Dan - I have used resistance bands as part of my routine for many years. They are particulary good for explosive power development. Used in combination with short duration isometrics, your punching power should increase significantly. For an example, use an isometric left hook (i'm assuming your know how to do this), follwing this, immediately hook a strong band around your left arm and throw ten to twelve left hooks. Repeat with all of the other punches.
i suppose u just hold one end in ur right hand at ur guard and hold the left end above ur elbow so it stretches when u hook
OK Isometrics are a static exercise primarily for building strength development. To perfrom say an isometric punch, stand in a doorway or near a corner of a wall and position yourself so your fist is against the wall and your body is in the starting position of a left hook. Now you 'push' against the wall as hard as you can - your fist and body will not move as the wall is clearly, immovable. Hold this position for about three seconds. Now we move to a different joint angle ie reposition yourself so your fist is again against the wall, but your body is now in the position that it would be at about the mid range of your punch and push against the wall as hard as you can again, for approx three seconds. This routine is an isometric punch. Some brief notes about isometrics: Iso's can be used for almost any exercise - overcoming sticking points on a bench press is a perfect example. By locking a bar into position by loading it with so much weight that you can't move, and pushing against it as hard as possible, you are devoting all of your effort to that particular position for a sustained period of time (more on this later). With dynamic (moving) movements, the weight spends very little time in a given position, hence limited stregth gains in that specific position. Duration - As a rule of thumb, less than one second for starting strength, 3 to 5 seconds for explosive strength and over 5 seconds for max strength. The explosive portion has the most carry over benefits for a fighter so I like to use this. Joint angles - one criticsm of isometrics is that they don't develop strength throughout the full range of motion. We can simply overcome this by moving the joint angle ie resetting your feet so each isometric punch is worked from the starting position to the mid range position to the final punching position. Research suggests that the strength gains go from 15 degrees either side of the static posion. How to apply the power - Some people believe that it is best to 'build up' the force you apply. As a fighter, you need to 'explode' with your punches, so I believe it is best to apply maximum tension as quickly as possible. Hypertrophy - Isometrics are very effective at building strength without adding mass, and it is this fact that makes them so useful for a fighter. You can gain strength without having to move up through the weightclasses. Note - be sure to exhale whilst you perform isometrics. Do not under any circumstances hold your breath! To take things a stage further, we can add bands to take advantage of the gains from isometrics. For those of you that are familiar with complex training (max strength followed by an explosive movement with no rest), you will appreciate that from an athletic standpoint, this is the best form of training. To put this into a real world routine, perfom your isometric punch, say the left hook for example - this is the max strength portion of the drill. Follow this by simply hooking a band around your arm (inside you elbow) and perfom a set of left hooks - this is the explosive portion of the drill. You have now completed one set, repeat for other punches. For more info on isometrics, google Alexander Zass. Hope this helps. Edit - I forgot to add, you can also gain a remarkable amount of flexibility by using isometrics as part of your stretching routine. Isometric stretching is simply performing a static stretch, and when you are at the point where you can't stretch any further, tense the opposing muscle as hard as you can.
No, attach one end of the band to something static like a post - I have fixed a number of steel handles to the wall, at varying height in my gym. We attach one end of the band to this and we hook the other end around our arms, fists, legs etc, whatever bodypart we are training.
Seconded. I will incorporate isometric punches into my training, I like the idea behind it a lot. I'm not a weights oriented person as many of you know, but this is actually 100% sports specific.
If you incorporate it into your training schedule, research suggests that isometrics should cover approx 10% of your workload. Personally, I use isometrics 3 times per week, and I spend about 10 minutes doing them.
This is a 'save' worthy thread IMO. Thanks again Bodi for your great advice! :good Never considered the benefits of Isometric resistance band exercises but I think I'm going to incorporate that into my training regiment now.
Both fighters look impressive, and the first guy's form is particularly good - excellent poise, balance and technique
