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**terry** · 05-12-2003, 02:48 PM

If you're taking down your cardio for the off season that's cool. As for the weights in the off season I might step back and re-evaluate it. If you are not trying to gain a weight class or one of the cruiserweight, heavyweight or superheavyweight weight classes you will need to maintain your current weight class while increasing your functional strength. That probably means that you should not target doing hypertrophy (bodybuilding) work but need to work a lot of speed reps and circuit training and a bit of strength work (speed+power). This won't get you a big max lift kind of strength nor will it get you size. But it will help your tendon strength and strengthen some prime movers you need for boxing as well as some of the supporting muscles.

Consider the following stuff (conventional wisdom for boxing):

- Shoulder shrugs (work up to 400 lbs)
- Neck exercises (front, back, side, side for as much as you can on 20 reps each)
- Back exercises (hypers, deadlift, good mornings --speed not heavy weights)
- Triceps (Dips & Bar tris)
- Abs (straight & twisting)

**Tom Yum** · 05-12-2003, 04:36 PM

Thanks for the input Terry.

Have you heard of power factor training? I saw a book in the store about it. Basically, it looks like the trainers were using partial reps (the last 4-5 inches of the rep) with mega weights. The philosophy is that this kind of training also increases tendon strength for power.

Any opinions?

**terry** · 05-12-2003, 06:35 PM

I've never heard it called that way, but sure. I see it as a supporting exercise to be done when you're having a weak spot in an otherwise okay range of motion. Some of the Russian olympic coaches use isometrics to do the same thing, but the Westside guys I've trained with tend to keep a motion going through a short but extremely heavy weight, aka, ~120-135% of a single-rep max.

Hmmm...how to apply this specifically to boxing/MT motions? I think Maybe isolation with abs would help. I have worked with this by getting big rubber bands to work the top range of incline situps. Also, pushups with bands (10 add another 75-100 lbs at full extension) would be useful.

But there is some stuff along these lines that powerlifters do that may not have as good of return on your investment of time. For example, I was working on deadlift lockouts this morning. Basically, you practice the top 3" of your deadlift with very heavy weight to make sure you keep the bar moving through that range in competition. Anyway, I'm trying to work up to 700 lbs on those. Man, it's a headrush to lockout that much weight. Your visual field starts wavering and almost breaks up. After about 5 seconds though your spirit re-enters your body and you're okay. But is this particular exercise gonna be the best use of your time? Yes, for competition level powerlifting because the deadlift suit gives you a bounce only at the bottom range of the lift. But for competition MT? Prolly okay to do some for tendon strength, but not worth the time to do a whole lot of it.

However, for a brief street-oriented altercation with a non-competition level athlete, I might speculate that having a decent, explosive deadlift (say 600+ lbs), a good standing row (250+) and a respectable bench (400+) would give you a pretty awesome snake-n-bake (plum). It might even open up the possibilities of dislocating somebody's cervical spine if they're not pretty beefy in the neck.

Cheers,

Terry

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