The most inspiring thing about ‘Rocky’ movies was not their content. It was the fact that an unknown decided he wanted to write, then star in, his own movie, and set about training like a contender in order to look like one. The authorial equivalent of Sly Stallone is Gary Todd.

Anyone with the sheer effrontery and drive to conceive a book, talk his way into the front doors of the most famous fighters on the planet, sweat over a hot word processor, then convince someone to publish the result, is worth reading.

That might not be good enough reason to purchase ‘Boxing’s Greatest Workouts’, but there are plenty of others. Just think: millions purchased ‘Jane Fonda’s Workout Book’ to get just as fit as – Jane Fonda! Todd is at least the real deal. He himself is a student of boxing; a fit, hard man brought up on the mean streets of Dundee (Todd is not too shy about including a few pages of autobiography by way of introduction).

Boxing boasts the fittest men around, and Todd has compiled the routines of some of its greatest. The meat of the book itself – the workouts – contains little by way of narrative, but its at-a-glance format is as practical as any aspiring boxer or fitness fanatic needs it to be.

I would have liked to read more about the reasoning behind some of the regimes. Why, for instance, does Kostya Tszyu rise at 7:00 for roadwork, while most champions began at 5:00? Why do some eschew red meat for their entire career while others chew two or three monster steaks per day? Were their regimes tailored, or standard for all stablemates?

Now he’s attained his dream of publishing a book, Todd, a construction worker, can use the additional information from the men he met – men like Aaron Pryor, Jones Jr, Ken Norton, Ken Buchanan, Nigel Benn, and our own champions, Fenech, Jeff Harding and Tszyu – to write a second.

The workout program and tips in the final section are informed and thoughtful. He has included a carefully-graduated, easy-to-follow program that caters to beginners, hardcore trainers and everyone in between.

An interesting, practical guide. You could do a lot worse.

Published in Inside Sport, July 2004