Basic Boxing Training RoutineJune 16, 2010 June 16, 2010 by Johnny N Boxing Basics, How to Box 65 Comments

A simple basic boxing training routine for beginner boxers to follow. This is the same boxing training used by seasoned amateurs and world class professionals.

A basic boxing training routine doesn’t need to be fancy or full of impossible exercises. It’s often plain, boring, and focuses on mastering the basics over and over again. As long as you are dedicated and open to learning, this same boxing training routine will take you far.

2-3 Rounds Jumping Rope

Gets your body warmed-up. Reducing changes of injury and increasing performance. Work on breathing and staying relaxed. Don’t rest during the 1-minute break. Just skip through it. You can substitute this with running for the same amount of time.

1-2 Rounds of Stretching

Reduces injury, increase blood flow, and increase range of motion. Stretch, arms, legs, and back. Relax the muscle to prepare it for heavy use.

3 Rounds on Focus Mitts

Work on offensive and defensive techniques. Focus on speed and accuracy, not power.

3 Rounds Heavy Bag OR 3 Rounds Sparring

Practice the offensive techniques you learned from the mittwork (bag or sparring). Make sure you keep your defense up and move (bag or sparring). Feel free to throw some power but don’t get careless (bag or sparring).

2 Rounds Speedbag

Be consistent and try not to take too many breaks. Remember to breathe.

2 Rounds Double-end Bag

Move around it and throw smaller punches to increase your accuracy. Do this with your training gloves on so you get use to hitting fast targets with punching

gloves on.

1-2 rounds stretching/warmdown

Relax and stretch out. Feel free to chat with other boxers about techniques you learned that day.

Final Thoughts

This is a simple basic boxing exercise routine. Once you get the hang of this, you can try all other sorts of crazy conditioning routines designed for specific aspects of boxing. For beginning boxers, I recommend that you don’t over do this routine and don’t try to squeeze in extra training to speed up your boxing improvement. Save the extra energy and motivation you have for next week. Each week gets tougher and it’s important not to burn yourself out. If you’re still a beginner, make sure you take it easy!

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Sit Ups for BoxingJune 13, 2013 June 13, 2013 by Johnny N Boxing Training, Boxing Workouts 20 Comments

Core strength is easily the most important factor in power generation and functional movement. No matter what you do, whether it’s throwing a punch or taking a punch, standing still or moving around, you will need tremendous amounts of core strength to do it.

Your core can allow you to move (twist/footwork), or prevent you from moving (balance). Your core is responsible for holding your body steady and combining the strength of other muscles in your body. Your core muscles can rotate your body for rotational power and has more to do with your punching power than any other muscle.

And since you’re going to be doing thousands if not millions of sit-ups throughout your fighting career, you might as well learn how to do a sit-up correctly.

 How to do a Proper Sit-up

1. Sit down on a comfortable surface

You can be on any surface as long as it’s flat. If the surface is particularly hard, put a little cushion, or yoga mat, or anything to keep your back bones from smashing onto the floor. It helps if your padded surface is also non-slippery so you don’t slide all over the place as you do sit-ups.

Get a friend to hold your feet or stick your feet under the couch or anything else you can find. Personally, I like having a friend because you two can motivate each other. The guy holding feet also gets a free chest workout when the other guy is doing really fast sit-ups.

Last tip: make sure you’re body is aligned straight. It’s really common to curl more towards one side and end up doing really crooked sit-ups when you get tired. Do your sit-ups straight!

Sit straight on a comfortable surface.Feet together.

 2. Feet & knees together

You can set your feet together or shoulder-width apart. Some people like having the feet shoulder-width apart because the space between their legs makes it easier for them to come up. I personally recommend you keep your legs together so that your sit-ups are more even with less likelihood of preference to muscles on one side.

Feet together. Knees together.

 3. Leg position

Your leg position during sit-ups affects the muscles used during the exercise. There are generally two positions (everything else is a variation). The first position: your feet are flat on the ground and the knees bent around 90 degrees or less. The second position: your heels are on the ground with the toes up allowing the knees to straighten past 90 degrees.

Having your feet flat on the ground will use more of your hip flexor muscles, whereas having your toes up will use more of your core and ab muscles. Most people switch around between the 2 positions not to target different muscles but to make sit-ups easier for them.

Having the feet flat on the ground will usually make the sit-up more difficult because you have less space at the top which means you have to “crunch” harder to get up all the way. As you start to get tired after so many sit-ups, your legs may cramp, or you need more room at the top. And so in the final moments, some people will lift their toes to allow their legs to lengthen out. This gives room for the abs to stretch out and really get more of an ab workout. You’ll also have more room at the top since your knees are lower.

IMPORTANT: have your friend hold you at the ankles and not at the toes. If you’re hooking your feet under an object, hook at the ankles. This isn’t just for sit-up technique but so that you don’t injure your ankles by using that small joint as a lever for your whole body.

Feet flat for a steadier and challenging sit-up position.Toes up for more focus on the core.

 4. Hand placement

Your hands should have as little impact on your sit-ups as possible. You can put your hands anywhere you want, behind the head, by the ends, across your chest, or by your hips. Anywhere

you want, but do not use your arms to swing yourself up. And don’t use your arms pull on your head or crank your neck.

I personally like to place my hands across my chest, on my shoulders (right hand on right shoulder) and also lightly touch my fingers to my ears. I switch between the 3 sometimes to help focus on my form and remind myself to keep good form. Arms on the chest is easiest but sometimes you feel like your arms are in the way when you’re trying to come up. Arms on the ears remind me not to throw my head to come up.

Hands anywhere you want, but don’t use themto pull on your head/neck or swing yourself.

 5. Proper “UP” position

The universally-regarded proper “UP” position is to sit up until your neck is directly above your tailbone. Which means to come up until your neck is above your hips. I don’t say head because some people pull their head forward so the head gets up a lot easier than the neck does.

Come UP until your head neck is above your hips.

 6. Proper “DOWN” position

You only have to go down until the center of your back touches the ground. It’s not necessary to go down until your head and shoulders hit the ground. At high speeds, it’s definitely not a good idea to slam your head on the ground. Some people go all the way down so that they can throw their head and arms to help swing themselves up–don’t do this.

Lay flat on the ground and curl your head and shoulders off the floor (without stressing your neck), and remember this position. You don’t have to go any lower than this. Knowing this position allows you to do sit-ups faster and without cheating because there’s no room for you to swing yourself.

Come DOWN until the center of your backtouches the floor.

 Sit-up Techniques

1. Sit-Up Rhythm

Same as I explained for push-ups, there are 2 different rhythms for doing sit-ups depending your level of fitness. The typical beginner rhythm is to go DOWN SLOW and then UP FAST. Beginners will go down slowly and then explode upwards to get up using the least effort.

The advanced sit-up rhythm (much harder to do) is to go DOWN FAST and UP FAST. Going down fast is especially hard because you’re abdominal muscles work so much harder to reverse

directions and pull you back up. It’s like you’re accelerating towards the ground and then have to use muscle to decelerate and then accelerate again in the opposite direction.

As your core becomes stronger and you get used to doing fast push-ups, you will realize that going down is much harder than going up. You’ll definitely feel the weight of your upper torso and get a much better workout this way. This rhythm is also better for breaking push-up records.

Beginner sit-up rhythm = down SLOW, up FAST.Advanced sit-up rhythm = down FAST, up FAST.

 2. Breathing Technique for Sit Ups

The 2 different rhythms of doing sit-ups also calls for 2 different rhythms of breathing technique.

The beginner style of breathing is to inhale while going down and exhale when coming up. Many athletes will find it easiest to synchronize the UPWARDS movement of the sit-up with exhaling because the exhale gives power to the movement and also empties out your stomach making it easier to curl up. The beginner style of breathing is useful if you can’t do many sit-ups in a row and need a pause between each one.

The advanced style of breathing is to INHALE as you come up, and to EXHALE as you come down. The sit-up is a challenging exercise when done fast and there are many different levels of “advanced”. Some people are slow enough that there’s still room for an inhale and exhale on each sit-up. If this is you, you’ll have to time your exhale so your breath can help you change directions at the bottom (the hardest part of the sit-up).

Some guys people are fast enough that they can come all the way down and all the way up within a single exhale. These people only need one inhale every couple of reps so they don’t need to find a rhythm for the inhale.

You’ll find the hardest part about breathing during sit-ups is figuring out when to inhale. The biggest problem with inhaling is that it feels up your stomach and so you feel like you can’t inhale while coming up. But then again if you’re busy inhaling coming down, you’ll feel like your exhale is too late to help you change directions. Some of you will try smaller inhales. Some of you will skip inhaling on certain reps. Others will switch back and forth between the beginner and advanced breathing rhythms.

Beginner sit-up breathing = EXHALE GOING UP.Advanced sit-up breathing = EXHALE GOING DOWN.

Inhale whenever you need it.

 3. Maintain the Curled Up Position

A common pattern you’ll see with many people is the tendency to change their upper body position during the sit-ups. Most people will be more stretched out at the bottom and more curled

up at the top. This usually means they’re using the momentum (even if only slightly) of their heads and arms to swing themselves up. Obviously, this takes away from the exercise and also slows you down a bit.

The right way is to keep yourself curled up and to maintain this position as you go up and down. This is why it’s not necessary to touch your head and shoulders to the floor everytime you go down. Maintaining this solid position prevents you from swinging yourself and also makes it easier to go faster because your upper body stays in one position. Your core will be constantly engaged and doesn’t allow you to relax and open up at the bottom.

Last note: don’t crank on your head and neck. Curl up from your abs, not your neck. You can put your chin on your chest if you want but don’t strain your neck.

Remain curled up throughout the entire sit-up.

 4. Resting Technique

I have one rule about resting: REST AT THE TOP. Do a sit-up all the way to the top and take as long as you want up there. You can make space at the top by opening your knees or also by scooting your butt back so you don’t have to crunch as much to get up. You quickly realize doing continuous sit-ups is sometimes easier than resting in one place.

The worst thing you can do is rest at the bottom. Most people will basically just lay down and let go of everything and take a few breaths. Then they’ll try to exhale real quick and explode a few final reps.

The way I see it, the moment you let go of the curl and release your core, you basically finished your set and started a new one. It’s the same as coming down to your knees in the middle of push-ups, or putting the barbell down before lifting it again. If you need to rest, do it at the top of the sit-up, and keep your core engaged!

Rest at the top.

 5. Squeezing Technique

I’ve got numerous tactics for squeezing out extra sit-ups when you feel like you can’t. The first one is to make space at the top. You can do this by opening your knees so you have space in the middle so your upper body can come up easier. You can also make space by straightening your legs more so you have more room to fold up with your upper body. This last tip will probably require you to lift your toes off the ground.

Just remember that if your toes are off the ground, it will use more ab muscles. On the other hand if you have your feet flat on the ground, you can use more of your leg muscles to help pull you up instead of focusing so much on the abs. It’s actually the hip flexors, but try to imagine that your quads are pulling you up.

You can also combine all these tips together. Have your knees pointing up and then use your legs to help you come up and then at the top you open your legs so you have space at the center. And you can rest in this hole between your legs if you need.

Another great is to pull forward instead of swinging up. Many people will focus on going UP that they end up straining their bodies or rocking their hips to try and swing themselves over. (By the way, keep your hips on the ground the entire time!) One tip I like to use for doing really smooth sit-ups is to imagine myself pulling forward instead of trying to swing up. The focus is on pushing my back forward rather than swinging my head over. This feels less stressful on my lower back.

Also, keep your hips on the ground the entire time! (Some people will lift their hips to help get a rocking motion.)

Open your knees and/or straighten your legs more.Use your legs to help you come up.

 Sit-Up Workouts

Do intervals

Don’t focus on counting sit-ups. Your core is one of the strongest muscles in your body. You will get tired of counting long before your core will ever get tired. That’s assuming, of course, that you have a strong core. If your core is in shape, you should be able to do 2 sit-up workouts every day, one at night and one in the morning. The core doesn’t need days to rest like you would with your chest from a benchpress workout.

The best way to do sit-up exercises (as well as many other exercises) is to do them in intervals. Exercising with a focus on intervals will increase your level of conditioning much faster than focusing on a count (e.g. doing “X” number of sit-ups).

“I don’t count my sit-ups,I only starting counting when it starts hurting,when I feel pain, that’s when I start counting,

cause that’s when it really counts.”- Muhammad Ali

 60/45/30 Interval

Do as many sit-ups as you can in 60 seconds. Rest 60 seconds. Do as many sit-ups as you can in 45 seconds. Rest 60 seconds. Do as many sit-ups as you can in 30 seconds.

Here’s my favorite interval that I did regularly in the Army. You’ll feel slow and helpless at first but with constant practice comes speed.

 60-ON/60-OFF Intervals

Do as many sit-ups as you can in 60 seconds. Rest 60 seconds. Repeat for at least 3 sets.

This is a good alternative to the one above if you’re not strong enough to get many sit-ups within the 45-second or 30-second intervals.

 2 MINUTES x 3 SETS (for beginners)

Do 3 sets of 2 minutes each. Use 1-minute rest in between.

You don’t have to go at max speed but don’t be lazy either. This is a great starting point for beginners who don’t have the core strength to do sit-ups in fast intervals.

  

Things you can do with sit-upsVariations of sit-ups

Twisting to one side? Crunches? Try them. Do a little of everything. I focus on the basic sit-up because it’s commonly done incorrectly or ineffectively. Don’t bother trying to do anything fancy until you can do a couple hundred of the basic sit-up with proper form. My reasoning is this, if you can’t do the basic sit-up with proper form, you probably can’t do any of the other fancy variations with proper form either and you won’t benefit much from them either.

 Sit-ups are REALLY EASY (thanks to strong core muscles)

Keep doing sit-ups everyday and you should reach a point where you feel like you can go on forever. Like past the 30-minute mark. Many people underestimate their core muscles. Some people can do push-ups easier than sit-ups, whereas others have it the other way around (especially females). It’s common for females to be able to do as many sit-ups as the males in the military.

Your core muscles are so strong that you can work them out every few hours if you wanted and they gain strength quickly. Within a month of working out everyday, you can double or quadruple your maximum number of sit-ups and it only goes up from there.

 Sit-ups are among the worst exercises for getting a six pack

Getting a six pack has more to do with burning fat than it does with developing strong abdominal muscles. Changing your diet will be the most important step for getting a six pack. Don’t waste your time with painful exercises that don’t do anything. I’ll have to make a guide on this someday because I keep getting asked about it so much.

 

Proper Push Up TechniqueWhether you’re training for a fight, for weight loss, or any kind of physical activity, push-ups will be a one of your regular workouts. It’s a great exercise to build strength and power for the upper body and doesn’t require any special equipment other than the ground and gravity.

For fighters, push-ups are especially beneficial for developing the chest, shoulders, core, and triceps. You can even develop a bodybuilder’s physique with push-ups if you do enough of them.

But for now, let’s go over what I call the perfect push-up form and technique:

  How to do a PROPER Push-Up

1. Straight body

The first thing you’ll want to do is to straighten your back. Don’t sag at the hip or lift at the hips. It should be a straight line from head to toe. Check the mirror to see that your hips are in line. The most uncomfortable position is probably the right one. (It will take some core muscle to achieve this!)

Back straight, hips not lifted or sagging.The most uncomfortable position is the right one.

 2. Feet together

Place your entire feet together. Toes AND heels together. There are many people don’t care about the feet and this usually results in very sloppy form. Remember that your entire body is placed on your hands and feet.

Keep your toes & heels together.

 3. Hand placement

When you place your hands on the floor, imagine that there is an imaginary line between them, and that your chest is hovering above that line. The sweet spot is most likely somewhere between your shoulders and your nipples.

If your hands are hovering too high (such as above your shoulders), you will feel like your elbows are swinging out too high and not supporting your body weight when you go down. If your hands are too low (such as below your nipples), you will feel like the push-ups are too stressful on your shoulders.

The width of your hands should be a little wider than shoulder width. The exact width depends on various factors such as arm length and the type of push-up you want to do (chest VS tricep). A narrower hand placement will use more tricep muscle and cause you to travel a longer distance to and from the ground. A wider hand placement will use more chest muscle and cause you to to travel less distance to and from the ground. Ideally, you want to find the width that allows you to do the most push-ups without one muscle group (chest or triceps) tiring out before the other. It takes some time to figure out your sweet spot.

Another distinction between chest push-ups and tricep push-ups is the way that your elbow points out as you go down. For chest push-ups, your elbows will point out sideways. For tricep push-ups, your elbows will stay along body so that the elbows are touching your lats and rib cage as you go down. It is also possible to have the elbows travel somewhere diagonally in between but I don’t recommend this as it’s hard to keep it perfectly even on both sides (especially for beginners).

When I was in the Army, all the guys that broke the push-up records were “tricep pushers”. But even still, I preferred chest push-ups. They were harder but I liked the feel of working a bigger muscle and felt I benefitted more from that version.

The hand can be placed on the floor with your fingers together or your fingers spread. I prefer to spread my fingers because it feels stronger and more stable. It’s also important to press your hand completely flat into the ground. Push off the ground with all four corners of your palm. Distribute your weight across the entire palm instead of only on the heel of your palm.

Hands at chest level, wider than shoulder width apart.Fingers spread, pressing with the 4 corners of the palm.

Elbows open sideways for chest push-ups,or open downwards for tricep push-ups.

 4. Head alignment

The head should be lifted to extend straight out from the spine. Unfortunately this is hard to do because your body will change in angle from the ground as you do push-ups. Most people are usually focused on the ground which leads to a dropped head, and a dropped head makes it harder for to get down low to the ground and also makes it harder to breathe.

My best advice is to stare at the ground 3 feet in front of your head this tilts the head up and keeps it more in line with your spine and at the same time helps to open your throat for breathing.

Eyes looking at the ground 3 feet in front of your head,to keep a straight position

and open the throat for breathing.

 5. Proper “DOWN” position

How low do you go to the ground? There are 2 standards. The rule I like to use is to go until your chest is one inch off the ground. It doesn’t have to be exact; go down until your chest is close to the ground. You should feel a bounce of a stress on the sides of your chest where it connects to the shoulders. (Make sure you keep your muscles contracted for support.)

The other standard is to go down until the upper arms (from the shoulder to the elbow) are parallel with the ground. The elbows will probably be close to a 90-degree angle at this point depending on where your hands are placed.

Go down until your chest is 1 inch off the ground,or until the upper arms are parallel to the ground.

 Push-Up Techniques

1. Push-Up Rhythm

There are 2 different rhythms for doing push ups depending on your level of fitness. The beginner rhythm (about 99% of most people) is to go DOWN SLOW and then UP FAST. You’ll see them lower themselves slowly to the ground and then push themselves up quickly.

The more advanced rhythm and much harder way to do push-ups is to go DOWN FAST AND UP FAST. This is how you break push-up records; by going down as fast as you can. It makes a lot of sense if you think about it. You can save a lot of time by dropping down as fast as you can and then pushing up as fast as you can. The reason why it’s so hard is because the faster you drop, the more momentum you have to overcome at the bottom and the more challenging it is to push yourself back up.

When I want to go down fast, I don’t just rely on gravity to bring me down, I imagine that my hands are pulling on the ground to PULL MYSELF DOWN as fast as I can. It’s very challenging and just about impossible for beginners to do as they will probably slam their faces on the ground. But this is a good goal for you to work up to later on.

As you try to go down quickly, you will realize that going down is the hardest part because you spend more energy to stop yourself from hitting the ground than you do to push yourself up. So beginners spend their energy going up and advanced pushers will spend their energy going down. Going down fast will build explosive strength in your upper body very quickly.

Beginner push-up rhythm = down SLOW, up FAST.Advanced push-up rhythm = down FAST, up FAST.

 2. Breathing Technique for Push-Ups

Just as there are 2 different rhythms for doing push-ups, there are 2 methods of breathing technique to accommodate each rhythm.

The beginner style of breathing is to inhale while going down and then exhale while going up. INHALE DOWN, EXHALE UP, INHALE DOWN, EXHALE UP. A beginner push-up will look like (DOWN SLOW) INHALE SLOW – (UP FAST) EXHALE FAST. It sound like innnnnnn-OUT-innnnnnn-OUT.

The advanced style of breathing is to exhale when going down. Their exhalation will be a short quick breath that happens at the hard moment (the peak of descent) when their body is about to hit the ground. They use this quick exhalation to help “bounce” them off the ground. The advanced push-up will look like DOWN FAST – DOWN FAST – DOWN FAST, which a quick exhalation every time they go down. The inhale only as needed (could be once every 10 or 20 reps) as it’s hard to inhale when you’re going fast. The advanced push-up will sound like a rapid *SSHH!* – *SSHH!* – *SSHH!* as they breath explosively for explosive power.

Beginner push-up breathing = inhale DOWN, exhale UPAdvanced push-up breathing = exhale DOWN

Breathe explosively for explosive power.

 3. Resting Technique

When it comes to resting while doing push-ups, the common tendency is to sag at the hips or wiggle around on the arms. What I like to do is to put my body into the inverted V-position (known as “downward dog” in yoga) where you raise your hips high into the air as you straighten your legs and back and arms. This position will momentarily give your push-up muscles a break by using a slightly different set of muscles.

From this upside-down “V” position, I take some deep breaths before quickly dropping back into push-up position and squeezing out 1-3 push-ups before switching back again into the inverted V-position again. With this tactic, I can easily squeeze out 20-30 more push-ups even when I felt like I couldn’t do anymore. Some of you will notice intense veins coming out of your muscles and maybe even want to barf as you’ve now allowed yourself to exercise far beyond the point of failure. (Good job!)

Rest by returning to INVERTED V-POSITIONas you squeeze out your final push-ups.

