Home Page   |   About   |   Testimonials   |   Videos   |  Articles

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Get-Ups and Knock Downs

Thought I'd go 100% today but listened to my body and wasn't feeling great. I did some 2 hands anyhows and then a few kb complexes to get my heart pumping. A few muscle ups on the rings and finished with some heavy getups for 5:00 and swings for 5:00.

An interesting story about boxing:

After feeling totally wiped by this some guys from the boxing club asked me to spar. My workout was finished so I eagerly accepted.
I haven't gotten into the ring much because no one is ever around who wants to spar with me. Here's where it gets interesting: I spend the first 10-15 minutes throwing jabs and trying to help my opponents-there were 4 of us so we could switch out and keep a good pace going (GREAT conditioning by the way).
Everyone was pretty evenly matched (so I thought), and we took a 3 minute break. Now I weigh about 195 depending on the day and I'm 5'9", so I've got some meat on my bones. And one of the guys tells me I should "quit throwing jabs like a pussy and start punching like a man, throw some hooks or something." (maybe he was just pissed because I kept dodging his punches and jabbing him in the nose). I'm trying to work on technique here and It takes a lot to get me riled up. I shrugged off the comment and assumed it was just a joke so I called him a girl and blah blah blah.
I guess this fellow took me seriously. The buzzer rings and this guy has murder in his eyes--he throws a massive right straight at my face and in the same instant I duck underneath (I'm 5'9", he's 6'2") and throw a left hook to the body and it felt like my glove was inside this guy's body.
He. Went. Down. Now I don't know what a gasping fish sounds like, but I have a pretty good idea now.

Why am I telling you this?
Hips. A hook comes from your hips, your center (I try to avoid using the word "core" like the black plague). Working with kettlebells and olympic weightlifting has given me great rotational strength (juggling in specific I think). If you know anything about boxing you will recognize how rare it is to go down from a body shot. I haven't gotten into the ring to spar in months (although I have been punishing my heavy bag)--and after today I'll probably be hard pressed to find a sparring partner again...
what's a guy to do?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi Max,
got the link here from the DD forum, and I think the more you get involved with boxing the more you'll see that body shots are the ones that hurt the worst, thus knocking down the regular joes. Just my take, but I'm an amateur boxer for several years now...nice story all together.
-Patrick

Mike P said...

you've gotta be strong as hell to knock someone down with a body shot!