contradicting info on fast/slow twitch fibres

Nah. Fast twitch fibres are not endurance muscles. You see huge bodybuilders, they are full of fast twitch fibres. But at the same time, that huge bodybuilder will be able to maintain the peak of his muscular ability for a very short and violent movements, and not for a long duration.

A boxer is going to want more slow twitch fibres. You have both, but you only recruit so many fast twitch fibres when you throw your fastest punch. In order to recruit the majority of your fast twitch fibres, and grow fast twitch fibres, you need heavy weight.

You don't need a **** load of fast twitch fibres to move your arm around in a punching motion, but you need a lot of slow twitch muscles to keep your body moving for 3-12 rounds.

 

You have to train the "wrong" or "right" way for a long time in order to make any real difference in muscle fibres dont concern yourself with that.

 

A textbook on physiology might be a better source of info than a internet forum. In any case, Jack Dempsey didn't know the first thing about twitching muscle fibers, fast or slow. The question is, why do you need to know?

 

You do this on purpose, don't you Bert? :yep

Jack didn't need the internet. Why do you?

 

Fast twitch fibres are recruited by an athlete to perform explosive work like sprinting, throwing far, jumping high, punching hard, lifting heavy weights, etc... The drawback is that the muscles run out of energy (glycogen) real fast.

Slow twitch fibres are recruited by athletes who need to jog for long distances, play a game for over 20 minutes straight, need to do repeated explosive work for long periods of time, and punch for any length of time...

So, soccer players, basketball players, tour de france cyclists, and boxers would do well to rely on both.

And your analysis of upper and lower body is quite insightful, but you still need slow twitch for the legs so they can work hard repeatedly for many rounds, and fast twitch for upper body so you can "lock" your punches solidly upon contact to transfer the maximum amount of power to the opponent's chin.

What you really need to do is develop an aerobic base first since this takes the longest to peak... 12-16 weeks. A few weeks in, you can start doing anaerobic endurance like sprints and high rep (15-25) weight training. A few weeks of that will get you ready for strength training (4-6 reps), after which you can add in power training (jumps, olympic lifts, surgical tubing resistance)... and if you know what you're doing, the last 2-3 weeks you can peak with some plyometrics.

There are several ways to cycle this kind of workload and a visit to the bookstore should be a good invesment of time.

A real good book is Strength Training

 

You want to program your training cycle so that you start with "general" excercises at the beginning, and end up with "sport specific" excercises towards the peak.

For instance, you'd start with basic squats and towards the end, you'd be doing squats in a boxing stance.

Medicine ball drills would first consist of a basic move like two handed catch and throws, and gradually move to punching motion throws.

 

It's not like your body switches from slow and fast interchangeably as you go, you are always using every type in every situation, but the difference is the rate in which the different types are utilized.

In a muscle contraction, your slow twitch (Type I) fibres are the first to contract. Since they are the most enduring fibres, they are the ones responsible for out most basic functions, like the isometric contraction making us able to stand up without buckling, walking etc.
Since they have the ability to endure more than anything else, the power output is really low and so is the speed of the contraction.

As you start to go from being sedentary to walking to jogging to running faster you're utilizing more and more of what is called your Type IIA-fibres (intermediate, slow/fast twitch hybrid).
These fibres have the ability to "do it all." They are enduring (up to a certain point) and have the ability to contract faster and harder than your purely slow-twitch fibres, but not quite as much as your Type IIX fibres, which is your fast-twitch fibres.
These are the ones responsible for most of your sub-maximal efforts, i.e. when you're moving around to set up positions for a punch, recovering from throwing a combination etc.

Your Type IIX are the ones that are "turned on last" and is therefore the ones that contracts faster and more forcefully. Whenever you throw a punch, unless your are tapping him lovingly on the forehead like a little *****, you are utilizing your fast twitch fibres to do so.
The fast twitch fibres are the total opposite of the slow ones like you've probably already imagined. They have very little endurance-capabilities, and with use demand not oxygen, but puruvate acid which is a process that creates lactic acid buildup and the feeling of freezing up the more you use them. (The Type IIA fibres do so too, but to a lesser extent since it's more of a hybrid)

Boxing is all about Intermediate and Fast twitch fibres. It's nearly all anaerobic, because when you are not throwing a punch you are recovering from just throwing one and moving fairly fast and violently to avoid punches.
To be able to recover more quickly so that you are in a position to throw more hard punches you need to be able to have highly conditioned Type IIA and IIX-fibres, there's no use doing long jogs to condition your slow-twitch Type I-fibres because they're not gonna be helping you anyways.
It's not like when you're punching you are using fast-twitch fibres for your upper body and slow-twitch for your lower body, punching is a total body action more demanding of creating power from the ground (with your legs) than it is anything else.


Therefore it would be a waste of time for you to spend lots of time "building an aerobic base" because once you start moving and doing your work all that goes out the window, since they don't help you recover the muscle fibres responsible for doing what you need to do to produce in the ring. That which is to punch hard and move fast.
Focus on anaerobic endurance, speed and strength (absolute, explosive and starting-strength) all year around, not just in phases. What you do is shift focus the closer you get to your "season" or main event. Go from a focus (i.e. to spend more time, not all your time on it) on anaerobic endurance and absolute strength to explosiveness and then speed and starting-strength.
This works better than the linear periodization type mentioned here earlier.

Somebody here mentioned you should read up on Prof. Verkoshansky. I second that recommendation, he's written lots about conjugated periodization, which is more of the type of periodization I mentioned.
Instead of having phases of different types of training throughout the year, you are training all your needed qualities with slightly shifting your focus according to your weaknesses instead.

 

Who cares..just train.

You dont need to know **** except for good diet and how to train for boxing.

Good diet imo is almost common sense.

 

All these technicalities are great and wonderful, but as yet you still haven't convinced me there is anything better than old fashioned boxing training for boxers. Considering that 99% of boxers don't have access to coaching that has this level of sophistication, why do we need to talk about it?

 

http://www.eastsideboxing.com/forum/showpost.php?p=3173239&postcount=47

Every athlete has responsibility for his own performance and his own training regime. It has to start somewhere, it might as well start right here.
I'm telling you how the body works and what it needs, you'll only find out by doing research and applying it.
You won't become a better athlete by settling for something, you won't gain an advantage over your opposition by sitting down and talking about what already works well enough.
I didn't learn all this from a coach, I've learned from doing my own research and applying it, and my coaches over the years have been a tool in accomplishing that along with books and personal research.
Never accept anything as absolute, not even the stuff I'm saying about how Fibre types are set up, because I might be wrong. And I know I'll find out if I am, because I'll always be searching for that edge, expanding my knowledge and skills.

While you can sit there and rot away in mediocrity talking about what is already "good enough."

 

You would do better if you understood what he wrote, just because you don't understand something does not mean it not correct, Elite performance needs a deep understanding of the body.