It's a Monday evening and I'm in Central London - drenched in sweat and gasping for breath - in a vast square cage situated in the centre of an enormous fitness gym. Dozens of other people - of various shapes, descriptions and sizes - are doing exactly the same (as if that's any consolation). And there's a guy conducting things who looks exactly like Sylvester Stallone in the first Rocky Movie, who's busy barking instructions and forcing us to do dozens of deep squats which have turned everyone's legs to jelly. It would appear from the size of this masochistic crowd that white collar boxing is growing rapidly in popularity - especially in the bigger cities...

The aim of this month's article is to investigate the conditioning benefits of boxing training for martial artists and also to provide some ideas on how to incorporate such training into the average martial artist's regular schedule. Of course, the assumption here is that there is, indeed, benefit in taking up boxing training. I'll commence by outlining what I believe the major benefits of boxing training are for the average martial artist before going into more detail about white collar boxing and how we can potentially make use of it to better our training and our conditioning.

The most obvious benefits of boxing training for the martial artist are the following:

• Boxing is probably the best way to learn how to punch efficiently and effectively. It cuts the skill of punching down to its bare basics. Professional martial artists often do separate boxing sessions to focus purely on developing their basic punches - and if it's good enough for them, it's good enough for everyone else. More experienced readers will know that the movements from pure boxing, especially some of the evasive bobbing and weaving methods, are inappropriate for freestyle fighting because they do not take the possibility of knee strikes (and various other possible martial arts attacks) into consideration. However, the role of boxing in a martial artist's training routine would be to focus on getting the best out of basic punches.

• The full-contact approach to using one's hands for fighting is especially pertinent for self defence preparation because there are times when the use of kicks is not possible in self defence situations, so the hands are often the main sources of offense and defence. Full-contact training approaches are generally learned faster because trainees quickly correct defensive and offensive mistakes.

In addition to those obvious benefits of boxing training for the fighter, there are others - more closely aligned to physical conditioning - which are probably even more important as reasons why a martial artist would want to do pure boxing training. These are:

• The major basis of pure boxing training is the development of the fighter's conditioning.

• Two main aspects of conditioning are referred to here - overall fitness conditioning and technical conditioning.

• The constant drilling of specific defensive reactions and punching combinations, through practicing in-fight scenarios over and over, hard-wires the nervous system to make the fighter's responses virtually automatic. This is technical conditioning and is something all martial artists must do.

• Much of the routine training activity in a boxing gym is focussed around survival for at least 12 rounds - and from the first second to the last second of each individual round. By "survival" I mean the ability to perform at - or as close as possible to - the fighter's maximum ability. Boxing matches are often won in the last few seconds of a round - or even in the last few seconds of a bout (as seen recently in the fights between Carl Froch and Jermain Taylor and Ricky Hatton and Manny Pacquiao). For this reason, lapses in form, concentration, or performance are unacceptable. The same is generally true for self defence confrontations. If you don't fight correctly in your training you will be exposed in fast-moving self defence situations, when deeply-drilled reflexes and your conditioning levels are generally all you will be able to rely on for survival (and when you only get one chance to do things correctly).

Now here is the key reason why I have written this article:

The wide variety of conditioning techniques used for boxing training will mean that the fitness obtained from training is fully transferable to your martial arts activities. Boxers are at the pinnacle of general athletic fitness. No other type of athlete is fitter than a properly trained boxer. Although professional martial artists generally train in the same way and are equally fit, the majority of everyday traditional martial arts clubs do not put as much emphasis on basic overall conditioning as the average boxing club would. For this reason alone, most average martial artists, going to traditional martial arts clubs, will benefit from incorporating some separate training at a boxing club.

Now for the role of white collar boxing in all this. Traditional, sanctioned, amateur boxing clubs are only interested in young fighters who will compete for the club to win various amateur titles. They have no interest in fighters who will not make it to the top in competition.

Not every martial artist wants to be a champion in the ring - in fact, the majority do not. For this reason the main aims of boxing clubs and martial arts clubs are totally different. This is where white collar boxing clubs come to the fore. White collar boxing is normal boxing in practical terms, but it's done in the format of a martial arts club in that fighters train for fitness, confidence, character-building, self defence - or competition - but they have the choice. So through white collar boxing you can learn the trade of a boxer and still tailor this training to meeting your personal and martial arts aims.

At this point it is critical that I remind readers of the fact that I believe boxing to be a noble sport with high ideals, which is beneficial for the characters of its participants. But the main difference between boxing and martial arts is that boxing is primarily a sport - martial arts is primarily a way of life. Although both disciplines have overlapping similarities, martial arts training extends far beyond just the sporting aspects of competition.

Enough said, let's now look at how to incorporate white collar boxing into your martial arts training (and I'll give you a flavour of what you might expect to experience in a well-rounded white collar boxing gym).

