Healing

Punching Back at Depression

by Matthew Sieger
04/01/25
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Sidhu Kshetri from India holds the Guinness world record for consecutive hours hitting the heavy punching bag -- 55 and 15 minutes.

Now there’s someone out to break that record – 60-year-old Lou Sandoval. But he’s not just out to break a record. He began this quest to combat depression in his own life and to inspire others to punch back at depression.

Sandoval has already gone 24 hours straight punching the bag. Now he is gearing up for 33 consecutive hours, beginning on April 15.

Sandoval, who was raised in the Catholic faith, is doing this in part for Lent, in preparation for the celebration of Jesus’ resurrection on Easter Sunday.

He notes that the path to healing from depression begins with human connection. His began when, through the help of Craig Syracusa, the Diocese of Brooklyn commissioned Sandoval, who is an artist in many media, to do a sculpture. Syracusa, a writer and director, is making a documentary film about Sandoval’s punching bag quest.

Sandoval points out that if you watch the video of Kshetri’s 55-hour marathon, he is barely tapping the bag, “kissing it,” as Sandoval describes it. In contrast, Sandoval is hitting the bag with force. For this reason, Syracusa is asking Guinness to create a new category for punching the bag with force so that Sandoval’s 33 hours will establish a new standard.

Born and raised in Gallup, New Mexico, Sandoval’s family attended the Catholic church.

“We were just going through the motions as a Catholic family,” Sandoval recalls. “But when I was ten years old, the charismatic Catholic movement hit. My parents became very active in it. When I was 12, I got baptized into the Holy Spirit.”

Sandoval says it is the Holy Spirit who has led him on his punching bag quest.

As a young man, Sandoval moved to Los Angeles to pursue an acting career. He gained membership in the Actor’s Studio there, which gave him access to the New York studio branch. Once in New York, he turned to sculpting and other art projects, eventually leading to the sculpture for the Brooklyn Diocese and his friendship with Syracusa. When he gets commissioned for a sculpture, he usually travels back to Gallup, where his dad had set up a workshop, which Sandoval describes as a “sacred place.”

His punching bag mission developed from a personal, Job-like crisis.

“This was nowhere on the horizon six months ago,” he says. “But a little over a year ago, I was experiencing severe depression. I was living in the Palm Springs area because my fiancée was there helping her mother. Within a month my truck died, three commissions dried up within ten days, and I was forced to be separated from my fiancée and go back to my hometown with nothing but a broken heart.

“I had been fasting and praying through my running, and I had to give myself a goal physically that would take me out of the anger of the depression. I said I’d try for ten percent body fat. The plan was to build a good foundation through resistance training the first six to eight weeks. Then I would go into boxing training for cardio. When it came time to do the boxing training, I fell into the early morning roadwork, the speed bag, jumping rope. But I discovered an unusual capacity to hit the bag for longer and than I ever had before. 

“I was asked by someone at the gym if I knew if there was a world record for hitting the heavy bag. And I didn't know, I mean, never even considered it. A couple of days later, I'm hitting the bag and I'm in my third hour and I heard a voice that says, ‘Why don't you see if you can go four hours? Maybe you can go six.’”

Sandoval says that inner voice was the prompting of the Holy Spirit. Sandoval became familiar with the Guinness rules for the record: The participant goes for an hour and then has the option of resting for five minutes or foregoing that rest, banking it and continuing, and, for example, in three hours having 15 minutes rest.

When he reached 12 hours straight, he felt a breakthrough. Suddenly the record seemed achievable.

Sandoval says the physical key is the development in the brain’s anterior cingulated cortex (ACC), which is involved in higher-level functions such as attention allocation, reward anticipation, decision-making, impulse control, and emotion.

“Neurologists have discovered it as the seat of the will,” Sandoval explains. “How it grows is us choosing to physically do something we don't want to do. That can be as simple as making amends or doing some notes on the piano. It’s also by not doing something that you're absolutely pulled to do, which is about addiction.  It's spiritual combat.

“This discovery of hitting a bag or even to think about doing it for more than two hours, I could never do more than 45 minutes before. But it's because of my spiritual connections. But on a medical level, the hour-to-hour connection trying to develop that cortex.”

His motivation, rather than personal achievement, is to highlight the issues of depression and addiction. He notes that men in particular are told, “’You just take it on the chin, you’ve got to be macho. Vulnerability is a weakness.’ That is essentially pride. And pride will get you killed.”

“It [Lou’s quest] gives you the inspiration to speak openly about your struggle with depression,” says Syracusa. “And that is what Lou is doing. It’s not about the bag or the fists or the time. It’s something about the man himself.”

The event will be live streamed beginning at 9 a.m. Eastern Daylight Time on April 15 on Syracuse’s Walk in Faith channel at www.youtube.com/@walkinfaithcraigsyracusa4339. Syracusa’s documentary of Sandoval’s experience, which is in progress, will also feature  interviews with experts, doctors, and mental health professionals, as well as with others who have suffered from depression and have fought back.

Matt Sieger, now retired, is a former sports reporter and columnist for The Cortland (New York) Standard and The Vacaville (California) Reporter. He is the author of The God Squad: The Born-Again San Francisco Giants of 1978.