Which old timers lifted weights

Press Ups, Dips, No Weight Squats and Pull Ups are weight lifting, its just the weight happens to be your bodyweight and its a lighter weight than you'd select for an all out of set of 6-10reps. Fighters have used these for centuries

However in terms of actual weight lifting, I think it looks likely it came in quite a bit in the 70s with the more muscular look fighters had at Heavyweight. Norton, Shavers, Foreman, Lyle all were very muscular so you'd expect them to be lifting some heavy iron but it could be achieved from the press ups, chins ups etc

Boxers usually use the wrong weight lifting techniques/exercises to improve power

 

Fighters in the 20's & 30's used "weights", but it was the
weight of the Depression and coming off working on farms
and in steel mills.

Look at photos of people working in the fields or pouring concrete
from back then and you see the same "buffness" as those coming out of your local fitness center today.

Football Coach Bear Bryant used to tell a story about Recruiting: Said he would drive along the country roads until he found a young man changing a tire on a tractor. Bryant said the young man was holding up the tractor with one hand.....and breaking the wheel lug nuts off with the fingers of the other hand.

Bryant signed him to a scholarship on the spot.

 

Holding up a tractor with one hand?
Maybe jesus did walk on water,arent the 'old timers greeeeeeeeeaaattttttt'?!

 

Most fighters especially heavyweights lifted weights, not over stupid weights but weights non the less.. Liston rarely did but he was big on floor excersizes, George did he was from farming country and like Shavers and Frazier , they were from families of big men, they ate big and worked laboriously chopping wood or lifting bails... They were solid men by nature.. Ali was the rarity , he was more a loose heavyweight with long lean elastic muscle... Your Ron Lyles and Cleveland Williams were more likely to have used some form of weight or resistance excersize..

 

Boxers rarely lifted weights before the late 1970's, largely because it was a believed to be a waste of time. Over the last 30 years I have seen no improvement in speed, skills nor power in boxers, which confirms the traditions of boxing. But lets face it pumping iron is fun, and that is why modern boxers do it.

 

i know that in the 60's george chuvalo used weights,not sure how much though.

 

Wall pulleys, were weights that were used years ago, and they do help power. SSR was urged by George Gainford to Row a boat for hours, Ray said it helped his power

 

Foreman and Norton are on record indicating they never lifted weights. This is Foreman of the 1970s. Lyle also did not lift weights, he is known for a 1000 pushup per day routine. He started this in prison.

 

I wondered about how effective this is. One thinks it should be, since just about everyone today does it. In a highly professionalized sport like boxing one thinks that should count for something.

On the other hand, I'm not very impressed with how HW's have looked since the mid-80's. The fights are a lot slower than they were just a couple of years before, and the fighters stamina seem to be quite a lot worse, even if they are bigger and more powerful. Look at fights like Ali-Frazier, Ali-Norton, Norton-Holmes, Holmes-Shavers and I think the pace is way better than anything post 1985, even though the fights nowadays are only 12 rounds.

It seems reasonable to think that the sport has evolved, but even if weight-lifting might have made fighters better, it sure has made them less exciting to watch.

 

Weight lifting has made fighters a lot worse. Stamina is usually the issue. Holyfield was usually gassed by the sixth round. The greatest fighters never lifted weights. Ali, Robinson, Monzon, Hagler, etc.

Calzaghe is a fighter today that trains old school (no weights). He never gasses. Nothing beats the old school training methods of roadwork, floorwork, bag work, sparring, etc.

 

Lyle got stabbed in the weightyard in prison and almost died, a lot of these guys were not weightlifters but lifted weights ...Mac fOSTER, LYLE,FOREMAN,...MARCIANO USED TO THROW STONES (big ones) and punch under water, he was also the 1st guy to have a custom made 300lb hvy bag

 

Look at tommy hearns at 147 and 154 when he did not use weights,the speed,reflexes,litheness and awesome power....Then look at the 160 and over version who did weights to bulk up,still great but slower and i think this was part of his vulnerability after hagler...
I have yet to see one elite boxer who IMPROVED physically after doing weights....

 

Yeah, that's how it looks to me as well. I just have a hard time accepting that almost everyone would use an ineffective training method in a sport with so much money involved as boxing. But maybe that's how it is.

 

I understand the work of many great nutritionists like Mackie Shilstone and weight training to assist a weight division gain, like Mike Spinks to Heavy and Roy Jones to heavy etc.... Just adding muscle, but look at the reverse ..

When Roy tried a return to the lighter weight he left the core strength behind .. and just look at Chris Byrd last weekend.. It tells us what fake weight does to a mans body.. It can be a very complex issue...