MANILA, Philippines - For more than an hour, under the hot morning sun, Manny Pacquiao yesterday did some strenuous exercises that would have made an ordinary athlete faint.
Pacquiao trained at the historic Rizal Memorial track oval, supervised by his strength and conditioning coach, Alex Ariza, who said it’s about time for the boxer to step up.
“We still have four to five weeks to train and it’s time to turn it up. This is the first day of turning it up,” said Ariza of the 31-year-old superstar gearing up for a Nov. 13 fight.
Pacquiao burned rubber with his speed drills, shadow boxed and did hundreds of crunches, but was even more impressive with the lung-busting interval strength exercises.
Interval strength training, also known as high-intensity interval training or HIIT, consists of intense repetitions of exercises like jump squats, plyometric pushups or dumbbell swings.
Rest periods, some lasting only 10 seconds, are sometimes spent doing less intense workouts. In short, HIIT was formatted to increase cardio and strength, and wear you out fast.
Even strong athletes normally fall to the ground to catch their breath after trying HIIT for the first time, and would feel the effects the following day, their bodies sore and aching.
Pacquiao skipped gym work yesterday afternoon to be in a meeting with President Aquino and be able to spend a couple of hours in Congress, and probably catch up with some of his duties.
Pacquiao left his training camp in Baguio City last Saturday, and led close to 120,000 runners in a cause-oriented footrace the other day. He was scheduled to return to the City of Pines last night.
Ariza said eveything’s in place, despite the fact that Pacquiao seemed to be taking it easy, playing basketball in Baguio almost every night, and opting to skip roadwork the following morning.
Last week, he also skipped his gym session because of some viral infection. But Ariza, and chief trainer Freddie Roach, said it’s all part of the camp, and things will get more serious from hereon.
“If we started too soon Manny would have been burned out by now. Manny sure knows how to pace himself. After this, we head back to Baguio. We’re turning it up now,” said Ariza.
Source: philstar.com
