Speedbag Footwork Training

Training Session Outline

Footwork is something you should be mindful of in ALL workouts, but until it becomes second nature, it is worthwhile doing dedicated training sessions which are focused specifically on your footwork.

Overview

Traditionally many speed baggers have used a “square” stance. However for most types of speed bag training we would strongly recommend using a standard boxing (fight) stance.

• For boxer training, the reason for this should be obvious – why change the stance you will be using or fighting ? You should be training the same way you will fight.
• For Fitness training, a fighter stance gives a lot more mobility and allows a better range of movement.
• for Bible Style training, a square stance may be appropriate, because it allows for more consistent strikes of the bag (precisions and rhythm is important for Bible Style and this is arguably easier to achieve using a square stance).
• for MultiBag training a fight stance is critical, the traditional square stance makes it much more difficult to reach multiple bags.

Stance

This workout assumes you will be using a standard fight stance.

• One foot in front of the other..with feet about shoulder-width apart
• Front foot should have a little more weight towards the front of the foot
• Back foot heel slightly lifted off the ground.
• Knees slightly bent…
• Weight distributed about 50/50 between the front leg and the back leg.

Workout

This workout can be done with any punch combinations, but we recommend (initially anyway) that you do fairly simple strikes until the footwork starts to feel natural and you can start incorporating it without thinking about it.

• Fight Stance – stand in the fight stance. DONT be flat footed, lean slightly towards the bag, on the balls of you feet
• Start Simple – initially do this workout with very simple punch combinations… e.g. Lx5, Rx5 Ax5 and repeat… and as this becomes comfortable introduce more complex combinations
• Move – throughout the workout, DONT Stand Still... keep moving.. towards… away… and around the bag
• Bounce – as well as moving, start to introduce a slight up and down (bouncing) motion

Advanced Footwork

Once the standard footwork becomes comfortable and familiar… and you find that you are always moving in your workouts (in, out, around, up, down) you can start to introduce some more advanced techniques

• Exaggerated movements – make your movements bigger and more energetic
• Stretch – put yourself uncomfortably out of position, so you have to reach/stretch to hit the bag
• Crowd – move in so you are uncomfortably close to the bag, so you have to compress your strikes and duck to stop getting hit in the face on the rebound
• Switch – once you feel comfortable with moving in, out, around, up and down… switch your lead leg… and do it all again.