A quick twist over the leg is followed by an extension of the arms. Useful exercises for developing power can include the bench press, clean and jerk, squat, calve raise, and bent leg dead lift.

The muscles trained during the session should be the ones used for punching and moving around the ring. Don’t forget the main idea is to not get hit, so good footwork is crucial. This is another reason for leg training. Your legs need to have the endurance to last the complete fight in addition to generating power. These exercises should include squats, plyometric jumps, lunges, and calve raises.

The deltoids and triceps enable extension of the arms. They should be thoroughly trained with dips, the dumbbell shoulder press, and military press. These exercises are not only extremely effective, but are also excellent builders of upper body strength. Many fighters use clenching to protect themselves from getting hit. If you are the offensive fighter, and your opponent is trying to hold your arms, you need to extricate your arms to continue the attack.

An excellent exercise to perform this specific purpose is one-arm rows with weight stack using a cable handle or dumbbells. We can also use explosive pulling movement with different strength rubber tubing pulls. The strength coach can have his fighters do wrist curls to strengthen the fighter’s forearms. Perform in a palms up and palms down position. This will also strengthen the wrists.

Strong abdominal muscles are one of the most important things in a fighter’s arsenal. It is the target area of repeated punches. The waist, or the pivot point from where a punch is thrown, is used along with the legs to move your upper body while slipping and ducking punches.

The abdomen can be strengthened by various exercises such as sit-ups, Russian twists, crunches, and medicine ball drops. Russian twists are when you lock your legs into a sit-up board, grab a weight, hold it out in front of you shoulder height, lean back at a 90 degree angle, and rotate your waist in a twisting motion from left to right. Also, you can lock your legs, grab a weight, and hold on your chest or behind your head. Then in a seated position, throw punches with a twisting motion.

The strength coach must be in constant communication with the boxer’s trainer. He must make sure that the fighter does not develop so much muscle that it is not beneficial for boxing. Sometimes fighters with their newfound strength, start throwing arm punches.

A good strength and conditioning program can be divided into three phases. Each phase is based on the last. This program is beneficial to any fighter as long as they work hand in hand with the boxing trainer.

Don’t forget a stretching program before and after you train.

Flexibility is invaluable.

By Harold Lederman

Professional boxing matches are almost universally scored on what we refer to as the ten-point must system. In this system, the winner of a round receives ten points, and the loser nine or less. Even rounds are scored ten points for each fighter, but judges try to avoid even rounds, and most of them will make a decision and choose a winner and loser in rounds. All world title fights are scored using this system, and most states use this system. Theoretically, each round is scored using four criteria. Each of these criteria is supposed to count for 25 %. The four criteria are:

• CLEAN PUNCHING

• EFFECTIVE AGGRESSIVENESS

• RING GENERALSHIP

• DEFENSE

We define ring generalship as who is controlling the fight, putting his opponent where he wants him, and using good movement in the ring. Effective aggressiveness means landing punches while you are moving forward. If you are aggressive and not landing punches, it doesn't count. All good judges will tell you that clean punching counts a lot more than everything else in scoring a round in professional boxing.

So now you know what to look for. At the end of each round, you write your score on a slip and give it to the referee, who turns it in to the person keeping a master score sheet. In this system, once you score a round, you can't change your mind. If Fighter A wins round one over Fighter B by a slight margin, you score ten points for Fighter A and nine rounds for Fighter B. If Fighter A scores one knockdown in round two and is winning the round, Fighter A gets ten points and Fighter B gets eight points. In round three, if Fighter A scores two knockdowns, he should win by 10-7.

Standing eight counts by the referee is scored the same as a knockdown. If the referee deducts a point for a foul from a fighter who has won the round, that round will have a net total of 9-9, since we must deduct a point from the fighter who committed the foul. Point deductions are strictly the domain of the referee, who does not score himself, but will instruct the judges to deduct points for infractions.

At the end of the fight, the points are totaled and the winner is the boxer who won on a majority of the scorecards. If Fighter A wins on two of the judges' cards, Fighter A is announced as the winner by split decision. If two judges score the bout a draw, and the third judge scores the bout for Fighter A, then the fight is a draw, since the majority of the judges scored it a draw. If two judges have it for Fighter A, and the third judge has it even, Fighter A is announced as the winner by majority decision.