Nerdcore Boxing

Speed over power is one of the best boxing tips my trainers ever gave me. Everybody wants the spectacular knockout, but the guy who’s trying to just land big punches often comes up empty.

I myself used to spend lots of time banging on banging the bag, focusing on power punches. But I noticed that when sparring against good boxers I couldn’t land power punches routinely.

I remember one day while on the heavybag I heard a trainer that was watching me say, “he doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing.” The trainer proceeded to lecture me and I was very smart to listen. He said I should be focusing on lots of fast punches and keeping my feet under me (i.e. maintain balance and pushing off the ground with each punch).

Following this critique I started watching boxers in the gym and my eyes opened! All the beginners were concentrating on focused power punches, the experienced boxers were usually putting together rapid punches while maintaining good balance. I went to YouTube and watched training videos of pro boxers I admire — they too trained just as my trainer had advised.

Two weeks after I made this adjustment to my training I went from a fairly one dimensional boxer to a guy that could land my full arsenal of punches and put together 4, 5 and 6 punch combos. Where as before I rarely landed power punches (I was too slow to the punch), from that point forward I landed them frequently.

I consider this one of the more important boxing tips my trainers ever gave me.

I’m going to introduce tracking mma rankings in this blog.

As the sport of mma has grown it’s getting hard to keep track. There are so many weight classes and organizations these days to comb through. Personally I’m very biased towards the UFC and Pride, at this time I believe the quality of mma talent in these organizations stands above the rest.  But I’m having to keep my eye on organizations like the IFL more and more.

I’ll try and help track the different analysts and news organization mma rankings. Maybe I’ll even average out the mma rankings here to create a one stop shop.

Since I’m planning on doing a series of boxing tips I wanted to clarify that this blog focuses on tips for fighting experienced boxers. Without this clarification there will be some new boxing students sitting at home saying things like, “I always push the bag and I never have trouble landing power punches against my friends.”

Four Types of Boxers 

In boxing training you’re going to step into the ring with one of 4 types of people:

The Boxer - This guy has learned the sweet science, he’s in shape, he’s fluid, he’s mobile and he’s elusive. This guy knows tricks that will shock you and make you feel clueless. And unfortunately he can hit hard.

The Slugger - This guy may have been around or some time but for some reason hasn’t really learned the sweet science. Maybe he doesn’t care to, maybe he thinks he doesn’t have to listen to his trainer, or maybe he just relies on his natural power too much. See further info in my post Brawlers vs Boxers.

The Amazing Athlete - Boxing requires endurance, speed, power, fluidity, balance and refined footwork. Some rare individuals have athletic backgrounds where these are already highly developed and pick up boxing unusually fast. I hate these guys (sorry, that’s jealousy talking).

The Untrained - This guy may never have thrown a punch before, or he may have come from a martial arts background, or he may have had lots of street fights. But when in the ring, he doesn’t know squat compared to the Boxer.

Of course there are different degrees of Boxers, Sluggers and many levels of cluelessness in the Untrained, but this is a good categorization.

Difference Between the Read Deal and the Rest 

A person with decent boxing skills should be able to land a variety of punches against the Untrained. He may be in constant danger with the Slugger, but he should be able to land punches when he’s not weathering the storm. The Athlete is unpredictable, it depends how gifted he is. The Boxer is a whole other animal. Against the Boxer you might not even be able to land a single clean jab for many rounds when you first spar.

If you want to develop you should spar with the Boxer. That’s where you’ll learn the most and that’s were you’ll learn what you know and what you don’t know. If you can never land a left hook against the Boxer, you can’t properly throw it. If you can land it, then the Untrained, the Slugger and the Athlete will be easy pickings for your left hook.

Don’t be confused, the boxing tips and techniques on this blog are to help you in sparring the Boxer.

This is one of the more important boxing tips regarding the heavy bag. Beginners almost always do this incorrectly.

First, 3 practical points on punching and getting punched:

1. In a good round of boxing you’ll probably only land 30% of your punches. So get used to missing.
2. Even if you land, “answering back” or hitting back, is so ingrained in boxers that you should always expect a punch to come right after yours.
3. Your defenses are strongest when your arms are retracted, your hands up and elbows in, i.e. when you are in your boxing stance.

What does this all mean? It means that after extending a punch you need to retract it as fast as you threw it. When it’s extended, you’re open. Rapidly returning to your stance between each punch is important.

Now when you hit the heavy bag, the punch has landed on initial impact. The initial impact causes the bag to rapidly sink inward and go “whap!” This generally does not cause the bag to swing. What most often causes it to swing is continuing to carry your fist and weight forward, or “pushing the bag” after the impact. This is wrong.

I’m not saying the bag should never ever swing, but if it swings a lot, then you’re pushing it.

While you’re busy “pushing the bag” you should have been rapidly retracting your punch. Getting into this habit makes you slow, leaves you open and teaches you to excessively extend your balance. Keep your punches crisp.

Stay tuned for more boxing tips!

I went to the doctor yesterday and he pointed out a few interesting points. I never thought of this ankle as a weak link in my chain, but when we went over the history of injuries there were quite a lot. I’ve broken this ankle and sprained it 6-7 times over my entire life. That’s enough injuries to build up a good measure of scar tissue.

My doctor approved of what I’ve done so far but said I should have stayed on the anti-inflammatory longer. Apparently it’s possible to still have a swollen ankle 2-3 weeks after the injury (which I still have). So 2 more weeks of rest and another regiment of anti-inflammatories. If it’s not better in 2 weeks I’m getting an MRI.

While I’m on the bench I’ve been coming up with creating ways to continue my boxing development. I’ll post about them later. Stay tuned.

Some of you might have noticed my decreased post frequency. Well I tweaked my ankle a little bit doing some light shadow boxing. This is the 3rd time I’ve hurt it in a month and I’ve decided to take a vacation. Maybe it’s a bit too long of a vacation, but I’ll be back training and posting hard on Monday.

Happy training and enjoy the weekend!