Champion Boxer Trains With CrossFit Coaching Staff

Robert "The Ghost" Guerrero has an incredible resume.

Robert Joseph Guerrero (born March 27, 1983 in Gilroy, California) is an American professional boxer. Nicknamed The Ghost, he is the current interim WBC welterweight champion. He is also a former IBF Super Featherweight world champion, a former interim WBA and WBO lightweight champion and a former two-time IBF featherweight champion. He vacated the IBF Super Featherweight belt due to his wife's battle with leukemia. Guerrero's coach is Ruben Guerrero. He is managed by both Bob Santos and Luis Decubas Jr.

In case you weren't counting, those are six different championships in four different weight classes.  After going undefeated since 2006, he lost to Floyd Mayweather on 4 May 2013.

Apparently, Guerrero thought part of the reason he lost to Mayweather is that - in stepping up to a higher weight class - he simply could not out-fight a bigger, stronger athlete who is also arguably one of the most talented boxers ever.

He doesn't explain how, but Guerrero happens to know Dave Castro, former Navy SEAL and CrossFit HQ's programming director.  Castro somehow convinced Guerrero to make CrossFit his strength and conditioning program.  Warning: cursing ahead.



Castro chose Brian "Tosh" Chontosh to train Guerrero.

Major Brian R. Chontosh (born 1974 in Rochester, New York) is a retired United States Marine Corps officer who was awarded the Navy Cross for his heroic actions during the 2003 Invasion of Iraq. At the time, he was a platoon commander for Weapons Company, 3rd Battalion, 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division.

You can watch part of a presentation Tosh gave to the American Society of Exercise Physiologists here.



If I could choose anyone to coach any athlete, I think the first thing I'd do is ask Kelly Starrett to identify inefficiencies in his movement and fix them.  Here's a video of Starrett explaing pull-up mechanics.



Tosh did that, but Starrett is the master when it comes to the mechanics of athletes.  Also, boxers need to stay loose to be quick, and Starrett is the the mobility guru.

I like that Castro brought in Chris Spealler.  Spealler wrestled in college, so he's well acquainted with combative sports.  Perhaps even more importantly, the CorssFit Games have no weight classes, and at 5'5" and 150 lb, Spealler is accustomed to using efficiency to beat much bigger, stronger athletes.

You can watch a perfect example of that in this video of the 2010 CrossFit Games event named "Amanda", which pairs two very technical movements, muscle-ups and snatches.


Where bigger, stronger athletes muscled their way through those movements, then fatigued near the end and were no longer able to do so, Spealler's impeccable technique made him more efficient, wasting much less energy and carrying him through the end with what looks like ease (it isn't, but Spealler makes it look easy).

Spealler is also an outstanding coach, which you can see from the Guerrero video.  I really would've liked to see Spealler as Guerrero's strength and conditioning coach.  Anyway, I'm not as familiar with Tosh, but I'm sure he's doing a great job.

My favorite part of the Guerrero video, though, is where they talk with his head coach (and father), Ruben.

I like what I see... he's using his hips.  He's bending, punching up, and that's more explosive right there... And before it was really hard to get him to do that.  He wouldn't really do it.  He would do it, but only when I told him to do it. 

At the CrossFit Level 1 seminar I attended, the coaches preached over and over that the most powerful movements begin at the hips and radiate outward to the extremities.  That is true whether one trows a ball, swings a bat or throws a punch.  Spealler makes that point very clear in the video.  The best way to train that physical adaptation (regardless of ones sport) is to first strengthen the hips using squats and deadlifts, then increase power and coordination with the Olympic lifts.  Sport-specific training then applies the adaptation to the skills necessary to compete in the sport.

CrossFit HQ makes some big claims about what CrossFit can do for an athlete, and they've always insisted on testing their claims.  The CrossFit Games are the ultimate testing ground for those claims, but few world champions have been willing to apply CrossFit to their training.  That makes sense.  After all, if their current programming made them champions, changing it could mean flirting with disaster.

Robert Guerrero will fight Yoshihiro Kamegai on 21 June 2014 at the StubHub Center in Carson, CA, where the 2014 CrossFit Games will take place from 25-27 July, appropriately enough.  We'll get to see then if CrossFit can really make a world champion even better.

Actually, we'll really get to see that if/when Guerrero fights Mayweather again.  Good luck, Ghost!

Can we mere mortals who'll never be world champions at anything learn from Guerrero's training?  Yes.  Tosh evaluated Guerrero's movement, identified inefficiencies and weaknesses, then spent a lot of time training him on technique before going heavy or adding a lot of volume.

CrossFit HQ emphasizes over and over that we should work on technique first, then add intensity, then add volume.  Too many coaches and athletes neglect that progression with disastrous results.  They skip right over technique, jump head first into intensity or - even worse - volume, and injure themselves.  Then they blame CrossFit, even though they failed to follow CrossFit's prescription.

So, remember, whether you're a champion (like Guerrero) or ordinary (like me), the progression and priority goes:

1. Technique
2. Intensity
3. Volume

Happy training!