How did Boxers Train Historically with Dumbbells? - A Brief Look at Boxing history 

Fedor=King

Fred Kaye thank you and cheers, Fred!! I’ll go look for that dumbbell video you did!

Thanks!!! 🙏

Yes, I agree with you, definitely some similarities, as the physical culture ideas at the time were geared less toward muscle isolation, and more towards exercises with wide-ranging motion that use multiple muscle groups.

Spalding athletics "Indian Clubs and Dumbbells" Smarts "Manual of Free Gymnastic and Dumbbell Exercises" The 1914 US Army Manual of Physical Training Sandow's "Physical Training" And I think there's a volume of the "Sandow Lewis Kinetic Stress System of physical training" which covers dumbbells, but don't quote me on that (also, it's a different Sandow). You can download PDFs of all of these freely online through historical archive sites.

@@Rob_ONeill Older than this?

@@theoutlander2873 These are all from between 1880 and 1920, so contemporary to the information in this video - I don't know many from earlier than that but there may be some.

@@Rob_ONeill J Madison Watson, Alexander Alexander and B Edwards books are excellent dumbells resources. Archive.org and/or Google Books for free ebooks. Please think about donating to Archive.org if you find it useful.

@@Rob_ONeill u are the man

Thanks!! 🙏

True. With fights regularly going fifty and sixty rounds, or even longer!

Thanks so much!

Thank you! I’m already familiar with the Sandow and Atilla methods, but thanks for the heads up!

Yes with a light weight it would be similar.

Yeah it's the same but with dumbbells you have to hold the weight which works out your finger muscles, when you throw a fast punch your fingers have to hold the weight back. Thats just my opinion from my personal experience.

Thank you kindly! I’m not aware of the health lift, what do you mean?

@@PhysicalCultureHistorians There was a gent named George Barker windship, and he devised what he called "Hand and thigh lift" or "health lift" which was basically a very short range partial deadlift....better off googling him, you may find it interesting?

Ha!!

Hi George, the only exercises that I have yet been able to find are quoted in this video.

@@PhysicalCultureHistorians Okay fair enough. I tried to find them & had no luck, so I can understand.

Iron Bat , I am sure they did both. Edwards and Fitzsimmons both have other exercises in their texts such as bag punching, etc.. I haven’t specifically looked into historical sources for empty handed shadow boxing yet, but am willing to bet that it’s out there-as you can see the pugilist doing at the end of the video, in the Chaplin film! Colonel Monstery, in his chapter on boxing exercises, instructs the pupil the learn the motions at first in the air, in front of a mirror, but then practice against a dummy which offers resistance to the blow.

As soon as you drop them you feel like you punch faster

Warrior-Scholar Hackenschmitt was a wrestler, which has always been associated with heavy weight training (for instance, heavy Indian clubs were the domain of wrestlers, whereas boxers and fencers overwhelmingly recommended light clubs). I think it’s important to make a distinction between the two disciplines (wrestling and boxing) which have very different requirements. One thing not considered is that bull slows you down. That’s not controversial, that’s simple physics: “Force is equal to the change in momentum per change in time. For a constant mass, force equals mass times acceleration...If you double the force, you double the acceleration, but if you double the mass, you cut the acceleration in half”; therefore the more bulk you build, the longer it takes to get moving (acceleration). The old boxers and fencers are nearly unanimous in professing the cultivation of lean, compact, flexible strength, as opposed to bulk and heavy lifting.

@@davidmiller6642 @Warrior-Scholar Bulk in the context of body mass only slows you down if you build it in isolation of training speed and agility. There are a lot of heav(ier)weight athletes who are still capable of quickness, and we know that increased strength and increased lean muscle mass don't immediately lead to a deficit in speed or sport specific performance. This is known now, and was known at the time, to quote Arthur Saxon: "Jack Johnson, the big negro, is regarded by many as being not only the equal, but even possibly the superior of the great Tommy Burns himself, and yet Johnson is no mean weightlifter." Or "Let us take Professor Inch as an instance. Here is a man who has passed most of his life as a weightlifter, yet if there is a better nursery cannon player at billiards or a better "snap" rifle shot about, I should like to see him!" He uses both of these as examples of why the "lifting heavy weights makes you big and slow" argument holds no water, which it continues not to do today, and which is supported by heavyweight olympic lifters, NFL linebackers, heavier weight classed combat athletes, etc. who train their speed concurrently, as well as the science. You're correct in that the sports have different requirements, but that doesn't alter how the human body works. To improve force to have to either increase mass, or increase acceleration, and that increase in acceleration eventually is going to have to come from an increase in limit strength to improve rate of force production. Not to say this must come from lifting (external) weights, but it will need to come from an increase in the resistance you're working against. Final note: there are requirements for your training to meet to ensure significant hypertrophy occurs, and this can be avoided if you train correctly. If you look at old school strongmen like Sandow, Charles Rigoulot, Apollon, etc, these are monstrosly strong men sitting at the low end of the cruiserweight division. Strong does not immediately equal bulky does not immediately equal slow.

Joseph O'Neill this video was not intended to denigrate the use of heavy weighs or dumbbells, but rather, to explore past history and the reasoning behind why the past champions and masters were doing it the way they were doing. It is possible, of course, that they were all doing it wrong for some bizarre reason. Although I can’t speak to much experience as a pugilist, I will say as a classical fencer of 15 plus years, who also used to do heavy weight training and various strength exercises, that the gains made by bulk in no way equal or surpasses the losses made in speed, agility, and maneuverability. All that bulk just slows you down. These days I am more focused on calisthenics, Indian clubs, and light physical culture apparatus.

@@davidmiller6642 Hi Ben, I didn't take either the video of the above comment as denigration of heavy weight lifting, I was simply providing a counter point, and further discussion. I actually found the video very interesting. As someone who mostly strikes (karate/kickboxing, but also some Judo and Catch), my anecdotal evidence is an improvement in performance whilst lifting heavy, though currently I too am working with mainly calisthenics and dumbbells due to time limitations (+lockdown). My counter point was simply that the majority of the current evidence base is pro-heavy weights, when applied correctly (and this is the key part of the sentence!). This is also the view of many of those contemporary to the information who advised heavy weightlifting only for athletes, believing light dumbbell work sufficient for the majority of the population. Regarding the past champions doing it wrong for some reason, I won't take the position that they were - otherwise they'd likely not be champions - but it is entirely possible that it worked for a sub-set of the elite in their sport, and everyone else in the sport followed suit. It likely wouldn't have worked as well for most of their followers. This happens even today, sub-optimal training will work for the elite, but it won't necessarily be best for every Tom, Dick, and Harry.

Actually i'd say the old timers got it right

Ha, I didn’t think about that! You’re totally right!

Really interesting, thanks for letting me know. I’ll try to track that one down!

Sam Langford

Stay tuned! We will be posting some very soon-only a few videos away! :)

@@davidmiller6642 oh man looking forward to it!!

Hi, did you see that we posted a few dumbbell workout videos since your comment?

Yes, a lot of people have gotten upset at his video because they adamantly believe in heavy lifting and that it doesn’t comprise speed. However 19th century physical culture was unanimous in this regard.

K there

You don't say ! 🤣