Why You Shouldn't Shadowbox On A Treadmill Walking Backwards w/ Yas Parr (SSOF Ep 122)

Yas Parr2:02

But at the moment, most of my stuff is online when it comes to serious fighters. But I have been training some of the kids in the gym, which is really good because they're open to doing stuff rather than like, 'This is what my coach showed me 30 years ago,' like a lot of people. And they think, in their opinion, 'I know what I'm doing,' so they listen to what I'm saying and do exactly as I'm saying. So it works out good, plus I can see the results because I see them all the time, then I can see the difference. It makes it a lot easier.

James de Lacey2:59

That's awesome. Is that enough?

Yas Parr2:59

No, that's perfect, that's perfect.

James de Lacey2:59

And we're going to go down. You obviously been in this game for a long time and kind of specializing in boxing regarding strength and conditioning. So it'd be cool to really dive into initially just your overarching strength and conditioning philosophy for boxing. I know it's a very general, wide open question, but take it where you want and we can kind of drill down.

Yas Parr3:27

Okay. In my opinion, because, I mean, let's give an example. Somebody who thinks strength and conditioning doesn't work in boxing, they'll see a fighter who does strength and conditioning and they'd be quite a poor fighter and they'll get beat off somebody who doesn't, who's an excellent fighter. And their attitude is, 'See, it doesn't work.' Whereas in my opinion, it won't make an average fighter a great fighter, but no matter what level you're at, it'll make you better.

So if you make someone stronger, faster, more resistant to injury, cardio, everything, if you look at everything and it's better, then you've got a better fighter, no matter what level they're at. So even if it's someone who's at the very top of the game, if they've never actually done strength and conditioning, then you can still make them better. Does that make sense?

James de Lacey3:53

Yeah. No, I fully agree with you there. And we can even get down into, I guess, some of your programming philosophy as well around boxing specifically. So we can maybe break it into strength and then conditioning just to make it a little easier to go through. But maybe just starting with your strength training philosophy for boxing.

I mean, we've had a lot of coaches on the podcast. Some come from, you mentioned Poliquin before, a lot of people influenced by Poliquin. Some are implementing a lot of, say, Westside principles within their training, more powerlifting based. Some are going different directions all together. So it would be interesting to see kind of where you draw your influences from and how your strength training programs kind of look for boxing.

Yas Parr5:17

Okay. For me, Poliquin's stuff works well. What I do works for me. Obviously there's other ways to do stuff, and if whatever you do works for you, then that's good. But what works for me is I find that if it's short term, so most pro fighters, they only really train properly for camp. So I find Poliquin stuff, if you look at Poliquin coaches who do really well to train people either for a short amount of time, like for a camp, or off season, if it's a pro athlete, like say a hockey player.

And I find that Poliquin stuff works really well for that because it's all about making people, if they need to be bigger, bigger, but bigger, stronger, faster as quickly as possible.

But I use other methods if I'm doing more long-term training. So Poliquin stuff, for me, pro boxers, most of them they only train for camp. So they go from there and they want to be up there within, say it's a 12-week camp, up there. So it's difficult doing it like that because you have to actually blitz them to get the results. And then you really have to keep an eye on overtraining and stuff like that.

Whereas if you're doing, if someone's training year-round, which is obviously a million times better, because instead of going from there to there, you're going to go from there to there without so much stress, or even higher. So, but it's hard because there's only certain people who can train year-round. It's different if a top level fighter said they want to start training with me in person for the next year, then I can make them into a totally different animal.

James de Lacey6:59

Yeah. So, but I find Poliquin—what are some examples, like obviously you mentioned about Poliquin coming in for like, say, an eight-week thing. What would be an example of, say, a Poliquin-style training versus the training you would do that would be, say, longer term?

Yas Parr6:59

Well, say if I'm training somebody who's training three times a week. So I'd be for 12 weeks, and if that person kind of needs a bit of everything, then I might do a daily undulating program where I'll go maybe relative strength on Monday, power on Wednesday, conditioning on Friday. And I do try and do the periodization by the month as well. So the reps will change for the relative strength, the power training will change a little bit, the conditioning.

