Calzaghe's Old School Training

lol, I gave up after the first few, I could see the direction it was going in!

Seems everyone wants the perfect solution to training but without thinking everyone's body is different!

 

yeah cocaine addiction has been around for a long time, def old skool.

 

I know this is an old thread, but I thought I would respond. I’ve been boxing for 25 years. In my competition days, I did not lift, at all.

My son is 17 now, and he started training with me a few years ago. Last summer, we joined a weight lifting gym because I wanted him to get physically stronger. He’s 6’3” and was a soft 250 pounds. He’s 200 now. We pulled the weight off sparring before we started lifting.

We used the conjugate method advocated by Louis Simmons and Westside Barbell.

We lifted 4 days a week. We did pad work after lifting. We hit the heavy bag only once a week to save our joints. We didn’t do any other cardio because we didn’t want to slow down our strength gains.

We did 2 upper body days, 1 max effort and 1 speed. The lower was the same.

In 6 months, I added almost 200 pounds to each my deadlift and squat. I also set an all time record in Bench press.

One thing I noticed about 3 months in is that I could not dunk a basketball anymore. Before we started, I could dunk a ball with no running start, fairly easily. I just thought it was from my now painful joints.

After 6 months, we started doing less max effort and more explosive training.

When we started sparring, I noticed that my stamina was pretty good, although I hadn’t done any running in 6 months. We both sparred 8 rounds our 1st session back. I was gassed, but I felt better than expected. Especially since I’m an older guy.

I started my youngest son in to boxing after showing him a few things and realizing that he had awesome stamina and a monster right hand. 3 months in to sparring again and my son still has no power. That huge right hand is gone. All of the speed training did not help. He’s slower than ever. He made massive strength gains and it didn’t translate. I haven’t said a word to him.

A few sessions in to boxing, he did however make a comment that Father Time was starting to get me and commented how slow I’d become. I put that down to the training. I dropped the heavy stuff and did almost all calisthenics. My speed is coming back.

I get why fighters weight train. I’m a 45 year old guy with a developed 6 pack and striations all over the place. I look more fit than I ever did in my prime, but it’s all show and no go. I have no idea how we could have done things any better. Has anyone else put the work in and seen the same result?

 

I think I heard Emmanuel Steward say it’s not weight training that slows you down and makes your performance suffer.

It takes away your focus on boxing and turns it to the weight training.

Plus it could cause a lot of muscle soreness that would affect you in training camp.