While Mayweather trains often and makes exercising a lifestyle, he also takes regular time off. “His body has to rest,” says Nazim Richardson, a professional boxing trainer. This is just as important for the average guy: When you complete a strenuous workout, your muscle fibers need time to recover. And if you’re working out every day, you aren’t giving them that opportunity. Enjoy a break every few days, and you’ll feel stronger when you return to the gym.
Use Other Sports
Just because you hit the weights doesn’t mean you shouldn’t hit the basketball court, too. Even if your goal is to add size, you can still benefit from intramural activities. Mayweather does. He supplements his workouts with bowling, basketball and snowboarding. It helps him stay in shape all year long, and trains his body to maintain balance and endurance in any environment—and that helps him be a better boxer.
“It’s a different form of muscle training,” says Richardson. “It gives him that muscle confusion and keeps him agile.” In other words, your regular gym routine will continue to work the same muscles that you’ve always worked—in the exact same way. That’s a bad thing. They need to be more versatile than that.
Your Body Is Your Greatest Asset
Mayweather doesn’t use free weights often; he prefers to build upper body strength in different ways. Other than hitting the mitts, which is Mayweather’s favorite way to work his arms, his go-to equipment is a medicine ball. Holding the medicine ball in both hands, he’ll throw the ball up, catch it, push it up, then bring it down again and repeat. And when he’s not using a medicine ball, he’s supplementing his workout with bodyweight exercises.
Floyd Mayweather: 4 Steps To Get Back In The Ring was originally published on blackdoctor.org
