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Building Dempsey’s Hook: The Loaded Phase by Mark Hatmaker


[The following is excerpted from our upcoming book Boxing like the Champs, Round Two. We go into greater detail and provide visual reference for the drills + a few more on ESP RAW 199. The RAW Subscription Service is where the textual abstractions that are the rubber of the books and blog meet the asphalt-road of the gym/ring/cage. For info on jumping aboard theRAW Crew see here. Next month we resurrect “Scooping.”]


We all know Jack Dempsey had power in those hands. His two fists of dynamite are the stuff of boxing legend.


But…according to his trainer Jimmy DeForest he didn’t start out that way.


DeForest thought he was tough, a good-worker, but what impressed him most was his legs. The power from the hips down. [While he was impressed with the power, he was less impressed with their agile mobility, we’ll get to how he addressed that deficiency in an upcoming chapter.]


He felt that Dempsey wasn’t getting all he could out of his hands power-wise [almost hard to believe] so he remedied the problem thusly. This Mr. DeForest himself talking:


“There are also some tales to the effect that great left hook was made by strapping his right hand to his side and making him use only the southpaw in practice. That’s wrong, too. What I did was put an iron weight in his left glove and made him work from a half to three-quarters of an hour each day pounding the bag.


“The principle is the same as Ty Cobb discovered in swinging four bats while waiting his turn at the plate. When he finally faced the pitcher, that one bat seemed light and easy to handle. When the weight was taken out of his glove, Dempsey experienced the same sensation.”


We’re going to borrow from DeForest AND Ty Cobb to build some Dempsey power.


Six Rounds to Dempsey/Cobb Power

Admittedly six rounds does not get us to the ½ hour to 45 minutes DeForest advises but one can simply double the offered drill circuit and get in the DeForest ballpark.


Ty Cobb Shadowboxing

·        Grab some dumbbells 10-15 pounds and spend 3-Rounds working your hooks and uppercuts.

·        We want to build power but don’t swing/sling hard and fast as the inertia of the weight will start stealing your form. You will begin to build power by mere dint of hefting the heavy weight through the proper motions.


Dempsey Bag Work

·        Don some loaded gloves, 1 pound minimum and no more the two pounds. We don’t want to injure our hands.

·        Spend 3-rounds up to speed banging like Luis Firpo is about to bull you out of the ring.


I recommend these two in tandem and the order offered. The Ty Cobb Rounds will allow a bit of fatigue to accrue but dropping the weight from say 15-pound dumbbells to 1.5 loaded gloves will feel like a snap, whereas inverting the order pays fewer dividends.


Swing like Cobb! Bang like Dempsey!

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