But I also do—it depends on a lot of things. Well, obviously professional fighters have a lot more time than amateur fighters, or even—we've known, me and my wife, she's got a lot of friends in boxing, and she's known she's had friends come see us and they would have had maybe 10, 12 fights, undefeated, and they still have to work as an Uber driver or something. Because people assume if you're a pro fighter that you're just earning millions, and it's only the very top people that do.

So it makes a difference to me if you only have to eat, sleep, and train, then that's a lot different to if you have to train, you have to work, you have a wife and kids, you have all these outside stresses that make you tired and take up your time. Then you can't train somebody like that the same as you can train a pro fighter. So it all depends for me on how much time people have, what their background is, training age, and also what they have to fit in with the rest of their life.

So it's like, at the moment I can train these kids really good at the gym, but they can only—I only train them a couple of times a week. They do boxing training every day. And I'm not as bad as I used to be, but I used to be really against road work. And they do their runs every morning when they get up, and I'm not going to interfere with that because they can't see me that much, or I can't tell them what to do that much when they have to work around school and stuff.

So, see what else. So Poliquin stuff then. Also Poliquin—like I say, if it's someone's just training camp, then it's very Poliquin influenced. So I'll do a deload on volume on week three.

Try to not drop the intensity, but if I do, maybe only about 10%. And somewhat another way that I'll do a 12-week camp, if it's someone that's really experienced and I know that they've done plenty of strength and conditioning, then I might do first four weeks, two-thirds relative strength, one-third power. Next four weeks, 50/50. Last four weeks leading up to the fight, one-third relative strength, two-thirds power.

But it all depends, like I said, that kind of person, they have to monitor their stress levels and fatigue levels, but they also, it's beneficial for me if there's people around him who can look at that stuff as well and say, "Oh, he looks like today," and I'm like, "Right, you need to back off."

Or it's a lot easier if you're measuring HRV, because then I mean, I used to ignore that a lot myself and then I used to wonder why I'd get injured all the time. I'd think, "Well, I need to train, so I'm going to ignore it," and then I'd end up with a back problem or a neck problem. And then now if I look at it, because I don't want to be injured, if it says I shouldn't be training that day, then I might just do a little bit of aerobic stuff.

Let me see what else. If I train someone four times a week, it's different to three, obviously, and I might do more like, not Westside, but more like that where I might do two heavy strength days and two more dynamic days. And also, if I'm doing four times a week, I might, I've started what I've started doing more lately is not just periodizing the strength training but also trying to periodize the Energy System stuff.

And if they also do stuff like agility or med ball stuff, then I'll try and periodize that as well. But that's a lot easier if you have full control over everything and it's someone that you can say, "Right, I've got nine months, we're going to do this, this, this, this," and then it's all perfect leading up to where you want to be, instead of just blitzing somebody.

I mean, a little bit ago, something that I say to myself a lot is if you only train properly for camp, it's the equivalent of when you see teenagers try to clean up the house after a party before the parents get home. You can do it, but it's not optimal.

James de Lacey11:43

Actually, before you go on, I'll prompt you on, we'll come back to as well to more of the programming as well, but you obviously mentioned you were against road work but now you're not so much. Do you want to maybe go into a little bit of detail about why you were against road work and maybe why that changed?

Yas Parr12:09

I used to be, my thing was you get an aerobic base, and then after that it's only maintenance, so you only have to do a little bit. What aerobic base? You lose aerobic conditioning a little bit after about 10 days, so I used to say just go on your normal little run once a week. But that's more for psychological benefit, I think, because most boxers, Thai boxers, they can get it in their heads that they don't need to run because obviously you don't run in a ring unless you're one of those defensive fighters that just tries to stay out of the way all the time.

And also, there's a lot better ways to do it. If you're going to train certain energy systems, you should be doing that really with tactical and technical drills, because you can work, train the energy systems on a bag or with a trainer doing mitts, whatever you want. So there's no need to be running. But like I said before about the kids, they go out for their little runs all the time and I'm not going to interfere with that because they ain't got time to do more of a structured running thing with me or even Energy System stuff using technical or tactical stuff. But it's good for them psychologically.

I mean, I do see, I think I do see people like John Wayne Parr say that he, I don't know if he's retired or not now, I know he's getting on a bit, but I saw one time, I'm saying yeah, he's definitely almost there. Yeah, he's got to be like 40s or something. And I saw one time him saying that he runs 17 miles a day, and I was like, a day?

