Boxing Training Schedule Critique

Bigger Stronger Leaner
1

Hey there. I’m a 19 year old guy who just got into boxing. I’m out of school and only work 2 days a week; Monday and Saturday, so I have plenty of time to rest. My job requires standing for 8 hours, but not moving much. Taking a gap year before university. I value strength training very much and want to keep 2 full body lifting days in my schedule. I don’t mean strength training to support boxing, I mean strength training in terms of being strong and looking good.

Height: 5’11, lanky as fuck
Weight: 150 lbs

Sunday: Full Body Workout (1 hour)
Monday: Boxercise Class (1 hour: Just bag work + shadow boxing on my own)
Tuesday: Sparring (5-6 rounds) and Skill Training (30-45 mins)
Wednesday: Full Body Workout at 11 am, Boxercise at 9 pm (1 hour each)
Thursday: Sparring (5-6 rounds) and Skill Training (30-45 mins)
Friday: Boxercise Class (1 hour)
Saturday: Rest

I can’t add or exchange much due to logistics, only remove workouts. The boxercise classes and sparring sessions are at specific times and the gym closes at 6 pm on Saturday (work) and Sunday.

Full Body Workouts:

Sunday
Incline Dumbbell Press 3x8-12
Weighted Inverted Row 4x10-15
Leg Press 3x10-12
Hup Thrust 3x8-12
Lateral Raise 2x12-15
Curl 2x12-15
Calf Raise 4x8

Wednesday
Dumbbell Floor Press 3x8-12
Neutral Grip Pulldown 3x8-12
Leg Press 3x10-12
Lying Leg Curl with Hip Extension 3x8-12
Lateral Raise 2x12-15
Rear Delt Raise 2x12-15
Calf Raise 4x8

These exercises give me strength and size gains without too much CNS fatigue.

THE QUESTION IS: Is this too much? Too many workouts? Should I remove anything from the schedule? Keep in mind I can lay on the couch for 5 days a week. This week I only have one shift so it’s 6 days of couch potatoe-ing.

Boxing Goals:
-Self Defense. The confidence that I won’t be THAT helpless when push comes to shove.
-An artificial struggle. Men need a struggle or a fight. It shapes them, hardens them and builds character.

I don’t care about competing. I don’t want to be a fighter. I want to be a man who is experienced in fighting. I also enjoy boxing more than any other sport. I paid a total of 600 dollars to get my face beat in for the sake of the above goals.

Thank you very much for reading all of this. I made the post this long to filter out trolls and people who aren’t serious enough, so the types of people who would take in all of this are the ones whose advice I need. Again, thanks.

2

Your schedule is fine if you are recovering, only you can really know that. If it is meeting your goals, an you have the energy to do it, then there’s not a lot more to say on it.

You paid $600 so far to do boxercise and spar twice a week? I think you’ve left out some important information on your gym. Boxercise as I understand it is not something that happens in a boxing gym, it’s something some pretty boy PT does with middle aged women in a clean, peaceful studio in an overpriced gym. More information is needed on exactly what you’re doing here.

Also, you say you don’t want to compete, which to my mind is fine, there are plenty of guys who just spar who over time become very competent boxers. But, you say: ‘I don’t want to be a fighter. I want to be a man who is experienced in fighting.’ Again, that’s fine, your goals your business, but a fighter is either who you are, or it isn’t. If it isn’t, a bit of fight training will do nothing for you when push comes to shove. As you say, you enjoy boxing, and that’s reason enough to do it, but being a fighter is something that is in your heart. You don’t have to be a martial artist, or do a combat sport, plenty of soldiers who’ve never boxed are proper fighters an men to be reckoned with.

The point I’m making is that, if you have already told yourself you’re not a fighter, and don’t want to be, where is your resolve going to come from if you ever need to fight? If you aren’t a fighter, you are just as vulnerable, whether you’ve done some boxing or not. Of course, fighters get beaten by other fighters all the time, it’s the way of things, but just don’t get a false sense of security, because it could get you hurt.

