How To Use Boxing, Sparring & Fighting To Turn Your Body Into The Ultimate Fitness Weapon.

The money fight is coming up. That's right. This is Ben Greenfield. There's this thing called the money fight. It's gonna be the biggest fight, I think of the friggin century. It's AT T Mobile arena in Nevada and it is a professional boxing match between undefeated 11 time 5 division professional boxing world champion, Floyd Mayweather Jr. And the current UFC lightweight champion, Conor McGregor. It's gonna rock if you're a boxing fan. Heck, even if you're not a boxing fan, if you're just like, I don't know, history fan, you just like to watch cool stuff, you can't miss this. This podcast episode might get you kind of pumped up for it though, because it's all about how to use boxing and sparring and fighting to turn your body into the ultimate fitness weapon. You're gonna enjoy this show in this episode of the Ben Greenfield Fitness Show.

I remember when I was 15, 16 years old, this will blow your mind. And I'm fighting in the national championship final or even in the tournament after my win. The day of a fight, the trainers would say, you can eat anywhere you want, so let's go to McDonald's. We'd be up at McDonald's the day of a fight. So now you're seeing fighters, young boys getting cut in the eyes and the face. You're not going to put your son into a sport like that, but with head guards on, you might. So I think long term, taking the head guards out of boxing is going to damage the sport.

He's an expert in human performance and nutrition, voted America's top personal trainer and one of the globe's most influential people in health and fitness. His show provides you with everything you need to optimize physical and mental performance. He is Ben Greenfield. Power, speed, mobility, balance, whatever it is for you, that's the natural movement. Get out there. When you look at all the studies done, studies that have shown the greatest efficacy, all the information you need in one place right here, right now on the Ben Greenfield Fitness Podcast. So, Tony, what do you think about the workout?

Man, I loved it. It was something completely different to what I think I've done before.

To clarify running around the trees like little boys.

Yeah, it makes it fun, you know, it takes the chore out of working out and yeah, it was good.

Yeah, I mean, it's a lot different than when I come down and visit you and we're inside the gym there in Santa Monica, bouncing around in your, what do you call them? What do you call the facilities? Is it basically just like the ring. Is that what you call it when.

You'Re in the gym? In the boxing ring? Yeah, in the boxing gym. In boxing burn. We got two boxing facilities.

Box and burn.

Box and burn in Santa Monica and one in Brentwood.

And it does burn. I mean, I don't know if anybody listening has boxed before, but, like, in good shape. You know, we just run. We ran around the obstacle course just now. Right. And I run around on this thing like once a week. I go hit it for 60 to 90 minutes, doing the rope climbs and the log weave and the walls and everything. So I have a gas tank. But, dude, boxing is a whole different ball game physiologically.

Well, as well. Like, I can do boxing all day long, but I do a couple of laps here, and your young boys are beating me around here, you know. Yeah, it's kind of what you get used to. But, yeah, boxing is a great workout. It's a full body workout, you know.

Well, part of it, I think too, is when you're boxing. And this is what I feel. My hands are up. I feel like my diaphragm is contracted. Some of my inspiratory and expiratory muscles are maybe a little bit more restricted. It's almost like if you were going out for a run but you had, like, your shoulders elevated and your hands up the whole time. It's a little bit different cardio when you have your hands up versus your hands down. It sounds stupid, but.

Yeah, I mean, it does. And it's great for endurance in your shoulders because, like, you see you've got your hands up and when you're throwing the punches as well, yeah, your arms are getting exhausted, but you've got to keep your hands up because you know what happens if you drop your hands?

Yeah, you got to clip around here in the face.

Yeah, yeah, you get hit in the face. So, yeah, I mean, it's. It's a great workout. And as well, what a lot of people don't realize is how much it works out. Your brain, your brain, your brain, it works out.

It's like mental chess.

It is. It is in there. And you're thinking all the time. Like I said, if you drop your hands, you're going to get hit. You've got to think about the. The numbers that I'm calling out. The 1, 2, 1, 2, hook, 1, 2, roll. You got to roll. You got to bend your legs. You got to move your feet.

It's essentially like more or less for a beginner. Six different hits that you were. Six different punches Right. One, two, three, four, five, six.

Well, it's one, two, hook, two, uppercut. Yeah. So it's probably the five punches, but then you've got your footwork as well and then your hands up and you're thinking about your defense.

That's what I like about it is because I come from a background of tennis, which is kind of like. You might think this is silly, but it's almost like boxing across the net because you're anticipating the opponent's move, you're responding to it, you're watching them and then you're responding with either defense or offense. Granted you're not getting hit in the face, there's a little bit less pressure.

Well, it is. It's like that hand and eye coordination with your foot coordination as well. You've got to be fast on your feet. With tennis and we've trained quite a few tennis players who says boxing really improves the tennis when they're doing that. Same with football, same with most sports. I think boxing kind of, if you do boxing training for fitness and you're not getting punched in the head, I think that really can help improve whatever sport you're doing.

I have a ton of questions for you about how you structure the workouts and a little bit more about the physiological and mental requirements of boxing. But the first thing, million dollar question. Conor McGregor's trained down to your place, right? Yeah, down in Santa Monica. Alright, so fill me in, dude, because this podcast is going to come out, I think, before he fights Floyd Mayweather.

Right.

What are your thoughts on that fight? Is he going to get his butt kicked like everybody's saying?

Yeah, he's going to get his butt.

Are you allowed, are you allowed to delve into this?

No, I am. Yeah, he's going to get his butt kicked, but it's. I think it's fantastic. It's a great fight. It's very exciting. You know, like you said, he comes to the gym every time he comes to train in Los Angeles, he comes and trains off, box and burn in either location. We've got a great.

So you got one in Santa Monica. Where's the other one?

Brentwood.

