What did Don Turner say about padwork again?

I'm pretty sure that when he talked about it, he mentioned that he had tried it before...

 

Maybe Turner meant that HE specifically never used the pads to train, iirc Holyfield had multiple trainers

 

This. I've seen everything from some trainers not using bags over 150 lbs, to some trainers not using pads, to some trainers not even believing in roadwork.

 

My understanding is that mitt work was very prevalent in Mexico before it became widespread in the US. I have a friend that says he first saw it in the UK as an amateur, being used by the Romanian, I think, team.

Mitt work has become the most overrated aspect of training, in my estimation, and a very fertile environment for engraining bad habits. It is hard to be an attentive teacher when your primary concern is how many people tell you how good you are on the mitts.

Personally, my use of them has changed dramatically. From 92-2005 I used them to simulate actual boxing as much as possible. After some medical issues and getting older in general, I can't move as well, so I use the mitts for teaching very specific moves and do more floor work. Much better trainer once I got my own ego out of it.

 

Sorry, is this a guessing game? Or do I have to watch two videos to discover what Don Turner said about padwork?

 

Well rather than assuming that every single person has read every single post on the board, perhaps you could amend the OP to tell us what the topic of the thread is.

As for this post, you’ve got a short clip where Don says he never used the mitts/punch pads.

And you’ve got a short video where Evander Holyfield is working the pads with someone other than Don holding them. With Don looking on (which is’t the same has him using them, but whatever).

I didn’t watch the 15-minute video but I’ll stipulate that it probably shows Holyfield hitting pads.

But the clip where Don says he never used the pads has no context. He references Sugar Ray Robinson, a contemporary — SRR was still boxing for the first six years of Don’s own (undistinguished) pro career. We don’t know what Don is talking about because we don’t have the whole conversation, much less what he is responding to.

Could it be that he means that he, like SRR, as a FIGHTER never used punch pads? How do we know?

Regardless, even if he’s saying he didn’t use them as a trainer I wouldn’t say it makes him a liar — I’m guessing you must be young and don’t have parents or grandparents or other elders with whom you interact. My pop is around 80 and sometimes he’s sharp as a tack and others he misremembers (maybe saying something happened when we went on a trip to this beach one summer but we all know it happened at a different time). If Don has incorrect memories, what exactly is the big deal? You think he’s trying to deceive us for some reason? Wait til you get old.

 

Or maybe he indulged fighters but didn’t believe in using pads. I don’t know if he personally held them or not. I know a lot of jackwagons who internet geeks think are great think so because they have fighters doing 52-punch combinations that travel about 4 inches each because the pad holder is actually hitting the gloves rather than the other way around ... as if the opponent is going to thrust his face forward to catch each one at the proper angle, haha. And you notice the guys doing the 52-punch combos never actually throw more than three or four punches in combination in an actual fight ... wonder why that is?

When I trained amateurs and pros in the 1990s, I never put any stock in using the speed bag. It builds arm strength and stamina, but there are other ways to do this, and it certainly doesn’t reinforce punch technique or footwork. But a few guys always wanted to hit the speed bag and I never told them not to, it just wasn’t part of their workout that I laid out each day. Yet when they did, I’d walk over to them and tell them if they were going to do it to do it right and move around the bag instead of planting their feet and pick up their workrate, etc. Yet if you asked me, I feel like I’d be being honest if I said we never used the speed bag ... because I didn’t consider it part of our training or workout.

As I’ve gotten older (mid-50s), I’ve earned that it wasn’t really about boxing — like anything else, it was about relationships. When I go to a fight around here nowadays, it’s like a reunion because one of the guys I trained is now a ref, others are connected in some way or just at the shows. It’s great to retell old stories and catch up.

I trained a female pro, I think she could have been a world champ at flyweight. Every male she ever sparred with, including me, she busted their nose at some point. Natural right hand. She went into the Marines instead as an officer and served in the second Gulf War. She married, had two kids, divorced — one of her children came down with brain cancer and then had to have an eye removed when a new tumor appeared. She’s a fighter, and soldiers on — we talk by phone still fairly often ... and last summer she was training a (male) pro boxer and he fought near here and she talked me out of retirement to work the corner with her. I’ll always cherish that.

First amateur I ever trained — he asked me to do it, which got me into it — is currently undergoing cancer treatment. A couple of rounds of chemo left to go. We stay in touch by Facebook. I just tell him to keep fighting like he always did, pump that jab and don’t let up.

About 6 months ago, I got an email from the father of a kid named Teddy who had one amateur fight with me when he was about 11 or 12. Loved that kid. He was deaf. And he fought like a freaking demon. His dad suspended him from boxing because his grades fell, thought it would make him take his schoolwork more serious because he wanted to fight. Instead, Teddy rebelled and said, in so many words, F it. Never saw him again. Anyway, Teddy’s dad emailed to tell me he had died from complications of alcoholism. Had lived a tough life, but that Teddy always talked about being a boxer as a kid and how much he loved it. His dad wanted me to know how much of an impact I had had on him as a kid, how that one fight might have been the proudest moment of his life. I cried like a baby and emailed back to thank him and offer my sympathy.

As for my father, he has had his own health complications. Just last weekend I was over and he was really in a bad way. Me and my brother talked and we figured Pop might be going back in the hospital this week. And on Wednesday I get a text from the old man who had driven by my house and mowed by front lawn (in 90-degree weather) ‘cause he thought it needed it. He’s as stubborn as the day is long. But he’s one tough customer — if I ever get to be half as tough or do half as well as he’s done, I’ll be more than pleased.

So cherish boxing and what it brings to you. Cherish the people you care about. And never take any of it for granted.

 

I've heard the same about mitt work in Mexico and I agree about how some of the mitt work becomes ego driven. I don't know when the mitts became popular but an older trainer told me that before he ever saw any mitts for sale, they would take boxing gloves and put them on backward (padding over the palm) and use them for mitts.

I agree that mitt work is a place where bad habits are ingrained. Mitt work is only as good as the person holding the mitts, if that person knows what he/she is teaching and has a good eye for catching mistakes, mitt work can help. If the person holding the mitts just holds them wide apart and doesn't know what they are doing, mitt work can be worse than doing nothing. Good shadow boxing and heavy bag work are better IMO, but mitt work with the right trainer can be helpful.

 

We don't know how much if evander actual training time it took up. Could just be a warm up before sparring.

Either way Sparring is by far the most important tool. You could get someone 90% as good as he's ever gonna get just by sparring.

Of course running swimming and lifting weights all improve fitness without head trauma

While bagwork mittwork shadowboxing etc improve coordination and muscle memory also without head trauma

But you could theoretically get ready for a fight purely by sparring