The good thing about boxing training for a martial artist is that it need not be very frequent. However, it must be regular. Once a week - or once a fortnight - is good, depending on how much dedicated handwork you do in your normal martial arts classes. If your martial arts classes don't do a massive amount of dedicated handwork (including hands-only sparring) you will need to do more regular boxing than someone who does a lot of hands-only training and sparring. I think once weekly is a reasonable frequency of boxing training. 

It is recommended that you use a boxing club (or white collar boxing club) if you can find one, rather than training at your martial arts club and doing hands-only training sessions. The philosophy and approach of a specialised boxing club is different to a martial arts class and not many martial arts instructors have genuine boxing gym experience. The hand fighting martial artists do is effective in a freestyle fight setting, but a mixed martial artist who doesn't do pure boxing is unlikely to be able to box as well as one who does. The specialised nature of the boxing training improves the coordination and timing of the hands in a way which makes a huge amount of difference to knock-out ability.

In an idea world a martial artist should be comfortable using isolated sets of weapons exclusively - this refers to being able to fight confidently without any use of the hands, or without any use of the legs for attack, or without using strikes - and so on. If you can use all your main weapons in isolation, then you will be very formidable using them all at your convenience. Of course, when given the choice, a fighter should always fight in the way most comfortable to him/her - but more importantly, fighters must fight in the ways most appropriate to the particular circumstances under which a fight takes place.

Purification of all the different fighting methods will give the fighter this sense of preparedness. Being prepared for all possibilities is an essential part of the ethos of martial arts (and religion) - you do not know when your skills will be called upon and you may only ever get one chance in life. Make sure you are ready for your one chance, your single crucial moment in time - this philosophy applies to every aspect of your life.

The main advantages of pure boxing training have been outlined earlier in this article. However, the conditioning benefits of traditional boxing training are immense. Most boxing training relates directly to conditioning of some sort. Endurance and speed-endurance are almost always drilled in every boxing session you will ever do. Normal boxing sessions are designed to run the fighter into the ground. You must not leave a boxing session feeling comfortable and having trained within your limits - boxing training is designed to end in failure. This conditioning aspect of boxing training philosophy is of great benefit to the martial artist and is only possible in boxing because the technical requirements of the sport are so much less complex than for the typical martial art.

However, you will never reach your true potential in martial arts if you train all-out, all the time. Some training needs to be purely technical and at a sedentary pace (in cardiovascular or power terms). There are more aspects to focus on in overall martial arts training (things like forms/Kata, set sparring, grading, philosophy, etc). Also, the levels of physical demand are more complex in traditional martial arts training (a jumping, spinning hooking kick - for instance - is infinitely more technical than throwing a punch and takes more practice to learn). In other words, not everything in pure martial arts training correlates directly to survival in a fight. This is probably the greatest advantage of boxing training for martial artists - everything you do in the boxing gym relates directly to the fight (and to survival and triumph in the fight).

This sort of focus is great for improving fighting instinct (mental conditioning) - as well as for physical conditioning. Your limits are tested every time you do boxing training - you should barely finish the sessions. If the boxing session seems to be physically manageable the trainer usually cranks up the pressure, by intensifying the conditioning training you do at the end, to ensure you almost crawl out of the gym. This pressure testing technique is commonly used for mixed martial arts training as well, nowadays, because it shocks athletes out of their comfort zones (which is good preparation for fighting). Training should always be more physically demanding than the actual fight, or you risk being exposed at the time it counts the most.

This brings us onto the final part of the article - the actual training experience at a white collar boxing gym. You will probably find that the facilities differ from place to place and it is a good idea to take your time to find a reasonably authentic white collar club to train at. White collar boxing is not the same as "Boxercise" and other fitness programs which rely on boxing-type simulations. It is about training as a boxer, in the standard manner (without actually being registered and ranked with the Amateur Boxing Board and without being part of the international Amateur Boxing system).

For the purposes of this article I went to Central London to train at one of the modern offerings available - The Boxing Clinic. The Boxing Clinic is a modern white collar boxing club (linked to a sister MMA club) and it enjoys a huge following. The club was situated in Covent Garden at the time I trained there - but was about to relocate to bigger, more purpose-built facilities in Islington (which will include an 18-foot boxing ring, a 30-foot cage for MMA and 20 assorted punching bags - alongside the usual training aids). They offer a wide variety of classes, including sparring-only sessions and even outdoor training sessions (early on weekday mornings) in Regents Park!

The Boxing Clinic instructors are Graham Boylan (the founder who looks like Rocky!) and Paul Hines (with more of an MMA background). Both active fighters in boxing and MMA - something they say they do in order to maintain the club's authenticity. They regularly stage their own fighting league bouts in which white collar fighters from the club ranks (hundreds of different fighters are registered with the Boxing Clinic) are carefully matched to prevent mismatches and protect the fighters.

