Our gym currently has not one, but two coaches with injuries. Both injuries mean they can’t use their power right, at all. Not even a little bit.
Interestingly, on sparring night both of them were in the ring with only one glove. Sinclair can’t even get a glove on his right, it’s so swollen, and Sam could have gloved (his injury was to his shoulder), but didn’t. But they still confidently put on one glove and started moving everyone toward ringtime.
Since we had a gym full of young, messy fighters, I had been expecting to get more work than usual with my two gloves. And while I did work with several different boxers in our gym, I was reminded of a few things I hadn’t thought of in a while, and I also learned something I wasn’t expecting at all. (more…)
Is it safe to box in your forties? Are you likely to be injured? Should you even consider boxing if you have small children at home?
That’s me, still boxing at 47.
I started boxing at 42, I have a husband and three kids at home, and looking back, I’m slightly amazed that I never had these questions back when I started. But in those days I had other, more pressing issues. I’d never done anything like boxing (or anything else) for myself before. I was miserable and depressed. I didn’t think my marriage was going to survive. I frankly didn’t care what happened in the ring; I was just blindly hoping for something to relieve the darkness.
Boxing pulled me out of the abyss, and taught me how to fight for myself and the things I wanted.
And as I grew more proficient in boxing (and life) and started to spar regularly, people began to pose these questions to me.
They’re good questions from people who mean well, and some of them come from people who are not (or haven’t been) boxers themselves. But they ALSO come from boxers, like the awesome Glowing Edge reader who sent this email (I’ve edited it slightly):
I started MMA and kickboxing a year ago when I was 40. Been largely enjoying it and making good progress. I spar and grapple so it’s not pure ring work and punching but I do a fair share of boxing and boxing training.
I’ve definitely been tagged a few times. Nothing knee wobbling and no concussions but stunned a few times and a swollen nose once. And I can give it right back.
So, I’m not really scared about getting tagged, but after training I have a lot of thoughts, like, I’m 41 years old. I have small children at home. Do I need to be getting hit in the head at all? With all of the stuff in the news about concussions/suicide/etc. is even this very modest amount of boxing a risk? I need my brain at this point more than my fists. I talked to my doctor and she said she isn’t too worried if I’m not doing frequent, full contact boxing but I thought I’d see what your thoughts are.
I don’t see myself competing in the future unless it’s in jiu jitsu where you can compete as a “senior.” However, I like to put the skills I have into practice. I’m in the best shape and the least stressed out I’ve ever been so I’m hesitant to limit myself to just the bag but I also want to be smart.
First of all, how fantastic to hear about someone taking up a fight sport and getting in such great shape. And clearly doing well and enjoying themselves! Also, he got checked out by a doctor, who gave him a reasonably cautious but optimistic go-ahead (I’ll talk about frequency of sparring below). That’s win #2, because not all doctors will genuinely support someone who boxes; some are very frowny-scowly. And finally, the good news is that it IS possible to compete in a “senior” division in boxing, just like in jiu jitsu. See below…
I’ll get there, I promise! But let me see if I can answer a few of the most frequently asked questions first.
1. Can you box in your 40s?
Sure you can. Plenty of us do. You can even compete in boxing in your 40s on an official amateur or a professional level.
Even if you don’t get in the ring for sparring or competition, you can get a phenomenal all-body workout with boxing and get into the best shape of your entire life. But you probably already knew this. I think the real question comes next.
2. Do you have to get hit in boxing, or can you box without that?
You CAN box with NO body contact.
You will hit things, but you don’t have to BE hit. You can do all the fitness training that goes with boxing, even hitting the heavy bag, speed bag, and mitts, without ever getting punched in the face (or body) at all. For people who have concerns about safety, there you go. Non-contact boxing is going to be the safest path for you.
3. Are you going to get injured if you box?
Boxing is like any sport; you can, and probably will sustain some sort of minor injuries.
All of my non-contact boxing injuries were the kind I could have gotten simply going to a gym to work out. Beyond the normal aches and pains, the torn rotator cuff (which I got doing unassisted pull-ups, and I don’t do those any more) was the worst.
Cesar Hernandez and Jose Santiago, both fighting over 40.
If you do spar or compete, you may get a black eye, or a bloody nose. The more serious injuries tend to happen to new boxers who are not as skilled and a lot more scared than an experienced boxer.
My worst injury in the ring was as a newbie — I got a broken rib, and that bastard hurt. Took me about 3 months to get over that one, but I haven’t been seriously injured since.
So. Minor shit, yeah. Big stuff? No. And I try to spar about once a week, and compete every year.
4. What about hard punches to the face and head? Aren’t they dangerous?
They certainly can be. That’s why boxers (at any age)
train with good coaches and sparring partners who have everyone’s best interest at heart.
And yes, there are lots of conversations in the media (even from President Obama, at this year’s Superbowl) and among scientists and pension boards about whether or not repeated concussions from boxing, football, and soccer are causing dementia, Parkinson’s, and a host of other problems. MMA head injuries are under the media microscope as well. All of those should be considered by someone who wants to get in the ring.
Have I thought about all this? Of course. But I also work pretty hard to mitigate the risks. And I haven’t been doing this since I was a teenager, so I’m not going to have the same number of years of it piling up like a young fighter might.
5. But professional boxers don’t wear headgear during their fights…
That’s true, and pro boxing definitely takes a harder toll on the body than amateur boxing, which requires competitors to wear headgear.
However, pro boxers don’t spend the majority of their time fighting at full power without headgear.
They spend MOST of their time training, lifting weights, doing intervals, and working the bags and mitts like everyone else. They spar more when getting ready for a fight, but even so, they don’t go out every single week (like football players do) and put themselves into the highest risk situations. They might fight a few times per year, even as many as 10 times a year in the elite circles. But the majority of boxers aren’t doing that.
