The video below includes over an hour of training footage from Russia’s 2000 Olympic boxing team. During that year, the Russian team won the most total medals in boxing (seven), including two gold medals. Yet despite the success of the Russian team, you will notice that their training style remains low-tech from an equipment and facility standpoint.
Many of the exercises involve nothing but bodyweight or medicine balls. The training style remains similar to another Russian video that I’ve posted previously which featured footage from over 30 years ago. In each case, you will see successful athletes who have thrived on the basics without getting lost in unnecessary complexity.
As has been mentioned countless times before, successful training does not depend on the equipment that is used. The old school approach may be knocked by many modern trainers, but the criticism is typically limited to verbal debates, rather than real world examples. Countless fighters continue to thrive in low-tech environments. Hard and consistent work with the basics has always produced champions.
Don’t expect that trend to change any time soon…
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“It is not a daily increase, but a daily decrease. Hack away at the inessentials.” – Bruce Lee
And more Russian training from the archives (Fedor, this time): http://rosstraining.com/blog/2010/09/30/fedor-emelianenko-in-the-gym/
We’ve seen how the Eastern Europeans once “allowed” to compete professionally have taken over all of the heavier weight classes in boxing. I would be one of the few it seems to think that both Klit brothers would have been dominant even in the so-called “golden age for heavyweights” in the early and mid Seventies. Frazier would have been to predictable and too small, Ali didn’t have the punch or style to defeat ither brother, Foreman, is probably the only fighter from that era that I could have envisioned beating one or both of the Klits. Styles make fights. Quarry-Bonavena-Chuvalo, too small, but Quarry, depending on which Quarry showed up, like the Quarry who boxed Ron Lyle’s butt off, could have given them problems. Chuvalo & Bonavena just too limited though. Ron Lyle & Earnie Shavers, relatively easy wins for either brother. Jimmy Young, way too defensive minded and no meaningful punch. A prime Joe Bugner could be another that could suprisingly pull off an upset. Physically large for his era at 6’4″ and about 220-225lbs in shape, Bugner was one the few men Ali fought who was larger than the champ, Bugner, while not known as a puncher shook Frazier a couple of times in their ’73 match. Went the distance with Frazier, Ali(twice), and Ron Lyle. A young Larry Holmes doesn’t have the style or at this stage of his career, the experience either. Oops, almost left off Ken Norton, and we all know what happened when Norton felt a fighter could hurt him or had the strength to back him up. Good night sweet prince!
Given the nature of their sports, I think bodyweight exercises and conditioning exercises are more valuable of a tool for combat sports like wrestling, MMA, or boxing than elaborate weight programs. I’m not completely against some weights for boxers, but some fighters today have gone completely overboard. I’ve seen top ranked contenders like heavyweight Tyson Fury performing heavy deadlifts of over 500lbs and I just don’t see much of a carry over into the ring or how that particular exercise will benefit his boxing at all. If there is one thing I have against the modern day fighter is their relatively poor stamina and lack of conditioning. Their workrate aka punch count doesn’t compare with the fighters of yesteryear, and many spend a good portion of their bouts hugging, mugging, and posing instead of punching. I think the case with a lot of these fighters is just that they’re too heavy(heavyweights fighting a good 15-25lbs above a reasonable fighting weight) but with some I think some of their stamina issues would be too much time performing unnecessary weight training exercises and not enough time sparring, running, or doing the exercises we see in the excellent video you provided. I’m certainly aware of the values of weight training and have been using the weights for decades, but every sport has different needs and a fighter shouldn’t train like a NFL defensive lineman.
great idea, but its really not about the training, its the technique involved that maid them stand out