Profiling The Physiological Parameters of Boxers in The Parachute Regiment. ‘Every Man an Emperor’

This study aimed to collect and identify the physiological parameters that are required to produce winning performances in an army boxing competition. Army boxing competitions are sanctioned and governed by ‘England Boxing’ and consist of three rounds of two minutes with one-minute restorative periods. The Parachute Regiment are an elite infantry fighting force within the British military, with a continued success in the inter-army boxing championships. 22 male participants were recruited (mean ± SD age 28 ± 2 years, stature 178 ± 8.1cm, body mass 79 ± 7.1 kg, BMI 24.9 ±2.5). Body fat %, V̇O 2 max, lower limb power, and 1RM max strength test protocols for back squat and bench press were performed. Additionally, impact punch power measured from rear hand cross strikes, and punching velocities were measured using a linear positional transducer. Countermovement (CMJ) and repetitive (n=10) jump data were collected using a jump mat. The physiological parameters in mean scores; body composition showed body fat 11.8±8.1%: CMJ height 35.5±5cm: Repetitive jump 28.5±5.6cm: Wingate peak power (body mass to power ratio) 11.5±1.6W/kg: Wingate average power, 8.1±1.4W/kg: V̇O 2 max 53±4.8 ml.kg -1 .min -1 : Back squat (body mass to weight lifted ratio) 1.95±0.2kg: Bench press 1.1±0.1kg/BW: Rear cross strike velocity 8.47±0.8m/s: Impact power 15227±2250W. Significant relationships were observed between anthropometric data and power, strike velocity and V̇O 2 max in addition to relationships being evident between some strength and power variables. by the participants in this study. Although punch impact power is an essential performance indicator in boxing, other physiological factors, such as lower limb power and strength have been demonstrated to attribute to the continued winning performances by 3PARA boxing team.


INTRODUCTION
The British Armed services have employed the art of boxing for many years, its beginnings date back to the 19th Century. The Army Boxing Association (2019) state that the Imperial Services Boxing Association (ISBA) Championships was first introduced in 1919 and made the sport an official contest. The format has since developed and now includes an Inter-Unit Team Boxing competition, which involves seven teams that compete against one another and enter a quarter and semi-finals that lead to the finals, which decides the winner, over an annual season (Johnson, 2019).Boxing involves two combatants that are evenly matched against each other by weight and experience and set in a boxing ring that is sized according to the rules and regulations set by the organising association (Englandboxing.org).
The rules of striking an opponent are restricted to use of hands and must be targeted to connect to the anterior and lateral segments of the head and body, with the aim of stopping the opponent by technical or complete knockout. Many fights (often called bouts) last the entire distance, which is three rounds of two minutes with one minute rest in between and the outcome is then decided on points (Army Boxing Association, 2019; Britisharmyboxing.com, 2019; Englandboxing.org; 2022). Points are scored by the number of destructive blows on target, dependent on their quality of the connection and where they land on the head and body, contests are also won by dominating the bout by technique and competitiveness (Englandboxing.org, 2022).
Rigorous training regimes aim to create adaptations to meet the sport's physiological demands, and the boxer with the best physiological status may have the better chances of winning (Barbosa de Lira  . However, this describes one variable of many causalities that can effectively achieve a winning outcome of a boxing bout. Other variables such as psychology, technical ability and experience will all play host to giving the boxer the best chance of success (Halperin et al., 2016). Only a few authors to date have investigated physiological profiles of civilian boxers, but none from within the military. The armed service boxer has many other training commitments, such as tactical strength and conditioning and general physical fitness for their battalion, which may interfere with specific periodised programming goals; however, boxing is used as a tool by the services to improve morale and may augment time to the boxer, to train and decree that as a priority over regular military duties (Army Boxing Association, 2019; Johnson, 2019).
During the bouts the work rate is highly anaerobic, however, there is a reliance on the aerobic system to sustain the boxer throughout prolonged use of muscular power and for recovery between rounds (Smith, 2006;Slimani et al., 2017) (see Table 1). With an efficient aerobic system for boxers, body fat percentages are expected to be low (table  2), as aerobic exercise downregulates serum lipids and lipoprotein levels, which would also be advantageous to the boxer due to the strict weight category they fight within (Barbosa de Lira et al., 2013; Pallarés et al., 2016). A highly adapted aerobic system is imperative for withstanding rigorous intermittent exercise, with the higher demands of Phosphocreatine (PCr) replenishment offered to the working muscles (Beachle, 2016). With continuous bouts of a high-intensity workload affecting the aerobic system due to the length of the rounds to rest periods, insufficient time given to completely replenish PCr and convert lactate to pyruvate for use as an energy source, may cause a detrimental effect on performance (Davis et al., 2013). Therefore, identifying the boxer's capability of producing repetitive explosive movements with short recovery periods is essential for success (Rimkus et al., 2019).     of athletes in their sport is an ideal method to inform coaches. If practical, a needs analysis, with assessments such as the Wingate, VȮ2max, strength, punching impact power and strike velocities that are detailed in tables 1-5 to determine weaknesses/ strengths in the metabolic pathways; if an athlete's biochemical processes are enhanced, the resultant performance should improve. Therefore, this study aimed to collect and identify the physiological parameters evident in a successful Army boxing team. It was hypothesized strength and punching impact power would be closely correlated and the physiological parameters tested would be superior to those in civilian populations.