 4. Squeezing Technique

Here’s another trick to help you squeeze out more push-ups when you feel like you have nothing left. Instead of imagining yourself pushing the ground away from you, instead try to imagine yourself pulling your elbows in closer to each other. So instead of focusing on pushing up with

your triceps, try to focus on pulling your elbows into a straight position. This visualization will make it easier to lockout your elbows straight when you’re struggling on the last upper half of the push-up.

Focus on bringing your elbows in,instead of pushing the ground.

 

 Push-Up Workouts

Do intervals

There are too many people who focus too much on doing X number of push-ups. It doesn’t matter if you do 500 a day or 1000 a day, everything is easy when you’re not pressed for time. Instead you should give yourself set intervals such as 1 or 2 minutes where you do as many as you can in that period. Intervals are MUCH harder than you think.

Doing push-ups (as well as other exercises) in intervals will very quickly develop superior levels of conditioning in your body and put your focus on a more functional athletic goal (rate of effort) rather than just purely (total effort).

Do intervals for a better workout.It’s too easy when you’re not pressed for time.

 60/45/30/15/10 Interval (Army workout)

My favorite push-up workout and one that I did regularly in the Army is what I call the 60/45/30/15/10 interval:

Do as many push-ups as you can in 60 seconds. Rest 60 seconds. Do as many push-ups as you can in 45 seconds. Rest 60 seconds. Do as many push-ups as you can in 30 seconds. Rest 60 seconds. Do as many push-ups as you can in 15 seconds. Rest 60 seconds. Do as many push-ups as you can in 10 seconds.

It goes without saying that you should be using proper form and technique. A push-up with bad form doesn’t count as a push-up and more importantly, doesn’t count as beneficial exercise!

 60/30/15 Interval (for beginners)

I’m sure many of you will not be able to handle the previous interval and so here is another one I would recommend for beginners.

Do as many push-ups as you can in 60 seconds. Rest 60 seconds. Do as many push-ups as you can in 30 seconds. Rest 60 seconds. Do as many push-ups as you can in 15 seconds.

This will be quite the challenge as each set should take you to the point of failure.

 15-ON/15-OFF Intervals (tabata interval)

This is doing push-ups in tabata drill style. Very effective and more challenging than you think.

Do as many push-ups as you can in 15 seconds. Rest 15 seconds. Do as many push-ups as you can in 15 seconds. Rest 15 seconds. Repeat this interval for up to 10 sets if you can.

Another way you can do this is to try to do 10 push-ups every 15 seconds. Every time the interval starts, you do 10 as fast as you can. The faster you do them, the sooner you can take a break. Do this for 10 sets if you dare.

  What can you do with push-ups?Variations of the push-up

I get questions everyday asking about whether it’s a good idea to do diamond push-ups, one hand push-ups, knuckle push-ups, clapping push-ups, or any of the million other variations out there.

My answer is always this: focus on the basic push-up. The standard form gives the most focus to proper technique and basic benefits of the push-up. Anytime you do something else like being on your knuckles or using a very tricky hand placement, you start to distract yourself from the true benefit of the push-up and end up focusing on the “trick”.

I would say you probably shouldn’t be thinking about doing push-ups tricks until you do at least a couple hundred of the basic push-ups in one sitting. In the meanwhile, if you want some basic variation. Go wider, go narrower, or go faster. Or switch from the chest version to tricep version.

 Do intervals

Do push-ups in intervals. Intervals really make it so much harder and more beneficial! Just counting push-ups alone doesn’t mean much. Once you get into really good shape, you can

pretty much do push-ups all day and it doesn’t mean anything. Do as much as you can, but in intervals!

 GET BUFF MILITARY/PRISON STYLE

For those of you who don’t know, you can get really buff and muscular just by doing push-ups. It’s a common routine for guys in the military or in jail to get really ripped and get 18″ arms just by doing push-ups.

The common routine is to do 1500 push-ups a day. That’s 30 sets of 50. And it will probably take you 30 minutes to do. It used to be 2000 push-ups a day but guys have figured out over time that doing 1500 push-ups is enough. It may sound hard to you but you can work up to it fairly quickly if you’re dedicated and have time. I’ve known many guys who got big doing this (yes, even skinny ones). They look like they’ve been lifting weights but it was really just push-ups.

Another push-up routine I know for getting buff is to do 1200 push-ups a day. You do 20, then widen your hands by an inch, and then do another 20. And keep repeating as you widen your hands all the way out and then bring them all the way in as you keep doing 20 each time.

 Beat my record

If you like you can try to beat my 30-second record of 47. I’m a long-arm guy and used the chest version which is harder to do but 47 was my magic number at the peak of my time. I can’t remember what I did at the 60-second mark, probably around 85. And my 2-minute mark was probably around 110-120. I held the record in my platoon but the guys holding the record in the company did around 180 in 2-minutes. (They had shorter stockier arms and used the tricep method.)

 Push-ups are easy

You just have to do them. If you did push-ups everyday, you could easily work your way up to a thousand within a year. Of course, not one thousand in one sitting but maybe over over dozens of sets. You can get to a point where you can do push-ups indefinitely.

I remember the times in the Army when our drill sergeant punished us by making us do push-ups for 30 minutes. I have no idea how many I did. But that’s how it was…we never counted, we just went for time. They would say, “GET DOWN AND BEAT YOUR FACE!” And leave us there for an hour.

How to Increase Your Fighting Endurance9 years ago, I stepped into the ring for my first sparring match. It was a moment of excitement and pure adrenaline. A Rocky fantasy dream-come-true moment that took all the life out of me.

I was dead tired long before the final bell. I couldn’t walk straight because my feet were stuck in the mud and my legs felt like noodles. The 14oz gloves clung to my arms like a prisoner’s ball-and-chain. Spectators laughed when I couldn’t lift my leg to climb out of the ropes. My shirt dripped like I had gone swimming. I almost vomited when I bent over at the water fountain.

You wouldn’t know it from the way I looked…but I won.

I might have been a winner but I sure didn’t feel that one. And that’s the miracle of fatigue. Fatigue is a crippling handicap ruining your physical performance right when you need it most.

We’d all be better fighters if only we had more endurance!

 The Physical Aspects of Fighting Endurance

 1. Cardio

The first step to increasing your fight endurance is to work on your cardio, which means to increase your body’s rate of oxygen absorption (oxygen intake). Boxing is an activity expressed in physical movement. Physical movement requires the use of your muscles. And muscles need oxygen in order to break down the glucose (sugar) in your bloodstream to create energy.

The higher your oxygen intake, the more oxygen your muscles can absorb and the more glucose you will be able to take advantage of. In layman’s terms, having better cardio means you can do more physical exercise without getting out of breath. You’ll not only have more energy but also perform better. Having strong muscles won’t do you any good if your body can’t absorb oxygen fast enough to fuel your muscles.

 Increasing your cardiovascular endurance

Pretty much any exercise that raises your heart-rate, when done for a period of time at a high-enough pace, could be considered cardio exercise. Running, swimming, biking, skipping rope, are all good examples of cardio training for fighters.

The general rule is that you have to raise your heart-rate. You have to push yourself a little bit. Being able to run 5 miles a day won’t mean anything if you were totally relaxed the whole time. Boxing itself is an excellent cardio exercise. Hitting the bag, sparring, and generally moving your body over and over is great for developing cardio.

Raise your heart rateto raise your cardio (oxygen intake).

 2. Muscle Conditioning

The next step of fighting endurance has to do with muscle conditioning. Your muscles have to be conditioned well enough to handle the repeated stress of a fight. You need strong legs to move you around the ring. You need a strong core to generate power. You need well-conditioned shoulders and arms to throw hundreds of punches at high speed. Every muscle you need to use in boxing must be well-conditioned or else you’ll experience muscle fatigue that makes it difficult to fight.

A weak link in your body will show as one part of the body prevents the others from working at their full potential. Boxing is a total body exercise so you’ll need strong legs, strong core, strong shoulders and arms. To be precise, you’ll need to focus on power, speed, and endurance rather than just pure raw strength.

 Increasing your physical conditioning

Work out the muscles you would use in fighting, which is pretty much your entire body. Start running, skipping rope, squats for the legs. Bag work, speed bag, shadowboxing, push-ups for the arms. Sit-ups and crunches for the core. I’m generalizing here; there are MANY more exercises you’ll need to do to be a well-conditioned fighter.

My #1 tip for muscle conditioning:do interval training.

Make sure you balance out your muscles. (Like working out the biceps to balance the triceps. Targeting the back to balance out the chest and abs.) Muscle imbalances contribute limited physical performance, limited range of motion, etc.

 3. Neurological (Muscle Memory)

The neurological aspect of fighting endurance has to do with understanding how muscle memory works. Generally speaking, the more time you spend practicing a movement, the easier and more natural it becomes. Your “muscle memory” is a part of your brain that stores information repeated movements.

This is why it’s important to practice with real movements that simulate actual fighting. This means lots of punches, shadowboxing, and of course the act of fighting itself. This practice not only builds muscle memory but also confidence in your movements.

 Increasing your muscle memory

Shadowboxing is the best exercise to build muscle memory. Jabs, crosses, hooks, uppercuts, slipping, bobbing and weaving, rolling, moving and dashing around the ring. Big steps, little

steps, quick pivots, big pivots, sudden changes of movement. EVERYTHING. Every type of boxing movement imaginable must be practiced over and over.

Shadowboxing is the best exercisefor developing muscle memory.

Sparring is also a great exercise for muscle memory but it has its limitations. For one, you can only spar a couple rounds, maybe 10 rounds tops. Shadowboxing, on the other hand, can be done for hours. At the very least, shadowboxing can be your warm-up and your warm-down. The other issue with sparring is that it limits you to only making certain movements whereas shadowboxing can allow you to freestyle and work on any movement you want. Ideally, you’d be using sparring to find out what you need to work on, and then use shadowboxing to help develop these movements.

 

4. Technique

Effective and efficient fighting techniques allow you to get the same job with less energy and effort. This is why proper technique is so important! It doesn’t matter how amazing of an athlete you are; your physicality is useless if you don’t know how to apply it into boxing movements.

Good punching technique allows you to hit harder, faster, and with more precision. Good defensive technique allows you to evade swiftly without compromising your position. Good movement allows you to glide effortless across the canvas in and out of range as you please.

Study the best fighters and you’ll see that good fighting technique can do all the work for you. You don’t need to be a 200lb hulk if you know how to use all 160lbs of your middleweight frame. Even if you are big, it doesn’t mean you’ll be able to slip all the incoming punches. Being strong doesn’t mean you’ll know how roll under a combination and chop down your opponent with a left hook over the top.

Have you ever seen an experienced fighter destroy a younger, stronger, more physically fit and able-bodied opponent? And experienced fighter does it all without trying?! That my friend, is the magic of technique. Power and leverage and all the benefits of physicality…without having to use so much effort.

The highest levels of boxingcan only be reached with technique.

At some level of boxing, it’s impossible to reach without technique. And this is part of why boxing is so beautiful: as raw and as brutal as it is, it can reach a level where the genius of the mind expresses itself. Never before have you seen the physicality of the body expressing the mind in such a beautiful way. Some would say this is the art of boxing.

 Increasing your fighting technique

Get a coach, get a trainer. Someone more experienced, more wise and seasoned than you are. Learn from others. Don’t rely on your own “intelligence”. It’s true what they say, “Experience is the best teacher.” And it’s best to learn from someone with far more experience than yourself.

Ask intelligent questions and then listen to the answer. Open your mind, try it, try to understand it. If it doesn’t work, put it away and try something else. BUT ALWAYS TRY SOMETHING NEW.

Your fighting technique won’t improveif you don’t try anything new.

 

 The Mental Aspects of Fighting Endurance

1. Mental Relaxation

The more panicky you are, the more energy you waste and the more tired you will feel. Fear often casts a big shadows on small worries. I don’t know how to put this eloquently but here goes: LEARN TO RELAX during an ass-beating.

The next time you’re losing a fight, try your best to CHILL. Relax! Block what you can, but relax when you get hit. Breathe, don’t panic. Keep your mind calm and count down the seconds if you need. *Just ____ more seconds and the fight is over.* You can relax, enjoy the fight, and learn something. Or you can panic, get even more tired, and make the beating seem longer than it really is. It’s up to you.

 Increasing your mental relaxation

It’s hard to stay mentally relaxed in boxing because of its physical and adrenaline-pumping nature. But nonetheless it’s possible. Mental relaxation has to do with self-respect. You have to know your level and admit it to yourself and to stay within your limits. Push yourself but be reasonable. Don’t get into nasty sparring situations that you clearly can’t handle. Being 100% terrified and worried for your safety is not the way to train. And it’s certainly not the way the pros train!

Being able to relax in stressful environments allows you to make smart decisions and benefit more out of the situation. Slow down and look around so you can absorb everything. If you’re always pushing yourself over the limit, you’ll end up making yourself quit and this attitude will show in everything that you do. You are your own worst enemy. It’s a good lesson you could apply to life, actually.

Putting things in perspective will relax the mind. Let your expectations inspire you but then accept yourself. You’re here to learn and be the best you can. Learn to accept that you are always a work in progress! Nobody is perfect!

Try to enjoy the fight,because anything becomes tiring if you don’t enjoy it.

 2. Attitude

At some point, getting tired has to do with the way you think. And a lot of fighters get tired so easily because they have the wrong approach to fighting.

They’re always thinking,

“If I run out of energy, I’m dead.”

When a better alternative would be to think,

“These are the things I want to do with the energy I have.”

Instead of being energy conscious and always telling yourself that you only have a limited amount of energy, try focusing on being more effective with that energy. It’s not a bad idea to throw less punches and jump around less but you should look beyond that.

 Ask yourself:

How can I do the most damage to my opponent? How can I make my punches more effective? What’s the easiest way to avoid my opponent’s punches? What are some things I could do more to win this fight?

You should be trying to do MORE, while using less energy. Again, the goal is to do more with less, and not less with less. Using your energy effectively will PREVENT you from getting tired. Because every punch will do more damage. Every movement you make will be more effective. The fight WILL BE EASIER. The energy you use will drain your opponent’s energy even faster.

But if all you can think about is saving your energy and trying not to get tired, that’s exactly what’s going to happen. You’ll feel like your opponent keeps draining your energy and there’s nothing you can do to stop it. A good defense can slow down the energy loss but you’ll still get tired because of your attitude.

How to Improve Your Fighting ReflexesFast reflexes are the standard of being a fighter. If anything, boxing is little more than a battle of reflexes. One man’s reflexes versus another’s.

Sure there’s skill, there’s strategy, strength, and all those other qualities. But without the reflexes to utilize those abilities, you won’t survive the round, let alone win the match.

Now there’s a difference between just being fast and having TRAINED fighting reflexes. It’s the difference between jerking your head back instinctively versus slipping and countering with a knockout punch.

It’s a long road to developing knockout counters as second nature. But I’ll show you how to get there.

 What are fighting reflexes?A fighting reflex is a physical response to a fighting stimulus.

A fighting stimulus could be:

an opponent’s punch a discovered opening in your opponent’s guard any movement in your opponent a sudden opportunity created somehow during a fight

 A physical response could be:

you throwing a punch you defending the punch you moving away any movement you make

A fighter with fast reflexes is one that responds quickly to a stimulus.

A fighter with GOOD reflexes is one that responds effectively to a stimulus.

Naturally, you’d want to have the FASTER AND BETTER reflexes.

Fast reflexes doesn’t help,if you’re not reacting effectively.

 

Is it possible to improve your reflexes?

What percentage of reflexes are genetics?

But what if I’m naturally slow?

What if I’m the slowest person in the gym?

What if I can’t even see the punches?

This is a sad issue I have to address because of all the people with insecurity problems. I will explain it like this:

We are sensory beings. We have intricate nervous systems, bones, muscles, and all sorts of highly evolved physical functions to facilitate reactive movement. We are not plants that wave in the wind. And we’re not stationary rocks in the landscape. We see, we hear, we smell, we touch, we taste, and we think. Our bodies were made to respond to stimuli.

And genetics has less to do with trained reflexes than our amount of exposure to sense stimulation over the years. A kid forced to think critically throughout his or her life will grow up smarter. A kid that’s played sports his whole life will be more athletic than one that’s watched TV his whole childhood. Genetics still matters but nowhere near as much as your upbringing and all the stimulus that’s happened to you AFTER childbirth.

If you can play video games, you can improve your fighting reflexes. If you can send rapid fire text messages on your iPhone, you can improve your fighting

reflexes. If you can scream when you touch a hot pan, you can improve your fighting reflexes.

As long as you have the instinctive ability to react,you can train your fighting reflexes.

 The Secret to Developing Fighting Reflexes

The goal is to develop TRAINED REFLEXES!

A reflex could be ANY reaction.

a punch a flinch a duck a panic maneuver

 

A TRAINED REFLEX is an EFFECTIVE reaction:

a counter-punch a defensive move

This is why I could care less if someone was ‘genetically fast” or not. Without the skill training, a fast person wouldn’t have that much of an advantage. If you pit two total beginners together, the one with faster reflexes would win. But once you pit two experienced fighters together, the one with the better TRAINED reflexes would win.

 And what is a TRAINED REFLEX?

A trained reflex is an effective reaction most appropriate to the stimuli.

1. Sense the stimuli2. React to the stimuli

Did you see the big secret? STIMULI, then REACTION! The stimuli first, the reaction second. Better yet, let me say it this way…

REACT TO THE STIMULI!

REACT TO THE STIMULI!

REACT TO THE STIMULI!

 WHICH MEANS….

TRAIN FOR THE STIMULI!

TRAIN FOR THE STIMULI!

And say it one more time with me really loudly….TRAIN FOR THE STIMULI!

 

If you want to get good at reacting to punches, you need to train by looking at punches!

That’s all it is. The better you get at sensing the punches, the better you will get at responding to them. You want to get better at seeing punches, hearing punches, feeling punches, sensing punches even before they’re thrown. The focus should always be on the stimuli.

 Common Reflex Training Mistake #1 – not training with the right stimuli

And you have to train with the RIGHT STIMULI. If you want to get better at slipping punches, you need to have punches thrown at you. There’s no other way. Playing pingpong is not going to

help. Dodging tennis balls as your friend throws them at you is not going to help. Sure, having fast reflexes in ANY activity is a physical advantage, but ultimately the guy with better trained BOXING reflexes will win the BOXING match.

Focusing on anything other than defending punches is going to be a giant waste of time! At best, you’d improve your coordination and instinctive reflexes, but you wouldn’t get any better at sensing punches or develop any effective reflexes. More on this later.

 Common Reflex Training Mistake #2 – focusing on the reaction

So many boxer waste their time by doing the wrong kinds of drills for reflex training:

practicing the defensive motion (slipping in front of the mirror or under the rope) practicing the counter punches (on the bag or in the mirror)

I’m not saying these drills aren’t useful (they are certainly essential for boxing training). My point is that they’re terrible for developing fighting reflexes. It’s common to see a beginner practice slipping motions in front of the mirror for a whole week, and then get destroyed in the ring, because he STILL CAN’T SEE THE PUNCHES COMING. What did he expect? How can you slip a punch if you can’t see it?

Just because I spend time slipping in front of the mirror and throwing punches on the bag, doesn’t mean I’m trained to see counter-punching opportunities. Shadowboxing and bag work has more do to with technique and conditioning. If I want to develop reflexes, I need to have punches thrown at me. Having a partner throw punches at me (even without contact) while I move around the ring will be far more effective for my reflex development because it exposes me to the stimuli (punches being thrown).

The secret to reflex training,is to focus on the stimuli!

Heavy Bag WorkoutThere’s more to a heavy bag workout than just throwing punches until you get tired.

There are many heavy bag drills you can use and many possible ways to organize your rounds to develop different kinds of punches. If you’re smart, you’ll use different rounds to focus on different things instead of doing the same thing over and over.

Here’s an easy 6-round heavy bag workout to help you develop different boxing skills.

 

 

Round 1 – WARM UP

Walk around the bag and test long shots, mainly jabs and 1-2′s. Pay attention to your stance and your defense. Keep your eyes on the whole bag. Aim well without having to focus in on one tiny spot. You should feel like you can see any attack from any angle if the bag had arms. Keep the power down at 50% and move around a lot while you establish your range.

Round 1:

maintain your boxing stance establish punching range use your eyes

 

Round 2 & 3 – POWER AND MOVEMENT

Attack the bag with combinations as if it was a live opponent. Start putting in some power; increase your power output up to 80%. Every and now and then put in some really hard shots. If you’re going in and out of range, move in quick with sharp hooks and uppercuts and then move out quickly. Remember to use good power (technique/breathing) and good footwork (slick movements/pivots, not jumping).

Round 2 & 3:

good technique sharp breathing slick movement

 

Round 4 & 5 – SPEED

Tabata drills are useful here. Start doing intervals where you’re hitting the bag as fast as you can for 15-seconds, then break for 15-seconds, then repeat till the end of the round. All out speed, no power, no technique. Work speed and try to use as much of your body as possible to develop a fast coordinated contraction of arm and leg muscles.

Round 4 & 5:

fast breathing fast contractions no technique

 

Round 6 – ENDURANCE

The final round is all about conditioning. Get up to the bag and throw endless shots until the bell rings. Unload EVERYTHING you have. It’s best to focus on smaller shorter punches instead of wild swinging shots. It may feel like you’re throwing silly tiny punches but this is what develops muscle memory and increases your rate of muscle contractions. Throwing wild punches allows you to relax after the initial release where as small punches force you to keep activating your muscles. Resist the urge to get lazy and lose your balance or forget about breathing.

Round 6:

maximize number of contractions maintain your balance avoid going for power

 

Heavy Bag Workout TipsCustomize your workout

There’s no rule saying you have to copy my workout. You can do whatever you want. Do 3 rounds if you don’t have 6 rounds of time. Skip the power part if you only want to work speed and endurance or do different rounds on different days. Customize it to fit your needs. “Too much” or “Too little” depends on how you feel! I usually do 3-6 rounds on the heavy bag 5 days a week. Some weeks more, some weeks less.

