparison with the people who are in pursuit of the sole objective of size. If we were to compare to a normal person, in their eyes, alot of these fighters are huge.
That said, I still know alot of people who think bruce lee had the ideal physique -.-
time and a place. Depends on your natural attributes. Some people are pretty strong when they start fighting, and dont need as much weight work, some are in need of more strength and power. That being said though, most people would be best concentrating on skill work with 2 hrs or so of weights a week.
[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:
Muscularity doesn’t equal size. On Tyson it did, but he’s a genetic freak… most fighters, as I said, are just lean, muscular guys with little real “size” in terms of how this website looks at it. [/quote]
We should keep in mind though, that this website is extreme in it’s views. This is the kind of place that you are “small and frail” unless you’re 300lbs at 5’5. In all seriousness, it’s ridiculous, but the information and articles, people and thoughts on this website are cool, so I hang.
Now that’s in comparison with the people who are in pursuit of the sole objective of size. If we were to compare to a normal person, in their eyes, alot of these fighters are huge.
That said, I still know alot of people who think bruce lee had the ideal physique -.-[/quote]
This website is extreme, but a lot of these fighters are still tiny. Floyd or Sugar Shane may be ripped as fuck, but they’re still only 5’8 and under 160.
I agree though that that level of leanness may confuse people into thinking that they’re bigger than they really are, especially when seen on TV.