The reason why boxing is often referred to as a ‘sweet science’ is that it is about far more than just having power in your hands. Throughout history we have often seen faster fighters have greater levels of success than those with bombs in their gloves. For this reason it makes sense when boxing to incorporate certain aspects of your training which will increase your hand speed. This is what we are going to look into today, some great exercises which will help you to increase the speed and making you a better boxer.
Using Handweights When Boxing
Adding some weights to your gloves when boxing can help you to strengthen your hands and arms, as well as allowing you to increase speed. In fact check our range of boxing gloves here, and you’ll find that some have space where you can add some small weights. This is about getting used to punching with those weights, so that when you don’t have them on your hands, there is far less resistance. Once that extra weight is gone, your hands will begin to fly.
Jump Rope Sprinting
Many think that jump rope sprinting is designed for increased footwork, which is certainly a benefit which you’ll get from this kind of training. Beyond this however it is also a fantastic exercise for increasing your hand speed. The reason for this is that it helps you to work out the fast-twitch muscle fibers which are critical for speeding up your hand. These muscles are in the upper back and the shoulders, and jump rope sprinting is perfect for boosting those muscles and giving you faster hand speed.
Using A Speed Bag
The speed bag is great for working on your reflexes, your head movement and the speed of your punching. It is important when you use this bag that you focus on speed more than power. The harder that you hit the bag the faster that it will come back, but this doesn’t actually help too much when it comes to the speed of your hands, just the speed of your reflexes. Get yourself into a good rhythm with the bag, allow it to bounce twice before hitting again. Using one hand at first for two hits and then bringing the other in once is a good technique which will help you to increase your overall punching speed.
Using Focus Mitts
One of the best ways for you to increase both speed and reflexes is to work with your training partner using focus mitts. Decide between you on three combinations which you will perform, each with three punches. The training partner will shout one of the combinations and then raise the mitts, and you’ll have to react quickly to ensure you hit each pad. If you incorporate this into your daily training each time you workout then you will very quickly find that your speed begins to increase.
The key to all of this is being disciplined in your training so that you can really ramp up the speed of your punches.