EdwinValero wrote:I am an avid fight fan and have been since I can remember. However, the only time I have ever actually boxed is from the ages of about 11-15.
I am now 20, 6"4 and about 85kg (I'm tall and skinny
)
I would quite like to give it another go and start training but I don't think I have the confidence to walk into my local gym where most of the lads have been training for 10 years plus and just join in with them.
To be honest, I don't even know if I will be any good but I feel I will regret it if I don't try.
Just wondering if anybody else has had similar experiences or can offer any advice.
You'd make a great LHW, which in the amateurs in 178... Many boxers, like Sergio Martinez, got a late start.. The 3 things to remember are 1. skill, 2. conditioning, and 3. strength training.. By the time you're 30 you can have the best of all 3 worlds if you work very hard at all 3.. Skill is the most important asset -- but work a couple hours a day on conditioning, strength, speed, and balance for 4 or 5 months before setting foot in the gym.. The top trainers don't want to work with anyone who doesn't look strong, conditioned, confident, motivated, and fast...and like a natural athlete..
First impressions mean a great deal.. So do an hour of pull-ups, push ups, situps, back extensions, and obliques, and on alternate days work with weights for 30 minutes.. and rest on Sunday or whatever rest day makes the most sense for you.. You might want to practice the 400 meter hurdles doing taking off on both your left and right foot... or do Ninja Warrior type workouts and hand stands as well... Look at YouTube and "bar stars" and do some of those routines.. Run 5 miles a day at daybreak.. Find an ideal cross country course.. It doesn't matter if it takes you 50 minutes the first day... Run 6 days a week and eventually you'll do the run the 5 in 30 minutes or less -- if you don't push yourself too much and listen to your body you'll progress faster.
After work you have to plan your time much better than most people who don't make big time commitments. Once you start going to a Boxing Gym you'll need 3 workouts 6 days a week.. Roadwork before you go to work or school for 30 minutes.. Your Boxing Gym workout after work, 2 hours.. Your strength training and conditioning workouts---away from your Boxing Gym workout so you don't show everyone your routines---can be 30 to 45 minutes..
If your Boxing coach wants you to lift weights and do push-ups at the boxing gym, tell him you're already doing all that and you have to get going to your strength training and conditioning gym.. You want him for Boxing and a good Strength Training coach for strength, conditioning, and nutrition advice... If a strength training coach pushes you to do extra reps and exhausts you -- he's the wrong coach. You need to finish a strength training workout fresh and strong. For Boxing you need strength and explosive power - not useless muscle which you get by grunting out extra reps when you're exhausted, and then you have to rest the muscle for several days---that's body building.. You have to box every day to become a master so you don't want Arnold Schwartzenegger muscles -- you want Vasyl Lomachenko muscles.
So work hard for several months on conditioning, speed, and strength, and walk into a gym.. If somebody has you spar before a couple months of intense instruction and mitt work, they're not the right trainer for you.. Think of it as going to college and you're not going to graduate for years.. Don't try to punch people's heads off when you start sparring---so you get plenty of sparring partners.. Boxers don't want to get hurt, and they won't show up for sparring if you're knocking them dizzy every day.. Sparring is not a fight -- it's working on skills so you win all your fights..
The most important thing is this... Try to throw your punches very smoothly, with feints, deception, and sharpness ... and without loading up.. Box and make contact with your punches, and defend yourself expertly instead of walking through punches.. It's the Tunney philosophy instead of the Dempsey philosophy.. It's great to be a drop-dead puncher with an iron chin -- but only one-in-a-million has that kind of talent, and it probably isn't you.. But any talented, intelligent, and highly trained athlete can become a master boxer -- and potentially beat the hardest puncher in the world.
