A Stronger Fighter - Manuel Labor and Boxers . . .
When I was 19-years-old, my trainer Mel Epstein used to look at me and say-
"Your growing, but you need more strength, you need to do some hard work."
"I'm going to send you to work on a ranch in Montana for the summer. You'll comeback stronger!" Mel announced.
I told Mel he wasn't sending me anywhere.
I had a hot girlfriend and there was no way I was going to blow a perfect California summer with the perfect California blonde.
"I can work hard here, I can get a labor job and use the money, too."
So I went to work with a friend who was a Flores stablemate of mine years ago.
I installed irrigation pipes one day, then we picked them up the next day and took them somewhere else.
Then a buddy knew a guy who needed some laborers to dig into decomposed granite, picks and shovels for a ceptic tank at a mobile home park.
Then we picked up scrap at construction sites, carrying bags of concrete, etc.
Working at that made me much stronger, because unlike conventional weight training, you move into awkward postitions when you are swinging a pick, lifting a shovel, wrangling a bag of sand, or whatever.
In boxing you can get bent into a lot of strange positions, and this builds strength to deal with it.
You learn to lift properly, not a bar-bell, but something that creates a true working muscle.
When you are in close in the ring with mature pros, these guys are strong, and you can't let them bull you around.
You need to be able to pick the guy up and slam him to the ground, although that is something you would never do in a boxing match.
Still, if you are strong enough to do that, you'll be strong enough to over power, or prevent yourself from being over-powered.
Regardless of how slick you can box, you have to be strong when you need to be.
Mel was right, and had I gone to Montana I'd have come back stronger.
However, I'm glad I didn't go. That was one helluva summer!
