The Glowing Edge

Tag: rest

The “Screw It” Moment of Training for a Fight
If you had asked me last Friday “How’s training for your fight going? How are you feeling?” you might have heard me growl and scowl and say I didn’t give a damn anymore. I was wholly, mortally sick. Of. It.

Done. Screw it, I’m outta here.

So I made the reasonable choice and did a flaming, flying swan dive down into the dark, seedy mental nightclubs where I proceeded to party down while throwing the finger to everything boxing related. To mark the special moment, I stopped into Bojangles and devoured a 2-piece fat-enhanced meal with a side of dirty (that was especially satisfying) fries AND a motherfucking biscuit. With butter.

I thought about driving up to the Krispy Kreme, but I was feeling so warm and sated after the Bo-party all I wanted to do was head home and sleep it off. I decided I could finish out with a hefty double shot of 12 year old Macallan’s Highland single malt scotch, but by the time I got home I was too wasted on fried chicken and biscuits to find the liquor cabinet.

I slept like a sabertooth tiger with a belly full of giant sloth.

And I proceeded to very studiously NOT TRAIN for the next three days.

Which would have been especially sparkling and glittery, except that prior to the flaming flying swan dive, I had trained at my cheapie $10-a-month gym with a guy who put me through an hour-long upper and lower body workout that (I found out later) just happened to hammer the holy living Elvis out of my calves and triceps.

On Saturday I was surprised at the level of pain and misery cramping up my legs and arms, and I knew I was in for a rough Sunday, because I get hit hardest by 2nd day muscle soreness when I screw up like this. And sure enough, rolling out of bed and putting my feet on the floor Sunday morning was the sheerest kind of torture. It took me hours of patient work to get everything stretched out and functional, and Monday was only marginally better.

Still, I was off the training wagon and didn’t care — upcoming fight be damned. If I could have summoned the cosmic unicorn wish fairy and been able to get in the ring and have my match Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or Monday night I would have done it in a skinny minute just to get it off the event horizon of the sucking black hole that was my mental attitude.

I started to repent on Tuesday morning. Which was reasonably smart, considering that the church of boxing was scheduled to hold high holy services just 9 days hence.

I put on my sackcloth and ashes and headed to Second Round for my punishment. As you might guess, I wasn’t all smiles. I pretended I’d never even thought of, never even considered the ring name “Relentless.”

I got in without too many people noticing, and quietly set up the ring with a double slip line. My calves wept silently. I ignored them and thought about fried chicken instead.

And Cinnabon. I thought about Cinnabon a lot.

But not my fight. I resolutely didn’t think about my fight. And I noticed something interesting.

My quads were fairly happily taking me smoothly and easily under that slip rope, back and forth like a well-oiled machine. My heart rate stayed steady and my jabs weren’t catching on the line. Everything was working. For the first three rounds, and the next three, and the next three. By round 10 I was feeling normal again. Boom. I wanted to say, Hey all you doctors out there, quit prescribing Wellbutrin and Elavil and Zoloft! Tell your patients to shadowbox 10 rounds with a slip line! After eating dirty fries and biscuits!

My coach ambled up and I confessed (some of) my sins. He was nonchalant. Rest is good, he said. You got this. Then put me through a solid pad workout for another 6 rounds. I love my coach.

Powah was mine, badasses. I did a few victory dances around the ring while he pretended not to see. He probably didn’t roll his eyes.

So I finished out with speed bag and jump rope rounds, after which I strolled home like a convict whose prison sentence has been unexpectedly commuted. And here I had thought I had flushed all my training down the toilet. I have much to learn, clearly.

Did I mention the fact that I went to the bookstore on Saturday and read the first 5 chapters of Tim Ferriss’s 4 Hour Body? I have some modifications I’m making to my training, more on that later. (My husband is all like, You’re such a control freak.)

Meanwhile, my lessons learned:
1. Ten to twelve weeks is waaaaay too long for a training camp for attention-deficient me. Why did I start that early? Excited, I guess. Seven weeks is probably optimal for most people, assuming one is in reasonably decent shape. Five weeks would be tight but do-able.
2. Factor in “screw it” days or weeks, especially if you’re doing a longer training camp.
Sometimes good enough is, amazingly, good enough. All is well in Whoville. “Relentless” rides again. After the fight, meet me at the Cinnabon.
January 16, 2013
How to Train FASTER
I’m officially about 8 weeks out from my next fight, which is just the right amount of time I need to set up my training goals. About a year ago I started categorizing the main areas of my boxing training, and since then I’ve refined my system enough to find it pretty useful as I plan my workouts.

(It would be fair to say I’m a bit compulsive about organization. Obsessed, even. But people hire me for it, so I’m allowed. Note to you: try to get paid for the stuff that makes you weird.)

The acronym I use to lay out my goals is FASTER, although if you want to be picky about it — which I generally enjoy doing — you could also say FASSTER, because it stands for Form, Anaerobic Conditioning, Strength, Speed, Timing, Eating Clean, and Resting.

But first, a note about training hours…

How many hours of training each week?

Remember those awesome gold star stickers from first grade? I’ll still do damn near anything for those suckers.

So when I’m in my normal routine, I use a “medal” system for every week of training. This means I give myself a mental bronze medal for every week in which I train three times, a silver for four good training sessions, and a gold for getting in five training sessions for that week.

