Training with Focus Pads in striking

Training with Focus Pads in striking and combat sports.

There are at least 7 different reasons why you have to do a lot of training with focus pads, this is a part of your workout that you absolutely do not have to neglect if you want to become a good striker.

You have to spend a lot of time on focus pads because it’s the exercise you need to do when you’re not sparring.

DON’T become a collector of techniques.

Learn a technique and try it on focus pads and sparring, when you can then learn a second one, etc.

Fitness

There are many definitions of fitness, but most people agree that fitness consists of various built-in physical elements, including aerobic, anaerobic, fitness, strength, muscle endurance, range of movement (flexibility), and body composition (relative percentages of body fat and muscle).

Focus pad training can help develop many of these fitness attributes.

• Long, constant sessions can develop aerobic endurance
• Short and intense sessions will build the anaerobic fitness part.

The repetitive nature of the combinations develops a specific muscle endurance and martial arts movements, as performing kicks will increase the range of movement.

An important aspect is the impact force that can be developed very well if the impact on pad work is combined with body weight or pliometric exercises.

As you can imagine of course, intense activity on the pad work burns a lot of calories and therefore can help balance the percentage of fat when combined with a healthy diet.

All in all the pad work develops a fantastic gym, those who disagree are welcome to try to do five rounds on the pads with me!

SKILL-SPECIFIC DEVELOPMENT

The focus work is very versatile and can be used to work on all the specific skills you want to develop.

• Do you want to improve with high kicks? Well add more high kicks into your routine.
• Need for a harder punch? Then work on mechanical refining of the body and shifting the weight of the body.
• Do you want to improve your defense? Force your partner to counter your attacks after shots at the focus to improve your guarding skills.

Ps. Also keeping the focus also improves yourself because it allows you to see how you pull your partner without risking anything so you can observe how he loads the shots, what he does before pulling, movements, gaze, steps, etc.

Every martial art or sport can be learned, improved and have more and more mastery on the variations of exercises on the mitts focus.

The types of shots and combinations are literally endless.

The Pad work is fully adaptable and can be used to improve any martial arts skills.

TIME AND DISTANCE

The sack punches or in general heavy sack work is great for power development, but the sacks do not move and do not hit you again, do not respond.

Fighting sports and martial arts are all about timing and distance, so it’s absolutely not enough to do the heavy sack.

There is always better timing and an ideal distance to pull shots.

Pulling shots at focus pads really helps develop attributes for proper distance and good timing support. You can also move anywhere to force the attacker to follow, cut, close, etc. at the same time, you can set and place focus pads in different ways to help the fighter develop the right combinations of shots and steps and good timing.

SPEED

“Speed kills” is an expression that boxers use to illustrate how important it is to be fast.

You can have the hardest punch in the world, but if it takes 3 seconds to pull it, then it’s very likely that you’ll lose often or miss your opponent, because like any amateur can step out of reach of your shots and counterattack.

The speed trained with the pad work is the third thing that develops after the shape of the body and correct the mechanics and definitely to be developed before the power.

Power without speed leads to being slow, a fighter whose only chance is to land the opponent with a big shot becomes something very difficult.

Speed is something all fighters want and you want it too.

Remember that speed is composed of various factors, it’s not just about the speed of movement because we’re talking about combat:

• There is the speed of recognition (where a stimulus such as an approaching focus is exposed),
• Cognitive speed (where the correct answer is calculated and selected) and
• The speed of movement (where the body moves to defend).

Working at the pad work will help you develop all the elements that create speed.

P.s. Whoever holds the focus must quickly expose a pad, and in that fraction of a second that its position must be recognized, the correct technique selected and the shot pulled all in that fraction of a second.

If he waits too long to do these three things pull the pad away.

Speed is a precise by-product that you develop by working on focus pads effectively.

POWER

The power of the shots is fantastic.

Everyone likes to watch heavyweights, where a single punch can end a match.

Traditionally boxing uses heavy sack to develop power, but using pads can develop much more power.

It’s really important to have a skilled teammate or coach who keeps your pad.

