George Chuvalo Training/Nutrition Program

I wonder whether some details of these programs are deliberately kept quiet during the fighter's competitive career, either to avoid tipping off the opponent about how you're training, or because your coach has some secret sauce training methods he keeps as a proprietary secret. If so, it may be lost to time and poor memory of what happened 50+ years ago, since I doubt they'd write it down.

We have open workouts for the press, but that's not the whole program.

 

I know George was into weightlifter all the way into his 70's. He was still pushing some very heavy weights. He also stated his trainer was one of the very first guys to utilize mits on a regular basis.

 

It would be interesting to read about if anything ever came up. He was a very tough man by all accounts. Very strong and durable. Could punch fairly hard too. If it’s true that he chopped wood and lifted weights then that would explain some of these things

 

Wood chopping was a fairly popular ancillary training method for boxers for a fairly long period of time — especially more rural fighters (not a lot of wood to chop in big cities). Builds up the shoulders and core.

Among the favored methods (of a similar nature) for the storied Cuban Olympic boxing program was having fighters swing sledgehammers/mallets at tires (laid on the ground), basically the same thing (but be careful it doesn’t bounce back and hit you in the mouth).

 

Here is a piece covering Chuvalo's training and diet going into the Patterson fight.

Chuvalo at his training camp at the Huntington Golf club, about 20 miles from downtown Toronto At 7 a.m. Chuvalo and his four sparring partners left their beds, had a cup of tea and then jogged for five miles over the snow-covered fairways. When he had completed his roadwork Chuvalo chopped wood for 90 minutes. Old-time fighters usually did this to strengthen their arms and Chuvalo is one of the few who still does.

Then the fighter sat down for a hearty breakfast of oatmeal porridge, five lamb chops, a half-dozen thick potato patties, 40-ounce can of fruit juice, toast and tea. Later he went back to the house located on the golf course itself, for a nap.

At 2 p.m. Chuvalo was in the ring set up in the main dining room of the clubhouse. Here underneath two highly-polished chandeliers, and with a mural for a backdrop, he boxed eight rounds with four different sparring partners. When he finished Chuvalo's T-shirt was stained with the blood of his sparring partners. Chuvalo had his brow mopped, took a couple of swigs from a water bottle and went back into the ring for another 15 minutes of work with his trainer Ted McWhorter of Detroit.

McWhorter had a boxing glove on one hand which he would hold up as a target and Chuvalo would try to hit it as he moved it around. It is a drill designed to increase the speed of his punches. Chuvalo's workouts, except on the weekends, are supposed to be private but the usual coterie of ex-fighters and followers watched.

One of these was Sammy Luftspring, a better than average welterweight himself in the 1930's until he suffered eye injuries that forced him to quit at 23. Luftspring is now a referee and in that role he disqualified Chuvalo three years ago for butting in a fight in Toronto with Joe Erskine of Wales. This day he was impressed with Chuvalo's tremendous condition and his punches.

"I've never seen him in this kind of condition," Luftspring said. "He's throwing short punches now like Rocky Marciano did. He's not tossing wild ones from the floor anymore."

A few days before, Marciano, who was in Toronto for a television show had visited Chuvalo's camp and predicted the Canadian would knockout Patterson in four rounds. Of course Marciano is not unprejudiced since he has been retained as an adviser by Chuvalo's managers.

Following his workout in the ring, Chuvalo did some setting-up exercises, and finished up with some work on the heavy-bag. Dinner, this second of his two daily meals, consisted of the traditional fighter's diet of steak (16 ounces, rare) baked potatoes (three) and tea.

While his sparring partners sat around watching television, Chuvalo went into his bedroom to read. At home his tastes run to newspapers, magazines and the occasional detective story. But at training camp he was trying more meaty fare such as Freud and Confucius. He finds difficult reading helps pass the time more quickly and at training camp boredom has become Chuvalo's biggest problem.

https://imgur.com/V8Zmu56
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Dude was big and yoked long before it became the norm. And those weren't just gym muscles.

 

He trained his neck by standing on his head and talking on the phone… I don’t know if that’s the extent of his “neck workouts” but that’s what he said he did, he also lifted weights and trained like every other boxer… hit da bag a lot, run lots, spar lots lol if you wanna LOOK like Chuvalo lift weights a couple times a week and don’t forget neck day he isn’t overly impressive to look at, pretty achievable goal.

 

As a guy who did live on a farm, was a labourer and basically was forced into peon jobs early in my life there is no such thing as “functional” strength etc I got strong going into a gym lifting heavy things not brick laying / chopping wood all that fetishised work.