3

I can’t speak for the schedule itself because I am new to combat sports; however, I can definitely tell you that there are more effective ways to train for strength. You would make good size and strength gains just doing 5x5-10, deadlift, overhead press and barbell row on day 1 and 5x5-10 squat, bench press and pull ups on day 2.

4

[quote]Loftearmen wrote:
I can’t speak for the schedule itself because I am new to combat sports; however, I can definitely tell you that there are more effective ways to train for strength. You would make good size and strength gains just doing 5x5-10, deadlift, overhead press and barbell row on day 1 and 5x5-10 squat, bench press and pull ups on day 2.[/quote]

Agreed. There’s a lot of BS in that weight room routine - ditch the leg extensions and calf raises and all that other shit. Especially if you’re young and lanky and skinny.

5

[quote]LondonBoxer123 wrote:
Your schedule is fine if you are recovering, only you can really know that. If it is meeting your goals, an you have the energy to do it, then there’s not a lot more to say on it.

You paid $600 so far to do boxercise and spar twice a week? I think you’ve left out some important information on your gym. Boxercise as I understand it is not something that happens in a boxing gym, it’s something some pretty boy PT does with middle aged women in a clean, peaceful studio in an overpriced gym. More information is needed on exactly what you’re doing here.

Also, you say you don’t want to compete, which to my mind is fine, there are plenty of guys who just spar who over time become very competent boxers. But, you say: ‘I don’t want to be a fighter. I want to be a man who is experienced in fighting.’ Again, that’s fine, your goals your business, but a fighter is either who you are, or it isn’t. If it isn’t, a bit of fight training will do nothing for you when push comes to shove. As you say, you enjoy boxing, and that’s reason enough to do it, but being a fighter is something that is in your heart. You don’t have to be a martial artist, or do a combat sport, plenty of soldiers who’ve never boxed are proper fighters an men to be reckoned with.

The point I’m making is that, if you have already told yourself you’re not a fighter, and don’t want to be, where is your resolve going to come from if you ever need to fight? If you aren’t a fighter, you are just as vulnerable, whether you’ve done some boxing or not. Of course, fighters get beaten by other fighters all the time, it’s the way of things, but just don’t get a false sense of security, because it could get you hurt. [/quote]

Thank you for the response. By “Boxercise” I mean heavy bag work with one guy (professional boxer) calling out the combos, showing us how to do them and correcting our technique, occasionally.

The investment included: Gloves + Head Gear + Pelvis Gear + Gym Membership + Boxing Coaching and Sparring fee + Provincial Boxing license fee. It’s a 2 story gym, the first floor is for boxing; it has 3 rings and a shitload of bags and other equipment, the second floor is a complete bodybuilding gym with a small heavy bag area.

Using your terminology and your way of phrasing, I want to be a fighter, not necessarily compete in fighting. By “fighter”, I meant one who fought professionally or even on the amateur level and his life revolved around the sport.

Thank you for the input.

6

[quote]Loftearmen wrote:
I can’t speak for the schedule itself because I am new to combat sports; however, I can definitely tell you that there are more effective ways to train for strength. You would make good size and strength gains just doing 5x5-10, deadlift, overhead press and barbell row on day 1 and 5x5-10 squat, bench press and pull ups on day 2.[/quote]

Thanks for chiming in.

The barbell compound lifts you suggested would actually do more harm than good in my case. I do 5 boxing workouts a week and squats and deadlifts would cause more CNS fatigue without making the quads, hams and glutes grow more than if I trained them with the leg press, leg curl and hip thrust. These exercises make my legs grow without interfering as much with the boxing workouts.

The same could be said for the bench press and barbell row. More stress without more hypertrophy, as I feel the target muscles work better with dumbbell presses and inverted rows. I also want my side delts, rear delts, biceps and calves to grow or at least retain mass as well. The compound movements you suggested would neglect them and lead to an imbalanced physique.

I look like a spider, with extremely long arms, legs and a short torso. These minimalist compound movement routines never worked for me, which sucks because they are more convenient and simple.

Anyway, thank you for sharing your opinion.

