Jack Lowe and Mike Smith are two of the best in the business when it comes to training boxers and mixed martial arts competitors. Lowe is the head trainer for world middleweight champion boxer Kelly Pavlik, while Smith works with MMA fighters at Brooklyn’s storied Gleason’s Gym. We sat down with both of them to get some pointers on how to best prepare each area of your body for battle in their different disciplines.

Core Training
MMA
Mike Smith: “MMA fighters need power to lift their opponent up for a takedown. They’re doing more of a lifting motion than a boxer. A boxer wants to work to absorb body blows. Our guys will lay down doing a reverse crunch with a medicine ball, and throw it over their head backwards to a partner it’s the same motion as taking hold of your opponent and throwing him backward in the cage.”
Boxing
Jack Lowe: With our last three fights, we started to do a lot of core training. A prime exercise is putting your feet up on a big Everlast ball right next to what we call a teeter-totter’ (one horizontal board on top of a vertical board) and doing a pushup on the board. While you’re balancing doing the pushup on the board, it kills your abs. You gotta coordinate your feet with your hips and your stomach because your feet are on the ball.”

Legs Training
MMA
Smith: I do a lot of plyometric explosion exercises. Jump on a box, jumping forward, explosive exercises. Sometimes with the MMA guys we’ll strap the bungee cords around their waist and have them explode forward. They’ll sprint forward or they might hop forward like they’re tackling somebody. Sometimes they simulate a single, sometimes a double-leg takedown wearing the bungee cord.”
Boxing
Lowe: We have Kelly hitting the speed bag while he’s standing on the teeter-totter and we throw tennis balls at him. At first I thought it was going to be a lot of core, but he has to try to balance it so hard with his legs. It’s a lot of leg work. And a lot of focus. But it really works your thighs, putting a really tight squeeze when your

trying to hold the balance from the left to the right or vice versa. I tried it and felt a whole lot of pressure right down the front of my legs.”

Chest Training
MMA
Smith: Something I do for the chest is to actually get the guys on the heavy bag straddling the heavy bag and rain punches in a downward motion. Boxers punch from the standup position, MMA punches from the mount. Also, what I do is when you’re on your back on the bottom, pushing a heavy bag off your chest like you’re getting a guy’s weight off of you.”
Boxing
Lowe: Kelly does weight lifting, but he’ll do 700 repetitions just on his chest. I’m not kidding you. It starts from 2.5 pounds and goes maybe up to 35 pounds. That workout takes probably an hour and forty-five minutes. It’s a muscle endurance workout.”

Arms Training
MMA
Smith: They do an exercise called pummeling.’ It’s almost like swimming under your partner’s arms. It’s like a swim move. Your armpits are synchronized with your partners, alternating arms that are swinging. That’s the exact move you do when you’re in the clinch to get the guy in a body lock.”
Boxing
Lowe: We use a fire hose hanging from the ceiling. That’s where it all works in your forearms. It’s four inches thick. You grab that fire hose and just hang for thirty seconds. Do pull-ups or twists like that and you get the country strength like them boys who grab the bails of hay. Kelly’s got big ET hands, but even when he grabs the hose it’s a strain on your forearms. We’ll go two to three minutes of just doing that.”

Back Training
MMA
Smith: We do resistance exercises. You’re on the bottom and your partner is standing over your head but not in a mount holding both of your hands. You’re pulling yourself up towards me - it’s almost like a pull-up - pulling until your body is totally straight. It’s basically pulling a guy into your guard the area between your legs so you can use your legs to submit him.”
Boxing
Lowe: Kelly will get face down on a bench set on an incline, and pull weights back towards him. It’s almost like an upright row, with light weight and a ton of reps. It’s fast; not too fast, but at a good pace to see what his back can endure.