In Brentwood?

Yeah, in Brentwood. And he comes to either gym and, you know, he's a great fella and I really hope that it does well, but I just can't see it. You know, he's fighting one of the best of all time in boxing. He's never had any boxing fights, so he's got his work cut out. But it's a, it's Exciting.

But he's got such fast hands.

I mean. Yes. Was Floyd Mueller. That's the thing. Yeah. I mean, like, it's. It's going to be exciting because he's got fast hands and he could punch really hard as well.

Yeah.

Like Floyd, maybe. He's so smart. His defense is. Is amazing. Are you a big guy boxing fun or MMA fun?

I like to watch it, but, I mean, I'm. I'm not. I'm not. I'm not a fan enough to be putting any money on the line, let's put it that way.

Right?

Yeah.

I've put quite a bit of money on the line on. On me whether to stop McGregor. Even though, like I said, I hope McGregor can win, but I just don't see he's got a chance.

He's gonna get knocked out like a first round or not the first round.

I think it's gonna go a few rounds and then he's gonna get stopped. I think he'll get stopped. I think maybe they will hit him with body shots, because in mma, there's not very many body shots get thrown, but in boxing, it's all the time. So I think Mayweather's gonna hit him with some body shots.

And you mean matters that Mayweather's old and retired? I mean, I mean, he's 40, but.

He's 40. But then you look at the guys like Bernard Hopkins, who was a world champion when he was 48, and Amir, he's always in shape. So I think. I think he's got to beat. He's got to beat Colin McGregor.

How old are you?

How old do you think I'm gonna.

Say faster moving out there in the obstacle course, man. I don't know. I don't know. It's tough for me for you to say that because I didn't kick my ass.

Yeah.

I think we're gonna spar tomorrow morning too, by the way, so you'll have your opportunity. I would say. I don't know. Where are you, man? Like 40ish.

And that's you being kind?

41, 42. I don't know.

Cheeky. You swear on this podcast?

Yeah, you can swear. We'll bird song it out.

I was born in 1985.

You're born in 1985?

Yeah.

Why did you look like you were a tough son of a bitch?

You were 10 years off. I'm 32.

You're 32? Seriously?

Yeah.

You've done a lot for being 32 years old.

I had 106 fights in my career, and I Worked it out. For each one of them fights, if I got punched in the face seven times, and for each one of them fights I spoiled 10 times.

Right?

Six rounds. And each one of them rounds of sparring, I got hit in the face seven times. Anyway, I've done the maths and I've been punched in the head over 50,000 times.

Holy cow.

How about that? So another one. I look 42 when I'm 32.

Well, I mean, you're kind of like thick and tough looking too. I mean, you have like that kind of like weathered, beat up kind of look. Yeah, I guess that's the way a boxer looks.

And then as well with the work. Now I've not. That's the first workout I've done this year. I haven't exercised this year.

You mean that obstacle course workout we just did?

Yeah, so that kicked me off. So that's why I was like a 40.

You get a little bit of a workout, like sparring with people at Box and Burn.

Like I said, that's easy.

That's easy for you. I've noticed that too, dude, with the past couple times I've been down there in LA and we've sparred, like, I feel totally gassed. You're just standing with a smile on your face as I'm chasing woring. You got a guess that too?

36.

36? Yeah, I'm 36. You are? Yeah, yeah, on the money.

Oh, look at that. On the money.

Actually, you know, I take that back. I'm 35. The reason I agreed with you that I was 36 was I recently got. I got this test done. It's a blood test and they measure the length of your telomeres to figure out what your biological age is. Not your chronological age, but your biological age. And my biological age is actually a year older than 35. So according to my cells, I'm 36. And I talked with the cat who I interviewed and I can put a link to this in the show notes to that interview if you guys want to listen to it. It's at the show. Notes for this show you can get@bengreenfieldfitness.com boxing. That's BenGreenfieldFitness.com boxing. But they test the telomeres on your white blood cells and a whole bunch of things can influence it, right? Like your diet, how hard you exercise, how easy you exercise, how much you exercise, air, light, water, electricity. And I think because I spent like 10 years racing Ironman triathlon, kind of like you kind of getting Hit in the face. Except I was inflaming my body. I'm actually older. Right. Like, I put more years on my than it should have put on it.

I'm surprised with that with you because you do all of this biohacking.

I mean, just, just imagine. I mean, I know I have a lot of friends who are just like completely hormonally depleted and they feel like crap and they're getting joints replaced and, you know, they're completely screwed their bodies. So I'm in. I'm in. Okay territory. But my goal now, and I've got a bunch of stuff I'm doing behind the scenes to help out. Like I'm doing stem cells now and I'm researching all these different kinds of, you know, capsules and nicotinamide, adenine, dinucleotide injections, all these things you can do to reverse aging. My goal now is by the time I'm 40, I want to be 25. That's what I'm shooting for.

That's a big jump.

Yeah, well, biologically 25. So I want to do the Benjamin Button thing. But for you getting hit that many times, dude, have you ever been. You've been knocked out like TBIs, concussions.

I've had concussions. I've had about five concussions and it's not, it's not nice. I had my first concussion as a 16 year old by getting punched in the head. It was a European final. I actually won the fight against the guy who knocked everyone out. And he hit me in the second round and my legs went like jelly and my brain got rattled around my head and I stopped the guy in the third round. And I didn't realize when I got out the ring that I was a European champion. And I went back to my teammates and I said, what happened in the fight? And they were all making fun of me. Oh, you got beat. You got beat. I said, honestly, I couldn't remember a thing. After the fight. I got on the podium. European champion on the gold medal. Getting the gold medal on the top of the podium, the national anthem after a fight, I can't remember a thing. And that was the first time we were conquest. And it's a scary feeling. And then again, when I was 18, fighting, I was fighting, the Swedish champion, punched him, you know, got caught with a good punching, legs like jelly. I never stopped on my feet. But you know, that concussion, it's a, it's a very.

