How long do you shadow box a day?

I got my boy to shadow box for 90 minutes today. It depends what you are doing. We were doing technical work so it made sense to keep working on stuff. Some will use it as a warm up or warm down. Some do it strategically so they can visualise their next opponent. All depends.

 

I don't know about hours on hours on end, but Cuban boxers do a ton of shadow boxing in their training.

 

I've read that they do 20+ rounds.

 

I do a few rounds of shadowboxing on most days, sometimes more than a few. I think it's very important, especially if you do a lot of bag work. You have to get used to punches not landing necessarily, whether it lands or not should not matter in terms of biomechanics the punch should be the same. If you always practice on a bag your mechanics will be off, your protagonist muscles will do their work, but the antagonists won't stop your punch. You'll fall behind your punches, overreach, etc.

 

Usually I would do 3-5 roudns. Right now I have an injured hand so I do much sparring or bag/pad work k so I'm shadow boxing alot more, 10+ rounds each night. Even when my hand gets better I'm gonna try to keep it up.

Do you guys do your shadow boxing in the ring or infront of a mirror? Or do you have mirrors visible from in the ring which would be best I guess.

I do mine in the ring and I'll usually have two ropes set up from corner to corner to work headmovement.

 

wow those cubans are serious about shadow boxing!

 

thats interesting never thought of it like that! im coming back after a long lay off due to a shoulder injury i think i got when i missed a left hook in sparring and over extended. And iv been off for months with it. Just hit the bag for the first time yesterday and it felt ok but still not great. Might try doing just shadow boxing then for a while. Do you suggest doing it very slowly? I always feel like that when i shadow box im going to hyper extend again because im not connecting with anything but what your saying makes sense, keeping the mechanics the same but getting used to not connecting might prevent further injury ??

 

Theres so many things you can do Shadowboxing, using permatasions on a theme for balance and correct form. Heres a little one you could try. Barefoot, get two medicine Balls Rubber and move and shadowbox while balancing on them, always moving the feet on them while doing it :good

 

one thing you wanna do that i think all of yall should as i have is get shadow boxing resistance tubing. Its in my eyes very vital to shadowboxing right and not overextending, and also forcing you self-consciously to keep your hands up. And on another note, a very underrated way to improve hand speed when you add weighted gloves:good

[ame]http://www.amazon.com/Everlast-Shadow-Boxer-Improve-Speed/dp/B002RRVGTI/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1287314313&sr=8-3[/ame]

 

This looks interesting... I've got resistance cables attached to a machine but I can't move with it....with these ones I can move so comes the footwork!

 

Both and then some. I shadowbox in the ring, in front of the mirrors which are on the other side of the gym, and I have a rope set up as well to duck underneath. I also shadowbox with my eyes closed to stop the eyes from giving input on balance and let my brains and muscle do the feeling and correcting, something scrap told me to do and it works miracles.

 

I think it will. When you punch there's always resistance in the form of friction, gravity, your bodyweight being set in motion, the protagonists will have to supply the energy to overcome this. There will on top of that be added resistance if your punch connects, or nothing if it doesn't. If it doesn't the antagonists need to stop your punch, because otherwise you'd fall, overextend, get out of balance, in other words big trouble because you'll be in a fight at that moment. No one will be holding your arm and there won't be cables or elastic bands to help you either. If your training caused an imbalance between these two muscle groups you could injure yourself by tearing the antagonists (most likely the ligaments they're connected to) if you swing at full force.

It's one of the reasons I don't like messing with it by using "fake" resistance, you could cause muscular imbalances. Another is that your biomechanics need to be trained correctly and that depends on feedback of those same muscles.

 

Shadow boxing is the gayiest exercise i've ever seen...

I used to hate doing it..