Seems to me as though training at high altitude would be beneficial for improving his cardio, or is age too much of a factor for the benefits of altitude training at this point?
It won't hurt, but he's so old he might find it difficult to train at high altitudes. Easier and more probable to just take supplements that boost stamina like EPO.
A little too late to improve on stamina or anything else at this stage. Maybe roids and crooked judges may corral him a few more wins especially if the competition is comprised of bums and tomato cans.
High altitude training only work if you fight in high altitude, otherwise it won’t do too much to overall cardio, I never felt an difference but I also had good cardio from the start so it wasn’t an issue to fight at high altitude. Zhang needs more overall cardio training and should run more.
High altitude training is no good you need blood doping Fury had to abandon his big bear camp because it was draining him and thats not even that high. heavyweights need to stick to what they know. big men are different animals.
Why would Zhang want to become a 12 round fighter? Very late in career to be making dramatic stylistic changes AND he was down on points on one card and leading by a round on another after completely dominating proceedings. He'd literally need to drop a UK fighter 3 times to get a decision over 12 rounds no matter how dominant he is.
6-8 round fighter if he hits you enough times during that time, youre gonna be bust up or dropped. Hes hurtable aswell though like every heavyweight.
He now apparently resides in Jersey, New York, I assume for training purposes. But as you say how do we know he doesn't. Catskills New York I'm sure isn't too far, so he might go there to train like Ali and Tyson did.
Zhang said that his trainer train him for stamina problems and it worked better than ever. He could be even better in the future fight. Imagine Wlad vs Zhang next year for the WBO belt.
Talk of Zhang's poor stamina first started cropping up after the Jerry Forrest fight but it does seem he was legitimately ill for that fight 'I checked in with Zhang co-manager Terry Lane of Lane Brothers Boxing after the dust settled. I asked if it was basically a stamina issue, but Lane replied, “Actually more serious than that. Zhang had a great camp. For some reason, he was extremely dehydrated and his kidneys began to fail during the fight. He also had very low iron levels and we learned he was anemic.' “He was rushed to the hospital and wasn’t released for three days. Head and heart were fine, thank god. But he feels good, and we are talking to some medical professionals to get to the bottom of what happened and what is going on with him. But he will be back. Matchroom has been very supportive.” And this is a good time to call myself out. I wasn’t being a punk, but I did Tweet while watching that I think Team Zhang should look into getting a new strength and conditioning regimen after this fight. And that may be, but the point here is that stuff happens in boxing, and sometimes I tend to forget that it’s life or death in there. “So, Zhang had a great camp,” Lane continued. “Went 12 rounds of sparring several times easily. Fight week he was relaxed, looked good in the workouts. There was no sign whatsoever of anything wrong. He was able to put Forrest down in each of the first three rounds. It did cross my mind as to why he was unable to finish him off. And in the fourth or fifth round, he looked spent, absolutely exhausted. This was not the same guy during sparring in camp.” Trainer Shaun George and others were also puzzled as the fight unfolded into the middle to later rounds. “To make things worse, there was a clash of heads that opened up a cut, and then he took an elbow too,” Lane said. “I was worried that he wasn’t going to finish the fight, but it was obvious that something was wrong. When the final bell rang, Forrest is doing backflips in the middle of the ring and Zhang is slumped over his corner. Zhang has no recollection of the walk back to the locker room. “Of course, my mind goes to the worst place; a brain bleed or something. There were several of us in the back, and it was determined that he should go to the hospital. Then Zhang started to feel worse and ultimately they rushed him in an ambulance.” Tests revealed no severe brain trauma. “I was relieved when the head scans were clear,” Lane said. “But the bloodwork concerned the doctors and revealed a bunch of things that were a surprise to us. Low level kidney failure, liver damage, anemic. CPK levels through the roof. It was scary, and a bit of a mystery, but we are going to fully address all of these issues with medical professionals.” And what was Zhang like while all this went down? “After the fact, using his words, he said his body ‘shut down’ in the fourth round,” Lane said. “After the fight in the locker room he could tell that there was something wrong and his heart started to race. There was a point in the locker room where he became very concerned and started to panic. He pointed to his chest and said in English, ‘No good! No good!’ At that point we got the paramedics to him.” And since that night, have docs figured out anything more on why Zhang deteriorated like that? “We’ve tested his blood three times since he got back,” Lane said. “The levels are all normal now. We are going to go to a doctor who specializes in athletes to help consult moving forward. Plus, consult other experts like a nutritionist.”
Yeah that's definitely where it started, and it still seems like a lot of people are unaware of the circumstances surrounding that because I see criticisms for it all the time. In his fight with Rudenko he seemed fine the whole time, and if I recall right he even buzzed him real good near the end. His gas tank could be a genuine issue now though, cause in the last three rounds against Hrgovic he did precisely **** all, so that medical emergency may have had some permanent damage. Or, as I theorized not long after, he might have been overcompensating out of fear of that happening again and as a result came in overhydrated. The commentators for his fight with Hrgovic mentioned a few times that he was now drinking five gallons a day, and even for a big old boy like him that seems to be a bit much. Overhydrating can lead to sluggishness like that so it wouldn't surprise me if that was the culprit. Kinda hard to say right now. I sorta wish the fight had gone another round or two because some folks saw his dip in activity as being tired out and others saw it as him biding his time and getting even pickier with his shots. I lean toward the latter myself due to the last few punches he threw, but it could be either way really.
