Before we get started, my usual warning. If you are intending to undertake a fitness program (any fitness program), it is vitally important that you visit a Doctor/Physician and get a full check. I have been around boxing for over 30 years and as such am in the position to undertake such activities from a higher level of effort. If I were coaching someone totally new to fitness, then we would start at a much more steady and sedate level than this! Go to a Doctor, get checked out and then think about undertaking any fitness regime once you have all the facts. This post describes what I am doing, I am not specifying what you should do! OK, that’s the formal bit over. If you have not have not checked out my first post of this series, click on this link to look at Boxing Training for Fitness to get the background.
Boxing Training for Fitness – Week 2 In The Gym!
I made it to the gym twice this week, once on Tuesday and once on Thursday. My boxing training was aimed at continuing to build my core fitness although I did introduce a couple of minor changes to the workouts that I completed last week. To help us identify any improvement in fitness, I thought that I would add in another measurement, namely my heart rate. My resting heart rate (as I type this) is about 66 beats per minute (BPM). I calculated this by taking my pulse over 10 seconds and multiplying this by 6. Read on about the training sessions that I completed and I’ll build upon this heart rate assessment in a moment. Tuesday:
- Warm-up – 10 minutes
- Shadow Boxing – 3×3 minutes (hand weights in round 2)
- 15 minute heavy bag round (slow, steady and work through the breaks)
- 10 minute jumping rope (final 30 seconds sprint)
- Ton-up (100 ground work exercises)
- Warm down (stretches etc.)
- 3K run home from gym.
Thursday:
- Warm-up – 10 minutes
- Shadow Boxing – 3×3 minutes (hand weights in round 2)
- 15 minute heavy bag round (slow, steady and work through the breaks)
- 10 minute jumping rope, incorporating short sprints and a given exercise at the end of each minute.
- Ton-up (100 ground work exercises)
- Warm down (stretches etc.)
- 3K run home from gym.
These sessions were quite tough, although I felt stronger than in week 1. On Thursday for the final minute of my 15 minute bag round, I sought to work to my absolute maximum work rate. After blasting the bags until the point of (pretty much) exhaustion, I took my pulse and it measured 192 BPM. After 1 minute rest my BPM was down to 126. As the weeks tick by, I would expect to see this 126 gradually drop as my fitness improves. To give you some context, a high-flying amateur boxer will be down from maximum heart rate to resting rate in around about a minute. A boxer’s fitness revolves around being ready for the next round after 1 minute, so the recovery rate is of vital importance.
Boxing Training for Fitness – Diet? What Diet?
In week 1 I rattled off a bunch of principles which I would try to enforce in order to eat healthily. Well, this week I had a couple of ‘celebrations’ (my lovely wife’s birthday and friend leaving work) that required my partaking in good food and one or two Corona beers. Suffice to say this had an impact. I won’t detail in diary format what I ate, but Thai food, beer and Danish pastries played a considerable role! My current weight? 11 stone 8 pounds. This means that whilst I have not lost weight (surprise surprise), more remarkable is that I’ve not put any weight on! Wonders will never cease!
Boxing Training for Fitness – Week 2 Results
As I’ve said previously, I tend to avoid taking too much notice of my weight and this approach has been of benefit this week! The introduction of measuring my heart rate will provide a much more effective measure as we’ll see as the weeks progress. On the whole, I felt good in the gym, particularly on Thursday. Hopefully my food intake will ‘normalise’ next week and we can see how this progresses. Shall we lay bets on what my recovery heart rate BPM will be come Thursday? I’ll go for somewhere between 110 and 120 (I’ll be no more specific than this!) I’d be interested in any views that you have on week 2 of my Boxing Training for Fitness regime. Click here to check out Boxing Training for Fitness Week 3. As always, I’d love to take in any comments below. Cheers Fran
by 
Hi Mr Fran,
Can you make a tutorial for rope jumping, roadwork, different core exercises for a beginner like me??
Thanks you in advance,
I like that you’ve begun to benchmark your progress. This is very important. It’s not enough to have a vague idea as to your level of fitness, hard numbers don’t lie and when they are heading in the right direction they can be a big encouragement.
I also like that you’ve chosen heart rate as a measurement. As boxers we must keep an eye on our weight, that goes without saying, but as a culture we spend an awful amount of time obsessing about numbers on a scale. This is not a healthy approach. The goal isn’t to hit a certain number, the goal is fitness. When you aim for fitness the weight part will take care of itself and when you obsess about weight it can actually get in the way of fitness.
For example, in my own case I was not eating enough food to fuel my workouts. Why? Well, I wanted to lose weight and when you want to lose weight you’re suppose to cut down your food to a few bananas and a slice of toast, maybe a piece of cheese every other day. Right? Isn’t that what the ‘diet culture’ tells us? Yes – it tells us to starve ourselves and it’s the wrong approach. Without food energy you will not have intense workouts, without proper hydration, you will feel flat and fatigued. The trick is, do not use this idea as an excuse to throw common sense out the window. Don’t sit down to the third helping of dinner with the thought “well I need this if I’m going to box”. Boxers have to educate themselves on nutrition and act accordingly.
In terms of cardio-vascular fitness, my coach introduced me to the name Istvan Javorek. He was a very high level Romanian coach, now living in the United States. He has been the conditioning coach for several Olympic record holders and medalists. Many of his routines are design to recover your RHR (resting heart rate) as quickly as possible after heavy exercise. I use a variation of his Complex#1 that has been modified for boxers. The goal is to train your heart and lungs to go from max effort, to complete rest in 30 seconds to a minute. This mimics boxing and it’s something I still need to work on. Great fighters know how to do this. Not only are they trained to exert maximum effort with a snap of the fingers, they can also switch it off and recover in seconds. I don’t mean between rounds when they are sitting on a stool, I mean between the flurry of punches. That’s why they can go round after round and still look crisp, where the average person is completely done after half of one round.
For anyone interested, here are a couple of other routines I find helpful…
Istvan Javorek’s – Abs routine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SKgQFrDSkEM
Istvan Javorek’s – Hill routine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Aiu8n1ENaq4
Karl
Very timely comment! Yesterday I had a basic sandwich and some fruit for lunch and my ability to put in maximum effort during the gym session was severely hampered. I did change my session (I’ll detail the changes in my post at the weekend), but this change of format just couldn’t explain the lack of ‘zip’ and the relative absence of effective recovery. I’m going to ensure that I go with the pasta option tomorrow and see how it goes.
Couple of very interesting videos you have posted. I have started on my abs routines and there are obviously similarities with the video. I have though gained some useful ideas that I would hope to incorporate over the coming weeks.
Excellent comments Karl – Thanks!