 

The heavy bag is only one tool

The heavy bag can’t substitute for a real boxing workout. If you’re serious about learning how to fight, make sure you do all the other workouts (shadowboxing, sparring, speed bag, etc). Real power comes from skills, not muscle effort. So being able to hit a bag well doesn’t necessarily guarantee you can hit an opponent like that. The best boxers probably spend only 10% of their time in the gym on a heavy bag.

Real power comes from skills,not muscle effort.

Heavy Bag DrillsLooking for new ways to train with your heavy bag?

The heavy bag has become the symbol of punching power in pop culture and rightfully so. A punching bag is big, strong, and durable. It’s made to be hit and tempts you to test your power with every shot.

But there’s more to a heavy bag than just power. Use it to develop your punching endurance, punching speed, punch accuracy, and even your footwork! Here are five punching bag drills to show you how.

 1. Power Drills

The most obvious way to develop your punching power on the heavy bag is to throw as hard as you can. It’s better (especially for beginners) if you can resist this urge and limit yourself to only 50-80% power output. Power comes from good technique moreso than muscle effort, so power drills should have some focus on technique instead of pure athleticism.

It’s best if you can throw power punches in a realistic manner. Which would be to throw combinations instead of single shots. To throw quickly instead of charging up like a karate master breaking boards. Use good technique instead of mindlessly wasting your energy with each shot. And to throw until the end of the round.

The problem is not throwing with too much power,but FOCUSING too much on power.

 Regular Heavy Bag Drill

It’s not so much a drill but the common way to use a heavy bag. Follow it around and throw heavy punches.

 Repeat Combos Drill

I enjoy this one very much because it builds muscle memory. Spend an entire round throwing the same combination or same series of power combinations. In a busy gym, this drill can be run with multiple fighters taking turns hitting and holding the bags for each other while the trainer yells out combinations. For example, the trainer might yell out 1-2-3, in which punchers throw jab-right-hook continuously until he gives the next combination. If the “switch” command is given, then the puncher and holder switch places.

 2. Endurance Drills

Small Punches Drill

Hit the bag non-stop with small repetitive punches as fast as you can for an entire round. The focus here is on getting in as many “punches” as possible and breathing properly throughout. Some trainers will tell you to lift your legs as if you’re running which makes it look like you’re taking a step with every punch. You can forget about technique since endurance is about volume and not power.

The best tip I can give for endurance drills is to RESIST throwing with power. So many guys end up trying to work power AND endurance in the same drill that it ends up looking like a power drill. When you’re doing endurance, focus ONLY on throwing as many punches as possible. It might not seem like a real workout but you are actually developing muscle memory so that your arm muscles are used to contracting many more times in a round.

Develop your endurance byincreasing the number of contractions.

Endurance drill tips:

Try to breathe with every punch. Maintain a good posture without leaning into the bag. Stand square or at least more square than your normal boxing stance. You can aim at any height, many trainers prefer for you to aim at head level to work the

shoulders more. Your heels are lifting and dropping with every punch. Knees are bending and un-bending. No need to pivot with every punch.

 3. Speed Drills

Tabata Interval Drill

To develop punching speed on the heavy bag, use the same drill you did for endurance but do them in intervals (also known as tabata drills). The most common interval would be to punch for 15 seconds, and then break for 15 seconds, and repeat till the end of the round. This 15-second timing is perfect because it’s short enough to practice your high-speed burst without tiring out, but long enough to still wear you down.

Once again, make sure you focus on breathing. Feel free to lift your legs if you want. It can be helpful to do tabata drills with a partner so you can take turns hitting and holding the bag for each other. You can also alternate between head level (using straights), chest level (using vertical-fisted straights), and stomach level (using small uppercuts).

Speed drill tips:

Resist the urge to turn your speed drills into endurance drills by skipping the interval breaks. Rest intervals allow your muscles to relax so that you’re always punching at high speed and therefore developing your hand speed.

Speed has to do more with muscle contraction rate, rather than technique. Avoid focusing on technique during speed drills.

Fast breathing equals fast speed. Breathe in smaller shorter bursts of exhalation to increase your hand speed.

Your heels are lifting and dropping with every punch. Knees are bending and un-bending. No need to pivot with every punch.

 4. Footwork Drills

Footwork Drill 1 – Move with the Bag

Use a heavy bag that’s able to swing around freely. It’s best if you can find one around 50-75% of your body weight. You need one heavy enough to take punches without flying away with each shot but still light enough to swing away from you. You may have to adjust your punching power to create the desired effect.

Hit the bag as you normally would but keep moving with it. As the bag swings in circles, you circle around with it. At times you may find yourself slipping to opposite sites of the bag and dogging it entirely. The goal is to move with it instead of being stationary and waiting for it to return to you.

Footwork tips:

Always keep the bag at arm’s distance, follow it when it goes away and back up or circle when it comes towards you.

Don’t hit it too hard if it moves faster than you can move your feet. Try to walk with the bag instead of hopping around in a stiff stance. The easiest punch to throw while moving is the jab!

 Footwork Drill 2 – Angled Escape

This angled escape drill is to develop good footwork habits on the heavy bag. The idea is to always escape either to your back right or back left and never to go straight back. Throw a combo and then step out to your back right. Throw another combo and step out to your back left (orthodox fighters will require a pivot for this). Keep doing this over and over.

It should look like a very smooth step after your combo, not a jump! Another tip is not to move so far away from the bag that you can’t reach it after moving. When done right, this drill should look as though you’re repeatedly punching while backing away from the bag. A slick mover will look as though he’s simply punching and walking around the bag.

Footwork tips:

Keeping your feet on the ground keeps you prepared to punch or counter. Jumping around only wastes energy and takes you too far out of countering range. Try to keep a calm relaxed manner.

 5. Accuracy Drills

You wouldn’t think a big punching bag could be used for developing accuracy but there have been several methods of achieving this:

 1. Duct tape

What some gyms will do is put duct tape around the heavy bag. Some people have an organized system where they put rings of duct tape separating different levels for head & body punches. Other people have random pieces of duct tape sprinkled around the bag. Regardless of how you place the duct tape, the goal is to raise your awareness and make you aim for something instead of throwing blind punches.

 2. Numbered Targets

There are even heavy bags with numbers printed on them for you to practice certain combinations. I don’t enjoy this as much (since the numbers disappear when the bag spins) but it is an option and maybe you will like it.

 3. Thin Heavy Bags

I’ve only seen this once back in Canada but I enjoyed it very much. It was a small but very dense heavy bag and very thin, maybe 6 inches in diameter. It hung by a chain but had an elastic rope attached from the bottom to the floor. So it swung like a heavy bag but returned like a double-end bag (a double-end heavy bag?). Very useful and great for developing power punches WITH accuracy.

Punch accuracy tips:

Accuracy has to do with eye-to-hand coordination, rather than waiting for the right moment (which is timing). You don’t develop accuracy by waiting for the target, you do it by using your eyes to assist you in finding the target. Keep throwing punches and make adjustments to make the next ones more accurate. Don’t sit around waiting for a moving target to slow down.

 Develop ALL Your Punches on the Heavy BagThe most important aspect of the heavy bag is not to get too carried away with punching power. A real fight has all kinds of punches. Sometimes, you need more speed, or more volume…it’s not always about power. The heavy bag, if anything, is meant to develop punching power FOR ALL YOUR PUNCHES (not only your power shots).

After increasing your punching abilities through the drills shown above (power, speed, endurance, etc), apply them to your punches when needed during a fight. Let your punches flow through the various qualities and become whatever attribute you need to win the fight.

All kinds of punches are necessary.A complete punch arsenal has power, speed, and endurance!

Top 5 Boxing ExercisesDecember 25, 2011 December 25, 2011 by Johnny N Boxing Training, Boxing Workouts 115 Comments

How many new exercises have you learned since you started boxing? How many have you tried and then never used again?

If you count everything you’ve seen in the gym, pre-fight training videos, and Youtube, we’ve got all the exercises we need … and more. Much more. It’s easy to think there’s some magical exercise out there to make you the next Muhammad Ali but I disagree. There’s only so much exercise your body can handle so you’ll have to prioritize.

How are my favorite boxing exercises…

 

1. Sparring

There’s no training that better mimics fighting conditions than sparring. Aside from the excitement of trading punches, it’s a great boxing workout. Sparring is so much harder than training! You work every muscle in your body jumping, twisting, and contorting in an effort to respond to your opponent’s every move. Your arms get tired because you’re swinging at the air. Your legs wear out faster because you keep going off balance. Your mind is panicking because you’re don’t usually have to think so fast during training. You can’t breathe as quickly because you got a mouthpiece on and an opponent who won’t give you any room to breathe!

Is there any workout more challengingthan punching and trying not to get punched?

 

How to Spar

I don’t recommend this for everyone but here’s how I do sparring: I try to spend as much time as possible in the ring. I spar for warm-up, I spar for exercise, I spar to develop my skills. If no one says anything, I’ll hog the ring for over an hour!

 

Here’s my secret:

I go slow. When I first hit the gym, I’ll spar light with a beginner to warm-up my muscles. I’m only touching him, not trying to hurt him. He’ll usually have a trainer coaching him but it’s ok, he’s only a beginner anyway. It works out nicely because I’m getting a live opponent instead of boring shadowboxing (which I still do, btw). After the warm-up sparring, I head to the jump rope (if I haven’t already done this), bag work, stretching, etc.

After the warm-up exercises, I’m back in the ring again! This time it’s a workout, I’m in there moving and trading with a solid opponent. We’re both being fast and powerful. It’s controlled, but it’s still a workout. I last 3-6 rounds, tops. I step out of the ring exhausted this time, and start chatting with coaches and other fighters about improvements to make on technique or strategy. I do some work on the mitts, try out the new moves in front of the mirror and on the heavy bag.

And then, I’m BACK IN THE RING AGAIN! This time, I go light with another skilled boxer. We work on different combos and strategies but we’re not trying to beat each other up. We’re helping each other out, giving each other different looks and chances to improve. For example: If I throw a combo that lands and he didn’t see it, I’ll throw it again for him to develop the counter for it. I might throw the exact same combo 5 times in a row until he sees it counters it perfectly. Once he’s got it, we both smile and move on to other things. We’ll trade punches again giving each other chances to work on new things, sometimes coaching each other as we fight. Because it’s really light sparring, we’re usually more aggressive and staying in range with each other to keep a continuous flow of punching. Being that nobody’s getting hurt, we go up to 30 minutes straight — no breaks.

When sparring is done right, it develops EVERYTHING a fighter needs — conditioning, skills, and mental confidence. You’ll learn more from sparring if you keep it controlled. Don’t try to be a tough guy. If you’re just sparring to beat each other up, you won’t last beyond a few rounds.

 

2. Mitts

The mitts is probably the best boxing drill to learn new technique. It’s similar to sparring in that you get to improve your offense and defense simultaneously. (Actually, I can’t think of anything other than sparring to test your defense.) The real benefit is that you get a trainer who can see your every move and give you instant feedback. Hitting the mitts is the probably the best way to develop new skills and it’s a lot of fun.

The advantage of the mitts is that it works your timing and accuracy in conditions that mimic a real fight. You’ll have a moving target that also punches back at you. My advice when working on the mitts is DON’T GET TIRED. Yes, hit it hard if you must but learn how to punch right. Try going for 30 minutes straight and then when you’re ready to stop, finish off with 3 hard rounds. Don’t just throw power into every shot, develop your accuracy, timing, breathing, coordination, and reflexes. Just like with sparring, the keyword is “CONTROL”. Control yourself, don’t get tired!

Anybody that gets tired hitting the mittsis definitely going to get tired against a live opponent.

 

3. Shadowboxing

One of boxing’s most underrated exercises. Physically, it develops your form, speed, and balance. You can practice anything you want at full speed and move around. Sure, it’s not as glamorous as beating up the heavy bag but it’s deadly effective. It conditions your body to throw fast punches and gives you the opportunity to practice all fighting movements.

Shadowboxing is likemeditation and visualization exercise for a boxer.

Use the opportunity to practice anything you want — like a difficult counter getting past your opponent’s guard. You visualize as you shadowbox, moving around an imaginary opponent. Shadowboxing in front of a mirror allows you to check your form and see instant changes in your movements.

My favorite benefit of shadowboxing — you can do it anywhere. In front of the TV during commercials, while talking to friends, waiting in line at the grocery store, underwater in the pool, or anywhere you can find a mirror. The only equipment you need to shadowbox is a place to stand and a few seconds of time.

 

4. Double-end Bag

This right here is my favorite bag. The double-end bag is something between a heavy bag and a speed-bag. Hitting a speed-bag can get repetitive and a heavy bag is a bit hard on my hands over the years, so the double-end bag naturally became my favorite “bag”.

You can hit the double-end bag as hard as you wantbut you have to time it right and be deadly accurate.

It’s far more challenging to hit and develops your higher level skills, mainly timing & accuracy. I understand some fighters (especially beginners) don’t spend much time on it but I will say this, “Do it! Train on the double-end bag, and you will get much better at hitting opponents in the ring.” It’s pretty satisfying to land combos on the double-end bag and much more satisfying when you can do it to a moving opponent.

Aside from the timing and accuracy, the speed bag is great for developing hand speed and arm conditioning. It’s far more tiring to the double-end bag because you have to be fast each time. I think of it as the minimum hand speed — if you’re not fast enough to hit the double-end bag, you’re probably not fast enough to hit an opponent. I recommend you wear 12 to 16oz gloves and hit the double-end bag for at least 3 rounds. Sometimes I’ll go for 30 minutes straight (even while chatting with other boxers), but hey, that’s just me.

 

5. Jumprope

The jumprope is one ofthe best exercises for full-body conditioning!

I’ll tell you it’s my why favorite conditioning exercise for boxing. It teaches you how to increase your muscle efficiency, WHILE developing your muscle conditioning! If you’ve ever skipped rope before you’ll know what I’m talking about, and if you haven’t then you’ll just have to take my word for it.

Using the jumprope trains 2 things, body conditioning and relaxation. Most beginners have a problem of always using their muscles and not knowing how to relax. If you do this on a jumprope, you’ll gas out in a few minutes tops. However, if you DO know how to relax you can jump rope forever and not spend much energy. A beginner will exert his energy the whole time on the jump rope whereas an experience skipper will relax with very quick bounces that require only a split second of muscle contractions.

When I first started jumping rope, I was out of breath in about 2 minutes. Now I can go for at least 2 hours; I actually don’t break a sweat until 15 minutes in. The difference is that I know how to relax and contract my muscles just in time to skip over the rope. It develops my mental

relaxation and maintains a minimum level of awareness of all times (you have to always be aware of the rope). Later on this raised level of awareness can be used to slip jabs or other punches. You’re always use to moving and thinking AND you can still relax while doing so.

Physically, it works the arms, shoulders, back, and legs. You’ll develop better footwork and more relaxed footwork. Combine that great body conditioning with the improved muscle relaxation, and raised minimum level of awareness and you’ll see why the jump rope makes better fighters. At the very least, you should be able to jump rope and tell jokes without getting tired. Anybody that can do that will be able to box without getting tired.

 

Honorable mention: CRUNCHES & RUNNING

These exercises ALMOST made it to my list but unfortunately they don’t because they’re boring as hell and don’t develop any boxing skills.

Core exercises like crunches are important for ANY sport because your core connects your entire body together. Having a stronger core allows you to combine the power of all your muscles so to exert force as one solid unit. Almost all moves that you make in boxing requires the synergistic output of your entire body. Having a strong core allows you to punch harder, run faster, and move explosively without losing control. Most fighters that have bad balance will typically have a weak core. Think about it…if balance is about staying centered, then what muscles in your body are helping center yourself? THE CORE! The core is especially important in boxing because your opponent is hittnig you there with punches. If you don’t have a strong stomach, your stomach will hurt when you try to move your legs or throw punches. You’ll be weak and you’ll be in pain if you don’t do those crunches. Quite simply, it’s impossible to make explosive movements with your body if you don’t have a strong core.

Running is one of the most functional movements of the human body. Human bodies were MADE to run — yes, we were anatomically evolved to travel quickly using 2 limbs. I can’t think of any other animal that can run the same way we humans run. Our bodies were built to run as a means of transportation, but I guess nowadays in this age of technology running just means exercise to most people. Well, it’s a good exercise because our body is made to run efficiently. The structural placement of our limbs and muscles make running one of the most natural and efficient ways to use (and exercise) our entire body. I guess that’s the secret to developing athletic ability, you have to workout using natural movements to make your body more functional. Sure, you can lift a ton of rocks and argue that lifting rocks is harder than running. But does lifting rocks really make you more functional overall as an athlete? Hmmm…

The Best Exercises for BoxingThe best boxing exercises should help to develop higher level boxing skills. After training for so many years, you get sick of just running or doing crunches. You start to appreciate the more challenging exercises. All of these exercises (except the jump rope) will allow you to practice your more advanced fighting moves. The best exercises to me are challenging AND fun.

What about other boxing exercises?

Calisthenics, push-ups, etc. I don’t enjoy them as much but they’re all important. You need to do everything, but if it were up to me…you know exactly where I’d be spending my time.

You can do all the exercises you want,but PRIORITIZE!

ExpertBoxing EASY Boxing WorkoutMay 25, 2011 May 25, 2011 by Johnny N Boxing Training, Boxing Workouts 171 Comments

Workouts don’t have to be hard to be fun!

The *official* ExpertBoxing EASY boxing workout is for people to enjoy boxing while getting into great shape. This weekly plan includes boxing drills, conditioning, and sparring without taking up too many hours of your week.

 

I highly recommend this easy boxing workout plan for anyone to enjoy boxing without killing themselves in training like competing boxers. The workout is still pretty intense and gets you into great shape without taking up all your time and energy. You’ll look just as good as any boxer and still learn all the same great boxing techniques, but without the pressure and responsibility of competition.

You’ll be working out from Monday through Friday. The sparring days are your easy days, also known as the “fun days”. Friday is just running only. The weekends are your rest days. Actually, you know what? This is the EASY boxing workout; just take a rest day whenever you feel like it. (Seriously, it’s ok.)

 

Easy Boxing Workout Schedule

Monday = power conditioningTuesday = sparringWednesday = speed conditioningThursday = sparringFriday = easy day

Saturday & Sunday = rest days

 

 

MONDAY: Power Conditioning Use your momentum to complete the workout. Some exercises are easier when you go a

little faster. No resting, try to finish the conditioning portion within 60 minutes before your body

adrenaline runs out. Do the power conditioning workouts in any order you want. (Share the equipment.) You are building power, not size or strength. Use a lighter weight than what you can

handle.

This is conditioning, not weightlifting.

 

Warm-up

15 minutes jumping rope 15 minutes stretching 15 minutes shadowboxing

 

Power Conditioning Workout

 

Power Exercises

Clapping push-ups

Set your hands on the floor at shoulder width or slightly wider. Do a push-up and clap as you push yourself up and off the ground. 2 sets x 10 reps

 

Explosive Box Jumps

Stand on a box (about 12-24 inches high) or the edge of the ring. Drop off, land on the balls of your feet, and immediately bounce back up. Rest only at the top, and not at the bottom (if you need). 2 sets x 20 reps

 

Alternating Jumps

Stand by a box (12-24 inches high) or the edge of the ring. Stand on your back leg as you raise your front leg to lightly step on the box. Keep jumping and alternating your feet. Keep your weight on the back leg, and your heads on top of your head. 2 sets x 20 reps

 

Squats

Stand with your feet at shoulder width or slightly wider. Bend your knees as you lower your hips to the floor. Go down at least until your thighs are parallel to the ground, before going back up. 2 sets x 30

 

Medicine Ball – Lunge

Stand straight while holding a 10-20lb medicine ball on your head. Lunge forward on one leg and then return to standing position. Repeat with other leg. 20 reps each leg

 

Medicine Ball – Chest Throws

Stand with a partner facing each other from about 5-10 feet apart. Throw a medicine ball back and forth between a partner 20 throws (each person)

 

Medicine Ball – Side Throws

Stand side-by-side with a partner about 5-10 feet apart. Swing a medicine ball in an upwards diagonal direction at your partner as you rotate your

upper body. The other person will catch the ball and let the momentum swing the ball away before

swinging it back again. 2 sets x 10 throws for each side

 

Medicine Ball – Cross-over Push-ups

Place medicine ball in the middle. Do push-ups from side to side landing a different hand on the ball each time. 15 crossover push-ups for each hand.

 

Medicine Ball – Cross-over Press

Using platform in the middle (or another medicine ball). Step on and off the platform from side to side. Push a medicine ball straight up into the air as you come up each time 20 reps each leg

 

Medicine Ball – Step to Press

Step up onto a box (12-16″ tall) one foot at a time. Push the medicine ball straight up into the air as you step up. Step back down and repeat with the other leg. 20 reps each leg

 

One-Arm Dumbbell Row

Bend over a bench and brace yourself with one arm. Hold a 10-20lb dumbbell with your other arm, with the palm facing you. Pull the dumbbell up, bend your elbow as you point it towards the sky. 15 reps each arm

 

Standing Military Press

Hold a barbell at shoulder level right by your neck. The weight 15-80lbs (should not exceed 30% of your body weight). 15 presses into the air

 

Dumbbell Side Swings

Stand straight a 10-20lb dumbbell in one arm. Swing it out to the side up to shoulder height and let the weight swing the arm back

down. Switch the dumbbell to the other hand at the bottom and let the momentum swing the

other arm out. 15 swings on each arm

 

Ab Roller

15 reps from your knees. Do 50 crunches if you don’t have this equipment.

 

Chin-Ups

Grip the pull-up bar so that your palms are facing you. 2 sets x 8 reps (do all at once if you can).

 

Bagwork

3 rounds heavy bag 3 rounds speed bag

3 rounds double-end bag

 

Mittwork

Work techniques and combinations on the mitts with your trainer. 3 to 4 rounds The mittwork can interrupt your bagwork anytime your trainer is ready for you.