6. Is boxing worse for injuries than other sports?
I might put competitive fighting (including MMA and all of the martial arts) in the top 10 of most dangerous sports, along with football, soccer, rugby, and cheerleading, but I don’t have any kind of science or data behind that.
But what about base jumping, free climbing, bull riding, motocross, pro surfing, scuba diving, street luge, BMX riding, heli-skiing, hockey, lacrosse, mountaineering, NASCAR, and other dangerous sports?
I do know that you can be mildly or devastatingly injured in any sport. You can build up cumulative damage over a period of years in any sport. It’s worth considering, but I’ve found that boxing is also worth doing.
7. Is it irresponsible to box if you have kids at home who need you?
Before I started boxing, my three sons had a mother who did everything for them and nothing for herself, and they had parents with a failing marriage. I don’t know if they knew how unhappy and depressed I was, but I know it’s very different for them now.
Since I started boxing, they’ve learned to do their own laundry, make their own meals, and they are expected to pitch in around the house. They have a mother who is tough and courageous. They have parents with a solid marriage and joy in life.
It’s clear to me which one is the better model.
I understand the people who worry about head injuries. I think that’s a reasonable concern, but I don’t see a lot of that in boxing, except at the long-term professional level.
Boxing teaches you to care for your physical, spiritual, and emotional health. It teaches discipline, respect, and balance. And fight sports are practiced in very controlled arenas, with coaches and teammates and specialized gear.
These all feel like very important life gifts and opportunities to have.
8. Should I let my daughter see her father fighting?
There are other parents who are not sure how they feel about their sons and (particularly) daughters seeing Mom or Dad punching and getting punched in the ring.
I think this is about personal preference, although I can tell you that I wish I’d discovered boxing LONG before I was in my 40s. But I had no idea women even boxed, and I’d certainly never learned anything about the real skills, training, and care that goes into learning to fight.
My sons aren’t particularly interested in boxing (not having grown up with it), but if you ask them they’ll tell you it’s kinda cool that their mom fights. They would be willing to come see me fight (and I’d love to have them), but I usually have to travel and can’t afford for all of us to go.
When people say “But you don’t want your children to see you getting beat up!” I always smile at the assumption that I’m getting “beat up” in the ring. Maybe otherpeople are getting “beat up” by me, I’d love to say, but I know what they mean.
I hit, and I get hit, but I’m also okay. I like my sparring partners: we laugh, groan, grunt, and sweat together. We try to talk over our mouthguards. We get yelled at by our coaches. We work on specific tactics and shots. We nod and acknowledge particularly skilled moves.
Some days I suck, or perform poorly, or am utterly outmatched. Some days I’m teaching and supporting newer fighters. But it’s not typically an atmosphere of anger or ugliness.
I’d be fine with my daughter watching, if I had one.
9. Should I consider competitive boxing if I’m over 40?
USA Boxing, which governs amateur competition in the United States, puts all boxers over the age of 35 into the Masters category. It differs from the younger age groups in that Masters boxers are required to have a few more medical checks, like an EKG every 5 years. And in addition to the normal weight regulations, Masters boxers can not have an official match with anyone who is more than 10 years older or younger than they are.
So of course you can consider competitive boxing if you’re over 40. And for some of us, that’s the first time in our lives we actually do consider it!
10. How many fights can an over-40 boxer expect to get?
There aren’t nearly as many Masters fighters as there are in the under-35 bracket, as you might guess. I haven’t tracked the men, but most years in my state (NC) there have been between one and three registered female Master boxers. I usually know who they are. I’d guess there are at least five or six times that many male Master fighters.
So there aren’t as many opportunities to get matches, but if you have the money and can travel, Gleason’s Gym in NY holds annual Masters tournaments and Ringside also has a Masters tourney every year.
It’s not impossible to get fights in your local area (I’ve done it), but often you have to find and get someone to travel to your location. Corporate boxing groups like Atlanta Corporate Fight Night, are a newer thing in the US, and also offer opportunities for 40 and up boxers.
Coming Next: Best Advice for Over 40 Boxers
When I raised the issue of fighting after 40 on the Facebook page for The Glowing Edge, I got some great responses from boxers about what to think about, ways boxing is different for us, and what factors are the most different. Since this one got a bit long, my next post will cover some of those items, so check back soon.
Meanwhile, I hope you’ll leave a comment below with your own questions and thoughts on the matter! Stay strong and keep swinging…
Most of the time in boxing sparring, you’re not working with your full power, because if you were, you’d have a pretty short shelf life. Save that shit for the fight, you know?
But because nearly everyone spars with people waaay outside their weight category, you’re likely to get hit really hard now and then. The kind of hit that makes your head buzz and your ears ring. I’m not talking about a knockout punch, but close.
When nearly all my sparring partners were heavyweights, I used to get my bell rung about once a month. Lately it’s a fairly rare occurrence, mostly because I’m in with people closer to my weight, and also because I’m less slow on defense than I used to be. If you’re new, you’re just gonna get tagged on a regular basis; there’s no getting around it. (Don’t worry, you don’t stay new forever.)
Recently I was working with one of my favorite sparring partners; we’re within 5 pounds of each other and very comfortable in the ring together. Our strength is well-matched, and we know how to draw out each other’s best work. We tear shit up, man, and it is awesome. When you’re in there with someone you know you’re safe to work your ass of with, sometimes your power builds and builds and you feel good letting loose some badass shots.
We were there.
Unfortunately, I was also consistently dropping my right. Which meant she was amping up her left hook in order to take smart advantage of my lapse. She scored several hits that I should never have allowed, then BANG. I got rocked, pure and simple. Not a knockout shot, but a clean, clear, hard power shot to the chin that put a sweet stop to my game for a moment.