You ever see footage and see if you keep fighting after you get concussed, because that's what a lot of guys say is they'll like be fighting. They don't even know they're fighting.

Well, that comes down to the conditioning that you're in. You're being reconditioned and, and you're fighting on pure instinct, you know, And I've won. I've won the fight twice when I've been concussed in the fight, you know, went through and I can't remember a thing. After I looked on my phone and realized that I've got a wife. I couldn't even remember my wife's name. It's that bad? Yeah, it's scary. And then you have to fight the next day as well. You know, in these tournaments when you're fighting for your country. I was fighting.

That's so bad for you because one of the top recommendations that they give to you when you've had a TBI is to avoid getting hit again or getting your head jarred for weeks or months after.

Yeah, I mean, you know, it's common sense really.

Yeah.

You know, I fight the next year and I mean, I won the one again the next year, but you just know it's not good for you. And it's really scary because, I mean, this is something that I wanted to talk to you about a little bit because I've been worried about my brain health, about deterioration in my brain and my memory losing focus and even, even with speech, I might sound all right now, I might sound a bit funny now because of the accent, but there's a little bit of stuttering here and there and maybe that's through the concussions.

Or through the punt. I have a book you need to read. I'll give it to you. Take it home. It's a brand new book. It's by this super smart guy. Now I met him, he's actually, I met him in the world of psychedelics, right? He's big into like microdosing LSD and mushrooms. And my brother and I are flying down to Costa Rica at the end, end of this year to do iboga, which is plant based medicine. It's like ayahuasca on steroids in terms of just reinventing your entire outlook on life. Incredibly uncomfortable medicine in terms of just taking into the deep end of hallucinating and vomiting and all sorts of nasty stuff. But what this guy specializes in is not really psychedelics, it's neurology. He's a physician who specializes in neurology and he just wrote this book that's the most comprehensive book on traumatic brain injuries. And concussions I've ever read in my life. Like I mentioned, it's called the Concussion repair manual. You can't get it yet because it didn't come out. But I have got in my office. Remind me after we record, I'll give it to you. Because what he goes into is everything from hyperbaric oxygen therapy to float tanks to the correct diet and the correct dietary supplements. Things like intranasal glutathione. Right. Because normal glutathione, which is a really good anti inflammatory, doesn't make it into neural tissue. You have to inhale it through your nose.

Is it not too late for that now? Is that not something you have?

No, a lot of this stuff because it's kind of like Alzheimer's or dementia. You get neurofibrillary tangles, you get inflammation, you get degradation of the mitochondria in neural cells, but you can rebuild a lot of that. And so this is what his book delves into. Yeah, you should give it a read. I'll give it to you. And for those of you listening in, if you want to get this, go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com boxing and I'll put it in there. But that's probably the most complete manual I've ever read on how to heal concussions and TBIs. And he also goes into, for example, neurofeedback and some of these cheap apps you can put in your iPhone. But also clinics that you can go to down by you in la. There is, for example, this guy who does a really good job at rewiring your brain. That's Dr. Andrew Hill.

Yeah, I went there. I went there last week actually.

The Peak Brain Institute. Yeah, yeah. So the Peak Brain Institute. I even took my kids there last week and he asked me. So I have this son who's super creative, Taran. But he's also like me when I was growing up. He's a space cadet. Where I was filming him as he was walking through Boise with us last weekend. We took the whole family down to Boise to do the Spartan race down there. And he's just like me. He's walking along the street with a book in his hand, his nose buried in a book. And you can talk to him. And he just looks up and after about five minutes say, what? What were you talking to me? He doesn't know what's going on half the time because he's just like all over the place, right? Creatively. And Dr. Hill scanned his brain. He scanned his brother's brain. They're identical twins. And he says about Taran, you know the twin, he's like the more creative twin. He says, so. So he has a history of concussions or TBIs or what's going on with him. And I said, no, never. He's just like that creative that his brain waves are so far off into the room of creativity that looks like he's had a concussion. So there are other things that can cause the same symptoms of concussion, but yeah, that Peak Brain Institute for those of you listening in again, really cool place to go. I don't know what you thought about it, Tony.

Yeah, no, it was great.

Did you fly the spaceship with your mind?

I drove the car and knocked zombies over.

That's my fun one. Yeah.

Yeah, that was good.

Yeah, you fly, you, you dry. You can drive like a hummer and run into zombies. Your beta brainwaves.

I went to a place called the Cleveland Clinic in Vegas. Have you heard of that place?

Yep.

Tests on. On fighters, former fighters for their brain. And we did all sorts of tests like balance tests, speech tests and memory tests. And, and for. I was 31 at the time. And for a 31 year old, my results came back normal, which I was very happy with. And. But he said that I've got a split in my membrane. The what attaches your brain to your skull, to the membrane? He said, I've got a very large split in the membrane. And he said like 50% of boxes have this split in their membrane of when your brain gets rattled that hard around your skull that it splits. So we said there's no evidence that that can affect you in life. I don't know if you know anything about that.

Interesting. No, I don't know about the split. Like that's more of like an anatomical issue. Yeah, I don't know about that. You know, that's not something I've personally run into. We should connect you though with this guy, Dr. Dan Engel, who wrote that concussion repair manual I was talking about. He would know a lot about it. Now. I wanted to also ask you. No, there's so many questions after me having experienced like the burn at boxing burn, the training requirements for boxing. Like, what is it? What does a typical kind of like training day look like when you're training for boxing? Is it a mix of road work and high intensity interval training? Is it a lot of weight training? And I'm especially talking about, you know, obviously there's like the old school Rocky movies where he's, you know, just like pumping iron and running in his hoodie. Through up the stairs in Chicago. But what's kind of like new school boxing training look like, right?

