Why were many old time boxers so scrawny looking

I'm afraid to say. You might call me out.

 

I didn't say anything about weight training not being for boxers. Who doesn't resistance train in modern pro sport?


Edited the rest.

 

I get totally shredded.

 

I think that this is a very interesting point. I can remember many years ago, where a mate of mine, who was about the same strength as me, before he went on a steroid and weight lifting kick to the point where he could lift probably twice as much as me, maybe more. I never have really lifted weights for the simple reason that i find them boring and am too lazy. I was at the time though able to do 100 pushups and sit ups with ease (at a very fast pace) and i could run as fast as anyone. Naturally he was probably about 5 kg bigger than me but at the time he was probably about 20-25 kg.

I can remember that one night he had just bought some knew gadget where you had to pull it out and push it in as many times as you could. He told me how hard it was when I laughed at hims because he could not do any more than about 20 or so. We agreed to a challenge and i ended up doing 21 with ease. (admittedly i may have cheated a bit by using my back and body rather than the strict technique that was supposed to be used). NOt happy at losing (we had the challenger a couple of times), he challenged me to an arm wrestle to determine superiority. Again, i beat him (to my surprise).

The point being, that the weight lifting he did had massive benefits for strength, but it seemed to benefit certain areas more. In boxing terms, I think this is born out. It must improve a punch a bit, but not to the extent that it improves ability to do other things such as lifting. I am not convinced that the current gym trainers wouldnt be better off going out and doing some heavy yard work or furniture removal or something similar to achieve the same results without the weight gain. Although maybe i am wrong.

My personal theory is that the problem with most weight training is that weight lift technique requires lifting only with the arm muscle for example where as proper punching requires use of the back shoulder leg etc. If i was training full time and required a weight lifting resume, i think i would have to limit it to throwing punches with weights in my hand, and maybe running or sparring with strap on weights. Anything else would seem wasteful to me. But maybe i am wrong.

 

Doing Olympic lifts with proper technique will add to power, strength and coordination.

Sprinters, footballers, clued up boxers all do compound movements.

Compound movements are nothing but beneficial, squats, deads, bench will build all round strength.

Doing reps and reps of an isolation exercise like curls isn't going to help you much no.

Also arm wrestling is very technical and some people have far more natural aptitude for it than others.

 

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No contest. The old timers were much bigger and more muscular, because as multiple people have implicitly said in this thread, the right comparison is between >130 lbers and <230 lbers.

 

i will fight u

 

I'll back this.

I'm rather large and rather ripped, thanks to very knowledgeable people around me training me, and this is pretty much what we do. I haven't done a curl in camp in a decade.

And agreed on the arm wrestling. I've armwrestled Johnny Brzenk, him for fun, me for curiosity. That little SOB pulled me so fast my head spinned.

 

I forgot this isnt an ''in shape'' look

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that is actually what they recommend..even as far as getting into body building, i know Arnie in his book suggested being good at push ups and body weight movements first.

 

In your defense, Brzenk has dominated armwrestling at the highest level since the mid 80s...he's beaten absolutely huge and musuclar men with relative ease more times than can be counted.

Such as 0:16 of this video:

[yt]ZPpjlmCq4tIp[/yt]

Edit: don't know why the video is not popping up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPpjlmCq4tI

He destroys many a huge men in that video.

One thing I have noticed, though is that there is a very distinct difference in being pure weight lifting strong and having functional fighting strength.

For instance, I'm 5'8, and only 145 lbs. I've only had 2 people clearly establish themselves as being stronger than I was in the ring. The one was about my size, the other bigger.

About a year ago (I was 140lbs at the time) I was sparring a guy who was about 5'7, 170 lbs (solid, very little fat) pretty frequently. He out lifted me pretty clearly a few times in the gym with weights, but when we sparred I established myself as being the stronger of the two of us pretty clearly in the ring. I was able to push him and shove him all around, even when he tried his best not to let it happen.

The first time we sparred I walked him down and he looked to box me the way Cotto did vs Margarito, but I could tell it bothed him that I just kept applying pressure with little respect for his punching power or physical strength.

The second time we sparred, I could tell right from the first bell he was looking to back me up. Having a slightly longer reach, my strategy was to back him up and keep him at the end of my punches, primarily my jab, because he had shorter, more compact punches than me. I am a good infighter too, though which helped a lot of times. He tried to impose his 30lb weight advantage on me by trying to shove me back into the ropes where he would force me to exert more energy to get out. To his dismay, I overpower him and ended up walking him back into a corner and forced him to work harder than me. I found it interesting though, knowing that he would likely destroy me in armwrestling and knowing that he could definitely destroy me in a weight lifting competition, that I was able to outmuscle him in the ring pretty easily, even when he made it his goal to outmuscle me.

 

There's a really good documentary on Brzenk. Seems like a nice, humble guy who was just blessed with a ridiculous talent at a marginal sport.