“I need a second,” I told her immediately, and we both dropped gloves and I walked it off. And you can bet your sweet ass that my coach didn’t even have to mention that sloppy guard of mine because I knew. (He mentioned it anyway. I deserved it.)
Anyway, every boxer experiences it, and you need a few tricks in your toolbox to deal effectively with it. So here you go.
1. DON’T shake your head.
It’s a natural impulse, but it doesn’t help to shake your head to try and clear it. That just sloshes your brains around even more than they already are.
2. Let someone know.
Don’t just stand there and take more hard shots on top of the one you just got. It’s totally, completely, absolutely ordinary in everyday sparring to say, Hang on, I need to recover. It doesn’t mean you’re pussy, it doesn’t mean you are quitting, it just means you’re not a dumbass.
If you got tagged because someone’s going off on you, then you make double sure you tell them to pull the heat. The unwritten rule in sparring is that you match the power of the person you’re working with, unless you agree differently.
3. Be calm.
You box; this is normal. It’s not something you want to have happen all the time, but there’s no need to get excited — or angry and upset. I see guys (especially) get incidentally rocked and then fire off a series of punishing bombs, which just escalates the situation and often turns an otherwise normal sparring match into an ugly, messy, pointless brawl. There’s not much to be learned from that kind of slop, but some coaches (including mine) do allow it so that “the boys” can burn off some stupid.
I’m pretty sure it’s a guy thing, hah.
4. Keep moving.
For the most part, you want to walk it off. Keep everything moving, operating, and in motion until your neurons start firing normally again.
5. Take a drink of water.
When this happened to me recently my coach had me roll out and hang out ringside (it was somewhat a punishment for the sloppy guard, I think) while my sparring parter finished the round with someone else. My coach instructed me to get a drink and cool off for a round. It’s annoying to have to do this, but finding your water bottle and getting some liquid in you gives you something else to focus on. Dammit.
6. Fix what went wrong.
In this particular case, I knew what I’d done, and I was already pissed at myself for letting my right drop like that. If you don’t know exactly why your bell got rung, your coach will clarify, and you should immediately start thinking about patching up the hole in your form. Which leads me to…
7. Get back in. ASAP.
You don’t want to end your sparring session on a rough note like that if you can help it. Get back in with someone you trust and concentrate on fixing the problem you had in the first place. In my case, my sparring partner and I laughed a little at how few rights I was throwing when I got back in. My right was practically duct-taped high and tight to my headgear. I wasn’t letting that hand down for ANYthing, not so soon after getting rocked.
If all you do is work on protecting yourself, good for you. Everyone needs to work some defense-only rounds now and then. If you feel up to raising the power again, let your sparring partner know and go for it. But no matter what, get back in.
8. Know when to stop.
I just did one more sparring round after my bell-ringer. I’d already had a good workout and that was all I needed to finish on a positive note. But sometimes you get hit really hard and need to roll out and not spar at all for a day or three. (I don’t recommend hard sparring more than once or twice a week, anyway.)
Pay attention to your body and do what it tells you. Get rest and take aspirin when you need to, because if you don’t pay attention, you run the risk of getting injured and really taking yourself out of the game you love.
9. A note on “faking it.”
For me, none of the above applies if you’re talking about an actual fight. I mean, except being calm and fixing the problem.
My first trainer Bonnie is famous for her incredibly tight guard. NObody gets through that guard, boys and girls. She’s never been knocked out, or even stopped. But she came close, once…
She used to tell me the story of how she got tagged so hard during one of her fights that her vision blacked out. She stayed on her feet, though, and worked like a fiend to not give ANY indication of her status. She was flat not going to a) allow a ref to step in and possibly stop the fight, or b) give her opponent any reason to come barreling in for the kill.
And she pulled it off. And every time I got seriously rocked during our sparring sessions, she would remind me to not show it in a fight if at all possible. To keep boxing, to keep working to the very best of my ability. To fake it, hard, until I was back in the swing.
Ever been rocked?
Got a story to share? Leave me a comment and let me know how you handled a hard-ass punch. Tell us your pointers for taking a bad one, and not letting it hold you down.
But there’s a trick to getting through them that I just didn’t learn in boxing. But I was recently reminded of that lesson in the facefull-of-water kind of way that only a real wipeout can teach.
Learning to hang on to the rope
My grandfather had a cabin on Pickwick lake and a small, light boat called the Flutterby, perfect for towing skiiers. When I was about seven or eight years old, he showed me how to wedge my feet into the wet rubber shoes of an old slalom ski, handed me the tow rope, and helped me slip over the side of the boat.
Several times he emphasized to me that I should hold on tightly to the rope, so I clutched the plastic handle in both hands with a death grip and anxiously tried to keep my balance in the water as the Flutterby drifted slowly away and the slack was pulled out of the towline.
I got up on the very first try; I couldn’t believe how easy it had been. (Classic beginner’s luck; it didn’t happen that way the next time.)
It was an incredible, triumphant moment, and I was exhilarated by the cool shock of wind against my wet skin and the thrum of the lake beneath my feet. My teeth were chattering uncontrollably, but I grinned and emphatically nodded my head: I’m doing it! I’m doing it! My grandfather smiled back and waved, one hand on the steering wheel of the boat as he watched me.
Learning to let go of the rope
It seemed like I skiied forever on that smooth green ribbon that unfurled behind the Flutterby. I watched the scenery whiz past, I grinned for my grandfather, I gazed hypnotically at the water. And after a while I wondered… Once you get up and ski for a long, beautiful stretch, what do you do next?
Well, you try your luck at crossing the wake, of course. And you experience your first wipeout.
I hit the water face first; the ski snapped off my feet and I was dragged hard against the surface of the lake, which had seemed friendly and soft a few minutes before, but now felt as hard as a parking lot.