James de Lacey14:06

Yeah, like leading up to his fight.

Yas Parr14:06

And I was like, that's just a waste of time. But he's going to be like, "Well, look at the level I'm at," and I, "Were you to tell me that I'm doing it wrong?" But I don't go overboard when people don't really want to listen. If people pay money for my opinion because they value it, then there's no point in me giving it to people who don't value it for free.

James de Lacey14:32

I'm going to continue down this conversation. We'll eventually get back to the strength training stuff. I'm just going to follow this conversation. So does that mean you would, would you ever program road work then for a fighter, amateur or professional, that comes to you? Or is it just based on, "Hey, they do it all the time and it's kind of what they like to do," then you would add it in?

Yas Parr14:59

Someone has the time and they're willing to come to me for that kind of stuff, then yeah. I mean, only sprints though, only like interval training or sprints. And then you could either do it on a manual treadmill, or there's actually a really decent running track near where we are, so, and it's free, so you could just go there and do whatever you want there.

But not, I used to be like, "No, you can't do that," and I'd be like, I'm stopwatch, and there'd be two seconds over the rest time and I'd be like, "No, no, you're late," and everything was too strict. So I had to learn to be a little bit more flexible.

So if someone wants to run now and again, or if it's someone's like me, I used to get up and do a little run every morning, and it wasn't enough or it wasn't progressed to make me better. It was just the little thing that I did before I had breakfast, made me feel better, kept me lean. And it, but it wasn't any kind of overload, so there was no adaptation.

But so if someone just did a little three-mile run every morning when they get up because it makes them feel better, then for me that's not really going to interfere with the training and they're going to get the psychological benefits from it.

But like we said, there's no running in boxing, so you can train the cardiovascular system in ways that are better transferred to boxing if that's what you need.

James de Lacey16:15

So you mentioned that you mentioned about technical, using technical tactical training to develop conditioning. So we can just label it, what does label like specific conditioning, like hitting pads and bags, and non-specific, say running. Is your preferred way of doing your conditioning trying to keep everything under the specific umbrella, or at some point are you looking, "Hey, if we need to hit these outputs or whatever it is, we have to do something non-specific to be able to get there," or it's again, it's everything just kind of, "Hey, we want to keep everything as close to boxing as possible"?

Yas Parr16:43

In an ideal world, everything as close to boxing as possible. But like I said, I'd have to have full control. Well, not control like a control freak, but I'd have to be able to say what I would like. So say, sometimes I think I can only, I'm only ever going to be training someone 100% exactly how I want when it's my own kids, probably, as they're growing up.

But yeah, if I could say to the boxing trainer, "Where you can't do this," most of the time I could probably do it with my wife. But say, "Oh, they're training max strength today. I want them doing boxing drills, technical and tactical, in zones two and three. Or if they're training power, zone one. Or if training power endurance, zone six." And I could, if I had full control, I could say that's how I want the boxing training to be.

But obviously most boxing trainers, not all, most, especially where I am in the U.S., they're against strength and conditioning, so they're not going to listen to me. If they don't listen to me about how lifting weights can make you stronger and faster and more powerful, then they're not going to listen to me when if I tell them, "Oh, this is how I want the boxing training to be done today."

James de Lacey18:07

Let me know if there's anything that I say that sounds a bit off and then I'll clear. You keep going. It's funny because you mentioned about the trainers not liking strength training. I don't know, I broke down a video, I think it was a Terence Crawford one, because Boxing World did a whole series on some of his training and they did one on his strength training in the gym.

And it was like, it was actually, I think the worst, the worst training video I've seen. I've broken down quite a few on the channel. It was, it didn't make, it didn't make any, it was like having a couple personal...

Trainers taking him through a general population session just adding things. And just adding things that didn't make sense. It was like bench press with band, so accommodating resistance, but then supersetted with incline dumbbell flies. And he was doing like one and a quarter bench presses and stuff like that as well.

He did one and a quarter—oh, he did leg presses with partials at the end, supersetted with squats, right? It was just—and then leg extensions. And I was like, what the hell's going on?

