by Marco De Cesaris
Training with the punching bag
In our Martial Arts stores, this is perhaps one of the most widespread
demands: Is there a video to learn to work with the punching bag?
A very long awaited project, extensively in demand by our readers and
by the many fans of Kick Boxing and Muay Thai, has finally arrived.
It will be the first in a series of instructional videos that will allow
you to develop greater effectiveness in your skills through the training
with equipment. We couldn’t have thought of a better teacher than
Master Marco de Cesaris, whose proven knowledge in the material is widely
known around the world. Marco has developed for you a well-elaborated
training routine with a clear explanation about how we should apply
the form techniques that allow us to strengthen our body and avoid injuries.
A bag is a great work companion, but we must use it wisely. Arjan de
Cesaris has spared no efforts in providing us with the necessary knowledge
for reaching this end. In the following article, you can find some of
the essentials about this matter.
Training the heavy bag for Muay Thai and Kick Boxing
“The heavy bag must be hit with all the force you have: it needn’t
sway, rather you should try to destroy it; only in this way will you
have a KO strike in street-fights.”
Jack Dempsey-World Heavyweight Boxing Champion
For many martial artists and athletes in every class, the bag has been
the “first love” in terms of sports. The greatest masters
and champions took their first steps in their martial disciplines striking,
more or less correctly, a heavy bag, perhaps hung in the garage of their
house, in the basement, from a tree, or craftily fastened to a wall.
And like in all “first loves”, the protagonist of this article
is also something impossible for all practitioners to forget. After
years of practicing and having reached an advanced level of technical
knowledge and preparation, no real martial artist can eliminate from
his own training program one or more sessions per week with the punching
bag. Every expert practitioner should know that the learning process
in the martial disciplines is a spiraling process where, even broadening
the technical baggage through the years, it is vital to continue returning
with regularity to the practice of basic exercises, those that are called
“fundamental”. The bag is the true “shop” of
study and practice where the martial artist and the athlete at any level
reflects his own gaps that, through meticulous work of trial and error,
he tries to eliminate. While we train with the bag, according to the
various methods that we are going to explain, the body and the mind
can work freely, without fear of making a mistake executing certain
movements in front of an attentive and critical observer, such as a
master: the moment of supervision by an expert is fundamental and always
has to represent the most important phase of the technical training.
However, the pleasure of hitting an untiring partner who is insensitive
to pain and fear with all our force can often reveal itself as a true
panacea for our difficult moments.
In the East and in the West
Of course, being a tool designed to train for combat, the bag must be
respected and utilized following specific work schemes, the fruit of
centuries of experiments made by the practitioners of the most distinct
Martial Arts from the five continents. In disciplines like Muay Thai
in the East and Kick Boxing or Boxing in the West, bag work has been
refined to incredible levels thanks to the importance that the followers
of those combat sports have given to this training: in the Thai countryside,
like in the European and American gymnasiums, it is often said that
a fighter will never have the necessary power to knock-out an adversary
if he doesn’t spend a good part of his daily training hitting
the bag with force and determination.
Basically, the exercises that we recommend come directly from those
that Thai Boxers and Kick Boxers from around the world practice, and
through their example, one can structure an excellent basic training
program that offers any practitioner the power, conditioning, stamina
and the technical skill in the strikes and in the movements that are
necessary to shape a professional fighter.
The first steps
As a first step, it is necessary to equip oneself with a bag full of
leather trimmings cut up into little pieces mixed with rags, or perhaps
sand inside a resistant covering; a bag filled completely with sand
is considered ideal for conditioning exercises and very expert practitioners
can utilize them. The weight and dimensions can vary, but basically,
there are two kinds of bags: mobile bags (hung from a support or from
the ceiling and therefore swaying), and fixed bags (that is, fixed to
the wall). Our analysis focuses on the first kind and from among the
mobile bags, we will consider the short one (typical in Boxing), and
the long, or banana bag (utilized mostly by Japanese Kick Boxers). The
next step is to protect the fragile bones of the hand (relative to the
more resistant, tibia, elbow, and knee) with appropriate wrapping and
with light gloves, which will prevent one—especially if the work
is done daily—from damaging the hands with bothersome abrasions
and from excessively numbing the areas of contact of the fist. Only
in a second phase will it be possible, in some special sessions, to
eliminate the wrappings and later the gloves in order to concentrate
on hand conditioning training.
Preparation
Before beginning the practice of striking a bag, it is always necessary
to prepare for the intense effort of the muscles, tendons, and the joints
with a series of stretching exercises (we recommend Yoga postures) and
some shadow boxing, those in which we execute—with the aid of
little weights (maximum 1 kg)—movement, defensive moves, punches,
kicks, elbow strikes and knee strikes into the air just as we later
execute them with our bag.
