Does anyone have any good drills or exercises to practise good footwork, weight transfer, maintaining distance and foot placement? Interested to see how people are training these key skills. Thanks in advance chaps!
Thanks luckyluke - I'm already doing those, and you're right they are a big help. I'm thinking more of solo drills I can run off to improve between sessions, though. I'm limited to 3, maybe 4 boxing gym trips per week for work and I'd like to do some useful drills on breaks while working or before hitting the office.
If you work the heavy bag properly that ought to go a long way on those skills. Of course you'll need a heavy bag that can move in at least a 10' or 3 meter radius. Just box the heavy bag sort of like your fighting an opponent. You can move around the double end bag too and also have your coach hold the impact shield / hand pads and advance or retreat as you're punching.
Work on a tire: footwork, defensive drills (using the spring effect from your legs), combinations (great to weight transfer). Video reference: This content is protected Like that but more creative.
Do you really mean 10 foot radius or is that just a typo? Because that's nearly impossible to get unless you have a really really really long chain attaching your bag to a really really high ceiling.
You should have enough chain so the bag can go in a generous circle, we'll put it that way and you can move while you're working the bag.
Has anyone used these kind of drills? If so, did you find it useful? This content is protected This content is protected
Got this from the Russian Olympic training. Dribble a tennis ball while maintaining your stance. I thought it sounded silly at first, but has really helped with overall dexterity.
That sounds pretty good, actually. How long do you do it for? And are you bouncing it off a facing wall, or on the floor?
One thing to do is get a balloon and bop it around while keeping your stance and moving your feet correctly---I did that mainly because of bad hands but it might be a fun way to work on your footwork too. At the end you can show off a bit by drilling the balloon with a hard hook.
as for the Kenny Weldon videos, those are not good examples, mostly because these kids aren't doing the movements correctly. find his (original) instructional films from the nineties (i just did a quick search and found some of his older stuff but nothing on footwork. you might have to look deeper to find it). He's got a young pro that does the examples really well. as far as "does it work?" Yes it does, but the honest truth is its like everything else, it takes patience and discipline to practice his simple line agility drills, then go onto the proper weight shifting drills. even these kids he has here aren't doing it correctly. they're going through it too fast and they're thinking with their head, not their feet.