Yas Parr19:23

Exactly. I mean, I can't keep my mouth shut now because you've said that, but my wife messaged me about an hour ago and said don't talk about anybody. Yeah, I mean, lately I've seen Terence Crawford—I mean, in the US, I mean, there are a few good guys around that are on the same page and they're trying to make things happen.

But generally, yeah, the attitude is either strength and conditioning doesn't work, it's no good for boxing, it's bodybuilding, it makes you slow and reduces your range of mobility and all that stuff, or you have the people who are trying to do strength and conditioning but they just do all kinds of Mickey Mouse stuff.

And that's what I see. The ones, I mean, the last year I've been—my wife told me not to say nothing—but like, Ryan Garcia is really bad. Devon Haney, remember the video that he put out where he's doing the little shuffling on the sand, holding the dumbbells, going sideways up a hill and stuff like that?

James de Lacey20:20

Oh yeah. Yep, I broke that one down.

Yas Parr20:20

And then Terence Crawford. And it's like, some of it's so bad that I did an article called The Strength and Conditioning for Boxing: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. And I did a pyramid of hierarchy and I put the ones who do all that made-up nonsensical stuff as the very bottom level, even lower than the ones who don't do any strength and conditioning.

And the reason I did that, or I actually wrote that, is I know a decent boxing trainer and a few years back he was telling me about the guy they use, and he said he's the best in the business. And I didn't know who the guy was. I just thought to myself, well, you don't really know what you're talking about, but I don't care. And then it was a few years later, so not that long ago, I saw this guy—man, you should have seen the stuff he was doing.

He had pro fighters walking through a sandpit in bare feet, throwing punches while he's holding them back with a resistance band around the waist. And I thought, that's so bad, man. I have to write an article. And then that's the typical stuff that you see, that the guys that acknowledge that strength and conditioning works, it's just that they have no idea what they're doing.

James de Lacey21:16

It almost mirrors soccer and how bad it is. Soccer is rife now. I mean, you can see clips all over social media from high-level, multi-million dollar paid a week soccer players with their trainers. And, my God, that trainer must be making bank from the guy but doing absolute just the craziest stuff that makes no sense.

And with sand, in a sport where—I mean, professional boxing maybe not to the extent of amateur boxing in terms of having to bounce around the ring and things—but in a sport where you need that ability to have that reactive strength off the floor, and then you dampen it by training on sand all the time, it's like, yeah, the first one or two steps—

Yas Parr22:14

Exactly. The first one or two steps is really important in boxing, and that's the main part that gets ruined if you train on sand. So it's just, it's like someone said, "Give me something that's really bad that's going to mess me up and it's going to make my performance worse," and it's like, "Okay, I'll put you playing with Devon Haney on the sand."

James de Lacey22:41

And we can go further down. I mean, I think you—I think you did, you were doing some real short-form reel stuff on some of these before. You should get back to doing those. But you did one, I think, where you're looking at people who would walk backwards on treadmills and shadowbox and do various things. Do you want to maybe talk a little bit about what's going on there?

Yas Parr23:07

Hit people, hit the mitts while we're going backwards on the tread. Oh yeah, that's right, yeah, I saw that one too. Yeah, I mean, maybe sometimes someone's got a million people to train and they can do that and they can fit it in. But I mean, it doesn't mean it's any good. Or to me as well, sometimes someone who's lazy will do that. Usually a fat trainer will do that.

But people say, "Oh, it's getting them better at moving backwards or it's keeping the feet moving." But it's not, because they're not moving backwards. What they're doing is lifting the feet up and down to stay where they are. The bodyweight's not being transported anywhere.

So it's like, I don't know if you've ever done on a motorized treadmill—if you've ever done a program of interval training sprints and then you try and do exactly the same thing outside? You can't. Say if you do 10 on a treadmill, you're dying after three on the sports hall or on a track or whatever. But it's not the same because obviously it takes so much more out of your body to move your weight than it does. Yeah, I don't know what to say about it. It's just terrible.

James de Lacey23:56

You get people in the comments trying to defend these people. It's funny, I get it, man. You must, because obviously you put a lot of stuff out on YouTube, and I don't hardly put anything. But, yeah—

Yas Parr24:23

It's like if I do a video about how bad punching with dumbbells is, and there's someone to write, "Oh, you don't know what you're talking about. It gives the punch more pop." And I'm like, "Oh yeah, what's that?" And they were like, "You know, more pop." And I'm like, "So what is that?" And that's someone being nice. Other people will just talk [expletive].

