Nerdcore Boxing

Weighed in today at 177 lbs. That means I lost 4 pounds last week. 177 is about what I weighed when I graduated high school!

I still have some “pudge” that I can work off. In my adult life I once got my waist down to 33″ when training for a Muay Thai fight (which never happened).  After a big breakfast I just measured my waist at 35″, so I still have weight to lose. I previously thought I could get to 175 in May, but I might even make 170.

Right now it looks like a June fight at 170.

I’ve been getting up early each day and doing my new high intensity 40 minutes of cardio in the morning. I’m not a morning person so for me to roll out of bed at 7:00 AM each day is a huge thing.

Tonight I got in 3 rounds of sparring with a new partner. He’s smaller and faster, but not a counterpuncher. I felt really good each and every round,  my punches were getting through, landed rights and body punches, my defenses were sound, I was counter punching, holding the center of the ring, cutting off the ring, etc. I even asked for a 4th round, but it was not in the cards.

I’ve been working on opening my hips and bending at the knee on my front leg more. This is helping my hook in both speed and power. I’m hoping to see it land more in sparring. I’ve also been studying my Title Boxing Counterpunching video and working on some counter punches.

In L.A. when you stand someone up the generic excuse is, “I flaked.”  Well, I flaked last night, I didn’t do squat but eat too much pizza. Oh the shame!

Today I woke up bright and early, got work out of the way, and hit the gym. Did 40 minutes of cardio, lifted weights and did 3 rounds of shadow boxing and 7 rounds of bag work.

After the guilt of slacking yesterday subsided I decided I’m going to become a morning person and do my cardio right after I wake up. This is going to free me up to spend some more time in the evening watching film, working on my week points, and hopefully will allow me to go to class 3 times/week consistently.

I was really sore from yesterday. Upping the intensity on the treadmill and elliptical walker along with lifting weights did it’s toll on my legs. Unfortunately I only squeezed in 20+ minutes on the elliptical walker today. Later tonight I’m going to do some shoulder rehab and take an ice bath.

While watching the fights on Sat night it occurred to me why my footwork looks a little off when I rapidly step to the left. I don’t “open up” my hips (or spread my legs far enough) and as a result my knee bends slightly awkwardly and I don’t get my left leg out as fast as I’d like. I suspect the reason for this is a lack of flexibility.

I love it when I figure out something like this, it’s usually followed by a marked improvement in my boxing. You can never have too good of footwork or be too mobile in boxing. I’m excited to do some targeted stretching and to see how this impacts my mobility.

1. 45 minutes of cardio.

2. Lift some weights.

3. Twelve rounds of bag work. Going to work on punching fundamentals (reach, not telegraphing), moving to the outside and slips/parrying/covering.

4. I’ll add in two new polymetric exercises to increase foot speed and explosion. I’ll post about these later.

Weighed in at 181 lbs today, which is a pound down. I was hoping to be more like 179-180, but it’s alright. Based on the body fat I’m holding, I still think I can get down to 175 in the month of May.

After trading tips on workout regiments last night I realized I’m not doing enough cardio. Starting today I’m going to up the intensity on my cardio and go for 45 minutes instead of 30.

Weighing in is a Saturday morning ritual for me. Because of the weight classes, competitive boxing heavily involves weight management, diet, etc. At this point I probably fret over my weight and diet more than most women.

Everybody has an ideal weight class, where they are at their fastest, have their best strength-to-weight ratio and can take the punches. In the past when I’ve trained rigorously, I’ve been able to get down to 178 lbs, which for me was about 10% body fat and gave me a 4 pack (damn those persistent love handles!).

Yesterday I weighed in at 182.4 lbs. Last week I weighed 183.8 and 186.4 the week before!  Four lbs lost in 2 weeks and I’m almost in the 170’s!!!

As of about Thursday night I was in serious despair. My calf was not healed and I was starting to fear that this would be one of those long term nagging injuries. But Friday was better and Saturday I was able to go through most of my boxing workout. I haven’t jumped rope for over a week, but I anticipate this next week to be a full week of hard boxing.

Even though I took a bunch of days off, I chose some specific things to work on that wouldn’t affect my calf. I worked on ways to shrug off punches without blocking or slipping: shoulder rolls and rocking back on my rear leg. I also worked on getting some more range and mobility in my right shoulder when doing straight rights and hooks. And finally I continued to work on my pivots and fwd/back/lateral movement during v-slips.

Thought my calf strain was healed and I did a little workout. I shadowboxed a bit, working on my long left hook, pivots and v-slips. On the bright side I’m actually pleased with the improvements in balance and speed in my v-slips and pivots. Can’t wait to break these out in sparring.

But then I tried jumping some rope… Cramp attack at the end of the first round. I take a rest and go for 30 minutes of cardio on the elliptical walker, only to get the cramps at the 20 minute mark. Ok, very very discouraging, especially since my trainer will be having me jumping 4 rounds tomorrow.

Must think positive… I’m not old, just over trained. The rest of the evening I’ll be taking potassium, calcium and magnesium supplements and doing hot and ice baths tonight. Hopefully I can hold up tomorrow. I will not miss another class this week.

I somehow strained my calf last week. I expected to be sore over the weekend but I didn’t expect to be limping and cramped. The bizarre thing is that last week’s workout wasn’t that much more than usual, I can only come up with one reason my right calf was so taxed after last week: I changed the angle of my of my foot in my stance.

I believe trainer’s call it “standing in the bucket,” or when you’re rear foot is generally perpendicular to where you’re facing (pointed towards the side). This reduces the range of motion of your ankle and thus the potential explosion forward. I fell into the habit of standing in the bucket and my trainer corrected me on this point last week.

With my foot pointed in the right direction my calf has to work harder, hence additional stress and subsequent strain in my right calf. When combined with my sore rotator cuff I decided to skip class tonight. Instead I did 30 mins of cardio and 3 sets of 30 lunges and hot/ice baths. I’ll be back to training tomorrow.