Well, when I was training for the olympics in, in 2007, 2008, we we trained four times a day for four days a week. And we did because in, in the Olympics we were doing four rounds of two minutes. That's all it was. So we were training like short, short.

Four times a day.

Yeah, four times they would do, do like interval running on the morning. There might be a full, a 4, 2 minute sustained run on a running track. But obviously with a warm up cool down. Then we'll do a small strength session at 10 o' clock and then 11:30 would do a spawn session, a boxing session, pad session. Kind of like what we do in boring burn. And then because boxing's a lot of you've got to control your weight. We do a long sustained run at like 6, 7 o' clock. And then with diet in between. So like I think then this was back in 2007. I know like times have changed now with fitness and how to lose weight. But we used to do the long steady runs for, for weight loss and that was a typical, a typical day for us when we trained for the Olympics. Then Fast forward to 2009 when I turned professional. I went down to two sessions a day for five days a week.

And then you had fewer sessions when you turned pro.

Yeah, but the sessions were longer because as of I was doing. I'll go. My last fight was eight three minute rounds. So the sessions went on a bit longer.

Eight three minute rounds?

Yeah.

How long are you recovering between eight three minute rounds?

One minute.

But it's more like three, three minutes on, one minute off.

Yeah, it's more like 50 seconds by the time you get to your corner.

That three minutes is hard. I mean again, for anybody listening in, who's. Who sparred or boxed. I'm gassed.

Yeah.

You know, after about two minutes and that last minute you feel like you're fighting for your life.

Right.

Then you get barely any recovery and you just jump into it again.

Yeah, well that, that when you get it again when you're sitting down in the corner, that's like the, the fastest 50 seconds of your life.

Yeah, yeah.

In and out. So when I was training for a pro, it would be two sessions a day. It would be running and boxing. Basically we'd run every day.

Like steady state run or you do track intervals.

It would vary between the steady state run and the track intervals. And then with the stairs and hill sprints and short sprints and the closer the fight, we got like a week out for the fight. You'd start doing short sprints, keep you sharp and short rounds, like one minute rounds, just feeling good because in the week of the fight you're not going to get any fitter, you know. So you just want to get sharp and feel good, ready for the fight. So yeah, I mean it was very intense. It was very intense. Intense a lot on the body and then I mean one of the biggest things was recovery, rest and recovery because you need to be 100% or as close to 100% you can be for, for your next session because you want to get the most out your session, right?

You mean like the session later on in the day?

Yeah, exactly, yeah. So I would a lot of boxes run early in the morning, like the Rocky style. I didn't like to do that. I like to, I like to do me boxing in the morning and get the best out of me boxing session and then do the run in the afternoon, you know. So I would be doing me boxing session at like 10 in the morning and then do me one at three and three in the afternoon.

Yeah. And that's, that's where nutrition becomes important. A lot of people ask me about this, you know, I think that pre workout and post workout nutrition is overrated. Meaning that when you see somebody like waltzing out of the health club with a freaking like 24 ounce Jamba juice in their hands, they don't need that. Right? Or when you see somebody like dropping the bar and just boogieing straight to the locker room to suck down their maltodextrin and whey protein shake, you don't need that because your body, when you're eating ad libitum, just like according to appetite, within about eight hours you naturally replenish all your glycogen stores and you're good to go for the next day. But if you're in a situation where you're a two day athlete and you're going to be exercising again in less than eight, eight hours after you've already worked out. That's where post workout nutrition comes in key, where you actually want. It doesn't have to be like a carb fest. It can be your body can actually restore glycogen levels or glucose from things like protein and wild caught fish and vegetable shakes with coconut oil and seeds and nuts. The backbone of fats can be broken down into glycerol and that can get converted into glycogen for you to actually be able to replenish those stores so it doesn't have to be like Rice Krispies and sweet potatoes and oatmeal. But at the same time, that's huge. I think a lot of people, they'll hear me say, oh, well, pre and post workout nutrition is overrated. But there's an exception to that rule. When you're doing a two a day like you're describing, that's where that post workout or pre workout nutrition.

Where were you when I was boxing? I needed you in me corner, didn't I?

Yeah, you don't want to rely on me for the hitting advice. But yeah, I mean, that's what I have my degree in is nutrition. That's one of the things that I see people, especially when it comes to maintaining weight or losing weight, like so many people just like they take this trickle down advice from bodybuilders trying to put on pounds and pounds of muscle, or college athletes and football players trying to maintain 350 pounds and it doesn't work.

Well, one thing about boxing, like you said, you've got your degree in nutrition, right? One thing about boxing is boxing. 99% of boxing boxers are uneducated. Right. So yeah, we don't know what foods to eat. And most boxing trainers were boxers, so they're uneducated as well. I remember when I was 15, 16 years old, this will blow your mind. And I'm fighting in the, in the national championship final or even in the tournament after my win, the day of a fight, the trainers would say, you can eat anywhere you want, so let's go to McDonald's. We'd be having McDonald's the day of a fight, you know, because where I'm from, the north of England, like, you.

Mean the McDonald's kale and apple salad? That one?

Yeah.

Right.

No, we were getting double cheeseburgers and stuff on our face with fries and milkshakes. This is like three hours before a fight. Yeah, me too, dude.

That's what I roll. I played college tennis. I didn't know jack squat about nutrition. So I'd stop in for like Big Mac super sized fries. You know, you'd get like halfway through your match and you'd be sluggish, running on vegetable oils and beef. But yeah, you don't know any better. And it was crazy because for me, like the coaches didn't know any better either.

Right? Yeah, that's what I mean. Because I mean, they're uneducated as well.

Yeah.

