Micheal Gerard Tyson – the youngest heavyweight champion
Micheal Gerard Tyson, a.k.a Mike Tyson, was born on June 30, 1966, in Brooklyn, New York. At an early age, he was just a member of some street gangs and was sent to reform school in upstate New York in 1978. Here, Bobby Stewart – a social worker and boxing aficionado identified his boxing potential and sent him to a renowned trainer Cus D’Amato, who became the legal guardian of Tyson.
6 years after he started his career as a boxer, he defeated Trevor Berbick in 6 minutes and won the heavyweight boxing championship of the world at age 20, in 1986. He won the World Boxing Association (WBA) belt by defeating James Smith. And onAugust 1, 1987 by defeating Tony Tucker, all three sanctioning organizations (WBC, WBA, and International Boxing Federation (IBF)) recognized Tyson as a champion. He lost these titles in 1990 and spent three years in prison for rape charges.
In the beginning, the first 6 years seemed insubstantial as compared to other fighters. But the major difference between Tyson and other fighters was the intensity of his training, i.e. his pace of improvement was astonishing than others. In simple words, although he worked only for six years, his work’s quality and regularity were enough to compare the amount of work other boxers do.
Tyson’s Daily Routine
Tyson, a world-famous boxer, worked hard to achieve and maintain his championship regime. His hard work and dedication towards boxing helped him won whenever he stepped in the ring. Let’s have a look at his everyday routine – a motivation for many!
4 am – Rise, grind, and shine! He started his day with long periods of stretching, 10 interval sprints, and 10 box jumps.
4:30 am – He continued his workout with 3-4 miles of the run, and a mile-long walk afterward.
5:30 am – Returned home, took shower, and went back to sleep.
10 am – Rise, grind, and shine once again! Tyson woke up to oatmeal and milk for breakfast.
12 pm – To Improve skills and ring work, he typically sparred 10 rounds.
2 pm – Once he’s done with the sparring, it’s time to eat chicken and rice, or pasta and steak, accompanied by some fruit juice.
3 pm – He then worked hard to boost skills and ring work for around 45mins to an hour, and spent an hour on the exercise bike afterward.
5 pm – Spending a great time on Calisthenics work, i.e. 2000 squats, 2500 situps, 500 pushups, 500-800 dips, 500 shrugs with 30kg barbell, followed by 10 minutes of neck work.
7 pm – It’s time for dinner. Tyson mostly eats chicken and rice, or steak and pasta with some orange juice for dinner.
8:30 pm – Spending 30-45 minutes working on an exercise bike.
9:30pm – Bedtime.
Benefits – Why did Tyson maintain his regular routine?
Being a world-famous boxer and a motivation for many, Tyson would have stuck to this routine for a strong reason and to gain numerous benefits. People who rise early have plenty of time to attain their goals and thus, are always successful. Let’s consider the benefits of his daily routine:
4 am rise – Tyson woke up at 4 am since he knew his opponent wouldn’t be doing the same. This gave him psychological confidence that he’s working harder than other fighters, essential in developing a feeling that you’ll win. Stretches are beneficial to strengthen your body and avoid injuries. Moreover, the box jumps and sprints help to explosively strengthen the legs and working the anaerobic system.
4:30 am run – Running helped him to strengthen his cardiovascular endurance (heart and lungs), beneficial for ring stamina.
Breakfast – Several studies prove oatmeal an extremely healthy food. It is a low glycemic meal, which helps in improving your endurance for later workouts, and are essential to boost fat burn during workouts.
Ring work and skills – This ensures real quality. Cus D’Amato believed that if a fighter wants to experience quick progress, then he should often be sparring. Believing Cus D’Amato would be wise enough since he made two fighters win the heavyweight championship at an early age. Therefore, to enhance his skills, and familiarity with the great challenges he might be facing in the ring, Tyson used to spar 10 rounds at noon every day.
Tyson, a few hours later, used to do spar, pad work, and bag work again. This clarifies that the focus of his training was to recreate real ring situations and make the training as boxing-specif as he possibly could. This discloses why Tyson was extremely elusive and hard to achieve so much at such a young age, since he was greatly tuned to the physical cues that inform about an incoming punch, through several hours of real fight simulation – sparring. Tyson wouldn’t put up a head guard, encouraging him more not to get hit.
Meals – Tyson’s lunch and dinner contained carbohydrates (rice or pasta), and protein (chicken or steak). Due to his intense training, it was important to intake a high diet. He had a little or no time for recovery since he kept training for the entire week. The carbs served as a great source of energy the whole day, allowing him to train easily for 8-10 hours per day. He would also have protein shakes and bananas in between his lunch and dinner and even cheated occasionally.
Calisthenics – A large number of reps covered all the weighted exercises. These intense and simple bodyweight exercises helped improve his muscular strength while allowing him to maintain his natural physique.
Exercise bike – Tyson’s cycling work served great as a ‘warming down’ workout, which helped strengthen legs, improve flexibility, maintained cardiovascular fitness, and burned fat.
Bedtime – With intense hard work and training throughout the day, it was important to sleep early at night since he had to wake up at 4 am the next day.
Shall I also be training like Tyson?
The thing that is tremendously clear from the above information is that individuality and character are the main factors that develop a great champion, which must be revealed in all manners of one’s approach to the sports. Tyson’s training worked best for himself, but it may not show similar outcomes for others. For instance, the amount of sparring he did might cause many injuries in other fighters, therefore, it wouldn’t be wise to follow them exactly. Consider the beneficial aspects, but remember that you should never copy anyone while training, instead make your own training strategies and practices, and adapt the perfect regime that best suits you, because champions do the same.
Bottomline
Champions train harder than others and their opponents, with their own strategies, plans, and tactics that work best for their performance and body. This is what Tyson’s daily life and training teach us. Add the same aura of quality to your training if you are willing to become a champion in training. Invest time and energy in doing you’re sure others won’t be doing. Spend as much time as you possibly can to attain a rapid rate of improvement. Your opponents won’t be doing this, therefore, you’ll be winning rewards that they will not.
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