Which might have been fine in the end, except my single lesson in waterskiing was stuck doggedly in my mind. Whatever happened, I KNEW to hold on to the rope. No one had said anything about what do to when you fell.
Of course my grandfather saw me pitch forward into the water and immediately pulled back the throttle and tried to circle around to pick me up. When he got close enough he called out. “Next time, let go of the rope,” he said simply, and I thought “Oh. Okay.”
I swallowed a significant part of Pickwick lake that day, nearly lost my bathing suit, and sported a stinging red face for a bit, but the most important thing that happened was that I learned the second vital lesson in waterskiing.
Sometimes you need to let go of the rope.
My first speedy li’l boat
There isn’t an exact analogy in boxing for this, which is perhaps why it took me a while to let go of the rope I was hanging on to so hard recently…
Many of you know I’m a full-time freelance writer. I’ve been writing all my life. And yet I haven’t published anything (other than the posts on this website) of my own. Nothing with MY name on it…
So a couple of months ago I got inspired by another author and friend of mine, the incomparable Johnny B. Truant, and I took the content from some of my most popular posts on The Glowing Edge and created the mini-book 37 Reasons to Take Up Boxing.
It took me a bit more than a week’s worth of spare time to write it, get a cover made, figure out the technical logistics, and start offering it on my site. It was lightning-fast, in terms of ebook projects. I created it, powered it up, and that little baby was off like a remote control racing boat with a spanking new, fully-charged battery pack. Zzzzzzip! and it was gone.
And what happened next…
Approximately 7 seconds later, I began thinking about the next one I wanted to publish. And I immediately set to work writing a book about the biggest, most life-changing lessons I’ve learned in boxing, and how they translate to life. The Badass Manifesto was born.
This book was bigger and certainly packed a good bit more power. I finished the writing in about three weeks of spare time, despite my client workload. This time, though, I wanted beautifully-designed interior pages, an audio version, and lots and lots of extras. This little boat would have racing stripes, multiple camera mounts, high-intensity halogen tower lights, and…
And two months later the good news was that the engine worked great; my boat was fast as hell. The bad news was that the accessories were taking forever. I was bogged down in technicalities and specifications and making no headway at all.
I’d created my second little boat and it was already flying across the water like a speed demon, but I felt like I’d done a faceplant and was being forcibly dragged along.
It’s hard to accomplish much when you’re flying face-first across a lake.
The aerial catalyst
And suddenly this story came up in my life. An image magically floated past on Facebook or Twitter of a trapeze artist about to let go of her trap bar, and I suddenly recalled my grandfather saying calmly, Let go of the rope.
So I cleared my calendar and set to the work of letting go.
I let go of the lovely interior page design I wanted, put off recording and solving the hosting/plugin decisions for another day, and bid a fond farewell to the great majority of further modifications I had wanted or started. I let go of that damn rope.
And I have to say it feels really good to climb out of the lake for a moment, wring the water out of my hair, and contemplate the lessons learned. I feel a little bruised maybe, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be back out there again in record time.
After all, you can’t start your next ride until you let go of the rope at the end of this one.
SO. There are no racing stripes or tower lights, but there’s a helluva fast boat waiting for you here. I hope you’ll fall in love with it, learn from it, be annoyed, intrigued, frustrated, and thrilled by it.
And most of all, I hope you’ll grow from it, just like I did.
PS: Watch for it at 2:46 in the video above. Boy do I *ever* know how that guy feels. : )
Success in boxing isn’t always measured by the number of “W”s on your passbook. It’s something hard-won over time with plenty of blood, sweat, and the right attitude.
Take a look at the following 11 keys to success in boxing, and join in the discussion by leaving your ideas and additions in the comments below.
1. Don’t ask who will let you learn to fight. Ask who will stop you.
This was my very first lesson in learning to box, and not coincidentally, in learning to live the life I dreamed of but didn’t have. The voice inside your head that says you can’t do this is a liar. If you want power, fight for it. If you want love, fight for it. If you want your art, your career, your relationships, your health…there isn’t someone you need to ask permission from. But there may be people, roadblocks, and personal limitations you’ll have to push past.
2. Find a coach you can trust.
Great boxing coaches almost always have boxing experience of their own. But just because someone was a boxer does not mean they’ll make a good coach. You want someone who understands how to teach boxing by careful increments, not the “throw ’em in the ring, beat ’em up, and see if they are ballsy enough to come back” school. Avoid any trainers who teach by routinely belittling, cursing, bullying, or humiliating their fighters. Certifications are overrated; what you want is someone you feel can bring out your best game. You can’t always put a certification on that.
4. Play to your strengths. Train up your weaknesses.
As you start to learn to box, you’ll discover that you have certain strengths and liabilities as a fighter. You may have great reach, but you don’t like the inside game. Maybe your punches pack power, but you can’t seem to get your feet to move lightly in the ring. You never manage to land an uppercut, but your jab stings like a bitch. Figure out what you’re good at, and put it to extra use in the ring. Accept that you have vulnerabilities, and seek training partners who excel in those areas and will help you train up your weaknesses so that they don’t present a fatal crack in your armor.
5. When you can’t do something everyone can do, train until you get it or find a workaround.
I learned a long time ago that as a boxer in her 40s I can’t always do the same things in training that the teenagers do. I’ve learned to come early to warm up more, find alternate exercises when one they’re doing won’t work for me, and modify some of the “routine” training patterns of my boxing team so that I can do the same work in a way that fits my body. For example, if the call is for 40 push-ups, I’ll do mine in sets rather than all in a row. One size does not fit all in boxing training; push yourself, but make it work for you and not against you.
