Why Lifting Weights Won't Increase Punching Power

Yes, deadlifts and squats are great for increasing muscle mass. If you want to just gain strength and increase muscle size resting and eating properly are just as important than lifting weights.

When I played the USA version of football the workouts we used increased our strength and body mass very well. If I remember correctly my workout was this:

5 sets 5 reps Power Cleans
5 sets 5 reps High Pulls

rest a day

5 sets 5 reps Squats
5 sets 5 reps Bent-leg Deadlifts

rest a day

5 sets 5 reps Bench Press
5 sets 5 reps Bent Over Lat Rows

rest two days and repeat

It worked well for football lineman but I wouldn't recommend it for boxers, wrestlers or MMA fighters.

 

Any elite boxer worth his salt lifts weights.

Ignorant people associate "lifting weights" with a bodybuilding routine.

Are push ups and pull ups not a form of resistance training?

Any boxer needs a combination of muscular endurance, explosive strength, and pure strength. All 3 of these CAN be improved through the use of "weights"

 

Greit, i appreciate Your help guys. Low row machine is it a good exercise? lat machine, low row machine. The rest you recommend is 120 sec and 10 exercises? push ups, machines, millitary press, and squats, deadlift, or some more exercises like? and the next day heavy bag and just boxing, sparring etc.

 

the lat rowing etc. will strengthen your ability to pull.

Push presses, clean and jerks, split jerks, thrusters, squats and deadlifts are probably good all around lifts for athletes. Most of them would probably add some explosiveness or strength to punching.

From listening to athletic strength and conditioning coaches exercises that are similar to sport specific movements are good to use in training. I don't think this is precisely true for boxing because shadow boxing with dumbbells etc. could put too much strain on the tendons and joints and interfere with the boxer's timing but developing endurance, strength and explosiveness in the legs, gluteas maximus, lower back and abdomen would go a long way in boxing. Adding some dumbbell or barbell lunges would be similar to some boxing specific movements.

 

It's scary to think that a prime Mike Tyson might have punched harder than he did had he regularly lifted weights. Or even a George Foreman. Both guys lifted weights later on in their careers, but they didn't weight train during their prime years.

 

I think there is some truth to this. Power being strength and speed.

Obviously lifting weights will increase your strength, so therefore you will also increase your power. But it isn't that simple, there is a balance between strength - mass - speed and then power.

Some boxers punch exceptionally fast, so they have power through speed rather than strength and vice versa etc.

As far as i am aware, the best way to actually increase your fast-twitch muscle fibers and hence your speed, is by sitting around doing nothing. So technically, you could argue that you can increase speed and hence power by not lifting weights and just sitting on your arse all day.

 

Increasing power by conditioning can be a strategic mistake IMO. The way I understand it; muscles conditioned for speed and explosiveness do not have the same kind of endurance muscles conditioned for long periods of work and boxing is a sport where endurance is extremely important. You could possible build your explosiveness with plyometric training but what do you get when you can throw 12 explosive punches per round whereas your opponent can throw 50 solid punches a round:bbb:!:

 

Without explosiveness those 50 punches aren't going to be solid, more like slaps and pushes. TBH, though, those slaps and pushes are enough to win a boxing match with how boxing is these days.

 

I disagree with you on that. Maybe compare Holyfield vs Tua would give you a better idea of what I'm talking about. Everybody is going to have a degree of sudden acceleration ability.

If a boxer is turning his heels and driving his legs, haunches and core into the punches he throws they definitely will not be slaps.

 

Nobody's, mentioned the connection between the Thumb and Hip in regards to proprioception. Has a lot to do with it also training the response of Feel and Touch in regards to Time and motion.

 

Yes, and a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. :good

 

Neural pathways are more interesting than Birds, connection of the Thumb and Hips, go back millions of years, for a reason.

 

the proprioception training isn't from weights, it's from line jumping, heavy bags, double-end bags, hand pads, impact shields, body protectors, sparring, peg boards etc. and even physio-balls and biofeedback, things the old timers did not have.

 

Been using this sort of stuff for 50 years. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7uLc4C7zN0

 

to add a little bit to my previous thoughts about this, somebody who does not train for a one repetition maximum weight but trains for for strength and endurance with medium repition range will actually have more explosiveness over a long duration than the one-repition maximum weight trained athlete. He will have inferior explosiveness in the early rounds but in the later rounds, he will have more capacity for sudden acceleration middle through late rounds. Kind of see this trend with KO artists, if they don't get the opponent KOed early to middle rounds, the KO is not going to happen unless they are the KO victims themselves.