Art of boxing

WHAT, WHEN, HOW?

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There may be some people who ask the question above when it comes to what kind of training they should do and how to do it. Well first lets look at the principles of exercise prescription, these apply to anyone, even elite athletes. If the principles are not adhered to, then you will find it hard to make any real improvements in fitness and skill. The principles are:
 
. Frequency: this is the number of times per week that exercise is to be undertaken.
. Duration: this is how long the exercise will last
. Intensity: this is how hard the person works or amount of stress or overload is applied
. Type: what exercise?
. Adherence to the programme should produce the desired results.
 
A boxers workout will have many forms of training, and intensity levels will always change. Work out how much time you have to train and how many days per week you have to do it. What type of training is up to you, but if you want to become one of the best then you have to train like the best.
What I mean is don't just do weights 2-3 times week and go for a run in addition to normal training and expect to be number.1 or even challenging to be.
You need VARIETY, I mean that you should change major exercises every 4-6 weeks, this can be changing the amount of reps you do, changing the exercise completly or changing the intensity.
 
Your body adapts to exercise so variety is very important in your exercise programme. If you like weights then change the sort of weights you do every month i.e machines to free weights etc. Also intensity should be different throughout the week, don't spar on the same day you do intervals and don't do intervals on the same day you do strength training (weights or other resistance).
Body weight exercises can be done nearly every day, but again change how you do them and the ones you do.
In your training programme (longterm not just the next couple of weeks) you can train with buckets of water, rocks, tyres, sledge hammers, weights, medicine balls and even sand and towels. They should all make up the puzzle, but not all the time. You could train with tyres for a month then move on to rocks, or you can change it weekly if you want. I will go through sample routines every month covering different type you can use, but these are in addition to your skill training.

Periodisation
This is a structured cycle involving different training components and intensities in order to bring an athlete to peak performance in time for competition. These are the different cycles:
. macrocycles - one- to four year training cycles
. mesocycles - monthly cycles
. microcycles - weekly or individually planned training sessions.
I will move on to mesocycles below
 
Mesocycles
A macrocycle will be divided into many mesocycles, they consist of a number of months and depend on the structure of the season. In pre - season the focus will normaly be on building aerobic foundation, then the second mesocycle will change in preparation period and the emphasis will be on strength training and anaerobic conditioning as well as power. Then in pre - comp explosive strength is improved and sports specific skills are now worked on. The competition phase should focus on maintaining a high level of strength and anaerobic endurance as well as intense boxing specific drills. All this should lead to peak performance.
 
It is important to know that as sparring becomes more intense leading to a fight then you must sacrifice other training such as running and intervals, not completly just ease down on them. Also stop any strength training 1 week prior to competition as you now try to enter a state of super compensation.

"Never walk backwards into a lions den"

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