First-hand account of Marciano's diet and workout regimen (1952)

I did not say Marciano ran 10 miles a day . It was a general statement

 

I think "running 10 miles a day" would be done to build great overall stamina (and esp. in the legs), rather than to shed loads of excess weight.

 

This. According to all of the old timers I’ve talked to over the years, who fought around Marciano’s time getting the miles in also keeps your legs strong and helps with your recuperating abilities after taking hard shots. A fighter should never need to shed a ton of excess weight if they keep to a strict diet, which unfortunately few fighters bother doing nowadays.

Breazeale is a fighter that comes to mind, who trains hard, but you’d never know it with his terrible diet.

 

The true Rocky Marciano is all the friends you make along the way.

 

I've read several times that Rocky ate only the juices from meat, not the flesh. He would chew the meat and spit it out, swallowing the juice.

 

It’s interesting to note Ali ran more then Marciano by these posts and was 6ft3ish and 210-220lbs. I think it’s very possible these aren’t true representations of his true regime.

 

That said, I also wonder whether old school fighters reached a fitness plateau at a certain point. There doesn't seem to be much progression in the training advice left by Patterson, Dempsey, or Louis in their books. Although written for a wide audience, these still talk a lot about how pros are supposed to train.

There's obviously going to be plenty of progression in skill and sparring, but would they hit a wall in conditioning after years of doing the same thing? Dunno.

 

How many fighters have ever shown vastly improved stamina? Specifically improving from already training properly, not compared to coming in untrained, or cases where they were clearly weight drained, or just learned better pacing.

 

Running ten miles a day is old school boxing. Boxing isn't a marathon, it's a series of 8 to 10 three minute sprints.
So a boxer should train for short bursts of energy, not long slow energy release.

 

Sounds like a sound boxing regiment to me. Seemed to work for him whatever the particulars were.

 

12 bursts of 3min is massively aerobic

10 miles per day is likely excessive for most if not all , but a decent bit of mileage or equivalent is definitely appropriate, which is why plenty of current guys do it.

I think you'd struggle to convince anyone that boxers on the whole have better Stamina now that in the 50s

 

Well they had to go 15 rounds, or way more in the real old days, like 25 rounds, so today's boxers should have a totallly different
training routine, not to mention the advances in nutrition, and medicine. I don't think a 21st century Dr would recommend sucking
the juices out of steaks and throwing the meat away.

 

I think it's more a question of how long you can keep improving before hitting a wall. And I'm wondering whether older regimens would cause a boxer to hit that wall sooner, all else being equal.

 

I honestly don’t believe they hit a wall, I believe they found a sweet spot for fitness. They could be in better shape I believe if they wanted but that might bleed into effecting other areas of the business and may be too difficult to maintain. Maybe they trained harder in there down time and maintained fitness in the time leading up to a fight? Marciano did run a ton but only in his spare time and leading into a fight he was just maintaining his endurance. I don’t know.