By Boxing Bob Newman

The fourth and final day of the 99th WBA annual virtual convention opened with the medical seminar.

The panel consisted of moderator Maximiliano Cordaro, Dr. Nina Radcliff, Dr. Saúl Saucedo and Dr. Jorge Ramírez as well as WBA president Gilberto Jesus Mendoza.

Dr. Ramírez is the director of the World Boxing Academy and he opened with an explanation in the function of the academy.

“The academy is an educational, technical, scientific initiative of the WBA that is first and foremost one that helps update and train professionally all of those who are involved and have a livelihood in boxing. It is not only in our association but any other organization whether professional or amateur whether public or private. So what I mean by updating is updating boxers, coaches, officials, medics, managers and even promoters when this is the case.”

Dr. Nina Radcliff gave a COVID-19 update.

“I appreciate us being able to update where we are with COVID-19. As we know, it burst onto the world stage in the early part of 2020 and everything that we know about it today we learned it in just a few months. So we’re learning day by day, moment by a moment and every day it sounds like there’s something new that we’re learning about this. What we do know is that COVID-19 is a disease of many different unknowns and it’s hard to believe when we look back at just 180 days that this outbreak began. It is spread throughout the world. It’s in every country and it’s affected every country differently for reasons that are unknown. Today there’s about 10 million cases around the world and there’s 500,000 deaths and this number is going to be continuing to grow depending upon the way that our world and our leaders manage this as well as us the people who are listening. We know that COVID-19 has affected all sectors of society. It’s affected the sports world. It’s affected the sport and world of boxing from our gyms to sport and recreational facilities, the stadiums and event venues and the cancellation or indefinite postponement of competition. Boxing- whether it is training or fights and the context of COVID-19 has the potential to produce some serious public health consequences. If we are not planning carefully and we’re not properly managing it and that’s why we’re here today to give you a COVID-19 update so you know what you need to know to stop the spread and how the boxing world has a unique opportunity to lead sports and set the standard for the return of events. We’ve already seen how fights have taken place in Dominican Republic in Las Vegas and it is our responsibility to continue holding the highest standards so that we can continue with the sport of boxing. The world is watching and we need to lead.”

“Today we have no vaccine, we have no treatment. So usually when it comes to health it lies in the hands of doctors and hospitals and nurses. COVID-19 is unique in the fact that to stop the spread, to defeat this enemy, it’s going to require every one of us to do our part. But how do we defeat an enemy if we don’t understand it? That’s why I’m here today to give you an update of what you need to know in order to defeat COVID-19. Symptoms usually appear within 2 to 14 days on average- after you’ve been infected. Symptoms can include fever or chills, cough, shortness of breath, fatigue, muscle or body aches, headache or a loss of taste or smell, having a sore throat, congestion or runny nose, nausea vomiting and diarrhea. What we do know is that in up to 50% of people who are infected with COVID-19, they have no symptoms whatsoever and that’s where it becomes very tricky because if you don’t know you have it, you can be spreading it to other people unknowingly. The other issue with COVID-19 is that a lot of these symptoms, whether it’s a headache or not- specific to boxers, if you get a punch in your head you can have a headache. That doesn’t mean you have COVID-19. So it becomes very difficult to discern or distinguish do I have COVID-19? Is it something else? Am I dehydrated and that’s why I’m feeling tired or lightheaded? That’s what’s become very difficult with this disease.

Dr. Saúl Saucedo gave a talk entitled Fundamentals of Doping in Sports.

“The focus of the WBA is to prevail the health of the athletes and integrity of boxing, clean fights under equal conditions. We base ourselves in forbidden methods and the list of forbidden methods issued by the antidoping association because they group all the substances in different categories. Amphetamines accelerate the nervous system. They can also have the same effect on the heart rate and this is can have fatal consequences. Next we have narcotics which are drugs that are used to treat pain, to relieve pain, but these are also forbidden. Substances which are a very important chapter involve cannabinoids, marijuana. TCH features hydrocannabinol and is at all times forbidden. We know that in many of our cities the use of marijuana is legal. For the Antidoping World Agency and for the international Olympic movement the consumption of marijuana is allowed outside competition periods but during competition periods it is forbidden. Every January 1st updates of forbidden methods and substances are listed- among which is the manipulation and transfusion of blood and blood transfusions. There are certain substances that are forbidden for certain sports. In car racing and archery, alcohol is forbidden in these cases. For the WBA, the health of our athletes prevails.”

