The best way to learn how to punch harder is to do intensive shadow boxing almost every day. You can use shadowbox to warm up before you train, but you must first do warm-up exercises before you shadowbox. Shadowbox before your spar or hit the heavy bag.
The best way to increase your punching speed is to train the specific muscles involved with the “snap” of a punch through bodyweight exercises, as well as using speed-focused shadowboxing combinations and hand speed drills. Practice these strategies with FightCamp, and you'll be punching faster in no time.
Much of the power in your punches comes from your shoulders and back, so do push-ups, pull-ups and shoulder presses to target these muscles. Strengthen your arms with bicep curls and target your chest with bench presses. Because your abs act as stabilizers, focus on these muscles by performing sit-ups and crunches.
Hard punches need to be backed up with strong wrists and hands, and thick-grip training is one of the most practical ways to strengthen these areas. With incline presses, I often use contrast training, which applies the neurological phenomenon known as post-tetanic facilitation (PTF).
Move your body to obtain maximum force (or weight) behind your punch. The trick behind this is to not focus on moving your body for a great distance but instead focus on moving it all at the same time. The biggest muscles in your body always generate the most power when punching.
Your legs and chest are responsible for a large amount of the power in a punch. Most of this power is generated from rotational speed, which can be bolstered by strengthening the legs and chest.
Plyometric Push-Ups
Among the most important muscles in the body for boxing are the arm, shoulder, and pectoral muscles. These are all the same muscles that get a workout when you do push-ups, which means that push-ups are a great way of building your punching power.
In fact, our testing results suggest that the lean muscle of the core is the biggest contributor to punch force – meaning the stronger your core, the harder your punch! Core strength also plays an important role in generating effective mass, this is known as the 'snap' of a punch.
Increasing maximal strength and power will not decrease punch speed. Hypertrophy will not either. Doing bodybuilding style training with higher, slow reps will decrease punch speed as will strength-endurance work.
There is no “ground game” in boxing--it's all done standing up, so the legs are the primary source of power delivered through your punches (and kicks), and the stronger your legs are, the harder your punches will be, and the longer you will be able to stay in a fight. Here's a quick illustration of leg power in boxing.
Like its distant cousin, the sit-up, crunches help you build and fortify your sternum. Most body punches land in this area, so making sure it's able to absorb punishment is crucial to a boxer's conditioning.
Tremendous endurance of the shoulders and arm muscles are needed when boxing to hold the hands high in the guard position to be constantly throwing these 130 punches. Performing a lot of push-ups develops strength endurance in these muscles so they are less prone to fatigue when boxing.
The chest muscles are your upper body core muscles. Their most important functions are to connect your shoulders, arms, and lats into one combined force. They also generate the most punching power out of your upper body muscles.
Your punches feel weak when you punch the air because you're hitting at the end of an imaginary target. What do I mean by this? The most taught technique in fighting is snapping punches by targeting a little further than the target.
The trick is to move your head in the direction of the punch, to try to take some steam off the edge. By moving your head in the same direction, you're minimizing the impact, and thus, decreasing potential damage.
Summary. Squats are a great exercise for boxing as it develops strength and power in the legs which are highly important for punching harder and faster. There are many different squat variations you can use that will suit your training age and strength level.
Boxing requires quick snapping movements and many of them. A single fight can have hundreds of quick snappy movements in all sorts of directions. Lifting weights is a relatively slow movement using a relatively limited range of motion, making it less effective for boxing training.
He's come to believe that “you get to learn a lot about people just by looking in their eyes.” A quality staredown, Griffin says, involves “two fighters that have trained hard, are hungry, and want what the other person has.” The staredown is an opportunity “to look into this guy's soul and see who it is I'm fighting.”
So, if you're new to the game, you might be wondering why do boxers hug in the match? The hug in boxing is called a clinch. It's a strategic move where you trap your opponent's arms under yours, stopping the action and causing a break.
The majority of the action appears to take place above the waist, but the reality is that the boxer's legs are always moving, fuelling each movement. Boxers must not skip leg day since punching power is produced from the ground up. In the ring, a combatant rarely stands still.
The average punching bag weighs around 25kg and you could be hitting it hundreds of times in a single training session, so good strength is essential. And whether you're sparring or running circuits you'll be getting stronger with each exercise.
In martial arts, it is the unspoken word that strong forearms aid tremendously in punching power. Even though most of your punching power is generated from the legs and the hips, by utilising rotational and linear forces, it is the forearms that act as a strong and stable link during punch impact.
Boxers put their hands in rice to toughen them and develop strength in the muscles and tendons of the hands, wrist, and forearms. Boxing is demanding on the hands. Taking good care of them and preparing them properly for combat can differentiate between losing or getting these hands raised in victory.