Big Fight: Vijender Singh transforms training regimen to stay ahead of challengers
The lean look he once carried has been replaced by a more muscular facade. His biceps have become more distinct, and his torso proclaims the rigours of regular conditioning – work Beard credits to Joyce.
Vijender Singh with his trainer Lee Beard in Mumbai on Wednesday. Kevin D’Souza
For a few minutes, Vijender Singh will stand with his hands raised above his head. It would give his trainer the chance to throw a medicine ball at his midriff. Specifically, it’s meant to train him to take punches. “It’s all a part of the conditioning, and you have to be strong in the belly,” says his trainer John Joyce. He picked up the procedure just over a year ago, and it has become an integral part of his fitness regimen.
It’s been nine years since the 31-year-old Vijender shot to the higher echelons of Indian sport. A bronze medal at Beijing in 2008 made him the first boxer from the country to achieve an Olympic medal – overshadowing any and all accolades he won, even the gold he won at the 2010 Asian Games in Guangzhou. Rightly so, for he had worked tirelessly to conquer a spot on the podium.
Now, as he’s ploughing through a nascent boxing career down the professional stream, he’s putting in an even greater effort. “I’m feeling good, I’m ready to go all out for 10 rounds,” says Vijender. Owing to his vast experience on the amateur circuit, compared to his next opponent Zulipikar Maimaitiali of China, the Bhiwani native claims the 23-year-old will be in a hurry to finish the match. “I don’t consider him an experienced boxer, and he will make mistakes because he will want to rush through the fight,” he adds.
Vijender seems to be at his fittest. He’s confident, having won each of his eight pro bouts. He puts on a show for the media attending his light training session at a local gym. He starts with a skip-rope warm-up, followed by pad-punching with coach Lee Beard, and then taking on the punching bag altogether. Ever since he turned pro in 2015, the six-footer’s body has gone through a significant transformation. The lean look he once carried has been replaced by a more muscular facade. His biceps have become more distinct, and his torso proclaims the rigours of regular conditioning – work Beard credits to Joyce.
The trainer joined Vijender’s camp shortly before he took on and beat Kerry Hope to earn the WBO Asia Pacific Super Middleweight title. “Back then, he didn’t have much power, and he was flabby,” Joyce says, smiling.
Under Joyce, Vijender works through 1,000 push-ups and as many sit-ups over four sets everyday. “That’s how you can handle taking the punches,” says Joyce. Gym work also involves tabata training and sessions on the treadmill. Then comes the “boom boom boom,” as Joyce puts it, with the medicine ball. The new programme is of a much higher intensity than what Vijender experienced when he was a part of the national camp ahead of the Beijing Olympics.
“There was lot of boxing and lot of running,” says Jitender Kumar, who reached the quarterfinals at Beijing. “At that time, we played a lot of matches because we wanted to be confident mentally.” Physical conditioning was there too, but not as much as what Vijender does now. “We ran 1,000m in 3:30 minutes for six times once a week. But we did about five sets of 50 push-ups and sit-ups everyday for warm-up,” Kumar recalls.
It was a training programme that helped Vijender win an Olympic medal. But he’s nine years older now, in his early 30s, as finds his feet in the professional stream. Eight undefeated fights under his belt, his body needs to be in better shape to land harder punches. But his training needs to respect his age too. “We make sure he runs and swims on every alternate day. We don’t make him run everyday because it puts pressure on the ankle, knee and hip joints at his age,” Joyce says.
Still, he has to run at least six miles in an hour, or cover a mile in the swimming pool in 60 minutes. Joyce’s involvement has given Beard more time to work specifically on Vijender’s technical training when the team practises at their base in Manchester. “It frees me up to teach boxing, and I can work repetitively on certain punches he (Vijender) might use round by round,” says Beard.
Two days before Vijender’s ninth professional bout, Joyce has taken a back seat. Right now, it’s all about the ‘game plan.’ “Where you’re going to move, where the punches will come from, what punches you’re going to make…” Joyce explains. He’s not worried about Vijender’s conditioning —s physical training, including the medicine ball routine, had stopped a week ago. Joyce believes his ward is another “three bouts away from a World title shot.”
“You’ll see when he knocks the kid out on Saturday,” he says, smiling.
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