Core

100 push-ups (at any interval you want) 100 sit-ups (at any interval you want) Do this at the end of your day.

Running

Run 3-5 miles. Do this at any time of day. Doesn’t matter if it’s before or after your workout.

 

 

 

TUESDAY/THURSDAY: Sparring DaysIf you’re not sparring, you’re not boxing. So every boxing workout should involve sparring. Without the sparring, you’re basically just doing fitness bootcamp, “boxercise”, or taking a cardio class at 24-hour fitness. Sparring is always fun as long as you keep it EASY. The moment you start to feel uncomfortable, you should speak up immediately. Ask the other guy to slow down or lighten up his punches. Fighting through the pain is the best way to ruin the fun. Also show your sparring partner the same respect. Control your punches and give him some breathing room if you’re overwhelming him. Don’t let your ego destroy the fun of boxing for you or for others.

Warm-up

15 minutes jumping rope 15 minutes stretching 15 minutes shadowboxing

Technique & Mitts

Do some light work on the mitts with your trainer to learn some new techniques.

Sparring

Do 3-4 rounds EASY sparring. Can have an extra first round as “jabs only” to warm-up. Can have an extra last round as “very light punches only” to work at inside range. Try to work on the new techniques your trainer just showed you.

Bagwork

3 rounds heavy bag 3 rounds speed bag 3 rounds double-end bag

 

 

WEDNESDAY: Speed ConditioningThis is a combination of speed and speed-endurance. Being fast is one thing, being able to maintain your speed throughout an entire fight is another. There are also some drills to improve your balance and coordination. Don’t take any breaks during the drills and conditioning, go from one exercise to the next. The important thing to developing speed is to relax! Focus on relaxed speed, do not focus on power!Warm-up

15 minutes jumping rope 15 minutes stretching 15 minutes shadowboxing

 

Footwork drills

1-legged Balance Squats

Stand on one leg Bend the knee to squat down and touch your feet. Straighten the leg as you clap your hands above your head. 20 reps in a row, then switch legs.

T-cone Drill

Get 4 cones, weights, medicine balls, or any objects. Place the cones in a “T” formation about 12-feet wide and 12-feet long. Run and touch cones in this order A, B, C, D, B, A. Face your body forward the whole time and don’t cross your legs. Do the T-cone drill 5 times continously.

Foot-Tag

Have 2 fighters chase each other around the ring trying to step on each other’s feet. Once they get good at this, have them play “foot-tag” without looking down at each

other’s feet. Do it around the gym if no ringspace is available. Have fun and don’t take the drill too seriously. 2 rounds for each fighter.

Leg-Tag

Same as ideas as foot-tag but this time fighters try to tag each other’s upper thighs with their hands.

Use lots of back & forth footwork. 2 rounds for each fighter.

Shadowbox Sparring

Have 2 fighters in the ring shadowboxing against each other as if they’re sparring. Make sure they stay 1-2 feet away so nobody connects. Encourage them to throw lots of combinations and pay attention to each other. 1-2 rounds.

Slipline Drill

Tie a rope or string across 2 posts at shoulder height. Have boxers weave back and forth under the rope. Go forwards and backwards.

Throw a few punches on each side of the rope before going under again. Do 1 to 2 rounds.

Dumbbell Shadowboxing

Do SLOW shadowboxing while holding 1-2lb dumbbells. Going fast will damage joints, do NOT go fast! 15 minutes

…put the gloves on now

 

 

Punching Drills

Tabata Heavy Bag Drill – “High Hands, High Knees”

2 fighters pair up on the heavy bag. One holds the bag while the other throws fast straight punches on the bag. Switch every 15 seconds. The focus is PURE SPEED, not power! Go as fast as possible, keep pushing it. Aim high at an area ABOVE the fighter’s head. Lift the knees and move your feet as you punch (high hands, high knees). It helps to motivate and yell at each other. 2 rounds

 

Tabata Heavy Bag Drill – “Combinations”

2 fighters pair up on the heavy bag taking turns punching & holding. Fighters will continously throw whatever combination the trainer calls. Fighters switch every 15 seconds. Trainer calls a new combo every 30 seconds. The combos we used were: 1-2-3, 1-2-sidestep-2, 1-3-2, 1-2-5-2, 1-2-3-2-sidestep, 1-1-2. Make up some of your own combos!

 

Jumping Jabs Along The Ropes

Jump in and out as you jab the ring ropes. Every time you jump back, jump back diagonally to the side. Continue all the way down the rope.

Go 3 times moving to your right, repeat again but moving to your left. Try to move while jumping as low as possible to the ground. (It’s best if you can “jump” without taking your feet off the ground.)

 

Jab Race

Put up to 4 fighters on opposite sides of a heavy bag. Have someone count SLOWLY from 1 to 10, pausing at random intervals. Everytime a number is called, all fighters jab the bag as fast as possible. Do 3 jab races. (It really helps if everyone is relaxed and focused on pure speed. Not power.)

 

Jab Defense

Pair up 2 fighters in the ring. Have one fighter chase the other around with multiple jabs at a time. The other fighter simply slips and rolls off the jabs (with his hands behind his back). The drill works much better if the defender is chasing the puncher. First-time boxers can use their hands to defend instead of having to slip. Focus on maintaining balance. 2 rounds of jab defense for each fighter.

 

 

Bagwork

3 rounds heavy bag 3 rounds speed bag 3 rounds double-end bag

 

Trainer

Work techniques & mitts with your trainer. 3 to 4 rounds is plenty.

 

Core

100 push-ups (at any interval you want) 100 sit-ups (at any interval you want) Do this at the end of your day.

Running

Run 3-5 miles. Do this at any time of day. Doesn’t matter if it’s before or after your workout.

 

 

 

 

FRIDAY: Easy Day Run 3-5 miles 100 push-ups 100 sit-ups stretching

Fridays are your easy days. Be lazy and enjoy it. Run with a partner and talk about stuff. The 3-5 miles will be done before you know it. You don’t even need to warm up or anything. If you still have lots of energy, just spend it stretching. Do not try to sneak an extra workout in.

 

SATURDAY/SUNDAY: Resting Only!

Resting only! Do NOT, I repeat, DO NOT WORKOUT on Saturday or Sunday. Enjoy your non-boxing life. Don’t try to burn every ounce of energy you have. It’s a common beginner mistake to waste all their energy on days that don’t matter. If you have a lot of excitement to workout, GREAT–save it for the week!

Your long term goal is not to succeed.  Success is inevitable if you are persistant.  Your long term goal is to stay motivated!

Staying motivated means not using up all your motivation. Save that mental strength and let your passion for boxing and working out grow.

The secret to always having energy to workoutis to always use less than what you have.

 

 

The Easy Boxing Workout?Easy boxing workout; just like I promised, right? It’s fun and challenging enough for you to make great progress but still easy enough for beginners to try out. If something feels much too hard or you’re experiencing pain, please stop! Give yourself some time. Different exercises will have to be modified to make it easier on certain people. Feel free to increase or decrease the number of repetitions as needed. Skip entire exercises if you like. Take an easy day anytime you want. Hell, take an easy week if you need.

You are not a pro,so don’t expect a pro-performance out of yourself!

Just have fun!

What if it’s too easy? You can add the running and end-of-day core workout to Tuesdays and Thursdays as well. Or add some mitts to your workout everyday to develop your boxing skills faster.

How To Increase Your EnduranceMarch 26, 2010 March 26, 2010 by Johnny N Boxing Training, Boxing Workouts 74 Comments

A definitive guide to increasing your endurance for boxing! Get educated, get conditioned, and never get tired in the ring again!

 

One of my biggest weaknesses in all sports was not because I wasn’t good enough. It was almost always because I just didn’t have the energy to consistently compete. In the boxing ring, I was always getting tired almost immediately after the bell sounded to START the round. Nothing pissed me off more than seeing openings in the other guy’s defense and then not having the energy to throw punches. I was often found at the end of the rounds cowardly hiding behind my defensive shell because I just didn’t have any energy to throw back. Eventually, I just got tired of losing fights when I knew deep down inside that I was the better fighter.

After getting more experience, I finally realized boxers get tired for two basic reasons: One reason is that the boxer is not conditioned well enough (simple fix). The other reason is that the boxer is panicking under pressure and beating himself down mentally (not-so-simple fix). Unfortunately for me, I was suffering for both reasons and now I’ll tell you how to overcome them.

For this article, I’ll focus on just the physical conditioning. I’ll leave the mental conditioning to another article.

Physical ConditioningThis part is real simple. You need to do nothing more than these basic tips to increase your overall physical endurance for boxing.

Run 5 miles a day AT LEAST 3-5 days out of the week.

Don’t run less than five miles and don’t burn yourself out by running everyday of the week.

Save 2 days out of the week to allow your body to rest and heal. Running is among the BEST ways to raise your cardio and is recommended by just about

anybody. There is are very few if any substitutes for it – swimming, jumping rope.

Fast hands and quick feet during the last 30 seconds on the heavy bag.

When you do your rounds on the heavy bag, listen for the bell that tells you there’s only 30 seconds left. Right when you hear the 30-second bell start punching the heavy bag non-stop with nothing but fast and straight punches.

They don’t need to be powerful or big punches. You just need to throw non-stop punches at a very fast pace.

Aim your punches at EYE LEVEL. (Many people tend to punch down as they fall into the bag when they do this exercise.)

At the same time, you can OPTIONALLY lift your feet up and down off the ground as if you’re running in place as you non-stop punches at the bag.

This will quickly raise your arm endurance and overall cardio as well. Again, the focus is SPEED and non-stop punches. Throw an endless combo until the round is over!

Don’t forget to keep breathing!

Start Jumping Rope

Jumping rope is one of the best cardio exercises. It’s fun and keeps your mind sharp. It forces you to learn how to relax while performing complex footwork manuevers. Way more challenging than running. Do it all the time! Use a few rounds on the jumprope to warm-up and warm-down on

your workout days.

Start Hitting the Speedbag

Working the speedbag will increase your arm endurance. Do at least 3 rounds on your workout days. Don’t get carried away and try to go too fast. Just a slow but steady pace without a break makes the bigger difference.

ConclusionPhysically, you’re just going to have to put in the work. There is no way around hard conditioning when you’re training to be a serious athlete. Boxing is not an leisure sport that you can do twice a year when the season comes around. It requires a bit of dedication and if you put that effort in, you’ll reap the benefits. Get to training and thanks for reading!

10 Heavy Bag Training TipsMay 7, 2011 May 7, 2011 by Johnny N Bag Training, Boxing Training 92 Comments

Don’t just throw punches at the bag, learn how to hit a heavy the proper way. Here are 10 heavy bag training tips to develop your boxing technique as well your punching power.

10 Heavy Bag Training Tips

1. Pay Attention

The number one problem of heavybag training is that it builds bad eye habits. The two common problems I see are fighters staring too hard at the bag or not looking at the bag.

Too Much Staring

This kind of intense eye contact is pretty cool since you feel like a hunter keeping his eye on the target. In the ring, staring at a target telegraphs to your opponent where you are going to punch next. Whatever you do, do NOT look down when you throw a body punch. This makes the punch so much easier to defend and so much easier to counter. You especially don’t want to telegraph a body punch because your head is wide open.

Don’t stare too much at one spot that you can’t see anything else.

The correct way to look at the bag is to just look forward. Imagine the bag as opponent in front of you and try to keep the entire bag in your field of vision. You want to keep an eye on his head and body movements at the same time. You aim your punches but you’re not staring so much into one spot that you can’t see anything else.

Lazy Eyes

This is when the fighter is not even looking at the bag. Believe it or not, some fighters can’t answer when I ask them, “What are you looking at when you punch?” I’ve caught new boxers staring at the ground or just looking to the side when they throw big punches. It’s amazing how often boxers punch blind when they get tired.

Don’t just let your eyes roam all over the place. Lazy eyes leave you vulnerable in the ring! Stay focused and pay attention to the bag. This increases your accuracy and more importantly, so you can see counter-punches coming your way. Best way to cure lazy eyes: put little squares of duct tape around the bag to give the eyes something to look at…or just spend more time using other equipment like the double-end bag which keeps your eyes alert.

Ultimately you want to keep your eyes on the bag without staring into it. You want to have a general awareness of the entire heavybag. Keep the bag in view and also be aware of how far the bag is from you at all times.

 

2. Keep Your Balance

Throw punches at the bag but don’t throw yourself at the bag. Stand on your own two feet and don’t fall into the bag. Keeping your balance makes for better punching power and better footwork around the heavybag.

Don’t use the bag to hold you up. Don’t push with your shoulders; this bad habit allows skilled fighters to keep you off-balance by moving when they feel you leaning into them. Worst of all, do not push the bag around with your head; that’s just a great way to leave yourself open for uppercuts.

 

3. Punch, Don’t Push

Don’t push the bag, hit it. Don’t make the bag swing all over the place, give it a seizure. There’s an old saying that goes, “If you want to know who’s hitting the bag correctly, just ask the blind man.” This is because you can tell if you’re punching correctly just by listening to the sound of your punches hitting the bag. What you want a snapping SMACK sound when you punch it and not a dull THUD sound. In case you don’t know, I wrote guide a while back: How to Throw a Snapping Punch

A push punch will only push the bag around as your arms get tired. A fast snap punch will jolt the bag in place with a big smack sound. Relax your arms and throw quick snapping punches. Commit some power but don’t have your fist making contact with the bag for too long. As soon as you make contact, return that fist and throw the next punch. You can always tell if you’re pushing if your arms are getting tired quickly. Again, limit the amount of time your fist makes contact with the bag.

 

4. Ground Your Feet When You Punch

Plant those feet when you punch. Being grounded means more balance, more power, more control, more mobility to move away after the punch, more everything! You can move around all you want but when it comes time to punch, ground your feet! If you find it hard to keep your feet on the ground, just take smaller steps when you move around. The pros punch so much harder because their feet are always on the ground even as they move around the ring.

 

5. Move Your Feet When You’re Not Punching

Move your hands or move your feet.

As my trainer use to say, “Move your hands or move your feet or move your head.” If you’re not making an offensive move, you’re making a defensive move. Because a heavy bag isn’t

punching you, we won’t worry about head movement but we can definitely work on foot movement. Always move when you finish punching.

Keep Your Distance

Maintain a proper distance at all times. Move with the bag and keep it at arms reach at all times. Don’t let the bag get too far or too close. Don’t be lazy with your legs. Move with the bag instead of standing there and waiting for it to come to you. Back up when it comes at you and follow it if it swings away. If you can’t move your feet as swiftly as the bag swings, you need to lighten up the punches or get a heavier bag…or develop better footwork.

 

6. Don’t Wait

This is what separates the men from the boys. Watch any professional fighter work the heavybag and you’ll see that they’re ALWAYS throwing punches. Even when they rest, they only rest for maybe 2 seconds at most.

The beginners are always waiting around in between combinations. They’ll throw big punches and then just walk around for 5-10 seconds to catch their breath. These long periods of inactivity will kill you. Real fights don’t have 10-second breaks for you to catch your breath.

The moment you stop punching, your opponent starts punching.

So what’s the moral of the story? –NEVER STOP PUNCHING! You don’t always have to punch hard, but you have to keep throwing. Put in some light punches and jab as you move around the bag to catch your breath. When you’re ready to throw the big shots again, step in and fire away.

 

7. Less Power, More Breathing

Hitting the heavy bag is a lot like running–it’s all about the breathing! Don’t worry so much about trying to hit hard. Focus on explosive breathing, not explosive punches. Stay relaxed and work on your breathing so you don’t get tired.

Power comes from good technique,endurance comes from good breathing.

Power and endurance has very little to do with how much effort you put into your punches. The pros throw hundreds of power punches using nothing but good technique and breathing. Good breathing allows you to stay relaxed and throw many punches without tiring out. Good technique allows you to deliver maximum power without wasting any of the energy you put into the punch.

Don’t let the bag wear you out. A bag works at your rhythm which is only when you want to punch. Learn how to conserve your energy for more challenging workouts like the double-end bag or sparring. If you’re still getting tired against a heavy bag, you’re not ready for competition.

 

8. Throw 3-6 Punches

Throwing 3 to 6 punches at a time is the sweet spot. Not 1, not 2, and NOT 10. It’s enough to do damage, yet short enough for you to get out before your opponent fires back. Combo all your punches together. Try some normal combos (1-2-1-2, 1-2-3, etc) as well as some unorthodox combos (1-3-2, 3-1-2-3-3, etc). Fights are fought in combinations, not single punches. Keep throwing combinations and keep up that rhythm.

Aim your punches high for the head and low for the body. The biggest problem I see is people who don’t punch high enough for the head. Come time to fight, their shoulders get tired because they’re not use to punching high.

 

9. Be Active When You Rest

Everybody gets tired.The important thing is that you’re always doing something.

Don’t just stand there when you get tired. Keep moving! If you’re going to rest, do it as you’re moving around and throwing light punches. Do NOT rest by leaning on the bag or doing your Mike Tyson slip choreography. Worst of all, do not rest by standing still like a punching bag.

 

10. Keep Your Hands Up

You have to be careful not to get carried away with your power.

It’s easy to be lazy on defense when the bag isn’t punching back.

You THINK your hands are up but you don’t really know until you get punched. You could be racking up hundreds of hours on the heavy bag developing a bad habit and not find out how open you are until you step into the ring. Don’t drop your right hand when you throw the jab and especially do not drop your right hand when you throw the left hook. Don’t just cover your head; keep your elbows down to protect the body as well. The most helpful tip I can recommend is to have a trainer or friend watch you and yell at you every time you drop your hands.

 

 

Heavy Bag TrainingThe heavy bag training is for developing efficient power, not absolute power. You’re not breaking bricks with a single punch. You need power punches you can sustain throughout an entire fight, not just for one round. Keep your hands up, move around the bag, and make sure you’re always throwing fast punches. Pay attention, stay balance, and work that bag! If you do it right, it gets easy. The heavy bag becomes a warm-up for the real workout, which is in the ring.

Training Quickness of Mind For Punching FasterEverything that you do starts with the mind. Before you blame your poor handspeed on genetics, undeveloped muscles, or unknown punching secrets, you need to analyze your own mindset. The first question is, “What am I consciously doing anything to improve my handspeed when punching?” If you’ve never asked yourself this question before, the answer is probably “NO”.The most important mindset you must have to punch faster is to focus on awareness. Your eyes need to be trained to quickly recognize a target and then passing the signal to your arm, telling it to punch. Forget about handspeed for now, I’m talking about quickness of mind. The guy who recognizes the punching opportunity is going to punch first and get a headstart on punching giving him a huge advantage.So now that you understand the first step to punching faster is to release your punches faster, let’s work on building quickness of mind. How do you do this, you ask. Real freaken easy, practice everyday on punching fast moving targets. Speedbag and the double-end bag will be your new friend. They will train your eyes and mind to follow fast moving targets and to throw punches when the openings present themselves. When you hit the double-end bag, don’t worry about throwing fast combinations. Instead, try to watch the bag with your eyes and throwing 1 or 2 shots here and there very quickly and accurately. Even when you’re not punching, you are still watching the bag carefully. Do not take your eyes off of it! Again, the first step to acquiring faster punches is to train a quicker mind!

The Right Attitude For Punching FasterHaving the right attitude is critical to building faster punches. I see guys all the time trying to destroy the punching bag when I tell them to punch faster. When I say faster, I don’t mean hit harder. Loading up your punches for more power and more damage is probably not going to make them faster. Quite often, that attitude only makes you swing wider, longer, and with more body commitment.Punching faster doesn’t mean you put more effort and more force into the punch. It doesn’t mean that you tighten your fist even harder and try to hurt your opponent even more. Having the right attitude for punching faster means that you focus on speed and nothing else. Don’t focus on power or accuracy. Just pure speed.Instead of imagining yourself punching the guy, imagine yourself trying to touch without him seeing it. Imagine yourself trying to move so fast that he doesn’t even see the punch. You’re not trying to hurt him, you’re trying to surprise him! Now apply this attitude while you’re

shadowboxing and while you’re on the heavy bag. You will see that this change of attitude alone can speed up your punches. You’re no longer thinking about trying to break this guy’s chin off–you’re trying to steal his mouthpiece!

Relaxing The Fast PunchThis is something I’ve understood for a long long time. This principle will hold true for any sport or athletic endeavor that you pursue. The ONLY way to move at your fastest speed is to be RELAXED! The most relaxed muscle has the most potential for moving at maximum speed. In all sports that you observe, you will see that it is the most relaxed athletes that outperform their opponents. I use to be a track & field sprinter and I will tell you that the most relaxed runners make the best sprinters.Do keep in mind, there is a fine line between relaxed movement and lazy movement. To be RELAXED in movement means that you are moving with flow allowing your movement to express itself freely without tension and stress whereas being LAZY in movement means that you are moving without control and purpose.So how does one “relax” for a faster punch? First off, don’t tighten your fist all the time. Instead keep those hands relaxed and tighten them into fists only at the moment of impact. When in doubt, relax those hands even more. Keep your shoulders loose instead of hunched. Don’t flex your biceps or tighten any other part of your body before the punch. A relaxed body will punch faster!

Releasing The Fast PunchClear your mind when throwing fast punches. Don’t think of destroying your opponent. That attitude holds tension in your arms and tightens your whole body, slowing your punches and wasting energy. Carrying tension like that also wears your body out faster. When you punch, exhale sharply as you release the arm freely into the punch and allow the body to snap into the punch freely. As soon as the punch is extended, quickly breathe again returning the fist as you throw the next punch. The most common mistake I see with new boxers is that they pull their hand back a little to load up their punch before releasing it. This slows down the punch bigtime since it moves backwards before going forwards. It’s also proof that they’re thinking too much about punching harder and not about punching faster. Don’t think about power, think about touching him quickly.

