Your best body ever in "2009", lean for life.

Boxers train to create a body that's a perfect balance of strength, stamina and speed.

Would you like to increase your lean muscle mass and the overall tone of your muscles, to Build a washboard stomach, defined legs & strong shoulders?

A boxing workout will allow you to sculpt and tone your body like no other workout. Experience total body conditioning.

Your first step is right here at ABFITT. Good luck & Happy New Year!


Richard-

Boxing is an explosive sport, ballistic training methods are especially effective during weight training for boxing. Improve your strength

There are several general concepts, which helped to shape the specific program. First, the work profile of boxing is repeated 3-minute rounds of activity, often with very high intensity bursts within a round. The rounds are separated by one-minute rest intervals. Thus, the relative contribution of anaerobic energy release pathways is considered extremely important, with aerobic capacity playing an important role in terms of facilitating rapid recovery. Extreme conditioning is required to fight effectively for ten intense, 3-minute rounds and anaerobic endurance is a key aspect that cannot be overlooked.

Short of an early round knockout, boxers cannot afford to win only the early rounds of a fight. They must maintain an intense, but measured pace throughout a long and competitive bout. So conditioning counts almost as much as skill for boxing success. Optimal physical conditioning provides the platform from which the skills can be used. The best way to simulate the demands of boxing is to use conditioning methods, which mimic the work/rest ratio and integrated bursts of power that typify boxing.

Because boxing is an explosive sport, ballistic training methods are especially effective during weight training for boxing. Learn how to improve your strength and agility for boxing!



There are several general concepts, which helped to shape the specific program. First, the work profile of boxing is repeated 3-minute rounds of activity, often with very high intensity bursts within a round. The rounds are separated by one-minute rest intervals. Thus, the relative contribution of anaerobic energy release pathways is considered extremely important, with aerobic capacity playing an important role in terms of facilitating rapid recovery. Extreme conditioning is required to fight effectively for ten intense, 3-minute rounds and anaerobic endurance is a key aspect that cannot be overlooked.

Short of an early round knockout, boxers cannot afford to win only the early rounds of a fight. They must maintain an intense, but measured pace throughout a long and competitive bout. So conditioning counts almost as much as skill for boxing success. Optimal physical conditioning provides the platform from which the skills can be used. The best way to simulate the demands of boxing is to use conditioning methods, which mimic the work/rest ratio and integrated bursts of power that typify boxing.


Boxing is a highly individual sport. Fighters possess unique styles that create specific physical demands. Some rely on explosive strength ("power"), for others it's starting strength ("speed"), and for most a combination of the two ("speed-strength"). True champions change their style in a way that will make them more able to attack the weaknesses of any given opponent. Improvements in specific capacities can be made, but they are only helpful if integrated into the fighter's style. For example, extensive footwork exercises may not benefit the power puncher who fights stationary and looks to deliver a blow that starts with the legs and drives right through the opponent, and wins that way. Similarly, a fighter who relies on punching speed and fast footwork should not put all his training hours into heavy bag work and muscle mass development. So, the program designed must not only be specific to boxing, but also specific to the boxer.

Ideally, the boxing punch consists of synchronization between arm, leg, and trunk actions. The punching movement of a boxer consists of leg extension, trunk rotation, and arm extension, in succession. The more effective the coordination between arms, legs and trunk movements are the greatest and the impact force of a punch. The leg muscles play a vital role in the power developed in this sequence. Increasing leg force development and coordinating it with trunk and arm action is probably the most effective way to increase punching power.

Because boxing is an explosive sport, ballistic training methods are especially effective during weight training for boxing. This kind of training method requires the athlete to perform each repetition explosively, with maximal intended velocity. Finally, in my view, the best way to weight train for competitive boxing is via a cycled training schedule. This type of training schedule integrates workouts and exercises that will meet all the basic performance demands of boxing, strength, power, speed, agility, and strength endurance.

Hollywood, models & actor types get fit here. Because its real.

