AT the turn of the year, hundreds of New Year’s resolutions will be planned, made and hopefully adhered to. For boxers, one of the hardest areas of training is weight management and making sure they can ‘cut’ to their fighting weight in a healthy way. So, here are four new year’s resolutions to help you successfully manage your weight.
Next: resolution 1 of 4
Robert Seaborne BSc (Hons), MS
@RobbySeaborne1
1. Eat little and often
TO maintain your lean muscle mass, the body requires a regular supply of nutrients. Protein becomes the building block that can enable you to either maintain or build muscle mass, which ultimately can help create greater force production during intense, competitive punching exchanges. Protein is best ingested every three-four hours within a total of six meals a day.
Next: resolution 2 of 4
Robert Seaborne BSc (Hons), MS
@RobbySeaborne1
2. Avoid dehdration
A TRADITIONAL belief is that regular dehydration via sweat suits, saunas or restricting water intake will help boxers to lose weight. Therefore these methods are sometimes used throughout long training periods (i.e. 2-6 week camps). However, dehydration techniques decrease your body’s ‘water weight’ and tend not to enable weight-loss from any other substances. Therefore only acute dehydration techniques have any benefit to making weight. Secondly, dehydration is a dangerous technique that has potentially life-threatening outcomes and therefore should be approached with caution and the advice of a Sports Scientist/Nutritionist should be sought.
Next: resolution 3 of 4
Robert Seaborne BSc (Hons), MS
@RobbySeaborne1
3. Eat a colourful selection of fruit and veg
PACKED full of vitamins and minerals, fruits and vegetables are a vital source of nutrients to help maintain overall health and organ function. A lot of the vitamins and minerals found in these food types can help you function to your best during training, and can help avoid unnecessary days off training caused by illness. You should aim to eat a rainbow of fruit and veg every day and try to get a source at every meal.
Next: resolution 4 of 4
Robert Seaborne BSc (Hons), MS
@RobbySeaborne1
4. Maintain good habits outside training
TO maintain your body composition and general health it is important to continue your good eating habits through the out-of-training period as well. Slipping into a ‘yo-yo’ diet routine, whereby you rapidly lose large amounts of weight for competition and then pile back on the pounds after competition can have negative effects on your body’s health. Losing weight for a fight is part of the sport, however, rapid weight loss can impact your training, ability to perform and both your short and long-term health.
Robert Seaborne BSc (Hons), MS
@RobbySeaborne1