James de Lacey24:46

Yeah, it's ridiculous. Are there any other trends in boxing that you have seen recently that maybe need to die recently, or maybe even old ones that are still going? We've already mentioned a few, so if there's not, we can move on.

Yas Parr25:12

The punching with dumbbells, I've been saying how bad that is for probably 15 years or more, and I think a lot of people get it now. But, I mean, you still get people all over the world who don't really know about strength and conditioning and they still do that stuff. But I find people—places like Australia, New Zealand, Britain, Eastern European countries—there's a lot of people who know that that's not good and they do proper strength and conditioning.

They—I mean, people who shadowbox with dumbbells—they'll say it's, I don't know what they'll say, shoulder endurance usually. Yeah, shoulder endurance, conditioning the shoulders. But besides the fact that you're ruining the punch, you're just going to make the anterior delts, because you just got dumbbells in front of you for so long. But then people will say, "Oh look, Mayweather does it or Triple G does it, so it must be good." Well, obviously they're great in spite of doing poor exercise choices, not because of those things.

Punching in water and all that stuff. Other things, like punching with bands for me. But I do think that if the band was so light, so thin that it was close to nothing, then it might be beneficial. I think there was a study a few years back about Taekwondo kicks improved. But you can do a million things that are going to improve your punch power, so why are you going to do that anyway?

But most people, they do it with bands and they're leaning forwards. Everything that shouldn't be activated, that should be relaxed, is contracted. One of the videos I saw, Ryan Garcia, he was punching with a band with his left and he was pulling a band back with his right there to keep it against his face. So there's so much there that's contracted and firing that shouldn't be.

And the difference—or I should say one of the differences between higher-level fighters and lower-level fighters—is they don't waste energy and they're faster because the muscles that are supposed to be relaxed are relaxed. And a lot of time, for me, speed is as much about the antagonist relaxing as quickly as possible so the agonist can fire.

It's like, my wife's a really good boxer, so she just floats around, doesn't get tired fast. And if I'm hitting a bag because I'm all tense, then I'm slow, get tired quick. So it's just, how are you training that?

James de Lacey27:44

How are you training that quality? Is it something that just becomes developed as you do more boxing, or are you doing things specifically in strength and conditioning to try to, I guess, promote that contract-relax?

Yas Parr27:44

I think that's more down to the actual boxing training. And I find as well a good cue is, obviously you can't do it if you're—

In a heavy bag, if you relax your hands and face then you're not as tense. If I'm hitting a bag and I'm tense, then everything's tense and I'm not only is everything tense but I'm crap as well. So yeah, it's more of a boxing thing. It's like improving a jab. I mean, you can do stuff in strength and conditioning that improves everything, but having a good jab is more down to practicing a jab 10,000 times and getting it better and better and having a decent boxing trainer instructing you while you're doing it.

But yeah, there's certain things that are more to do with the boxing training than strength and conditioning. But like I said before, no matter who you are, strength and conditioning will improve you no matter how good you are technically. I mean I've seen people who are like they might be fighting for a world title and they've never done strength and conditioning and then they'll come short and there's still no realization around anybody with anyone around them that they need to do something different to get to that top of the mountain.

I mean when people are so old school there's not a lot really you can say to convince them. Maybe if someone has a loss then they might try a new approach. But generally most people if they've been training 20 years, say they're in the late 20s and they're at that level, they won't want to take on anything new in case it makes them worse, in case it messes things up.

And a lot of people, I don't know about everywhere else, but in the US, 'cause obviously I can comment on the US 'cause I've been here so long, and if they do decide to get a strength and conditioning coach, they'll get somebody who's not a strength and conditioning coach, just as a personal trainer for like 24-Hour Fitness, a family member. Yeah, someone with a little bit of interest in training. And then afterwards they'll be like, oh no we got rid of them 'cause we didn't like it, it was no good.

Or yeah, someone who gets someone, the only thing they know is getting a sledgehammer and hitting a tire and then they'll have everyone doing it all the time and then all the boxers will have messed up shoulders and then the trainer will just get rid of them. I say oh, strength and conditioning doesn't work.

