How to prepare for a fight is a question that is most pressing for professional and amateur boxers, but for any fitness freak, it can be useful piece of info. On fight night, boxers are typically among the most finely tuned athletes on the planet, with the endurance of a transatlantic airplane and the explosiveness of an F-18 fighter jet. So whether you’re goal is to get into the best shape you possibly can, whether to look good or just as just a personal challenge, a first-rate boxing workout is not a bad place to start.

Even if you’re starting in decent shape, it’ll take a good eight to twelve weeks of consistent training to get you in the condition you want to be in on fight night. To get started, you’ll need a gym where you can train, some long cotton hand wraps, a pair of boxing gloves, some running shoes, and a lot of willpower to withstand temptation.

Step one for all boxers in training is the most boring, but probably the most important for general aerobic readiness: running, or road work as boxers typically refer to it. You need the miles to build up endurance in your legs for the fight ahead, as well as to improve your cardio. How many miles a day you run depends on how bit of a challenge you are facing, how much weight you need to lose, how much other aerobic work you are doing, and what kind of aerobic and cardiovascular endurance you are naturally blessed with, but you do want to be running several miles on four or five days a week. A good starting place could be two four-mile runs, two five-mile runs, and one six- or eight-mile run a week. It’s important to run hours before or after your boxing workout, so as to be fresh for each. For instance, if you do your boxing in the later afternoon or early evening, run first thing in the morning. http://guerrero.yardbarker.com/blog/guerrero/Roadwork_Running_the_proper_way_for_boxing/22294

About two weeks from the fight, you’ll want to start tapering off, so as to ensure your legs are fresh the night of the fight. If you’re road work has been sufficient, it’ll show during the fight. While your opponent will be gasping for air, lurching forward, and throwing arm punches from his hips, you’ll be fresh as can be, bouncing and pouncing like a lion.

The actual boxing work is the heart of the training regime. Every boxer and trainer includes his own touches (medicine ball sessions, ab work, or even sledgehammer workouts, in the case of professional boxer Michael Katsidis), but most of them include a few basic elements: jump rope, shadow boxing or the speed bag, the heavy bag, mitts, and sparring.

In most gyms, the time is measured by rounds, which is to say you work for three minutes, until a bell sounds to give you a one-minute break, simulating the pace in a prizefight. The jump rope is usually the first thing you grab on your way into the gym, so as to get loose and workup a good sweat. Depending on your level of fitness, somewhere between 15 minutes and half an hour is sufficient. As you move along in your training, you should increase the amount of time you spend jumping rope (though more than 30 minutes is not necessary) and try to eliminate the one-minute breaks, so that you are doing a complete half hour of jumping without rest by the end of your training. You should also gradually make the exercise more strenuous.

Following the rope, you move to shadow boxing or the speed bag so as to get your hands and limbs warmed up. Usually three to six rounds of this is enough. The heavy bag follows, where you practice throwing combinations, maintaining a constant work rate, and sitting down on you punches, which is to say, really driving into them with the proper form. A typical boxing workout includes six to ten rounds on the heavy bag.

You also want to mix some time with the trainer using hand pads, or sparring, or both. The hand pads are a good way to practice combinations on something resembling a live body, as well as developing a greater sense for the ring. Since the trainer is the one calling out the combos with the hand pads, the fighter can’t just start punching and put his mind on cruise control the way he can with a heavy bag, which means the hand pads are also good for increasing a fighter’s mental endurance.

Sparring typically comes at the end of the training, somewhere between six and ten rounds. For general practice, it’s a good idea to face off against a variety of different fighters with contrasting styles, so as to get ready for any different opponent. If you’re sparring for a specific opponent, it’s of course a better idea to pick someone who mimics his style. Sparring isn’t just about winning (although of course you don’t want to get whacked around too much), but also about practicing specific maneuvers that you’ll want to repeat later on.

All in all, a good boxing workout for a boxer in training could be somewhere between two and three hours, or more than 30 rounds of training.

Probably the most odious part of the boxing preparation isn’t even exercise, but the fuel for it: your diet. There are lots of different schools of thought to what a boxer needs to eat to prepare him properly, and a lot Some trainers favor chicken and fish; others, a big bowl of chili after the workout. Still others are into new-age diet techniques, with protein shakes and vitamin pills supplementing a high-meat, high-veggie diet.

Most agree that high-sugar, high-carb diets are to be avoided at all costs while training for a fight. Sugary snacks like cakes and Snickers bars are at the top of the “Do Not Touch” lists for most trainers, and excessive consumption of bread is likewise discouraged.

But the worst part of the diet routine is not what you do eat, but what you don’t. If losing weight is a paramount goal, whatever your diet is, chances are you can’t eat nearly as much as you’d like. The best way to avoid that is stay in decent shape even when you’re not training.