Training for Speed

[Yum Cha]

Recently, there have been some 'Kungs' discussed, and demonstrated. They mostly are about creating strength and perhaps even muscle memory from my perspective.

What about Speed "kungs"? Does anybody have any particular training for speed, and perhaps focus?

I have one, and I will choose my words carefully to describe it....

Wooden, kung fu training staff....38mm diameter, but any solid staff will do.. I like them standing with an arm upstretched length. Hold the staff at one end, hands around shoulders width apart or less (important), arms straight down, staff parallell to the ground.

Lock the elbows, sort of, and twitch the staff up and down repeatedly as if you were trying to whip water off the end, or trying to break it in the middle. The change of direction and short movement range, and the strain sets up a great burn. You have to lock down solid though, and you have to use a heavy, thick solid staff with very little play, and it depends on length. I've found you need more than 30mm, if you work with sticks longer than you are tall.

There's something about the sudden change in direction and the stress at the same time that works. Any of you more scientific guys have any idea what that's all about?

fast twitch, short range of motion (less than 1 inch in the hands), under load with feedback.

Full upper body tense, Ping Ma horse stance, Grip, upper arm, shoulder and chest burn, particularly deltoids, tricepts, forearms, fingers. Bicepts, lats and pecs less so. Perhaps they are stronger to begin with, I reckon they are more supporting than delivering.

That's just one...

[David Jamieson]

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Rings, leg weights, weighted vest. Do your drills.

The heaviest gloves you can get for bag work. Do your bag work. I use 16oz (1lb) gloves for this.

Isometric/Isotonic work.

These will help to develop speed.

[YouKnowWho]

In order to increase your speed, you will need 通三关(Tong San Guan) to loose up your shoulder joint, elbow joint, and wrist joint. There are drill to achieve that.

Here are some speed training:

1. Jump in the air and throw straight punch, back fist, and upper cut by using the same arm before your feet land back on the ground.
2. Hit as fast and as hard as you can like a mad man on heavy bag until you can't do any more (about 60 punches).
3. Ask your opponent to punch as fast as he can at your face and see if you can catch his arm.
4. Both you and your opponent have right side forward, you to use your front right hand to hit his back left shoulder before he can block it with his leading right arm.
5. Right after you shower, try to throw a single front kick to shake off all the water on your leg.
6. Both you and your opponent stay in kicking range with both arms down. Try to move in and hit your opponent's chest before he can block it.
7. Ask your opponent to move in as fast as he can and see if you can stop him with your kick on his belly.
8. Try to spin your body as fast as you can and see if you can have the feeling that your eye balls is going to fly out of your eye sockets.

[KC Elbows]

A loose, quick style of footwork that manages shifts in weight distribution well.

[EarthDragon]

the best way to make your techniqes faster is concentrate on the return. throw a backfist as fast as you can, then throw it slower but this time return it as fast as you can, you will see the immediate difference.

[Golden Arms]

There are workouts that over time increase the fast twitch fibers in the musculature. Some of this stuff is hidden in traditional training, (the rings for example) but is lost when the person uses too much weight. Most if not all the videos I have seen on the internet of people using rings feature them using the weight in a way that will likely negatively affect their movement.

[Yum Cha]

the best way to make your techniqes faster is concentrate on the return. throw a backfist as fast as you can, then throw it slower but this time return it as fast as you can, you will see the immediate difference.

That's tricky, it kinda goes fundamentally against our kind of technique, faat ging, where you expend all your energy outward, and become limp, with simply muscle and tendon recoil to come back to its natural state.

This just a training exercise, or the way you practice punching?

We train explosive pulling as well, so, maybe that's got some common ground.

[Yum Cha]

Can you move your hands faster than you breathe?

Lots of people are taught to 'exhale' on every punch, thus, 1 for 1.

Do a 4x combo squeezing 1 breath out.
same combo, drawing 1 in (get that look off your face)
same again holding and squeezing your upper body, but not exhaling.

[TenTigers]

Can you move your hands faster than you breathe?

Lots of people are taught to 'exhale' on every punch, thus, 1 for 1.

Do a 4x combo squeezing 1 breath out.
same combo, drawing 1 in (get that look off your face)
same again holding and squeezing your upper body, but not exhaling.

shhhh! You're giving away all the secrets!!!

[Yum Cha]

shhhh! You're giving away all the secrets!!!

