The Glowing Edge

Tag: training camp

  • Boxing Training After 40

    Boxing Training After 40

    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.

    There’s a fairly sizeable learning curve.

    The moves only come after months of practice. It takes time to overcome your basic “flinch” and “turn away” impluses. The tiniest moves (advancing on the jab, basic pivots, footwork) may come easily in practice, but are magically, mysteriously, painfully absent when you’re under fire.

    And basic fitness shape is nowhere near boxing shape.

    Even basic boxing shape is nowhere near boxing sparring shape. And sparring shape is related to, but not the same as, competitive fighting shape.

    If you’re over 40, you definitely want to be in good shape, and hitting the local boxing gym for some regular classes every week will be all kinds of awesome for you. But to get up to sparring level, you’ll need all that, plus serious interval training.

    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.

    No, it isn’t about getting beat up, but yes, Virginia, boxing hurts.

    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.

    Actually mixing it up in the ring during training has a lot of potential for damage, and it’s good to learn to minimize sparring damage early on.

    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.

    You can get beat easily.

    But you can also win.

    And that’s pretty damn good.

    Photo Credit: OfficerGregcc

  • 8 Rounds Boxing and a Personal Best

    8 Rounds Boxing and a Personal Best

    Bonnie’s ramping up for her title fight on December 10th, and as her sparring partner, I’m getting schooled (again).

    To be in the ring with someone so much better than me is an incredible thrill and it stretches me, grows me, teaches me, and absolutely makes me work my ass off.

    About 8 weeks before a major fight, most pro boxers begin their training camp. They shift up from maintenance mode training: they push up their cardio, increase their weight training, raise their punch counts, and begin creating a strategy for the specific opponent they’ll be facing in the ring.

    Bonnie “Queen B” Mann (13-9-0, 6 KO) will be facing off with Carlette “The Truth” Ewell (14-7-0, 9 KOs), who is officially a light heavyweight, and has fought most of her career against heavyweights, including German champion boxer Natalia Ragozina (22-0-0, 13 KOs).

    Heavyweights often move differently in the ring than lighter boxers do. You’ll see more walking, stalking, and knockout punches than you will dancing, circling and flurry combos. There may be a much lower punch count, but each punch is a cinderblock. Although Bonnie is ranked #2 in the world in the Light Heavyweight division, she has spent much of her career in the lighter weight categories, so she comfortably incorporates both types of boxing, although she tends to default to the heavyweight style.

    Because I spar enough with her to know her tendencies, I generally count on being able to hold up well against her in the first four rounds while I’m fresh, and I know I’ll have to keep my guard and my defense incredibly tight in the later ones when her power comes to the fore.

    But this training camp has been very different.

    Before our latest sparring session we spent some time discussing styles with her trainer, Derrick Reed, a wiry New Jersey fighter who boxed in the army for 7 years before beginning to train fighters with US Olympic boxing coach Anthony Bradley. Reed was in Bonnie’s corner when she won her first championship fight and gained the World Boxing Empire title.

    I alternately skipped rope and stretched while Coach Reed (Bonnie calls him Coach D) and Bonnie discussed the upcoming fight.

    My interval sprint training has really helped with my cardio lately. I had the usual pre-ring anxiety, but my confidence has increased as I’ve sparred the last few weeks with Bonnie. I’m starting to know the people in her training camp, and understand what they are all working toward. I’m aware that training with these people is the highest honor of my boxing life; I’m doing my best to savor every tension-filled minute.

    They discussed fighting style, potential strategies, and training plans as I listened in. It isn’t often that you get to hear a coach prepping his fighter for a title fight.

    After 6 rounds of shadow boxing, I was restive and bouncing, anxious for the bell. Coach D leaned over the ropes in my corner and gently hooked a finger on my headgear to settle me down as he spoke quietly into my ear.

    “You’re going to work your hardest tonight,” he said calmly. “You are not going to rest, and you’re not going to let Bonnie rest, either. I want you to to constantly attack. Move in on her and do not let her circle. Never stop your attack. Even if she tries to lead you, cut her off and make her engage.”

    My heart rate skyrocketed as the thrill of the battle plan filled me. I felt I would do anything to please this coach. I could give Bonnie this, I could mimic the unrelenting forward pressure of a heavyweight, even if I didn’t have the bombs.

