Old-time Training Methods: Bob Fitzsimmons

Posted this on another forum; probably none of it is news to you guys but what they heck:

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"Ruby" Robert Fitzsimmons was a British émigré to New Zealand who worked for many years as a blacksmith before turning to pugilism. He notched a few bouts under the old London Prize Ring rules in the early days of his career, and did in fact learn much of his body-punching style from old bareknuckle greats like Jem Mace[/URL].
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Fitzsimmons was world middleweight champion by 1891; by 1896, world heavyweight champion. When he won the newly created light-heavyweight belt in 1903 he became boxing's first three division title-holder. Although he never weighed more than about 167 lbs (!) throughout his career, Ring Magazine to this day considers him the sport's 8th most powerful puncher of all time.

The training regime described below is from the 1913 book Boxing and How to Train[/url], published by Fox's Police Gazette.

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Fitzsimmons's home-made linament recipe is particularly interesting, I think, being described by amateur boxing historian Kirk Lawson as a kind of occidental Dit Da Jow[/url].

The emphasis on nutrition and rubdowns and the like is not at all uncommon, as we will see from looking at some other fighters later.

In case anyone is wondering, this is probably a reference either to the common practice at the time of getting fighters to beat tyres with weighted bats for strength and conditioning (currently back in fashion, although using sledgehammers), or more likely to exercises with Indian clubs[/url].

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Bump.

This is great

 

Swinging a sledge to hit tires is my favorite way to train for strength, if you do it right you can train a lot of muscle groups as well. Good stuff

 

Great post, its a very interesting read, kinda shows what things were like back then, in nutrition that is

 

wow...this is great stuff ! thanks for sharing :good:

 

Gay as a basket of birds... enemas, rubdowns, beef juices, linaments, reading the paper to your charge...

ugh.

Nice diet, by the way. Pretty much a total avoidance of fruit, vegetables and fiber containing nourishment...

 

What did he have for his tea? Had a piece of fruit with his supper.

Great thread though, thanks :good

 

classic gem of an article,

 

He talks about applying pure alcohol to the face to "toughen" the skin which doesn't make sense to me as alcohol dries out your skin. Now fighters use vasoline, cocobutter, etc to moisturize the skin which increases it's elasticity making skin less likely to rip, cut. His methods seem to be counter productive for the stated purpose, no?

 

I can't stop laughing--enema, then more enemas - - -Oh God!

 

I'm not sure if the old school fighters used vasoline, or enswell. In fact I never saw it on a film pre 1930. You can dry out and harden you skin though, and this can help prevent cuts. Back in Fitz's day, the gloves were made of horse hair and rather light. The gloves would get scuffed or tear at times, which made cuts even more prevalent.

 

I've been using some of his methods for years, because
I obviously love to bare knuckle box.
Thanks for this post though learned some new things I'm going to try.

 

He's referring to the indian clubs which are like weighted bowling pins.

 

An emetic is not an enema. It is a medicine that makes you vomit. Similar intent, but different mechanism.