How Legends Trained.

I notice a big interest among martial fans loving to read about how certain martial art idol of theirs train & so I decided why not just have a post dedicated to some of these fighting legends. 

So let me start off with a few great legends for this post.

A list of great fighters / champions and the way they trained daily to keep fit and stay as champions:

Buakaw Por Pramuk

Buakaw Por. Pramuk (Thai บัวขาว ป. ประมุข, born May 8, 1982) is a Thai welterweight Muay Thai kickboxer, fighting out of Por Pramuk Gym, in Bangkok, Thailand. He is a former Omnoi Stadium champion and two time, 2004, 2006 K-1 World MAX champion.

Style: Muay Thai 

Trains: 6 days @ 8 hours each day.

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6:00 AM: 12 kilometer run followed by pad and bag work and conditioning exercises.

7:30 AM - Noon: Sleep to let the body recover for the afternoon session. 

Noon: Afternoon training starts with another long run of 8 kilometers. 

Back from the run, grab the nearest punch bag and throw a set of 200 knees on the bag. 

This is followed by a pad session with their trainer. Buakaw does one round on the pads, but it is 20 minutes long with just 2 very short breaks to get a drink of water.

After the pad session its time for him to hit the bags again, this time its 2 rounds of 10 minutes duration with sets of push ups between the rounds and at the end. 

Following on from the boxing session its back into the ring for a 45 minute session of clinch and knee work.

After the clinch work there is still time for another set of 200 knees on the bag, followed by 100 kicks with each leg. 

Then it’s just the conditioning work to do including 100 pull ups and 300 sit ups.

 

Masutatsu Oyama

More commonly known as Mas Oyama, was a karate master who founded Kyokushinkai Karate, considered the first and most influential style of full contact karate. He was born Choi Yeong-eui (Korean: 최영의 in Korea, Hanja: 崔永宜). A Zainichi Korean, he spent most of his life living in Japan and acquired Japanese citizenship in 1964.

Style: Kyokushin Karate 

Trains: Daily

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Running - 4km per day
Rope-skipping - 20 minutes per day
Dumbell arm exercise (shoulder press?) - 200 times
Dips - 100 times
Push ups (with hands in fist) - 300 times
Inclined push ups - 100 times
Jumping side kick over 4 foot vaulting horse
Inclined dumbell bench press

Exercises requiring a partner:
Hitting bag with upper elbow and side of elbow - 200 times each
Practicing jumping kick with bag
Exercises for neck (with partner)
Leg exercise (squat with partner on back)
Back and Abdomen exercises with partner

Elsewhere in the book "What is Karate", Oyama said that he would bench press 175 pounds 500 times a day.

Then there are karate-specific exercises such as straw striking and exercises that are specific to board and stone breaking abilities. All this was in addition to practicing forms, sparring, etc.

Manny Pacquiao

A Filipino professional boxer and politician. He is the first eight-division world champion; having won ten world titles, and the first to win the lineal championship in four different weight classes. He was named "Fighter of the Decade" for the 2000s by the Boxing Writers Association of America (BWAA). He is also a three-time The Ring and BWAA "Fighter of the Year", winning the award in 2006, 2008, and 2009.

Currently, Pacquiao is the WBO Welterweight World Champion (Super Champion). 

Style: Boxing 

Trains: Fight camp regime

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In training camp every morning Manny will be up at 5 am running. 

Uses interval training routines. He might also do tabatas of 20 seconds on 10 seconds rest to replicate the type of energy required for a fight.  The training is done in the hills where they can do hill sprints as well, in a park or sometimes at the beach where they run in the sand. 

If and when he need to do some low impact type work he will do a pool session. At the end of this session a bit of plyometrics, ladder drills and core exercises. Alot of emphasis is placed on the core. 

As soon as this session is complete he does a thorough warm down and stretch followed by a meal with sufficient carbohydrate to raise his insulin levels to promote recovery. He then has a protein before going home to rest up for the afternoon session in the gym.

The afternoon session starts with a good warm up (including various dynamic and static stretches) and usually some shadow boxing.

After that he work on a variety of plyometric exercises, core work and explosive movements with weights, medicine balls, resitance bands and sometimes even a baseball bat where Manny swings and hits a bag with it. 

After doing Manny punches the mitts for several rounds. 

When the mitt session is done, Pacquiao goes to the speed bags for several rounds and then the jump rope for about 10 -15 minutes before a good long stretch to finish off the day.

Cain Velasquez

An undefeated Mexican American mixed martial artist and the current UFC Heavyweight Champion. He is a two-time All-American collegiate wrestler from Arizona State University in Tempe, Arizona, and a Junior College National Champ at Iowa Central Community College. He is a two-time 5A state champion in Arizona, compiling a record of 110–10 for Kofa High School located in Yuma, Arizona under Shawn Rustad and Marty Niblo.

Style: MMA 

Trains: Fight camp regime

- source from askmen.com

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 What does one week of training with Cain Velasquez consist of?

CV: Monday, Wednesday, Friday I lift weights from 8:00 a.m. to 9:30 a.m., and then I go home and get breakfast. Then I go back to the gym for a little bit of wrestling, followed by a hard sparring session from noon until 2:00 p.m. 

Since I have a championship fight coming up we do five rounds of sparring with multiple training partners. After that, we do three rounds of jujitsu of five minutes each, and then I go back home to eat and relax a little. 

I get back to the gym at 6:00 p.m. or 7:00 p.m. for a cardio workout followed by hitting mitts for technique for a bit. 

Tuesday and Thursday is kind of the same thing, except at noon we do more of a wrestling-based jujitsu workout.

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Happy reading and train smart.