Relaxing Shoulders

[southpawwolves]

Thanks for the responses, can anyone post a picture or video of an example of resting my elbows on my chest I can't see to grasp this, it feels awkward To wayne, thanks for the reply, one thing I always tend to do it push my jab rather than just let it go, I don't do it so much on bags/pads, but sparring I always tend to do it. I'm trying to work on invisioning it and how I would like it to go. I'm sure this will help as greys advice has helped me alot. Another thing I maybe should point out is I dislocated my shoulder on my right arm (jabbing arm) last year sparring, so maybe that's stuck in my mind and I am self-consciously scared of letting it loose? I know now and again, well quite rarely, I feel it twitch when I throw a right hook.

[WayneFlint]

I would agree by saying this could be making the problem worse, you will try to limit movement in that shoulder due to the old injury and over time you then lose more and more control because of this, i have a similair problem with my right shoulder so i layd off throwing some rights too much thus lost control over my right side because im gradually limiting what i put into it with my right shoulder rather than gradually trying to put more and more into it, just try getting your shoulders into the punching more, let the shoulders go until you feel pain, dont anticipate it, let the shoulders whip the shot out and back to their best using as full a range of motion as you can, if the injury starts niggling again you know you have to lay off for quite some time maybe.

Regarding hands on the chest what i mean is let you elbows sit just infront of you hips, not by your sides, if your elbows are resting on the outsides of the hips then things will go wrong a lot easier with straight shots. tucked right infront, elbows resting in front of hips, say the target is the chin then ideally if your hips had eyes the elbows want to be blocking the hips view of the target, this is the placement i would suspect would give the best overall shot. if the elbows are not blocking the view of the target then there will be unnecessary movements/contractions going on to keep your punch on track and from flaring out via momentum and dodgey elbow placement. it may only be a bit of wasted movement and energy, but its still there, the greater the momentum of the shot the more wasted energy, keep those elbows tight in