    Bonnie had her own strategy. Normally she lets me open the session with my jabs and the first combination or two. She lets me test the waters, measure the distance between us. But this time she came out of the corner like a racehorse out of the gate; I threw one jab before she covered me up with a double salvo of combinations, hard.

    Nothing like eight fast punches to the head and body to sober you up. We were ON.

    I shook off the charge, pivoted out, then began my real work. I could see Coach D motioning from the corner: Come at her. Move forward. Advance.

    And I did.

    I mentally marked off the center of the ring as No Go zone. I would force Bonnie to stay on the outside, against the ropes and in the corners if possible. I would stay relentlessly in her face and push the attack.

    Bonnie skipped lightly backwards as I came forward. We would exchange shots and she’d be gone, out the side door. Round after round went by with the same intensity; she worked the angles and I stuck on her, forced the play, did my best to prevent her from exiting the encounter. I’ve never seen her move so quickly, lightly, and constantly; our punch counts were double their usual numbers, or more.

    We returned to our corners again and again, focused and dripping with sweat. The game never varied; it was the hardest I had ever worked. Several boxers watched us interestedly from below the ring. I lifted my chin in the boxer’s salute and was rewarded with smiles.

    With such constant engagement, we found ourselves in a frequent clinch — a situation I hate with a passion but can’t avoid. I hate it because I can feel Bonnie’s uppercut wanting to destroy me from underneath, I feel her incredible power trying to shove me out of the ring, I know she’s going to demolish me on the exit with a bomb hook to my ear.

    Coach D began to talk to me about it between rounds. “Let your hands work even in the clinch,” he counseled. “Lean on her, punch with anything that’s free. Make her pay. Never stop.”

    I listened, nodded, and cut my eyes toward Bonnie in the opposite corner. She grinned. The bell rang, and she taunted me, “C’mon Carlette, if you’re gonna fight,” she teased. I felt my own grin rise up.

    I growled and charged, willing the weight of a Mack truck into each of my gloves. The original six rounds Coach D had called for were past; we were still gunning.

    We clinched, I banged her ribs and head with my free fist. Coach D shouted encouragement. I was unable to throw off her weight, but I increased my speed on the exit and was rewarded with fewer head-ringing clouts to the ear.

    I refused to stop fighting and stayed on her, in her range, and tried to keep my head moving to slip her shots even when I couldn’t throw any punches. I’d never boxed better.

    By the eighth round Bonnie was on fire. I was winded but thrilled with my performance. In the corner Coach D asked me how I felt and I banged my gloves together. “I feel incredible,” I panted over my mouthguard. Sweat ran in rivulets down my arms and dripped off my elbows. He gave me water, slapped me lightly on the back of my headgear and smiled. “You’re doing great,” he affirmed. “Go finish it.”

    Whatever I had left, I put into that eighth round. Smack talk flew, when we had breath. Our punch count was through the roof. The 30 second bell signaled and I knew the round was about to close. Bonnie charged me with a flurry that looked to last the entire rest of the round. I covered, retreated, stuck a jab in her face. She ducked under and launched her right to my liver.

    Liver shots suck. You never see them coming because they’re only thrown when your opponent is deep inside and low. I was still in stance, left shoulder leading, and had just thrown a jab and was shifting to load a right. It was perfect timing.

    Bonnie ducked and threw the low right hook upward, above the hip and under the short ribs, and the effect was devastating; I got an immediate surge of cold shock-sweat and a sickening wash of nausea. I hate liver shots!

    I spiraled out, raised my gloves in surrender, and bellowed as I walked it off. “If you do nothing else in your fight,” I yelled, “you better deliver one of those to Carlette! Now gimme the rest of this round!” I spun and drove back to center, shaking off the effects.

    “That is the rest of the round,” Bonnie laughed as the bell rang to cut off my charge. I leveled my glove at her. “Next time,” I threatened. “Next time you are mine.” And we banged our gloves together with the deep satisfaction of a fight well-fought.

    Mark your calendars for December 10th, 2010: I’ll be posting news about the title fight, information about where you can get your tickets, and an exclusive interview with Bonnie!