7

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:

[quote]Loftearmen wrote:
I can’t speak for the schedule itself because I am new to combat sports; however, I can definitely tell you that there are more effective ways to train for strength. You would make good size and strength gains just doing 5x5-10, deadlift, overhead press and barbell row on day 1 and 5x5-10 squat, bench press and pull ups on day 2.[/quote]

Agreed. There’s a lot of BS in that weight room routine - ditch the leg extensions and calf raises and all that other shit. Especially if you’re young and lanky and skinny. [/quote]

I don’t do leg extensions; I do leg presses as my quad movement. If I ditch the calf raises, my calves would stop growing. Why would I want smaller calves?

By “other shit” I reckon you mean the isolation movements for side & rear delts and biceps. I don’t understand why I shouldn’t train them. I also don’t understand why being skinny and lanky is a reason that I shouldn’t train them, when it appears to be the opposite.

8

[quote]Egyptian wrote:

[quote]LondonBoxer123 wrote:
Your schedule is fine if you are recovering, only you can really know that. If it is meeting your goals, an you have the energy to do it, then there’s not a lot more to say on it.

You paid $600 so far to do boxercise and spar twice a week? I think you’ve left out some important information on your gym. Boxercise as I understand it is not something that happens in a boxing gym, it’s something some pretty boy PT does with middle aged women in a clean, peaceful studio in an overpriced gym. More information is needed on exactly what you’re doing here.

Also, you say you don’t want to compete, which to my mind is fine, there are plenty of guys who just spar who over time become very competent boxers. But, you say: ‘I don’t want to be a fighter. I want to be a man who is experienced in fighting.’ Again, that’s fine, your goals your business, but a fighter is either who you are, or it isn’t. If it isn’t, a bit of fight training will do nothing for you when push comes to shove. As you say, you enjoy boxing, and that’s reason enough to do it, but being a fighter is something that is in your heart. You don’t have to be a martial artist, or do a combat sport, plenty of soldiers who’ve never boxed are proper fighters an men to be reckoned with.

The point I’m making is that, if you have already told yourself you’re not a fighter, and don’t want to be, where is your resolve going to come from if you ever need to fight? If you aren’t a fighter, you are just as vulnerable, whether you’ve done some boxing or not. Of course, fighters get beaten by other fighters all the time, it’s the way of things, but just don’t get a false sense of security, because it could get you hurt. [/quote]

Thank you for the response. By “Boxercise” I mean heavy bag work with one guy (professional boxer) calling out the combos, showing us how to do them and correcting our technique, occasionally.

The investment included: Gloves + Head Gear + Pelvis Gear + Gym Membership + Boxing Coaching and Sparring fee + Provincial Boxing license fee. It’s a 2 story gym, the first floor is for boxing; it has 3 rings and a shitload of bags and other equipment, the second floor is a complete bodybuilding gym with a small heavy bag area.

Using your terminology and your way of phrasing, I want to be a fighter, not necessarily compete in fighting. By “fighter”, I meant one who fought professionally or even on the amateur level and his life revolved around the sport.

Thank you for the input.[/quote]

Ok, that all sounds right. Didn’t want you to be getting taken advantage of. If you want to be a better fighter, and a stronger lifter, I’d follow Loftearman’s advice on the weights. Your weight routine has too many exercises and doesn’t focus on building power through the whole body, in my opinion. I’d do exactl as loftearman suggests in your shoes.

9

Okay… Question though, are you training for hypertrophy or are you training to be a boxer? I named those exercises because they will improve your muscle mass, strength, neural drive and intra/intermuscular coordination which all of the exercises you listed will not do. Your opponent isn’t going to care how nice your calves or delts look but he will care how hard you can punch.

I understand that you may not like doing barbell movements though. If you don’t like doing barbell movements then you can do a lot of training with odd implements. I am a big fan of the sandbag, tractor tire and weighted sled. These give a lot of bang for the buck because they will build muscle and anaerobic conditioning with remarkable efficiency. For generalized strength though, there is no way to beat the squat, deadlift, bench press and overhead press.