6. Keep climbing back into the ring.
Learning to box takes years. It isn’t something you can try this week, and be “naturally” great at. Street fighters do not have an advantage. Muscle-bound tough guys do not have an advantage. Football players, rugby players, hockey players or other athletes do not have an advantage. (MMA fighters have an advantage.) Boxing is its own game, with unique challenges and rewards. The only way to become good is to train consistently over a long period of time. Set goals and work to achieve them, but remember the scale of this sport and allow yourself time to improve.
7. Fight until the bell rings.
Your first rounds in sparring are a real eye-opener as far as showing you exactly what’s required in this sport. Even once you have lots of experience, you’ll go in the ring some days thinking those three tiny minutes last about a hundred years each. But giving up mid-round sends the message that you just aren’t serious.
8. Cross train.
Going to your boxing gym three or four times a week may make your game good, but throwing in regular cross training will take you to the next level. And if you can make your cross training fit the rhythms of boxing (for example, fit exercises into 3 minute intervals with 30 second rests when possible), you’ll make your game the best it can be. Cross training strengthens the muscles that boxing doesn’t hit, alleviates boredom, and opens you to new experiences, coaches, and communities.
9. Seek out experienced fighters and listen to what they have to say.
Learn from the boxers who are already good. They know a lot, and can show you things you haven’t figured out yet. Watch them when they’re in the ring. Ask them questions. Train alongside them. One way to get good is to copy someone who is already there.
10. Seek out new fighters, and listen to what they have to say.
If you’re new, they will make you feel less alone. If you’re experienced, they will keep you on your toes and even teach you things you’ve missed or forgotten about. It’s always valuable to have the perspective of someone new to boxing. It’s also important to give back by listening to newbies and offering what counsel and encouragement you can.
11. Remember to breathe.
This sounds ridiculous until you’ve gone your first few rounds in the ring. Holding your breath while punching, forgetting to relax while in the ring, taking tiny, shallow fearful breaths… There’s so much strain and fear and work in boxing you can frequently find yourself fighting without breathing. A good coach and corner will constantly remind you to breathe, and you will have to work and focus hard to obey them. (You’ll be glad you learned it, though.)
I know there’s plenty missing from the list. What you would add? And I’m curious to know how well you think these keys translate to other sports as well. Leave a comment below and weigh in!
If you’re over 40 and in the amateur ring, boxing most likely isn’t (and isn’t going to be) your career. But you can pretty much guarantee that it will change your life.
I’m not trying to convince you of something, I’m mostly reminding myself. It helps to remind myself, because boxing will gobble up your life and body and leave you with little, if you let it. Being an amateur boxer after 40 is sort of like owning an exotic, voracious racing beast. Only weirdos like you love these things, can’t get enough of them, and are willing to put the incredible amount of time and energy into training and upkeep.
And I’m not even really joking. Here’s what I mean…
1. Boxing Draws the Intensely Passionate
In my experience, there are mostly two reactions to boxing: people find it to be sheer brutality they can barely stand to think about, much less watch… Or it gives them a massive jolt of juice, and they can barely tear their eyes away.
I fell into the first category for most of my life, but when I stumbled into boxing for fitness, then began to watch my trainer, Bonnie Mann, bring amateurs into the ring — I got my first jolt of the juice. It was bizarre, exotic, empowering. It was as if some channel in me that had been blocked up for 40 years was suddenly opened, and I was flooded with energy.
The intense rush swept me right into competitive boxing, and suddenly the stakes changed. Not only was I a wife, mom of three boys, and full-time corporate marketing person — boxing began to take it’s first fat weekly paycheck of heart, time, and pain out of my life.
This meant I had to do a lot of re-scripting of the way my personal universe ran.
The life I thought I had wanted now chafed. I was no longer willing — after decades of doing it — to be at home for my family’s needs every single night of the week. I was no longer willing to give up most of who I was for other people. There was something big, something powerful, something only for me that I wanted, and to get it I had to quit giving everyone else all my time and energy.
If I hadn’t done it, I don’t know if my marriage would have lasted, and I definitely wouldn’t be the same parent I am now.
Some days I think I owe boxing my life.
This is not a small change to go through at age 42. Don’t say you weren’t warned.
2. Boxing Demands a High Standard of Training at the Lowest Levels
Part of the reason boxing has such incredible power to change your life is because it requires an intense commitment at even the very lowest levels of the sport.
You can’t stroll into a boxing gym one day, hop in the ring and spar with someone (any gym worth their leather would never let this happen anyway), and expect to come out well.
To spar, you need to be training 3-4 days a week, with intervals, minimum.
To compete, you’ll need a 6-7 week “training camp.” That means you eat right and train hard and very specifically for the opponent you expect to meet (or to increase your strengths and minimize your weaknesses) for about 2 months.
You’ll probably be in the gym 4 or 5 days each week, although not all those days are boxing-specific; you’ll work on cardio, speed, accuracy, explosion, power, etc. in addition to hitting the bags and sparring. You have to stay mentally focused, and be extremely careful not to get injured toward the end of that period of intense training. And I don’t mean blood or bruises, I mean the kind of injury that would nix your fight.
If you’re over 40, you’re not likely to want to maintain that level of fitness for more than just a training camp. Because, you know, you have a life outside boxing. (Sort of.)
3. Boxing Takes a Physical Toll
The main reason I’m not in the boxing gym more than about twice a week during regular times is that it takes a fairly large toll on your body.
Even just hitting the speed bags and heavy bags for 10 rounds is going to cause some aches and pains and build up a cumulative pain in my joints. After several years, and plenty of minor injuries (sprained wrist, broken rib, torn rotator cuff x 2) to teach me my boundaries, I’ve learned how to create a boxing training regimen that works for me.
Interestingly, the chances for getting injured during your actual boxing match (if you are competing in the amateurs, not the pros) are far lower than your chance for getting injured during training.
