Strength in Boxe

Bigger Stronger Leaner Christian Thibaudeau Coaching
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Hi,a program(exercises and Progression)for intermediate(14/18 age old) per strength maximal in boxers?What are the basic principles?Thanx.

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I honestly cannot give you an answer that will satisfy you.

I’ll tell you what I think, but I’m pretty sure that it won’t be enough for what you are looking for.

  1. You are essentially asking me to design a program for you. You didn’t just ask about some recommendations; you asked me about exercises and, more importantly, progression. That is a program and I just cannot write programs for free as it’s one of the services that allows me to put food on the table.

  2. Before being specific to the sport, a STRENGTH training program (power and conditioning are a different story) is person-specific; meaning that the strength (and even hypertrophy) portion of a program should first aim at improving capacities that are needed but lacking in the individual. Some need more strength work than others. Some need more work for some muscles/patterns than others. Some will need to invest a lot less time and volume in their strength work and spend it on power work or conditioning instead.

  3. For the most part, I do not see the STRENGTH portion of the program as something that really needs to be adjusted to the sport (with some exceptions, like sports only using certain parts of the body). The role of STRENGTH work for most athletes (some sports do need strength as a main capacity) is to improve the neuromuscular elements involved in recruiting and firing the fast-twitch fibers. In people with poor neuromuscular function (e.g. weaker. individuals) strength work will directly improve speed of movement/power by improving the general capacity to recruit and fire the fast-twitch fibers. In individuals with sufficient neuromuscular function, STRENGTH work by itself will not improve speed of movement and power as both types of contractions (slow and high tension/high force vs. explosive) use a different recruitment pattern; so by improving one you do not automatically improve the other.

  4. A subsection of the STRENGTH training portion can be used as armor-building: in that building muscle (hypertrophy work) can protect against injuries and blows. In boxing building the traps, neck and abdominals (for example) will allow you to reduce the damage caused by body and head hits.

  5. The amount of STRENGTH work performed also depends on the volume of work spent on other things like conditioning, sparing, bag work, etc. A boxer who trains for 6-8h+ a week on things other than strength work might only be able to do 1 or 2 strength sessions per week (and at a fairly low volume) whereas one who does maybe 2-4h of “other training” might be able to get in 3 or even 4 strength sessions.

  6. The body has a limited capacity to recover: you cannot just pile on all types of work to make a huge workload that the athlete cannot properly recover from.

  7. So it becomes a matter of what is more important to develop for a specific person: do they need to work on technique, strength, power or conditioning the most?

To illustrate that, you’ve had fighters who were all over the place with their training: some did a lot of lifting work (Evander Holyfield for example), some only did calisthenics (bodyweight exercises), I think Mike Tyson rarely lifted but did tons of calisthenics, as their “strength” work, others (Rocky Marciano for example) used more unconventional methods of strength work like lifting and carrying big rocks, throwing rocks and bricks, sprinting uphill forward and backward with a loaded backpack, shadow boxing in water, etc, Some didn’t do any direct strength work.

So really it is about one thing:

“What does the athlete needs the most?”

And then find the best types of training and methods to develop what is needed.

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Thanx