I always been in awe at how elite Top Contender/World Champion Boxers are in terms of Athleticism/Stamina/Recovery ability etc compared to the average person. So i just want to know can a 12 round championship fighter substitute all types of roadwork (long slow jog, fast 3/4 mile run, 400/800m intervals, repeated hill sprints, etc) and swimming completely and instead do those 3 minute interval conditioning drills for 6/8/10/12 rounds etc ? (6 different exercises for 30 seconds each or 3 different exercises for 1 minute each while maintaining a high heart rate) And instead of doing these 3 minute interval conditioning drills 2/3 times a week which I'm guessing most fighters do anyway, do it 6 times a week. Will this burn the fighters out too much even if you pick lesser difficulty exercises + lowering the target heart rate + lowering the rounds every second day ? Or am I just completely wrong and most elite Fighters do these Conditioning Drills on top of their Roadwork and Boxing Training every day. Thanks for your input.
Certainly not an "expert" but I'll give it a go. I guess they could substitute for some of what you are asking. The key is what are the adaptations that you want a fighter to make if you are his trainer or conditioning specialist/coach? Sometimes the type of exercise is not as important as where you want the heart rate or the adaptation made on the cardiovascular system/muscles. For example, steady state work such as anything for 30 + minutes with the HR between 130-150bpm will cause an increase in the left ventricle of the heart, thus improving resting heart rate, aerobic capacity, how effectively the heart can deliver oxygen, etc. This training gets a bad rep on this forum but has an important purpose. In addition it can be used as active recovery, which, if a fighter is training hard in camp, heavy interval sprints and other more intense methods may be too much. It would be a great tool to use if a fighter comes into camp with a resting heart rate in the 60s or above, which I think, typically, is way too high for a pro boxer. Another good tool if one is dead set against steady state work is tempo intervals. In contrast heavy cardiac intervals with the heart rate near maximal causes a different adaptation, which is improving oxygen supply at higher intensities and the power endurance of the heart itself. Threshold training can be used to help with maximum oxygen usage at anaerobic threshold which is where I think, a pressure fighter, might stay around I suspect for the duration of the round. If a trainer/conditioning coach wants their fighter to be explosive from bell to bell, he may use training methods to improve fast twitch fibers ability to recover from explosive bursts(weighted jump squats, bounding). I think that the best way to train any combat fighter would be alternating low intensity one day and high intensity the next. I think most that are in the know would agree that increasing the volume of the training is preferable before increasing the intensity too quickly. The closer to fight time the more intense the sparring should be with the exception of the last week of camp. Strength training would be okay but only with the purposes of maintenance over the training camp and should be a secondary goal to aerobic conditioning and of course skill work first and foremost. While this is getting long winded, you can choose any apparatus/exercise/etc. you wish as long as it gets the desired effect or adaptation. I would say yes, by manipulating the heart rate, intensity, etc. you could increase the number of times a week that "conditioning" can be done. Alot of what is chosen may rely on how in or out of shape a fighter is when they come to camp, how well the fighter is recovering between workouts, and the fight style of a boxer. I would think that conditioning drills on top of traditional roadwork and intense bag/sparring work daily would be too much. My thought is that the skill work in the gym would be like we used to do, 3 minutes bag/mitt/sparring work, followed by 30-60secs rest. I wouldn't want somebody to mimic this very time frame with exercises on top of the gym work. I would use the methods I explained up top. The only real way to know what is too much is to get a baseline of resting heart rate and heart rate recovery. If RHR is high or HR recovery begins to be slower than usual, the trainer should adjust accordingly. While I have never been even close to an elite level boxer, my fight conditioning has been very, very good by doing these very things that I have spoken of in block formats as well as my two friends who are low level pro mma fighters that I have helped with this.
Thank you, very informative but i do understand most of it. A couple of parts i will do more research on it in my own time. What are your thoughts on old school training? I don't mean those crazy ones wearing heavy boots/carrying a heavy weight while running or anything like that but more like long slow jogs for 45-60min + some sprints at the end sometimes for Roadwork, a few sets but high reps of bodyweight exercises for Strength Work (pull ups, push ups, sit ups), Boxing Training would be probably be the same except for more emphasis on higher sparring rounds, doing the same thing everyday with no real periodization except for maybe resting at the last week of camp and just taking days off whenever you feel burned out. Do you think they are World Champions these days that are still using this type of training? My personal opinion is that a lot of lighter weight fighters maybe even Champions from and trains out of Asia/South America/Africa maybe even Mexico still do because of past beliefs in their coaches and less advanced information and equipment available.
Bastian, I think absolutely there are fighters who train this way today with success. The long slow roadwork gets a bad rep due to some research that was taken out of context and done on extreme endurance athletes. I don't remember it completely but my recollection was the generalization was made that long slow distance work would make you slow and non explosive, all Type I fibers, athletes had a vertical of only 10 inches, and so forth. Now of course, if this is all that you do, you will undoubtedly be slower and less explosive. However, if one is working in the gym as they should on the bags, mitts, with power, speed, and so forth, then this steady state training should work as a complement to the gym work without being too intense. Of course, there is nothing wrong with adding sprints at some point in the roadwork, or intervals, fartlek, whatever permitted the athlete is recovering well. I'm only 37, but I under no circumstances believe that fighters today are any better conditioned than fighters of "yesteryear" even though there is no way to tell. One thing is for sure, they all had to go 3 more rounds as championship fights back then were 15 rounds. Watch the pace of Joe Frazier vs Jerry Quarry to see conditioned heavyweights back then. Of course, these guys were know to have had work ethics second to none which is the intangible factor. I say this because this type of old school training worked back then and yes, I still think it is very effective today IF the boxer is training with intensity in the gym. I think that there is something to be said for traditional roadwork and there is research to back it as useful. That being said, it is not the only tool and as I've said before, an argument can be made for other means to the end also.
I agree 100%. I have experimented with both types of Roadwork personally and i found the 45min jogs to be just more effective for recovery and consistency if you have Boxing Training later that day and then back at it the next day. After about 4-5 days of the 45min jog my legs would then be worn out and I would just take a day or two off and repeat and that is pretty much a week which is perfect for a routine. But whenever I do a 400m track intervals or any type of sprints, I literally need 2-3 days of no training of anything just to recover. If i did drag myself to the gym it would be the worse session ever as i had no energy. I just found it way too intense on my body and like you mentioned Boxing training/skill work should always come first and i felt like the 45min Roadwork really supplemented it nicely. I don't know if this happens for everyone but once you do get fitter i feel like yeah the first 20-25min of the jog is just you lazing around, going through the motions but for me it seems like the second half of the run my legs just gains this new energy and i feel like the wind and absolutely power home, it's just a great feeling. So it's not just 45min of slow paced jog, half of it feels like a fast run, for me anyway. And you mentioned it perfectly how your legs should actually be going through explosive movements when your doing Boxing Training anyway. And not just by hitting mitts and bags, you can do explosive footwork when your shadowboxing, jump rope (double, triple unders) and what was mentioned in the OP about the conditioning drills (burpees, squat jumps).