Mostly that’s because you are only there for a very short period of time. Amateur rounds are typically 2 minutes each, and you only get three of those. Even though you’re both fighting all out, looking for the knockout or at least for blood and damage, it’s over before you know it, and there isn’t really enough opportunity for someone to get seriously hurt.
Several things to know if you’re over 40 and interested in competing in boxing…
First, everyone you fight will be within 10 years of your age, so you’re likely to get harder ring work at your gym, where everyone is 20 years old!
However, everyone you fight will have given up just as much as you have, and may have trained harder.
Maybe they don’t have kids still at home. Maybe they have not avoided interval sprints like you did. Maybe they’ve been training longer than you have.
A boxing sparring session is radically different than an actual match. If I had to choose between the two, sparring wins every time. It can be unbelievably beautiful to watch, particularly when the two boxers agree — implicitly or explicitly — to maintain a certain flow, to match and challenge each other but not overwhelm.
You see this kind of beauty in many professional fights, although not as much in amateurs since both fighters are jazzed on nerves and gunning for the knockout. It’s rarely as controlled.
But it’s clearly between pros who are at the top of their game and ungodly strong. Did you see all those uppercuts Martirosyan landed? Holy sh*t. Of course he got his nose bloodied by Chavez, but I’d rather have the bloody nose than have to take those punishing uppercuts.
And these guys are working for the cameras… This is not your average-Joe sparring session. (I’m fighting the urge to add “Do not try this at home, kids.”)
Dave asked a question about sparring, as well:
What is the damage you sustain after an average sparring session?
I sustained a bloody nose and again a bruised lip this week. Since a lot of the fighters matching my skill don’t show up anymore, it’s slim pickings. People tend to drop out a lot in martial arts I noticed. 🙂 Anyway, if I want to spar I have no choice but to fight against the competitive fighter who is always around. I outweigh him about 30 pounds, but he sure is fast.
I am aware that you seldom get out unscathed from a session, maybe I should switch to headgear with a nose guard but those seem way too bulky.
I’d love to hear your take on this!
The main injuries are fairly simple.
I often have a headache the next day after a hard sparring match, but it’s usually treatable with an ibuprofen or three. I don’t really count that as an injury, but it’s part of the package.
My single most common issue is bruised lips, which isn’t surprising, since your lips and nose are the least protected parts of your face when you’re wearing headgear.
I have a friend (Hi, Eric!) who seems to get nosebleeds a lot, and that’s not too unusual for the same reason. We both hate the headgear with the bar across the face because they are so bulky and they obstruct your vision more, but it’s an option.
The black eyes are less common, but I’ve had a few. I would guess that heavyweights get them more than lightweights like me; our punches just don’t pack the same kind of power. I got every single one of my black eyes when sparring with a heavyweight partner.
I also got my broken rib during sparring, but that was more unusual. I’ve only seen that happen two other times in the years I’ve been boxing.
There are several things that go into determining how much injury you commonly get during a sparring session.
The weight match of the sparring partners. I typically expect bigger partners to control their shots so that I don’t get hurt, but it doesn’t always happen that way.
How hard you both agree to work. It’s best if you can be explicit, but sometimes you think you have an agreement, but one person starts to increase their power. You have to continue to communicate — either with words or with force — or you can get in trouble here…
Experience level (whether or not you have good control of your punches). Newbies are notorious for causing damage, but more experienced boxers should be able to move faster and avoid the damage. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn’t.
What kind of gear you’re wearing. Like I mentioned, I hate the face-savers, but I love a no-foul. You can see that both boxers in the video above are wearing groin protectors and both of them got shots that landed on them. These take the edge off rib shots, too, not to mention the dreaded liver shot.
The number and length of rounds you spar. I like being a part of a team session where we’re trading off rounds; you can endure for longer and get a lot of learning in. But there’s great value in sparring the same number and length of rounds you do in a fight, too. I almost never get to do this since I’m usually the only woman in the gym, and men’s rounds are 3 minutes rather than 2. But when I’m getting ready for a match I insist on 2 minute rounds so I can get used to the rhythm.
What kind of trainer you have. Sometimes one or another coach who is overseeing the sparring is out for blood, and is urging their fighter to rip you to shreds. I hate being in that situation, but I’ve definitely been there. I try to avoid this kind of session and this kind of trainer; I don’t respond well to being screamed at. But you do see it in boxing gyms, that’s for sure.
The truth is that I try to avoid bad sparring matches, although I’ve had a few, and I will go out of my way to set up sessions with partners I know I can trust and get the best work with. I’ll travel to another gym if I can’t get good sparring where I am, and I really try to maintain good relationships with several area gyms so that I can do this.
I also don’t spar all that frequently, since it’s pretty hard on the body. At my last gym we sparred every Friday, and you better believe there were plenty of people who showed up once or twice for a Friday, then dropped out completely or only came on other team nights.
There’s a huge (huge!) difference between training for boxing and actually boxing, and it’s definitely a big hurdle for people. I completely understand why lots of people would not want to spar; I really do. It’s not for everyone.
But I think it could be for more people if gyms would set the right tone, and help make the matches better.
I’d love to hear what everyone else has to say; leave a comment below and let’s mix it up!
I took 6 weeks off of boxing lately, mostly just to rest, focus on work, and give myself a break after my last fight.
I’m not crazy, though — I kept up my runs and weights at home. I just didn’t do any boxing-specific work. No heavy bag, no sparring, no punching drills. I didn’t even show my nose at the gym.
When I went back for the first time this week I carefully stayed out of the classes that were training in the gym and did my own slow and careful workout: warm-up, shadowboxing, 10 rounds on the heavy bag.
The next two days showed me the muscles I had not been training while out of boxing: forearms, lats (although I swear I did lats!!), and some obliques. Also my neck was sore from carrying all the tension of the first workout back.
