On Daily Routines, we profile successful leaders, entrepreneurs, artists, executives and athletes to explore their routines, schedules, habits and day in the life.
At the young age of 26 years old, Claressa Shields is already in the conversation for greatest female boxers of all time. Just look at a list of all her achievements and you’ll quickly understand why. In her amateur career, Shields captured gold in the middleweight division at the 2012 and 2016 Olympics, setting the record for being the first American boxer – female or male – to win back-to-back Olympic medals.
Shields officially made the move to professional boxing in November 2016 and has dominated her divisions, racking up an undefeated record over 11 fights to date – her latest win over Canadian boxer, Marie-Eve Dicaire, to win the IBF, vacant WBA (Super) and The Ring female light middleweight titles.
She became the only boxer in history, female or male, to hold all four major world titles in boxing – WBA, WBC, IBF and WBO – in two weight classes at the same time, and is currently ranked the world’s best pound for pound female boxer by Lineal Boxing Champion and ESPN.
Not content to just stick to boxing, Shields recently announced her plans to compete in mixed martial arts in 2021, signing a three-year contract with Professional Fighters League. Since then, she’s added Brazilian jiu-jitsu to her training routine, working under IBJJF no gi World Champion Roberto Alencar, alongside former UFC champion Holly Holm.
There’s not a woman in this world that can beat me if we put on a pair of gloves and we fight. I’ve accomplished so much. I’m just the undisputed champion — I am great as I think I am and I’ve been able to prove it by taking on these big challenges and beating these girls who they say cannot be beaten.
Claressa Shields: Boxing champion on Flint, food, and being the ‘greatest woman’ | CNN
Claressa Shields’ training routine & diet
For Shields, the secret to success is her preparation; she told ESPN that she typically trains for 7-8 hours a day, a staggering number, even for world champions. “I’m always doing extra,” she says. “Even though the coaches will tell me, ‘You only got 10 rounds,’ me being an Olympic gold medalist I always stay after, I always hit the bag after, I always do pushups and crunches after — or I might even go for another run. For some others it’s probably five or six hours, or maybe even four, but for me it’s seven or eight.”
During camp, Shields focuses on preparing to be the best version of herself on fight night, while letting her trainer, the legendary John David Jackson, figure out game planning for her opponent. She also routinely spars with men during camp, “I love to spar with men – I find that the strength and speed helps me get the most out of the sparring.”
In a 2018 interview with Fight News, Shields described a typical training routine during fight camp:
A typical day in camp can go according to either of two plans. Plan 1 is I wake up at 9 am, make myself a small breakfast (2 boiled eggs, 2 pieces of turkey bacon and some steamed asparagus) or a fruit smoothie. At 11 am I’m at the gym training. By 1:30 pm, I’m at the gym. My workout usually consists of bag drills, mitt work, shadow boxing, jumping rope, speed bag and ring drills. Then I either swim or run at 6 pm the same day. On the days I do Plan 2, I still wake at 9 am and have my breakfast and then 11 am-1:30 pm, I’m in the gym. But right after that, I do strength and conditioning, which consists of box jumps, dumb bell squats, some drills with weights for my upper body, or a four-mile run.
Claressa Shields Training Camp Notes | FIght News
In addition to her daily boiled eggs and turkey bacon, Shields’ diet staples also include grilled meat and fish, brown rice, a lot of vegetables and a daily gallon of water. For her training camp against Christina Hammer, Shields focused on eating more fish — “all kinds of fish from cod, salmon, Atlantic salmon — with sides of asparagus, sweet potatoes, rice or spinach.”
While she maintains a strict diet routine during the week, Shields allows herself a cheat day on Sundays. “I have a cheat day every week in camp at least once,” she said. “I don’t care if I have some Doritos, if it’s a donut, if it was a cream cheese filled pretzel. I have my cheat days, but for my [main] diet it’s very, very strict.”
I started boxing when I was 11, and ever since my whole life has been about boxing. Everything I do has been about boxing. I played basketball so I could be in shape for boxing, I ran track for boxing. It gave me a little joy winning some competitions, but everything I did was for boxing.
How Olympic boxer Claressa Shields got that body | ESPN
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