I have a few questions about diets from the bare-knuckle age. I need the information for a paper Im working on called training and diets trough times and ages. My first question: I read that some fighters used to eat stale bread and drink old bear. Why would they do that? The only thing I can think of is that you are not likely to eat a lot of stale bread and drink a lot of old bear since it is not very tasty. Or maybe you feel like you're full earlier? Fighters in those days did eat a lot of protein and tried not to eat to much carbs so they would build up a lot of lean muscle. My second question: Fighters did eat eggs for breakfast often. The did eat it with rum or sherry tough. Why would they do that? Maybe they did eat the eggs raw and they tried to kill the germs in the raw eggs with the alcohol in sherry or rum?
While the physical training regimes of the bareknuckle era were similar to those of today the diets were often based on misguided old wives tales.
I've the information from an article about Tom cribb's training camp. The article is called The Breakfast of Champions or Training for the Fancy. The link is below. http://www.sandokai.co.uk/media/downloads/files/WMA_5.pdf Thanks for putting me in that direction janitor. So what you're saying is that fighters in those days didn't know what they were doing and there diets were based on superstition?
guess what I am saying is that their ideas on physical training methods were acurate for the most part but their ideas on nutrition were a mixed bag at best.
Yes I think most what they did was based on trial and error. But would it be possible that they did eat eggs with sherry to kill the germs in raw eggs or am I making things up?
Those were times you had to get the water from the well. People used to drink more beer, wine, booze, because those were save to drink. Not all water was as clean as it is today.
When my grandfarther was a kid in rural Wales in the 1930s him and his siblings were given small beer instead of water.
There were a lot of dietary fads around at the time many of which turned out to be somewhat misguided.
Maybe it's just the strength of old superstitions but alot of athletes were doing the whole sherry and eggs thing way into the mid 20th Century. I've heard Tom Cribb was considered the first 'trained' bare knuckle fighter, how true that is I dont know. Obviously a Figg, Broughton or Mendoza were schooled in the whole 'technical' aspect of bare knuckle boxing but Cribbs training regime for his rematch with Tom Molineaux was thought to be revolutionary at the time. Atleast is my understanding of it. His trainer Robert Barclay had him doing endless walks, hill sprints and sorted out his diet to the extent where he lost a considerable amount of weight. Result was he smashed Molineaux in the rematch. Of course his opponent was in worse state through drinking and whoring around but hey. I've seen Barclay's training regime quoted and from memory it's something like. Get up. Walk 4 miles. Rest, sprint half a mile. Rest, walk another 6 miles. Sprint another half a mile and then finally walk another 4 miles in the evening. That's probably not entirely accurate but I'm sure it was similar to that. Either way he was a fit ******* who held the mile record and achieved all sorts of pedestrian records aswell as being a fighter himself. I'm sure I've read that Sullivans training regime involved a great deal of long walks so he obviously infulenced alot of athletes/fighters for a long time. Sure it was through trial and error but whose to say guys in 50 or 100 years time wont look at modern athletes training regimes as being ludicrous and daft, based on old wives tales. Football (European) training/diet is completly different to just 15 years ago. NFL players were once forbidden to touch weights.
NFL players were also given the advice to eat lots of salt in the old days, and because of that some of them died in the hot weather.