But amazingly, my shoulders were good.
I’ve had chronic bursitis in my hips and shoulders for as long as I can remember.
You gotta have shoulders to box.
You gotta have everything, I guess, but I never would have guessed that I could actually find work-arounds for the issues I have to deal with in my body’s performance, and still box well.
I was over 40 when I started this sport, and I was astonished that I could box well even though my hip joint issues meant I couldn’t run distance (for me, that means more than 4 miles).
Now I’m learning that I don’t have to punish my shoulder joints, either, in order to compete in the ring.
At first I sweated hard to learn to do dozens of standard push-ups, along with burpees, pull-ups, and the other shoulder-intense exercises. For several years I dealt with a level of everyday pain that I thought I would have to live with, if I was going to box.
Then I tore the rotator cuff in my right shoulder (doing unassisted pull-ups), requiring 3 months of physical therapy and a lot of time out of the ring. That shoulder became — and still is — the single body part I most have to favor.
My physical therapist — a pro fighter a few years older than me — told me to cut back on the heavy shoulder work. “You’ll still box just fine,” she assured me. And I decided to test it out.
So I stopped obsessing about building the number of push ups I could do, and I started re-working my personal training workouts.
And my pain levels started to recede…
But the real challenge is in what to do when the whole team is working out together.
I began by thinking up a few alternate exercises.
For example, when the team is doing entire rounds of toe-taps on the medicine ball, I do steps instead, which hurt my hips less. When the team is doing burpees, I do deep lunges instead. If the command is for 50 standard push ups, I’ll do knee push ups.
It’s extremely difficult to be doing something different from everyone else on the team, but I try to tell myself that I’m 46 and they are 20, and I’m allowed. I can still meet them with a nasty-ass right when the bell rings.
This one single thing — not doing what everyone else is doing — is the absolute hardest part of my sport. I must have a big pride thing going on, because I absolutely *hate* having to do my own thing. But I’ve finally decided to do it anyway.
And I’ve found that my results in the ring are just as good, which is why I am sticking with it.
The second thing I’ve changed is to lower the weights, reps, and impact.
If the call is for 50 arm lifts with weights, I’ll do 30, or lighten the weight. I don’t shadow box with 5-pound weights, I use 1-pounders instead. Believe me, I could do all this stuff full-bore before, but I paid a heavy price in pain levels and injuries.
And there was simply no need to do that.
The third thing I’ve done is test the time limits.
By testing, I’ve found that I can do as many 1 minute (not 3 minute) sets of toe-taps as everyone else and still be relatively pain-free.
I’ve been working actively on that particular exercise, so I haven’t yet tested 2 minute rounds, but the 1 minute rounds are solid.
I can’t change all my time limits, but I change the ones that hit my hips and shoulders the worst. Amazingly, sparring is not affected at all. Which is probably further proof — if I needed it — that just because I’m not starting every workout with 100 push-ups doesn’t mean I am going to suck in the ring.
When I was back in the gym this week for the first time in 6 weeks, I was struck by how many shoulder-intense exercises both training groups were doing.
One coach had the team doing literally hundreds of dips, followed by alternating-hand push-ups on a medicine ball. (If you start with your left hand on the ball and your right hand on the floor, you do a push-up, then shift quickly so that your right hand is now on the ball and your left is on the floor. Repeat. It takes balance, speed, and lots of shoulder strength.) Anyone who fell behind was assigned 50 more push-ups.
That session would have been a total loss for me.
As it was, I did my own workout, which involved exactly zero dips or push-ups. I’ll put some of those in there as I get going again, but it will be far less than those guys are doing.
In the end, my lesson has been — once again — that I have to know my own body and look out for myself. Even in the face of pressure from a coach or the team.
So I’m passing it along to you. Boxing is an incredible, joy-giving, empowering sport and with a basic level of fitness, you can do it. Even if you’re over 40. Even if you have cranky hips and shoulders. You can do it!
New training tactics, new hazards. Also new curse words. Well, maybe the same old curse words.
All of it is worth the fabulous experience of running a trail, and with the advent of spring (and no more local gym membership) I’m totally off the treadmill (hallelujah!) and on the trail. I’ve done plenty of paved runs, but this is my first experience with dirt, rocks, roots, pine cones, sweet gum balls, and — believe it or not — sucking, muddy, marvelous wetlands. (Those last are gonna stink this summer, methinks.)
So I found a nice little two mile out-and-back about a 10 minute drive from my house. It’s the Creekside trail at Yates Mill Pond, and it offers an amazing variety of environments, from deep, quiet loblolly pine woods (those needles are slick, y’all) to a fabulous run through a wetland area where the trail is partly laid with a double line of planks squelching in the mud beneath your shoes. Plenty of turtles dropping off logs with a plop as you pass, and frogs chirruping all around. A sign indicated beaver and fox habitats as well.
It doesn’t appear to be well-known yet, as the trail is narrow and not so very worn in. This is probably because there’s a paved, stroller-friendly single-mile circuit around the millpond itself, culminating in a lovely view of the spillway and the old mill house. The sign in the cool shade under the millhouse in the muddy area by the dam says “snake sanctuary.” Watch your step there, ladies and gents.
There’s also a one mile trail running along the ridge above the mill, with some nice elevation and a few twisty turns in the woods; I hiked that one after running the two mile wetland trail.
And rolling my ankle, dammit.
This whole “watch out for those tree roots” thing is new to me, and you really can’t get more than 5 steps — hell, 5 inches — on this trail without a gnarled old root under your foot, or a chunk of quartz the size of your fist half-buried in the sand. The gum balls were bad, too. Who knew trail runs could be such an obstacle course? I didn’t. Noob.