Quick Breathing For Quick PunchesThis is another thing many athletes don’t understand about speed. Quick breathing equals quick movement. Explosive breathing equals explosive movement. If you never heard of this before, try this: try breathing slow but punching fast. I bet you can’t do it. Notice how your body’s movement is timed to your breathing? Now work on breathing not just faster but sharper and quicker. Listen to professional boxers. When they throw a 5-punch combo really fast, they breathe out 5-times really fast. Sometimes when you watch professional boxers shadowbox, they don’t throw full punches. They throw really short or half-length punches that way they can work

on faster breathing and faster punches. If you want the ability to punch fast, you have to breathe fast.

Throwing Fast CombinationsLet your punches flow when you release your hands and you will punch faster. Always keep your mind focused on entire combinations and not individual punches and you will see that the combinations will flow out throw your arms with blinding speed! Do not come at your opponent with a step-by-step plan of how your punches will be thrown. Approach your opponent with a combination in mind and just let it flow. With time and training, your mind will naturally adjust your combinations during exchanges to counter your opponent’s punches.

Best Training Videos To Watch For Handspeed: Manny Pacquiao – watch this guy shadowbox. Focus on speed like he does! Speed

Shadowboxing Video Joan Guzman – Quick hands, quick feet. More importantly, quick mind! Speed Punching

Video

If you want some serious handspeed for punching faster, follow the steps above. Don’t be lazy, don’t take shortcuts, and don’t try to invent your own routines. Keep it simple and once you have the handspeed, you can be however creative you want and improve on that. Be aware, be relaxed, breathe faster, and punch faster!

Create your combos based off the basic punch combo:JAB, CROSS, HOOK, CROSS (1-2-3-2)

 

Body Shots

Maybe his defense is too good or he slips all your punches. If head punches don’t work, try going to the body. This will cause him to defend up and down and increase the chances of you sneaking some punches through.

“Going to the body” can mean a lot of things. Are you aiming for the stomach or the solar plexus? The chest or the ribs? Or the liver? The same rule applies for the head: are you aiming to the face or the side of the head? The forehead or the jaw? Concentrate your attack to one area to make him guard there, then attack elsewhere. Mix it up!

Attack the body to expose the head, and vice versa.

 

Ideas for body shots:

Jab to the body, then right cross to the head. (Then 3-2) Jab to the head, then right cross to the body. (Then 3-2) 1-2 to the head, then left hook to the body. (Then a right cross) 1-2 to the body, then left hook to the head. (Then a right cross) 1-2-3 to the head, then right cross to the body.

 

Different Punches

You should leave the jab as still your first punch but you can switch everything else out. Try using a left uppercut or left cross instead of the left hook. Try using an right uppercut or overhand right instead of the right cross. Changing the punch will change the angle and make it that much trickier for your opponent to evade your shots.

If you absolutely want to lead with a left uppercut or left hook, make sure it FEELS like a jab… which means it should be light, fast, and snappy. It should FEEL like a jab except only has the surprise angle of a hook or uppercut. (Don’t make the mistake of loading power which then makes it too obvious and leaves you vulnerable.)

Use different punches to create new attack angles.

 

Ideas for different punches:

1-2-3b-2 (Jab, cross, LEFT HOOK TO THE BODY, cross. Instead of all head punches.) 1-6-3-2 (Jab, RIGHT UPPERCUT, left hook, right cross. Instead of the usual 1-2-3-2.) 1-2-5-2 (Jab, cross, LEFT UPPERCUT, cross.) 1-6-5-2 (Two uppercuts to really drop his guard for the right hand.) 1-4-3-2 (Jab, OVERHAND RIGHT, hook, cross.) 5-2-1-2 (lead with a fast tapping uppercut) Add punches to the end of the combination. (If you’re landing punches, why not

continue?)

 

Change Rhythm

Rhythm is the easiest and possibly most effective way to change up your combinations. Changing the rhythm allows you to change the way your combinations feel, without actually changing the combination itself.

 

For example:

Let’s take a simple combination like the JAB-CROSS-HOOK (1-2-3). Most beginners will throw all hard punches which sounds like BAM-BAM-BAM! A more experienced fighter might speed up the 1-2 to quickly blitz his opponent and then surprise him with the hook. This way it sounds like bibip-BAM! And the left hook can be aimed to the head or body, anywhere you like.

The second example can be more effective because you’ve traded power for speed which helps you open up the more skilled opponents. You can apply this same principle to any boxing combination.

Trading off power for speed,can help you penetrate the more defensive opponents.

 

Ideas for changing the rhythm:

Fast, then power. (Throw the first few punches with speed, and then lay down some hard shots. Great way to make opponents block and then you surprise them with a hard shot.)

All fast punches. (Throw any combination but using all fast punches. Great for flurrying and surprising opponents with speed.)

 

Double Up

Another way to change up the rhythm by becoming trickier is to repeat punches. It’s common for opponents to expect punches coming LEFT-RIGHT-LEFT-RIGHT but if you double up on one side, you can easily screw up his defense rhythm. This tactic is especially effective against boxers that slip or shoulder roll a lot.

If you’re clever, you’ll hold back your power to speed up your double punches and strategically place power shots when they’re most likely to land. (Sometimes the first one is the power one. Other times the second one is the power one.) Another smart idea: instead of throw a double hook, you can try an uppercut and then a hook or vice versa. And yet another smart idea: try aiming at different targets when you double up your punches. (like throwing the first hook to the body, and the second one to the head)

Double up punches to change your attack rhythmand become harder to defend.

 

Ideas for doubling-up punches:

Double the first jab. Or triple it, or more. (Can give you more time until you’re ready to throw the right cross.)

Double the first right cross. (This can confuse your opponent momentarily to really open him for your left hook.)

Double the left hook. (Many opponents don’t expect two hooks. Use it to hurt him or surprise him, which then sets him up for the delayed-and-now-unexpected finishing cross.)

 

Feints

There may be times when you’re more focused on opening up your opponent, rather than landing punches. This can be the case for the more defensive or more skilled opponents. There will be times when you purposely throw punches to make him guard in one place so that somewhere else is left open. In these moments, a feint can be safer to use because you’re creating offensive pressure without actually throwing punches and potentially making yourself vulnerable.

A clever feint can make an opponent react in any way that you want, and create the opening you need. A quick wave of the hand or even a half-thrown punch can fool even the quickest opponents. Fake a movement, to create a desired reaction, and then take advantage from your uncompromised position.

Feints can open up your opponents,without opening up yourself.

 

Ideas for feints:

Feint at the head and throw at the body. (Or vice versa). Feint with one hand but throw with another. Many combos starting with a lead right or lead hook, are more effective when used after

a jab feint. Feint with a head movement or foot movement before throwing your combo.

 

Head Movement

Using head movement during your punch combinations is a great idea and one used by many experienced fighters. It’s never safe to leave your head dead center in the middle of combinations unless you’re completely in control and ready to evade incoming punches. Moving the head during a combination not only makes you more elusive but also creates new punching angles and makes it less likely for your opponent to throw back (because you keep moving).

Using head movement while throwing punches,can create new angles while making you more elusive.

 

Ideas for head movements:

Bring the head in when going inside. (Start the jab with your head outside but then bring your head in as you throw aggressive punches.)

Bring the head in and out. (Bring the head in as you punch, and pull it back out as you finish.)

Move the head with every punch. (Slip your head into new positions with every punch.) Also try NOT moving your head with every punch. (Not having to constantly move your

head can give you more stability, speed, and power. Try throwing 2-3 punches before moving your head to a new position.)

The trick to head movement is to do it subtly. Move it only as much as needed to get into position or evade an oncoming punch.

 

Footwork

Using footwork while throwing combinations is a very hard concept but definitely possible. If anything, it’s far easier to use footwork in between combinations.

The general idea with using footwork while punching is either to A) make you more elusive or B) create new punching angles. Long-range footwork like IN-&-OUT movement is better suited for using footwork before and after combinations. If you’re going to be using footwork while throwing combinations, it is most likely a pivot or stepping out at an angle.

The trick is to be RELAXED. If you feel like you’re jumping all over the place, it won’t work in a real fight. When you practice, the footwork has to use no more energy than a single bounce on the jump rope. (Hopefully, you’ve been jumping rope for boxing.)

Using footwork while throwing punches,can create new angles while making you more elusive.

 

Ideas for footwork:

Pivot with every jab. (And then ground yourself for all the other punches. Pivoting helps you circle your opponent.)

Step in with every 1-2. (And then ground yourself for the follow-up hooks and crosses.) Pivot or back-step with every left hook. (To help make space for your right cross against

aggressive opponents.)

 

The Secret to Killer Punch Combinations

True punching quality

“Doing different things” is not the same as “doing things differently”.

When I first showed you how to create new combinations, that was showing you how to do different things.

Now I’m going to show you how to do the same things differently, such as throwing the same combination but in a different way.

It’s not WHAT you throw,it’s HOW you throw it.

There are so many beginners watching Youtube and trying to copy their favorite fighter’s combinations without any luck. This is because they lack the QUALITY. Sure you can throw a hard 1-2 but can you throw it like Ali? I can assure you that the difference between Muhammad Ali’s punches and yours is more than just speed and power. Ali has a specific QUALITY to his punches.

When I say, “quality”, I’m referring to the punch’s ability to fit the unique situation. It’s not about just speed and power. It’s about being sensitive to the situation and responding accordingly. Fighting is like a conversation, like a dance. You have to see what’s in front of you and then react to it. Every opponent is different. World champions might LOOK like they’re doing the same thing over and over, but I can assure you that they’re making subtle adjustments constantly throughout the fight.

And this quality is something you can only develop from years of being in the ring. I would get countered EASILY if I threw punches at my opponent the same way I threw them on the bag. For some opponents, I have to throw jabs a little faster than normal. For other opponents I have to throw jabs with my head a little off to the side. Or for some guys, I aim my jabs at their forehead and other guys I aim my jabs at their chin. I remember discovering one day that if I angled my right cross a certain way, it made it far more likely to sneak through a guard. These details might seem small or plain common sense, but they often make the difference between winning and losing.

 

Every combination should feel different

The point of having different combinations is to be able to threaten your opponent in different ways.

This is again where skill and experience really makes all the difference. I can make the same 1-1-2 combination feel like 10 different combos. Whereas a beginner can throw 20 different combinations but they all feel the same.

 

Here’s what I FEEL from a beginner opponent:

Ok, he’s starting with straight jabs. And now he’s throwing a 1-2. Ok, now he’s throwing jabs and crosses with occasional hooks. Oh look, now he’s throwing a couple left hooks to the body. He’s adding uppercuts and trying to be tricky but everything still FEELS the same. OOOOH, now he’s trying really hard. But his combos are too predictable… All LEFT-

RIGHT-LEFT-RIGHT. All same rhythm and comes from the same angles. *And then I roll off everything without breaking a sweat.*

 

Here’s what I FEEL from a skilled opponent:

He’s testing me with jabs. Some to the head, some to the body. *THAK!* Darn it, he found an opening at a very weird angle to my left temple. I’ll have

to lift my glove now. (I become very defensively aware now.) *Bu-BAP!* He jabbed to my new glove position and then a HARD JAB to my chest. (Now

I have to protect my head and body.) *Bu-Bup!* He threw a really fast 1-2 at my guard and then leaned back when I threw the

counter hook. (I’m very aware of his head moving in and out now.) *Bu-BAP-BAP-BAP!* This time he threw a very light jab and then jumped all the way in

and cracked me hard with a 1-2-3-2 combination. (Now I know he can be both elusive AND aggressive.)

Now he’s standing in a slightly different position. I feel like he’s going to do something weird and then–*DAMMIT*–he hits me with the same combination again.

 

It’s all about the feeling

It’s more than just throwing different punches at different angles and different rhythms. The goal is to make your opponent vulnerable. You have to become sensitive enough to find new ways to move against him (sometimes on the spot). Sometimes you have to abandon everything you practiced because it doesn’t work!

Sparring should increase your sensitivity.Teaching you to adjust by creating new ways

to do the same thing.

A real fight is far more complicated than what I could ever explain. I’m always doing things differently. I might be throwing jabs over and over again, BUT IT’S NOT THE SAME JAB. My aim might be different. My head placement might be different. My hand and foot position might be different. One jab might be for setting up the right hand. Another jab might be setting up the left hook. Or maybe the breath is different. Or maybe the way I position my chest is different.

I often hear beginners asking me, “But Johnny if I keep throwing jabs, wouldn’t that make me predictable?” And it makes me laugh because I know it means he’s throwing the same jab every time. With that attitude, it doesn’t matter what he does. He could throw different punches and he would STILL be predictable because they would all feel the same.

I remember getting beat by a guy with a killer left hook. He would chase me down with head punches and then out of nowhere, a big left hook to the body. Over and over again. And do you want to know why I couldn’t defend it? BECAUSE IT DIDN’T FEEL LIKE A LEFT HOOK! His incredible skill wasn’t in his punching technique but rather his ability to MASK his left hook to the body. It always felt like something else, anything but a left hook. How can you defend something when you don’t feel it?

A skilled fighter can throw the same punchOVER AND OVER,

because he’s able to give it a different quality.

Skilled fighters have a way of being very unpredictable. The way they stand or position themselves makes you expect a certain punch but then something else comes. Or the way they hold their hands makes you feel very vulnerable to their hook. Or the way they throw their right hand makes you feel like you’ll never be able to counter them in time. Some guys have a way of coming in on you where you feel like they’re in range but then you throw and you’re not even close. Some guys have a way of making you miss not because they slipped so well but because they knew how to make you throw at the wrong place. It doesn’t matter if you do the same thing over and over, as long as you’re still being unpredictable.

Skilled boxers can make me FEEL like I can’t fight back. They know how to move their bodies in ways that cause me to make mistakes. Against skilled fighters, I feel like their hands, their heads, their feet, their bodies are all constantly moving around pressuring me from different angles as they throw the same punches over and over.

If all your combinations feel the same to your opponent, he’ll be able to defend them easily without ever having to adjust to you.

It’s not about what you throw,it’s about what your opponent feels.

Dieting Common Sense:

You need to eat everything.

Carb, protein, fats — they’re all essential to your body; the key is moderation.

You need to eat at the right time.

Don’t starve when your body needs energy, and don’t over-eat when you have enough. Timing your meals allow you to stay full on less food.

Your diet should fit your needs.

Diets are not one-size-fits-all. Everyone’s bodies, lifestyles, diets, and dieting goals are different. A weight loss diet for one person might lead to weight gain for another.

Healthy dieting requires:TIMING (of meals)

VARIETY (of foods)BALANCE (of nutrients)

MODERATION (of portions)

 

The Boxing DietAs a fighter, eating properly increases your performance, decreases your recovery time, while maintaining a lean (and sexy) body weight. Boxers need more nutrients than the average person to workout, develop and repair the body.

A boxer’s diet must:

provide energy for physical performance provide nutrients for rapid muscle development decrease body fat

The boxing diet varies from a normal diet in that you have to center your diets around your workouts. You need nutrients to fuel the intense workout and begin recovery right after. Eating around the workout is what makes the boxer’s diet so hard. It’s easy to under-eat and end up starving during your workout or over-eat because you feel so hungry after the workout. It’s not enough to say that “an athlete requires more nutrition than the average person.” Managing the boxer’s diet is TRICKY! There’s timing, calculation, and balance involved!

The boxer has to eat more, without over-eating!

 

WHEN to Eat

Knowing WHEN to eat,is as important as knowing WHAT to eat.

Our #1 problem is figuring out when to eat. (Most people know what to eat. Fruits are good, junk foods are bad, etc) If you’re eating healthy but still not losing weight, it’s probably your timing that’s off. If you don’t eat at the right time, it matters very little whether you eat healthy or not–because the food gets transformed into fat anyway!

The #1 diet problemNot eating when the body needs food,

and then over-eating when finally eating.

… so when do we eat?

 

Timing Your Meals

The body’s daily energy use

Your body is constantly using energy, spiking its energy use during your workout. Your boxing diet should follow your energy use as closely as possible.

Bad diet plan of eating 3 big meals a day.

over-eating converts surplus nutrients to fat fewer meals leaves you hungry & weak in between meals starving often leads to more over-eating

One of the biggest diet mistakes is waiting too long in between meals. If you wait till your stomach is grumbling, your body is already starving (decreased energy and recovery rate). Extreme hunger is usually countered with the next diet mistake, over-eating, which increases fat storage. One mistake usually leads to the other, putting your body in a vicious cycle of starvation (decreased metabolism) followed by periods of over-eating (fat gain).

 

Good diet plan of 6 meals a day

smaller meals keep you energized and full throughout the day snacks keep you from starving during long workouts and in between meals smaller meals keep your metabolism high while avoiding over-eating

Eating smaller meals more closely matches your body’s energy use. Your biggest meals are in the mornings and the one before your workout. Smaller meals keep you satisfied without putting extra calories into you.

 

5 to 6 Small Meals a Day

Eating 5 to 6 small meals a day is the best advice I can give and it really works. 5-6 meals comes out to about one meal every 2-3 hours. Boxers looking to make weight follow this religiously. Every friend I’ve had that lost 50-100lbs of weight (epic miracle style), did it with just this one principle alone. If there is anything you learn from reading this guide, let it be this one:

Eat 5 to 6 small meals a day!

 

My friend explained meal-timing in these simple terms:

Start eating before you get too hungry.Stop eating before you get too full.

Biggest Meal in the Morning

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It’s the first supply of nutrients for your day and kickstarts your body’s metabolism. Once you have a full breakfast, you can make it through the rest of the day on smaller meals to avoid getting hungry. Don’t be silly and skip breakfast as part of your weight loss plan. This leaves you hungry and sends your body into starvation mode (decreasing metabolism), making it stingy for energy and storing everything you eat as fat. You You need to have energy to start your day; you need to eat good breakfast.

Breakfast AFTER Your Morning Run

If you do your runs in the morning, it’s best to eat breakfast after that. First off, running on a full stomach is a terrible idea. Secondly, running on an empty stomach helps you lose weight because your body will be burning off stored fat instead of the food you ate that day. It’s not necessary to do your runs in the morning, but the common belief is that it burns off fat stored from the previous night and energizes you for the day.

The Pre-Workout Meal

Aside from breakfast, the workout meal is the second and only other big meal on your training day. (You don’t need a workout meal on rest days.) Essentially, the boxer’s diet is different from a normal diet because of “the workout meal”. It has to fuel your intense workout without going overboard and storing fat.

You should eat 2 hours before the workout. The workout meal should be big enough to sustain your whole workout. If you’re doing a 30-minute bootcamp sesssion, you won’t need much. If you’re like me and spend 5 hours sweating non-stop in the gym, you need a big meal. Eat light foods so that you’re not training with a half a steak still digesting in your stomach. (Meat usually takes 4 hours to digest completely.) This might slow you down or give you cramps.

If you need, have a SMALL snack before or after the workout, followed by a recovery meal when you get home. Eating within 30 minutes of your workout triggers your body’s recovery phase immediately.

A boxer needs only 2 big meals a day at most;One for breakfast and another 2 hours before training.

NOTE: if your workout comes early in the day, it is possible to have just one big meal. You would use the same big meal as your breakfast and pre-workout meal.

Smallest Meals at Night

Later meals in the day should be kept small so that you’re not going to bed starving, but also not sleeping with unused calories. Eating before sleeping is one of the easiest ways to get fat. Your biggest meals (like breakfast and before workout) come earlier so that you have all day to burn off the calories.

 

WHAT to EatThis is probably the most common subject of dieting. What should I eat?

The nutrients you need in large quantities are:

water (essential, vital to living) carbs (for energy) protein (muscle growth & recovery) fats (vital to organs, secondary energy source)

Then comes nutrients you need in small quantities:

vitamins & minerals (boost immune system, support cell growth, organ functions, healthy skin, strong bones)

fiber (move food through digestive system, keeps your digestive system running smoothly–helps you eat less)

Basically, you need everything. Eating a wide variety of foods is key to proper functioning, growth, repair, and maintenance of your body. Deficiencies, excesses, and imbalances in diet will lead to reduced physical performance, illness, and many other negative impacts on health.

 

Now let’s review the different types of nutrients:

Water

Water is the most vital substance in your body; you need water to live. Over 50% of your body weight is made up of water. From an athletic standpoint, you need water to replace fluids lost through sweating.

Water:

transports oxygen & nutrients removes waste & toxins

regulates body temperature facilitates digestion endless more important bodily functions. It’s no surprise that you will die sooner from dehydration than from starvation.

You must drink water all the time. There is no substitute for water, not even Powerade. I recommend serious boxers to drink 2-3 gallons of water per day, spread out into 1 cup every hour, starting with one right when you wake up and ending with one right before you go to bed. Anytime that I drank any less, I got tired faster or felt weak during intense training.

Keeping drinking water until your urine is clear or light yellow.

Hydrate long before your workouts. If you have a workout later in the day, it’s best to hydrate that morning. Drinking too much water during the workout may give you cramps or make you feel like throwing up when the training gets too intense.

Water also helps you lose weight. How? Your liver is the organ responsible for metabolizing fat. When your kidneys don’t get enough water to function, the liver is called in to help. So drinking enough water reserves the liver to break down as much fat as possible. This is why you must drink water EVEN WHILE YOU ARE SHEDDING WATER WEIGHT to make weight!

Carbs

Carbohydrates provide your body with its most preferred form of energy. Without carbs, you won’t have energy and certainly won’t last long as a boxer. Consuming too many carbs, on the other hand, will increase your body fat.

Most things you eat that aren’t meat are carbs; grain, pasta, cereal, vegetables, fruits, anything with sugar, are all carbs. Starchy foods like breads and pasta will provide a high number of carbs whereas hard foods like vegetables and fruits provide a lower number of carbs. The focus is not on “high carb” or “low carb” but rather to focus on eating “good carbs” while avoiding “bad carbs.