“Another issue more recent in boxing is the use of Clenbuterol. Laboratories that have been accredited by the anti-doping agency have identified the value- we know when this is only trace material from contamination and when that threshold is surpassed. When we detect that the boxer has used it to increase their yield, laboratories accredited by the anti-doping agency are amalgamated and have a high sensitivity and specificity in their testing for this purpose. So for an athlete to claim or a boxer to claim that maybe they ate a piece of meat or a cut of meat and this is why Clenbuterol levels were high in the blood work. Well no- they would have needed to eat the whole beef for these levels to be that that high.”

Chris Algieri next spoke on Nutrition and Veganism.

“Boxing is an individual sport but it’s also a team of trainers and people around you- professionals from your head trainers, boxing trainers, your strength and conditioning coaches to psychological and mental therapists that work with you to help you get focused. There’s physical therapists. There’s a number of members of a team that are extremely and truly important for the athletes to be dialed in. So there is actually a team for a boxer and part of that team should be a sports nutritionist. Now the first reason I say that is we have to start treating boxers as athletes, not as fighters. A boxer is an athlete and athletes like I mentioned those other athletes all have a systematic approach to the nutrition program. Boxing is an extremely difficult athletic and metabolic sport. The energetic demands of a training week are unbelievable. If you’ve ever focused or really put any kind of monitors on an athlete like heart rate monitoring, using a scientific approach to monitor how much a boxer burns in terms of calories or moves in terms of their training sessions- it’s above and beyond other sports in terms of their output.”

“Training camps are sometimes up to 12 weeks at a time and the idea of training camp is to be properly prepared for fight night. Another unique portion of being a boxer is that you are preparing for weeks and months in advance for one single event. It’s not a tournament. It’s not a season. You’re fighting, you’re preparing for one event. So peaking and maximizing your training to peak for a specific night is extremely important and very difficult to do. So making sure that you’re fueling properly, preparing properly and adapting to the training is vital. So during this time, proper feeding will allow each of the athletes to train each session to their absolute best and then because there’s so many, as I said there’s so many sessions in one week recovering from an earlier session and being prepared for the next session is very important. Nutrition can play a key role here. If you’re training morning and night and you have a really hard session in the morning and you don’t recover properly for the evening, you’re not going to be the best version of yourself and you’re in your p.m. session and that’s going to ultimately hurt you come to the night of the event.”

“Sports is all about performance It’s all about what happens on that night. So a properly fueled athlete throughout camp will be the best version of themselves. The training applications have been there and now they can go out there and perform to their absolute potential. Of course, nutrition plays a big role with weigh weighing in and then the post weigh in- re-feed, rehydration, refueling so they’re absolutely topped off in terms of their gas tank in order to prepare for Fight Night. I’ve seen plenty of athletes who have had very difficult weight cuts, did not properly refuel after the weigh-in and had a rough night or underperformed on the night of the fight. So it’s extremely important to follow directly through from training camp to making the weight, to recovery, to right after the weigh-in until right before the fight.

“In order to eat properly and be absolutely fueled to perform at your best. The goal of a nutritionist in a training camp for a boxer is to consistently help the athlete reach their personal potential. That’s the goal They make them be the best version of themselves. You’re not going to make them better by what you feed them. You’re not going to not going to turn them into something they’re not. You’re going to allow them to be the best version of themselves and that ultimately is the goal each and every camp. Of course, making the weight is a huge part of the nutrition involved with a fighter during training camp. Boxing again is unique to many of the other sports that I mentioned earlier. It is a weight-restricted, weight class sport. In order to compete you have to pick a weight category. You have to make that weight limit and then and then compete in that weight class. I see so many fighters who are boxing in the wrong weight class. They always think that lighter is better and that if I can make it that’s where I should be.

“That’s absolutely not true. This is where I sports nutritionist on your team comes in and comes in handy because they can assess you in terms of your current body weight your hydration status your body fat percentage to figure out what the best weight class for you may be. Also, just speaking to the athlete, talking to them, seeing them train is very important to understand where they should fall when it comes to the weight categories. Some guys may have it hard set on being this certain weight but when you see them in training camp you see them in their sessions, they don’t have the fuel, they don’t have the desire and it hurts them ultimately. So understanding which weight class you belong in is extremely important and maybe something that a sports nutritionist on your team could help you decide. Many fighters oftentimes will spend the majority of their training camp making the weight and not improving themselves, not working on their skills and not becoming the best version of themselves.

