REAL WORLD

Insights from a decade of scientific support

within professional boxing
Dr Alan Ruddock FBASES, recipient of the BASES Applied Practitioner Award, highlights the challenges and
opportunities of providing scientific support to professional boxers.

Introduction educational resources and opportunities for coaches and trainers

The date is 28th May 2014, and we have just registered the to develop their scientific support practices are limited. Rewind
domain name boxingscience.co.uk. We aimed to introduce the to 28th May 2014; the goal of Boxing Science was, and still is, to
website to the world in early September, so the summer months provide sport science services and evidenced-based educational
were spent scribbling on whiteboards and fumbling around trying resources to boxers and combat athletes worldwide.
to build a website without knowing how to build a website. At In addition to the challenges mentioned above, in 2014,
this point, despite working with professional and amateur boxers there was 1) little precedent for sport science services within
for two years prior, we still knew very little about the demands of professional boxing; 2) few peer-reviewed scientific manuscripts
the sport and were muddling just as much with scientific support from which to base our practice, and 3) little understanding of
as we were with the website. what determined success. These factors were compounded by
the short-time frame over
which boxers are ‘in-camp’,
The concept of support staff learning from the the ‘weight-making’ process
and the inherent dangers of
programmes they are implementing is often forgotten. combat. We viewed these
constraints not as barriers
to scientific support but as
The two years before Boxing Science was born were mostly opportunities to define our support strategies whilst respecting
spent supporting a young professional boxer from Sheffield the informal but accepted norms within the boxing community,
who aimed to become the world champion in the welterweight such as ‘making weight’.
division. On 16th August 2014, that young man fulfilled his dream,
and I was lucky enough to spend three weeks in the USA helping Developing a scientific support strategy
this young man prepare for the fight of his life and, at the same Our grounding philosophy was based on stability because, as
time training his gym mates who have gone on to win multiple should be clear from above, boxing is an unstable sport, and we
world, Commonwealth, European and British titles. need relative stability to make good training decisions. A boxer
In the past eight years, I have led sport science support for is ‘in-camp’ for 10 to 12 weeks before a contest and will be in
professional boxers in 14 world title, five international-title, two a negative energy balance most of this time; the magnitude of
Commonwealth, two European, one British and two English title which depends upon how much body mass they need to lose
contests for a total of 25 elite title contests in addition to another to ‘make-weight’. Their taper usually lasts between 7 and 10
30 professional contests. Within these contests, I have provided days; sparring demand peaks just before the taper and typically
scientific support to athletes who were boxing top five “pound- begins 5 to 6 weeks before their contest (their coach, who in
for-pound” ranked opponents. That is, these opponents were most circumstances is independent of the sport science team,
within the top five boxers in the world, irrespective of weight will make decisions regarding sparring volume and intensity). This
class at that time, and as such, these fights were considered leaves approximately 4 to 6 weeks to focus on training strategies
among the highest standard possible in professional boxing. designed to induce adaptations that depend on the fight strategy
Throughout this article, I’ll share reflections on providing scientific or the development of a specific physiological characteristic.
support to professional boxers. There are two points here: 1) the above illustrates the fluidity
(and potential instability) of a training camp, and 2) we do not
Determinants of performance have time to waste, so we need to optimise every part of the
On the surface, professional boxing seems simple, hit and not get training process. As such, decisions are made using a combination
hit. The objective is to throw more forceful and accurate punches of evidence-based practice and practice-based evidence
than the opponent and win by either a knockout, technical supported by informative data collection and directed towards
knockout, or a points decision. Take a deeper look, however, improving primary neuromuscular, mechanical or physiological
especially at elite standard, and the chaotic nature of each contest mechanism that underpins performance.
becomes apparent, full of feints, deception and traps. Over time our philosophy has helped us to form a scientific
Outside of the ring, the sport is no different. It is support strategy encapsulated in a 5-phase cyclical process that
organisationally chaotic and is fundamentally dangerous. enables the support team to engage in a system that promotes
Professional boxers risk brain, dermal, and musculoskeletal continuous improvement (Figure 1). This method allows us to;
injury as well as hormonal and cardiovascular/thermoregulatory 1) observe athlete requirements through data collection (e.g.,
challenges from weight-loss practices. There are also ‘social risks’, testing); 2) analyse data to explain athlete requirements; 3) apply
as coaches and athletes from disadvantaged socio-economic this information to prescribe individualised training programmes;
backgrounds might have external pressures outside the sport 4) monitor key outcome variables to optimise training demand;
that influence the support environment. Additionally, high-quality and 5) evaluate and revise processes on a micro, session-by-

This applied feature aims to address issues and areas that are often common in the real world, but are seldom covered by the usual learning
mediums (university courses, journals, books, etc.). Please contact the editor if you have any ideas for future issues: [email protected]

20 The Sport and Exercise Scientist n Issue 74 n Winter 2022 n www.bases.org.uk @basesuk @BASESUK bases_uk BASESUK
session, and macro, training phase/camp basis with the support
team, boxers, and coaches. This not only helps our boxers, but it
helps our team understand what training and nutritional strategies
are working and importantly, how well.

