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[donnydarkoIRL]

True enough.

I'm also going to work on my handspeed.
I'm actually pretty good for my weight, but I want to be exceptional.

Usually I just Shadow box nice and slow, then accelerate on the bag, but have you got any ideas for me?

[Salty]

Scraps (i think) elastic rope trick made my hands faster, my sparring partners noticed it first. Get some elastic rope (15mm if you can) i just double up some 8mm as i couldn't find any thicker. They sell it at boating/hardware stores and is pretty cheap. Get a couple meters of it. Then tie it at one end to a post or something similar at eye level, make sure its secure though as you don't want it to hit you in the eye, so look on the net for some good knots. Then tie a loop on the other end so that you have something that you can hold in your hand. Then get in your stance at a distance where the rope is tensioned enough for you and start jabbing. It pulls your jab out quicker making your muscles work quicker as a result. I know sprinters do similar things like this to improve acceleration and top speed so it does work. I hope that helps you mate

[donnydarkoIRL]

That sounds like a good idea.
My mate us4es the sam concept on his legs all the time for Thai boxing.

[Sharla]

Sorry for the late reply I haven't been on the net for a few days! Ok if i had to recommend two exercises for your back these would be it - bodyweight lat pull downs and another dumbell exercise.

Chin ups - Depending on how strong you are you could use the counterweight machine but something tells me you'd adjust without it pretty quickly. It's hard to injure yourself doing them because you just fail and drop if it gets too hard really. If it gets too easy you can use a weight belt but to be honest I'm just aiming to get my reps up to a strong 20 before I worry about that.

My way of looking at it is if you use your chest muscles for boxing you will do a lot of reps so i'd like to be able to do the same with my back. Despite not doing low reps and high weight my back has increased in size fairly dramatically with my training anyway.

Dumbell exercise - OK I have to warn you - one of the guys in the gym was told to do this by his physio but didn't because he says it looks very gay. It probably does but it's pretty good for your back.

Get a mat and go onto your hands and knees. With a very light dumbell in one hand, back fairly straight, bodyweight kept in the centre raise it up from the floor/mat out to the side so it's about equal height with your back and lower again slowly. I have to stress here it's LOW WEIGHT. If you use a heavy weight you will not isolate the muscles right in the centre of your back you need to. You will use other muscles instead.

So that's with the dumbell moving laterally up but you can also do it with the dumbell moving diagonally up from lower under about your belly button out to the same place. I'd recommend doing both - for each side of course.

When i say low weight I mean ridiculously low weight. I use an 8 or ten pound dumbell despite being able to do chin ups with my full bodyweight reasonably well. Using the wrong muscles to shift heavier weight is the same mistake people make when they do the seated row incorrectly - they don't target the right muscles.

If you'd rather use the seated row you can still do it with lowish weight and it's safest then to use one of the supported seated row machines with the pad in front of your chest - but I prefer dumbells even if they do look gay!