After a one-fight hiatus, strength and conditioning coach Alex Ariza has come back to Amir Khan?s corner in time for the WBA junior welterweight champion?s unification bout with IBF holder Zab Judah this Saturday.
In the wake of Ariza?s unceremonious departure from the team last April, Khan admitted he was unsatisfied with his performance against Paul McCloskey. The Brit?s lackluster sixth-round technical decision win paved the way for Ariza?s return and some immediate adjustments.
?I think that we had a longer camp for about ten weeks,? Ariza says. ?We needed to focus more on strength training. The gameplan is to get Amir bigger and stronger slowly but surely as he eventually prepares to move up in weight. Hopefully he?ll be able to generate a little more punching power here against Judah.?
Handspeed has always been Khan?s forte, and before his one-fight absence, Ariza has endeavored to transform his prodigal charge into a more complete fighter.
?I started making changes starting with the Marcos Maidana fight,? Ariza recalls. ?I was hoping Maidana wasn?t going to get up after that first round when Amir got him with that body shot. It?s a fine line. You need to be careful about sacrificing strength to gain speed and vice versa. He?s punching harder now in sparring, and progressing quickly, but moreso than in the past for this camp, we?ve emphasized strength.?
What were the building blocks to harnessing Khan?s strength? Ariza quickly points to his fighter?s anatomy for the answer.
?When I first got him, I felt that he was so symmetrically imbalanced,? he remembers. ?He was so magically muscular for a small guy. He was built up top and had such skinny legs for a boxer. I think that?s what caused him to suffer in other areas as far as range of motion, his balance. His speed and handwork didn?t complement each other simultaneously and rhythmically together.
?Sometimes when you?re big like that you develop this false sense that you can punch through anything and your skills start to deteriorate. You rely more on your power and not on your technique which is what got you to where you are. We had to reconstruct him completely, starting with his speed and then everything else. It took a long time.”
Of course, Ariza first made his name in the sport for his work with the pound-for-pound king, Manny Pacquiao. He cites the ?Pac-Man? as a case study in the importance of a well-proportioned body.
?Manny?s got powerful legs,? Ariza says. ?The thing is that most trainers believe power comes from upper body or shoulders, but power comes from leg and core strength. My program focuses so much on those things. Amir has the speed, tremendous volume, which are things that Manny has. We just had to change some things.
?You know, Manny didn?t become this super big puncher. If you remember his last fights in the lower weight classes, he went 12 rounds with [Juan Manuel] Marquez and 12 rounds with [Marco Antonio] Barrera. When you start to change things and add things, and they complement the other things you do, that?s when things start to happen like they did for Manny and now for Amir. He needs to be complete.?
The proof is in the pudding. Unless you count Shane Mosley?s bogus knockdown of Pacquiao last May that referee Kenny Bayless acknowledged was a mistake (a rare error for him), none of the three big names Ariza is associated with?Khan, Pacquiao, and Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.?have touched the canvas. Many say that you either have a chin or you don?t, but Ariza argues otherwise.
?The big misconception is that people believe that punch resistance comes from building a big neck,? Ariza warns. ?But when you analyze it, the first thing you notice is that when a fighter gets hit, his legs are the first thing to go. Of course, being well-conditioned and being pushed to the limit are things that will build resiliency. But really, everyone that trains with me knows I focus on legs. Having strong, durable, flexible legs are important for enduring punches.?