Optimising the training process

The concept of support staff learning from the programmes
they are implementing is often forgotten. Perhaps this is
because in many sports, there is a strong evidence base for
practice, whether reported in scientific or coaching literature,
and therefore some level of confidence that a particular type
of training will be beneficial to performance and a feeling that
there is nothing more to learn. We did not have this luxury and
didn’t know what training strategies worked and how well; this
forced us to pay close attention to data collection and analysis
and what we could learn from the numbers and our boxers. Only
recently have I discovered that this system is similar to those Above: Boxing science is specific to individual boxers and contests
proposed in metacognition research and self-regulated learning
strategies, which makes sense given that we need to learn and
grow as practitioners. Furthermore, due to the nature of elite and tactical skills rather than attempt to cause irreversible
professional boxing, the preparation for each contest is unique physical harm. It’s also important to recognise that boxers who
and dependent upon, for example, the opponent, the boxer's turn professional will have developed their craft in an amateur
weight class, the weight-making process and travel considerations. gym and that almost 75% of boxing clubs are located in the most
Therefore, direct support is provided on an intensive 1-2-1 deprived parts of the country, with 25% in the most deprived
basis; this has advantages as we are able to develop, implement neighbourhoods where social inequality and risks of physical
and demonstrate the direct impact of support services on the and mental health issues are high. Therefore, it’s important to
performance and health and well-being of boxers; but it also slows be aware that when sparring and multiple training demands
down the acquisition of knowledge about professional boxing and are considerable, issues such as injury, illness and mental health
limits generalisability of the training process to other boxers which problems can arise, particularly towards the end of a training
has an impact on one of our major goals, to provide sport science camp. Indeed, at this time, my approach to support shifts from a
scientific approach to a more athlete-centred holistic style to help
athletes build confidence. I do this using contest-specific training,
forming clear synergies between boxing technical training, physical
preparation, and nutritional strategies, and, most importantly,
instilling a sense of trust. Boxers are proud people and often do
not want to share negative thoughts and feelings in a training
camp because they see it as a sign of weakness. A balanced
and objective evaluation of problems and specific solutions is a
valuable philosophy during such times.

Looking to the future

We have several aims as we look forward to providing scientific
support for boxers in the next ten years, and my focus will
be on guiding the direction and application of this work. One
key area is women’s professional boxing, which is on a rapid
upward trajectory in terms of awareness, participation and
performance standard, and there is much work to do to help
Figure 1. Model of scientific support designed to optimise training
young female boxers. We have already begun to explore strength
outcomes. This can be used to modify variables within a session to
achieve a desired outcome, or used as a macro-level guide to reflect and conditioning provision in female youth boxers, develop basic
on the support process. performance standards and provide free training resources to
embed good practice in amateur gyms. This work is coupled with
gaining a better understanding of the female athlete in general to
services and evidenced-based educational resources to boxers help us provide better support based specifically on females rather
and combat athletes around the world. Nevertheless, we have than male concepts that currently dominate our approach.
drawn upon our experiences and published three key papers that
provide the scientific basis for our approach to scientific support Dr Alan Ruddock FBASES
(Ruddock et al., 2016; Ruddock et al., 2018; Ruddock et al., 2021), Alan is a co-founder of Boxing Science, Sport & Exercise Science
these resources are supported by articles on the boxing science Course Lead at Sheffield Hallam University, and a fellow of BASES.
website, videos on our YouTube channel and Instagram pages. To He was invited to contribute this article as the recipient of the BASES
Applied Practitioner Award.
some it might appear as though we’re giving away our ‘secrets’;
but the secret is not what we do, it’s how we do the what and this
References:
is different for each boxer and the phase of the training camp.
Ruddock, A. et al. (2016). Strength and Conditioning for Professional Boxing:
Recommendations for Physical Preparation. Strength and Conditioning Journal,
Ethical considerations 38, 81-90.
It's also important to recognise that boxers are not thugs. Ruddock, A, Wilson, D, & Hembrough, D. (2018). Boxing. In A Turner (Ed.),
Yes, they are prize fighters and have agreed to take physical Routledge Handbook of Strength and Conditioning (pp. 384-399). Oxfordshire, UK:
Taylor & Francis.
punishment in exchange for financial reward, but we should not
Ruddock, A. et al. (2021). High-Intensity Conditioning for Combat Athletes:
dehumanise them for this. The vast majority, especially at the elite Practical Recommendations. Applied Sciences, 11(22), 10658.
standard, aim to win by demonstrating their superior technical

The Sport and Exercise Scientist n Issue 74 n Winter 2022 n www.bases.org.uk @basesuk @BASESUK bases_uk BASESUK 21