Strength and Conditioning for Boxers

When I am not training in the gym, I love boxing as cardio, specifically group classes, which combine drills, bag work, sparring and conditioning. The conditioning is where there are many areas for improvement if fighting gyms could embrace a more traditional view of strength and conditioning, in the same way athletes such as Olympic sprinters do.

I could not quite articulate this adequately until I listened to the Starting Strength radio show, where its founder, Mark Rippetoe, released this video titled ‘non-functional training’. Essentially, what was gnawing away at me was the question of why we were throwing around light weights, doing ‘functional’ movements, in a bid to improve our strength and power, when the weights were not heavy enough to train either.

The endless punches with light dumbbells sure did build up a whole bunch of lactic acid to make it feel like I was doing something. Still, apart from that, all I kept thinking about was how this was a roundabout way of fatiguing the target muscle without doing anything effective.

Combat sport athletes must build strength, power and muscular endurance, among other physical attributes, to be effective in the ring. They don’t need that training to be ineffective and overly fatiguing in a way that their conditioning work interferes with the practice element of their training.

Practice vs Training

Practising a movement is where we learn how to execute it most efficiently and make it reflexive. Movements that are practised are highly specific to the eventual event in which the athlete will perform. For example, practising our punching on a bag, or with pads.

Training, on the other hand, is the process of working on the physical attributes of an athlete in a measurable, progressive manner with less of a mind being paid to specificity. Yes, we are being specific in the types of movement patterns and muscles trained, but we are not trying to replicate the types of movements specific to the event which are practiced.

An example here is an Olympic sprinter using deadlifts to build power and speed in the lower body. But you wouldn’t see that sprinter pick up that same barbell, and attempt to sprint with it. In fact, sprinting is one of the few sports where this difference is understood, and the associated strength training is carried out as efficiently as possible to build a faster athlete.

There are several reasons to differentiate between practice and training. Firstly, traditional barbell strength training is the most efficient way to train for functional strength. The second reason is that if we train movement patterns that we should be practising, especially under load, we change the nature of that movement pattern on the day of the event. This may make you rethink the weighted punches with small dumbbells. Thirdly, when trying to practice and train at the same time, we are diluting both efforts.

Misconceptions about Lifting and Speed

When I moved to a new boxing gym, I recall speaking with one of the most experienced fighters who told me to calm down on weight training because weights would make me stiff and slow. This is a classic example of a conclusion that seems intuitive but is completely backwards.

Speed and power depend on Type 2A and Type 2B fast-twitch muscle fibres. Both of these are built through heavy strength training (even at slow speeds) and explosive movements. This is what builds a faster, more powerful athlete. Practising punching directly will make the best use of that baseline, leading to faster, more powerful punches. Again, trying to do both at the same time by throwing around small weights at high speeds does nothing more than diminish both efforts.

Instead, we are looking for heavy compound movements, with slow eccentrics (returning the weight to the starting position) and fast concentrics (pushing/pulling).

However, when training for strength and power, we must ensure that training volume is not so high as to interfere with a boxer’s recovery and interfere with the most important aspects of his training, which will always be the drills specific to boxing.

The Solution

I would pick traditional barbell lifts that loosely relate to the movement patterns necessary for boxing. Those lifts being the overhead press and the bench press to train the upper body muscles involved in punching strength, as well as the low bar squat to train the hip drive necessary to throw string punches. I would make these movements the staples of any boxer’s S&C plan whilst including some bodyweight regressions of these movements, trained at as many reps as possible (AMRAP) for muscular endurance.

The only difference in how we train for muscular endurance, strength, or power is the rep range. The total volume would be kept to the minimum effective dose so as not to take away from boxing-specific work on the bag, pads, sparring, jump rope, etc.

Here is a sample two-day training lifting split, with additional cardio sessions, which can be performed either at the end of these workouts or separately, depending on the boxer’s training schedule. :

Workout A

• Overhead Press - 3x4-6

• Barbell Row - 3x4-6

• Push-ups - 2x AMRAP

• Air Squats - 2 x AMRAP

• Plank - 3 x AMRAP

Day B

• Squat - 3x4-6

• Bench Press - 3x4-6

• Seated Dumbbell Overhead Press - 2 x AMRAP

• Chins - 2 x AMRAP

• Plank - 3 x AMRAP

Cardio

• Endurance long run 1x per week, ranging from 5-10KM.

• Fartlek run 1x per week, ranging from 20-30mins.

Key Takeaways

• Training highly specific movements, such as punching under load, will actually change the nature of that reflexive movement pattern for the worse when it comes to performing on the day of a fight.

• Instead, train for overall strength and power with movements that loosely relate to the mechanics of throwing a punch to make you an overall stronger athlete.

• When practising punching, keep your drills as close as possible to how they will look on the day of a fight.

• Weight training (even bodybuilding style training) will make for a stronger, faster, more powerful athlete via the recruitment of Type 2 muscle fibres. It will not slow you down, so long as volume is kept to the minimum effective dose so as not to take away from fight-specific drills.

• Strength and conditioning must play a supportive role in the more important aspects of a fighter’s training. i.e., the drills specific to his performance on the day, such as pad work, bag work and sparring.