Experimental Approach to the Problem
This study was carried out to determine the physiological profiles of a military boxing team that had continued winning success at the inter-army boxing championships, giving coaches a better understanding of the needs analysis and improving their programme prescription. All boxing subjects were from the 3PARA regiment boxing team, based in Merville Barracks, Colchester. Ethical approval was granted by the University of East London.

Subjects
Twenty-two male participants (mean ± SD age 28±2 years, stature 178±8.1 cm, body mass 79±7.1 kg, BMI 24.9±2.5) that were of national standard, with a minimum of 2 years training experience and fully carded by England Boxing at amateur level, provided written informed consent to participate in the research study. Tests were conducted over two separate visits separated by a 72-hour period. On the first visit the anthropometric, punch impact power/ velocity and jump testing tests were conducted with the Wingate at the end, whilst on the second visit after seventy-two hours recovery, the aerobic (VȮ 2 max) testing was conducted.

Anthropometrics
Participant's height (Seca 213, Birmingham, UK) and body mass (Seca 761, Birmingham, UK) were measured before testing. Body Fat was measured using Seca mBCA 515 medical body composition analyser (Birmingham, UK) with the method being highly validated and shown to be reliable by Bosy-Westphal et al. (2019) where all participants were instructed to be adequately hydrated prior to testing.

Aerobic Testing
Throughout the test, participants' expired gases were measured on a breath-by-breath basis (Cosmed K5; Cosmed, Rome, Italy), to determine VȮ 2 max. The test started at a 1% gradient and a speed of 10km.h; treadmill speed increased by 2km.h every two minutes until the maximum, selfreported cadence was reached, then remained constant while the gradient was increased by 1% every minute until the participant reached volitional exhaustion. Subsequently, VȮ 2 max was calculated as the highest VȮ 2 achieved during the test, using a rolling 1-minute average. Throughout these testing sessions, laboratory conditions were maintained within a temperature range of 17.5°C to 19.5°C and 35% to 65% relative humidity.

Anaerobic Power Testing
Participants completed a 5-minute aerobic warmup on an exercise bike (Wattbike Pro, Nottingham, UK) at a self-selected intensity, followed by dynamic stretching. Participants then performed a 30-second all-out sprint on the exercise bike, following the Wattbike 30-second sprint program. Peak and average power (Watts) were recorded.

Strength
Participants tested using the NSCA 1RM max test protocols for back squat (3/4 depth) and bench press (90degree elbow flexion). Three attempts with 3minute rest in between were conducted, with the maximum lift recorded. Eleiko calibrated bars with Eleiko competition Olympic lifting bumper plates were used.

Jump Testing
After a five-minute cycle at 60rpm on the Wattbike at level 3 on the airbrake and zero on the magnetic brake, two practice jumps for familiarisation were carried out; after a five-minute rest, three countermovement jumps were performed with hands and the best of three was recorded. The subjects were instructed to place their hands on hips throughout and performed the jump on a standardised contact platform DIN-A3 (Chronojump, Spain) with a 60-second recovery period between jumps. Subjects then performed ten repetitive jumps (RJ) on the multiple jump setting, with hands placed on hips and told to jump on ground contact, to identify sustained jump height mean average.

Statistical Analysis
Descriptive statistics for all variables are expressed as a mean ± SD. Statistical analyses were conducted using IBM SPSS Statistics v.26. Data was checked for normality of distribution (Shapiro-Wilk), with all data being normally distributed (p=>0.5). Relationship strength between parameters was assessed using Pearson correlation coefficients and shared variances were also calculated. Table 6 illustrates the mean results from the testing battery. VȮ 2 max, BF%, and Wingate peak values were all comparable to previously published research highlighted in tables 1-5. There appears to be a relatively large variation in CMJ performance, with this population jumping less (range: 1-9cm) than the national amateur standard presented in Table  3. Strength measures relating to BS and BP are equivocal due to the small amount of comparative data i.e., this particular population were comparable to professional boxers and exhibited lower strength values compared to the national amateurs reported in table 4. In table 5, the punching velocities also produced a large variation with no apparent trend, with the boxers in this study closely placed in the midline of the results seen in previous studies. In summary, 3Para boxing team appear to generate similar results found in national amateur fighters.