James de Lacey30:27

Oh yep, that sounds about right. And obviously we're talking about the dumbbells. I'm going to come back to that. Weight to the gloves then. Would you like heavier gloves? Like we do gloves. Is that something where you would class under the same as punching with dumbbells or is that something you would see is slightly different?

Yas Parr30:27

I don't think it's good, but it's better than punching with dumbbells 'cause the way it's distributed differently. It's like if you pick up a 20 kilo dumbbell compared to a 20 kilo bar, it feels totally different.

Weight, you know what I do like and it's not gloves, it's this stuff, is it Exogen? The weight, the wearable resistance. Yeah, it's only like I don't know so many grams like for per leg and all that. And I think if you're going to look at any kind of resistance, weighted resistance for technical training, that that's the kind of thing that it needs to be rather than just if you shadow box with dumbbells then you just mess up the whole mechanics of it.

I did a video on YouTube probably a couple of years ago now and it was longer than normal 'cause everybody knows that I don't like punching with dumbbells. I think it was about a 15 minute video. But I ain't that good at talking so I don't do too many YouTube videos, better write stuff down I think.

James de Lacey31:55

No, I feel you on that. But if anyone's interested in that Exogen from Lila, if you just search Sweet Science of Fighting Exogen or Lila or something or wearable resistance, you'll find the few podcasts I did with the I guess the owner of Lila and also the researcher John Cronin who done a lot of stuff with that. Exogen ASOF, he's done a lot of stuff with that as well. So there's a few episodes out there in the back catalog talking about that stuff which is really interesting.

But I guess on the same kind of theme around, say, specific strength exercises. So we talked, some of those are more I guess specific conditioning we talked about. But when we talk about specific strength, how specific are you looking to get? We talked about obviously with your dumbbells and bands you're not too much of a fan of, but I don't know landmine punches or say medicine ball punch throws and things like that. Where does that kind of fit in your training or are you kind of more we're just going to get stronger in the basic lifts and everything else kind of doesn't matter?

Yas Parr32:49

So I like to get more similar to boxing but as long as it's not like simulation. So I love, I've just, the kids that I've just had that just done atonement in this last phase I had them doing biacromial grip incline bench press off the pins, low reps and then going, but biacromial bench press you mean like shoulder width, just so if you put your arm straight up, what count? Yeah straight up on the, it's funny though because you just tell someone to grab it shoulder width, everyone thinks they're more muscular than they are.

So biacromial grip incline press, I wanted it to be inertia so off the pins. I wanted the angle to be right so it transfers to a straight punch. So as far as I know is what I've kind of worked out and from what I've read on other stuff is a 30 to 35 degree of an incline bench has the greatest transfer to a straight punch.

James de Lacey33:16

And so you do most of your bench pressing then at that incline versus?

Yas Parr33:16

No, it depends on, because obviously you could say one exercise is the best but you can't do that exercise all the time as you know yourself. You have to change exercises and they all have benefits in different ways.

So I mean I like incline, that angle incline with dumbbells because obviously then you're working the stabilizers and stuff as well or pronated where it like replicates turning a punch. So those kids that I've just had, I had them doing heavy biacromial grip bench off the pins and then straight onto med ball punch, low reps. Well, but because I want power and not strength, then it was a really light ball, just a little ball so it's faster. 'Cause I like to have a heavier ball for the strength training.

So training max strength and as a most, 'cause see 'cause obviously in most kinds of training you go up all the time in resistance or if you don't go up in resistance it's like sets or reps or whatever. So with the med ball stuff as we, I'm trying to transition to power, then it instead of going heavier we go lighter.

Yeah, so specific. I was Adam doing was training power endurance, so high reps on the cable press, both arms fast, stuff like that. Leg stuff, go from, start off with full range like months out and as we get closer the range gets shorter for me. So half squats or half split squats off the pins and then go quarters in the end. Yeah, quarters.

So I mean you have to look at, I saw a quote one time and I don't know the exact wording but it was pretty much, you can always tell a sprinter that does full depth squats because they run like they do full depth squats. So obviously if you want it to be really transfer to the sport then the range has to be very similar to the sport. I go, I like full range for sorting out imbalances, improving strength, but then when it actually comes to the more specific stuff then the joint angles have to be very similar to what they're doing in the sport.

