This plan is for coaches that are looking to lead their fighters to victory or boxers that want to take their training into their own hands.
I’ve boxed for over 12 years and have been a trainer for over a decade. I’ve trained boxers that are weekend warriors and those that have competed on the national level.
I was brought up by coaches that subscribed to the old school way of training their fighters: no strength training because it makes you slow. This could not be further from the truth. You do not become slow just by strength training.
Another old school thought from my coaches was that to be good at boxing you have to just do boxing. This is absolutely not true. While the only way to get good at boxing is to train the sport, you can most definitely level up your game by cross training and strengthening your weaknesses. By strength training for your sport, you become resilient to injury, powerful, and a well rounded athlete with longevity in the sport.
I did what my coaches said and did not strength train and just boxed. I also worked as a boxing coach, so I was in my fight stance constantly, shadow boxing, holding mitts, demonstrating technique in addition to my own training.
With years of repetitive training as a right handed boxer, I developed muscular imbalances and suffered from constant pain in my right low back, right hip, left shoulder pain, biceps tendinitis, elbow pain, right knee pain, plantar fasciitis, etc. I loved boxing and I loved boxing training, but I was spiraling downhill fast with pain, discomfort, and injury. Most importantly, the pain I endured in training got so out of control I could no longer train the sport I loved so much.
As a coach I witnessed the same repetitive stress injuries in a lot of the boxers I trained, similar to what I felt.
After switching careers from a full time boxing coach to a private trainer, not only did my pain disappear, but so did that of my clients that followed me from boxing.
I developed this training plan specifically for boxers. After 16 weeks of training, you will become more resilient, balanced, and powerful. You will go through unilateral work (which often reveals muscular imbalances), working the full range of motion of a joint for joint health, slow eccentrics for control under load, different shoulder angles to balance the strikes in boxing, back development for power and stability, and knee flexion, which is lacking in the sport.
By developing your strength, addressing limb imbalances and strengthening the muscles that contrast and support the sport, the person training will not only become a knockout boxer, but one that is resilient to injury.