INTERVIEW: Callum Beardow January 2016

Boxing Science ambassador Callum Beardow has continued to train hard despite having a THIRD shoulder surgery. Although his recent operation was only a minor one, this was still another setback after his first fight in October following two years out.

Callum is back in the gym working hard and looking to return to the ring for mid- to late April.

We know that he will bounce back and be in fantastic shape as he has done this time and time again. This is down to his strength, grit and profounded passion for his boxing career.

Take a look at his training before his last fight, and the impressive results he achieved.

Callum Beardow Training September 2015

In the compilation above there are many different training methods that we used with Callum, this is following a successful rehab training phase (click here to read more).

Speed – We knew that Callum was returning to the ring, so we focussed on speed / strength-speed exercises so he felt sharp and explosive on fight night. This can be done with heavy compound lifts, however Callum had not achieved full range of motion yet following the op.

Partial lifts – Following on from what was mentioned above, Callum could not achieve full ranges of motion required to complete full compound lifts. We would normally put an athlete through foundational movement training, however we wanted to get Callum strong, fit and ready to fight. Therefore, partial lifts helped increasing the load to develop force production.

Effective Mass – We used punch specific and heavy loaded core exercises to improve his ‘effective mass’ – this will improve the snap in his connecting punches and help his joints deal with the impact forces.

The Numbers

It has been a long road back to the ring for Beardow, but we managed to get him in shape for a fantastic performance on his return.

Comparing to stats from his last fight prior to injuring his shoulder, Callum reduced body fat by 5.2 kg, and his relative core mass by 5%.

This transferred to improvements in physical performance, with increased aerobic capacity by (12%), lower body force by (7%) and estimated punch force by (3%) since before Callum’s last fight.

Also, pound for pound punch force for his left hand improved by 6%. This meant that he was hitting harder at a lighter weight, on the arm that he injured during his last fight.

Things to consider Before Callum’s return to the ring, he was still behind on his strength scores for the compound lifts – mainly his front squat (115 kg vs 135 kg). This shows that clever programming and hard training helped Callum achieve better jump heights than before without heavy loading.

What does this mean? Callum demonstrated that despite injury, hard work in the gym means that you can return back to action fitter, faster and stronger than before. Injuries are opportunities to work on areas you wouldn’t during normal training schedule, a coach should focus their athletes to focus on what they CAN do…. rather than what they can’t.

CLICK to read more about Callum’s training during injury Rehab Here.

Want to find out more about Boxing Science? Then sign up to our mailing list.