I used to train two hours or more at a time, but now that I’m more efficient, I train about an hour to an hour and a half each time. If I’m focused and not jacking around, I’m finished inside of an hour.

I know plenty of people who put in far more training hours, but I just don’t have that luxury. And anyway, I would die of boredom spending long, slow hours on a trail or treadmill; besides, that sort of training doesn’t produce the kind of conditioning you need for boxing (see Anaerobic, below).

I average about 4 hours of training in a normal week, but when prepping for a fight, I try to stay consistently in a 5 workout-per-week mode.

Form

Ideally, you get your form cleaned up by shooting video of yourself sparring or working the heavy bag. That way you can watch yourself and correct the sloppy stuff. You can also watch yourself in a mirror. Either way, make sure you always have a form goal you’re working on.

Here are a few examples of good form goals:
Anaerobic conditioning

Anaerobic (coined in 1863 by Louis Pasteur, from the Greek: an – “without” + aer “air” + bios “life”) is very different from aerobic conditioning. Anaerobic conditioning means you’re teaching your body to function at high levels for very short periods of time with a shortage of oxygen to your system.

The win here is in interval training. Nobody cares if you can run five miles because what you need to be able to do in boxing is sprint hard for two (women’s rounds) or three (men’s rounds) minutes, recover in one minute, sprint another round, recover, and sprint again.

You can do interval training on pretty much everything. Weights, jump rope, treadmill, stair runs, box jumps, tire flipping, elliptical, rowing, sprints, you name it.

Boxing Interval Training: Do as much of your training as you possibly can in rounds or two or three minutes each, with 30 second recoveries between. Work crazy hard during the round, and keep moving during the recovery. Don’t slouch over or put your hands on your knees during your rest period. Stand tall and get plenty of oxygen back in to your system.

Tabata Interval Training: I generally keep my intervals to boxing round times, but that’s not the only way to do it. Tabata interval-style training was founded by a Japanese scientist named Izumi Tabata, and someday soon I’ll write a post on Tabata training, but the basic gist is this: After your warm up, you do 8 intervals of 20 seconds all-out intensity exercise followed by 10 seconds of rest. Sound short and easy? Check out these killer Tabata-interval burpees. (Note he slouches to breathe at 2:30; Tabata will do that to you.)

Strength

For fight sports, speed and strength go hand in hand. When I do strength training I typically use light weights and high reps because I’m working for quickness and explosive power as well. Although I also slow it down and work heavier weights now and then because it’s so good for your bone density.

I’m not a huge exercise gadget person, but I do make use of dumbells, freeweights, tractor tires, sledgehammer, and medicine balls, and if I were in a fancy gym I’d be using slam ball, kettlebells, heavy rope, balance rings, and harness pulls as well.

Speed

You can build your speed by focusing on agility, explosion, and sprinting exercises. I have an agility ladder, but I’m just as likely to work along a sidewalk line or parking lot stripe. I also use dot drills, box (or wall or bench) jumps, and my general interval training to train for quickness.

You’ll definitely want to build up a set of reaction drills to use in building speed, too, and for some of those you need a partner. Practice letting your partner throw jabs at your head while you slip and duck. (good for Timing too, see below). Tie up a slip rope and work your way down it, moving quickly and lightly as you duck under and bob up on the other side.

Timing

If there’s an area in which I shortchange myself, it’s in timing. I do regular rounds on the speed bag (which really should be called a timing bag, because that’s what it trains), and once in a while I get on the double-end bag, but most of your practice in timing will come by way of regular sparring.

There’s just no substitute for learning to get out of the way than by having someone come after you with a blazing fast combo. And when you are getting regular sparring in, you’re also building timing by looking for the open shot and trying to land it consistently.

Eating Clean

My dietary outline comes mainly from the Dr. Sears Zone Diet, but I also incorporate Paleo once in a while. Above all, I work pretty hard to avoid the Forbidden Five foods (white bread, white rice, white pasta, white potatoes, and high fructose corn syrup). If you’re subscribed to my emails I love to send out recipes (as well as workout plans, training stories, playlists, random shenanigans, and free books once in a while; sign up here if you haven’t already).

And yeah, I cheat. You should too. Make your goals for eating sustainable, not ridiculously lofty. My goal in this area is usually to eat 80% clean every week. Which leaves room for spinach, mushroom, sausage, and onion pizza once in a while. (With extra garlic, yeah baby.)

Rest and Recovery

You’ve probably already heard the newsflash that you don’t build muscle while you’re training; you build muscle as you’re recovering. I have never been a train-every-day person anyway, but since I’m in my forties I’m particularly aware of a) being efficient with my time and training, and b) not getting injured by overtraining or making stupid mistakes.

Your turn…

What’s missing? What do you include that isn’t listed here? Leave me a comment below and share your ideas, additions, and training secrets.

CC image by Andrius Petrucenia
November 26, 2012
Boxing After 40 With a Bad Shoulder

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!

And so can I.

Image by walleydog

December 15, 2011
That’s JUST What I Was Thinking

Yesterday I got home from work, made it through supper, saw the Husband off to his gig and the First off (with two friends) to his event. I dropped, exhausted, onto my yummy cushy bed, opened a new paperback, and had read half of one page when the Maker came skipping in to my bedroom, boinged onto the bed beside me, and brightly exclaimed, “Hey, Mom! Whatcha wanna do, read me a book?”

August 4, 2007