Shadoboxing with weights

[Youngblood]

As an aside to the strain on joints, in my 2nd year of training (still fairly clueless) I was doing punch outs drills with 5 lb weights, trying to build strength and speed. What I mostly gained, was a hurt lower back from the strain that took the better part of another 2 years to recover from. Even today I still find myself more susceptible to lower back injuries.

There aren't too many short cuts to speed and power. I've learned it is a process of developing the body, and all of it, not just a few specified areas with a few specified drills. Trying to work something like this drill, without a properly built up core, strong legs and upper body ready for the stress it may apply, is nothing short of a recipe for disaster.

[Scrap]

Train the parts of the body where you are Ticklish. the senative areas. They are sensative for a reason.

[pacfan]

Nooops. Punching with weights just adds gravity, or a downward resistance. Why the heck does anyone want to train with downward resistance while punching. It'll help only if you're required to let your 5-year old son hang on your arms during fights. Seriously, it'll probably help if you're training for uppercuts. Remember, a punch, particularly straights and jabs, is forward movement, a thrust. So you want a resistance against that movement. It's better to use one of those pulley-type exercise equipment in the gym, you know the ones with handles with retracting cords attached to them, whatever you call 'em.

Better yet, you should do some isometric excercises, a form of resistance exercise using artificial resistance instead of weights, adapting them for shadow-boxing. But it'll be much better if you perform the ones that develop the whole body, not just punching arms. But that's a whole new topic so do the research yourselves, I'm sure there are plenty of info about it on the net.

Shadow-boxing karate style combined with brisk-walking has been my daily excercise routine for several years. I sit hours for meditation everyday so I need to exercise to keep my circulation going, so I developed my own exercise. Unlike the usual boxing way, my style uses isometric form so it's both a resistance and an aerobic form of exercise rolled into one, which is an ideal form of exercise. And particularly good point about this form is that I can control the intensity of my workout by simple adjusting the intensity on isometric contraction of the muscles I use. Usually I work out at a medium intensity; light intensity when I'm tired or little sick, and high intensity when I feel like it or when I overfed myself. So before I eat an extra piece of rich creamy cake, I ask myself 'am I willing to work for it?' I usually end up just sipping a tea instead.

There's an excellent karate kata, or form exercise, called Sanchin which is a form isometric exercise combined with yoga-type breathing that develop the whole body, as well as punching power. I saw a karate master, a Sanchin master as well, in Okinawa who was in his 50's and yet had a fully ripped, well-chiselled body. I've developed a simplified version of it for non-karate athletes but it's almost impossible for me to teach it online, more so since I'm from a pre-tech generation and I need to at least be able to make some diagram-illustrations for computers to show that, especially the foot movements, and there's no 'kickings' in this exercise so it can be easily adapted for non-karate athletes. Maybe I'll talk about it more when I have time...