The power of the Knockout is a combination of:

• Technique
• Explosion
• Timing,
• Distance
• Body mechanics.

Each of these elements can be developed on pads individually or in unison.

The only problem with power development is to be done by protecting those who hold the pads.

If your training partner is heavy can pull very strong shots, it becomes very difficult and challenging to hold the pads and can damage a person who holds the focus pad without technique or who is not qualified.

Tears from bicep pain, shoulder injuries and sore wrists are common in inexperienced people who start to focus.

Also the more people who train are heavy or with great technique and more will be important for you to have quality equipment and integrate the techniques necessary to absorb and redirect their power.

DEFENSE

As mentioned, pad work is especially useful for improving your defensive skills.

• In Boxing, defensive abilities include blocking, parades, dodges, and evasions.
• In Muay Thai and Kickboxing you also need to add defenses against kicks such as control, capture and scooping.
• In MMA you will need all of the above plus takedowns, including ground shots and defenses.

These are different ways with focus pads to train different defense systems.

In my opinion defensive skills are more important than offensive capabilities because anyone can hit hard if angry enough, but most people can’t defend themselves in an effective and economical way.

Defensive skills can be difficult to learn as they tend to be intuitive.

For example, when a person punches in the face the natural reaction is to back off and extend their arms to repel blows.

This backtracking is a natural and instinctive reaction, but not very useful for combat sports, as it leaves large openings for sequences of punches, kicks, etc.

For this reason it usually takes more time for people to learn defense, as they are working against natural instincts.

You have to change your instincts.

The work at the focus pads is active (where those who keep the pads back to hit) tightens the defense and over time helps reduce the attempts to react that are dead times that your opponent can use to insert shots or get away.

You just have to look at “someone” like Floyd Mayweather, undefeated world champion, to understand how important a good defense is.

Floyd has excellent head movement and an incredible leg game that keeps him safe and allows him to counter-attack at will when needed.

Floyd develops these technical qualities daily at the focus with Uncle Rodger. Go to YouTube and look for Mayweather focus pads.

It’s amazing.

A good defense paves the way for a good offense.

COORDINATION

A definition of coordination is “to organize together muscles and muscle groups aimed at fostering precise movement”.

There are many complex movements in the fight, coordination is key.

Muscles must “be operated sequentially” and control movement in different directions at the same time.

If a fighter is not coordinated everything does not work, the distance is wrong, the timing is off and the body does not work as a single unit but precisely decomposed.

This is a disaster if it happens during combat.

If you look at combat sports you will notice that the best fighters tend to have excellent coordination, that is, the muscles of the whole body work together both the attack or defensive part and the movement part with the legs and the generation of the thrust recalling the muscles in the right sequence.

Training with focus pad work should contribute to the development of this regular and coordinated movement.

THE “HEART” AND PSYCHOLOGY

Not literally the heart (although it helps) and the head (physically), but the ability to move forward when things are not going the right way or the right way.

Heart and psychology are essential if a fighter wants to succeed or perform well as a fighter.

You can have all the technique and all the skills in the world, but if you lack the heart and head to move forward when you have exhausted your strength or feel bad about the blows received then what will you ever do?.

That’s the fight, too.

I’ve lost count of the number of times I’ve seen boxing or M.M.A. fights with fighters with their backs to the wall or fighters who are great when they’re winning, but they fall apart as soon as things don’t go right.

He lacks heart and head.

Some coaches say you were born with heart and others say you can develop.

I think it’s a little real for both of us.

You need a certain amount of innate stamina and grit in combat, but hard training can definitely build these basics.

Hard work at pads develops the ability to move forward when you are tired.

He tests the strength of his heart and lungs, makes him anxious for air, burns his shoulders and bends his legs.

This is a method and a training phase where you measure your physical and mental endurance.

It’s very tiring, but it’s important because it will test a fighter’s heart before you get into the ring or cage where it’s really important.

If a fighter closes during pad work, there is a good chance that he will close in on the actual fight when he feels tired.

The heart needs to be tested and trained.

Have a good workout with focus pads!

Street Fight Mentality & Fight Sport

Andrea