The Road to Competition

Time to start a new training log as I prep myself to compete soon with
USA Boxing's amateur circuit. :bbb

Already been training in boxing consistently since January when I met the rest of the fighters and coach.

Regular practice with trainer is on Monday and Tuesday with individual training throughout the week, sometimes with my sparring partner who competes already.

 

96 degrees weather today, sweated out every drop I had in me and then some.

Warm-Up
Stretch
6-min Jump Rope
3 1-min round Wall sits at parallel with 20lbs medicine ball in lap
3 sets of punching with elastic band
Walking on Battle Rope for balance, forward and reverse with punches
20 pull-ups
Replacement Step drill for 5 min continuous

Short day
1 3-min round with hands tied behind back, practicing head movement while coach throws shots
Quick 1 mile run with arms held high(new and very tiring)
3-min of prone racquet ball exchange
2 long rounds of body shots on the coach with him firing back, full contact.
20 Pull-ups
5 Rocky push-ups
Series of push-ups whilst resting in the half-way down position in between all of it.

 

Another 96 scorcher. Can't remember everything we did today so I'll just put down what I recall. Most of it was technical.


Warm-up
Stretch
2 rounds 6-min Jump Rope

Drills
1 round of Punching accuracy(with a bucket, new one)
5 2-min rounds of different slip and counter. (Slip, bob weave, parry)
2 2-min rounds with 8 seconds break between, punching as fast as you can on the heavy bag and then beating the number(485 first time, 504 second)
20 Leg extensions with feet on the medicine ball.
4 mins of Planking
3 different Medicine ball exercises(dunno their names) 3 mins reach round
Bunch of push-ups (Jumping, weighted)
40 Wall touches

Probably missed a couple things but that's all I can remember.

Rest of the week, I'll be helping my buddy get ready for his fight on Saturday in the St. Louis area. :bbb

 

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Partner standing next to me. It's about speed for those rounds.

 

Met up with buddy to train technical work tonight.

Mainly just focus mitts and footwork for roughly two hours.

Off of training tomorrow so will probably go for a run and do normal body weight exercises, then final tune-up Friday night before the fight on Saturday.

 

So.. the fight was cancelled.
Dates were incorrect.

Just gonna try to stick with my usual routine at home of push-ups(variation), pull-ups, ab work, road work till we get back in the gym on Monday.

 

My head is still buzzing from sparring today.
Sparred for four rounds, three with an underclass and one with competing fighter.

Ate a lot of punches with the underclass but I was able to pressure him into the positions I wanted so unload flurries. He had me on the first round since I was feeling rusty but the next two, especially the last, I just started unloading on him with more power since he needs to start getting used to being hit hard.

Against the competitor, it's always been difficult cause everyone is above my weight class, longer reach, taller. Coach showed me a better way of getting inside and responding to punches, bringing my guard up high to protect while I get close. I had a few good counters but he caught me with a flush uppercut to the chin and then we were done.

Can't remember the rest of what we did before the sparring other than technical drills, throwing jabs and left hook at a focus mitt while catching the counter hook and counter straight.

After Sparring
20 Warrior Push-ups (Windshield Wipers)
20 Regular push-ups
20 crunches (legs on the ground)
Touching chest to the ground and then half-way up, non-stop for 1 min.
Then hold at half-way up till he tells us to drop.

 

Not buzzing as badly today even though we worked on a lot of inside technical work.
Had our right arm taped to our body and only had the left hand to fight/defend with whilst staring within a very narrow square of space.
Managed to catch him off guard, gave him two left upper cuts which the second one seemed to jar him bad cause he got pissed off and just started throwing a flurry.

I ate pretty much all of those punches, never having been in that position so all I could think was to get my hands up high. Coach says though that I'll have to learn to fight back through it or else they'll give a standing eight count if you try to just weather it out.

Style and footwork is getting better, I was able to move faster and enough to keep my opponent from lining up on me. Coach having me focus on making sure to leave a dent whenever I connect.


Did more slip work, head movement is getting much much better.

 

Everyone had pretty bad headaches for the next day of practice. :rofl

We worked on a bunch of technical drills, head movement has gotten a lot better as I see people missing closer to 50% now, along with learning how to correctly parry shots.

Coach says I need to keep up with the head movement and get my hands moving more/faster with punches. My defense gets pretty solid but I'm too slow when it comes to countering off of their attack.

 

Got kinda scraped up yesterday. Had a new guy that wants to train with us, bigger bouncer dude at a bar near here. As soon as coach told us what drill was next, I knew it was gonna be ugly. We get on our knees and fight inside, forcing us to use our back and hips to slip punches since our feet are practically disabled. Did a decent job of slipping and staying relaxed but it didn't take him long to get pissed off when I kept hitting him in the stomach and left hook to the head.
It just became a battle of power after that, neither one of us willing to back off till I caught him with another left hook to the head that stunned him toward the end.

I'm just glad to know I don't have a glass jaw but taking punches from these bigger guys suck cause it is nothing like fighting someone in my own weight class. Still, it's good training to get my head rocked now in sparring and keep fighting through it.

Coach was working our body toward the end. We had our arms behind our back while he was throwing gut shots at us. The one that hurt the most is he turned me every time right into his hook that landed right in the solar plexus. Can take a couple shots like that, but the 3rd and 4th one was a bit much till I finally figured out to start scrunching up my side instead of turning towards it.

 

Still training steadily since I last posted.
Haven't been able to meet with the coach more than once a week due to a change in my school schedule but I still train on my own and with teammates now that we have a 'Southern Illinois Boxing' club/team being founded. I'm one of the founding officers to support and help it grow so that we can hand it off to dedicated individuals after we leave.

Yesterday at practice, only thing to note was we did some work on the body. Took turns hammering each other in the stomach to toughen up and work on offense to the body. I noticed that even when someone is throwing up to 8 punches at the body, you have to find moments in between punches to breathe while your having to let air out each time you take a shot. The succession of punches goes so quick though that it can be difficult to find moments to inhale cause otherwise, you'll tighten up from holding in the air or you'll run out of air as they don't let up.

 

New guys coming in today to train with us after we've been recruiting on campus.

Two of the guys fell out and just disappeared after we transitioned rooms.

Only thing I was surprised about was when we hit the track with the coach, all the time I've spent sprinting with that damn tire dragging behind has really paid off.
One group starts off sprinting, after they get a good lead, you send the next pair to catch them. The new guy chasing after me was dusted! :happy

 

Definitely notice the difference that mitt work makes in finding your target.
We have two new guys that have stuck it out with us so far.

 

Hands are starting to move too slow but my technique for punch mechanics are solid.
Now it is a matter of getting quicker on moving and punching with balance plus speeding up my hands.

Damn shoulders feel like they want to fall off after today. :bbb