[Note: our discourse focuses on the use of the bag for training percussion
executed with the various parts of the body, though in some cases standing
fight grips are incorporated. There is a system of bag use called “from
the fighter” which we are not going to consider now, whose cylindrical
heavy bags, or in the shape of a mannequin, are gripped and thrown to
the ground or, in some particular exercises, put on the ground and struck
or strangled, simulating ground fighting situations.]
Technical training
Once one is adequately prepared and, if it is possible, after some messages
with appropriate ointments (in Muay Thai, generally one uses a specific
kind of oil called Nam Mano Muay), we are ready for the phase of the
real technical work that, schematizing, can be divided into 5 general
categories:
- fitness exercises for combat
- exercises for technical correction
- exercises for speed and loosening up
- power exercises
- exercises in combat situations
Each training session can focus on a category from among the five in
the abovementioned classification, or else according to the demands
(whether one wants professional training or self-defense, or fitness),
to combine two or more categories, working many technical/physical attributes
at the same time.
1. First training category
In particular, desiring to exploit the bag in order to get a good level
of cardio-vascular stamina or for conditioning the various parts of
the body against the impact of strikes (especially the tibias, knees,
elbows, feet, hands, and forearms), we will focus on exercises pertinent
to the first category, called “Fit to Fight”. The routines,
according to which we can execute the training, are many indeed, and
they are related, especially with the specific demands of the practitioner
(professional or amateur) and in the case of some athletes, according
to the length of the combat for which he is preparing himself.
2. Second category
On the other hand, if we want to work our own particular technical gaps,
which involves the execution of a specific strike (whether a punch,
a kick, a knee or elbow strike) or if we want to improve a movement-strike
combination or we want to perfect a series or a strike combination (in
the first case we consider a link of percussions executed with the same
weapons, for example, fist-fist, while in the second case a combination
of strikes executed with distinct weapons, for example, punch-kick),
our training will focus mostly on exercises of the second category.
In those exercises, it is better to accustom ourselves to using the
correct weapon at the adequate distance, varying the distances with
appropriate steps and movements: for example, in order to go from the
medium distance of Boxing to the short distance where we work the grappling
holds and the elbow and knee strikes, it will be necessary to automate
the fast advances that in Muay Thai are called “Ian Seub”
and the entering and existing techniques of hand-to-hand fighting.
3. Third category
In the third category of exercises, we try to execute strikes with looseness
and speed, combining the weapons utilized (punch, kick, elbow, knee),
the heights to which we attack (low, middle, and high) and the ways
of execution (complex footwork, guard changes, jumps, rotations). In
these kinds of drills, the static situations are eliminated; the movements
of the legs, the trunk and the head have to be continuous and the rotations
of the hips and shoulders become more syncopated in order to multiply
the attacks in the given time frame.
4. Fourth category
The fourth category is done mainly to develop explosive power in the
strikes and in this case, it is often recommended to use a fixed bag,
or if that isn’t possible, ask a colleague to hold the training
bag. It is important in this phase to try to “go through”
the bag with our most powerful strikes, without limiting oneself “to
touching it” on the surface, rather literally cutting it in two.
In this kind of exercise, the strikes are carried out with explosive
movements, executing individual actions, sometimes repeated during a
whole round. Toward this aim, it is normal to have training sessions
with the bag following the time frames of the ring sports, and in particular,
of Boxing: working for three minutes and resting for one minute. On
the other hand, in Muay Thai, they often follow different times, based
on an increase in the rhythm of work with respect to the fight (4 minutes
instead of three) and a lessening of the rest time (1 minute instead
of 2). Following one of these schemes for training is undoubtedly a
good start, but if, for example, our objective is to simulate real,
fast, and violent combat situations, it is better to alternate sessions
in which one follows the time frames of Boxing with others in which
the work time is not pre-established, where the rest time is done when
one reaches a certain level of fatigue: after a brief pause (some 10
seconds) we push ourselves to go back to begin with the same intensity
as the first assault, and continuing like that three, four or up to
five times.
5. Fifth category
The last kind of exercise concerns combat situations and will vary according
to the discipline that is practiced, the technical level reached, and
again, the objective of the training. In this phase, one combines the
previous drills incorporating steps with defensive movements (blocks,
dodges, etc.), simulations with combined attacks, and defenses with
counter-attacks carried out with the various weapons of the body (including,
though in a controlled way with respect to the other kinds of attacks,
head strikes at short distance). Especially in this phase, the bag must
“be alive” and thanks to a visualization process, has to
become a real adversary in a way that we have to avoid its dangerous
attacks and later strike it with all the strength that we have available.
A great training partner
There are many training instruments studied by the Martial Arts masters
in order to strengthen the body and the spirit of the practitioners
and convert them into living weapons: but perhaps only the punching
bag is a universal tool that has passed through time and cultures, establishing
itself from old times as an indispensable aid of the true martial artist.
It has been my “personal trainer” for over thirty years
and I expect I’ll never stop using it. For all that, I advise
its use to all those who want to excel in their chosen Fighting Art.
