It’s All About Athleticism
Boxing is a sport about athletes. Intense, insane, seemingly indestructible athletes. Zero teammates, the bare minimum of equipment. Success or failure in the ring hinges on your raw athletic ability, and whether or not you train to squeeze every ounce of athletic potential from your body and mind.
You train for speed – upper-body arm speed and lower body leg/foot speed; for power – landing bell-ringing blows, and absorbing them without faltering; for agility – both offensive and defensive; for reaction – anticipating and reacting to your opponent’s every move; and for quickness – in terms of performance during the round and recovery between rounds.
If you train correctly, you’ll develop the mental and physical endurance to perform at your highest level in the late rounds of a fight.
In the case of “The Contender”, it isn’t mano y mano – it’s mano y 15 manos. Each athlete’s training – not for a specific fight against a specific opponent, but to maximize their overall athletic potential and performance – is put to the ultimate SPARQ test.
Here’s how we put the athletes through their paces, and why:
1. Quick-Strike – A gloved athlete works a 100-pound heavy bag, which
measures peak punch and striking output.
2. Punch Power – A gloved athlete strikes a 100-pound heavy bag six times,
which measures the peak punch power.
3. Upper-Body Arm Crank – Standing athlete cranks an arm ergometer at
maximum speed for two 15-second intervals against variable resistance,
which measures peak and average upper body power.
4. Agility Jump – Athlete performs two-footed hops back and forth over a
12-inch hurdle for 45 seconds. The number of jumps executed during the
interval serves as an indicator of the athlete’s agility, leg power and
endurance.
5. Light Board – Athlete stands atop a Bosu™ ball and faces a light board,
which displays a target light that moves to different cells across the
board. Athlete tries to press as many active lights out of 90 as possible.
This measures athlete’s reaction time, eye-hand quickness and coordination.
See these tests in action and hear about how they test boxers’ abilities – and make them better athletes – from SPARQ’s director of Sport Science in this video:
Now, why would SPARQ jump into the Contact Sports ring?
Because, as we said before, it’s all about athleticism. We love helping athletes improve their abilities.
And as you may have noticed if you’ve ever taken a charge in basketball or collided with a defender in pursuit of a soccer ball, virtually every sport is a contact sport. For this reason, we want to provide SPARQ Training insights and programs from the best Boxing, MMA and other contact sports trainers in the world. If you want to use some of their techniques to revolutionize your football, soccer or basketball game, all the better - because we believe that if you’re improving yourself as an athlete, you will excel in whatever sport you choose to play.
Training programs and tips coming soon.
