March 9th

Personal training session tonight, Alexis putting me through the wringer again.

Diet
Breakfast: Oatmeal, sugar, yoghurt drink
Mid-morning: Tuna, ricecake, boiled egg, apple
Lunch: Butterbean stew, steamed veg
Mid-afternoon: tuna, ricecake, boiled egg, apple
Post-workout: Chocolate milk
Dinner: Shepherd’s pie (Kirsty made this to a Nigel Slater recipe. Delicious)

Good diet today

Exercise
Stretches
Shadowing: 6 x2 minutes, 1 minute between rounds. Alexis had me practising various things, such as moving forwards while throwing combinations, and kept reminding me to keep my hands up, something I wasn’t doing well on Monday
Focus pads: 6 x2 minutes, 1 minute between rounds. General work: 1-2s, double jab, 4 punch combinations while moving back and forwards, in-throw-out combinations etc. Then we moved on to block-to-combination work; basically catch your opponents right hand on your guard, step inside and throw a quick group, get your guard up again and move out. Good fight focused, practical drills.
Speed bag: 3 x2 minutes, 1 minute between rounds. Timing and endurance work.
Wall pad: Throw 10 hard rights, rest a few seconds, repeat 5 times, rest 1 minute = 1 set. Did 3 sets.
Abs: 3 x30 situps/crunches.
Stretches

Hard work!

Before we started Alexis told me that at sparring on Monday I wasn’t throwing my right often enough, and I was dropping my right hand when I threw jabs, apart from that he seemed pretty happy with my progress.

So during the shadowing and focus pad work he made sure I wasn’t repeating these mistakes (Mostly by clocking me round the ear if I dropped my right hand!) while we worked on my punching. My footwork seems to be improving; he has to tell me less often to keep my back foot on the ground when punching, and to keep my feet pointing forwards.

We tried a little work on hooks, but I wasn’t any good. Interestingly, Alexis reckons that for my first fight I shouldn’t be worrying about throwing anything other than straight punches. At first I was a bit concerned that only having 2 punches is going to make me too 1-dimensional, but the more I thought about it the more it made sense. Reason 1) As I’ve mentioned before, for my weight I’m quite tall, so to throw body punches I’d have to squat down to my opponents level, making me more vulnerable and taking away my height advantage (usually he’s punching upwards, I’m punching downwards). Reason 2) Hooks, uppercuts etc. are technically difficult punches to master. If you don’t master the technique but try to use them anyway they’re slow, weak and leave you wide open to a quick counterpunch. I’m 4 weeks from the fight, nowhere near enough time to learn these punches properly, so they can wait. Reason 3) The jab and the straight right, in their various combinations, are easily the most useful and damaging punches any boxer can throw. My time is therefore better spent practicing these punches, my defence and my footwork.

I think I’ve written enough for one day, so I’ll leave it there. More sparring tomorrow to practice what I learnt today.

32 days to go...