Boxers: inner muscle development

[zenshiite]

In the movie "Unforgivable Blackness" there is training footage of Jack Johnson using the light dumbells. It was PBS so it is in a lot of libaries in the US. Checking it out my next trip to see if exercises are similar to what is descibed here,
Respectfully,
Len McCoy

I watched that on Netflix streaming a couple years ago. It might still be there.

[I am...]

Just wanted to add my comments for the book:

It's great, very well done and exactly what I was hoping it would be. Having done some Maxalding work in the past as well, this book was awesome. I went through the workout last night, it has the potential to be amazing as it scales up.

Thanks again Mitsurugi!

[newtype]

I watched that on Netflix streaming a couple years ago. It might still be there.

[tsurugi]

That's a great documentary on Johnson - always good to see the venerable Bert Sugar who died recently.

Right at the start, and then again later on, Johnson is using the light dumbbells - but mainly for fast shadowboxing and what Sandow called "free movements" although he does do a brief flash of one of the exercises in the book (the rhythmic side-bending one) but again he's moving very fast rather than slow and deliberate with conscious tension and relaxation. The frame rate on a lot of old boxing footage is too fast - leaving a lot of the old fights looking like comical chaplin-esque silent movies which stops the viewer getting an accurate sense of how the fighters actually moved.

The fights in this doc have been remastered really well and the frame rate adjusted so that it's almost at the correct speed - but I'm not sure that's the case with that snippet of training footage. Even at the correct speed though he'd still be going considerably faster and with less control than in the specific protocol in the book. He definitely also trained slower and with controlled tension as I have a photo of him in the book doing one of the back exercises in Attila's routine with a pair of Sandow's spring grip dumbbells.

Check out this (very rare) clip of Harry Greb training. At about 2.40-odd you can see him consciously working/flexing his "punching muscles" and then at 5.07 - 5.46 ish he seems to be doing some light calisthenics. All those exercises are in the book in similar form but done with light dumbbells and the self directed maximal contraction and relaxation of various muscles.

Even though he isn't holding dumbbells, Greb IS actually doing this - if you look at his biceps/triceps at 5.13 - 5.20 you can see he is actively and alternately flexing them much more than they would be involved if he was just touching his shoulders and then straightening his arms. Gripping three - five pound dumbbells, this would be the same as exercise 4 in the book (with some very specific instructions re body position and which muscles to engage and in what order, what specific cadence and for what rep range etc)




BTW - thanks everyone for all the positive comments re the book - and thanks to everyone who's been buying the pdf. Hope you enjoy it and find it useful.


Dave

[allen2saint]

This is off topic, but I intended to watch three minutes of that Jack Johnson film and I ended up stopping what I was doing and I watched the whole thing. It was riveting.

[kreese]

Just watched Fedor in an old documentary firing off bench presses from a standing position with an unweighted bar at explosive speed.

Great thread, thanks for all the info, I think this area of research is vital for modern MA researchers. I dug around and found some cool books on the web, and also noted that one guy recommended muscle-control exercises of an exquisite degree of subtlety. The author used to work on it as a kid, just tensing and relaxing muscles, and he said it built mass and strength.

It's already been shown that people can strengthen the neurological component of muscle contraction by imagining doing exercises.

The tensing and relaxing stuff (w/breathing) is systema ji ben gong as well. My take is that it is often useful to tense a muscle that you don't have much sensation in and control over, rather than starting off w/strict relaxation.

I don't see why you can't lift heavy 3-5 reps with just 2-3 compound body movements, never to failure, 2-3 times a week, 30 minutes tops each session. Maximum contraction is explored this way.

ZZ and meditation will increase the range of relaxation. Movements explore the dynamic interplay between tension and relaxation in the body, a physical yin and yang we can all experience.

[RobP2]

The tensing and relaxing stuff (w/breathing) is systema ji ben gong as well. My take is that it is often useful to tense a muscle that you don't have much sensation in and control over, rather than starting off w/strict relaxation.

Yep, we do a lot of this kind of work in systema, my guess is the Soviets would have researched a lot of this old school training, kettlebells, etc etc

[TrainingDummy]

Any word on Kindle version yet?

Very keen to purchase, but Pay Pal hates my bank card.

[tsurugi]

Training dummy -

finished the re formatting and should have it up on kindle later on today (all being well with the transfer to their html format) I'll let you know as soon as it's up

[Patrick]

I am highly interested in this book too! Is normal bank transfer an option?

[tsurugi]

Paranoidandroid -check your pm

[tsurugi]

To the people who are waiting on the kindle version -


you'll have to bare with me a little longer - after exhaustive reformatting to suit Kindles requirements (not an easy task for someone only vaguely computer literate) I am having problems uploading the file and cover art to their site. I suspected a problem with my internet connection as I've had loads of problems this month including being unable to upload files to dropsend.

After an interminable "conversation" with several idiots in a call center in India I was assured that everything is fine with my connection/their server etc...and I had to conclude that the problem was with the kindle site itself.

At this point I thought "fuck it" and decided to put it up on Lulu instead. Joined their publishing program, just spent ALL DAY reformatting the document all over again to suit the - wouldn't you know it - completely different requirements of their epub software only to have the exact same problems when trying to upload the file

(ie a cover art file that is under 8mg is taking hours to upload and won't complete despite the upload speed of my computer being 833kps according to the Virginmeda "experts")

I will need to seek IT help with this

I can still send anyone who wants one the pdf file in the meantime.

Now excuse me while I throw my computer through the window and go down to the cellar to kick seven different types of shit out of a punchbag

[zenshiite]

Amazon is invariably a pain in the ass to call. I had a problem with my Kindle after getting it, put in a call, and was on the phone with India and the tech guy had a really thick accent such that I couldn't understand half of what he said(which is funny, because I work with a guy from Sri Lanka and interact with South Asians fairly regularly). It took ages to figure out how to reboot my Kindle... which is information they DON'T include in any of the paperwork that comes with the damn things.

[tsurugi]

For those still interested in getting the book on Kindle/Lulu:

I'm slightly nearer to resolving things - turns out it is my internet provider that's the problem. Despite that fact they have assured me that it isn't them and there is nothing that could possibly be responsible for me being suddenly unable to upload large files to certain servers...just took mine and my girlfriends laptops to where she works and everything works just fine

This will mean spending several hours somewhere not on virginmedia wifi and reloading everything from scratch - might not be this afternoon as England play France in the Euros at 4pm!

should be sorted soon though - DO NOT EVER USE VIRGINMEDIA - THEIR CUSTOMER SERVICE SUCKS ARSE

In other news someone just emailed me saying they tried to buy the book pdf through paypal but paypal wouldn't except my email??? - I've received several other payments no problem so I've contacted them for an explanation - anyone else who's had a similar problem please let me know

Dave

[Patrick]

Tsurugi, I pmed you again.