The punch bag was primarily designed with power punching in mind. Speed was only another factor before Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Robinson made history with their exceptional speed boxing techniques. So the sum of a punching bag workout is to work more on the strength and less on the speed. An ultimate punch bag work out automatically helps you with speed, endurance and footwork.
Experimenting in the gym is always a good idea, gives you an insight of how various exercises are done and your body is exposed to newer and better workouts too. This applies to most of the equipment present in the gym but this blog will focus on Punching bags. Like pull up bars, punching bags also have variations that can be practiced.
Let us look at the three killer workouts that can be performed on a punching bag easily.
- The 10-Round Workout
This boxing workout comprises of 10 rounds in total.
Round 1: This is just a simple warm up round. Push the bag and let it swing, taking it as your opponent. Let the bag swing on its own and move around the bag with its movements.
Round 2: In this round, you work on your jabs, singles and doubles. Make sure you don’t miss out on the footwork.
Round 3: This round is all about throwing and practicing your punches and gauging your punch range.
Round 4: Practice your punch combos with your main focus on delivering punches with speed.
Round 5: This round you will throw consecutive 1-2 punch combos in 10 second intervals, followed by 10 seconds of rest. Keep moving on the balls of your feet during the rest interval.
Round 6: This is a free-style round, so just move around in your comfortable stance and keep practicing your combos while maintaining good speed and working on your strength.
Round 7: Repeat round 4 where you punch in 2 or 3 combinations.
Round 8: Repeat round 6, that is the free style round.
Round 9: Repeat round 5 where you throw 1-2 punch combos in intervals.
Round 10: The tenth and final round is all out freestyle round where you throw in all together and just get done with the workout. Give it your best and try to work as hard as possible. It is possible that you’re not able to keep track of your footwork here because you will be exhausted and tired of all the punching by now. But be aware of the footwork and consider focusing on it as well too.
- The Speed Workout
Warm up for the workout as you have been told above, push the bag and swing along it.
People generally associate speed workouts with speed bags, however this is not the case. The punch bag can be just as useful as the speed bag to work on you punching speed.
Round 1 – This is an easy round, to get your joints and muscles moving and snapping, with crisp, light punches as you move around the heavy bag.
Rounds 2 & 3 – These are hard punching rounds. You want to throw hard, powerful punches, while flowing through combinations and utilizing your speed and power.
Rounds 3 & 4 – These rounds are tabata interval rounds. Deliver non-stop fast punches for 15 seconds, then rest for 15 seconds. Repeat until the 3 minute round is complete.
Round 5 – Go fast, non-stop for the final 3 minutes. Give it everything you have left. You should be pretty much gassed by the end of this round if you gave it all your effort.
Remember the last is always the hardest and most effective. In the last round of any workout, give in all your strength and do it with all your might. This round will be the father of all the other rounds.
- The Power Workout
The idea behind a power workout is to hit as hard as possible with minimum effort involved. Boxing requires endurance and effort so when you are throwing punches in the power based workout, make sure that even if you are practicing a knockout punch, you do it with minimum effort so you have enough power left to finish off the round in the end. This workout is basically designed to work on power and not speed.
