I was so delighted to return to the ring and compete in Queen of the Ring and the Aussie Masters games back in October 2025. Having gone nearly a full calendar year between fights, I was feeling a lot of doubts and fears creep in, but as usual these all disappeared at first bell. What I didn’t anticipate was breaking my thumb in round two of the second fight. This severly limited my ability to box at all, and pushed me into an involuntary off season-lucky for me, I was able to turn this injury into an opportunity, and gain a few good insights from the experience.
Initially, I was absolutely heartbroken when I got the news that my thumb was indeed broken. It was so incredibly frustrating, especially when added to a pretty dramatic post fight come down. I had just grabbed two pretty solid wins, one of which was over east with a big team-great vibes. I was super flat for a few days, and really struggled with that come down, I would say it was easily my worst to date, ampilifed by my inability to get into the boxing gym and do the main activity that reliably boosts my mood.
Strength focus
After a week or so of wallowing in my misfortune, I got in touch with my strength coach, the incomparable Chris Creek. We had the movement restriction instructions from the Doctor, and I was fitted with a completely rigid splint on my dominant hand, so I couldn’t grip a barbell.
Chris worked up a plan heavy on the cable machines, using things like a Multi-Angle Grip (MAG) for pull exercises, and the safety bar for my squats so that I didnt need to grip anything with my thumb. We utilised machines for shoulder and chest press, rather than free weights.
The emphasis was on lifting as much as could to get a really solid strength base while we had the time to do so. I quickly realised that because my body wasn’t carrying massive accumulated fatigue, I was able to lift the most phenomenal loads.
A typical training week for me during the year includes 8 or 9 hours per week of boxing-sparring, pads, shadow, bag work, drills. So, while I had this injury, I was completely unable to strike or block. The only thing I could do was head into the gym a few times a week to go for a run and shadow box with the fight team-a huge difference in cardio load on my body. I hadn’t recognised how much boxing impacted my ability to load up on weights, so this was an interesting discovery.
Nutrition
Alongside the big lifts, I spoke with my wonderful long term nutritionist, Liana Nici, about how to adjust my nutritional approach to support what we were changing on my training plan. I wanted to be really intentional and get the most of this forced break from boxing.
Even though my cardio activity had dropped dramatically, we actually put my calories up-especially the protein. I accepted that weight gain was going to occur on the scales, and got stuck into the creatine and protein shakes.
At first I was experiencing mega discomfort with eating more, both physically and mentally. Then I started to notice body compostion changes. One of the good things about being 5 foot 2 is the visible muscle gain after a relatively short period of time. My remedial massage therapist noticed it after a fortnight, and I could see it in my clothes as well.
I had to strongly resist the desire to cut my calories as my weight increased on the scales, trusting the process with more protein and more calories even though I was moving way less in terms of my cardio. Listening to both my nutritionist and my strength coach on this front really helped, also reminding myself that it’s pretty difficult to lose weight and gain muscle simultaneously-they are opposing actions.
I have seen that over the xmas period, even though i have relaxed off and eaten way more than my usual intake, have very little bloating and discomfort, and no weight gain. My metabolism seems to have increased, which makes sense given how much muscle i have gained. I think that if were still boxing, I would not have been able to get the gains out of lifting that I have. I also sense I would have felt how slow i was when sparring, and that would have made me pull back on my cals to stop myself gaining.
Mental health break!!
Frankly, getting out on the piss and eating more meals out with family and friends did remarkable things for my mental health. I felt more connected with people outside of my training family, and that was great.
Not training 5 days a week for a couple of hours, plus adding in travel time to my boxing gym, meant I had more time in the evenings. I read more, watched a few shows on Netflix, got a little more sleep. All things that were harder to squeeze into the schedule when I’m boxing full tilt.
Overall, running and lifting has meant way less mental load than boxing. This is not to offend people who are advanced athletes in these areas-please don’t misunderstand me. Lifting definitely demands skills and concentration, it is just not as rapid or complex as sparring. Guys, barbells don’t punch you, either-that’s quite nice.
I literally had more juice in the tank mentally, as I wasnt burning through it in the boxing gym any more, and this gave me the chance to reflect more deeply on what I wanted to do in 2026 with my training and competing.
The eventual return
When I eventually got back to sparring and drills in the new year, I felt refreshed and energised and really engaged in my boxing training in a way that made it feel new and exciting. It was pure joy to be allowed to hit the bag and to do pad work again, and my sparring was, bizarrely, sensational. I had no feeling of rustiness, of needing to regain my previous skills. If anything, I was sparring better because I wasn’t overthinking, I was relaxed and just enjoying the moment.
Having looked at the opportunities for fighting this year, which are as usual dismally limited for my division, I know I have two opportunities later in the year which are chances I may get a match. This frees me right up to not be as “all-in” with fight training year round. I can do a ramp up “fight camp” of around 6 weeks leading into each fight opportunity, then spend the balance of the year enjoying more time on other pursuits- a fortunate decision on my behalf, as I have ended up travelling to and from India a lot for work so far in 2026.
The other clear takeway for me was to embrace the deliberate off season. Having a period of time of about a month to 6 weeks, not just a few days over Christmas break, really refreshed me and reminded me of the fun I have when I do box, and allowed me to get stuck into other pursuits that give me mental and physical benefits. From now on, I will be deliberately scheduling an annual off season to allow me time to work on my strength and cardio base.
Ultimately, I returned better for having sustained this injury-totally counter intuitive, but true.
