Old School Training

So Rocky did Strongman & Plyometrics by the sound of it.

 

All this talk of old school vs modern day methods makes me want to watch Rocky IV again.

 

Boxers been lifting and hitting bags since the BC says.
Pad work is new.

 

This old school vs new school thing seems a bit made up to me. The vast majority of what any fighter do is pretty much the same as always: road work, calisthenics, heavy bag, speed bag, rope skipping, sparring etc, etc.

The only thing is that there have been some modifications over time. According to Joe Rein (aka John Garfield) mitts started being used in the 70's, and in the late 80's weights and interval training (both which had been used by some to some degree for years) gradually became more popular, largely due to the successes of Spinks and Holyfield.

But most of the stuff that's always been there still is today. And how much weights etc is involved probably depends very much on the trainer, the fighter and what the fighter is going to do. For example, Brook did a lot of weights when moving up to face GGG, but probably hardly any before Spence.

We're not talking about two different schools of training, just that some new stuff has become mixed in to varying extent.

 

Pads would be classed as an old method due to how long ago people started using them and because of how common practice they are. I don't see how something that has been implemented for 40 years is modern.

Boxing by it's very nature is intervals (3:1). 3 mins on and 1 min on is an interval. I get your point though.

MMA, like it or not, made Boxing catch up with modern S&C methods. 10 years ago NOBODY would touch a weight in a Boxing gym. Boxing coaches would argue with you until sundown that lifting weights was detrimental to boxing. Now? It's not uncommon to see Olympic Lifts, Crossfit style workouts & all manner of unconventional methods and tools being used these days... in a BOXING GYM. MMA started that as everybody wasn't close-minded like the people of boxing were ("no lifting weights! just running, bags & pads, sparring!").

All you need to do is take what works for you and discard what doesn't, regardless of if it's been around for 40 years or 5 minutes. That's the only thing you need to do with S&C.

I can see why Kell would lift weights for Golovkin being the much smaller man & not lifting them for Spence.

Fact is, you can be the fittest boxer alive and still lose or the strongest boxer alive and still lose. Skill, it's always about skill. Skill wins fights 99.9% of the time.

 

That's a good thing, IMHO. Preserves the body, so it prolongs your career.

It's the ring wars in sparring and the hard camps which break you down, hardly the fights.

If I was a pro I'd focus on tons of body sparring and movement. Then I'd incorporate regular sparring back into the schedule for 2-3 weeks and then cut it off about 10-14 days from the fight.

No need to have wars all the time. There's probably been many fighters whose careers have been shortened because of it.

 

The big pad that Golovkin uses for those big power punches (looks like a big dart board), I wonder how long they've been out for?

 

Agreed.

World class
Vulnerable to cuts
Tail-end of their career
Mega fight is the next fight

Any of those and I'd curb it more or less altogether to the head.