http://secondsout.com/news/index.cfm?ccs=534&cs=20858
By Ben Cohen: When a fighter moves up in weight, he must often contend with fighters naturally bigger and stronger than himself. When there are millions of dollars on the line, nutritional expert Mackie Shilstone is the man they bring in to negate those advantages.
Michael Spinks, Roy Jones Jr, and Bernard Hopkins are all fighters Shilstone has transformed, and all have had phenomenal results when going up in weight.
When an athlete comes to him, they are put through a battery of medical tests and evaluated to judge their physical condition. Shilstone then orchestrates an intensive nutritional and exercise regime designed to totally rebuild the athletes' body into a new shape and size.
"What I do is I take them in and check them out from an internal medicine stand point with my medical director", says Shilstone, who operates out of an advanced Health Center in New Orleans, Louisiana.
"I'm part of a major medical center called 'Ochsner Health System'. We have over 350 doctors, we are the largest private provider of healthcare in the State of Louisiana", he continues proudly.
The process the athletes must go through to in order to transform their bodies is rigorous, and require meticulous planning if it is to be successful.
"They come in and they are evaluated. We check their blood chemistry, and we're looking for their overall health. I want to make sure they survive my training. I don't want anyone dropping dead!"
Having been involved in training professional athletes for over 20 years, Shilstone knows how important it is to fully understand the individual's body to assess what they are capable of. And this means taking experts from many different disciplines.
"I evaluate them orthopediacally. I have our orthopaedist look over them with a fine teeth comb for muscle imbalances. Then I have my chiropractor look them over for joint function. Then we measure their body composition. We put them in a CAT scan, and we can see down to the gram how much bone, muscle and blood they have, and then I can determine how I can manipulate their weight."
The tests don't stop with the medical analyses. An array of fitness tests are also part of Shilstones' program.
"The next thing we do, is put them on a tread mill and do a pulmonary VO2 Max cast to find out what their maximum endurance capacity is and I can also find out what their anaerobic threshold is which is their level of stamina, and then I can train them according to heart rate."
And what is the importance of this?
"When I train them, I always train them according to heart rate, and I use a heart rate gage. That's why my guys are never out conditioned."
And having watched a 41 year-old, undersized Bernard Hopkins thoroughly outwork Antonio Tarver for 12 rounds, one can see the logic.
"From there, I do a nutritional analysis. We do a dietary history, and then we can set up a day by day eating plan based upon what the body composition shows from the scan. That's why my plans win. There is no guess work."
What differentiates Shilstone from other trainers then, is his total control over every aspect of the athletes training (other than the actual boxing).
"I saw it when we beat Holyfield (with Riddick Bowe)", says Shilstone. "Holyfield had a massage therapist, a strength coach (a friend of mine), he had a track coach, he had a psychologist, he had everyone, but he didn't have anyone to take control of the whole system. He had everyone pulling for their own reputation, and their wasn't one common philosophy of winning."
Shilstone is also sure to let whoever he is training know, that he is the boss, and what he says, goes.
"When a client comes to me, I make them understand that I am in charge of everything they do. Everything they put in their mouth, every bit of medicine, I am the sports medicine coordinator. If they catch a cold, I deal with it. If they take a vitamin pill we deal with it. I even get in and give input to the trainer. I won't do the boxing training, or get involved with that, but I'll give recommendations as to the amount of rounds, the total minutes of training, how long we are going to fight for. I do that after extensive evaluation of the opponent, the enemy."
Never short of confidence, Shilstone is adamant his particular program cannot be defeated, no matter the challenge.
"It's called the Mackie System. And it's unbeatable. I take command and control. And that's the only way I get involved."
November 30th 2006.