Because of the fact that boxing is mainly a sport - aimed at winning championships - many white collar boxers will find it lacking in much of the sense of direction and spiritual purpose that most martial arts provide. That is okay for martial artists who venture to the boxing clubs to work on hand skills and fitness, but it poses more of a problem for the average white collar boxer. To address this, the Boxing clinic has developed itself along the lines of a martial arts club in that sense, by providing a boxing grading system to give fighters goals, landmarks and standards to aspire towards, in the absence of title ambitions. This system has been cleverly designed and makes good sense for those who enter white collar boxing without martial arts support goals or fighting ambitions. It is focused on boxing techniques, drills and conditioning - as well as the ability to hold the pads and drill other students correctly.

It appears most people who join white collar boxing do so for fitness and confidence reasons - much the same as the bulk of martial arts club members. They usually don't have any fighting ambitions but many seem to gravitate towards competing when they realise how quickly they progress. Boxing, like most full-contact disciplines, is learned very quickly. Most people can reach a decent standard in just a few months and one of the white collar boxers training with us on the night I was in London - Dan Hine - has only been in the sport for a year (after doing about nine months of kickboxing, previously). He is already their middleweight champion - despite starting training at the age of around 25 years old - and the slickness, coordination and speed of his hands puts mine to shame (give me a break, I am, at heart, a Taekwondo man - hands have been secondary for most of my life!). Many white collar boxers are in their 40s and such people would have no access to traditional boxing gyms which have little interest in anyone who isn't starting as a teenager.

However, I think Dan's case study illustrates the gains many martial artists will get from boxing and the reason why many very experienced martial artists do boxing sessions every week. MAI Editor Bob Sykes tells me he does regular boxing sessions every week and the gains of this were quite evident in his most recent fights at the Clash of the Titans event in 2008 - where he was able to overcome much larger, younger opponents (despite a long-term knee injury and recent knee surgery) by relying heavily on boxing combinations and manoeuvres - and also a very high punch work-rate.

Although we do lots of hand drills in martial arts classes, the purity of such training is not always the same as you'd get at a boxing club and the blending of hand and foot combinations is totally different to just drilling the hands alone - in much the same way that the foot techniques in Taekwondo are often of a higher level than those in more generalised martial arts because often Taekwondo students do sessions of kicking only - and nothing else.

Now for the actual training session I had with Graham and Paul - which would represent a typical white collar boxing session:

• Commence the warm-up with skipping rope drills and some shadow boxing - nothing too different to MMA or kickboxing at this stage. This is done at an ever-increasing tempo, so that by the end of the 10 - 15 minute warm-up you are already working on your cardiovascular conditioning and will be sweating.

• Move onto pad-work, beginning with very simple combinations and increasing the length and complexity after each swap of the pads. Reflexes are drilled here - because the instructor shouts out which drills should be done - but so is cardiovascular conditioning because the workload gets quite high and the tempo is kept high too. Defence is always included in boxing punching drills and you have to respond to simulated attacks by the pad-holder during your punching drills.

• After the pad-work partner drills are introduced, focused on just one or two specific combinations and still incorporating the aspect of defence because the partner is required to counter during every drill practiced. Work rate is kept maximal to get your lungs, arms and legs working and also to simulate the sort of extreme fatigue you should expect to operate under in a fight.

• To end off the training session a series of gruelling leg conditioning drills are performed, such as lunge walking around the gym until everyone virtually collapses or is unable to continue. Squats and various jumps may also be thrown in if anyone looks like they may be in the process of recovering from the previous exertions.

• When the lower body is unable to continue, upper body drills are commenced, incorporating various isometric hold poses and push-ups, crunches etc. These are very hard to do when your lower body is not functioning through fatigue and you'll find yourself sweating water and radiating heat like a boiling kettle by this stage! It's good training for the lungs and cardiovascular systems - as well as for raising one's lactic acid threshold.

The training alluded to is intense and you will benefit even by doing this just once every week or once every fortnight - especially if you don't have lots of training time every day and want to get in as much conditioning as you can, without losing out on good martial arts training time. Even one martial arts session and one boxing session a week can enable you to attain a high level of conditioning. You need to look at how much time you have available to train and allocate it to the different activities you require in order to become a complete fighter/martial artist.

Being a fighter is part of being a martial artist - you cannot call yourself a martial artist if you are not a fighter of some sort. However, being a fighter does not mean you have to be involved in competition - and being  just a fighter is not enough for you to call yourself a martial artist. I hope the essence of the point I am making has been conveyed in a way that makes sense. We will continue to look into the multitude of ways in which martial artists can idealise their conditioning in the coming months and I certainly hope the different aspects and options I have highlighted in recent months will give readers useful material for customising their own conditioning routines to suit their personal goals and circumstances. Happy training until then!