Sweaty eyeballs, bruised hands and the worst smell imaginable: What it’s really like to train with a pro boxer

In May boxer John Ryder shared a ring with pound-for-pound great Saul ‘Canelo’ Alvarez. His latest opponent? The Independent’s own Alex Pattle...

John Ryder, pictured, and his coaches put Indy Sport’s Alex Pattle through his paces (Getty)

John Ryder is standing in front of me, inches away, gloves raised, eyes studying the various targets that form my body. A bead of sweat crawls down my brow and slips over my eyelid, slooshing into my eyeball with the sharpest of stings. And with that, I’m wincing before the two-time interim world champion has even lanced a jab at my ribcage.

But if a single bead of sweat was enough to compromise me, it could have been much worse. Just six months ago, Ryder was in the ring with Saul “Canelo” Alvarez, in the pound-for-pound great’s native Mexico, challenging for the undisputed super-middleweight titles as 50,000 locals shouted “Puta!” at him. What’s more, after weeks of working on his nasal breathing, Ryder suffered a shattered nose in just the second round of the full 12. Still, sweat can really sting, you know?

“I felt the crunch of it,” Ryder recalls of the moment when Alvarez broke his nose en route to a decision win, as I speak with the 35-year-old Londoner in the ring after our session of light body-sparring. “Then I felt the blood flowing through my nostrils, and I felt it down the back of my throat as well.” Although Ryder was ultimately beaten by Canelo – most are – he produced a valiant performance, especially after suffering the nose injury and then a knockdown in Round 5. “He didn’t catch me with the hardest shot,” Ryder says, “but I wasn’t as close to the ropes as I thought I was. I thought I could kind of bounce off them.”

His opponent on this rainy Wednesday afternoon is less fearsome, I’ll admit. While Ryder’s day began at 6.30am, as he hauled his hulking frame out of bed and into an ice bath, I began mine half an hour later and in a panic, realising I had two hours to get myself out of London, into Essex, and to the remote scene of my imminent physical punishment.

Ryder warming up by hitting the heavy bag (The Independent)

I arrive at the Matchroom gym, located at the bottom of an unassuming farm lane in Essex, at 9am. Struggling to find the exact entrance, I motion to someone exiting a rather expensive-looking car. “Alright, mate?” I begin, before the figure turns to face me, revealing himself to be former two-weight world champion Nigel Benn. Moments later, having been directed to the gym’s front door by the British boxing icon, I enter and risk tripping on the skipping rope of his son, welterweight contender Conor Benn, as I sheepishly shuffle towards Ryder at the rear of the room. If I wasn’t nervous enough about today’s plan of training with the “Gorilla”, I am now.

Everything Ryder does today, I will do. Well, in a sense. When he finishes skipping rope for his morning warm-up, I trip over the cord repeatedly as I try to muster a semi-respectable stint. I max out at around 10 seconds, though my form is somewhat less slick than the boxer’s. Next up for Ryder is some heavy-bag work, with which he can practise his punching form and footwork. “You think he’s hitting hard now?” asks Greg Meehan, the gym’s mindset performance coach, approaching me from over my right shoulder. “Yes, Greg,” I think; “He looks like he’s punching pretty hard.” “That’s him at maybe 40 per cent,” Greg says, smirking slightly.

Alex hitting pads with Tony Sims, while Ryder trains with Greg Meehan (The Independent)

It’s at this point that I first notice the smell in the room, much of it absorbed into Meehan’s clothing as a result of his own session on the heavy bag. Retired boxers often reminisce about the familiar pong of their old gym, but I’ll be honest: I’m not enjoying the most concentrated pungence of sweat I’ve smelt in my life. Greg is lovely, however, and as our conversation goes on, I begin to think he’s probably the nicest worst-smelling person I’ve ever met.

I don’t have much time to focus on the smell as we move on; it’s time for pad work in the ring. That means Ryder practising combinations with head coach Tony Sims, while I climb through the ropes, feel the surface of the canvas beneath me for the first time, and do my best not to embarrass myself while throwing punches at Meehan’s pads. The combinations become increasingly complex as we go. “Jab.” “Double-jab.” “Double-jab, right cross.” “Double-jab, right cross, left hook.” “Double-jab, right cross, left hook, right cross, slip to the left, hook to the body.” And all manner of variations in between, my arms growing heavier with every shot. Thankfully, I have at least some experience in this realm, enough to slightly impress Meehan and later Sims, when he decides to inspect me himself.

