It’s always been our mission to make the best sport in the world even better with the application of evidence-based sports science.
When Boxing Science started in 2014, over 150,000people took part in amateur boxing every week in the UK. However, only the 20 elite standard amateurs from Team GB had recognised sport science services to draw upon.
We’re passionate about building an effective youth training system for boxing.
This is evident in our previous projects, which included youth S&C sessions, boxing gym support, physical testing and our summer workshops that educated and empowered young athletes.
Now, for the very first time, we’re giving you the ultimate program for you to deliver to your young athletes. This will help optimise their physical development and fulfil their athletic potential.
Why Is Physical Training Important For Youth Athletes?
Strength training for children has been a much-debated activity in the past due to it’s misconceived dangers. It has always been a wonder to us why children are discouraged from strength training when they get tackled, barged, blocked and punched in their respected sports… surely this is more dangerous than picking a weight up in a safe and controlled environment?
Today, the benefits of strength training for children are well recognised because of better research, practice and media coverage.
This program will help you understand these benefits, learn the safest possible exercises and training strategies and help you to start implementing them in your gym.
Strength
The numbers suggest a punch in boxing requires significant to be force produced in a short space of time. This is often characterised as the rate of force development. For us, it’s more commonly known as ‘hand speed’.
Despite the stigma of strength training is ‘bad’ for kids, there is an ever growing amount of research which supports the many benefits of strength training in youth populations.
As muscular strength is the foundation to many athletic qualities, it has been shown to improve young people’s balance, coordination, jumping and running. We know from our studies that these qualities correlate with harder punches and better prepared athletes.
Conditioning
In traditional boxing training methods, athletes perform long, steady road runs to build up endurance to ‘go the distance’.
What about if we told you that boxing is not an endurance sport? And that you don’t need to spend hours pounding the pavements?
Scientific research shows that boxers experience high heart-rates and lactate levels, as well as high punch frequency, volume and force output during competition.
Boxers can throw hundreds of punches throughout a fight; these are high-velocity actions requiring a lot of force. The aim of the game is to perform attacking and defensive moves at a superior intensity to control and dominate your opponent.
In our youth programme, we show you how to develop the basic qualities that underpin the fitness of a boxer in a safe and practical way that can slide right into your next training session.
Movement
Movement competency is crucial for all young people’s athletic development, especially combat athletes. Young people are moving less than ever before, most of the day they’re seated at school and the use of mobile devices and computer games increases sedentary behaviour.
Inactivity has consequences; obvious ones include reduced movement challenges such as jumping, landing, and climbing and general lack of regular movement which leads to impaired mobility and flexibility.
In our youth training system, we show you how to help your young athletes stay mobile and prevent injury by working on their movement skills.
Core Strength
Whether it’s sit ups or leg raises, you’ve seen core training in most boxing sessions. For good reason, as our testing results suggest the stronger your core, the harder your punch. Core strength is important for a forceful punch because it links the lower and upper body in the Kinetic chain.
The ‘Kinetic Chain’ is a term used to describe how force is transferred through different parts of the body to produce movement. In punching, force is transferred from the lower-body through to the first.
The core muscles are a vital link between lower- and upper-body, and help transfer force during punching actions.
Core strength also plays an important role in generating effective mass, this is known as the ‘snap’ of a punch. Greater ‘snap’ is performed with short, simultaneous activation of many muscle groups, particularly the core, arm and shoulders.
Our youth programme is packed with practical strategies to help develop the core strength of your young athlete to aid their athletic development.
Nutrition
Quality nutrition is an important part of a young athlete’s development because it enables optimal growth and maturation. Macronutrients, micronutrients and fluids in the proper amounts are essential to these processes.
To optimise performance, young athletes need to learn what, when and how to eat and drink before, during and after training and performance.
In our nutrition workshop, sports nutritionist Lee Rickards MSc takes you the essetials of a young boxers diet.
Why Do You Need This Program?
Do you want each of your boxers to fulfil their potential?
We’ve got the evidence-based methods to help your athlete get fitter, faster and stronger.
You’re a forward-thinking coach… That’s why you’ve made it this far down the page! You have the skills, knowledge and experience to help your boxers become better boxers.
Boxing Science can help you add to their skill, with strength, movement, speed, fitness, co-ordination and a better approach to training!
This takes no talent, our program takes the guesswork away and gives you the tools to deliver world-class training methods right in your gym.
Not only do we give you the tools, but we give you a series of amazing printable posters that will stand out on your gym wall.
This will help you and your boxers understand the training methods, and will almost like a Boxing Science coach being in your gym!
What Does The Program Consist Of?
The Youth Athlete Edition entails the same philosophies as our senior Train Like a Champion program. The majority of senior boxers that step through Boxing Science doors for the first time look a lot like endurance athletes rather than boxers, with movement issues limiting the effectiveness of strength training.
It means we have to spend time working on this before progressing. What we’d like to see is a boxer who is explosive and ready to compete at a high-intensity, and that starts with a comprehensive youth training program.
