I wish to coach boxing as I have already stated in previous threads. I have recently enrolled on a gym and fitness instructor course to become qualified in that area. Do you think this knowledge will benefit me in a boxing gym from a conditioning and fitness point of view? Or are these disciplines and methods worlds apart.
If you don't box and don't compete and haven't done so for some time... don't coach boxing. Save yourself and many others grief. There is no point as you won't learn boxing in an instructors certification course. Certifications these days are like alphabet soup. I see gym instructors all the time that couldn't punch their way out of a wet paper bag... and they're running what they think is boxing. It's not. In order to coach you have to be a keen observer. Which means for boxing you have to be obsessed by it. You have to not only follow the fighters and the fights but the boxing world in general. You have to be a boxing fan. Died-in-wool. Otherwise all the anecdotes and tips you get from old timers aren't going to make a single bit of sense. You have to have made all the mistakes yourself... made the improvements... gotten caught with shots and landed shots flush to be able to speak with any sort of conviction to your students. If you can't do that... you are faking it. No matter what cert with whatever fancy gold label you have. Don't confuse fitness industry BS with boxing. They are worlds apart. There are soooo many qualified boxing coaches in the UK. If you rock up with no amatuer or pro boxing experience then what are you really going to bring to the table? You have to understand the footwork and the drills. You have to have the mindset to coach and drive your students and you will have gained that by boxing and having spent time in the ring and in the gym. If you haven't you simply won't have the background to pull it off. A few questions that can help put you in the right direction: What is your experience in boxing? What camps have you trained at and how long? Have you fought? And if so at what level? What is the organization doing the cert?
Hello, To answer your questions; I boxed as a schoolboy at amateur level. I have trained on and off all my life. Fought at amateur level. I am already qualified by the ABAE to teach boxing. My question was more regarding adding gym, fitness instruction to my portfolio and if it would benefit boxing conditioning and fitness. Adam Booth who trains Haye uses many sports science principals and I wanted the opinion of others to see if I should take that direction. Perhaps I should of been clearer in what I was asking. Oh yeah and I watch and study boxing every single day.
Ok.. got your drift. Your background looks like it could fit coaching very well! It's never going to hurt to build a solid foundation of functional anatomy and the basics of biomechanics etc. There is a lot to be said for self study... don't get suckered into taking umpteen certifications. Seriously... most of them are just garbage courses to fleece the trainer out of his cash. Bigger gyms rely on them because the absolve the gym to a certain extent of liability if the trainer injures a client. A few certs that I think are decent are: NASM cert the CSCS cert the Polequin cert the CHEK cert the TWIST cert those are just off the top of my head. Be forewarned some of them are crazy expensive for the materials and testing. They all tend to have a slightly different focus... I would think that for what you're looking to do... and before you spend monsterous amounts of money... you really want to look at the stuff that Ross Enamait has put into print. It's solid on the science end (eg. backed up by Verkoshansky studies) and it's got the added benefit that he comes from a boxing background. Depending on what country you're in there will be different certs... take your time before you jump onto a course. Some tests are so bloody simple you can do it online and open book. No point. Seriously no point... others like the CHEK or the Polequin cert... are much much harder with far more hands on. The CSCS course requires a degree... but last I checked there wasn't an actual requirement that the degree be a sports science degree. So even if you had say an English degree you could still sign on. I've got the materials for the CSCS course from the last two years and they are very, very thorough. I've also got most of the materials for both the TWIST and the CHEK stuff... very well put together. You can't go wrong introducing sports science concepts to your boxing. It really does work well much of it. Ross Enamait has really been one of the first to apply much of this type of thinking to his training materials. Much of it was in a sense in boxing... but the stuff Ross writes clearly outlines the whys and hows of drills and how they relate to biomechanics and kinesiology etc. I'd say a very large part of what is going to help is a massive appetite for reading. There is so much material out there just for functional anatomy, biomechanics and kinesiology that you could be busy till the next millenium. I know I will be.
