Boxing Fitness

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Good, but could be better - Rated
Overall this book gives you a good intro into fitness for boxing, but my main criticisms are;

1/ There isn't enough detail about actual exercise form. If you aren't already familiar with the exercise, you'll have to look it up somewhere else.

2/ There is only 1 actual workout (beginners are told to half each exercise). Although the book goes into swiss ball, medecine ball, weights etc, none of these are included in the workout.

The overall layout is 'you could do this, or this, or this, or this', but I wanted a guide to get fighting fit - not a 'work out yourself how to get fighting fit'.

However, if you are used to exercise and building your own routines, there's plenty of ideas that are probably new to you. And even though there's only one routine - it's tough !

Lost body fat, lost weight, gained muscle! - Rated
I'd read that boxers are very fit so bought this book to see if there were any tricks I could use. I did the solo training workout for a month or so, alongside my usual running and weights. I also tried skipping which although it was difficult to get coordinated at first made surprising differences to my cv abilities. I also used the swiss ball for the first time - previously I'd used it for sit ups but the book had many more exercises that I'd never thought of. I also found the calisthenics ideas great too and found a new bit of kit - the power wheel - which I hate but is very effective!

So all in all the new exercises have totally spiced up my training, and I've definitely lost body fat (I have some body fat scales so can measure it) and weight, and my core muscles feel much stronger. I've also discovered a new stress relief system in hitting the punchbag! Given that I have bought a huge number of fitness books and most of them lay gathering dust not adding anything to my regular gym routine this has been a great investment.

Mediocre - Rated
Sadly, I was left underwhelmed by this book.

Here's a quick critique for you:

PRO:

- Ian Oliver is clearly a man who knows his stuff.
- Plenty of colourful pictures for exercises.
- Not a bad price.

CON:

- Surprisingly small book. This is not a manual - it is more like a handbook, being almost pocket-sized in stature.
- Terrible editing job. The book doesn't know where it's going. You jump from aerobic training to resistance training to calisthenics to circuits etc. But there's never any clear indication what routines you should be doing - there just seems to be piles and piles of exercises listed, as though it were a directory.
- The book tries to pack in too much into too little space. There are loads of chapters, but few of them exceed 10 pages. Yet some of these chapters cover enormous topics. Take calisthenics, as an example - only a handful of pages are dedicated to this, yet a guy like John Peterson devotes a huge, heavy manual to this art. Same goes for chapters on key issues like nutrition. In fairness, Oliver does give suggested references (like Anita Bean), but if you're not going to cover the topic sufficiently, then why bother to include it in the first place? This is what I mean by the book being "over-packed".
- No tailored routines are supplied. Maybe you're looking to lose fat, or build muscle, or achieve maximum fitness. Sure, it could be argued that boxing fitness "is what it is", and that it provides all of the above. I'm just issuing a note of caution to anyone who wants/is expecting specific routines for specific goals. You're not going to get it.
- Not enough space is dedicated to exercise form.

I think this book just struggles to figure out what it is. It's too small to be a manual, but it's slightly too dense to be a handbook. It has pretensions to be about boxing training, but little coverage is given to punching techniques. Oliver clearly wants to pack in a lot of information into a small amount of space, but this clearly results in a loss of attention.

I think there are plenty more fitness books out there that you can and should pick up before this one, many of which are tailored for SPECIFIC needs and, therefore, don't skimp on the detail for what you need. I purchased this book on the back of the 5* recommendations and, to be honest, I feel a little wronged! 5* really should be reserved for outstanding pieces of work, and this is far, far from hitting the fitness book canon.

Good stuff - Rated
This book is perfect if you know absolutely nothing about the training side of boxing and the physical requirements of it.

It goes through all the types of punches, how to stand and using your body weight while doing them, goes through good routines and advantages of doing running, weights, skipping, sparing and much more.

This is just the type of book that i was looking for and highly recommend it to anyone with no experience of boxing and want to get into it, and also learn how to get fighting fit.

Perfect - Rated
All you need to get started and fit!!!! Just the right amount of info to get you started boxing for fitness. Really works and is great fun. My only critism is that there isnt a follow up book for people who want to develop more!!