We’ve split the program into three 12 week blocks, each targeting a different area of a young boxer’s physiology in a sequence that builds upon the last phase. It’s important that you build the foundations and train the physiological mechanisms that underpin boxing performance, and in our programme, there’s always a thread that runs through each of the phases.
To get the maximum benefit from any training you need consistency – and that’s no different here. Each training session will build upon the last, and each phase unlocks the potential to adapt to the next.
We have developed three outstanding phases for you, Bronze, Silver and Gold. Each phase develops, supports and progresses a young person through their athletic journey.
Within each of these phases, we have found different ways to integrate strength and conditioning activities into your boxing sessions.
Movement and Mobility
Strength and Conditioning
Conditioning Circuits
Running Conditioning
Core Training
Nutrition
Training Posters
We’ve worked hard on providing in-depth detail within the Youth Training program to take the guesswork away, and for your young athletes to have a great understanding of the training system.
The program is split into 3 stages. Bronze, Silver and Gold. In each program, there are a range of posters that cover each section of training (movement, strength, fitness etc.).
You can download these posters and print off in various sizes (e.g. A2, A3, A4). The posters will look fantastic on your gym and, most importantly, they’re very easy to follow.
Get Your Program TODAY!
If you purchase this program, you’ve joined us at a milestone in our vision to revolutionise training in boxing from the grassroots up to the elite.
We will be with you and your boxer from the very first time they walk through the gym doors to the time they hold a world-title belt above their head.
Not only is this the first youth S&C training program for boxing, but the profits will help fund the Boxing Science Youth Initiative.
The youth initiative will help make our sport science services more accessible for young athletes, and make sports science the norm for all aspiring boxers.
FREE Sports Science Testing
FREE S&C Sessions for Under 16’s
Part-Funded Educational Workshops
Want to benefit from the Boxing Science Youth Initiative? Send us an e-mail boxing.sci@gmail.com
Your Authors
Danny Wilson BSc, MSc, ASCC – Boxing Science Co-founder and Strength and Conditioning Coach
Danny is a UKSCA accredited Strength and Conditioning coach and has an Undergraduate and Master’s degree in Sport and Exercise Science from Sheffield Hallam University. Danny co-founded Boxing Science in 2014 following building the successful Boxing program at Sheffield Hallam University where he has coached over 100 boxers as a strength and conditioning coach.
Danny has prepared many boxers competitive bouts, including IBF welterweight world champion Kell Brook, WBA Bantamweight champion Jamie McDonnell, Kid Galahad, Anthony Fowler and many more aspiring professional and amateur boxers. He is also the lead for sport science services to England Boxing and is an England Boxing Level 1 qualified coach, enabling him to volunteer at Sheffield City ABC.
Danny is also a regional strength and conditioning coach for England Golf, working with Yorkshire U16’s, U18’s and working with national level players. Danny has other experiences in youth and professional standards across a range of sports, including internships at Sheffield United, Sheffield Eagles and Chesterfield FC.
Dr Alan Ruddock PhD, CSci, MSc, BSc, BASES Accredited Sport and Exercise Scientist – Elite Physiologist and Co-founder of Boxing Science
Alan is a physiologist at Sheffield Hallam University with a wealth of experience in sport science. He has worked with a range of individual athletes and teams, including FIFA World Cup referee Howard Webb and Commonwealth games medalists England Table Tennis. Alan has worked extensively within Boxing at the highest level, having a huge influence on Kid Galahad’s British, Commonwealth and European Title wins and with Kell Brook’s IBF welterweight world title victory and his mega-fight against Gennady Golovkin.
Alan is a BASES accredited sport & exercise scientist and one of the UK’s first chartered scientists in sport science. Alan has also recently completed his PhD “Alleviating heat strain during exercise: Hand cooling and thermoregulation”.
Ashley Downing, BSc, MSc, ASCC – Strength and Conditioning Coach for GB Para-Archery and Scottish Exiles
Ash is currently the Lead Strength & Conditioning Coach for Great Britain Archery Paralympic and Olympic Pathway programmes, as well as Head of Strength & Conditioning for Scottish Rugby Union’s SQ programme looking after their U16-U20 national and international youth players living in England, Wales, and France. He is also the director of AD-Performance, providing consultancy services to a range of athletes and teams from amateur to elite. Ash is an Accredited Strength & Conditioning Coach with the UKSCA, has a Masters Degree in Applied Sport and Exercise Science and a Bachelors Degree in Sport Coaching.
Tommy Munday – Boxing Science Junior S&C Coach and Undergraduate Student
Tommy has supported the Boxing Science programme as a Strength and Conditioning Intern for two years, progressing to supporting a wide variety of amateur and professional boxers, including Anthony Fowler, Kid Galahad and Jamie/Gavin McDonnell.
Alongside this, he has worked in youth football, with Sheffield Wednesday FC’s Academy as an S&C Intern. Tommy also runs our youth initiative sessions providing S&C support to young amateur boxers and is a Level 2 Boxing Coach at Sheffield City ABC.
