I read and interesting article the other day that the heavy bag has it's good points, but that it has a lot more cons than pros such as: Hard joint impacts that can cause injury to hands, shoulders, wrists, back, etc. It causes the fighter to get "lazy eyes" as he called it. Basically he had said that technique and accuracy were much more important than spending hours pounding on a heavy bag. Lack of ability to do uppercuts. I always liked it, but with a bad shoulder i'm not hitting one for a while. There were a few other reasons, but what do you all thing of this idea?
Its part of an entire training regime, hitting a bag with no coach and no training partners is not ideal.
This can be a factor. If you're training with boxing gloves on then you'll not notice the cumulative shooting pains etc that can build up across months of doing LOTS of bagwork. 'Transferal of force' can become a problem. But I've only seen boxers etc get those kind of joint pains if they're doing at least 10 rounds a day on the bag, each day for months on end...Before they start feeling it. If you're training without gloves - Hitting the bag - You'll need to keep good fist and wrist integrity. And also allow time for your fists to become conditioned. A couple rounds a day max with bare-knuckles. Without mufflers you'll immediately feel where you're going wrong punchwise. Ideally you 'should' do equal amounts of work on the floor-to-ceiling-ball (double-ended bag). And padwork. Also the solid spring-loaded punchball is a good alternative or 'halfway house' between the bag and the floor-ceiling-ball. Great, near forgotten piece of kit the floor-punchball. I've heard a number of systema practioners say this. Their reasoning is the cumulative force of the rebound off a heavy bag - if hit with boxing style punches - can accumulate in the brain. Whether they're right or not who knows? A hefty bag allows you to express hitting power. You can 'rock n roll' it - Meaning you can jink around the thing and use it with more 'aliveness'. How you choose to train on it and use it is another matter. You can use it more for accuracy training. But there are other more efficient ways to train your accuracy - padwork, floor-ceiling-ball, punchball, maize bag, tennis ball on a bungee, sparring etc etc. You can do uppercuts on a heavy bag in a number of ways. 1) You can get a bag 'doughnut'. Or slip a tyre over the bag and affix that. 2) You can throw uppers as the bag goes away from you...or comes towards you...at a 45 degree angle. This takes work so you don't 'jam' your wrist. This'll also grant you a chance to throw other types of uppercut-like shovel type hooks and choppers (like a cross between a jab, shovel hook and uppercut) Not perfect but ... 3) You can tie the bag so it's parallel to the ground. To the rafters etc - at the height you choose. And practice your uppercuts that way. Or hoist it so the bottom of the bag is at 'uppercut' height - Be careful as the bottom of the bag is always more solid than the flanks. 4) One bareknuckle drill my grandfather taught me - And Please Be Really Careful if you're going to try this - Is to pick the bag up in a 'clean' type motion. Throw it in the air and uppercut it as it's falling. Please be aware = You must possess strong wrists and structure to do this. And it means to throw 20 solid uppers you'll have to 'clean' the bag skywards at least 20 times. So it's more of a conditioning and impact drill. But seriously. If you can toss a 100 lb bag time and again and nail it with a really strong uppercut on the way down. And stay in one piece...You'll be able knock out a Rhino. I do the same drill for knee strikes and to condition my shins sometimes. Great fun. Bear in mind though that's more bareknuckle/ old-style type training and may not benefit your modern ring-rules boxing so much. Depends on your emphasis.
Some stuff I wrote about heavy bag work and why it's necessary/good ways to do it http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1074710436&postcount=10 http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1074710814&postcount=14 http://www.martialartsplanet.com/forums/showpost.php?p=1074710823&postcount=16 If I do too much heavy bag work my wrists and striking knuckles will start bothering me, but it's nothing I can't just suck up. When I first started I couldn't do the 10 rnds of bag work at the intensity I generally do now due to my hands/wrists hurting. Wrapping your hands and wearing 16 oz. gloves help. I tend to do my bag work with 10 oz. bag gloves now, only using the 16 oz. when I plan on hitting the bag hard for a long duration to protect my hands. As far as injuries go, I still did bag work when I hyper-extending my elbow really bad a few weeks ago after resting it for a day or two. You just don't hit the bag as hard and just be mindful of it. Your body has to get conditioned to hitting things, even a heavy bag. You're not going to go from not doing heavy bag workouts, to hitting the heavy bag like a pro and not feel it both in muscle soreness and structural (bone/tendon) soreness. You have to build up. Don't hit the heavy bag in a way that hurts you. I don't know what you mean about not being able to throw uppercuts. I throw a variation of them just fine (not all upper cuts are going vertical) and you can still simulate vertical uppercuts too for developing range awareness. With "lazy eyes" . . . . I definitely do that if I'm just hitting the bag for a workout. Most of the time I'm focusing on striking a specific part on the bag whether it's the logo or the stitched seam, which definitely isn't building a bad habit as it helps to develop accuracy.
mine aren't for in ring... it's for fun, fitness and SD IF it was needed. Also to compliment my combat hapkido... forgot to mention that.
