Which boxer can bench the most?

Agree with that.

 

i bet tim bradley can bench tons

 

Why, because he's ripped? I don't think you understand how strength works. He's all upper body with chicken legs that are weak and lack explosiveness. I wouldn't be surprised if he did bodybuilding style training.

 

I don't really like saying that something is 'natural', everything is developed somewhere. When you're a child fundamental motor skills are very important, if they're not developed there you may always be less than what you could be in terms of coordination. And coordination is everything to do with throwing a punch.
There was a Russian study looking at boxers years back that looked at boxers who were experienced and successful compared to boxers who were not. It showed that as experience was greater the more the proportion of the power developed came from the lower body and midsection. The more experienced and successful they were the greater their coordination was throughout the kinetic chain. Like any other throwing sort of movement it's about transferring the energy throughout the body as efficiently as possible.
If you look at Julian Jackson his midsection has always stopped moving by the time the punch is coming through, his fist is always accelerating at the point of impact. That recoil through the midsection done in a coordinated movement is the same thing that happens when a good baseball pitcher is throwing a fast ball.
You then look at a Tim Bradley and he's moving his midsection at the same time as his hands, that energy doesn't transfer into his arms for a whip like effect (as a good puncher does), he's just pushing with every punch. Often when a guy has some success with poor technique then you don't try to change it and if you do try to change it, it's very difficult.
Coordination is the most important thing, it's important to be developed young and to be improved as you age. You have that and add good strength/power training and you get one hell of a puncher. That's why strength training should be whole body sort of movements, to aid strength and power in coordinated movements spanning multiple joints. Isolating muscles doesn't produce the neuromuscular changes and impairs coordination which is why bodybuilding training is just about the worst thing you can do for an athlete. And unfortunately you have a lot of narrow-minded people who think strength coaches are there purely to make a fighter look better aesthetically, and when they are successful it was just the PED's that the strength coach supplied.
A lot of ignorance out there about the human body and what a good strength coach actually does. EVERYTHING can be improved/learned, and the genetic component to potential is very over rated. Humans are learning machines, it was not long ago that people thought the brain was set at a certain age and that's it. The brain controls everything, all your movements and it is highly plastic. It is most plastic when you're a child but it is still alterable until the day you die.

 

Exactly.

Are we expected to believe that you can train people to move their legs faster,but not their hands?

 

You can train yourself to your body's natural limit, but not beyond. Paulie Malignaggi is never going to hit like Julian Jackson, he's never even going to hit hard. No matter how much he trains. Bernard Hopkins could never have Meldrick Taylor's speed.

 

Exactly, which is why boxer should strength train to become better fighters, but you don't necessarily need weights if you know how to train your bodyweight properly.

Like I said, it's hard to duplicate weighted squats, but if you're already a serious puncher, like Cintron and others, I think pistol squats, pylometrics, and car pushing are enough to contribute to your power, while maintaining your agility and flexibility.

I know from first hand that, while I wasn't stiff when I was doing heavy squats and deadlifts, I wasn't as agile with my upperbody movement, and overtime, what I've noticed is that all the older guys in the gym are stiff with their movements and unnatural.

When you start getting older, you realize that your body was not designed to lift heavy external weights every day.

Most guys here are young though, so they don't really understand.

Let me put it this way, what top boxers do you know with serious longevity that lift heavy weights?

Martinez and Hopkins are not known as big weightlifters.

Perhaps Vitali is, but I'm not convinced something isn't going on behind the scenes with those two to accellerate healing.

 

People are born sprinters, from day one. All the training and science can't turn an earnest sprinter into a Bolt. The rest of us mortals have to settle for a modest improvement in the dash, but not because of speed. Better technique through good coaching.

A sobering point most fighters refuse to accept. The smart ones make their peace with it, and make the most of what they have, period.

If they measured hand speed of a boxer, after years of training, they'd find it was no faster then the first day they came in the gym. Muscles are either fast twitch or they're not.

 

I doubt it, he has very long arms (85" reach) and not much of a chest or triceps, Fury probably benches 150kg/330lbs at most.

 

NO NO NO.
Listen JG, there is countless research showing that muscle fibres can be altered through training in both directions to a large extent. There's more to speed than just muscle fibre type as well, tendon properties and muscle insertion points for example. This is what I mean when I say you don't know enough to say the things you say.
Jamaican genetics are very similar to North American and Australian genetics for example. It's the training that makes the biggest difference. Look at little Yohan Blake, he's not far off Bolt. It's their training system.
Do you think Blake and Bolt could run as fast as they could without their heavy weight training, plyometrics etc. in a periodized plan? Of course not, they wouldn't even be on the world scene.

 

Martinez lifts 3-4 times a week, every morning he's either cycling or lifting weights. I don't know why you choose to bring up these names.
Roach you always talk about your personal experience as if it means so much. When you did lift weights, were they part of a periodized plan? Did you lift heavy, then focus more on explosiveness, lower the volume and work on your boxing?
Of course you didn't, you were lifting heavy weights and boxing at the same time, of course your performance is going to be decreased doing that. The point is to stress your body then allow it to recover to a higher level, if you're lifting and boxing at the same time it's just cumulative stress. You feel better with your bodyweight stuff and boxing at the same time because the bodyweight stuff isn't as fatiguing, so you feel like it's better for your boxing.
You don't know about training and training adaptations, that's why lifting weights 'didn't work' for you. Instead of admitting your own shortcomings you want to run around and tell everybody your personal anecdotes about the evils of weight training.

 

Martinez says he doesn't lift any weights heavier than his own bodyweight.

I said guys don't lift "heavy" weights. Perhaps, you need to work on your reading comprehension skills.

Lifting weights did "work" for me, dealt with. You keep making these assumptions.

I was a very dedicated weight lifter at one time, and the program I used was an athletic program based on squats, deadlifts, power cleans, rack cleans, and bench.

Those were the mainstays of the program. I became very proficient, and it did work; however, I've always been a natural puncher.

I stopped lifting weights for a year and I haven't noticed much of a drop in my ability to lift weights; yet I'm more agile and feel lighter on my feet.

I still do pistol squats and pylometrics along with mostly unilateral bodyweight strength training, and if I loss any power in my punches, it's negligable.

I will say, along with bodyweight training, something like car pushing is something that will improve your explosiveness and your endurance.

But what I noticed is that guys in their 40's and 50's, often regardless of genetic characteristics, tended to be stiff and rigid.

Look at guys like Mosley and most guys who lift heavyweights.

I guess you just have to weigh the pros and cons.

 

THIS! these long arms are crap for benching

 

What, do you mean like olympic weightlifters, the strongest, most powerful athletes in the world? Those guys are fast and flexible as hell, look at their shoulders when they're performing a snatch.
And there's nothing wrong with being stiff and rigid, having stiff, rigid muscles and tendons means that you're capable of generating higher force and higher force quickly. If you have stiff joints because of pain that's something completely different.
As you get older there's a decline in type II fibres, which is why heavy weight lifting becomes more important just for general function as you get older. You lose that strength and one thing after another can go wrong.

 

You live in Disney Land, dw, if you believe muscle fibers --using ANY method-can be MARKEDLY altered. It's all in your DNA.

I think at 13, never having run before, Bolt could beat most of the best sprinters in world. Macho Camacho, Sr, as 12-year-old, had blinding hand speed his first day at the CYO Gym.

Hand speed and punching power are the Holy Grail. Most recognize pretty early on, it's a futile quest.