Thursday 26 April 2007

Training, Steve style

LORD O Lordy, it's hard to remember a time I felt this pole-axed. In fact, I'm not sure I ever have.

My legs are in absolute agony, and I'm hoping that the two tonnes of protein I took on after my first real training session at the Fight Club will sort them out by the morning. Tonight was also my first introduction to Robbo's new number two, Darren, who I'm beginning to suspect may be a closet sadist. In a nice sort of way, of course. Ahem.

A long, long warm-up kicked off proceedings tonight, perhaps 20 minutes or so. This was followed by a trip round the bags, a minute at a time, plus two skipping stations. Straightforward? Not when, in your minute rest in between, you have to do 12 burpees. Everybody has an exercise they hate. Until Tuesday, I thought it was press-ups. Now I know it's burpees. As well as the bags, Steve had a pad in the ring and Darren was on hand pads outside, and they motivated us to exhaustion in their own ways. That made it 12 stations in all.

Another session on all the bags and the rest came next, with 30 seconds on each punctuated with 20 sit-ups. I was on home territory here, until the final set, when I struggled around the 15 mark. Still, plenty to be pleased about.

Then we did all kinds of jumping from different positions. This pretty much killed us all off. When we were stretching at the end, I started to see black and dots around the edge of my vision.

But that makes it sound like it was a bad experience, when it was nothing of the sort. It was great to see some of my old mates from the other gym there, like Mike, Little John and Brandon, who reckoned afterwards that it had been the hardest session they'd had so far at the new Fight Club.

I was pretty pleased because I managed to do everything, and I was no more or no less tired than everyone else. It's an elusive business, this fitness lark. Since I've been back, I've found myself excelling at the sort of things I used to do badly, and struggling in what were once my areas of strength. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it. But then, as my brother once said, it's wrong to look on the human body as a machine, one that responds to an oil change or a fresh tank of petrol. The best you can hope is that you follow all the rules, that you eat what's good for you (which is protein, in my case - I can feel the shake and the prawns I had afterwards at work repairing my aching leg muscles already), rest when you should, don't overcook it, but do enough to make sure you lose weight (in my case) and get fitter.

Next Tuesday presents an interesting conundrum for me. I haven't sparred for at least six months. Steve suggested afterwards that he put me in with Matt, if he's there. This is good and bad. Matt won't bang the shit out of me. This is a weight thing. If I fought guys my weight I'd be in real trouble, but Matt must ship at least three stone to me. However, as you probably know if you read my last blog, I've had a number of classic encounters with him, enough to know that he's like the Terminator: he never gives up and he can keep going long after I run out of steam.

So the question is whether I sit out sparring for a couple of weeks until I feel fitter, or whether I jump straight in with both feet. At the moment, I'm tending towards the latter. We do this because we want to fight. There's a unique and irreplaceable buzz at the heart of boxing that makes all the hours of training worthwhile, and it happens in the ring.

Your observations, opinions and comments would be greatly appreciated.

Wednesday 25 April 2007

Brilliant bags

A GOOD gym really does make all the difference.

Here's what I did on my latest visit:
- 15 minutes cross trainer
- 15 minutes treadmill
- eight two-minute rounds on the bags
- 15 minutes on the rowing machine.

OK, not so much as I used to do, but a fat, out-of-shape bloke like me can be pretty pleased with such a start, especially after killing myself on the rower not 24 hours earlier.

The bags at the new gym are fantastic. They come in all shapes and sizes, but what is so great about them is their quality. All of them are made from tough leather and they are rock hard with it. With the acoustics in the gym (a converted industrial unit), they conspire to deliver an enormous "SMACK!" every time you hit one of them. It really is truly satisfying.

Less satisfying is my lack of puff. It takes about four bags to knacker me at the moment when, at my peak, I could manage 18. This does not bode well for sparring, where any savvy opponent would suss my lack of fitness and exploit it. To that end, I might leave it a week or so before I climb back through the ropes. Then again, trial by fire, in at the deep end, call it what you will, is usually instructive, and probably worth a go.

Tuesday 24 April 2007

Some good, some bad

IT FEELS like a return from the wilderness.

When you box, at any level, it has a habit of taking over your life. You obsess about how much you eat and what you eat. You wonder if you'll lose all your friends because you keep giving the pub a swerve. You fear that you'll lose your wife because you keep going to bed at 10, just when she's getting warmed up on the sauvignon blanc. You beat yourself up if you miss a day or - worse - a session in the gym. Yup, it plays with your mind. Big time.

But then, if you stop, what is your life without boxing? OK, so there may have been a bit of mental torture involved, but then there were the plusses. I'm the kind of person that needs lots of anger management. Can you think of a better way to keep the temper in check (particularly when there are so many tossers in the world) than walloping a set of bags three or more times a week?

You don't drink, so no hangovers. You go to bed early, because your body demands it, but your mind is fresh (that's a weird experience for the modern office worker - having a body that needs more rest than the mind). It leaves you fresh for work, and fresh for concentrating on your family, jobs around the house, days out. That means that you can get up with the kids, take them and the dog out, then return and make your wife breakfast in bed after she's had a lie-in. In other words - maximum brownie points.

You smile more, you appreciate the world around you more. And, once a week, you climb through the ropes and face the ultimate challenge. Just you, the other bloke, and nowhere to hide. You need the mentality, but if you've ever been excited by boxing, the chances are that you have it already.

I have gone back to boxing, after at least six months in the wilderness. I've followed my old trainer, Steve Robinson (a former world champion) to his new gym in Cardiff, called Fitness Factory Cymru, which he is running with his mate, Mike Parsons, a talented rugby player in his own right.

I say I've gone back. That, in Duncan terms, means I've spent a morning there banging bags, and I've now done my fitness test. As the title says, it's been a tale of some good, some bad. Good - I didn't feel anywhere near as unfocussed as I thought I would on the bags, and I also did alright to quite good on my fitness tests. Bad - I tired easily, ached afterwards and six months of smoking and living the corporate lifestyle has taken it's toll. Time to live like a monk.

- If you've chanced across this, I should explain the title. I used to work for a newspaper and also wrote a blog called Boxing Aches. I've since moved on and, seeing as I'm at a new gym and pretty much in a new life, a new boxing blog was called for. I hope you like.