Why Did Ali lose his speed and reflexes after his layoff?

LAyoffs are bad, espeically in combat sports like boxing, mixed martial arts, time off develops a lot of ring rust.

 

Marciano's gut was described by some as being smaller than Ali's when they met for Wororner's staged match. Rocky trained diligently for his role, while Muhammad may have applied little preparation, if any.

His legs were not the same during the 1970s. During the 1960s, he told Cosell that he danced to conserve energy, because it was the exertion of punching which wore him down. Typically, the legs are the first to go, and three years of inactivity did a number on his. (Three years of mothballs did Dempsey's wheels no favors either.) Ali did manage to replicate his peak weight of 212 for Norton II and Frazier II, and it may be no coincidence that his mobility was better in those situations. I do wonder what he might have done with Patterson's work ethic. Floyd came back from a two year layoff at age 35 to post nine straight wins before Muhammad retired him. (Incredibly, 186 for Green was his lightest weight for any bout after Ingo dethroned him in 1959. Patterson maintained excellent fitness between the conclusion of his career and final illness.)

 

He got fat,,,,,,and ballooned up to 240 lbs.

The good life,,,,,,all those hard speaking engagements at college universities,
for a minimum of $5000 per pop plus expenses.

Probably ate his own food,,,,,,,,at 'Champburgers',,,,,,,,loaded with grease.

 

I wonder if Ali ever truly believed he would get his license back after it was taken off him? I dont think he did.

 

Almost any fighter who takes several years off from boxing exhibits slower reflexes when he resumes his career. The older the figher, the more evident is the reduced speeding.

Why does this happen? Reflexes and handspeed are developed and maintained only by dint of daily training. The fine-tuning of the hands, including reaction time and coordination, is accentuated by ring activity (i.e., frequency of real fights). When a fighter stops practicing -- and especially when he stops taking real fights -- the reflexes inevitably become sluggish. The longer the fighter is inactive, the more severe the loss of speed and timing tends to be.

Floyd Patterson said that after a long period of inactivity, it takes a lot of hard work and lengthy practice to regain lost reflexes. He emphasized that regaining reflexes is extraordinarily hard to do. Painfully difficult.

In Ali's case, a combination of inactivity (1967-70) plus advancing age meant that his speeding had been reduced slightly in an irreparable way. The slowing of reflexes that would have happened naturally as a result of biological aging was amplified by the layoff.

 

Long layoffs cause permanently detrimental ring rust, which impairs physical potential.

Such ring rust is very harmful for handspeed, footspeed, reflexes, timing, stamina & it robbed Ali of his Physical Prime*.


*I define Physical Prime as when a fighter is capable of being 100% physically, when they put 100% effort into their conditioning.

 

it's not that he lost them in the sense you're thinking of. in that time frame if he was fighting he still probably would've been roughly where he was after the lay off. the difference is if he was fighting it would've been a gradual change whereas since we didn't see a few years we saw the before and after. since we didn't get to see the gradual decline it was made to look more abrupt, when it was really just normal aging.

 

KK530 Makes a good point...Ali as he got older and filled out physically would've slowed down some anyway. No way he could be like the '67 version 4 or 5 years later. It's only natural that he wouldn't be the same. If he hadn't had the 3 yrs off he would've been better for it of course but it isn't as if he came back in his 30's or 40's. Ali admitted himself for example that he didn't train as hard as he should have for Frazier I. I think he was a little over confident and complacent in his approach to that fight. As you get older it gets harder to push yourself and train as hard as you did when you were younger. Still the older version of Ali was still faster than his contemporaries which helped him alot and he found out that he could take a great punch which helped him.....and hurt him at the same time.