Pacquiao’s training shifts to higher gear
MANILA—Conditioning coach Alex Ariza said he was pleased when Manny Pacquiao broached the idea of swimming once the pound-for-pound king and his team pitches camp in Baguio City.
Team Pacquiao left for the country’s summer capital Sunday looking forward to stepping up preparations for the Nov. 13 bout against Mexican Antonio Margarito in Arlington, Texas.
Ariza said Pacquiao “brought up swimming” before the team left for Baguio City, adding “that’s always a plus.”
“I believe there is no better conditioning than to hit the pool,” said Ariza, who added that aside from swimming, he has already compiled all the equipment needed to whip the Pacman into a mean fighting machine.
The strength guru wove swimming into Pacquiao’s training regimen last year as a Plan B when a tropical storm wiped out part of the road work phase of the Filipino icon’s preparations for his historic fight against Miguel Cotto.
“I swallowed a lot of water,” Pacquiao told a TV crew then, and has always been against the idea of using swimming for cross training.
Roach and Ariza said “everybody is happy now” with the trip to Baguio City, which effectively removes the camp from a lot of distractions, including traffic.
Pacquiao showed no signs of what seemed to be a recurring problem in his left foot during a torrid mitts session with Roach. But Ariza said he’ll still have a look at the muscle injury “because that’s just me and I don’t want there to be any problems.”
Ariza explained that the injury is probably an “aggravation of the nerves in the foot. Sometimes when there is too much pressure on the front of the foot the instep gets aggravated and it swells.”
“I just want to make sure that Freddie can do his work and my job is to fix those things and treat him.”
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