Shadowboxing allows you to rack up high reps without the resistance of a bag to slow your punches. You'll tone your shoulders, back, and core, which will help you throw faster punches.

Hit on beat: Play five songs that have strong rhythms and last three to four minutes each. On every fourth beat (count out loud to keep yourself on track), unleash one of the punch combinations below, and then bring your hands back to your starting stance before the next beat. The shifting tempo of some tracks may require you to punch continuously until the song slows.

Combos for each song:

1. Left jab, left jab, right cross

2. Right cross, left jab, right uppercut

3. Left body punch, right body punch, left uppercut

4. Right uppercut, right cross, left hook

5. Right cross, left hook, right hook

Warm Up Like a Champ

Three-time welterweight champ Antonio "the Tijuana Tornado" Margarito shows you how to prime your muscles. Complete each motion 12 to 15 times for enhanced mobility.

Upper body

Arm circles: Draw large circles with your arms, first in a forward motion, then backward.
Crossovers: Swing both arms out to your sides and then cross them in front of your chest.
Core

Shoulder slumps: Tuck your chin toward your chest, drop your shoulders, and bring your chest slightly forward. Next, pull your shoulders back, raise your chin, and lift your chest while arching your back slightly.
Lower body

Hip circles: With your hands on your hips, spread your feet beyond shoulder-width apart. Move your hips clockwise in a circle, then counterclockwise. Repeat with your arms extended out to your sides.

Understand Why You're Doing Ab Work

Many people love performing a lot of high rep ab work because the burn they get in their abs makes them feel nice and tight. There's something about performing endless sets of high repetition ab exercises that makes people feel good. The stomach "feels" slimmer and tighter, even though it's only temporary.

Even people aware of the spot reduction myth still enjoy performing lots of ab work for this reason. However, your main goal should be to make those ab muscles bigger so they "pop out." Thenyou get the waist lean and tight through diet and overall exercise so those new muscles can shine through.

Think of it this way... Let's say you wanted to get more muscular biceps. So you go and pick up a 5-pound dumbbell and knock out 100 reps of curls. Your biceps feel nice, firm and pumped up right? But how much muscle are you going to build compared to picking up a 20-pound dumbbell and knocking out a set of 10 heavy curls? If you connect the dots back to the abs, you should be able to see the big picture.


Treat The Abs Like Any Other Muscle Group

It's still a big myth that the abs need a ton of repetitions. It's not uncommon to see people do 100 reps per set, performing exercises for minutes on end. However, the abdominals respond to resistance just like any other muscle group.

Since the range of motion on many ab exercises is shorter than something like a squat or bench press, a higher rep range can be used. But if you can perform any exercise for longer than a minute straight, you're not recruiting the type of muscle fiber that will lead to great ab stimulation.

Prioritize Basic Movements in the Gym

Many lifters and other athletes like boxers & gymnasts develop excellent core musculature without ever performing any ab exercises at all. If you perform big money movements like standing presses, deadlifts and squats, you can't help but activate your core.

Almost all single-legged movements, like lunges, are excellent for core activation. So are exercises like isometric planks, side planks, running sprints, and push-up variations.


Stimulate, Don't Annihilate

Remember, the goal with ab training is to get the abdominal muscles a little bigger so they pop out. Even when developed to the max, these muscles aren't very big because their potential for growth is limited. It doesn't take a ton of volume to stimulate them.

A total of 12 solid sets per week of direct ab work should be more than enough for anyone. Most people can actually get excellent results performing two or three sets twice per week. I prefer to pick two exercises, two or three days each week, and perform three to four sets of each movement.

weighted rope crunch
cable wood chop at med, high and low cable settings
dumbbell side bend superset
wheel.......bottom line get creative not crazy.

LEAN, DEFINED & MUSCULAR...THROUGHOUT THE HOLIDAYS!!!!

