Chad Dawson is making a big mistake...again!

He's a classy guy, we need more like him in the sport.

 

I've suspected previously that Dawson's Strength coach doesn't really know what he's doing, to try and lose the majority of the weight last minute is foolish and goes against what any qualified sports nutritionist would recommend.

 

Thanks for clearing that up. I appreciate it.

Best of luck. I've always been a fan.

 

Thank you for your side of the story John!

But yeah Chad seems like the very emotional type and someone who is very hard to deal with. I hope you find someone better you know... someone who will listen to you and not brush off everything you suggest.

You're right. A trainer often sees more than a fighter and the fighter SHOULD listen to the trainer in times like this (Especially when they're jumping down a weight class)

Chads a terrific fighter, but he really needs to stop changing trainers and bullshitting.

 

Ice........Thanks so much for taking the time to interact with fans. The love you have for the sport is always on display with all your message board postings and FB postings of old photos (with detailed descriptions) and contest stuff. Love hearing anything you got to say! Keep it coming! :good:good:good

 

Well, when we go to Vegas on July 7 and he was 182 and it was 111 degrees I thought it was gonna be smooth sailing! But, as I said, 5 weeks later he was 184!! Thats when I made my concerns very known to the strength guy and he told me I didnt know what I was talking about. BUT I can assure you 100000 percent that if it was left to me Chad would have been down in the low 170's by then, NO QUESTION. Sometimes these guys outsmart themselves because they are not BOXING people. I think the guy was good when Chad was maintining his weight or only had to lose a few but, CLEARLY, not for what Chad needed. I mean. HOW CAN U HAVE UR GUY BE 175 THE NIGHT BEFORE THE WEIGH IN WHERE he is supposed to be 168...after NINE weeks of training? That is INSANE. He was out of his depth in that he wasn't a BOXING guy so his approach was unrealistic, his expectations were unrealistic...like, for example, after Chad would spar some rounds and come back to the corner this guy would walk to him and put his palm on Chads chest to check his heart rate. He'd say "Good, good!" And Im thinking, "You put ur hand on his chest and you found something good thats gonna help us in the fight?" OK. And he kept saying how "Every time Chad hits him, anywhere he hits him, he's gonna hurt him." He must have said that 25 times, even when we were alone. I knew then that he was out of his realm. At first I thought he was just trying to motivate Chad buut when he started telling me the same thing in private I knew it was trouble. Only someone out of touch with the actual act of boxing would believe that to be true.

 

Also, I truly 1000 pct. believe that until the training camp for this fight I was a great match for him, we had a very solid connection...but something changed in a big way with him between the night he beat Hopkins and the day we returned to camp for this fight...I knew on July 28 that I wasn't going to be returning for another camp...

 

Forget the guy mate. Every man and his dog can see it is Dawson´s issue. You did your bit as a trainer and confidente. If he is too dense or stubborn to see that, it´s his problem.:deal

Dawson has so much natural talent, but lacks the eye of the tiger sometimes. He is far too complacent.

That must **** any trainer off.

 

I respect you as a boxing coach but the guy is right in that you should do your thing and he does his thing. He didn't do his job well but it's got nothing to do with being a 'boxing thing', a decent S+C coach or nutritionist should know how to get the weight off gradually while keeping the athlete as strong as possible, regardless of sport. What is the guys qualifications btw?
The weight has nothing to do with training (it's 100% to do with calories in versus calories out) and the heat makes absolutely no difference (it's just water weight and you put it back on as soon as you drink, not to mention in cold weather you burn more calories). He was checking his heart rate to monitor the intensity, a bit of a low tech way of doing it (and why he would put his hand on his chest to measure it is beyond me) but to get proper conditioning you need to be working at a certain intensity.
As experienced as you are you don't know these basic things so that's why fighters need a team of people. You were working with a dud and probably took some of his blame.

