The boxing prejudice against heavy weight training

I am going to steal this.

 

Of course just at the physical level sex can fundamentally weaken you - and that’s before going into quality and/or duration!

Then there’s the emotional ramifications. It’s not just what sex can take away either, it’s what the deprivation can add to a fighter’s performance - I mean SOMEONE is going to have pay for this and the faster I get this chump outta here the more quickly I can go and “celebrate”!

Among many others Hags used to prevent his family visiting a number of weeks before a fight. Let alone sex, it was to avert any emotional softening that might interfere with the singular purpose of beating another man to a pulp.

 

Chris Byrd did a full workout before he had sex.
Everything that could be tested was.
Then after sex he did the same exact workout he had done previously. Tested again AND his workout did not suffer at any point.
I think the trainers were trying to get the boxer to focus on the up coming fight and no get bogged down with all the things that come into play with relationships as another poster pointed out.

 

Yes we solved that problem by having them dehydrating every bit of liquid out of their bodies (including brain fluid) and letting them weigh in a day early so they can rehydrate those muscles with IVs (except that this process doesn’t let the brain fluid replenish before they’re in the ring getting hit).

I don’t think you’d see guys training/bulking muscle the way they do now if they had to fight same day — because that 185-pound middleweight would be a dried-out husk in the ring if he didn’t have a day-before weigh-in and he’d be too small to be a cruiser or even a light heavy without weight-cutting.

 

I don’t know that one way is more ‘sophisticated’ than any other.

Rocky Marciano was as fit as any boxer today, probably more fit.

Sugar Ray Robinson ran in army boots, didn’t lift weights and ate steak as a prefight meal. He turned out OK.

 

How do you separate and draw the line between the advantages gained from modern day training (strength and conditioning) AND PED usage?

Aside from lifting weights there is also general and specific improvements in nutrition (clean) to consider in terms of naturally improved muscle mass.

 

Sure, to each their own but if you take it as is, without isolating all the advantages of possible and likely PED usage, then you can’t properly isolate and measure across eras the benefits of pure modern weight training that is claimed to be more “sophisticated”.

There may be contention on this claim but I’ve read that PEDs can literally add muscle without any weight training - of course with supplementary weight training, the PEDs will act as multiplier to outcomes achieved otherwise.

Building up via manual labour may not be an exact science but over a range of considerately selected tasks it can lend to an inherently more natural, universal, holistic build of muscle (including stabilisers), increased muscle stamina and task required flexibility in supplementary balance.

 

This is more or less what happened to poor Max Baer. Louis was in a hurry to get home and seal the deal with his lady and took it out on him.

 

Thanks for the reply. Likewise, I’m not necessarily looking to address the ethical issues re PEDs to agree or disagree - more to confirm that you’ve built in possible PED usage into the equation - I’ll just say they aren’t a method per se nor do they meaningfully add to the sophistication, as that term is reasonably defined, especially contextually, of training otherwise.