So how do you tell good carbs from bad carbs?

The key difference between good carbs and bad carbsis how they affect your blood sugar levels.

The Glycemic Index

The glycemic index is a chart ranking all carbohydrate foods according to their effect on our blood sugar levels. Simple carbs (bad carbs) are considered high glycemic carbs because they cause large fluctuations in blood glucose. Complex carbs (good carbs) are considered low glycemic carbs because they produce only small fluctuations in our blood glucose and insulin levels.

Good carbs = complex Carbs (Low GI),Bad carbs = simple Carbs (High GI)

GOOD Carbs vs BAD Carbs

High GI carbs (bad carbs), are simple carbs like candy, that break down too quickly flooding your blood with too much sugar. The sugar high forces your body to regulate the blood sugar level by releasing high amounts of insulin into your blood. The insulin triggers the “food coma” effect, causing an energy crash and making you feel tired. (If you do go to sleep, your body will store the unused sugar as fat. This is why it’s bad to sleep after a big meal.) Unless you’re looking to quickly re-fuel your body for a short time, high GI carbs should always be avoided.

Regularly consuming too much carbs (sugar) at once increases your risk of heart disease and diabetes over the long run. If you do eat too much in one meal, walk around and exercise to use up that sugar before it affects your blood glucose or gets converted into fat.Low GI carbs (good carbs), are complex carbs that take longer to breakdown thereby providing constant energy throughout the day. They keep you energized and reduce hunger without spiking your blood sugar levels.

Eating Low GI carbs (complex carbs):

reduces hunger and keeps you fuller for longer helps you eat less to lose or maintain weight improve blood cholesterol levels prolong physical endurance reduce risk of diabetes and heart disease

Switching to a Low GI Diet

Follow the glycemic index chart and do your best to eat carb foods that rank low on the glycemic index. You don’t have to recount carbs or recalculate anything, just switch off high GI foods like Cornflakes for low GI equivalents like Mini Wheats. Try to get more of your carbs from fruits and vegetables. You don’t have to stop eating carbs, you just have to be more specific.More info & resources on carbs:

Glycemic Index Chart Official site of the Glycemic Index Glycemic Index on Wikipedia Good carbs vs Bad carbs   Problem with low carb diets

Proteins

Protein is needed to build and repair muscles, cells, and tissues. From a boxer’s standpoint, protein deficiency can lead to fatigue and loss of muscle mass. The body can’t store protein so

you need a little of it everyday (especially on workout days). Too much protein (over 30% of your caloric intake) will lead to dehydration and toxic build-up.

Proteins can be found in animal or plants (such as soy, nuts, seeds). Current dietary guidelines recommend a balanced protein diet of lean meats, seafood, and nuts.

Choosing Lean Meats

The right meats for protein are lean meats (meaning little or no fat). By industry definition, “lean meat” has less than 10 grams of total fat, less than 4.5 grams of saturated fat, and less than 95 milligrams of cholesterol for every 3.5 ounces of meat. There is even “extra lean” meat which contains less than 5 grams total fat, less than 2 grams saturated fat, and less than 95 milligrams cholesterol.

You can purchase lean meat or prepare lean meat by trimming off the visible fat. The way you prepare the meat also affects its fat content. Baking, broiling, roasting, and grilling are excellent low-fat cooking techniques that preserve the health benefits of lean meat. Frying and buttering is pretty bad, although tasty! Don’t forget that lean meat is dry meat so try to add some broth or prepare it in a way that retains moisture and flavor.

White Meat vs Red Meat

Eating white meat or red meat doesn’t matter,as long as it’s “lean meat”.

Contrary to common belief, red meat can be just as healthy as white meat! If you’re just referring to the quality and quantity of the protein in the meat, white and red are equal. Once you take into account the health risks, people will prefer white meat over red meat. Red meat has been linked to many disease with the heart, cancer, etc, because of its high saturated fat content. This can be negated by eating LEAN red meat. Red meat is more beneficial than white meat in many ways because it has more vitamins and minerals your body needs. Sure, you consume more saturated fat with red meat but this is less an issue if you’re exercising.

Note: I’m aware that pork is white-color. From what I’ve researched, pork is being classified as “red meat” because it shares more in common with other red meat than white meat.

Every kind of meat (chicken, turkey, beef, pork) whether white or red has fat. What makes it lean is the part of the animal you eat and how you prepare it. Even chicken (white meat) can be high in fat. Whichever meat you decide, keep your portions moderate.

Seafood

Many seafoods, such as white fish and shell fish will qualify as lean meat and also provide good essential fats. Some fish are high in omega-3 fatty acids which help protect your body against diseases. Be careful that you don’t eat fish that have too much mercury, which is known for interfering with the brain and nervous system, along with other serious health problems.

Meat resources:

Red meat vs white meat Dark meat vs white meat Healthy lean meats Mercury levels in fish – FDA Benefits of eating fish Chicken is Unhealthy?

FATS

Yes, you NEED fats.

GOOD Fats vs BAD Fats

Not all fats are bad! Good fats serve your body’s essential needs; providing energy, building cells, facilitating vitamin absorption, among other important functions. And then there are bad fats that only clog your arteries, make you fat, and increase your risk to heart disease, cancer, etc. It’s not about how much fat you eat, but the type of fat you eat.

Let’s differentiate between the good fats and the bad fats:

Good fats - (Poly-unsaturated & Mono-unsaturated) – found in olive oil, canola oil, cashews, almonds, etc nuts & seeds, fish & fish oil supplements

Bad fats - (saturated fats) – found in animal fat VERY BAD fats - (trans fats) – usually found in processed foods, junk foods, fast foods

Don’t avoid all fats

Eating “fat-free” doesn’t guarantee you’re eating healthy. Many fat-free foods are high in sugar, bad carbs, or have too many calories. Fats help you feel full, so avoiding fat could make you over-eat and gain weight anyway. The key is eating more good fats and less bad fats. You can avoid animal fats by trimming any fat you see around the meat. Eat good fats from nuts like cashews and almonds (avoid peanuts). Cook with olive oil or canola oil (instead of coconut oil or butter).

You don’t have to run out and “eat” fats. You might have already consumed enough fats from your carb and protein diet. NOTE: unless it states clearly “POLY-unsaturated” or “Mono-unsaturated”, the fats listed on nutrition labels are usually the bad fats, not the good ones.Resources regarding fats:

Healthy fats List of trans fat fast foods Top 10 foods with trans fats (BAD) Why you need fats Good and bad fats

What if saturated fats are GOOD for you?

Vitamins and Minerals

Micronutrients (vitamins & minerals) are different from macronutrients (carbs, proteins, fat) because they are only necessary in tiny amounts. Nevertheless, micronutrients are still essential for good health. Vitamins and minerals are necessary for proper functioning in all parts of your body from bone growth to brain function to producing red blood cells.

Getting enough vitamins and minerals in your diet is pretty easy. A balanced diet including nuts, whole grains, colorful fruits and vegetable will offer plenty of vitamins and minerals. The more colorful your diet, the better. You only need a little, but any deficiency would lead to serious health problems.

Fiber

Fiber is a carbohydrate found in whole grains, nuts, wheat bran, vegetables, oats, citrus fruits, apples, barley, beans, etc. Humans can’t digest the fiber so it passes through the small intestine helping to keep the body healthy. Fiber is great for weight control because it slows down the movement of food through your intestines. This slows down your food absorption, keeping you full and allowing you to last longer with less food.

Fiber for controlling weight loss

Supplements

A supplement is a pill you take to remedy a deficiency in your diet. In this day and age, supplements are sold under the illusion that they give you some magical performance boost you could. As long as you are eating correctly, you will need little or no supplements at all. Eating whole and natural foods is the best way to go!

Improve your diet…not your supplements.

Vitamin PillsThere are supplements I do recommend, like fish oil, omega 3, flaxseed oil, and other stuff that’s hard to find in regular food. A well balanced diet will cover just about everything else.

I don’t personally recommend vitamin pills, it’s usually an overload of too much at once and doesn’t make up for a well-balanced diet. I actually noticed more of a difference eating the necessary foods than just taking a pill. Research has shown that it is better to consume vitamins through food than through pills.

Vitamins and mineral supplements Taking vitamins vs eating fresh fruits and veggies Benefits and dangers of vitamin supplements

Energy SnacksProtein bars, energy snacks, and sports drinks providing quick carbs or sodium (lost through sweat) can be beneficial for long workouts but aren’t necessary. An energy drink is definitely NOT OK!

Performance Boosters

What about performance booster supplements like creatine? Does the supplement claim to help you grow more muscle or perform at a higher level? Find out what the active ingredient is. Does your body already naturally create this chemical? If not, then why should you be adding something foreign to your body?

Creatine causes your body to retain water weight which makes you bigger and helps your performance because their is more water to transport nutrients throughout your body. From a boxer’s standpoint, creatine is already bad because it makes you bigger.

Recovery

What if a supplement (like whey protein) claims to help you repair muscle? What if it claims to give you natural nutrients to increase your natural recovery processes? Again, I urge you to find out what this “natural ingredient” is. Are you already absorbing this “magical” ingredient through your diet? And if not, why is it that your normal diet not made up for this deficiency?

Whey protein is not needed at all if you’re eating the right foods in your normal diet. It is better to get your protein from foods because you also pick up the benefits of other vitamins and minerals that come in natural food. Either way, you’re not a bodybuilder so you don’t need THAT much protein.

Bad Foods

Cookies? Chocolate cake? Alcohol? Soda? They’re bad because they’re loaded with sugar, bad fats, bad carbs, or toxic preservatives. If the food feels heavy in your stomach, takes long to digest, gives you a sugar high, or makes you drunk, it’s not good for you. Is it ever ok to cheat? Sure, it is. But how often and how much is up to you. Some fighters can eat chocolate everyday and still be on weight. Other fighters have to avoid it completely. It all comes down to how much your weight and performance means to you.

Cheat meals

Ok, so you can’t stand a clean diet. You can’t live without ice cream, chocolate, Pringles, whatever. If you must know, I think one cheat meal for every 15 good meals is OK. (I don’t actually live by that, of course. I only cheat like once every 50 meals.) I know other diets allow you to have a cheat day every week but this is fighting. Your body is always busy performing or busy healing. An entire cheat day is probably too much if you want to be serious about boxing.

Alcohol

My first trainer use to have a rule: if he could tell you drank alcohol over the weekend, he wouldn’t train you for a week. If you’re serious about getting better, you’ll have to stay away from distractions and things that get in the way of peak performance. This is fighting, not arts & crafts. The punishment for showing up at less than your best, is physical damage. It’s up to you to prioritize what matters more to you, alcohol or training…and to stick to one. Can you drink once every week? I’m sure some people get away with it. Being talented is not permission to slack off. Pros and competing fighters NEVER drink alcohol during training. Unless you’re more talented than they are, I wouldn’t recommend it.

Some studies to show you the effects of alcohol on athletic performance:

Alcohol and athletic performance  - University of Georgia Alcohol effects on athletic performance – Bodybuilding.com Alcohol and athletic performance – UC San Diego If you don’t want to read, alcohol decreases: testorone, accuracy, balance, reaction time

(reflexes), visual tracking, power and muscle endurance, body hydration, absorption of vitamins/minerals, aerobic capacity, muscle recovery, muscle growth potential, etc.

Personally, I think it’s disrespectful to your trainer to drink when he tells you not to. My trainer gave me 100% in and out of the ring, and I feel it’s unfair to give him any less. You have every right to do whatever you want with your body, but do it on your own time and not on someone who really believes in you and trains you hoping you might one day turn pro and give him a 10% cut. (But hey, that’s just me…)

Processed Food (the other kind of bad food)

Any food that is prepared, stored, or transformed into other forms for consumption or storage is considered processed food. Any food that has to be “made” in a factory is probably processed. Gummy bears, cheese, canned soup, instant noodles are all examples of processed food. Processed foods are made of raw foods that have undergone a manufacturing process to make it last longer or taste better. Most junk food, fast food, frozen foods also fall under the category of “processed food”. Anything with a nutrition label and doesn’t grow in the form in which you eat it, is probably a “processed food”.

Processed VS Whole Foods

Here’s are some examples:

Apples – are whole natural foods, healthy and tastes good. Canned apple sauce – is processed food, possibly loaded with unhealthy preservatives to

last longer and sugars to make it taste better. Home-made apple sauce – is natural and just as healthy as the apple itself (assuming you

don’t add stuff to it). Canned apple sauce CLAIMING to be “natural” – tough call, now you have to read the

nutrition label and see what’s in it. Is it full of sugars (flavor), sodium (preservative), or unnecessary carbs?

Processed food has long been connected to America’s growing health problems. Americans today have busier lifestyles and don’t have as much time to prepare natural foods. It’s more convenient to eat packaged food or fast food. Unfortunately, processed food can have harmful ingredients added to improve shelf life (sodium) or enhance flavor (sugar, MSG). There are also horror stories of other toxins being added to the food without your knowledge.

A dog raised on natural wild food lives longer, healthier, happier, has more energy and a more beautiful coat than a dog raised on man-made “dog food”. I would recommend the same natural foods approach for humans.Not all processed foods are bad

Some processed foods have only undergone freezing, refrigeration, canning, or dehydration–which only results in decreased nutritional value and doesn’t harm your body. The processed foods you should avoid are the ones made with trans-fats, saturated fats, or large amounts of sodium and sugar. (EX: packaged chips, cookies, cakes, white flour breads and pasta, canned food or ramen with large amounts of sodium or fat).

Harmful effects of eating processed foods   Top 10 toxic processed food ingredients

 

Vegetarians and B12 Deficiency

Vegetarians need to watch for vitamin B12 deficiency. Strict vegetarian diets that avoid animal foods will lack vitamin B12 unless they eat certain fortified cereals or take pills. Vitamin B12 helps maintain healthy nerves and red blood cells. Deficiencies in vitamin B12 lead to weakness, depression, and other problems with your body. Fortunately, you can take pills for vitamin B12; and all your other essential nutrients can be found in plants.

Vegetarian Diet and B12 Deficiency

 

Diet plans and Recipes

I’m not going to make diet plans because it takes too much time everyone’s diet will vary depending on their culture, religious beliefs, lifestyle, allergic reactions, etc. It doesn’t matter what you eat as long as you get the needed nutrients! I’ve never followed a diet plan and got along just fine without it. (Then again, I’m not a professional boxer.) You can make up a diet plan yourself using the foods that you eat daily. You might have to add some things, remove some others, and make some substitutions along the way. From what I’ve seen, most people need to eat more fruits and vegetables while consuming less processed food, sugars, and fats.

Before you ask me “Is it ok if I eat ____ to get my carbs?”, do some research. See if there are other foods out there that offer cleaner carbs, or higher quality carbs, or come with other

nutritional benefits. Look for alternatives that taste better, or take less time to prepare. Make sure your body gets enough healthy carbs and you’ll be fine.

US Dietary Guidelines Reading food labels

 

 

HOW MUCH to Eat

What Your Body Needs

Ok, so you already know what to eat. But what about how much you should eat? Everyone asks me for calorie counts and I can’t answer that. Every person’s body is different from the next. Some people need more calories, others need less. Some people can survive on just 5 hours of sleep while others need a full 10 hours. Some bodies are more efficient than others and this has more to do with your lifestyle than it does with your body type, size, age or shape.

Generally, you have to consume enough to replenish what you spend. If you use 3,000 calories a day, then you probably need to consume just as much (unless you’re trying to lose weight, then eat less). If your muscles need 30g of protein a day to repair worn-out muscle, then that’s the minimum you should consume.

How much should you eat?

This is what your body needs, according to theAmerican Dietary Guidelines 2010 (from the US Department of Health):

2400-3000 calories for active men (reference size 5’10″ 154lbs) 2000-2400 calories for active women (reference size 5’4″ 126lbs)

*active is defined as doing the equivalent of walking over 3 miles a dayYou see how vague that is? It really depends on so many factors. Aside from figuring out how many calories your body needs to function, you have to figure out how to divide up those calories. How much of your intake should be carbs, proteins, fats?

Every individual needs a different amount of nutrients.

 

Balanced Diet

A nutrient ratio keeps your diet balanced and makes it easier to keep track of your diet. Instead of counting every piece of bread and chicken your eat, you can follow a nutrient ratio to make sure you’re getting all your nutrients without over-eat any of them.

A general nutrient ratio would be:

45-65% carbs 10-35% protein 20-35% fats

For example, if your diet requires 1,000 calories to fulfill your normal lifestyle AND boxing workout, then you might get about 500 calories from carbs (50%), 300 calories from proteins (30%), and 200 calories from fat (20%).

Calorie-counting is unrealistic,it’s easier to follow a nutrient ratio.

There are several ways to figure out a good nutrient ratio….Rule of Thirds

An easy way to balance your meals is to divide your plate into 3 equal parts of lean protein, complex carbs, and vegetables/fruits. This simple rule of 2/3rds mixed carbs and 1/3rds proteins will most likely cover your needed fats. (Rule of Thirds)

Rule of thirds:Divide your plate into 3 equal portions of:

lean protein, fruits/vegetables, carbs.

Lowest Calorie Nutrient Ratio

Another way to choose your nutrient ratio, is to find a ratio that helps you consume the least calories. Let’s say eating carbs (pasta) all day doesn’t make you feel full as when you eat protein (meat). This would be a problem because you’ll compensate by eating too much pasta to get full and likely end up over-eating more calories than you need. So it might be a good idea to consume more fats (GOOD fats) and/or protein in order to get full on less calories.

Find the perfect nutrient ratio to meet your needs,then increase or decrease your overall calorie consumption

to the required amount.

Once you find the perfect nutrient ratio to fit your body type, weight loss goals, performance goals, whatever, you only have to follow your calorie intake. Look at the nutrition labels on your food and see how many calories you’re consuming with every serving. After a week of watching your calorie intake, you’ll be able to estimate on the spot if your servings are too big or too small. Don’t make it too scientific. Just eat but be aware of what you put into your body!

 

Meal Portions

Try to eat as little as possible while still feeling full.

The trick is to consume as few calories as possible while still feeling full. Keep adjusting your nutrient ratio and daily calorie intake until you come up with a complete diet that leaves you feeling energized throughout the day, pumped during workouts, lean in the mirror, and still feels full! (If you’re not hungry 3-4 hours after a meal, you’re eating too much.)Size of Meals

Your breakfast and pre-workout meals should get you full, but not TOO full. If your stomach is bloated or you feel sleepy after eating it, it’s too much. Your recovery meal after the workout should be about half a meal. All the smaller meals should feel like something between a snack and a half meal.The Risk of Under-eating

Eat too little and you’ll experience starvation. Your body begins to eat itself, breaking down not just your fat, but the muscle you worked long and hard to build. Your performance will drop as will your motivation. You’ll hate training and maybe even boxing itself. Your body’s metabolism will decrease to an all new low and remain there even after you give up boxing. Many boxers become super-fat after giving up competitive fighting because of this reason. Cut calories but don’t starve yourself!

 

Dieting Goals

What do you want out of your diet?

Are you looking to gain weight? Lose weight? More energy during workouts? Or maybe you’re a sumo wrestler and need to be as fat as possible (I won’t judge). Losing weight will require a calorie deficit whereas gaining weight will require a calorie surplus.

If you want to lose weight, eat less than you spend WITHOUT starving.If you want to gain weight, eat more than you spend WITHOUT over-eating.

Fad diets fail over the long run because they break these simple rules. They either starve you, or deprive your body of essential nutrients for only short-term weight loss. The problem with those diets is not spreading the deficiency or surplus over multiple meals.

 

Once again, my awesome friend broke it down into these simple steps:

If you want to lose weight:

A diet is more important than working out, for weight loss.

Maintain a calorie deficit of 500-800 calories per day by eating less and/or spending more energy. Use lower deficits for long-term weight loss and higher deficits for short-term weight loss. It’s usually much easier to create a calorie deficit from eating less than from working out more. Do NOT eat less than 1500 calories a day, adults need this much as a minimum to function.

Stop eating just before you get full. Drinking water will help you feel full. Do not go crazy low-carb. Decrease your entire calorie intake, instead of only your carbs

(maintain your nutrient ratio!).

If you want to maintain weight:

Eat until you’re full. Keep doing what you’re doing as far as training goes.

If you want to gain FAT weight: 

Eat as much as you can, as often as you can. Staying active can help you build up the appetite to eat more. Go to sleep right after you eat a giant meal (that’s the sumo wrestlers’ secret to rapid fat

gain).

If you want to gain lean muscle weight: (THE HARDEST DIETING GOAL)

Workout to build your body’s demand to grow bigger muscles. Workout to build your appetite for eating more. Eat sufficient protein. Consume between 0.5 and 1 times of your bodyweight in grams of

protein. Example: if you weigh 100lbs, you need 50-100 grams of protein per day. (If you are overweight, then calculate using your TARGET body weight). Keep in mind that your diet must stay balanced. You cannot just increase protein, you have to add carbs and fats to balance your overall diet.

The average person only needs 0.25 to 0.5 times their bodyweight in protein. (This would be fine for a recreational boxer.) Don’t eat too much protein, you’re not a bodybuilder! Extra protein doesn’t help you, it hurts you.

The trick to gaining muscle weight is to consume more calories than you use WITHOUT OVER-eating! (What?! Did that make no sense?) Basically, if you eat too much in one sitting, the extra will be thrown away as waste. What you want to do is spread the extra food across your 5-6 meals giving your body more chances to absorb all those extra calories.

You just need more energy?

Eat a little more (more carbs, proteins, fats, everything). More tiny snacks throughout the day, especially before your workout (nuts, crackers,

apple). Try more protein for breakfast.

 

The Perfect Boxing Diet

How do you know you’re eating right?