So it was hard, but everyone was in the same boat. I think in Boxing.

Well, now, you know, if you look at professional sports, like basketball is a perfect example. Right. If you look at the national champions this year, the Golden State warriors, they decided to go way above and beyond, just like, eating healthy and working out in a relatively advanced way, which a lot of NBA teams are doing. And they're using fricking, like, float tanks. And they're using, like, Steph Curry is using strobe goggles and trans direct cranial stimulation on his head. They're using neurofeedback. They're doing all these things kind of like you and I are saying, well, you know, a decade ago, we wish our. We wish we had a team nutritionist telling us how to eat properly. I think, you know, a decade from now, professional basketball players are going to be saying, hey, we didn't know about these, like, 20 different legal devices we could be using to enhance our reaction time and our speed and get to the point where folks like the Golden State warriors are just, like light years ahead of the other teams.

Yeah, times are definitely changing with that sort of stuff. And even. Even with recovery now. Well, I always did used to get an ice bath as well, like in training camps. I think that was massive for us.

Yeah. Give you an ice bath tonight.

Yeah, I love that. Yeah, it was great.

Yeah, we did. We did the Greenfield cold plunge out in the cold pool back in the forest.

And I was just saying to Glenn about, like, this sort of stuff that we did here will be great for boxing, for training, because what, like open. What we're doing. Open under them.

Up and down the hills. Yeah.

And under the porch when we're climbing under the.

Yep. That's why I like obstacle course training, because what I tell people is there's. There's three things that you got to be able to do. You gotta be able to run efficiently. You gotta have grip strength like a gorilla. And you need to be able to lift something or move something or crawl under something and then get up and keep running without stopping to catch your breath. Right. Without walking it off.

Being in this lovely house here and doing this sort of training, I don't know if you're not normal or if everyone else is not normal. And you are normal because this, this sort of lifestyle, what you were living, seems like this is what everyone should be doing, but everyone's not doing this.

Well, it's kind of an odd situation. I mean, not everybody can have like 10 acres out in the forest, like we're on right now, but I mean, everybody can go out barefoot in their Backyard, Everybody could take a cold shower, right? You know, everybody could, could just toss a few things in their home. Like, for example, the, you know, the bedroom you're sleeping in and the downstairs that you guys are in, it's all lit with red lights and there's not a lot of blue light wave spectrums. The bulbs are special bulbs that allow your biology to function better in terms of circadian rhythm. Your entire room has. It's an organic mattress. There's a HEPA air filter that's churning out negative ions. The water is. Not only is the house all powered with solar energy, but the water is from a well and that goes to. Through a structured water filter and then gets remineralized. There's all these little things that frankly, people can do. It's just like a lot of people don't know. It's the knowledge component. And a lot of the podcast listeners to this show, you know, they, they know this stuff. But yeah, stuff people should know.

Why, why do you need to have all that stuff?

Like, like your body feels great. I mean, my body feels good. Oh, yeah, dude. When I travel and I'm staying in, I mean, a lot of hotels now, you know, they're, they're adding like, you know, Marriott now has like their stay well room and their stay well room, it's like filtered structured water and a chlorine filter on the shower head. And it's low volatile organic compound flooring and the carpets are mold free and the bedding is organic. And you feel a lot better in the lighting, right? It's low LED lighting and they've moved the WI FI router out of the room. You feel a lot better when you're in that environment. But a lot of people don't know that there are brain fog or their frequent immune system issues or their sniffles, you know, or any of the, any of these things come from their environment. The invisible variables. The air, the light, the water, the electricity.

So do you think, like I said there, my old boxing trainers were uneducated in nutrition? Do you think most people are uneducated in all of this stuff that you do here?

People are getting better and better, right? Like, there's this whole, like. Yeah, it's kind of silly because it's not really biohacking as much as just like healthy living, but there's like biohacking movement and there's, you know, everything we eat tonight after we record, we'll have dinner and just about everything you eat. You know, I've either killed myself or I know where it came from. In terms of the meat, all the food is grown in this garden back behind you. And you know, people can do things like, you know, vertical gardening in their backyard in a patio in fricking New York City and they can, they can find CSAs or you know, shares with farms or you can get your own meat and where the meat came from. But yeah, I mean a lot of people can do this stuff, but it's just about knowledge. It's about. And, and what will happen is all the people not doing are just going to die early. The rest of us are going to live a long time and eventually take over the world. And then it'll all, it'll be.

How long do you think I'll live?

I have no clue, dude. I'll probably get hit by a bus when I'm 60. Honestly, that's, that's what'll happen. Yeah, exactly. Drowning the swimming pool. That's right. That's what I was telling you earlier. My wife will find me when I'm 80, like floating out there after doing underwater cold hypoxia and it'll be a good way to go. So in terms of like what you were doing as a pro, these eight rounds, a three on one off, two a days, I know you were lifting, you were doing road work, you were running, you're eating a crap ton of food. Box and burn. Like these facilities that you have, did you design those to mimic the physiological requirements of pro boxing? Like I go in there and you got me warming up, you've got me doing agility ladder doing, doing like some shadow boxing and getting up in the ring, sparring with you. Last time I was there, we finished with the game where you were like throwing a ball at me and you'd throw it at my head and you'd say catch. And I wasn't supposed to head it, I was supposed to catch it. And then you'd throw it at my arms and you'd say head. And I wasn't supposed to catch it, I was supposed to head. So you're like playing all these little like mind games and mental tricks with me as well. How is it that you put together what you put together at box and burn? Like what, what were you trying to accomplish? And what does a typical workout look like?

