Ariza integral part of Pacquiao's forumla for success


Posted Oct. 3, 2010 at 12:35am
By Ted Lerner






Alex Ariza's new-school nutritional and conditioning methods have meshed well with Freddie Roach's old-school boxing training philosophy. Manny Pacquiao's amazing rise from junior lightweight to welterweight over the past two years is proof of Ariza and Roach's successful teamwork. Photo / Ted Lerner


BAGUIO CITY, Philippines -- Old school, old school and new school.

When the history of the great Manny Pacquiao is finally written in stone decades down the road, those three ingredients must surely make up the foundation of any narrative when trying to explain the hows and whys of this once in a many generation fighting machine.

It’s the first two ingredients in this explosive mix, though, that are the most obvious. The third is not, and is, in fact, relatively unknown, and, lately quite often misunderstood.

The first old school is Pacquiao himself. Pacquiao’s willingness to always fight the best out there, his insatiable training habits, his all action style, and his fearlessness against all challengers make him a boxing purist’s dream come true.

Then there’s the second old school, Pacquiao’s trainer of nine years, Freddie Roach. Roach didn’t have a spectacular career as a fighter, but he did ply his craft under the ultimate old-school boxing trainer, the legendary Eddie Futch. As a trainer himself, Roach has become to boxing what Phil Jackson has to basketball, a sort of Zen Master, quietly imparting his down to earth knowledge and psychology of the sweet science to mold raw talents into consistent winners.

Ironically, it’s the third ingredient on the list, Pacquiao’s strength and conditioning coach Alex Ariza, who has in the last two years helped to turn much of boxing, which is decidedly an old-school sport, on its head, and challenged nearly every notion of how to approach the sport. In clear complicity with these two old-school legends, Ariza, who joined Roach three years ago and helped Pacquiao for his fight with David Diaz, has been responsible for taking what was already an incredible fighter and doing things with him that were never thought possible; Pacquiao’s almost unheard of ability to move up in weight and still maintain (perhaps even increase) his already awesome speed and power.

It’s an unusual phenomenon that has people everywhere shaking their heads in wonderment, with some claiming that nobody can so easily go up in weight and do the things that Pacquiao has done. Legitimately, anyway. It’s led to accusations that surely Pacquiao must be on steroids or other illegal performance-enhancing drugs.

“It’s a compliment,” said Ariza of the lingering PED claims, while watching Pacquiao shadow box on the second day of camp at the Shape Up Gym in Baguio. “We’re doing such a good job, people just can’t understand it. They think it has to be something else. It HAS to be. People think overnight he (Pacquiao) turned into this relentless monster. But it took him two years to get to this point. The truth is that it’s just hard work, and we have a great team.”

Hard work it is, indeed, with a punishing training regime that leaves any and all onlookers in awe. But behind the seemingly endless hours of old school physical toil that are hallmarks of Pacquiao’s workouts, lies a modern and very scientific program designed to develop and maximize Pacman’s unique gifts. But the question still remains: how do you take a guy who as a fighter is a natural 140 pounder, and whose walking around weight is 146-148 pounds, and turn him into a perfectly tuned fighting machine ready to do battle with much bigger men such as Oscar De La Hoya, Miguel Cotto, Joshua Clottey, and now Antonio Margarito? The way not to do it, Ariza says, is to go old school.

“We saw with Kelly Pavlik when he tried to move up in weight,” he said. “He lost everything. He went flat, he couldn’t move, he couldn’t get up. Science has to play a role in a sport that has an old-school mentality. That’s why Freddie Roach is such an exceptional trainer. Even though he’s got old-school teachings, he pulls in the outside-the-box stuff, the more scientific comprehensive ways of training. He knows that just running five miles a day is not going to cut it, especially being such an offensive trainer that he is. You have to have that high intensity, that high level of efficiency to be able to carry out his kind of game plan.

“We’re building a body that normally doesn’t carry that kind of muscle on it. Putting on six pounds on a guy like Manny Pacquiao is like putting on 20 pounds on a normal person. That’s why when he takes his shirt off at the weigh in and he looks so ripped, people think he’s on steroids.”

Forget about the intrigues of what may or may not be inside Pacquiao’s water bottle. Ariza says; “It’s just a mixture of over the counter herbal supplements that will serve Pacquiao without any side effects such as crashing or jitters or upsetting his stomach, because he has a very sensitive stomach.

“My job is to take him where he’s never been before. Where am I going to be able to build muscles that he’s never used before, and it doesn’t hold us back? It’s going to be functional, it’s going to compliment everything else that we’re doing. We have to start building muscles that he’s never used before. Functional muscles of course. “