The cheap way to analyze your diet

Keep track of how you feel. Does your energy level stay up throughout the entire day or does it fluctuate up and down? Do you feel tired or sleepy throughout the day? Do your workouts feel flat? What you put into your body definitely affects what you get out of it. I can usually feel the difference within 1 or 2 days as soon as I start eating on a cleaner diet.

How does your body look? Did you gain or lose weight? If so, did your lean muscle mass increase or decrease? Do you look better or worse? What does your doctor say during your physical examination?

The expensive way to analyze your diet

See a nutritionist and pay for a blood test. It will tell you everything about your blood. What nutrient deficiencies you have. What you have too much of and what you need more of. Repeated consultations will help you fine-tune a personalized diet.

 

What About Metabolism?

Fast metabolism only means you won’t get fat eating junk food.It doesn’t mean you can perform well on junk food.

Does it matter if you have fast metabolism or slow metabolism? Not really, because boxing is about physical performance, not physical appearance. You have to eat healthy no matter how amazing your metabolism is. Every athlete, fast metabolism or not, must eat as clean as possible to maximize their performance.

I will even use myself as an example. I’m one of those guys that everyone in my gym hates. I can eat half a pint of ice cream for breakfast. Then a bowl of cereal (1/3rd the box) and instant noodles an hour later. I’ll devour a large pizza for lunch, then go out and have thai food for dinner, washed down by soda. It’s freaken disgusting but my body was genetically advantaged. I sported a six pack no matter what I ate.

I never ate healthy until I joined the Army. The new food allowed me to exercise for hours without getting tired. When I first got home from the Army and tried normal civilian food like hamburgers and pizzas, I felt my arteries clogging right away. My magical endurance had vanished overnight. Ever since then, I swore to eating healthy and never looked back. Even now, I can easily run 5 miles on any given day without having been running, and I owe it to having a clean diet.

 

A proper boxing diet Is NOT a Secret

Use your common sense!

You might have come here for a chart of eating schedules, foods, and recipes. Although I’m sorry I didn’t provide that, I feel I’ve given you much more than that. Using the right healthy diet principles above, you’ll be able to create a very healthy boxing diet to fit your lifestyle, diet, and workout habits!

 

Recaps on the common sense boxing diet:

5-6 small meals a day, every 2-3 hours. Drink water until your urine is clear (or light yellow). Eat a big meal for breakfast and another 2 hours before your workout. Eat before you get hungry, and stop before you get full. Good carbs are Low GI carbs, good proteins are LEAN meats + nuts, good fats are mono

and poly fats (nuts, fish, olive oil). Balanced diets make supplements unnecessary. Balance your nutrients (carbs/proteins/fats), and limit your calorie intake. If you need to eat less, do it without starving. If you need to eat more, do it without over-

eating. Your diet should fit YOUR needs, and not the other way around.

Boxing Defense TechniquesNovember 15, 2011 November 15, 2011 by Johnny N Boxing Techniques, Defense Techniques 68 Comments

A quick rundown of the 6 boxing defense techniques. Footwork, blocking, parrying, rolling, slipping, and countering! Learn how each defensive technique is used, their advantages and disadvantages. I list some examples of how they might be effective or ineffective in fighting situations.

1a. Footwork (GOING AWAY)

Quite possibly the best defensive technique ever invented. (Haven’t you ever heard the best self-defense technique is to run?) Why bother learning how to slip or roll under punches when you can run away? The problem is that you can’t attack when you’re running away. Or at least if you want to counter, you have to spend tremendous amounts of energy to bring yourself back into range again to fire counters. So basically running is easy to do and very effective but there’s little option to counter. This is probably why so many guys start running when they know they’re up on the scorecards.

PROS:

moving away is the easiest way to avoid getting hit (complete evasion) avoids anything and everything great way to frustrate opponent, tiring him out by making him hit air works well against slower, heavy-footed opponents

CONS:

moving the body takes a lot of energy

hard to counter (or slow to counter) moving the body can be slow you can lose fight decisions for not showing aggression

1b. Footwork (GOING AROUND)

Pivots, side-steps, lateral movement. Great for moving away from a punch while still keeping yourself in range to counter. Good stuff, very effective in theory but not efficient and definitely not sustainable over the long run. Sure you can pivot around a punch or two here and there but it takes too much energy to move your entire body when your opponent is only moving his arm. You end up committing more energy which only pays off if you land deadly counters. Nonetheless, moving around your opponent is a great way to use angles and to simultaneously attack and defend. When you work hard to get into range, good technique will help you stay in range without getting hit.

PROS:

moving around creates great angles sometimes only way to escape bad positions (like against the ropes) works well against slower, heavier-footed opponents

CONS:

risky if you get caught while moving (requires skill to evade at close range) hard to punch while moving still uses some energy

1c. Footwork (GOING FORWARD)

Smothering is a classic way to avoid punches. Instead of stepping away and being too far, now you step forward and get too close. If you’re able to get close, see if you can get on top of your opponent. Try to project your chest onto your opponent’s head and crush him to keep him from exploding back at you with punches. There’s no easier way to take away your opponent’s weapon by grabbing his arm.

PROS:

great for neutralizing opponents’ punches clinch/tire out small guys keeps you in range of tall guys push opponents around (push them off balance or move them around) tire out weak-legged guys by making them move

CONS:

can get out-clinched or outworked on the inside if opponent is better inside fighter

can be tiring against well-grounded opponents fighters using dirty tactics (head butts, low blows) might walk into punches

2. Blocking

This is your basic boxing defense. Blocking is the easy way to defend without taking yourself out of range. Requires little energy and little skill. If you really think about it, blocking is not your first defensive skill-it’s your first COUNTER-OFFENSIVE skill. Simply cover your vulnerable areas, don’t try to “catch” the punch, fire back after you block.

Blocking covers both head and body and doesn’t leave you open to follow up punches. There are several drawbacks, mainly that it’s slow to counter (because hands are busy blocking) and also that you still absorb partial damage. Blocking is not very helpful for closing distance against longer armed opponents that can push you back, or defending against bigger opponents who can still hurt you through your guard, or faster opponents who retract their arms before you counter. Blocking too much can leave you stuck in your defensive shell and lose decisions for not showing aggression.

PROS:

effective against all punches easy (doesn’t require much skill, energy, reflexes) completely closed up great for all but the heaviest punches safe way to fight for fast punchers (block & counter) safe way to fight at close range easiest way to defend body punches good defense for jabs (most common boxing attack)

CONS:

requires high energy/high speed to counter (slow to counter…arms used as defense) can be trapped in a shell take partial damage (not effective against bigger or more powerful opponents) not recommended against opponents that use long arms or volume to keep pushing you

back hard to counter against faster opponents that retract their arms fast hands sometimes block vision

3. Parrying

It’s like a block but you’re slightly deflecting your opponent’s punch away with your hand. A small carry can take the power of your opponent’s hardest punches, whereas a big parry can guide your opponent off balance and vulnerable using his own momentum. At some point all your blocks should be made with a slight parrying motion to blunt the hardest punches.

The parry is a great way to wear out your opponents by using their momentum against them. It works best against guys that take more energy to commit to their punches, especially power punchers and long-armed punchers. The power punchers are always committing tremendous body force which is an opportunity to parry their punch and create openings for your counters. Long-armed punchers are especially vulnerable to parry since they have take longer to retract their punches. By making them miss and parrying their punches you will tire out their long arms faster.

The drawbacks to the parry is that it doesn’t work well against light punchers (that use no momentum) and also against curved punches. There is also a risk of leaving yourself vulnerable to fakes if you’re trying to parry a punch.

PROS:

great for power punches great for straight punches great for long punches great for push punches (body weight committed) create vulnerability for counters, make them off balance or slow down arm recovery tiring opponents, especially long-armed opponents and power-punchers useful for long-armed fighters that can hold their hands out while their head is out of

reach useful for shorter fighters to deflect punches as they get inside

CONS:

ineffective against fast/light/non-committed punches doesn’t work against curved punches not always effective against combination punchers can leave you open if you get faked hard to do at close range still a tiny bit slow for countering the fastest punchers because hands are still used for

defense not particularly helpful against body punches

Parrying Guides:

How to Parry Punches

4. Rolling

The shoulder roll is naturally the next step up from the parry technique. Instead of deflecting punches with your hands, you use your body now. The shoulder roll is incredibly effective because your body can roll off your opponent’s best shots with ease while keeping your hands free to counter faster. The shoulder roll relies on rhythm for defense and effectively neutralizes entire combinations at even close range.

The drawback to the shoulder roll is that it is ineffective against smaller, faster shots like the jab–which are thrown the majority of the time. The shoulder roll can also leave you highly vulnerable to a punch if you get faked and/or roll in the wrong direction.

PROS:

effective and easy against multiple punches great for power punches frees up the hands for faster counter punching covers both head and body easily can work when blind or off-balanced will deflect power even when punches land save shoulder energy & gives tricky counter angles (when done with front arm down)

CONS:

ineffective/unnecessary against weak punches (like jabs) less effective in cross-stance match-ups (southpaw vs orthodox)

Learn the Shoulder Roll:

How to Shoulder Roll

5. Slipping

Slipping is the most skillful defensive boxing technique. It requires complete evasion of the punch by displacing the head or body to one side, USUALLY by going to the outside of the oncoming punch. It is incredibly effective in that the opponent misses entirely and your hands (and body) are completely free to counter or escape.

The drawbacks to slipping is that it requires very high skill and awareness to pull off successfully. It’s not enough to avoid the punch, you have to be in position to counter immediately since it isn’t realistic (energy-wise) to slip entire combinations. Should you make any mistake during slipping, you will take a direct hit.

Slipping is the best way (sometimes the only way) to counter against really fast opponents. Sometimes it’s the only way to close distance against a taller opponent, or escape off the ropes. The drawbacks to slipping is that it’s very hard to use against body punches and fast volume punchers that throw many sharp fast punches. Slipping can also be very tiring mentally and physically to do throughout and entire fight and leaves you especially vulnerable if you’re faked out.

PROS:

hands and body completely free to counter instantaneously creates huge vulnerabilities in opponent (he is wide open during missed punch)

avoid punch entirely, no contact (assuming successful slip) create escapes (great way to escape when trapped in the corner) allows you to come forward while defending can be done with arms down (preserving shoulder muscles) complete evasion easily breaks your opponent’s punching rhythm (combo-breaker)

CONS:

requires great skill highly vulnerable if caught highly vulnerable if faked not recommended against multiple punches (very hard and/or tiring) not really possible against body punches

Slipping Guides:

How to Slip Punches How to Slip Punches in Boxing

6. Countering

Yes, offense (or counter-offense) is the best defense. See if you can evade your opponent’s punch by landing one of your own. Maybe your punch cuts straight up the middle intercepting his, or maybe your punch pulls your head out of the way of his punch. If you really think about it, all defense techniques are simply a way of getting you in position to counter–but if you can counter right off the bat, that’s even better.

PROS:

maintains effective aggression, being offensive or counter-offensive no better defense than hurting your opponent badly as he tries to punch best way to go from defensive to offensive effective way to stop volume punchers more energy efficient since you’re combining offense and defense in one motion best time to hurt your opponent, counters cause the most damage

CONS:

can be tiring since opponents are forcing you to fight at their pace potentially deadly when exchanging punches your counter might get countered

Countering Guides:

7 Easy Boxing Counters Baiting and Forcing Counters

What’s the BEST DEFENSIVE TECHNIQUE?!The best defensive technique? No such thing. Use the one that fits your situation. Use the one that feels the most natural in that moment. If you have to think about it, it’s probably not natural. Evade your opponent’s punches any way that you can and be sure to counter right away. Different techniques will work best against different opponent styles. Great boxers are forever adapting their offense to get around your defense, so you’ll have to keep changing up your defense to keep them off you.

There are unlimited ways to beat an opponent. If you were a short guy fighting a tall fighter, you might want to parry from long distance to tire out his arms, then slip to get inside, and then move sideways to avoid his punches while staying in range. Or you might try to walk him down by coming in with a high guard and shoving him off balance repeatedly. Be creative and always know that you have many different boxing techniques at your disposal! Styles make fights!

Defensive technique is for avoiding punchesWHILE STAYING IN RANGE TO ATTACK!

The point of defense is to be more effectively offensive. If you don’t punch back, there is no point to even staying in range of your opponent. Learning how to use all these defensive techniques will help you block, deflect, and evade even the most skillful punchers! But most important of all, defensive techniques should make you more offensive!

Shadowboxing Drills:

Start moving around and relax your whole body. Don’t worry so much about putting your hands all the way up. Use proper form but not to the point where you become stiff and tired in the shoulders. You want your whole body to be loose and relaxed when you shadowbox for speed!

Here are the punch numbers I’m using:

1 = left jab2 = straight right / right cross3 = left hook4 = right hook / overhand right5 = left uppercut6 = right uppercut*reverse these if you are southpaw (left-handed)

Ok, HERE WE GO! Follow along and mix it up!

Basic Jab Tricky Combos

1, move around, 11, back step, 11, step in, 1

Double-jab

1-11-1 (step in twice)

Triple Jab

1-1-1

Jab, Right Cross

1-21-1-21-2-11-2-1-21-2-1-1

Left Hook Now

1-2-31-2-3-2

Left-Right Left-Rights!

1-2-3-2-11-2-1-2-32-3-22-3-2-12-3-2-1-2

1-31-1-31-3-21-2-3-3-21-3-1-21-2-3-1-25-6-25-1-2-3-21-6-2-1-2

Uppercuts Now

1-61-6-3-23-6-3-21-2-51-2-5-2

Long Combos (focus on sharp rapid breathing!)

6-5-6-5-2-3-21-2-5-2-3-6-3-21-1-2-3-6-3-25-2-1-6-3-2-1-2take any of the above and combine it with other punch combos

Go 3 rounds straight. Exhale on every single punch and every single movement. Don’t worry about doing all the combos listed above. Stick to your favorite ones and then try one or two new ones each time. You should NOT be getting tired. If you are, then you’re too stiff. Relax the

shoulders some more and maybe even slow down just a little bit. If you get winded punching air, imagine what being in the ring might feel like.

When you step around during the combos, take REAL SMALL steps. You only need to take one-inch steps, that way your feet can move as fast as your hands. If you take big steps, your feet might still be in the air leaving your punches un-grounded and without power.

Don’t worry about power! Some sequences that have double-lefts or double-rights are going to feel weak. Again, you are just working on speed, not power. Just let your hands flow and get some rhythm into there. Have a few pauses here and there in between your combinations and then pick up the speed again.

Last note, please watch the Manny Pacquiao shadowboxing video below. What he’s doing is a perfect example of speed shadowboxing. Sharp breathing, very tiny steps, fast focus on punches. He doesn’t focus on single punches, he’s focusing on entire combinations. And for the 923084723th time, RELAX!

 

 

Fast Punching On the Heavy Bag (Speed Endurance)Fast punching isn’t always about speed. Sometimes it’s about endurance. Moving a weight faster will always take more energy. So it’s pretty hard to throw fast punches, or even practice fast punches, if you don’t have the endurance for it.

Throwing flurries of fast punches can wear anybody out. You don’t realize it at first but once you get tired, your slower opponent suddenly becomes faster than you. The even bigger danger of getting tired is that your punches become too slow to hit your opponent. So let’s work on speed endurance so you can throw fast punches throughout the entire fight–and not just the first round.

Punch Interval Drills:

Get a partner and stand on opposite sides of the bag. One boxer holds the bag steady while the other one punches non-stop for 15-20 seconds. Then switch. Keep doing this until the 3-minute round is over and then take your 1-minute break. 2 to 3 rounds of this is a great way to finish off heavy bag workouts.

Some thoughts on this fast-punching drill:

Don’t waste your time getting somebody to time you 15-20 seconds. Instead just count it in your head or out loud as you punch. When you finish, just stop and the other boxer should know instinctively to begin punching.

You can do variations against the bag. On the first interval, do regular punches aimed high (palm facing the ground, aimed a spot of the bag that’s 6-8 inches above your head).

On the second interval, do vertical punches aimed straight at shoulder level into the bag. By “vertical punches”, I mean with the palm facing sideways, like a “standing fist”. On the third interval, do SMALL quick uppercuts into the bag at body level. Keep repeating until the round ends.

Punch interval drills develop your arm and shoulder endurance. Which is VERY important in your performance during the later rounds. It doesn’t matter if your body is not tired overall…

Once your arms and shoulders get too tired,your punches become too slow to hit your opponent.

Sure you might still have your power in the late rounds but if you don’t have the speed, that power won’t make any difference! So work to make sure you build that arm and shoulder endurance. In case you haven’t noticed, this fast-punching drill is a boxing’s rendition of Tabata drills (in case you want to know more about the science behind this method of training).

The crucial reminder is that you don’t get too ambitious and try to hit the bag like that for 3 minutes straight. The rest periods allow your arms to regain the energy to punch at max speed. You should always train at your true top speed (going 100% when you’re exhausted is not “true top speed”). Think about it, sprinters don’t train for speed by running 2 miles all at once. Instead, they sprint short distances, take a break and repeat (aka Sprint Intervals). The break allows their legs to regain the energy to sprint at full speed again. Likewise, you want to have breaks to regain the energy to punch at full speed again. This way, you’re spending more of your time training at full speed and not half-speed, which is what happens when over-ambitious beginners go 30 minutes non-stop without a break!

The other part about not skipping the break is that you might have a better workout when you constantly have to stop and start again. Throwing punches non-stop is easy to do when you’re already in motion. But having to stop and start again, like in a real fight, is much harder to do when you have to keep starting up your rhythm. So please, don’t skip the breaks. 15-20 seconds for each boxer, then switch!

 

 

Forced Speed Training (Speedbag & Double-End Bag)The speedbag and double-end bag are great equipment for building speed. Aside from improving your accuracy, timing, reflex, and coordination, they are great for “forced hand speed” exercises. Punching fast is quite easy if you’re only punching when you feel like it. Unfortunately, this is never the case in real fights. In real fights, you’re always being FORCED to punch even when you don’t want to. Because you’re throwing these punches as a panic reaction rather than an action of your own intention, these “forced punches” tire you out faster. So back to the speedbag and double-end bag, they force you to punch even when you don’t feel like it. No matter how tired you are, you HAVE to throw punches at the bag.

The speedbag and double-end bag also come with their own unique qualities. The speedbag does build arm endurance and shoulder endurance. The double-end bag helps improve your accuracy and timing. This bag forces you always to react fast and think fast. Learning how to work the double-end bag is an art in itself. So I’ve save that long explanation for another day. For now, just keep in mind that those will improve your hand speed. Do 2-3 rounds each on the speedbag and double-end bag.

 

Resistance Training to Build Speed Muscles

Push-ups (Explosive Speed)

Push-ups, when perform with speed-specific technique, can help you add speed to your punches. Because everyone’s arms are different, you have to find the perfect variation on where to set your hands and how low to go. The focus is on speed, not power. You want to finish these sets FAST!

EXTENDED PUSH-UPS 

Because of my longer arms and thin frame, I prefer to do push-ups that only go 1/3rd of the way down. So this means I am only working out triceps in this “extended” phase of the push-up. I do about 10 quick sets of only 10-15 repetitions each. Again I’m only working out the top phase of the push-up to maximize quick speed and trying to explode on each one. Focus on going down fast and up fast (most people go down slow and up fast). When you pause, pause at the top of the push-up, and not at the bottom.

MEDICINE BALL PUSH-UPS

Get down into push-up position but with a medicine ball under one hand. As you do one push-up, quickly push your body over to the other side so that you land with the other arm on the medicine ball. Do these as fast as you can. 3 sets of 15 repetitions. Another variation you can do is to have 2 medicine balls spaced apart wider than your shoulder width. Have one hand on a medicine ball with the other hand planted on the ground right between. As you do a push-up, you will move your body sideways so that both hands constantly move between the side and the middle. (Please comment if you need a better explanation of this.) Again, 3 sets of 15 repetitions.

CLAPPING PUSH-UPS

Another plyometric-style push-up routine I like is the clapping push-ups. You can do 3 sets of 10 to 15 clapping push-ups at a time. The important thing is to spend as little time as possible at the bottom of the push-up. You don’t necessarily have to come high off the ground but just make sure you don’t spend too much time with your arms bent at the bottom of the push-up.

 

Resistance Training for Speed

Resistance Bands

You can also develop faster punches with resistance bands and isometric training. Resistance bands apply a constant force as you’re throwing punches. This constant resistance allows you to build speed and explosive power throughout the whole movement. Regular weight training can’t do this because the weight is only heavy at the beginning. Once you push the weight, your momentum makes the work easier as you extend your arm. Swimming can also be good for constant resistance training since the water is constantly working against you.

Isometric Training

Isometric training is a type of workout where you exert force but your body doesn’t move at all. But how can you exert force without moving?! You can do isometric training with your arms by going up to a wall and posing yourself in a punching position as if you’re punching the wall. Now push against the wall for 10-15 seconds for 3 sets at a time. Feel free to pose at different angles that mimic different punches and target different muscles (chest, shoulders, triceps).

The whole theory behind isometric training for speed is that you’re training your arms as if they were rubberbands. You’re training your arm muscle to store energy so that once the hold is released…SNAP–your arm flies out like a charged up rubberband.

 

 

Recovery MusclesThe punch recovery speed is one thing MANY boxers neglect in speed training. Everyone loves to work out the punch muscles such as the chest and triceps but rarely do they work on the recovery muscles such as the back, lats, and rear shoulder muscles. What many boxers don’t realize is that the recovery phase is half the motion of a punch, so being able to pull your arms back faster allows you to punch again much sooner!

I’ve also noticed many beginners doing nothing more than hitting the heavy bag in training. The heavy bag is a solid object so if you punch the bag, it will always bounce your hand back at you which doesn’t train your punch recovery muscles. Sure you can go 10 rounds easy on the heavy bag but what happens when you try to spar? After missing only a few punches in the ring, your arms are completely tired and you’re not sure why. It’s because you’re not used to missing and you’re not used to punching air, so your recovery muscles (your back, rear shoulders, and rear lats) are developed to pull your hands back fast enough.

