Nerdcore Boxing

Weighed in Saturday at 172 lbs. I was a little surprised because my diet got a little out of hand and I went light on my cardio.  This week I plan to bring those things back in line and hopefully I drop into the 160’s.

I weighed in Saturday at 173 lbs! 1.4 lbs down.

I’m almost to my goal of 170 lbs and I’m starting to wonder if I couldn’t make 165. I’ve never had a six pack before, actually I never thought it was possible with my metabolism. Right now I have a 4 pack, I’m thinking I want to enter the ring for my first fight sporting a six pack.

I credit my weight loss to my new daily cardio regiment, consisting  of 40 intense minutes (30 on the elliptical walker and 10 on the bike. I’ve also added a 20 minute jump rope marathon to my Saturday routine. I figure, why rest on my laurels?

I only did 30 minutes of cardio instead of my usual 40 and I lifted a little weights tonight.

I have got to find a way to drag my butt out of bed at 7:00 AM to go the gym and get my cardio out of the way early. While I’m engaging in self deprecating complaints, I also need to go to boxing class 3 times/week, not my usual twice weekly. Right now I’m sparring an average of 6 rounds/week and it will take forever to hit the 90 round mark which my boxing club requires before your first fight. I’m definitely a victim of my own laziness.

Last week I gained 4 lbs after skimping on my workouts and a run-in with Cinnabon. But one good thing can be said about sudden weight gain: it can turn into sudden weight loss.

Today I am happy to say I weighed in at 175 lbs, well on my way to the goal of 170.

How did I do it? Well, with Memorial day it’s not as if I had a great week of working out, but I stuck to my diet and the weight came off. As a side note I cut out a high calorie Saturday breakfast ritual: Chiliquilas, which are scrambled eggs, tortilla strips, salsa and ranchero with a side of refried beans, mmmm…

I slept in and skipped doing my cardio this morning. I was pretty down about it, but truth is I’m not a morning person. It’s going to take a while to get into this routine.

Tonight I went to class but didn’t get any sparring, which was probably good because after missing a week and a half or classes I was exhausted.

Hmm, got off to a slow start this week because of the gym being closed. I trained really hard this past weekend, but because of taking off most of last week I’m sore as hell. So today came as a welcomed time to rest my sore muscles.

To catch up on my log, here was my weekend:

Saturday

• 40 mins cardio
• Lifted weights
• 2 rounds jump rope
• 10 rounds heavybag
• 2 rounds shadow boxing

Sunday

• 40 mins cardio
• 10 rounds heavybag

I worked on my recent set of points to improve:  twisting my hips to add range to straight punches,  shifting my weight  in combos and feeling myself push of the ground hard every punch, the Dempsey cage drill, worked on my left hook, countering jabs with my cross and pivots/bumps.

I went out of town this week on business and subsequently fell off the bandwagon. I planned to work out on the road, I planned to stick to my diet… Instead I didn’t workout Monday-Wednesday, and I ate like a pig. I ate thick crust pizza with meat on it, Doritos and dare I admit, a Cinnabon. I felt so guilty eating that Cinnabon.

So this means one boxing class this week, and the only cardio I’ve done on the weekdays will have been today’s and tomorrows. I cringe at the thought of the Saturday weigh in and I wonder if I will have taken a step back when I spar tomorrow night.

Got in 40 minutes of cardio and did 7 or 8 rounds of bag work. I worked on:

• Rapidly throwing jab-cross-hook combos and shifting weight to each foot so I can push off the ground for the full effect each punch.
• I made circles around the bag then attacked it, working on coordinating hip rotation with weight shifts and pushing off the ground for each jab or jab-cross.
• Did left pivot followed by straight rights, right bumps (skipping pivot) followed by a left uppercut or hook then straight right combo.
• Practiced countering jabs with my cross. This involved catching/throwing jabs then going over the top of my opponents imaginary jab with my cross. I also practiced stepping slightly to the right then in almost one motion throwing the straight right. The latter is a good way to counter a jab while moving yourself to a safe zone.
• Also worked on slips and coming up out of v-slips with straight rights or left hooks as one rapid smooth motion.

Today I lifted weights and did a bunch of rounds of shadow boxing.

I’m working at bending at the knees to give more explosion to punches at the end of my combinations. I want to start landing 3 and 4 punch combos in sparring. I especially had attention on my left hook. I also worked on some counterpunch sequences, mostly involving throwing a cross over top of the jab. I’m still getting the hang of stepping slightly to the right and throwing a straight right.

Something about stepping up the cardio the last two weeks has really taken a toll on my knees. I used to do 30 minutes each day on the elliptical walker but the additional 10 minutes of treadmill has me walking around gingerly.

As of yesterday I’ve cut back to only elliptical walker. They kick me off the machine after 30 minutes so I’ll do an extra 10 minutes on a cycle. No treadmill until my knees get better.

This is what I did tonight:

• Rewatched my Title Boxing Counterpunching video
• Watched half of the Barrera/Marquez fight. I love Barerra, he’s probably my favorite fighter now that Mayweather has retired. If you haven’t seen his fight with Prince Naseem (which effectively retired the Prince), you should watch it on YouTube. Tonight I was studying how he would counterpunch Marquez’s lead hooks with a left hook to the body, I’m going to try that out.
• I iced my knees
• Did my shoulder rehab
• Took a hot bath and am about to get into an ice bath before bed.

 Hopefully my knees are better tomorrow, cause I’ll be up early and off to the gym.