10

[quote]Egyptian wrote:

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:

[quote]Loftearmen wrote:
I can’t speak for the schedule itself because I am new to combat sports; however, I can definitely tell you that there are more effective ways to train for strength. You would make good size and strength gains just doing 5x5-10, deadlift, overhead press and barbell row on day 1 and 5x5-10 squat, bench press and pull ups on day 2.[/quote]

Agreed. There’s a lot of BS in that weight room routine - ditch the leg extensions and calf raises and all that other shit. Especially if you’re young and lanky and skinny. [/quote]

I don’t do leg extensions; I do leg presses as my quad movement. If I ditch the calf raises, my calves would stop growing. Why would I want smaller calves?

By “other shit” I reckon you mean the isolation movements for side & rear delts and biceps. I don’t understand why I shouldn’t train them. I also don’t understand why being skinny and lanky is a reason that I shouldn’t train them, when it appears to be the opposite.
[/quote]

In a nutshell, the main problems people have with those movements are that they train muscles, not movements. This is fine if your goal is to look good on the beach but if you want to improve your performance then you need to get stronger, not get a chiseled and symmetrical physique. Training compound movements will add mass everywhere on your body because you’re using your whole body to complete the movement. This is how I have 21" biceps while hardly ever training arms and 21" calves that I train even less than I do my arms. I didn’t start out that big, I built it doing squats, bench presses and barbell rows.

You also have to think about your training economy. You only have a certain amount of time to spend lifting and a certain amount of lifting from which you can overcome. So, would it be more effective to do leg presses or barbell squats with your limited amount of time?

Let’s just do a little comparison: the squat forces you to stabilize a large amount of weight on your back, the leg press forces you to press a large weight that is being stabilized for you so the squat wins. The squat forces you to keep your entire torso tight in order to transfer power from your feet to the bar, the leg press supports your torso so that you can transfer power without involving your back, abs, shoulders, etc… so the squat wins here again. The squat causes such a systemic stress that HGH and testosterone levels are elevated for several hours after as your body makes an effort to recover from the damage done to practically all the muscles of your body, the leg press does not impose enough stress to elicit this reaction… This applies to the other full body movements as well (deadlift, bench press, overhead press, barbell row, cleans and snatches)

I could go on and on about this for about 200 pages but I’m sure you get the idea by now. If you only have an hour or two twice a week to lift then do the exercises that will give you the most bang for your buck.

11

Okay, I understand your point of view. I’m only training with weights twice per week, so I better pick the most bang for your buck type exercises and progressively overload them. My goals were stated above, by the way: self defense and character building. I don’t wan’t to compete in boxing, so hypertrophy is welcomed.

Anyway, Squats always turned to good mornings for me, so I did front squats. I kept progressively overloading them while keeping my form intact (chest up, knees out, ATG), until my knees got shot from all the stress. It took a couple of months, but now I can’t do any squatting movements without my knees crying. Deadlifts and RDLs kill my knees as well, which is such a shame because I loved RDLs.

So deadlifting and squatting are out. I can hip thrust without knee pain, so that’s what I’m doing now. Leg presses with the highest foot placement give me some quad strength and hypertrophy. Bench Pressing doesn’t yield results because I can’t progress on it no matter what rep range or program I do. My torso is wide but paper thin and my arms are the longest I’ve seen. I can progressively overload Dumbell Floor presses, though. Overhead Pressing is similar to bench pressing, plus the fact that my left humerus gets over extended because it’s not as flexible as the right, so I do lateral raises instead. I already stretch my left lat a lot. Barbell Rows work my lats, but my upper back remains dormant.

The only exercise that fires my scapular retractors is wide grip cable rows to the chest with an iso hold, so I do it instead. Pull ups are fine though, lol. I can do 5 reps with 45 lbs strapped on. I can progressively overload pulldowns much faster, so I’m maximizing it before I go back to pull ups.

