After making his mark as the Light Middleweight
Champion, Winky Wright took on the challenge of boosting his weight to fight in
the Middleweight class. He has practiced rigorous workouts and a specialized diet to maintain his physique after bulking up, and maintains focus by staying grounded through the love of his family.
Just as he grew in as a champion in the ring, he’s
also expanded his horizons with his own record label, a promotions company and
even some modeling gigs with the likes of Rocawear and 2-xist.
We spoke with Winky to get some of his training
secrets for those five-hour-a-day workouts, and found out a little more about
his life motivation.
AllHipHop.com: When you train, what kind of eating
plan do you have to have to bulk up?
Winky Wright: I tried to bulk up by eating the
right things, and put weight on by weight training and [making sure] we don’t
lose our speed – not just putting the weight on, being heavy and slow. That
was hard to do that, especially in that short [period] of time. There’s certain
foods like baked chicken, vegetables, potatoes and stuff like that – stuff
that’ll stick to me and give me that kind of energy while I’m doing all of
those exercises.
AllHipHop.com: Are there any particular foods you
have to cut out of your diet?
Winky Wright: Well, when you’re gaining weight you
really don’t have to cut too many foods out, because the bad foods are what’s
gonna make you gain weight. But you have to eat more of the good foods to gain
weight in the right way. That’s what we had to do, and like I said, it was
tough eating so much.
Usually when I train I have to eat less and cut
weight. That’s what I’m used to and what
I put my body towards, rigorous training and a lot of cardio, situps, ab works,
stuff like that to get my body cut. But at that heavier weight, it’s harder to
get my body cut and keep that weight on.
AllHipHop.com: In any given day, how many hours do
you work out?
Winky Wright: A basic day would be where I get up
in the morning and train two hours as far as running, doing situps and jumping
rope, a lot of cardio in the morning. If I’m training in the afternoon I’ll go
to the gym and do boxing, if I’m not boxing I’ll hit the bags, jumping rope,
sparring and stuff like that. After that later on I’ll go to the weight gym and
train and lift light weights to keep my strength up. At least five hours a day.
AllHipHop.com: Do you look at the body weight and
height [of your competitor] and try to mold your workout to help you fight that
person better?
Winky Wright: Exactly. Whatever the style of the
fighter is that you’re fighting and whatever way that he fights, you wanna go
ahead and train in that way and manner. If I’m fighting a guy that likes to box
outside stick and move and he’s quick, in my training I’m gonna do quick
movements – movements that I can work on and be quick with as far as a lot of
running around and moving.
But as far as if I’m fighting a guy that slugs a
lot that will try to go for the knockout punch, I’m gonna train more on the
weights and get myself strong, because I know he’s gonna be slugging and I
might just have to catch him, so I’m gonna take my time and try to catch him.
AllHipHop.com: With the mentality you have to have
as a boxer and how you’ve transitioned your career into music and television,
do you read books or do meditations to keep [yourself] positive?
Winky Wright: No, I’m just around my family and
kids. Being with them and watching the things that they like to do and see. You
try to keep yourself as a good example. You wanna be able to have your kids
tell their friends, “My dad is a good role model that’s positive.” I
try to look at that kind of stuff and keep myself grounded in not doing anything
dumb.
