Categories

Life Lift

About the Author

Barry
Barry Oglesby is a professional MMA fighter and BJJ player, in addition to being the owner and head coach of Kyuzo Gym in Dublin, a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu school. He also works as a Strength and Conditioning coach at a North Dublin secondary school, and can be found on the commentary team on Cage Contender, Ireland’s largest MMA show.
... show more ...

He can be contacted through the GrapplerMan.com website.
Other Articles by Barry

Archive

Recently Added

Turning Pop into Bang

by: Barry Oglesby

In the past few months I’ve been programming for a boxing coach who has started a new Strength and Conditioning plan for his fighters. Achieving a high level of fitness is obviously very important for boxers, and great emphasis has always been put on physical conditioning in every boxing club I’ve been to. However, in general boxing does seem to be slightly behind the strength and conditioning curve. There are still those in the boxing community who believe the old coach’s maxim that lifting heavy slows you down, and conditioning in many clubs is still confined to running. I’m lucky to be involved with a club this time out that has bought into my programming very early, but I have received some opposition in the past.

In particular I’m going to talk about developing speed and power for boxers. This is without a doubt the most sought after quality from those I speak to. One member of this particular team told me that he wanted to “hit like a rocket - fast and explosive.” Boxers want to be quicker and they want to hit harder, however the training methods that I see generally used rarely have a significant impact (excuse the pun) on performance. Here is a sample power development schedule that I used with my guys to make those rockets fly.

Step 1 - Establish a Launch Pad

No rocket, no matter how powerful, ever took off without a stable launch pad. In this phase, I am looking for general strength, about as general as you can get actually. I need to see certain strength levels and movement patterns before we start to do anything exciting. In particular I focus on the boxers posterior chain and core. I want to build a strong structure for his shoulders, a strong core to support powerful rotational movements, and strong legs to start every punch. So expect to see a lot of deadlifts, single leg exercises, pulling movements in both planes and dynamic core work. In this early phase we’re already doing some jumps and plyometrics. I believe that there is an excess of caution when it comes to power work sometimes, and that light plyometric and power movements have a place in every programme at every level so long as volume is kept low. I’ll use bounds, hops, medicine ball throws and box jumps here. This is not the stuff of Strength and Conditioning dreams, but it is the area in which you will see the biggest early improvements if you are working with boxers who are novices in the weight room.

Step 2 - Make Sure You Have Enough Thrust

I tend not to use the full Olympic lifts in the early stages of developing power in boxers. Firstly, we work in a boxing gym that isn’t equipped for Olympic lifts, and secondly, coaching a group of 9 boxers to snatch is time consuming. There are also methods that I believe to be just as effective at this level. We might need to clean and jerk later on, but let’s jump and bounce first.

I also think it is a mistake to focus just on upper body power movements when training boxers. This is something I see a lot and it is something my predecessor in this gym was quite fond of - using movements that focus on the arms and chest such as fast single arm presses, medicine ball chest passes and so on - while neglecting core and lower body work.

I don’t believe that power work should be that specific for anyone, boxers or otherwise. Speed and power are neural in nature, (ie. They are a function of the nervous system) and whilethere is a local component to power work, I have always attained better results training the body systematically and not locally. So while I do use reactive chest passes with medicine balls, plyometric push ups and so on, they are part of a general power programme that encompasses the legs and core.

Step 3- Specific Power Work - Punching Through the Atmosphere

I think just training upper body because a boxer hits with his arms neglects what even the most novice boxer will tell you: a punch starts from your toes. There are few better examples of how the notion of triple extension applies to almost everything than a freeze frame of a fully extended right cross. It might not be a snatch, but the rear toe, the knee and the hip are firing in unison, and the upper body is only a part of this concert of movement. We can generate tremendous power by just focussing on the technique portion of training and turning your whole body into a punch, so why not apply this in the weight room? Power cleans and jerks are a great method of developing this. We’re generating tremendous force throughout the entire body which is precisely what a boxer wants to do. But lest you forget the earlier paragraphs, we’re only doing this once we’ve achieved adequate strength and mobility.

In short, power training for boxers is a little more complex than just medicine ball work, and for optimum results I believe that boxers should not exclusively work their upper bodies when it comes to power work, as they are neglecting a huge part of the equation. If you want powerful, rocket like punches, start with the basics and don’t neglect those legs!





CATEGORY: Training