ANOTHER DAY IN THE OFFICE FOR PACQUIAO AT WILDCARD GYM

By Ed de la Vega, DDS
PhilBoxing.com
Thu, 04 Feb 2010

Representing PhilBoxing, I was lucky enough to be the only one allowed to take still photos as Manny Pacquiao trained today at the Wildcard Gym.

The day was no different from those days when Pacquiao trained for his previous fights at the famed gym.

Today however, Pacquiao was a wee bit late in starting. He did not get to the gym until after 3:00PM.

The team members gave me the reason why he was running late.

Early this morning, he ran uphill at the Griffith Park so he took a long nap when he got back home. Then he had some visitors at his Hancock Park home to entertain. Thus, he asked that the training be delayed just a little bit.

When he came to the gym however, it was all business. Pacquiao immediately proceeded to the dressing room and in 5 minutes was ready to begin the old grind.

First thing we noticed was he was wearing his brand new Nike fighting shoes. Today was the first day he don them for training.

With a full TV crew filming the whole thing, Pacquiao started warming up by doing stretching exercises and shadow boxing. Then Alex Ariza came and help him out with the usual pylometric exercises.

After a while Freddie Roach came up the ring and they did the punch mitts for 10 round, many times ignoring the timer that ended each round.

During the whole thing they were practicing some to the game plan Roach formulated. (Sorry can’t write about them here).

When the punch mitt session was done, Pacquiao went to the double speed bags for several rounds followed by the single speed bag mounted on a special place and labeled with his logo.

The training session ended with the skip ropes and finally a prayer of thanksgiving for the good training day.

From my point of view Pacquiao has not lost his zip. His training seem to be just an extension of the one he had for the Cotto fight. His speed never diminished, and in fact it appear to be far better than the last time I saw him. And punches were booming. Perhaps has Michael Koncz stated, there was not much time between his last fight and this training period. So he still more than 75% in shape.

Source: PhilBoxing.com