[Sports Illustrated, 1985]: Article on Michael Spinks and Shilstone

I wasn't really getting at which were the best performers, but rather which were the best training methods. As you yourself stated, you can make an argument that those aren't one and the same. I'm not certain I'd agree fully, but there is an argument to be made.

Can't say I'm following tennis forums, but I have just never heard a tennis fan saying modern diet and training methods would be a detriment.

In football I would say that technique probably have developed more than in most other sports, since the amount of time a player has to perform technique has been drastically reduced. Players both run more in total and sprint more today, so you get much less time on the ball. Maybe Maradona did the same, or even better, dribbles than Messi does, but he had much more time to do them in.

I think mindset are as important in any high profile sport. If you play in front of a 100 000 fans (and many more on tv) that demand that you perform, you have to be tough.

 

On the narrow claim that modern training methods are superior, I agree.

As to whether modern boxers are better than the ones of the past...as you point out, the "arc of boxing" is a thornier and more complicated question.

 

There's tough, and then there's winning a fist fight with Sonny Liston while half-blind.

I have no stats to back this up, but I think that there ARE psychological intangibles that play a greater role in elite boxing than in almost any other non-combat sport.

 

I don't think that's a scientific result, since you're basing your case on an untested counterfactual. We don't have any alternative examples of Marvin Hagler to test against the actual version.

Don't get me wrong; I think it's a fair point and I take your judgment as a boxing commentor seriously. I just don't think it's a scientific observation you're making.

 

And like most myths, they had a basis in reality. Weight training has come a long way as far as application (from ‘lift as much weight as you can as many times as you can’ to ‘lighter weights/higher reps,’ for instance, or ‘pushing weights instead of curls/pulling weights’ for boxing). If you went to a weight training expert, say, 40 years ago, they wouldn’t have had the knowledge to do much more than ‘increase strength and bulk’ ... which weren’t ideal for a 5-foot-4 lightweight who might beef up to 158 pounds and lose some speed along the way so now he’s fighting middleweights and getting crushed.

If we’re going to trash Dundee for going against the nutritionist idea, please, by all means, throw Emmanuel Steward in there — his take through a lot of trial and error working with world-class fighters was that whatever marginal gains might be made by having a fighter eat a certain way in camp were offset by other factors: sudden change in diet can lead to upset stomach, general discomfort and lower energy during the period of adjustment. He literally said ‘I want my fighters to eat what they are comfortable with and used to eating — if they like McDonald’s and that’s their normal diet, let them eat McDonald’s.’

Another HUGE thing that’s overlooked in the benefits of weight training for fighters today is the shift around the same time this started becoming a more normal part of the training regimen is the arrival of day-before weigh-ins. In the same-day weigh-in era, a welterweight had to be 147 the morning of the fight ... if he used weights to walk around at 160-something and drained himself to make welter, he had a few hours to drink some soup, drink some fluids and eat a decent lunch, then maybe snack on some fruit before going to the arena. Now, a fighter weights in sometimes 30 or more hours before he fights and can add that weight/bulk, drain down to make weight and rehydrate so the ‘welterweight’ might be 165 in the ring. Try that same training philosophy with a non-heavyweight in the same-day weigh-in era and tell me all about the advantages of weight training and modern nutrition.

Also factor in the change from 12 to 15 rounds — those rounds 13-14-15 in the day of 15-round title fights often separated the men from the boys. They were called the championship rounds (actually 11-15, but who’s counting?). Would today’s regimen be ideal for that, or would some powerhouses (who often fade after 9 or 10 now already) fall flat when it most mattered?

So much of this goes in cycles. Today’s ‘scientific’ training breakthrough is LOL ridiculous 20 years from now when there’s a new ‘breakthrough’ that says do exactly the opposite.

Example — people have lauded training at altitude for quite a while now. Latest studies suggest that living at altitude but coming down from the mountain to train at sea level is more beneficial.

And let me throw this at you — Sugar Ray Robinson never did weight training, went on long runs (in combat boots no less), his prefight meal was a small steak and he’d have the chef pour the cow’s blood into a glass and drink it. He turned out OK, right? Do we really think he’d have been twice as good fighting in the same era with the same rules (same-day weigh-in, fighting several times a month year-round, etc.) if he was pumping iron and ate spaghetti and pancakes for a pre-fight meal? I personally do not think so.

 

*filed quietly in funding request drawer*

 

Yeah, could be.

 

It isn't anything special this routine and a lot of guys do similar stuff at the lowest level.

His sub 8% BF Claim is a giant load of nonsense.

Squat jumps/push ups with curls and some presses with dumbbells? That wasn't surely all he did besides the running.

Also Dundee needs to relax

 

Spinks transformation was something. He caught an aging Larry Holmes at the right time for him, but the key was he had great stamina that hight by not adding too many pounds. He won the first fight. He lost the second one on my card.

 

Those dinosaurs Clancy and Dundee spouted that crap because if they said the truth they’d have to admit that the majority of their “knowledge” base was complete nonsense. Shilstone didn’t do anything revolutionary. He simply carried over training protocols to boxing that had even at that point been proven empirically for decades in other sports. High intensity interval training over a short duration yields significantly better cardiovascular results than slow steady state training. Lifting weights increases athleticism and doesn’t decrease endurance or flexibility.

 

I'm not sure that the majority of their knowledge base was complete nonsense, even though it wasn't based on modern sports science.

What Dundee & Co. were doing was the product of at least two hundred years of trial and error. It was more art than science, but I doubt that those methods were totally ineffective, either.

 

I agree completely that elite mindset of a determined winner also translates for some not all but for some it translates into their preparation intensity. You cannot build a championship fighter or athlete in general with world class training but a champion can and does win top tier fights without top tier training regiments.

 

How about Foreman drying out in the 1970s for no reason?

Still a long time of trial and error there.

 

Wasn't perfect, and individual coaches could still have weird ideas. But most fighters weren't doing that, and I'm looking at overall state of the field, so to speak.

Boxing technique itself developed from trial and error, remember, and we trust it.

 

Look there is boxing learning the art is one thing hitting and not getting hit is an easy concept to understand.

But the conditioning stuff is always up for debate these days with what we know now.