So I’m working on a set of strengthening exercises (see below) and my new pre-run stretches include plenty of ankle circles and a solid reminder to Pay Close Attention At All Times. Trail running is not something you do while turtle watching, or planning your work day, grocery list, or next blog post. Unless that last one is going to be about ankle rolls. Ow.
New exercise set to prevent ankle rolls:
1. Balance touches: On a dyna-disk (small squishy rubber thingy, partly filled with air), stand on one foot and reach down and touch your knee or toe with alternating hands.
2. Balanced weight pass: Still on the dyna-disk, pass a weight from hand to hand over your head.
3. Four corners: mark the corners of a box (I use chalk or tape, or other markers) about six feet square. Stand in the center and slide out sideways to touch each corner, moving on the diagonal across the box for a 3 minute interval. Start slow and get up to a good, quick speed. Keep your knees bent.
4. Edge rolls: In a squat position, roll your weight toward your toes, then slowly shift your weight to the outside of both feet, then the heels, then the inside of both feet. You’re rolling your weight around the edges of your feet, slowly, holding the position and getting a good stretch and strengthening those muscles all around your ankles.
My ankle roll was painful and swear-worthy, but it didn’t keep me from finishing the run. I took some ibuprofen that day and was ready for an gentle 3-miler (paved, for recovery purposes) on the second day post-roll.
I’ve already scoped out a new trail I want to run, too.
Once in a while someone asks me if I get “beat up” in boxing.
It’s a weird thing, this fierce sport. And I completely understand why people associate it with phrases like “getting beat up,” “taking a beating,” and so on. But after studying and practicing boxing for several years now, I have a different perspective on it than I used to.
Boxing is and extremely complex and challenging sport. Risky, yes. Potentially painful and dangerous, certainly. But it’s also a sport with lots of rules and boundaries, and it’s even more mental than it is physical. To me it feels less about “beating people up,” and more about mental and physical fitness and a very particular set of skills.
I feel fairly certain that a skilled boxer with her wits about her could put a street brawler on the pavement in seconds flat, not because we are more violent than other people, but simply because we’ve trained so hard to understand the dynamics of fighting. Boxers work hard to be physically strong and mentally powerful. We’ve practiced the simplest punches thousands — hundreds of thousands — of times. We train our reflexes against flinching and looking away, we can see punches coming, and we have an arsenal of defensive tactics at hand. We are carefully mentored and guided into the ring, protected with the right equipment and challenge levels. And we know the rules of our sport.
It’s fairly uncommon for us to experience “getting beat up,” or even “beating someone up.”
Consider this: the number of hours a boxer spends in training that is not actual sparring or fighting in the ring far exceeds her time in the ring. One hundred percent of a new boxer’s time is spent outside of the ring; only after showing aptitude and willingness is a new boxer allowed to spar, and even then, it’s fairly light, careful training. My regular training week typically includes about six or seven hours a week of training, and around eight rounds of sparring. Those are 3 minute rounds, so I’m only spending 5% of my time in the ring. (Of course, that’s the time I tend to focus on and talk about the most.)
However, we do get bested in the ring.
My trainer loves to say that you don’t get to choose whether you win or lose in boxing; you only get to choose whether or not you will perform. Every boxer loses some of the time, whether in an official match or in their own gym. But we almost never consider a regular (or even a bad) day of sparring a “loss” or a “beating,” unless something went particularly wrong and an injury was involved.
Yes, we get out-matched, out-maneuvered, hit hard, and even stopped in the ring. Mostly that happens in an actual competition when we are in the ring with someone better than we are, or if we are sparring with someone new and inexperienced, particularly a person who is scared. Those terrified new guys tend to throw punches like their life depends on it, but they often can’t last more than a round or two. Working with — and sometimes getting bruised up by — those people is a regular hazard of the sport, and the better boxer typically takes the blame for her injuries since we should have been able to defend better.
I don’t help things when I talk about getting “beat up” myself. During my first year in boxing I said it when I felt someone took advantage of me in the ring. I’ve since learned how to protect myself against this situation by returning fire, demanding a different level of work, or simply rolling out of the ring.
These days, saying I got “beat up” is a rueful way to mention my hard-earned bruises and sore muscles, and it’s normally followed by my determined recitation of new training plans and efforts.
Interestingly, I almost never talk about “beating up” someone else when I am boxing better than they are, or even if I win a match. (Although I do like to talk about kicking ass. I like to be an ass-kicking woman! But that feels just a little bit different.)
Otherwise I tend to use it when I see a particularly intense, damage-producing professional boxing match. Ten or twelve rounds with a heavyweight will temporarily (and sometimes permanently) change the shape of your face, whether you win or lose.
So there is that. But those people are at the top of the field; most of us aren’t doing that. And even the pros don’t do it all the time. A seasoned pro may have 30 or 50 career fights, but you can bet your ass that most of their time is spent doing ordinary, hard, repetitive training.
If you are new to boxing and just starting to train, you should definitely expect this sport to hurt. Most contact sports do. Football, basketball, hockey, soccer, rugby — all of them require training that is difficult and painful at times. Even non-contact sports like skateboarding or BMX bike riding can pack some serious pain.
Learning to take a punch is a slightly different skill, but it is, in fact, a skill. Much of it is mental. And there are “tricks” to it, like staying relaxed, keeping in your stance, moving constantly so that blows glance off. And of course there’s the protective gear we wear and the rules about hit zones. But it still hurts plenty, and anyone going in should know that.
But boxing isn’t first and foremost about beating people up, or getting beaten up. It’s about long hours of hard work and practice, it’s about building speed and power and quickness, and eventually it’s about sparring and fighting for a small percentage of your training time.
And more than anything, it’s about the challenge and the reward. There is very little that feels better than standing in the ring, dripping with sweat, shaking from exertion, and having your fist raised by a referee as the winner of a fight.
