MEET BOXER MAURICIO HERRERA

For Mauricio Herrera, an elite member of Team Max Muscle, boxing is much more than a sport. It’s life. It’s passion. It’s art. 

Though many people think boxing can be whittled down to the simplest of definitions – two guys in a ring going at each other, throwing punches and seeing which ones stick – the 31-year-old Riverside, California native insists that’s too simple of an explanation. To only see the physical is to overlook the essence: boxing happens in the mind, not just the fists. “It’s a sweet science, it’s like an art,” Herrera says. “It’s 75 percent mental in boxing. It’s a lot of planning, timing, how you’re throwing your punches, how you’re moving your feet. It’s about dissecting your opponent’s style and understanding how to beat him.”

In addition to rigorous training (3½ hours a day, including one “hell week” strengthening the whole body plus another week of straight cardio), Herrera will watch hours of footage before a match, studying how his opponent fights, what mistakes his opponent makes, and which rounds he gets tired in. “He’s thinking all the time when he’s fighting,” says Herrera’s trainer Willie Silva. “Mauricio’s real dedicated and really smart.”

In the beginning, Herrera admits he didn’t take to boxing. When he was a kid, he and his brothers would watch matches on TV, and instead of imagining himself a champ, Herrera would cringe every time someone got punched in the face. “I would watch and think, ‘If I was in there, I don’t think I could handle that,’” Herrera says. “Those bloody faces, the eyes all closed up. I would just shake my head.”

But when he was 13, something just clicked. A friend of Herrera’s father introduced him to boxing, got him into a gym, and he started learning the sport. The more he learned, the more he fell in love. At 18, Herrera started fighting in the amateur circuit and spent the next several years dominating, winning 29 out of 30 bouts. But when he hit his mid-20s, he was itching to go pro. “When I first met him, he was through with his amateur career and wanted to take it to the next level,” says Silva. “He told me, ‘I can’t handle these kids anymore. I want to go pro, but I don’t know anything about it.’”

Silva saw immense potential in Herrera. “I told Willie, ‘I have to try it. If I don’t, I’ll never know if I could do it,’” Herrera says. “A lot of people didn’t think I could do it. They told me, ‘You’re too old, you’re out of shape.’ But I always had it in the back of my head. I knew I could do it.”

At age 27, Herrera went pro. He tore through his early opposition and quickly made a name in the boxing world. He says his proudest moment was fighting in Las Vegas for the first time and winning against favored opponent Ruslan Provodnikov of Russia. Undefeated at 18-0, Provodnikov was considered one of the hardest hitters in Herrera’s weight class. “By the third round, he hit my left eye and it was completely shut,” Herrera recalls of the January 11, 2011 match. “But I could see my family, my friends, rooting for me and I couldn’t let them down.” The match ended in the 12th round with an upset win by a gutsy Herrera. It also earned him the No. 7 spot in the world and the IBF North American Junior Welterweight title. “It’s a dream come true,” Herrera says of his rising career. “It’s happening so fast. Sometimes I wonder, what if I never did it. But look where I am now.” 

Sport: Boxing   

Class: Junior Welterweight

Titles: WBC UNSBC Junior Welterweight, IBF North American Junior Welterweight

Herrera's Supplements: Max Lean Protein, FBX, Protein Bar, BAX, Iso Extreme, Vit-AceII, ARM and Amino Max

Favorite Max Muscle supplement stack: Max Lean Protein Vanilla

What does being a part of Team Max mean to you? “It means I am in good hands. I trust them and their products and that makes me confident.”