 

Your body takes on a natural 'set point' at which it is comfortable. Working hard in hot weather 'should' reset that lower. It isn't just about losing water. If you're working hard you are also burning calories. He should have felt more uncomfortable carrying weight and he should have been losing it and not eating it back on between sessions.

 

I've never heard anything like that claimed in my undergrad or post grad studies or in any of my textbooks. Set point is just a theory to do with the hormones ghrelin and leptin, working hard has nothing to do with it. It's about maintaining homeostasis. Losing weight correctly is about doing it gradually by being on a slight calorie deficit to prevent muscle loss and minimise the amount of water weight needing to be dropped at the weigh in. Losing a large percentage of weight quickly through dehydration has been shown to negatively affect performance and that's exactly what Dawson's strength coach did.
Also working in hot weather means that you use glycogen sooner and you're going to lose water more easily, so essentially you can't train as hard. Weight gained and loss is purely the result of what you eat anyway, the relative contribution to your total energy expenditure from exercise is minimal unless you're running an ultra marathon.

 

I always put on 10 pounds during the winter and lose it pretty quick once the weather warms up. Whatever. That's my metabolism.

 

No, with all due respect to you, NO. I should definitely NOT "just do my thing." The boxing prep IS my thing. If anything I should have been much more vocal about his ill preparation. You were not there with us, Ill assume. There is more to the story in terms of what else we were doing to get ready, I just said enough for the interview. But, listen, if I go to training camp and weigh 182 and 5 weeks later I weigh 184 when Im trying to make 168 then there is a HUGE PROBLEM...and, LISTEN, I really do not care about checking the heart rate and all that NONSENSE. It sounds great and all but it just didnt translate to the reality of our situation...checking a guys heart rate after a round with your palm and then gleefully announcing how great it is as if that means ANYTHING in regards to the upcoming fight is ridiculous...you can have a doctor or a physical fitness guy or whoever tell u that its all good but I put it right up there with somehow believing that you are going to have the unusually increased punching power because you've been doing all this strength core work etc etc. It sounds good, I know, but Ive been around enough fighters and nutritionists and strength guys in my day to know its going to amount to nothing at all. His heart rate after a particular single round of sparring a couple weeks before a fight is INSIGNIFICANT...CHECKING IT IS A HUGE WASTE OF TIME...especially when ur doing it with no instruments whatsoever. And I know there is a science to losing weight, I attempted to lose weight for fights over 100 times as an amateur and pro mind you...and maybe on paper training in the heat means nothing to some but I can assure you and every fighter will back me up on this, training in the heat is going to aid you in losing the weight. You will sweat better, you will feel better, you will feel looser, feel like running longer and harder and working out with more vigor, etc etc...fighters DO NOT need a team of people...that is an idea that has been created even more recently with the influx of strength coaches in the game...I'll tell you this much, and I have had some of the absolute top 2% of the trainers in the game strenuouslly agree with me in this...the strength coaches have been stepping on the toes of an interfering with the relationship of the fighters and trainers for a while now. We do not all "need a team" behind us...some fighters would do MUCH better if they focused on boxing training with the BOXING trainer as opposed to buying into this belief that abs and sculpted muscles and being able to lift more weight and pull more weight, etc will somehow translate to the ring. I am perplexed as to why or how YOU could want to come in here and try to insult me by saying that with all my experience I "don't know these things" that you claim to know and swear by. I know this fighter, I know his situation, I know everything that went on before his last three fights and what went on before this last one was BRUTAL for him and it was by design, too...I was there and, you, let's assume, were not. It's so easy to come in here on a message board and speak of all these clinical sounding aspects of the preparation and it sounds all well enough, too, but unless you were there then you cant really say much of anything about this particular situation. All fighters are diffrerent yet pretty much the same. You need to know the fighter you're working with and I certainly knew the one I was working with well enough to know well in advance where he was headed due to the preparation. That's all. Can't argue with that, my man