“Most people don’t make it through a round,” Meehan admits, though I can’t pretend the four three-minute rounds I endure aren’t testing at times. While my footwork and form aren’t exactly on Ryder's level, it’s my breathing that arguably stands out as my weakest attribute, even as a 27-year-old who exercises daily. It’s quite easy, you see, to suffocate yourself while tensing up and trying to execute each combination that is demanded of you, only to remember to breathe out in the moments that follow. Steady, consistent breathing is the aim, as Meehan reminds me. Even then, I struggle to oblige, and by the time I finally get a prolonged breather as the buzzer sounds for the final time, my skin is coated in the sweat that hasn’t yet seeped into my once grey, now black T-shirt.

And then...

Ryder going through a neck-strengthening exercise (The Independent)

“Hang on, John,” Sims calls out to the bearded behemoth, who has just climbed out of the ring. “Do a bit of body-sparring with Alex.” What? With no waiver in sight and no excuse coming to mind, I quickly realise there is no way out of this. Before I know it, the buzzer sounds and everything around me vanishes. All that exists is John Ryder, outweighing 140lbs me by more than 30lbs, eyeing up the gaps in my fragile impression of a guard, spearing jabs and straights into my mid-section at will. Thankfully, he goes gently on me. If he was hitting the heavy bag at 40 per cent, and the pads at around 75 per cent, he was barely reaching 5 per cent with me.

At the conclusion of the blockbuster match-up, opponents become teammates again as Ryder walks me through some neck-strengthening exercises and drives me to town for lunch. “Loser buys,” so my scrambled eggs are on Ryder this afternoon. It is a portion that stuffs me to the point that I’m mildly concerned about vomiting during our forthcoming strength and conditioning session, even with two hours until we begin.

When that session arrives, however, I get lucky.

Alex and John engage in some light body-sparring (The Independent)

Perform365 founder Dan Lawrence, who I figure must be in the top 1 per cent of fittest people on the planet, arrives at the gym, his perfect quiff unspoilt by the rain outside, to put Ryder through his paces – as well as super-featherweight world champion Joe Cordina and fresh prospect Jimmy Sains. While Lawrence is kind enough to involve me in the team’s warm-ups and a few weight exercises, his focus has to be on the trio, two of whom – Cordina and Sains – will go on to fight in November. “Honestly, don’t worry at all,” I reassure Lawrence as he apologises for momentarily forgetting that I’m there. “You focus on them...”

It’s not enough, however, to get me off the hook completely. After each exercise the trio completes, Ryder is keen for me to have a go. “Oh, are you sure it’s not too much trouble?” I ask, half-hoping that it is. No such luck. And so Ryder and Lawrence guide me through a series of activation and weight exercises, the latter referring to my body parts by quadrisyllabic terms so foreign to my ears that I can’t in good faith say he’s speaking English – or a language formed on this planet. But he emits such confidence in this tongue-twisting terminology, and such general professionalism, that I trust him explicitly.

When I strain my way through the tougher weight exercises, Cordina mocks me with fart noises. When Ryder finishes tackling those same exercises on the gym’s mezzanine, dropping God-knows-how-many kilograms on the floor, the entire building shakes around us. I fear that the floor might crumble beneath us, dragging the rest of the warehouse with it.

Alex is guided through strength and conditioning exercises by Dan Lawrence, off-camera (The Independent)

Ryder lifting significantly more weight than Alex, as Jimmy Sains, Dan Lawrence and Joe Cordina (left to right) watch on (The Independent)

Lawrence talks the boxers through the exercises with encouragements like “You know the weight’s there, respect it, but dominate,” while I ponder whether a “This one’s really heavy, so give it your best shot, and we’ll evaluate if it’s too tough,” wouldn’t suffice. Then again, Lawrence is used to drawing elite performance out of Premier League footballers, NFL Super Bowl winners and world-champion boxers, so his way also works.

These exercises cap off the kind of day that Ryder will go through several times a week, while others involve laps upon laps around running tracks, or bursts up and down the steps at Leigh-on-Sea. And none of this is to even factor in the nutritional side of Ryder’s routine, which his wife – a personal trainer – is able to help with. Then there is Meehan’s work, which involves everything from Stroop Tests to visualising a stadium full of Mexicans calling you “puta”.

In short, the hours I spend in the gym with Ryder are merely a glimpse into the well of physical and mental discipline and perseverance that make a world-class boxer. As I type these words with throbbing hands, bruised fingers frozen at half-extension, and my aching form cramped into a desk chair, I can’t help but remember the sting of sweat on my eyeball. I’ll take it over a crunched nose any day.

Head coach: Tony Sims (@tonysims_)

Head of mind performance: Greg Meehan (@risemindsetmentor)

Performance coach: Dan Lawrence (@danlawrence365) of Perform365 (@perform365)