I now realize that the exercises are too many for 2 workouts a week. I’ll change it to 1 workout done twice a week:

Dumbbell Floor Press 3x6-10
Pulldown 3x6-10
Leg Press 3x8-12
Hip Thrust 3x6-10
Wide Grip Row 3x10-15 Supersetted with
Lateral Raise 3x10-15

That puts it at 18 sets per workout, which is okay. Doing the six movements for 3 sets twice a week, since they’re not as stressful as barbell movements, works better for me than doing them once a week for 5 sets, which would look like this:

1 (15 sets)
Dumbbell Floor Press 5x6-10
Wide Grip Row 5x6-10
Leg Press 5x6-10

2 (15 sets)
Dumbbell Floor Press 2x12-15
Pulldown 5x6-10
Hip Thrust 5x6-10
Lateral Raise 3x10-15

After decreasing the volume as shown, do you think the entire workload in the schedule is okay or is it too much? (7 workouts on 6 days, one rest day)

Thank you.

12

You are experiencing knee pain because you replaced squats with front squats which are all quad and glute. Now you have a muscular imbalance between your knee extensors and knee flexors. This usually causes pain at the Tibial tuberosity or in the patellar tendon itself when squatting because the antagonistic muscles are not capable of stabilizing the knee joint.

This is common in lifters who try squatting with proper instruction actually. You can correct this issue by developing the knee flexors, gluteus minimus and it band to match your quads. This means that you should be sitting back really far when you squat and using a wide stance if possible. Definitely don’t wear oly shoes and don’t neglect your deadlifts. If you have a hard time sitting back when you squat then squat to a box (make sure it is low enough that you hit parallel) until you learn to sit back without one. You could do 45 degree back raises and ghr’s as assistance. There is a solution to every problem my friend.

As far as hypertrophy goes, have you ever seen a skinny guy squat 600lbs raw? Get strong and you won’t be skinny anymore.

13

I almost forgot, you absolutely can progress on bench press and overhead press. No matter how strong you are you can always be stronger! That defeatist attitude has no part in any sport. If you don’t want to squat, deadlift, bench or overhead press just know that it is because you don’t want to, not because you can’t. I know a guy with 1 arm that competes in powerlifting!

That being said, it is okay to use lift variations if need be but don’t just swap it out for a whole different lift that doesn’t have the same benefits. For squats you can box squat, for deads you can block pull, for ohp you can log press or push press and for bench you can board press (just examples). I know you are young and stubborn just like I was when I was your age and I wish someone had told me these things back then. I would be sooooo much better off now if they had. Good luck to you.

14

Thank you very much for your contribution, sir. I appreciate your “go hard or go home” attitude towards training, but I want to refer you to this article: http://www.T-Nation.com/training/exercises-for-injury-free-mass
This is where I got my exercise selection from.

15

[quote]Egyptian wrote:

[quote]Loftearmen wrote:
I can’t speak for the schedule itself because I am new to combat sports; however, I can definitely tell you that there are more effective ways to train for strength. You would make good size and strength gains just doing 5x5-10, deadlift, overhead press and barbell row on day 1 and 5x5-10 squat, bench press and pull ups on day 2.[/quote]

Thanks for chiming in.

The barbell compound lifts you suggested would actually do more harm than good in my case. I do 5 boxing workouts a week and squats and deadlifts would cause more CNS fatigue without making the quads, hams and glutes grow more than if I trained them with the leg press, leg curl and hip thrust. These exercises make my legs grow without interfering as much with the boxing workouts.

The same could be said for the bench press and barbell row. More stress without more hypertrophy, as I feel the target muscles work better with dumbbell presses and inverted rows. I also want my side delts, rear delts, biceps and calves to grow or at least retain mass as well. The compound movements you suggested would neglect them and lead to an imbalanced physique.

I look like a spider, with extremely long arms, legs and a short torso. These minimalist compound movement routines never worked for me, which sucks because they are more convenient and simple.

Anyway, thank you for sharing your opinion.[/quote]

Why bother asking for advice? LOL

You’re clearly the expert.

16

I was thinking the same thing.

17

Ye, it was nice of you to chime in with your quaint advice, Loftearman. Run along now with your big muscles and track record of success helping others achieve the OP’s goal.

