Stanley Ketchel, aka, "The Michigan Assassin" was truly one of the greatest middleweight champions of all time. He was noted for tremendous power in both hands which he threw often. Almost any description of Ketchel's punching power penned by sportswriters of the time echoes this one from Bert Randolph Sugar:

"Like Dempsey, Ketchel's defense was his offense. A murderous puncher with death at the end of each arm, Ketchel kept exploding six-inch shells in five ounce gloves until something happened."

An apt description indeed. Ketchel always fought with murderous intentions whether it be in his unofficial 250+ barroom fights or wading through the middleweight division until his untimely murder at the age of 24.

            Ketchel was so confident of his power and conditioning that on five different occasions he fought two men on the same day. On one occasion he fought and out-scored six different opponents in a six-round match taking a fresh fighter for each round. Imagine such a feat being conducted today (or even allowed by any athletic commission).

Perhaps the greatest show of his power and conditioning, if not his grit, was his taking a run at the heavyweight crown then held by the very formidable Jack Johnson.

            Some boxing historians tell us that the fight was a fix, a quasi-demonstration affair to drum up money for the cash-strapped champion-a set-up on the order of a cake-walk. Well, if this is true somebody forget to tell Stanley Ketchel. On October 16, 1909 in Colma, California the middleweight champion met the heavyweight champion. Ketchel gave up height, reach, and weight-35 pounds to be exact (Ketchel's 170 vs. Johnson's 205.) In short, Ketchel gave up every advantage there is as a fighter for a go at the heavyweight champion.

            We are lucky to have an existing film of this fight and the disparity between the two is almost humorous. Ketchel looks like a child going against Johnson, a child in all things except heart. From the opening bell Ketchel wades in looking for his target. The crafty champ toys and evades round after round perhaps giving truth to the "fix" tale, but Ketchel never stopped swinging looking for that knockout. In the 12th round Ketchel finally found his mark on the champ's jaw and dropped the bigger man. The angered champ was soon up and went after the scrappy middleweight champion and dropped him with a punch so hard that two of Ketchel's teeth were embedded in Johnson's glove.

            Fix discussion aside, even in losing Ketchel demonstrated enormous strength and stamina in being able to muster the power to drop such a big man, a big formidable man at that-a man used to being hit by the heaviest and best men in the world and weathering those storms just fine. This knockdown of the champ and his long string of victories let us know why so many boxing historians put Ketchel at the top of the middleweight pack.

            Now just how did Ketchel build up such extraordinary punching power and indomitable stamina? He was noted for running a Spartan training camp with a good work ethic and for the most part his training regimen mimics what you would find among many fighters of the era (and today for that matter.) Roadwork, bag work, floor work (calisthenics), sparring etc. but...there is an unusual feature of Ketchel's training that you will find in very few other champions.

He threw boulders.

We'll get back to the boulder-throwing in a moment but first consider this. Combat sports, whether they be boxing, kickboxing, grappling, MMA etc. all rely more on rotational power than they do strict linear power whether that be the posterior or anterior chains. What I mean by that is strikes (punches, kicks, knees, elbows), throws, takedowns, sweeps, and even cogent submission set-ups utilize twisting, turning, torqueing, rotational power more than they do right angle linear efforts. Any strike worth its salt relies on rotational forces that begin at the ball of the foot and moves upward through the knees, the hips, the waist and finally to the shoulders and arms (if the strike is a punch.) All strikes, all offensive grappling exists in this rotational domain.

            With the above in mind let's consider the domain that the vast majority of our training takes place in. We do push-ups, squats, pull-ups, dips, and other bodyweight exercise, all of which are executed in up-down linear fashion. Back squats, bench presses, barbell rows, kettlebell swings, push-presses, again, all exercises that exist in linear planes that do little to call on or develop the integral rotational power of combat sports.

            All of the aforementioned exercises are necessary and useful to build overall conditioning but perhaps it was Ketchel's adherence to heavy rotational work that allowed him to be valued so highly in his own division and to be as surprising as he was at such size disadvantage. With that in mind, let's get back to Mr. Ketchel's boulder-tossing.

            In addition to the boxing conditioning stand-bys, Ketchel would spend one hour each day throwing boulders. One hour! He didn't simply clean them, press them, deadlift them-he threw them. He would pick up a boulder and throw it as far as he could. Move on to the next- rinse wash and repeat until his hour was up. One can't help but make the assumption that this diligence and adherence to rotational specificity may very well have contributed to Ketchel's astonishing punching power and stamina. Let's consider how we might adapt Ketchel's method to today and build our own rotational power.

Now many of us may not have spare boulders lying around the gym, but if you do you know what to do. If not, try the following.

• Grab as many slam balls or medicine balls as you have on hand (if you have only one-make sure it's a heavy one just know that piece of gear is going to get a lot of use.)

• I use a line of four slam balls a 20#er, 30#, 40#, and 50#.

• I place them all in a line behind Cone A.

• I mark off 10' (don't go for more than that, as you lose your "freshness' 10' becomes more than enough distance.)

• Set your timer for 30 minutes-I did 30 minutes assuming I'm only half the man Ketchel was, and that's being generous.

• Pick up the slam balls anyhow you desire, and toss them anyway you desire push-pass, swing toss, granny toss, overhead toss-your call, but mix them up-making sure they cross the 10' line of Cone B.

• Walk over and send them back home over the line at Cone A.

• Since we're only playing half the time that Ketchel did try adding a set of 10 Penalty Burpees for each "boulder" that falls short of the 10' line. I find being honest with your penalties keeps your quality of work high.

Whether this turns out to be the key to building Ketchel-esque punching power or not, there's one thing for certain, it can't hurt, well, hurt beyond sore muscles.