“Like I said earlier reaching the true potential. So we have an athlete who is trying to make weight rather than become a better fighter. The performance on fight night is going to suffer. You’ll often hear fighters say the first fight is making the weight or the scale, because they’re battling to make that weight throughout their training camp. That’s part of a boxer’s job. If a fighter fails to make weight, the fight could be canceled. Then we don’t have a fight at all. The fighter doesn’t get paid and doesn’t get to move up the rankings. Or the fight may go on with stipulations in terms of how much weight they can gain afterward. There’s going to generally be some kind of fine- either paid to the commission or to the opposing athlete. So we don’t want to deal with that either. So there’s a difference between cutting weight and making weight. So cutting weight is what a fighter will do at the very end right before the weigh-in. Whether restricting their food intake, restricting their water intake, just trying to dehydrate themselves down in order to step on the scale. Cutting weight is not professional.

“If you’re waiting to the last week to make weight then you’re doing it wrong and that that’s not the way that an athlete should perform. All the work that you did- you could have had a great training camp. But if you starve yourself the last week it’s going to hurt your performance and all that hard work that you did is not going to show on fight night. So delaying that process is not only unprofessional it’s very ineffective and it’s very dangerous. Fighters often do very very dangerous activities in order to try and make weight. We’ve heard of some athletes losing their lives even before they got to the event because of dangerous weight making strategies, poorly designed dietary strategies. This is where the sports nutritionist can really help. The fighter has so much to worry about in terms of training and recovery and actually the psychological demands of fighting that is it’s great to have someone who’s a sports nutritionist on your team to take care of food. Not having to worry about what your next meal comes from is an extremely important and relaxing part of training camp. I know I’m going to be fed well I don’t have to worry about what I have to eat. I know at the end of this I’m going to make weight. I’m eating to progress myself to be in a position to be able to step on the scale make the weight go out there and perform to the best of my ability. So and this is a big one too. A boxer is a professional and you should be training year-round whether you have a fight or not.

“It is part of the profession to stay in healthy shape, healthy fitness and to stay within a specific range of how much weight. This is a big one and one that is very near and dear to my heart- the actual health of a boxer and how and much nutrition plays a role in that. So first and foremost, boxers are athletes. So any sports-related injury- from rolling your ankle, injuring your knee, hurting your hand, hurting your wrist, tearing a ligament- this can all be exacerbated by having an under-fueled athlete… for several reasons. One- it could be that there’s tissue breakdown because there’s just not enough nutrition for the body to be strong and to recover from training. Two- it could be other nutrient deficiencies like breaking a bone because of calcium or Vitamin D status or lack of magnesium. Then overworked injuries because the nature of boxing training, there is a danger of overuse injury because it’s such a repetitive training schedule and it’s so difficult.

“It’s very important to make sure that your nutrition is on point to keep up with the demands of training. Lastly, we all know what it’s like to be really hungry or underfed or really thirsty. Your mind doesn’t work as well and if your mind doesn’t work as well, your mind-body connection isn’t there and fighters are lost and have injuries. So even something as little as rolling your ankle on the ring can be linked to an under-fueled and cognitively distressed fighter or athlete.”

On veganism:

“What goes on in the week and the day-to-day of a professional or high-level athlete is different compared to someone who works a desk job. So dialing in the nutrition for an athlete is extremely, extremely important. If you are going to choose a restrictive diet, whether it’s vegetarianism or veganism, or as you go to say, keto diets or paleo- anything that is going to be different than how I eat in terms of eating everything you’re going to have to make sure you’re taking a scientific and systematic approach on what you’re putting into your body in order to feel yourself and recover properly.” Algieri went on the explain his opinion that it would be very difficult to be a vegan and compete as a high-level fighter, due to the protein and carbohydrate demands. “I’ve worked with vegan boxers. I’m not saying it can’t be done, it’s just very difficult due to the dietary demands.”

Legendary champion Bernard Hopkins also chimed in as he became a vegan after his boxing career had ended. While he loves the vegan lifestyle (he stressed lifestyle over diet), he wasn’t sure how his career would’ve meshed with being vegan back in the day. “I don’t want to try to find out now, because I don’t want to get that urge again!” laughed the legend.

The virtual dais also included Cross-Fit CEO Dave Castro along with former multiple world champion Robert “The Ghost” Guerrero. Both shared their ideas with WBA president Gilberto Jesus Mendoza about fitness training as a lifestyle. Mendoza, a former tri-athlete and fitness fanatic was enthusiastic about implementing some of the Cross-Fit physical conditioning techniques into the WBA Boxing Lifestyle camps.