Gym Diary: Oct. 31, 2011
I’ve been jumping rope for almost nine months now and have gone from barely being able to last 30 seconds without stumbling to doing 25 minutes straight with almost no breaks. Jumping rope is mostly about rhythm; there are moments when your arms and feet fall into a groove and your body moves automatically to the beat of the rope hitting the gym floor.
What makes Rodriguez such a great trainer is how he changes exercises to make them more difficult when he senses I’m cruising. Today he cut the amount of rope time in half and made me jump as fast as I could for two-minute intervals. My legs were aching hours afterward in testament to his prowess.
We focused on strength training today in preparation for Thursday’s big sparring session. That meant five sets of pull-ups, dips, and back-arms that left my extremities feeling like jello with 15 rounds of boxing still to come. Both of us recently hurt our neck/backs doing pull-ups, so we limited it to five a set. But the tricep dips and back-arms, which involve lifting yourself using two parallel bars, were even worse.
By the time he gave me the hand grips and told me to do 100 reps with each hand I was already exhausted. A perfect time for Rodriguez to start throwing a six-pound medicine ball at my torso.
In truth, getting hit by the medicine ball is good preparation for taking body shots and nowhere near as painful as the last few sets of dips. But it still hurts. We started by standing six feet apart as I stood with my arms raised and Rodriguez chucked the ball at me as hard as he could. The idea is to learn to reflexively tense your stomach muscles to absorb the shock of the blow, which is surprisingly effective at dulling the pain. Eventually it becomes second nature.
The only near-disaster came while we were chatting and his throw went low. Luckily my reflexes were good enough that I was able to back up while the ball brushed the crotch of my shorts and fell to the floor. I wasn’t wearing a cup at the time and that is the kind of injury that can really sap your motivation while imperiling future generations.
After a few minutes of throwing the ball back and forth, Rodriguez had me lie on my back while he took the ball in both hands and began pounding my torso with it as quickly as he could. This hurt more, especially when I stupidly took a breath between blows and felt my stomach cave in from the resulting shot. After a short pause he resumed and I gritted my teeth, comforting myself with the thought that at least this had to be worse than getting punched. Nope.
Rodriguez was quite clear that we hadn’t yet approximated the feeling of a strong shot to the gut. So after I had caught my breath and asked what was next, he smiled and replied, “I’m just going to hit you with this 75 more times.”
Great. And he started out with the ball in one hand, essentially hurling at my body while kneeling right beside me. The shots on the sides hurt less thanks to our constant work on my obliques, but any blow to the belly button is still painful no matter how much you flex.
After that torture it was finally time to wrap my hands and go to work. We started with four rounds of shadowboxing, mostly jabs and body shots with movement. Then we moved to the heavy bag where I worked on my favorite punch, the hook to the body.
Finally we moved to the pads, where the focus was on defending body shots and countering. The double left hook is one of the most common attacks and the proper response is to slip left and counter with the same combination.
Rodriguez has also been teaching me the Philly shell defense (currently used to great effect by Floyd Mayweather). Instead of keeping both hands up, you tuck your chin behind your left shoulder, protect the other side with your right and fire the jab with your lead hand.
The advantage is your opponent thinks you’re open and comes with the straight right, but most blows just glance off your left shoulder and at most graze the top of your head. By leaning back and absorbing the blow you’re also in perfect position to shift your weight come back with a hard right hand.
This week marks significant progress as we’ve got our first real, serious sparring scheduled for Thursday night. If all goes well the hope is to schedule a fight before Thanksgiving. I know I’m going to be sparring with bigger, more experienced fighters so I’ve quit smoking, drinking and anything else that could potentially mess with my performance. After all, I’m in training.