Fit guys and girls with lean, defined midsections stand out more than a Sumo wrestler in public. Not only is a granite set of abs sexy, but a solid core acts as a muscular belt that helps to stabilize the trunk and reduce the risk of back injury. Read on for a surefire recipe to turn a flabby belly into a six-pack.

Take a stroll through any crowded public place and, if you're like me, you'll probably find it hard not to make a mental "ewwww" note as you notice all the women walking around sporting flabby muffin tops.

In case you're not familiar with the terminology, muffin top is a slang term used for a female whose flabby midsection spills over the waistline of her pants so that it resembles the top of a figure-killing, calorie-dense muffin.

I'm not sure if the problem is that there are so many more flabby females these days or so many more ladies exposing their abdomens regardless of their shape, but the muffin top epidemic has become so bad that manufacturers have gotten involved and re-introduced mid-rise jeans, which come up higher on the waist to eliminate or hide the muffin top.

I know that the women who read this site might be in less-than-rock hard condition and would never deliberately expose their flabby tummies and back-fat like this, but the point is, with so much flab in today's world, there's something special and uncommon about a tight waistline and rock hard set of abs.

Get Your Diet Right!!!!

If your abs are covered in a blanket of bodyfat, you can train them until you're blue in the face... it's not going to make them look more impressive. You can't significantly increase fat loss by doing ab work. The way to shed the fat is by following a properdiet and training program.

One of the best exercises for developing a great set of abs is called a "push-away." Simply push yourself away from the dinner table when you start to feel full! Here are some quick general tips for getting your diet right:


#1: Protein Comes First

Whether you follow a low carb, moderate carb, or high carb diet, they can all work equally well providing you get your protein in. Shoot for at least one gram of protein per pound of bodyweight and make sure you eat protein at each meal. Craving junk food? You can have it from time to time, but not until you eat your protein!

#2: Try To Avoid The 7 C's

Sedentary people who have been eating "normal" food come to me all the time and say they've made up their mind. They want to get in shape and want me to do a complete overhaul on their diet overnight. I am usually reluctant to do this.

The problem is that going from a standard diet (which is usually full of junk) to a hardcore bodybuilding diet overnight is sure to drive anyone totally crazy and only set them up for failure. It's not uncommon for people to literally get sick when they go from eating junk to eating nothing but egg whites and chicken breasts.

The reality is that it doesn't take many adjustments for most people to make dramatic dietary improvements. All it reallytakes is avoiding the real "diet killers" and eating more protein. I call these diet killers the 7 C's. They are Colas, Candy, Cakes, Cookies, Crackers, ice Cream, and Cereal. Limit those and you instantly improve your diet.


#3: If It Can Be Shot or Grown, Eat It!

So what qualifies for a healthy food choice? If in doubt, ask yourself whether you can shoot it or grow it. If so, you can eat it. This will automatically get you eating more whole, unprocessed foods.

You can grow oatmeal, potatoes, and rice. You can't grow Frosted Flakes or ice cream. You can shoot steak, chicken breast, and fish. You can't shoot Pop Tarts. You can grow corn on the cob. You can't grow corn chips.

There is one exception - dairy products. They don't really fit the description but they are okay, except for ice cream.

#4: Snack Smart

When it comes to snacks, it's hard to beat beef jerky, raw fruit, or protein smoothies. Mixed nuts are okay in moderation. Many of the low-sugar puddings and Jell-O's aren't really healthy, but are also okay as an occasional snack.

What you want to avoid are calorie-dense, sugar-laden foods like the 7 C's. The problem with these foods is that they are so full of calories, sugar, and bad fats that it's just too easy to eat a half-day's worth of maintenance calories without realizing it.


Exercise: Focus on Activity, Not Crunches

The harder you train, the more calories you burn. The more calories you burn, the more fat you shed. The more fat you shed, the leaner you get and the better your midsection will look.What burns more calories... a set of squats or a set of crunches? A leisurely stroll on the treadmill or a 15-minute gut-busting session of high intensity cardio? Those are no-brainers. Hard exercises and workouts where you really break a sweat will keep your metabolism elevated for hours after you leave the gym.

