I swear back in the day at coach jaromes place it was ALL about conditioning, not technique. Big j had faith in one of my stablemates named Mikael. Mikael was a 6 foot middleweight with crazy power, long and lean. Jarome brought him to the provincial championships but at what cost? M used to play hockey at elite level untill he met jarome and took boxing seriously. But after provincials mikk didn't come back. He was complaining about neck pain and needed the coach to help stretch his neck/spine. He was in a lot of pain. It wasn't soon till he quit and took hockey up again. This is just a confirmation that you don't play dis shytte, boxing is real. The pain is real. No need for yesmen instead of trainers. Ones dedication can cause just as much punishment in winning than losing. No need to not protect yourself at all times. My status in the gym was "biggie boy" I was 235 lbs 5'9" . I had decent conditioning but never got any momentum other than boxercise. I've only sparred like 5 or 6 times, but these are my observations as a novice in the gym albeit.
I have encountered lots of bad coaches in boxing. Most were well meaning though. The training was usually a one-size-fits all type. Just endless punching on the bag with some pushups and situps, never a variation and no emphasis on footwork or defensive drills. The only instruction about form was go harder, train harder, keep going. Sometimes the coaches would have gym favorites, they only taught those students the specifics of boxing and ignored everyone else. Others allowed only heavy sparring and when we sparred, every round was a brutal war. I remember one coach would tell all the fighters to spar then walks away and gives not a single point of advice. Once we did inside sparring for 30 mins straight changing partners every 2 minutes. My friend said his nose bled in the shower for 2 weeks after that. Some coaches are affiliated with some criminal elements and those environments were rough. The gym owner was a bikie gang president and would arrive with body guards and new cars everyday, the gym was full of guys straight out of prison and no-one ever talked. When I signed up at the gym I was told "if you get hurt sparring we will leave you out on the street". That gym's coach would just swear at us while training and every session was the same. I had to hit the heavy bag for 3 months until one day that coach said come in for pads. I had another gym where we were a hard core group of about 10 fighters who trained the house down. That coach was unhappy that he was not mainstream popular and wanted to make the gym more white-collar and started allowing girls to train with us, eventually the training became so soft most guys left. The gym did become popular though with regular people joining but the sessions were only about 50% intensity than what we had before. We would train in a shed, 40 degrees. One time he made us doe 10 laps of a football pitch as a warm up, you had to sprint the short ends and jog the long ones. Hard training but not the smartest for long term health. In boxing sometimes you have to learn what doesn't work to find out what does. My best trainers was an old Olympic coach and his sessions were not killer ones like the "tough guy" gyms. In fact the sparring was hard but it was short. They drilled us non-stop with technique, lots of partner work every session was different and working from the clinch to foot work and how to skip or how to run, they covered every aspect of training.
Yeah some absolute shithouse, one dimensional trainers. And many are of the same mould. Just one trick ponies, one dimensional. You go to so many gyms and all their fighters are the same. If this were the case, we'd all be the same. We're not. We have different styles. And there are many ways to win in boxing. Also not enough '' mental '' conditioning '' Both in terms of breaking mentally and physically. Learn to not break in both ways but also the mental prep. Like a sports psychologist. Breathing exercises, another very important aspect of the fight game. How many game plans do you have? Like Floyd said, he had about 5 per fight. In reality he probably had more. Most my coaches were shithouse. Until a few years ago.
Also so many of the combos that were taught, were complete bs. In reality Tank vs Teofimo is the way you should spar/fight. That's realistic. Tim Tszyu's sparring as well. At Tiger Muay Thai and in his gym. Devin Haney and Floyd too. Realistic and the modern day game.
My uncle brought me down to that gym, he told me he wasn't surprised if there was drugs floating around in there. The first night I trained there the trainer made me skip rope all session. My uncle said he shouldn't have done that. Also got a headache one day, my uncle told me if that happens again better call it in and stop going there. Well what happened is the alumni from that gym opened up another gym, and indeed it was a dirty afair, drugs floating around and several thugs/ one guy made the newspaper for domestic abuse. It was corrupt. Basically the young adults from gym one without the older figures, it was cool at first until it finally showed it's true colors. I told my cousin, while not knowing all that stuff that I wanted to train there again as a visitor, until he gave me the lo down or skinny whatever you want to call it. Lol, was at the city gym tonight, seen a kid with jaromes gym on his hoodie. I had to ask him where he got that? Nostalgia creeping in for me, he said idk, I asked him if jarome was still there and he said idk, I said where's the gym now? Still idk. But lol, it's good too see some of his merch floating around town f real.
I know a trainer who would sell the amateur fighters dreams and let anyone fight. Always on social media speaking like a guru and he made them all feel good but they all had to box the same way. The kids ate this up and were so loyal. But all his fighters would lose. Yet the kids still stayed. It was a tough area that he coached in and so much talent there his gym was packed every night. One time he took 13 fighters to a show 11 lost. The kids loved the team tracksuits and being able to do Mayweather pads and get an instagram story. This trainer even fought in the Olympics and is currently a coach of a top 10 WBC ranked light heavy. So he knows what proper training is but mailed it in just for money and clout. I did notice that many gyms with "bad" trainers still had awesome fighters. Natural athletes with speed who could just make things happen. It didnt matter the training they would have succedded. Those kids showed up every day. Some even liked the same type of training with zero direction. Literally spar every day hard , zero weights, zero stretching. One gym never let anyone shadow box or skip. Still many state champs from there. They had a ceiling and couldn't make nationals but still very tough. That coach had no variety but his sessions were long and grueliing. There is a belief in boxing gyms that to prepare for the unknown of a fight you have to go at a break neck pace every single session, drill or round and anything less than 100% you are lazy. Overtraining was the only way. Most people couldn't handle it and lasted barely 6 months. Twice a week the session was 1 hour sparring, I mean every 3 mins you changed partner. No head gear just smashing each other.
I’ve trained at 3 gyms so far and every single one of them is filled with very broad and one size fits all type of training. I can’t blame em though since there’s a lot of people in the gym at once and you can’t really go in depth with so many damn people.