Best workouts for strengthening the punch-recovery muscles:

Shadowboxing

You’re constantly punching the air while you’re shadowboxing which forces you to use your muscles to pull your arms back. Try shadowboxing at 100% speed with gloves on and you’ll realize how weak your recovery muscles are. You don’t have to add weights or do anything fancy. Even regular shadowboxing will help balance your rear upper-body muscles out with your front upper-body muscles.

Pull-ups

Pull-ups are an awesome exercise for the back and lats. Do 3 sets of 6, or 8, or 12. Whatever you can do, just do it. Now your upperbody won’t look so hunched over to the front any more.

Pulling Exercises

I got too lazy to go chasing down exercise names. Any exercise that mimics a pulling motion will be good. We have the TRX Suspension band at my gym and it works great for this, but cable pull-downs or pulling at resistance bands will also work.

 

 

StretchingLoose, relaxed muscles have the potential to move faster. Don’t fight with soreness in your shoulders and in your body. Make sure you have good stretching sessions and take your time in warming up your muscles. Even on days that you’re not training, try to stretch. Many of the fastest fighters I have ever met also happened to be the most flexible people I know. (I wrote an article on the importance of flexibility for boxing.) For the record, you should be stretching a MINIMUM of 30-45 minutes before each workout and then also another 10-20 minutes at the end of the day. Professional boxers, and perhaps all elite athletes, typically do at least double that.

 

 

Final Thoughts on Hand Speed ExercisesSpeed begins first in the mind and THEN in the body…

If you can’t think fast, you will never be able to move fast.

… after all, your body can’t box on auto-pilot. Relax the mind, concentrate and stay focused, but be aware of everything around you. Don’t focus each punch one by one. Try to focus on the entire combination or the entire flurry. Each punch combo has it’s purpose, whether it’s to come inside, land some hooks to the body, or just put your opponent on the defensive to make room for you to escape.

Oh and one more thing. Don’t try to do every single drill up above all in one day and on everyday of training. Have some variation and focus on one thing each day and not everything everyday

Basic Boxing Combinations

1-2 (Jab-Right cross)

Yes, the basic 1-2 jab-cross is naturally the first combination you learn how to throw. It’s the first two punches you’ve ever thrown together and you’ve probably been doing it long before you started boxing…probably on your little brother or your annoying next door neighbor. The fast jab catches your opponent off guard and the right cross takes his head off. You can actually win entire fights simply by mastering the 1-2.

1-1-2 (Jab-Jab-Cross)

This one is a way to trick your opponent. The 1-1-2 works because your opponent might be expecting a 1-2. If so, then the second jab has a good chance of surprising your opponent opening the way once again for your big right hand. The 1-1-2 is also good if you feel that your opponent is waiting for your right cross to throw a counter. Instead of throwing your usual 1-2, you will throw endless jabs testing the waters (or your opponent’s defense) until he slips up and you put a right cross in there.

See why the 1-1-2 is the Best Boxing Combination.

1-2-3 (Jab-Cross-Left hook)

This is where boxing starts to get fun. The shift of your weight when you throw the right hand naturally sets the left hook up. The left hook comes after your right cross and can put some massive hurting on your opponent. You can aim it high at his jaw or low at his body. Either way, the left hook is equally dangerous regardless of whether or not your right cross lands.

1-2-3-2 (Jab-Cross-Hook-Cross)

This is nothing but you throwing LEFT-RIGHT-LEFT-RIGHT. The jab opens your opponent’s guard. You follow-up with 3 big power punches: right hand, left hook, right hand finish. When the 3 big punches land beautifully, you can pat yourself on the back.

Learn more about this basic boxing combo.

1-2-5-2 (Jab-Cross-Left uppercut-Cross)

This combo is the same as the last except instead of a left hook, you put a left uppercut in there. The left uppercut will surprise your opponent since it’s coming from a downward angle. If the other guy likes to hide behind his high guard with his head down or if he likes to charge into you, the left uppercut will pop his head up so you can chop it off with the right hand finish.

1-6-3-2 (Jab-Right uppercut-Left hook-Right hand)

Starting with the 1-2 all the time can get a little too predictable. Your opponent might get clever and try to slip the right hand. Or he might simply anticipate a straight right hand and just have his guard up. In either case, throwing a right uppercut into there will do a ton of damage and lift his head up so you can follow up with a left hook – right hand finish. You can aim the right uppercut at the body or the head, it’s your call. Make sure you don’t get too predictable when you do this, because your head is vulnerable to jabs and DEADLY counter left hooks when you throw that right uppercut.

2-3-2 (Right cross-Left hook-Right cross)

Sometimes you don’t have room to setup a whole combination. If you’ve got an overly aggressive opponent that’s invading your space, then you don’t have time to start with the jab. Drop a right hand on him followed by a left hook and another big right hand. If he’s already wide open, why waste your time with a jab? Just start with the hard punches right away. The 2-3-2 is very good at close range. Dig your feet and make it hurt.

Want More Punching Combinations?You don’t have to learn more combinations. You can just change the way you throw certain punches to create infinitely more ways to get through to your opponent.

Lighten The Left Hand

Many beginners try to put power into every punch. Don’t do that, save your power and body weight for the big right hand. When you jab, keep it light and accurate. You can also throw lighter left hooks to keep yourself from swinging off balance if you miss.

Throw Some Fakes

This is great stuff. Instead of throwing a 1-2, fake the jab to get your opponent to lift his hand and then just land your right cross since his defense is in the wrong place. Do the same with other combinations faking the first punch or maybe the second punch. You can throw a jab, fake the right (make your opponent put his guard in front), and land a big left hook that goes around his guard.

Double The Left Hands

Same theory as the 1-1-2 but you can also double left hooks, or left uppercuts. Don’t always throw LEFT-RIGHT-LEFT-RIGHT all the time. It’s too predictable and too easy to block. Throw LEFT-RIGHT-LEFT-LEFT-RIGHT. That’ll switch him up as he blocks the wrong side and you hit him with the other hand.

Throw Faster Punches

Again, don’t load power into every punch. Lighten them up so you can throw them faster increasing your chances of connecting. You can save the power for later when you have your opponent hurt, tired, and dropping his hands out of laziness. You can also mix it up, throwing fast punches with hard punches. The fast punches disrupt your opponent’s rhythm whereas the hard punches deliver the real power.

Go To The Body

Don’t always aim for the head. It’s too predictable and may not work against speedy boxers that move well. The body is a bigger target and will force your opponent to block high and low. Go up and down and force him to work doubletime on defense and increase your chances of landing something. Another thing you should know, a well-placed body punch can cripple your opponent in a painful knockout.

It’s not what punches you throw,it’s how you throw the punches.    

 Professionals use the same combinations over and over again. They don’t go out trying to throw more punches, or harder punches. They simply alter the aim, angle, and timing of their combinations to beat their opponents.

Punch Legend

Each number below represents a punch. (Combinations are for orthodox fighters. There is a small section for southpaws below.)

Punches

1 = jab2 = right hand3 = left hook4 = right hook (or overhand right)5 = left uppercut6 = right uppercutb = body (example: 1b = jab to the body)

Defense

[] = blocking() = rolling{} = rolling under// = slipping or lean away from<> = pivot away from

Movement

p/pccw = almost all pivots are on the front foot (“p” means pivot clockwise on the frontfoot, pccw means pivot counter-clockwise on the front foot)bp = backfoot pivot. very rarely used (bpccw means pivot counter-clockwise off your backfoot)ls/rs = leftstep and rightstep. self-explanatorybs = backstep (example: 1bs means you backstep as you throw the jab, 1-bs means you backstep AFTER you throw the jab)f = fake (example: 1f-3 means to fake a jab to the head, and then throw a left hook right after)t = tap (example: 1t-2 means to throw a light tap jab, followed by a right cross)sl/sr = slip left, slip right (example: 1-sl-3 means jab, then slip left, then left hook.   1sr-2 means jab as you slip to the right and throw a right hand after)

To use the punching combinations listed below, simply chain the combos in this order:starter > ender        OR     starter > combo > ender(1/14/10 ad)

Common Punching CombinationsMost commonly used punching combinations inside the boxing ring. (These combinations are complete as is, no need to pick a starter or ender for these.)

1-1

1-1-2

1-2

1-2-1

1-2-1-2

1-2-3-2

1-6-3-2

Starters

These sequences are commonly used to start off your combinations. You are also welcome to start off a combination with a counter-punch. To look up counter-punches, please look up this guide: xxxx

1

1-2

1-6b

2-1

Advanced CombinationsHighly advanced punching combinations that require advanced movement and highly coordinated punching skills.

1-bs-1

1-bs-1-2

In-FightingPunching combinations for use up close or when in the clinch.

6-5-2-1p

6-3

6-3p

4b-3b-2-1-2

rs-5

1-2-3b-pivot-4b-4-1

1-4b-3b-6-1

Tricky StartersUsed these combinations to open up highly defensive opponents as you confuse and penetrate their defenses.

1-3-2

1b-2

1-2b

1-2b-3

4-1b

4b-6-3-2 (works best in close range)

bs-2

1f-3

6-2

2-2

1t-2

1t-2t-3

Power EndersEnd your punching combinations with these punches to do the most damage to your opponent. Ending with these punch combinations may leave you vulnerable to a counter-punch so beware!

1p-2

 

Evasive EndersEnd your punching combinations with these punch series to get you out of harms way safely.

1p

1b-bs

4bpccw (pivot ccw off the backfoot as you throw a right hook)

3p

2-p-2

Punch Combos for Orthodox Against Southpaws (left-handers):2-2-1bs

1-2b

2-rs-2-1-2b

2-1-2b

1-1-2b-3

 

 

Punch Combos for Southpaws Against Orthodox Boxers1-2

2-2

2-3-2

2-3-2b

1-1-2b-3

6-1-2

6b-6-2-1

2-1-1-6-1

 

Evasive Combos1-2-/1/-2

1-2-/1/-2-3-2

1-2-{3}-2

1-2-{3}-/2/-3-2

1-2-{3}-3-2-3

1-2-3-{2}-3-2

1-/1/-2-1-1

1-/1/-2-3-2

 

 

Training Out The Flinch ReflexThis is a guide base solely on training out your flinch reflex. I’m talking about the natural reflex where a fighter may blink or close his eyes and stiffen up his body when he sees punches coming his way. It’s natural but there is a way to fight through it. You basically have to practice.

For most beginners, the flinch reflex is when they can’t keep their eyes open when they are taking punches. For other fighters, it has to do with them panicking a little and holding their breath when they’re taking punches. This only makes their condition worse since they will get the wind knocked out of them when they get hit with a clean punch. In fact, part of the reason why fighting in the ring is so tiring is because people can’t overcome their flinch reflex and so they keep freaking out and holding their breath instead of relaxing.

 

2 drills to help you get rid of that flinch reflex

Glove-Tapping Drill

This is a very basic drill but  is still recommended for all boxers regardless of their skill level. Basically the boxer walks around the ring forwards and backwards as the trainer (or another boxer) keeps tapping him on his gloves. (These are not properly thrown punches, it’s just a bunch of quick gloves taps from the “attacking” boxer. You rapidly tap his gloves at awkward rhythms.) The point of the drill is for the defending boxer to be able to block all the light punches while keeping his eyes open and his breathing in perfect rhythm. It will take a lot of practice but soon you will be able to take punches without getting your rhythm broken up.

Jab – Jab Counter Drill

Many fighters lose because they have not perfect this drill. This drill basically prevents you from leaning back when you’re taking a punch. Basically you and another boxer will move around the ring taking turns at jabbing each other. Here’s how it works: Boxer A jabs at Boxer B first. Boxer B immediately cuts the jab short by blocking it with the right hand and returns with a counter-jab at the air ABOVE Boxer A’s head. NOW HERE IS THE CRITICAL POINT: when you are taking a jab, do NOT flinch and lean back to cushion the punch! Instead, you must quickly stop the punch and then step forward and make an assertive counter-jab into your opponent. It will take time but soon you will be able to quickly catch a jab, and instantaneously return a counter without wasting a split second by leaning back.

Once you learn these basic drills, you can learn the next reflex drill which is the [Push Down and Counter On Top]

How to Shoulder RollNovember 6, 2011 November 6, 2011 by Johnny N Boxing Techniques, Defense Techniques 111 Comments

What if you could defend against punches without using your hands? How much faster would you be able to counter if your hands weren’t so busy blocking punches? You don’t need Floyd Mayweather’s reflexes to do the shoulder roll. I’ll show you the technique and teach you how to roll with the punches!

It’s time you learned one of the oldest defensive techniques in boxing…

The Shoulder RollThe shoulder roll is a defensive move where you deflect a punch by rolling your shoulders away from it. The punch lands harmlessly on your shoulders as your opponent shoulder is loaded to

come back with a hard counter. When used in rapid succession, the shoulder roll is quite effective in neutralize entire combinations with little effort. It’s a simple move to learn yet used by even the most skilled boxers.

One of my all-time defensive favorites! JAMES TONEY!

Why learn the shoulder roll?

Easier Than Blocking!

The shoulder roll is ridiculously easy to do. You can block entire combinations just by rolling your shoulders back and forth. No more worrying about perfect hand placement or seeing every punch that comes at you. As long as you know which side the punch is coming from, you can roll away from it easily. The shoulder roll takes all the complication out of boxing defense.

More Effective Than Blocking!

Here’s a little secret: it’s not really possible to block HARD punches with just your hand. Would you ever block a hammer with your hand? Neither would I. At some level in boxing, all punches become power punches; and just sticking your hand in front is not going to stop it. Rolling away from the punch effectively deflects the power! The shoulder roll will minimize the punch impact EVEN IF IT LANDS!

The shoulder roll if you think about it, is a natural progression from the parrying defense technique. With parrying, you learned how to deflect your opponent’s punches with your hand and counter. The shoulder is a step up using your shoulders to parry so that your hands are free to counter. The shoulder roll, once you learn the timing, can be easier than parrying.

Have you ever blocked a punch only to have your own glove smash your face?

Deflected punches that land,have less impact than

squared punches through the glove.

 

Frees Your Hands For Countering

Seriously, who blocks punches with their hands anymore? Only noobs do that! (kidding). But really…the shoulder roll will use your body rotation to deflect punches so you can use your hands for something more important, like punching back!

How to Shoulder Roll

Start in your basic stance

Stand in your regular boxing stance. You don’t have to drop your left hand to shoulder roll!

Shoulder Roll Away from Right Hands

Rolling away from the right hand as I lift my shoulder to cover my chin. Keep your back straight and don’t lean backwards. Roll just enough to avoid that right hand.

 

Sometimes the right hand is blocked from the outside…

 

Sometimes the right hand is deflected to the inside.

Wide right hands are typically blocked from the outside. Straight right hands are typically parried by your shoulder to the inside. Just roll your shoulders, don’t worry about where the right hand goes.

Countering the Right Hand

Counter #1 – STRAIGHT RIGHT

 

Counter #2 – RIGHT UPPERCUT

Shoulder Roll Away from Left Hooks

Roll AWAY from the left hook…

 

Don’t roll into the left hook.

Roll AWAY from the left hook, not into it. Don’t roll away so much that you get hit in the back. If you roll into the hook, you risk getting hit or pushed off balance.

Countering the Left Hook (after the shoulder roll)

Counter #1 – JAB

 

Counter #2 – LEFT HOOK

 

The Left Hand Can Be Up

Shoulder roll with the left hand up, blocking from the outside.

 

Shoulder roll with left hand up, deflecting the right hand inside.

You don’t have to drop your left hand to do the shoulder roll.

Shoulder Roll VideoHelpful boxing instructional video demonstrating the shoulder roll technique and basic drills to help you learn this effective boxing defense technique.

Practicing the Shoulder Roll

Shoulder Roll Drill

Stand at arm’s length with a partner.

 

Partner throws lefts and rights non-stop as you keep rolling away.

Your partner shoulder be swinging at shoulder level. Have your partner randomly mix up straight rights and wide rights. Exaggerate the roll, rotate your shoulders all the way during this drill. Put the hands down, so you focus on the RHYTHM instead of covering your face.

Keep it slow using NO POWER; you’re just touching each other and learning the rhythm. Keep going LEFT-RIGHT-LEFT-RIGHT. Trade places after 1 round. Each fighter can do one round of this as a warm-up everyday. YES, I know the drill seems unrealistic because nobody’s aiming for the head. The point of the drill is to focus on developing the rhythm, not on covering your face. Once you have the technique down, the application comes naturally.

Shoulder Roll & Counter Drill

Same drill as before but this time, you throw counter-punches.

 

Shoulder roll with COUNTER LEFT

 

Shoulder roll with COUNTER RIGHT

Start off with the same LEFT-RIGHT-LEFT-RIGHT shoulder roll rhythm. To punch during the shoulder roll, just release a punch from the shoulder going forward. Don’t focus on his punch or your punch, just feel the rhythm and release a punch anytime

you want. Aim at your partner’s chest; don’t hit hard. (This is just practice.)

Try countering several times in a row and return to just shoulder rolls without losing rhythm.

Take turns! Switch after each round.

Push & Shoulder Roll

Have a trainer push you into the ropes during mitt work…

 

…and surprise you with 3-4 punches. You know what to do!

As long as you know what side the first punch is coming from, the rest is easy.

 

The shoulder roll’s essence is IN THE ROLL!

Don’t worry about the shoulder.

The secret is in the ROLL, not the shoulder! Don’t focus on blocking the punch with your shoulder. Focus on deflecting the punch as you turn away from it. Even if the punch goes over your shoulder, a good roll will still deflect the power off your head.

The shoulder roll teaches you to move with your opponent. You learn read his movement and roll at just the right time to deflect his punch. Roll too late and you get hit; roll too early and you’ll telegraph your movement or leave yourself vulnerable. Do the shoulder roll drills with a pure focus on rhythm. Keep it slow at first, and don’t speed up until you both have the perfect rhythm.

You and your partner must match each other’s rhythm.Don’t try to surprise each other.

When you practice the shoulder roll, try to be in sync with each other like a dance. Keep it slow. Once you match your opponent’s punching rhythm, focus on other things. Calm your breathing, relax your body, pay attention to your feet, pay attention to your balance. Start looking around the room, try to have a conversation with other people in the room! What have you realized??? YOUR DEFENSE HAS BECOME AUTOMATIC!!! ((( HELL YEAH, CONGRATULATIONS! )))

You have mastered the shoulder roll when it becomes automatic. Try to feel your opponent’s rhythm without having to look for his punches. Now take this time to study your opponent. Look at his feet, or his body. Is he leaning in? Does he throw punches with bad form? Where would you like to counter punch? When I do the shoulder roll drills, I don’t worry about defense, I’m looking for openings!

Do not be discouraged if your shoulder roll does not come off smooth the first few times you try it in a fight. Like any move, the shoulder roll takes practice. Realistically, it’s hard for the shoulder roll to be effective when you’ve only practiced it a few times compared to the hundreds of times your opponent practiced his punch.

Masters of the Shoulder Roll

Study some of my favorite boxing masters of the shoulder roll. I’m sure everybody has their own list but I highly recommend watching these guys.

James Toney – ultra-natural talented fighter, old school boxing skills, my favorite defensive fighter. (Have you ever seen anybody fight without getting in shape?)

Pernell Whitaker – he uses more slipping than rolling but so ridiculously talented! One of my all time favorites. If you thought Floyd Mayweather’s defense was good, watch this guy fight with his hands down the entire time.

Joan Guzman – excellent defense, very flashy defensive fighter. You have to watch a full fight to appreciate.

Guillermo Rigondeaux – incredible defense, it’s a shame he counters so well you never get to see him on the defensive much.

Floyd Mayweather – very effective, precision shoulder rolls. Kevin Johnson – defensive heavyweight. (Proof that big guys can shoulder roll too!)

Using the Shoulder RollThe shoulder roll is simple boxing skill that should have been taught to you from day one. It’s not just a defensive move, it teaches you boxing rhythm to help you attack, counter-attack, as well as defend. Rolling the shoulders defends you against attacks while loading up your counter punch on your opponent’s weak side. The moment you figure out your opponent’s rhythm, just start rolling his punches!

The shoulder roll uses RHYTHM as your defense.

The real trick to using the shoulder roll is not to think about the shoulders. Think about it. It’s not about blocking the punch with your shoulder or your arm or whatever. In a real fight, punches are going to get through. As long as you roll with the punches, you will be fine! Because you’re using rhythm as your defense, your mind will be free to think about other things. Instead of focusing on blocking or slipping punches, you just let your body’s natural rhythm run your automatic defense. The shoulder roll makes your defense automatic so you can focus on punching.

The shoulder roll is effective no matter what your opponent throws. You don’t have to be balanced, you don’t have to really use your eyes. The simple action of you turning away from the punch will deflect its full power off you. Rolling punches is more effective at defending power punches than just blocking. Many advanced boxers roll with every punch; they’re not just blocking.

Try a slight shoulder roll with every block.

Last but not least…PLEASE throw counters! Do not sit there trying to roll everything. Quickly find your footing and come back immediately.

Even Floyd Mayweather, as great as he is, most also throw a counter or else he eventually gets hit by a punch. I saw a fight not too long ago where Jason Litzau did a good job of rolling Adrien Broner’s punches. Unfortunately, he either didn’t have the cognizance to come back with a counter or chose not to…he ultimately got caught and knocked out in the first round. The shoulder roll can avoid punches, but it won’t avoid a fight.

Shoulder Roll Tips:

Don’t over-rotate. Rotate just enough to avoid the punch. Don’t get faked out, your opponent might punch with the opposite hand as you roll into

it! Keep your eyes on your opponent the whole time. Try to add a pivot when you roll the front shoulder. The shoulder roll is ineffective against lighter punches.

…think you got the shoulder roll down?