A 30-minute session of moderate cardio and a 10-set weight training workout consisting of squats, bench presses, and rows will both burn the same amount of calories during exercise — about 300 to 350 calories. However, by doing the intense weight training, your metabolism will stay elevated for an entire day afterwards, burning an additional 700 or so calories.

So, if you want to burn a lot of fat, make sure to prioritize weight training and higher intensity cardio. If you need additional activity, you can add low intensity cardio once you have a solid, more intense plan already in place.

To the Warrior, there's only one goal in life: To be stronger than the previous day.

The Warrior awakens before the sun rises. To the Warrior, there's only one goal in life: To be stronger than the previous day. This means he must battle complacency and inner weakness. The Warrior must first win the struggle taking place within himself. The, he must overcome every external adversity that is presented before him. All of these adversities become battles within the larger war.

To win this war, the Warrior must reach deep down inside himself and find out what he's truly made of. A warrior does not say, "I will try." A warrior says, "I will do". No excuses. No regrets. No failures. If you live a life where you put limits upon yourself, you might as well be dead. Never accept mediocrity. To live, you must kill these self-imposed limits.


A warrior does not say, "I will try." A warrior says, "I will do".
A warrior always has a battle plan. You must learn to draw up a plan, implement your plan, overcome adversities, maintain discipline and control under great stress, and ultimately defeat your foes. To be a warrior, you must adopt this way of thinking. Now let's use this knowledge to improve your arsenal. It's time to build your shoulders.

The Battle Plan

The essence of the warrior's workout is to select those exercises that will elicit the greatest response. Therefore, you should always your workout with basic, heavy mass-building movements. These movements will recruit the greatest number of muscles from a particular area into the movement, therefore lending themselves to the heaviest weights.

Begin with the behind-the-neck military presses. This movement is one of the most riskiest due to the precarious position your shoulders are put in. The key is to be careful, start light and increase your poundages slowly over time. This exercise is the overall mass-builder for your shoulders. Your rep range should be in the neighborhood of 6 to 12, 12 for the warm-ups and down to 6 for the heaviest sets. You will do 4 working sets after your warm up.

You will do as many warm ups as needed to thoroughly warm up the shoulder area and get to your desired starting weight. Doing warm up sets is absolutely imperative for your first exercise.

Your next exercise will be seated dumbbell presses. The use of dumbbells for presses will help incorporate all of the stabilizer muscles in the shoulder region and make you stronger for all pressing movements. Do 3 sets of 8 to 10 reps. After doing these basic "mass" movements, head on to "isolation" movements.

Your shoulders should be thoroughly warmed up and fatigued. Now you need to isolate each individual muscle of the shoulder area. Begin by targeting the medial and front delts. To do this, superset standing side dumbbell laterals with front dumbbell raises. This combo will completely destroy the area. Go balls-to-the-wall here. Use the heaviest weight possible while keeping strict form. Finish 3 supersets of 10 to 12 reps for each exercise with absolutely no rest between them.

The key to both of these exercises is bringing the dumbbells as high as possible with your pinky slightly higher than your thumb (think of pouring a can of beer into a mug. The goal here is to completely exhaust the muscle and recruit every last muscle fiber. You'll know when you do it right. Your shoulders should be on fire and feel like they have been hit with napalm. You got to love the burn. You got to be able to take the heat.

There's one last area you need to hit. Rear delts. To be a true Warrior, you must never forget this area. Two exercises should crush this often neglected region. Begin with lying rear delt dumbbell lateral raises. This exercise is performed on an incline bench set at the lowest incline. Lie on the bench with your face facing into the bench and begin raising the dumbbells.