Pearls before swine....thanks, I glad you understood.

[YouKnowWho]

Can you move your hands faster than you breathe?

Lots of people are taught to 'exhale' on every punch, thus, 1 for 1.

Do a 4x combo squeezing 1 breath out.
same combo, drawing 1 in (get that look off your face)
same again holding and squeezing your upper body, but not exhaling.

You can inhale or exhale part of your lung capacity such as 1/2, 1/3, ... 1/7. If you can divide your inhale or exhale to 1/7 then you can throw 7 punches in one exhale. You should never hold your breath when you Fajin.

It's called 分段呼吸法(Fen Duan Hu Xi Fa) - divide breath method.

[EarthDragon]

yum cha

that's tricky, it kinda goes fundamentally against our kind of technique, faat ging, where you expend all your energy outward, and become limp, with simply muscle and tendon recoil to come back to its natural state.

we were talking about ways to speed up your techniques not fajing.
this is a speed drill, but yes of course relaxed muscle always, tighten to snap at the end while twisting and exploding.

This just a training exercise, or the way you practice punching?

speed training only, I train to punch from the big toe to the fist with a kinetic whipping action, I hit hard as I have long reach I am 6'2 and 239 with little body fat and I am relaxed and quick when I strike then twist "fajing" and tigthen upon impact and try to break through my target.

[Yum Cha]

yum cha

we were talking about ways to speed up your techniques not fajing.
this is a speed drill, but yes of course relaxed muscle always, tighten to snap at the end while twisting and exploding.

speed training only, I train to punch from the big toe to the fist with a kinetic whipping action, I hit hard as I have long reach I am 6'2 and 239 with little body fat and I am relaxed and quick when I strike then twist "fajing" and tigthen upon impact and try to break through my target.

I seen you mate, you're a monster....

I guess, in my style, theres's only faat ging...I found it covered speed as well.

There is an interesting phenomenon I've discovered, holding the big shield for lads to punch, is that with Faat ging, if you try to penetrate too far, you loose the shock wave, and it becomes surface damage. You can feel the way it goes through the bag. I used to be a big one for striking at least 6 inches through a target. I think you're pulling back may be something in a similar vein...

Don't hit me please, don't need to know the details, Mamma Yum Cha drowned the dumb ones....<grin>

[Yum Cha]

You can inhale or exhale part of your lung capacity such as 1/2, 1/3, ... 1/7. If you can divide your inhale or exhale to 1/7 then you can throw 7 punches in one exhale. You should never hold your breath when you Fajin.

It's called 分段呼吸法(Fen Duan Hu Xi Fa) - divide breath method.

John, I had a play around with that, and I find it still ties your hands to your breathing, but speeds up your breathing. For me, the teaching is to separate the breathing totally, it becomes more like body tensing as you squeeze out power (isn't that one of those bell armour or some such kind of training?). Eventually as you become more relaxed, your breathing gives nothing away and hold's nothing back, it becomes a natural parallel activity.

[Frost]

In MMA we train it a slightly differently we use short sets of either direct or indirect drills with long rests between sets, we also use reaction drills on the pads and read react explode drills in the clinch.

Becoming faster/ more explosive comes down to two things. First, the nervous system must be developed to contract the maximum amount of muscle as rapidly as possible and the connective tissues must be trained to use elastic energy effectively. This will result in stronger, more explosive muscular contractions. Second, the energy producing properties of the neuromuscular system must be developed to fuel these explosive contractions using the alactic energy system to the maximum of its ability.

The alactic energy system also known as the creatine system or the ATC-PC system, is the most powerful of the three energy systems – though this also means it also has the shortest duration as well., so to properly train it you need to keep your sets short and allow full recovery. First strength levels and explosive strength must be increased, we do this by lifting heavy weights and striving to move them as quickly as possible Once we have increased our strength levels (always trying to move the weights as fast as possible) we then work on the CNS ability to respond using short sets with long rests using either indirect drills: sprints, squat jumps, bounds, box jumps, cleans, snatches throws, BW push ups, medicine ball passes and slams, or direct drills: hitting the pads, the bags, drilling takedowns or throws etc

The key is very short sets, long rest periods to fully recover, and use correct technique at all times, we are working on speed/explosiveness NOT explosive endurance and the methods used need to reflect this

In my TCMA days we used iron rings, poles, f aging work against various objects, seeing how many punches we could throw in a certain time period etc