A lot has been said about the legend Muhammad Ali boxing training underwater, but did you know that this was a hoax? However, there are some athletes out there that do it for real and say that it is a great cardio exercise that improves their boxing skills without adding impact on their joints.
It is considered by many as a “weird sport”, but since some people like to try out new things, it has become popular. To be able to do boxing training underwater you will need a nose plug and water goggles and you will experience boxing in an extreme way.
“While the setting is obviously very different, training underwater can actually help regular boxers become better at their own sport”, Greenville University published on their blog.
Boxing training underwater requires strength and stamina. Can you punch underwater? Yes, you can but the resistance from the water will make it harder to achieve. It also increases cardio and lung strength since you have to hold your breath to be able to do this version of boxing. You will see that by practicing underwater boxing you will have more stamina during fights.
Why should you consider trying out boxing training underwater?
As we said above, practicing this version of boxing will help with your stamina and heart and lung strength, just as any other water sport does. In fact, instead of doing this, you can just sign up for swimming lessons for cross-training with your regular boxing classes.
However, if you try to punch underwater, you will see that your movements are much slower, because of the water resistance. If you do some shadowboxing you will be able to focus on your technique since you are boxing slowly. According to the aforementioned article, this creates more balance and power for the fights.
How do underwater boxing fights work?
Experts in this area suggest underwater boxing for those who do not want to get hit by hard punches. Underwater punches are slow and therefore you will not get hit as hard as outside the water.
“The rules for underwater boxing are pretty simple. All the rules of regular boxing still apply. Boxers have to hold their breath underwater for one minute for three rounds. In between each round, they are able to get some air before the next round. Eventually, a champion will be crowned based off those three rounds. It can be deadly to play this weird sport because one punch could possibly kill you”, says Greenville University.
Practicing underwater boxing in an endless pool
Another way to do boxing underwater is inside an endless pool. These are compact pools that allow you to swim against a smooth current that can be adjusted according to your goals. These pools are often used for lap swimming, aqua aerobics and hydrotherapy.
“Joints that were great before won’t hurt after the workout that I do in the pool,” Shakeel Phinn, an IBF and NABF North American middleweight champion said. According to him, his muscles feel a lot better after adding a workout in an endless pool, as you can read on this website.
“We did plyometrics, jumps in the water, and you can tell he’s working hard because you have to fight against the current. You have to be powerful for one minute, one minute thirty,” his trainer, Chris Pommier, explains. “It is challenging, 100 percent.”
However, this boxing trainer believes that it is not for beginners and it is also not for every boxer. “They have to be ready for it”, he considers. “They have to be working out properly first, and after they have the fundamentals, OK, let’s add the pool,” he continued.
Did Muhammad Ali train underwater?
As we said at the beginning of this post, Muhammad Ali never trained underwater and it was not his secret for becoming the great athlete he became. In fact, some sources say that he did not even know how to swim.
Don’t forget to read about this and other boxing idols of all time.
According to the website Hoaxes.org, an issue of Life magazine from September 8, 1961, featured a photo essay of Muhammad Ali boxing underwater. The article read as follows:
“Not to be bragging or anything like that,” says 19-year-old Cassius Marcellus Clay, “but they say I’m the fastest heavyweight in the ring today. That comes from punching under water.” Taking a cue from the immortal Ty Cobb, who weighed his shoes in training so that he would feel feather-footed when the season started, Clay goes into a swimming pool and, as these underwater pictures show, does a stunt of submarine shadowboxing. “You try to box hard,” he explains, “Then when you punch the same way out of water you got speed.”
Hoaxes.org says that the only time Muhammad Ali ever trained underwater was for this photoshoot for Life magazine. It was just a publicity stunt that no one questioned. “It was simply accepted as part of the lore of Muhammad Ali. Until finally, around 1997, the photographer who did the photoshoot, Flip Schulke, revealed that Ali had invented the story”, the website wrote.
The story of the photos began in 1961 when Schulke was assigned to take pictures of Ali in 1961 by Sports Illustrated. When the two met, the photographer showed him pictures of underwater photography – an area of photography in which he was specialized – and the boxer told him that he just happened to be training underwater in a swimming pool because, “an old trainer up in Louisville told me that if I practice in the pool, the water resistance acts just like a weight,” he said, according to Hoaxes.org.
At that moment, Ali jumped into the pool at the hotel where he was staying and started to throw punches in the water. Schulke believed him and took several photos of him, thinking that it would sound interesting to Sports Illustrated. However, they did not publish them, Life did.
Is underwater boxing something you would try yourself or not? Tell us below in the comment section!
