Hit the heavy bag slowly.
Lately you see a lot of videos of professional fighters doing heavy sack workouts with very light shots.
- Pull it easy, why do some Fighter Pros do this?
- Why this approach instead of working on power?.
Essentially there are 4 reasons,but one thing I want to tell you though, that you don’t have to be fooled by the videos because a professional does many hours of training and the lot work it’s not just that of power,so what you see is not all the training that a pro does to the sack, this consideration is very important.
One boxer you often see in slow-moving videos is Floyd Mayweather Jr.
To really understand if he only uses the sack with light shots you should be part of his team, but consider that some workouts do them specially behind closed doors (close door),these are their strategies and training methods that hardly show the public and journalists.
Professional fighters who “pull light” on the heavy bag do it for several reasons but surely there are 4 are fundamental:
1 – Fighters pros with time can have fragile hands/shoulders/feet/joints,with trauma and injuries after 10 or more years hitting hard objects such as the sack and the heads of the opponent (and sometimes elbows, knees, and hard parts of the body).
They do what they can to preserve their “weapons.”
Consider for example your hand is made up of smaller/weaker bones and at some point but your fists are the one you use the most with your opponents.
So after repeated traumas and in order to be able to train equally even with injuries and micro fractures they have to adapt the way of training unless you stuff painkillers and anti-inflammatory that do not make sense.
2 – Pro fighters work with high-level skills,they already have good power and technique, so they no longer work on certain aspects because they already own it.
They’re working on the fluidity of the shots, the speed, the timing, the footwork, and it’s also a kind of mental shadow boxing that they do with the heavy bag.
They are probably also taking their time to think through different angles and set-ups on the heavy bag.
They’re not doing the job a beginner who you don’t know yet does.
3 – Pro fighters do the hard conditioning first thing in the day and unless you’re a pro fighter or one who has a lot of free time,you’ll probably see a professional agonist at the end of his workout of the day.
Professionals usually perform all their heavy training in the morning or early afternoon.
The moment you (assuming you’re an amateur or a worker) enter the gym in the afternoon or evening after work or school, they’re just there to do light technical workouts with their coaches, stretching, fatigue, etc.
4 – Pro fighters do not show their full force of blows during interviews with journalists, the gym full, curious about other gyms, other athletes or likely opponents, etc. as I told you before.
Molti professionals will not demonstrate their full capacity when the gym is crowded andbesides, they do not like to be registered, so what you see is not the reality.
Now given what you just read, it’s not that they don’t do the power work, but being experts adapt their training based on their physical condition and needs.
You do your traditional training, over time you will learn to adapt your approach to such a simple but essential tool for every fighter and practitioner of martial arts and combat sports.
I repeat the sack is a tool that adapts to a lot of workouts is not only for the power although clearly it is something where you can fully download the power of the shots.
That’s important! Always protect your limbs so important hand bandages, and if you have to do long sessions even double bandages.
It’s not time wasted protecting you and preserving yourself, those who don’t with time notice it with perennial pains in the joints, so take care of this if you don’t already.
Have a good workout!!
Andrea