Now into Week 4 of the challenge and just coming off another Saturday morning session with my one-on-one trainer Dave Trotter. With the echo of what head trainer Paul Fyfield said to us in our post 90 minute thrashing session he gave us the Saturday before, there's no doubt that he's ramping it up now and he want's to see results. It's clear with Paul that he doesn't want to see failure and his post session pep talk leaves us all under no illusions about what he wants to see at the next session this coming Saturday. Nervous? A lot! Maybe just a little. So from this week, my training sessions are now going up a notch and I'll be having 4 sessions a week. It's clear that it's the only way to build up the conditioning to pass Fight Fit Training Camp.

This biggest challenge this week has been managing the injuries. The shoulders, both of them now, tend to play up every few sessions and I put it down to too much enthusiasm and not enough technique. I'm slowly starting to get that in check now and hope that at some point soon they'll both meet in a marriage made in heaven (or at least somewhere where it's nice and sunny and the people are friendly!). The hands are taking a beating though, aching thumb joints, skin off the thumbs and a case of boxers knuckle on my right hand are making training complicated and frustrating. For now, trainer Dave and I are just trying to manage it with some extra foam in the hand wraps and trying to ensure I strike flush with the bags, especially the heavier bags.

I don't mean to sound like I'm moaning, but I am. I honestly thought this boxing biz would be easier than what it is. But it's not. The technique and mental aspect is so critical that you really can't get anywhere with this sport unless you're switched on, it's just that mentally taxing. The physical punishment comes with it and is part and parcel. But lately I have been getting frustrated not so much with struggling with the burn from the training, which there is plenty of, but screwing up my punch, block, duck and weave combinations.

Yep, the perfectionist inside me is kicking my ass right now. But to play my own devils advocate, this is only Week 4 of picking up a new sport, maybe I should cut myself some slack?

In other news, and this is a pretty substantial announcement, this challenge will be extended to 12 weeks. There's a couple of reasons for this:

1. Before I started, I didn't truly appreciate the subtleties of picking up the art of Boxing. This is taking extra time. If this challenge was purely banging out PT sessions, it would be a different story.
2. In hindsight, it's become pretty obvious that you can make fantastic inroads in just 4-8 weeks. But I feel that I would be doing myself an injustice by measuring on just an 8 week program. In reality I believe a 12 week program will communicate the story better and will get me to my goal that I have set in my mind.

In addition, even though this journey will now be for the 12 weeks, I'm confident that I will be of such sound mind and body, that I'll likely carry on my own personal journey long after this blog stops.

Coming up in future posts, we have some more training video on the way and hopefully you'll be able to see a reasonable difference when comparing with my first training video. I'll also have a bit of light Q&A with the guy who's trying to keep my body from falling apart on a weekly basis, Physiotherapist Rob Brandham (he enjoys poking people with needles) and a summary on my 3rd Fight Fit Training Camp for this coming Saturday (29/08).

Till next time, Box on!