OnThEGRiND BOXiNG

Monday November 9th, 2009
Photo by Sylvana Ambrosanio
Story by Irish Paddy Cronan – OnThEGRiND BOXiNG Ireland

At this hour, headlines world wide declare David Haye the new WBA Heavyweight Champion of The World. For some this is an impossibility, illustrated by the fact that over the past several months I have been told by several different people, that David Haye would not make an impact at Heavyweight.

The main reason people gave was his lack of a chin, due to a knock out suffered early in his career at the hands of Carl Thompson. As one who actually watched the fight, I would argue that it was his conditioning that cost him that bout. I was reminded how vital conditioning can be to recovery in a recent interview with Limerick’s Jamie Power, he related that his newly implemented conditioning regime had helped aid his recovery after being on the canvas in his last fight.

Another reason people dismissed David Haye’s chances, was that his power was unproven at the weight, which was true, but that never meant it wouldn’t be effective. While many doubters put faith in that theory, I for one, always felt Haye would be a tough test for anyone in the division.

No doubt the internet boxing community is buzzing with reasons why Haye beat Valuev. Some “experts” will say that he stuck to his game plan immaculately. Others will say he boxed smart after he injured his hand early in the fight. I am confident that David’s victory is largely owed to David and Adam Booth’s decision to bring a strength and conditioning expert into the team.

Before and during the fight Sky’s commentators were making a massive deal out of Haye going for a walk at two in the morning, they also mentioned the fact that Haye does not implement roadwork in his routine. However, this is becoming more and more common… the sweet science is turning to the less sugar rich form of science, to improve age old training methods.

Sky’s pundits did not have a high enough security clearance to find out why Haye scrapped roadwork. Boxing is a war and while the American military has shown the effective use of science in warfare, boxing it seems has been late to follow suit until recently.

Haye’s secret weapon comes in the form of Lifesmart Fitness’ Jamie Sawyer. I managed to track down Jamie to find out the secrets behind Haye's rise to Heavyweight Championship supremacy.

Jamie explained that preparations for the assault on the title started months before, “The simplest thing with David's training is periodization, that not a lot of people in boxing are using. It's where we start off with an adaptation for maybe three or four weeks. All we're doing is big movements with big muscle groups, but very high reps and very low weight, its like greasing the groove so to speak. This helps greatly in the prevention of muscle injury by increasing the tensile strength of your ligaments and muscles. We then start to get heavier over time.”

It seemed to me that a program like that could be applied to any sport, so I asked Jamie how exactly it helped "The Hayemaker" in the ring. “Boxing is a power-endurance sport, and if you see a boxing match as the end goal, to periodize your training you have to work backwards. To have power-endurance you need power. If you want to get power, you need strength. If you want to have strength, you've got to have your tissue adapted to it. So you have your phases worked our for you, so you've done your adaptation. We then start to get heavier and go to strength, so we will use rep and set ranges from 5 sets of 5, up until 10 sets of 2, or 10 sets of one even. So we're making sure David's muscles are as strong as possible. Once we have that strength, we then develop it into his power. Which obviously, as the fans can see is David's biggest attribute. From that power, you need to replicate that time and time again for twelve rounds, so that's when we go into the power-endurance stuff which is the more specific sweat your ass off, wanna throw up sort of stuff. High reps, very fast, very powerful movements, and very short rest, and very specific to the actual sport itself.”

Jamie went on to explain that boxing training in general has more or less been the same for 100 years. He also alluded to the theory that the rise of the eastern European heavyweights could be attributed to their openness to trying new training methods. “We brought the scientific side of training, its not rocket science, its nothing new fandangled, its proper sound physiological bio mechanical science. The eastern block guys in strength and conditioning terms have always been ahead of the rest. You look at the other top heavyweight boxers now aside from David, and they're all eastern, you have to think that they are employing those things as well.”

For anyone who doubts the impact that a well rounded strength and conditioning program can have on a fight, just have a look at the last round of Haye–Valuev. Haye connected with a thunderous left, that despite not landing flush, had Valuev dancing like he was auditioning for a role as a backup dancer on Britney Spears' next tour.

Today, sought out by scores of top pro boxers, Jamie survives as a soldier of fortune. If you have a problem with conditioning, and if no one else can help, and you can find him, maybe you can hire…Jamie Sawyer.