Training from the movie Lefty. How did Billy Hope prepare for his toughest fight?

A sports drama is not always just a classic story about a loser who loses everything but succeeds through perseverance. Sometimes it’s also a story about an actor’s tremendous work in preparation for a role. Jake Gyllenhaal’s story is one of those.

Preparation for the role

The director of the picture wanted for Gyllenhaal filming in the movie became a real boxing match, so that the preparation was supposed to be appropriate. Jake came to the audition with a weight of about 70 kg, and it was not enough to fulfill the role of boxing champion in the welterweight. The American actor had a very famous coach – Terry Claybon, formerly a famous professional fighter. For six months, Jake gained 6 kg of muscle mass, dried up and generally greatly transformed in appearance.

Five months of preparation for the role turned into a nightmare for Gyllenhola. In the morning, he ran 12-13 km, and then went to the gym and spent there, without exaggeration, half a day. Worked out blows, sparring in the ring, doing exercises from Crossfit, jumping rope. And where without 1000 squats in the evening for a good night’s sleep! Special attention in training was paid to Jake’s work in defense during fights, he had to learn how to dodge punches, as it is done by boxers.

Training Billy Hope

The main character of the movie – Billy is a boxing champion, a successful athlete. He has everything for the life of a superstar – fame and love of fans – and everything for the peaceful life of a family man – a wife and a daughter. But his wife dies, Hope retires from boxing, and then child services takes his daughter away from him. In an instant, the hero loses everything. A classic sports drama, but no less touching because of that. His last hope of reuniting with his child is to return to the ring.

To become what he was, Hope re-enters the world of sports and begins to prepare for the toughest fight of his career.

An excerpt from the movie is Gyllenhaal’s character preparing for the fight. Everything is perfect here: Billy is in great shape, aesthetically pleasing arm wraps, beautiful lighting, cool soundtrack, and dynamic shot changes. A lot of the training in the movie Jake repeated in real life in preparation for the role. But there are also a lot of interesting elements, such as tire work, for example. We asked the professional fighter how effective such training is and what it lacks.

Professional fighter of the “Our Cause” league

“The complex shown in the video is really very similar to the training of a professional fighter: sparring, bags, working with a trainer. I would add more OFP. Not the one shown in the video, but crossfit: circuit training, ropes, which all athletes use in their training. If we talk about efficiency, you can burn 1,500-2,000 kcal in an hour when practicing sparring and using a jump rope”.

Why do fighters jump rope?

An interesting detail you may have noticed in the training of professional athletes is jumping rope. Not everyone realizes how an exercise from school gym classes gained such popularity in the world of martial arts.

Damil Sharafutdinov: This is an effective cardio load, which develops muscular endurance, improves coordination. You will start to feel more comfortable during sparring, your legs will feel light. You will develop boxing stamina, as the biggest muscles are in the legs, and during jumping rope jumping, fatigue comes faster. Also, this exercise is very similar to the leg work an athlete does in combat.