training

I'm excited to watch the Pacquiao-Cotto fight tomorrow-- of course my money's on Manny. I think some people would want to skip the fight though and go out instead. It's a good day to travel, because whenever a Pacquiao fight is on, there's less traffic and lower crime rate. He's that good!

yantok

Pacquiao was featured in the news a few days back. They showed his trainers hitting his sides and stomach with a yantok (some sort of stick). It desensitizes him to pain, they said. Well, it could work.. I guess it's better than drinking your urine.

Use of unorthodox equipment for training is not exclusive to boxing. Football players in GridIron Training lift and push items like 5 ton tires, ship anchor chains, sledgehammer and prowler sleds. I think this is also a form of Junkyard Training, where athletes make use of everyday objects to build up their strength. There's a bunch of videos in YouTube about it, but this one is my favorite. It's of football player, LaDainian "LT" Tomlinsons:



It's not just the body that's getting pumped here, the athlete's creative muscles are working as well. Tim Lajcik, a mixed martial arts fighter, writes about how Eugene Jackson, a UFC veteran, perfected his guillotine choke move:

"He developed his formidable constricting strength upstairs in the dispatch office using an old truck inner tube. Eugene tied off a foot and a half section of the tube and wrapped the section in duct tape so that he could inflate it to high pressure. Then, Eugene squeezed the inflated section of the tire in the crook of his elbow like it was a neck. Using various locks (guillotine, rear naked choke) he'd squeeze against the tube's air pressure repeatedly, or hold the lock for minutes at a time to build his muscular endurance."

Junkyard Training is cheap and effective, but as this study recommends, it should be planned and monitored for each athlete. It can cause an extreme stress to the person, physically and mentally-- imagine pulling a car for about a quarter of a mile. If we're not careful, the training-- not the opponents, will be the cause of our athletes' defeat.

UPDATE (11/16/2009): Manny won! Yey!

Sources:
http://salemnews.com/pusports/local_story_286005945.html
http://timlajcik.net
http://www.nmsu.edu/~ucomm/Releases/2008/may/junkyard_training.htm