Well, I wanted to take the, the best part of boxing gyms, I've been in boxing gyms all my life into this. And my business partner Kevin Watson was a former strength and conditioning coach for Kentucky basketball team who's stud as well. He, he Put brought his background in as well. So now we, we cross the boxing fitness training with cross training and, and of course together really well. Like in a boxing typical box and burn class, we do the mixture of like what I said when I was training for the Olympics. I did them four sessions a day. We would be mixing two or three of them sessions in one session in the box and burn workout. And like the game we played with a head catch with you and the boys, that was just good. It's a fun game and it's good for your mind and we just try and make, try and make it fun. And I mean the number one thing about coming into a boxing gym is getting the great workout but as well having fun and enjoying it and learning, you know.

How long does a typical session last?

1 hour. We do 1 hour sessions in there and I mean we got named number one gym in California by Men's Fitness magazine in 2016. Yeah, I mean it's massive. The gyms have absolutely blew up. You know, we went from having a boot camp on Santa Monica, Santa Monica bluffs for donations only. Fast forward four and a half year now we've got two seven figure businesses, two two seven figure gyms with a amazing education program as well.

So we, we definitely mean an education program.

So we, we've got the Boxing Burn Academy where we teach trainers, personal trainers, how to teach boxing. It's, that's, that's blue.

That's pretty sick. You need to get a personal trainer from Spokane because I've been looking for a place where I can just box. I had a, I had a sp. Sparring coach for a while. My kids do jiu jitsu every Monday night like down the street from here. And I would go in and this guy would kind of like, you know, box a little bit with me and do some kick in. But he, you know, he's, he's cool. But I like what I do at boxing bar. Like I would love to be able to go in and do the agility ladder and the speed work and the footwork and then spar. So you got to train somebody.

Yeah, we've got over I think 1200 certified personal trainers that we've certified and around America already. So I'm sure I'll be able to put it out there.

Hey, Spokane's listening in and you coach boxing like go, go get, go get certified with Tony's Boxing Burn. Come back up here, you'll have one customer at least with my boys. So you've got your education program. People are coming and Doing these workouts. How often, how many times a week do you do a workout like this?

Like we do the boxer burn classes, which, in the gyms, which is we, we have got like 50, 60 classes a week between both locations.

But like if somebody's doing this as a workout, are they coming in every day? Are they just like running once a week?

We tell people we recommend three times a week or plus, because a lot of people in la, as you, as you probably know, they do all the workouts as well.

Because it's more cardio than resistance training, right?

Yeah, it's a lot of cardio, but there is a resistance training as well.

So like what, like what kind of resistance training do you guys do?

Well, we do, we do all sorts of, of different stuff. Like it's a mixture of everything. We've got, we've got, we've got like 30 trainers in the company now and they all bring their specialty, whatever it may be. Like, like, like Glenn brings his speed and agility and all that.

Glenn sitting back here behind us. Yeah, yeah, we've, we've got, we've got somebody watching us doing a little, doing a little video. Where's this video getting published, by the way?

I know, on the boxing.

On the boxing bird YouTube website. We'll link to it. Go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com boxing we'll show you a photo of our outdoors podcasting studio that we have set up here. But yes, so Glenn helps to coach the resistance training as well.

Yeah, Glenn's has stood out that stuff. Glenn trains all the high profile people that come to the gym, all the celebrities, all actors, athletes, if they come. Glenn trains all them lot. So we've got a great mixture of trainers that come to the facility and the results people are getting fantastic. And then on the education side as well, like I said, we, we're teaching these personal trainers and fitness enthusiasts how to box and how to teach boxing as a form of workout, you know, and the results that they're getting as well is, is amazing. They're telling us that they're helping, that's helped that boxing trainers help them earn more money. Like you said. You want a boxing trainer up here? Yeah, like it's, it's a fantastic workout.

And I mean anything that to me feels like a mix of playing and working out. Like what we did on the out, I freaking love it. Like I'm, I'm kind of through with doing workouts where I've got a frown on my face all the time.

Right.

Like, granted, I Mean, you've seen me at the, at your gym. Yeah. Like, I'm not, like, I'm not like, smiling like Pinocchio the whole time, but at the same time, like, it goes by fast and I like it. And there's. There's the mental part too, because you're moving all over the place. But then you've got the 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, you know, 1, 2, hook, 3, 4. So tell me about, in addition to just the sparring, if anybody out there in the boxing world is doing mental training, like, at a high, like, is Connor doing things like Dynavision boards or strobe goggles or, you know, when you were doing pro boxing, did you guys use phone apps or, like, reaction speed tools, things like that?

Not really. Like, we were old school. We used the speedball. You know the speedball, the speed bag? Yeah, we use that a lot. But what.

I've got one in my office, but I have no clue how to use it. It's just, like, hanging there.

I love the show.

You. Yeah.

But what we've done a lot of was visualization, you know, visualization before you fight. I think a lot of athletes do that now where, where you'll be visualizing the. The getting your hands wrapped, walking into the ring, the. The full of. The full everything, getting in the fight, then fighting and then fight and winning the fight. And then when it comes to the actual fight, you've already been there and done that mentally. So I think that was one massive thing that helped me and had a lot of boxes in the Great Britain team, as well as the psychology. We had a sports psychologist work with us on the. On the Great Britain team, which he used to study other countries and study how they acted when they got in the ring, because they had that as well. So little things like walking around the venue with your chin, with your head held high when your opponent's seen you, like, you look confident. You know, things like that, like power posing.

That's interesting because they've actually shown that power posing can do things like increase your testosterone as well.

Oh, really?

Yeah.

I never knew that.

Like, when you stand tall, you fold your arms or anything like that. I've got a friend who I interviewed on this show, Jordan Harbinger from the Art of Charm. And one thing that he teaches, especially, like, men to feel more confident when they walk into a room is they're like doing power posing, like, at the door before they even walk in. Not only to get the hormonal boost, but just to be able to. To show when you walk into a room.

Yeah. When you walk in the room, you want to look.