RESULTS
The strength of relationships between anthropometric data and performance outcomes were calculated and presented in Table 7. Few, moderately strong relationships were established, with weight being significantly related to impact power although the shared variance was just 26%, indicating that other variables make a significant contribution to strike power. Height was significantly related to rear-hand cross velocity but again, the shared variance was low at 23%. Body fat percentage exhibited a significant, negative relationship with repeated jumps indicating higher body fat levels result in lower repeated jump height; the shared variance was also low at just 18%. Unsurprisingly, BF% illustrated a further significant and negative relationship with VȮ2max and a shared variance of 24%. All other relationships were deemed to be weak and insignificant; shared variance values highlight many other variables aside from anthropometrics, make significant contributions to performance outcomes.    To determine whether there were any other relationships presented within the physiological data, all performance outcomes were correlated. Interestingly, except for the IP: CMJ relationship, all punch-related variables lacked any relationship with the strength and power tests conducted which suggests that BS, BP, lower limb power as assessed by Wingate or jump data make minimal contributions to punch performance in terms of velocity or power within these subjects.

DISCUSSION
From this study, the participants exhibited enhanced physiological parameters to those seen in civilianbased studies (Tables 1 -5). Unsurprisingly, VȮ 2 max moderately correlated with body fat percentages (-.493*), showing the relationship of a high reliance on aerobic activity to produce lower body fat percentages, in line with other studies seen in table 1, which would employ superior oxygen uptake kinetics to the working muscles when producing forceful blows. Body fat percentage is lowered as the effects of a high rate of aerobic training which is seen in this population. A low body fat percentage is deemed advantageous for the boxer due to the weight categories stringent in their application; fat-free mass, or effective mass, has more athletic benefits than fat mass (Rimkus et al., 2019;Lenetsky et al., 2015).
Body fat does not have the capability to produce force; but essentially an energy source for aerobic activity, excess body mass from fat prior to competition could be detrimental to performance as boxing culture accepts aggressive weight cutting prior to weighing in. With up to ten percent in body mass being lost to weight cutting from perspiration, detriments in neuromuscular performance are seen and can be deleterious (Lenetsky et al., 2015). Therefore, with increased fat mass, the boxer would either compete in a higher weight category or aggressively cut weight and lose any benefits expected at fighting below weight ( (table 5), which would identify the need for more research in this area to identify the relationship between velocity and impact power and other variables that identify the reasoning as to why these differences are seen.
The participants in this study demonstrated effectiveness of the plyometric stretch-shortening cycle and muscle stiffness by producing a repetitive jump (28.5cm) that was only slightly less than a single effort CMJ (35.5cm), coupled with excellent anaerobic power and strength, 3PARA boxing team may attribute their winning performances on their ability to sustain a fighting workload. Winning performances are not just reliant on how much power can be produced by punches, many bouts are decided on points as well as stoppages, therefore it is seen that 3PARA continue to dominate the Inter-Unit Team Boxing competition through technical and tactical superiority and competitiveness through rigorous physiological preparation.
The limitations to this study included a sparsity of comparisons with other study's that used the same equipment used when testing impact power on striking force. Whereas, other authors used wall mounted force platforms that are padded and another study used a mannequin with a force sensor attached to the head part, which did not create a rigid platform to assess a forceful strike, which is needed to correctly assess impact forces (Vagner et al., 2022). More studies to assess punching impact using the PowerKube TM would improve an understanding of a standard of striking performance for coaches to assess, due to its reliability and rigid surface without creating injury. With the ongoing discussion and investigation into a reliable measure of effective mass when striking, the authors from this study could only conclude the reasoning as to low correlations of impact power to strength with assumption, although other studies have stated that low impact forces are created by novice strikers due to less upper limb plyometric ability (Lenetsky et al., 2015;Tuner et al., 2011).

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS
With a robust and superior physiological status, boxers will match their performances to that degree, although the variables of technical ability, mindset and experience of the boxer may supersede strength and fitness. However, improvement of the physiological characteristics of an athlete that is specific to their needs will improve their chances of success. Boxing and strength and conditioning coaches should focus on specific strength and power training, focusing on improving the striking velocity with technique, supplemented with aerobic conditioning to improve the recovery rate between rounds. Strength and conditioning should be secondary to technical boxing training but is invaluable and should not be placed on the side-line, for both injury resilience and improved performance; S&C should be placed in a well devised periodised programme that would allow for peaking and recovery for physiological preparedness and readiness for boxing competition.
The parachute regiment boxing team displayed a highly trained physical status, with low correlations to punching performance, indicating that it would be prudent to focus on striking technique within competition preparation that involves striking rigid surfaces such as pads and heavy bags.