The rear delts are small in comparison to the rest of the shoulder complex. And since all the stress is placed onto the rear delts, they do not require a tremendous amount of weight. Even though you won't be using the large dumbbells, go as heavy as you can for 3 sets of 8 to 10 reps. After you finish this, they should be really pumped and screaming for you to stop. But you're not going to stop now. You're not finished yet. Go over and grab a low cable pulley and do 3 sets rear cable laterals. Again make sure that your pinky is higher than your thumb throughout the movement. Doing it this way places a greater amount of stress on the rear delt.

A STUNNING UPSET; PACQUIAO KO 8!!!

Oscar De La Hoya came into the ring wearing old-school brown colored gloves. By the time he left the ring, he just looked old.

In one of the most stunning and completely dominating upsets in boxing history, Manny Pacquiao won "The Dream Match" by TKO victory Saturday night when De La Hoya's corner threw in the towel after the eighth round.

A crowd of 15,001 fans at the MGM Grand Garden Arena and a worldwide HBO Pay-Per-View television audience witnessed what was described by HBO Sports President Ross Greenburg as "one of the greatest performances by a prize fighter I've seen in 31 years in this business."

Know More, Grow More, Richard Seymour's fit school.

How Much Can You Chin?
That's not a typo. Unlike in the bench press, most guys gauge chinup performance by how many reps they can complete, not the amount of weight they can lift. But Australian researchers determined you should be able to do a chinup with as much weight as you can bench-press. This validates an observation I've made training athletes: Shoulder injuries rise significantly once a guy can bench-press 15 percent more than he can chin.

To figure out how you measure up, do as many chinups as you can with your body weight, then compare that with the number of reps you can bench-press using the same weight. Let's say you weigh 180 pounds and can complete five chinups. Your strength balance is ideal if you can do, at most, five reps of the bench press with 180 pounds. If you can pump out 10 reps with that weight, however, you're substantially stronger in the bench, and a candidate for shoulder trouble.

How to do it: Grab a chinup bar with an underhand grip, hands shoulder-width apart. Hang with your arms straight. Pull your body up until your chin clears the bar, then slowly lower back down. Repeat.

ARE YOU FIT ENOUGH FOR THE TOUGHEST JOB IN THE WORLD?

Did you get punched in the nose by your boss at work today? Did he split open your lip with a right hand or crack your rib with a left hook?

Maybe he hit you so hard in the mouth that he cut your tongue and now it will take months to fully heal.

"It's got to be one of the worst jobs in sports," says sparring partner and heavyweight boxer Willie Chapman.

Perhaps he did all of that damage and didn't even pay for the medical bills. Don't bother calling the cops either because it's entirely legal.

Welcome to the world of a pro boxer's sparring partner, where daily pain and the ability to not fight back too hard are part of the job description.

"It's got to be one of the worst jobs in sports. It's hard," says Las Vegas-based heavyweight Willie Chapman, 36, who has sparred with former heavyweight champ Hasim Rahman, Wladimir Klitschko, 2000 Olympic gold medalist Audley Harrison and 2004 USA TODAY Prospect of the Year Samuel Peter.

"Every day you'd get beat up," says Jameel McCline, a 34-year-old former sparring partner for several big-name heavyweights who eventually went on to become a top fighter himself. "I did it for the experience. I wear it like a badge of honor."

Sparring partners are the anonymous fighters hired by the not-so anonymous fighters to help them prepare for an upcoming match. In other words, the sparring partner is the one who gets beat up regularly during the course of a training camp. Most good partners are ready to go three to four rounds as many as four times a week for as long as two months.

Wimps need not apply.

"We are the toughest (people) on the planet. We are tough as nails," says Chapman, who has a pro record of 18-20-3 but calls himself a professional sparring partner. "Boxing tests you every day. It gives you heart and soul. Mike Tyson cannot do my job. He don't have the heart. Being a sparring partner is my job, and I take pride in it. I never quit when I'm in there. I don't care if I die. It's better than sitting in some office."

Chapman — who once had his tongue severely ripped open while sparring — gets work with top heavyweights because he's able to imitate many styles and he's durable.