I myself had thought about getting one of those wall bag types with all of the striking zones. You can't move around it, but you can at least do some lateral movement.
There are pros and cons to the heavy bag. It can actually make you slower, so an "alive" feeling/visualisation should be maintained. It can also encourage you to load up and you do get limited feedback. On the plus side you can improve power and combinations with good bag work. Visualisation is the key to bag work.
I used to use a heavy bag all the time and pretty much all boxers use it, but if you watch many of them, they hit the bag with pitty pat punches I think just to get used to the harder impacts and for throwing a lot of punches and maybe building up heartrate. I don't know. Just seeing what others thought here.
Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake, baker's man. Bake me a cake as fast as you can; Roll it, Pat it and mark it with B, Put it in the oven for baby and me.[1] Patty cake, patty cake, baker's man. Bake me a cake as fast as you can; Roll it up, roll it up; And throw it in a pan! Patty cake, patty cake, baker's man.[2][3] Patty cake, patty cake, baker's man. Bake me a cake as fast as you can; Roll it up, roll it up; Put it in a pan; And toss it in the oven as fast as you can! [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t4WnPp754Uc"]Mike Tyson hits the Heavy Bag (Cut Version) - YouTube[/ame] [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tlL3kZc5YjM"]Hitting The Heavy Bag With Boxing Prospect Kevin Hoskins - YouTube[/ame]
All I can think of when reading this is "everything in moderation." It is one useful tool and way of practicing. It shouldn't be overemphasized, but it is very helpful. I find it very useful for practing proper body mechanics and feeling whether I am doing it correctly or not. For example: right now the heavy bag has shown me I tend to push rather than snap in my front snap kick sometimes. It has also shown I tend to jam up my kicks by being too close. I could feel something wasn't right in sparring, but it was bag workouts that helped me figure out my problems. And I am using the bag (and sparring) to fix them. But I don't spend hours upon hours doiing bag workouts. And I don't always go full power either. Although there is something very satifying about doing a workout on one with full power.
Heavy bag to develop power , light bags for speed, floor to ceiling bags for defence and reactions wall bags for movement and angle work
I can definitely see where the advantage is with kicking to develop the shins and such. The issue I wonder about is that it's often said in boxing that a guy is either a puncher or he's not, so will you actually develop more power or just work on technique that helps with your power?
You'll definitely develop more power and better technique with than without. You'll also never know if you're a puncher or not unless you spar a bunch of people and they tell you that information. Whether you're a puncher or not though, it's good conditioning for training your body for impact. Many more pros than cons.
Only thing is that i'm not going to compete so speed, agility and defense are more important to me than the actual power. I know I can punch hard enough based on when I used to be able to use the heavy bag.
This is the same kid who claims weight training will only slow your punches down. He's apparently a trainer somewhere and has an amateur record of 0-1. Hardly "expert boxing". All 8 of those problems are easily addressed. 1 - Give your bag work 100% of your attention by visualizing it as an opponent. 2 - Use footwork with your bag work. Move in, out, and around to keep the distance. Don't just punch with your feet in the mud. 3 - Add in defenses and counters as you work the bag. Obviously it's better done with a partner but this can get you thinking about them as you train. 4 - Use proper technique when working the heavy bag. 5 - Train your shadow boxing and again use proper footwork. 6 - For speed do blitz drills. 30 sec fast nonstop punches, 30 sec rest, do 3 times for a standard round. For accuracy do the color drill. Put different colored pieces of tapes on the bag where your choice targets would be. Then either have a friend call out colors or tape yourself calling them out in random intervals. The faster you call the colors out the faster you have to punch. 7 - A common complaint with an easy fix. Tie the bottom of your bag to something so that the bag is at an angle. Problem solved. 8 - Take care of your hands. Wrap em and wear gloves. Obviously the heavy bag isn't the only tool you need but any trainer worth his salt can address these issues easily.
I didn't say I agreed with him on everything that he said. I weight trained for years and years before shoulder problems... this is the reason why I am not punching the heavy bag now.. that and I don't really have a place to hang it. This is why I also posted the pic of the wall hanging bag.. or whatever it's called. I think it might be a pretty good alternative, the problem being of course that I can't move all the way around it, but could still use a double end bag for that. Right now it's shadow boxing and I have a single tennis ball hanging on a string to try to work on accuracy... nothing anchoring it, just let it swing so I can also bob and weave a bit. I have no idea of his record and I really try not to judge anyone based on that. He might have lost to the next Floyd, Sugar Ray, etc... I have no idea.