James de Lacey36:32

Perfect. And since we can continue down that road of that kind of, we'll call it out of camp, because we talked a lot about that point of stuff at the beginning where it's like, say 8 to 12 week fight camp, how that kind of looks. But out of camp if you've got longer to prepare the boxer, you mentioned a little bit there about full range to partial range. But what else is going on in that, and that quote unquote out of camp area in terms of training?

Yas Parr36:55

Poliquin, they call their stuff where you're trying to sort out any issues like imbalances and stuff, structural balance. And then I did a lot of stuff early last year with, or I should say did some stuff with Carl Bakhtiar Kelly and he terms it anatomical adaptation, which it's sorting out imbalances but it's also like really conditioning tendons and ligaments and just like GPP basically.

Yeah, I mean it's so there's very little chance of getting injured when you go onto the max strength stuff. So do that. I mean I could even do that if I, if I was training a fighter that only did the typical, if the pro fighter only did the typical camp and then but they haven't got any experience with lifting weights and I can't have them doing like relative strength and stuff like that, so I might do four...

Weeks of anatomical adaptation, four weeks of max strength but lower intermuscular max strength, so 70 to 80% one rep max, and then the last four weeks of power, power and power endurance. But that's how I kind of would structure it if it was longer term as well, but I would I could do other stuff.

So say I might do anatomical adaptation and then, if it's, I did it with the kids that have just been training, but that's because they've got very little training experience. What I could do with a heavyweight boxer who doesn't, it doesn't matter about being heavy, is a hypertrophy phase, but not training like a bodybuilder, more athletic hypertrophy.

So the concentric is always fast, the weights are heavier, the reps generally on average are lower. And then from there then I would go to max strength, max strength one which is the 70 to 80%. But if it was a lighter fighter then I wouldn't do the hypertrophy stuff, the athletic hypertrophy.

But what I do like doing is a pendular periodization, so it might be like three weeks strength, three weeks power, three weeks strength, three weeks power, go like that until we get to a point closer to the fight where it's more about, obviously you got to keep the max strength so there's always going to be a max strength session, but it's more about power endurance and endurance medium. So it's a lot more endurance-based later on.

Plus as we get, as it gets more specific, then less time should be given to the strength and conditioning in my opinion and more time to the technical and tactical stuff, which is why close to a fight the sessions might only be 30 to 45 minutes for S&C. Just a few exercises, very little, say two, three exercises training the prime movers to be explosive and that's it. And then they can concentrate on the actual boxing stuff the rest of the time.

James de Lacey40:11

Nice. So then, so say during that fight camp we talked the beginning, it's kind of more of an undulating approach where you're kind of touching strength one day, power a day, endurance another day. Then out, so out of camp you're taking more of a block periodization approach, is that correct?

Yas Parr40:11

Yeah, but everything overlaps. So obviously I've tried block periodization, but as far as a, no. So say you do four weeks of strength and then you do four weeks of power. During that, because that power, so long without strength, then you are losing a little bit of strength as you go. So from what I understand, that kind of training, so let's say someone like Verkhoshansky for instance, that kind of training is more set up to the athletes that he was training, like high jumpers, pole vaulters, all that stuff. So I don't really do block periodization, I have sections like that, but they overlap.

So there's always going to be, no matter what I'm doing, there's always going to be a strength session, because I don't want them to lose strength. Because obviously as you know, that's the foundation for everything. The more strength you got, the more power you got, the better your agility is. So I'll do like, I start as I'm getting towards the end of one phase then I'll be bringing another one in a little bit, and the previous phase will be phased out a little bit. So everything overlaps rather than just like blocks.

James de Lacey41:41

Yeah, that makes sense. Just for the audience, want to give an example of the anatomical adaptation, I guess, training block there, what that kind of consists of?

Yas Parr41:41

The anatomical adaptation stuff is kind of like hypertrophy, but it's a circuit. So there's too much rest in between sets to get them to put on any size. And it's lighter weights, higher reps, very little rest. So they might go from one exercise to another, and then have like a minute or two minutes rest at the end of the circuit, and they'll do it two times or three times. But that's what I've been doing with these kids lately.

