First-hand account of Marciano's diet and workout regimen (1952)

I can't speak for the OP, but I agree with the concepts here ... I'm not sure how much of a difference modern training makes. When it comes to this stuff, I'm hardly a dinosaur. I'm current in the hows and whys of all the modern training principles, and apply them all from time to time. That being said, with all the science behind training nowadays, I have yet to see any boxers standing head and shoulders above their contemporaries because of it. They're still gassing in later rounds, getting arm-weary if they throw too many shots in a round, etc, etc. I guess I'd just expect that, if the conditioning is such an integral part of winning a fight, where are the results? Boxing is, and remains, it's own animal. It's not football (American and otherwise), or baseball, or T&F, or anything else ... and I think the old-school methods still carry a lot of weight. There's a thread wondering if Ali trained like today's fighters, what difference it would make. I'm not sure how much of a difference can be made. Barring the effects of aging and ring wear, did he look all that much worse than contemporary pros in the later rounds, or workrate throughout the fight?

Sorry, veering wildly off the original post ... time to go back on the meds.

spt

 

Putting on mass is of course not an end in itself. But training with weights will make you put on mass. Not the body builder type of mass if you do it right, but still.

 

Could it be that journalists in general visit the camp in the last 1-3 weeks before a fight? When the build-up starts heating up?

In that case, I think that fighters who train wisely have started to turn down the intensity of the training somewhat. That peak intensity is perhaps a month or so before a fight and then the training gradually becomes less intense to decrease the risk of injuries close to the fight. Perhaps more emphasis on the tactical and technical side of things rather than the physical.

 

Agreed. the modern fitness movement and education seems to be an exploration but not very scientific in that it forgets the key component left out of their theories....the human spirit. Sure the results are their but the focus on the physical over the spiritual and mental is where the fault is. I just feel that life on the average was more physical during the era people had more stamina that was normal for the time they didn't mentally break as easy when the going got tough. All of us know that to have stamina is a state of mind enhanced by fitness not the other way around. Funny how long one can do something they enjoy or know they have no choice and it must get done without any train up.

 

Is it not possible that he didn't show his full workout when reporters were around? Fighters are sometimes like that to make it look like their being lazy to try and trick their opponents.

 

Marciano had more doubles than Saddam Hussein.

It's generally agreed that Marciano's retirement caused a crash in jobs for 5'10", short-armed, 186 pound boxers, which is largely responsible for the absence of that phenotype in the modern ring. All of the promising American men who would otherwise have pursued careers as Marciano decoys are playing basketball and football instead.

 

I certainly think people of the time were much better at strategy and I also do not think they would lay all their cards on the table for a newspaper....this is more the era of camp spies than today

 

Why would it have to be a decoy? Its only one day.

 

They should take his statue down.
Unbelievable.

 

You've posted the reports of two reporters so far in this thread. That is no where near enough to move on from.

 

"Rocky Marciano, training for his Oct 26. heavyweight bout with Joe Louis, got in some extra roadwork yesterday- because of a snake. Marciano encountered a deadly copperhead while walking along a mountain path near his quarters at Greenwood Lake, NY. The snake was killed by Al Columbo, his trainer. Columbo later commented "The Rock did 5 extra miles of road work - before we could catch him." Tampa Bay Times 1951

The legend lives on!

 

As a side note this does seem similar to what Ive read about Joe Louis's daily training schedule.