You're confident.

Yeah. And then as well, like, things like before the bell went. When you're in the. In each corner, go to the center of the ring. Now your opponent thinks that, wow, he's coming to the center ring, he's up for this fight. Little things like that. What our sports psychologist used to tell us to do really went a long way and helped the. Help us as a team and helped me as a. As a boxer, you know.

Did you ever read the book about this guy who didn't get into professional boxing, but he got into the ring to fight in mma? And he was a professor. He wrote this book called professor in the Cage, and he just decided, yeah, he had, like, an MMA gym across the street from his office at the university. And I'll hunt down the book and put a link in the show notes for it. But the dude decided he wanted to fight, and he actually trained to fight and wound up, like, fighting in the ring just. Just as something to. To experience in life. And it's actually a pretty cool story. And it kind of leads up to the next question I wanted to ask you is, like, if somebody's listening in and they're like, well, I want to try. I don't want to just like, go do box and burn and try out all these different boxing workouts that Tony's talking about. I want to fight. Like, what would you say to somebody, like a man or woman who actually wants to get in the ring and fight? Like. Like, what would you do if you were just, like, total amateur, you'd never boxed before, and you actually wanted to get out there and do an actual fight?

Well, there's a lot of people that want to come in the gym and I want to fight. I want to take it to the next level. They've been training for a while. Then they do, like, the sort of training that we do. Then you put a mouthpiece in them and you put a head guard on them, and then you get punched in the face in a spawn session. And then the idea doesn't seem as good, you know? Yeah. When you start getting punched in the face, it sounds. Boxing sounds. Oh, fun. Like you're looking good on the mitts. Making loads of noise when you're punching.

Sucks, dude. Sucks when you hit me in the stomach.

Yeah. Even when we do on the shoulder and body. But now imagine if I'm hitting you in the face as well.

Yeah.

So I'm hitting you in the face. And you have.

Does that headgear actually work, by the way?

It helps.

A lot of people say it doesn't protect you at all and that it makes people hit each other harder in the head.

No, the good that there's so many benefits of having head guards on now. Now, if you think if I've got. If I'm hitting you in the head and you've got a head guard on, it's not just protecting your head, it's protecting my hands.

Right, yeah, that makes sense.

Rather than hitting a hard skull as well. If we both are wearing head guards and our heads clash just like. Like this, we're both going to get cuts.

Yeah.

So I'm, I'm all for head guards. There's been big studies saying that the makeup, the worst, they do more damage than good. But I'm a big believer in head guards are really good for boxing. And now they've took it out of the amateur sport as well. So in the Olympics now, when I boxed the Olympics in 2008, we wore head guards. Now they don't wear head guards, which I think is a big mistake. And it's going to hurt boxing in the long term because when, when do you ever watch amateur boxing? It's only in the Olympics.

Never. Yeah.

Or if you ever did, it'll be there.

I watch men's gymnastics. Right. Every four years.

Right. So. So now if a. If a parent thinks about putting their kid into boxing and they see it on their Olympics and they've got head guards on and it looks. It looks safe, but now they're not wearing head guards and there's the, the cuts is all the time people, boys getting cut. Do you know what I mean? So now you're seeing fighters, young boys getting cut in the eyes and the face. You're not going to put your son into a spot like that, but with head guards on, you might. So I think long term, taking the head guards out of boxing is going to damage the sport.

So when somebody does want to fight, come back to what we were talking about, let's say. So let's say they get beat up and they still want to do it.

Yeah, I mean, they can do it. Not our gym, we. More the fitness gym, but the spa. But when someone gets beat up.

But is it like mma, where you can hunt down places where they'll actually, they'll have like amateur fights, so you can just step into the ring after you've been trained, go box.

There's loads of places where you can. Where you can Fight amateur. I wouldn't recommend it, but there's loads of places that way where you can go and fight amateur.

Why wouldn't you recommend it?

Because I don't believe in getting punched in the face. I think it's stupid. And even though I've got punched in the face for a living and now I'm very successful through getting punched in the face, well, you can see that, but I just don't think it's. It's healthy. I would never let my kids box.

So a boxing burn. People aren't getting punched in the face?

No, it's all for fitness, so.

So you're basically hitting somebody else wearing gloves or hitting a heavy bag.

We call it get fight.

We never just, like, put on headgear and get into the ring.

No, we see fight, get fighting. Fit without getting hit.

Get fight and fit without getting hit.

Yeah, like that.

Yeah.

I do a spawn class on a.

Sunday, so you're still getting all the mental and the physiological benefits. You're just not fighting or.

Yeah, we offer a spawn class on a Sunday where people come in and try it, but it's all light and controlled. You know, it's. It's so easy to get concussed, especially when you don't know what you're doing.

You're having your students or any of the Boxing Burn attendees actually get into a fight. Have you ever heard of that happening?

Not really.

And actually been able to use some of the skills they're learning there?

Not approximately. I mean, I've been in a lot of fights. Yeah, obviously, north of England, like, street fight. Street fights, and boxing's really helped me defend myself. But not in the gym. Two trainers have nearly fight a couple of times, but that's what.

Yeah. Did you grow up rough, like. Like, in terms of boxing, was this something that you had to do out of necessity growing up fighting in England, or was this something you took on as, like, kind of a preppy sport to get into?

No, like I said, like, all boxers just. But all boxers are uneducated. Like. Like me. I think I'm one of the only uneducated people you've had on this podcast, because I noticed everyone who comes in is the doctors.

I thought you were a doctor, dude. That's the only reason I might look like one now. You're fired.

