Punching with weights. Opinions pls.

[Ether]

Stand in a narrow front stance, legs bent and punch out to head height continuously for between 5 - 20 minutes, changing to a mirror stance half way through. Rembering to keep teh elbows tucked in and initiate each punch with proper body movement. The weights i'm using weigh 2 Kilograms (about 4.5 lb's) each. I'm very happy with this and have now managed to increase my time to about 8 minutes.

I have heard however from weight trainers that this type of shoulder movement with weights is dangerous. Is anyone here of that opinion or is this exercise fine? I have not encounterd any problems and know people who have been doing this for a while with no apparant side effects. Just wondering if anyone has any advice or warnings or does anything similar.

Ether

[Robinf]

The concern expressed might be with the possibility of injury or damage to the rotator cuff (which is easy to injure). There is the possibility of an instant injury with a wrong move or a build-up injury, that over time the muscles will become damaged.


I do this one myself. Not for eight minutes, though. But, just because I do it and it's fine for me doesn't mean it'll be fine for others to do.

[davethedragon]

i guess it is a good idea providing the weights that are used are fairly light to avoid injury.
the work of the muscles will be used slightly different in an actual punch(with no weights) as the force will be forward.
when punching woth weights the muscles will also have to keep the weight up as well in order to train the muscles in a more punch specific manner it would be a good idea practising the movement of the punch slowly while lying on your back because the motion used is forward.
i dont think i have explained myself very well.try it and you will probably get what i mean!!!:rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

[CD Lee]

What are you trying to accomplish with this excersise?

For punching speed and technique, I am not sure this does a lot in that regard. Your muscles should be as relaxed as possible when you are thowing a punch, and only tightening at impact, and then relaxing again. Not dead relaxed, just the least tension needed to maintain technique. Even external styles emphasis this point, especially boxers.

Now, I am not sure if this hurts your punching technique either. I don't think it increases your punching power, because the shoulder muscles being used are responding to downward resistance, not forward resistance. Even in an external fashion, this seems to hit the wrong area for actual transfer of power. Just some thoughts only.

As far as hurting your shoulder, this could certainly do that if you were not careful. Shoulder injuries take a long time to heal, and they affect everything else you do. I would be extra careful.

[Ether]

Firstly, thanks for the replys!

My aims:
Increased stamina in the shoulder muscles.

Cardio workout. (I'm definately breathing hard when I finish!)

Re-inforcement of correct form by emphasising the movement of the legs and hips in the punching movement.

We actually practise a lot of continuous punching exercises (with and without weight / focus mitts) and they have definately increased my ability to keep my guard up when very tired, among other things.

davethedragon: I understood you fine! I dont think lying on my back would be helpfull as it would stop me moving the rest of my body correctly. I do see your point tho.

food for thought.

[fa_jing]

I like it, for shoulder endurance, help you keep those gloves up. I usually used smaller weights though. Also, I'd said you can very the motions alot, like to an uppercut motion, vertical fist, horizontal fist, etc.

[TjD]

i'd be afraid of ruining my elbows doing this - depending on the type of punches your throwing

[Ether]

Ive not ever worried about my elbows doing this. Im not snapping the punches out hard and I never lock my elbows anyway, which would be the only way I can see them getting damaged.

I have tried doing uppercuts and hooks and even mixing it up a little. Its interesting to see how the muscle usage changes.

BTW. I didnt start with my current weights! Ive worked up to that slowly. In fact i started just doing these completely unweighted.

[Mr. Bao]

There are pros and cons in all sport specific exercises. Punching with weight in hands can be bad or good depending your goals and style of martial arts. Instead of me telling why you should or shouldn't, I think you are wise enough to decide what works best for you. Remember, it is your own body and you take responsiblity for what you do with it.

I can remember reading that Dan Inosanto recalled Bruce Lee being obsessed with resistence training that he did in fact used
sets of weights (5-15Lb) while shaodow boxing and the reason was to develop muscular endurance.

Since I studied wing chun, I can say that we also have resistence exercises for our method of punching. However, it is done not to develop endurance about explosive power or speed strength mainly.

There are some western exercise gurus who disagree that using weights while punching or kicking will create poor striking technique because you are working with gross movements, your body is tired, and is indirectly developing poor biomotor skills. How true is this? It is common sense to me. If you are tired and have built great amount of lactic acids in your muscles that you wont be able to refine your skills.

However, if you have really hard wired your skills to point of mastery (much like how you can walk and chew gum at the same time). I dont see the harm in using resistence with your striking skills. But how many people have that kind of mastery and how many are humble and patient enough to at least be intellectual honesty about their abilities and work progressively to weights? As I see it, not many.

If you must use weights along with your striking skills, think and be mindful of your form and if you feel that your form is getting sloppy, then I would suggest you take a break and recover.

[Ford Prefect]

Be careful of hyperextending your elbows and wrists...

[Ether]

uh, can you please explain how you can hyper 'extend' your wrists? Hyperflexation I can see, but not if your punching with a locked wrist (as I am). Are you refering to ving tsun style 'snap punches'?

[Ford Prefect]

I was using hyperextend because I didn't want to waste my time writing out a long post. Forearm stops + hand still moving forward because of weight = possible wrist ligament damage

[Ether]

Ok, I see what you mean now Ford. Thats not a worry as the punches drop smoothly when nearing the full (unlocked) extension of the arm aad drop as the other arm is raising to punch again. Its very smooth and continuous with no snapping, locking of joints etc.

Just checking my original post and I did not make that clear at all. Might have been helpfull if I had.

[Liokault]

I know what Ether is talking about. We do the same exersize and i think its great. I feel that your weights are to big as i find that as the weights get bigger you tend to be working the muscles that lift the weights up (shoulders) instead of the muscles that throw the fist out.

I like my weight to be about 3 pounds or so. Having said all that my teacher likes his weights to be much larger, up to 5 pounds each but he has a differant body type than me.

We have a large range of punching weights in class from about 1.5lb up to the 5lb ones and normaly go 12 mins with them on an irregular basis (mainly to check that every one is doing it at home).

I do like the idea of differing the exersizes anf find that shadow boxing is great with the weights.

[Former castleva]

Listen to your elbow joints.

[Ether]

Originally posted by Former castleva
Listen to your elbow joints.

Hehe. I listen to ALL my joints! :)

Thanks for the replies everyone.