One of the most important elements of boxing training is developing hand-eye coordination. Do you have any exercises or techniques to improve that? Like many other boxers, you are relying on your traditional training but there is an unorthodox way to do build coordination, with a tennis ball cap.
Tennis Ball Cap
No, you are not mistaken. We actually said a tennis ball cap.
If you follow boxing more than casually, then you may have seen many different professional boxers training with a cap that has a tennis ball attached to it.
They tap the tennis ball with their fists, as quickly as possible.
It helps them develop accuracy, vision and hand-eye coordination.
On top of your speed bag training, this out of the box exercise can be a real help. The best thing is that it will cost you next to nothing.
Bear in mind that it is not a replacement for heavy punch bags or speed bags but just a few minutes of this workout can help with your punching precision.
Plus, you will have so much fun training this way.
You can Build Your Own
Before you start thinking that you are not good at making or building things, the cap is super easy to make and you won’t need much in terms of equipment.
Things you need
- A tennis ball
- Elastic Cord
- A baseball cap
- Screwdriver
- Small nail
- Some tape
Steps to follow
- Take the screwdriver and make a hole in the tennis ball
- Twist the screwdriver around to make the hole bigger
- Cut the elastic cord into a desirable length
- Tie one end of the cord to the nail
- Insert the nail into the tennis ball
- Use the screwdriver to make sure that the nail is inserted properly
- Pull on the cord to test if the nail holds
- Take any old baseball cap (a resizable one)
- Tie the other end of the cord to the cap’s backside
- Secure it with knots
- Pull on it to ensure it holds
- And you are done. Time to test and see if it works
Wear the cap with the tennis ball hanging in front of your face. Start throwing some jabs at the tennis ball and try to hit it every time it bounces back.
You can also try some jab and cross combos to test your skills. But in the beginning, you should stick with jabs.
Move around as you tap the tennis ball and see if you can maintain the accuracy while you are moving around.
The length of the cord will determine the speed of the tennis ball.
Start off with a long cord and get your precision right.
You can shorten it when you get the hang of the tennis ball cap workout.
This simple but highly useful workout equipment will help you in your boxing training in many ways.
Go ahead and make one. Do let us know how it goes by commenting below.