18

I never asked for lifting advice. I posted this to ask if the total workload in my schedule was too much to recover from. Refer to the OP to find what I’m saying. I followed similar advice a year ago, and it lead to cranky joints and lots of wheel spinning. When i say i cant progressively overload the squat and bench, im talking from my own experience, not theory. They dont go up and they never work the prime movers they were intended to. The exception was the front squat, and it lead to limping up and down stairs months later.

All because a well-intentioned seasoned lifter convinced me that barbells were the be all end all to strength and mass. Repeating the same thing again and expecting different results would be insane. If I go buy rehbands and start box squatting right now I will hurt my knees even more and I need them for work.

Anyway, I need to get this thread back to the original topic for the inquiry I need. Pretend I’m doing the holy big 3 and training like a powerlifter twice a week, is the schedule too much to recover from, on a weekly basis? Do I need to reduce the number of boxing workouts? Do I need to weight train only once a week?
Thank you.

19

[quote]Egyptian wrote:
Okay, I understand your point of view. I’m only training with weights twice per week, so I better pick the most bang for your buck type exercises and progressively overload them. My goals were stated above, by the way: self defense and character building. I don’t wan’t to compete in boxing, so hypertrophy is welcomed.

Anyway, Squats always turned to good mornings for me, so I did front squats. I kept progressively overloading them while keeping my form intact (chest up, knees out, ATG), until my knees got shot from all the stress. It took a couple of months, but now I can’t do any squatting movements without my knees crying. Deadlifts and RDLs kill my knees as well, which is such a shame because I loved RDLs.

So deadlifting and squatting are out. I can hip thrust without knee pain, so that’s what I’m doing now. Leg presses with the highest foot placement give me some quad strength and hypertrophy. Bench Pressing doesn’t yield results because I can’t progress on it no matter what rep range or program I do. My torso is wide but paper thin and my arms are the longest I’ve seen. I can progressively overload Dumbell Floor presses, though. Overhead Pressing is similar to bench pressing, plus the fact that my left humerus gets over extended because it’s not as flexible as the right, so I do lateral raises instead. I already stretch my left lat a lot. Barbell Rows work my lats, but my upper back remains dormant.

The only exercise that fires my scapular retractors is wide grip cable rows to the chest with an iso hold, so I do it instead. Pull ups are fine though, lol. I can do 5 reps with 45 lbs strapped on. I can progressively overload pulldowns much faster, so I’m maximizing it before I go back to pull ups.

[/quote]

You could’ve just said, “I’m also a pussy,” and saved everyone a lot of time.

20

[quote]FightinIrish26 wrote:

[quote]Egyptian wrote:
Okay, I understand your point of view. I’m only training with weights twice per week, so I better pick the most bang for your buck type exercises and progressively overload them. My goals were stated above, by the way: self defense and character building. I don’t wan’t to compete in boxing, so hypertrophy is welcomed.

Anyway, Squats always turned to good mornings for me, so I did front squats. I kept progressively overloading them while keeping my form intact (chest up, knees out, ATG), until my knees got shot from all the stress. It took a couple of months, but now I can’t do any squatting movements without my knees crying. Deadlifts and RDLs kill my knees as well, which is such a shame because I loved RDLs.

So deadlifting and squatting are out. I can hip thrust without knee pain, so that’s what I’m doing now. Leg presses with the highest foot placement give me some quad strength and hypertrophy. Bench Pressing doesn’t yield results because I can’t progress on it no matter what rep range or program I do. My torso is wide but paper thin and my arms are the longest I’ve seen. I can progressively overload Dumbell Floor presses, though. Overhead Pressing is similar to bench pressing, plus the fact that my left humerus gets over extended because it’s not as flexible as the right, so I do lateral raises instead. I already stretch my left lat a lot. Barbell Rows work my lats, but my upper back remains dormant.

The only exercise that fires my scapular retractors is wide grip cable rows to the chest with an iso hold, so I do it instead. Pull ups are fine though, lol. I can do 5 reps with 45 lbs strapped on. I can progressively overload pulldowns much faster, so I’m maximizing it before I go back to pull ups.

[/quote]

You could’ve just said, “I’m also a pussy,” and saved everyone a lot of time. [/quote]
okay