"When it comes to heavyweights, there is not a better sparring partner than me," says Chapman, who has used the money he's made sparring to help him pay for college courses and to support his 10 children. "When you're a sparring partner you want to act like the guy the other guy is going to fight. I purposely try to be like the other guy as much as I can. I believe I should get paid more because I do it so well."

No medical pay

The life of a sparring partner is hard. The work is irregular because it depends on the fighting schedule of the guys who hire you. There is no medical coverage and the pay is inconsistent. Chapman has worked for as little as $50 a day. The top partners could make a few thousand a week.

Regardless of how big or small the pay is, sparring partners have one thing in common: They are basically a piece of meat whose job depends on not being too good at fighting back but not being so easy to hit that they are of no help.

"The fastest way to get sent home as a sparring partner is to be really good or really bad," says Mike Middleton, 37, of Tampa, who has sparred with David Tua, Andrew Golota, Shannon Briggs, Michael Moorer and Corrie Sanders. "If you give them too much they'll send you home. And if you come in you're too easy to beat up and you don't give them any work at all they'll send you home. You have to give them work, but you just can't look too good.

"When you spar you know what speed to go at. You're there for the guy who is paying you. You are there to help him out. If he wants to go hard, you go hard. You go at his pace. You don't try to outdo him or they will send you home. Marvin Hagler used to say about sparring partners, 'You bring 'em in on a jet, and if they were no good we'd send them home on a bus.' "

Chapman says he learned how to follow his boss's lead early on.

"You go there not to beat him up," he says. "Just to give him good work. Beating him up doesn't do you no good because they don't give you a belt in the gym."

Sparring partners for the elite fighters will usually go to that fighter's training camp. It means being away from family and working in often spartan conditions.

"The worst part of being a sparring partner is taking care of yourself," McCline says. "No one is there to give you water in the corner. Sometimes you come into a city you are not familiar with. Your room and board is meager at best. I know one guy when he went to camp he had to stay three guys to a hotel room. The gym was a mile-and-a-half away, and they had to walk to the gym and walk back from the gym. And when they got back to the hotel the restaurant was already shut down. Sometimes it's not a very dignified job."

Says veteran manager Stan Hoffman, "You're not in charge in anything when you're the sparring partner. You're told when to get in the ring, when to get out, when to get up, when to run, when to eat."

Learning tool

McCline is one of the few boxers to escape being just a sparring partner. He turned pro in his mid 20s with just one amateur fight of experience, so his time as a sparring partner was a critical learning tool. He's since become a top 10 heavyweight and even earned a title shot, losing a split decision to Chris Byrd in November.

McCline (31-4-3, 19 KOs) says he owes much of his success to the fighters he sparred with in the early days, names such as Lennox Lewis, Tim Witherspoon, Ray Mercer, Michael Grant, Golota and Rahman.

"I got beat up so much, but I was big and strong and so young," McCline says. "I learned defense. I learned to protect myself from those guys. I know how to keep my chin down and head low. I definitely learned how to keep the shots from landing directly."

But there is also a negative that McCline says can haunt an aspiring fighter for the rest of his career.

"It gave me confidence in my chin because no one ever hurt me," he says. "Guys dazed me but no one ever took me off my feet so I got confidence. But the drawback was I didn't have the ability to learn to finish guys off. I didn't learn to sit down on my shots because I wasn't able to sit there and fight 100% with them."

Middleton (9-14-1, 5 KOs), a partner in a construction company, knows better than to rely on boxing as his full-time job. "You have to know your place in every sport," he says. "My place is if a kid is coming up and has some talent he can probably get by me. If a guy can't get by me he has no business being here."

But Middleton has the boxing bug and sparring, he says, is a great outlet. "I know I will never be able to get a fight with Tua or Golota, he says, "but I can get in and test my skills with them in the gym.

"How many people can say they've been in with those kind of guys? I'm lucky. I can show my kids pictures of me with those guys. I can say I was in the with the best. I got my (butt) kicked a lot, but hey .... "