The problem that most amateur boxers face is that training and experience vary so much from club to club. At the professional level, a fighter has years of experience and has already fought dozens or hundreds of amateur matches, they have a good sense of what works and what doesn’t. Your opponent may be someone who trains at a gym with professional coaches and fighters, and while you are performing bare bones training, they are getting training advice and sparring from some of the best in the game. That being said, there are no rules regarding how you train, so if someone has time and energy to train like a pro while still fighting at the amateur level, then they will no doubt become proficient at the sport.

Below is a training template for amateur boxers who are looking to be successful in the early and mid stages of their fight career. At the advanced stages, a fighter has to know what works for them, and training can get pretty intense and variable. If you want some insight as to how much you should do, and of what, then this is a good framework. This template assumes that you’ve spent some time in the gym, already have the fundamentals down in terms of punching, defense and footwork. It also assumes that you have access to a coach, equipment, and regular sparring partners. In addition to what is below, you should get some padwork from your coach on a regular basis in the last couple weeks leading up to the fight.

1) You should be in the gym 5 days a week.

2) Ideally, you should separate your training. Conditioning in the morning/evening and boxing training in the other half of the day

3) Spar 3 times per week in the 4 weeks leading up to the fight. Otherwise, once or twice a week is fine, and it doesn’t always have to be hard sparring.

4) Training:

– 10 to 15 min skip rope

– 4 to 6 rounds shadowboxing (one round dedicated to footwork, and one round dedicated to defense including head movement)

– 6 rounds on the heavy bag (4 of them at fight pace)

– 4 rounds on the double-end bag

– 4 rounds speed bag

– 100 burpees in sets of 20 (try to get them done in under 5 mins)

– 3 ab excercises in sets of 100 (choose your three favorite)

– 100 bouncing push-ups (do as many as you can at each set until you get to 100)

– skip rope 10 to 15 min

– 15-20 mins stretching (do NOT neglect this, flexibility means speed).

Running Program

1) One day a week perform a 45-60 min easy run

2) One day a week perform 6 sets of 800m at high intensity

3) Twice a week perform Tabata sprint sets (20 seconds sprint, 10 seconds rest for 8 sets)