But what I do like for anatomical adaptation, and I don't know if it's publicized anywhere that that's what it does, but do you know the one times 20 method for Michael Yessis?

James de Lacey42:47

Yeah, I used that with, I had to train like development sevens girls in Romania and they had like the shittest training age ever. So I was like, okay, with what we have in there with the big group, we're just going to go one by 20, and that's just what we did for for a few months.

Yas Parr42:47

Yeah. I mean, it's really, I mean I can't argue with somebody as educated as Michael Yessis, but it's supposed to train everything, every kind of strength and like speed strength. But I'm not sure about it doing a lot of the explosive stuff, because by the time you get to the end of the set your reps are really slow. But I do like it for anatomical adaptation.

And I think I had an accident towards the end of last year, and I think that I wasn't as bad as what I would have been because I spent a few months earlier in the year doing a lot of one time 20. So I tore a couple of ligaments, but instead of full tears they were only partial.

And I'm sure the benefit was from that. Because I mean, if if normal circuits condition tendons and ligaments, then one time 20, where you're doing straight from one exercise to another 20 reps and you might do 25 exercises, I mean probably it's, for me, that's probably better than a normal kind of circuit for what we want.

Because it's set up, you're doing like, I mean you're basically doing every muscle group, almost every exercise. It's basically like 20 to 25 exercises for one to 20. So you go like squat, and then you could be doing lunges, then you could be doing like lat raises and overhead presses and all sorts. You go through the ringer on that one. Look like, you know, you see someone who goes in a gym and they have no idea what they're doing and they just go every piece of equipment in the gym? It's like that.

And I like it because you want to do 20 reps, but instead of, obviously tempo is a big thing when it comes to strength training or hypertrophy, having like a slow negative and pauses in the right place. But I like the one times 20 for the anatomical adaptation as well because you start off fast, and if you've chosen the right weight where the goal is to get to 20, then obviously the last few reps are slow. But I do like that you start off fast because I like, like a lot of people like doing fast stuff, don't we? All that, this is perfect.

James de Lacey45:12

Yes, I think that covered everything I had for you. What if people want to follow you, find and keep up with what you're doing? Where can they do that? Are you posting on social media at all now?

Yas Parr45:12

On my Instagram, which is probably why I've been losing thousands of followers lately, is I haven't, I don't really post that often and I need to. But I do usually post at least one thing in my stories every day, so most people see my stories and I put training stuff in there. But I really do actual posts these days. I mean, so my Instagram is boxing strength Marrakech.

I'm on the usual Facebook. I don't do stuff like TikTok. What else? My website, if it's not closed down, it's going to be anytime now, because I just can't be bothered paying the, the person, what's it called, the host company.

James de Lacey46:11

Yeah, I can't be doing, I can't be bothered doing that. So my website, I don't know if it's still up and running, but that's, is it still up?

Yas Parr46:11

Yeah, it's still up.

James de Lacey46:11

Yeah, it's there, it's there, it's working.

Yas Parr46:11

Oh nice. I might have to go on there and screenshot my articles.

James de Lacey46:11

You can copy and paste them out into a Word document, then you got them.

Yas Parr46:42

Yeah, I'll do that. I probably wrote them in a Word document and they're on my computer somewhere anyway, but I hate tech that much that I don't know where anything is.

James de Lacey46:42

Took us 15 minutes to get Yas on this podcast before the podcast because of his tech ability.

Yas Parr46:42

I know. But I've been saying no to Chrome for for for years. They always asked me do you want to download Chrome, and I'm always like nah that. And then today I had to.

James de Lacey46:42

You can delete it after this. But what I'll do is I'll link up your Instagram down in the description for anyone listening. I'll also link up your book that's on Amazon, Strength & Conditioning for Combat Sports, right? So that is there. We'll put that down there for everyone as well. But I appreciate you coming on and sharing everything else.

Yas Parr47:38

Excellent. And if you, in regards to my book, if anyone gets it and they email me, I'll send them, like, because there's a few mistakes and typos in there, so I'll send them if they, if they get my book obviously.

James de Lacey47:38

Awesome. No, I appreciate you coming on and we'll stay in touch.

Yas Parr47:38

Excellent mate, it's been really good talking to you.