But, yeah, I mean, everyone. Like, most boxes are uneducated. And they don't come. They come from rough backgrounds. That's why you see so many boxers when they do make a little bit money, they've Wasted. All, all. I'm a little bit different, I'm a little bit smarter. When I made some money through boxing, I invested it. Like I own lots of properties in England now through boxing and then obviously with these gyms. So, yeah, I mean back to what we were talking about before, I wouldn't, I wouldn't recommend anyone wanting to go there and start trying to fight, especially if you're, if you're a grown man.

But you were undefeated as a boxer.

Yeah, I was undefeated as a professional boxer.

How do you, how are you not like the best if you're undefeated?

Because I got forced to retire. So I was defeated as an amateur boxer. I got beaten in the semi finals of the Olympics.

Okay.

I would have been gold medalist as an amateur. Yeah, I would have been gold medicine. I got the bronze medal in the Beijing Olympics and as a pro I was undefeated in temporal fights. But I got forced to retire through hand injuries.

What happened to your hand?

I had a hole in one knuckle and a tear in this tech, this tendon.

Is that that scar on that finger you're showing me right now?

I had surgery, so I got forced to retire. At the time I was devastated. I had no plan B. Like I never finished school, all I knew was boxing. I had a bit of a business mind, so I was devastated. But now looking back, it's the best thing that ever happened to me. Like I said, I've been punched in the face over 50,000 times. If I, if, if I never retired from boxing, that would have been probably.

You'd be in a wheelchair, you wouldn't have two seven figure businesses in LA and real estate back in England.

I would be sitting here right now.

Honestly, like that, Like I write fiction now. I play music, I'm doing some singing, songwriting. Like when I wake up in the morning, I try and do a few things that take into account the fact that I could get hit by a bus, I could be out of fitness, I could be out of health. Right. Like I could get thrown out of this industry at any point and not be able to rely upon my body. Right. Or upon racing. And so I think it's a good idea to have stuff in your back pocket that you can rely on or be able to do like you've done and be able to run a business based on your passion rather than just looking on yourself as like, like, you know, basically being like the face in the name of you. An actual business.

Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, I guess the business is great and now I'm Enjoying life way more now than I was when I was. When I was getting pushed in the face.

And you also have a podcast now, the Bot. Is it good? The Box and Burn podcast.

Boxing Life podcast. Yeah, Boxing Life podcast, which is going well. It's more of a hobby than anything else and I love doing it, you know, and we talk about boxing and life.

Nice. Who's the. Who's the. The most entertaining guest you've had on that show?

Ryan Cullen.

You know, Brian Callan. Why do I know that name?

He's on the Fighter and the Kid podcast.

He's a fighter and comedian.

Okay. It's a huge.

Yeah, yeah, I've heard of this.

He's always on the podcast.

Yeah.

Good friends were Aubrey. Remarkable.

Okay.

Yeah. And he's. He's a crazy about Gary Vaynerchuk on there.

Gary Vaynerchuk? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He's a stood then.

That cat's pretty intense.

Yeah, he is. A lot of boxes and, you know. Yeah, I mean, it's. It's going good. It's something I love to do.

Yeah.

Cool.

Well, I'll link to that in the show notes as well. For those of you want to listen to Tony's boxing, I'm going to have you on there. Yeah. As a matter of fact, Tony's up here in Spokane, Washington, and I think, I believe after we record here, we'll probably take a pee break and we'll record another episode and you'll hear me onon Tony's podcast. But in the meantime, I'm gonna take some show notes for you guys. I'm gonna hook you up with this concussion repair manual that Tony and I talked about and also that telomere podcast that I did. We'll talk about Tony's Box and Burn gyms andand put a link to those in the show notes. That Peak Brain Institute down in la and also thethe professor in the Cage book that I mentioned and any of the resources I can hunt down for you guys in the meantime, Tony, anything else you want to touch on or share with folks?

No, just a little bit more about the Box and Burn Academy, like the education program. If you're a personal trainer with our academy, you get ceus for nasam. Well, you were a personal trainer. You were, right?

Yeah, still am. Yeah. I maintain my certification. I actually still. I train eight people still online.

Oh, you do?

Yeah. So we do Skype and phone and I track their sleep, I track their nervous system, their heart rate variability.

Right.

I write out their training plans each week. So whether they're like, like there's a couple of. There's a pro poker player, semi pro soccer player, a couple of triathletes. And everybody else is like a CEO or, you know, a businessman.

Nice.

Or a businesswoman. And then I also track their. Their sleep. So I track sleep, HRV training and nutrition.

So you're a legit personal.

Yeah, so I still, I still personal train. I'm just taking online. I don't do brick and mortar anymore.

So. Yeah, with our education program, you get CEUs for certification course like NASAM ES IS SSE EFFE.

Yeah.

And a few more. So yeah, I mean, it's great. And it really helps people increase the income with that. So that's my little plug.

Yeah. On that effa we say a F.

F, A. I get. People don't understand me. G is either G. Yeah. They think I say G. Yep. You know, this accent. But this accent's done us a lot of good living in America.

Was it, is it called like a cockney accent or Cockney South?

I'm a Macum, for example, from Sunderland in the northeast.

Okay.

Yeah, cool.

Nice, man. Well, thanks for coming on the show and for Everybody listening in, BenGreenfieldFitness.com boxing and I'll link to Tony and everything that he does. And I definitely recommend, if anybody gets down to la, check out Tony's gym and you have a directory on your website at Box and Burn of trainers people could hook up with in their local communities who've been certified by you.

Yeah, that'll be on the boxingbournacademy.com boxandburn academy.com yeah.

All right, I better find somebody from Spokane. Thanks for coming on the show, dude.

Thanks, man.

All right, folks, this is Ben Greenfield and Tony Jeffries signing out from BenGreenfieldFitness.com have a healthy week. You've been listening to the Ben Greenfield fitness podcast. Go to BenGreenfieldFitness.com for email. Even more cutting edge fitness and performance advice.

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