A medicine ball being smacked into your stomach

Indeed, word to the wise.

For virus the kickboxer, a leg that hasnt been kicked vs. a leg that has been kicked. I know which one i'd rather have going into a fight. :rofl

Same goes for the body. It does come down to exhalation aswell but the body does get tougher from punishment.

 

Jr was joking, but explaining at the same time a way to understand the concept

 

Be honest. How many of you have ever taken a punch to the abs in sparring and been troubled by it? Probably not many.

It's the rib shots that hurt. I occasionally drop a ball on my solar plexus and ribs from a few inches up a few times, just for that mental conditioning.

Dropping a ball on your abs/ribs will not build or harden your muscles. The forceful exhalation you do as the ball hits you is what does that, and even that is an extremely minor benefit--almost negligible.

But yeah, the point was made about mental conditioning. When you first spar, getting hit in the face is a big deal. But once you've done it a few times, you can walk through punches that would have had you calling it a day in the beginning. Bodyshots are similar, imo. Part of getting hit to the body is the surprise. It's not always immediately apparent just how badly you've been hit down there. So when you take a shot, you don't know whether it's going to put you down or just cause discomfort. Sometimes you might overreact to it and it's nothing. Other times you might not react to it and then freeze up in mid-combination.

So for me, it's a semi-beneficial exercise. You get a feel for that impact without having to take a bunch of full-power shots in sparring. And if you feel in your mind that it's doing something for you, then that's a benefit as well. But imo it's a lot like a speed bag, with a bit more potential for harm. People just do it because they think it's cool and that it'll bestow on them some sort of advantage (i.e. speed and ability to take a body shot, respectively).

 

i cant write as well as most of you guys but i think its a good excercise. i wouldnt dismiss it as a fighter but i also wouldnt over due it. I use it but i dont abuse it. Like some have said, it prepares your body for the feeling of being hit down there. the thing is, you dont want to injure yourself before a fight so its not something you should go crazy on. I like to do it in between ab workouts. eg, 3 mins of ab workout 30 seconds of the ball drop

its the same reason why trainers have two fighters bang away at eachothers body...not only to learn the proper technique to a body shot but also how to absorb it.

the reason you cant tickle yourself is because your body knows its coming...same with training your body to take a punch. kinda lol

 

they condition there shins by kicking a bag or pads but to condition there thighs someone has to kick them, they need to be conditioned to take punishment

 

well if you come up against a good opponent, 2 decent thigh kicks and fights over for you, you wont be able to walk with out conditioned thighs.

you musnt really do muay thai, you should know this. You must not be training serious if you havnt been put down with a good thigh kick.

 

you must be a **** muay thai fighter if you continually get kicked on the thigh.

YOU ARE MEANT TO BLOCK WITH YOUR SHIN.

This is like me saying you can't be a real boxer because you've never been KO'd, you need to condition your face. It's pure fallacy.

not everyone has been put down in sparring, that doesn't mean they are better than you, but it doesn't mean they aren't serious either.

and fyi: even the pros don't 'take' kicks to the thigh.

 

YOU HAVE GOT TO BE JOKING, you think pros dont take kicks to the thighs. What sort of muay thai fights do you watch

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HlQ-f-u8Bk[/ame]

[ame]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Khm9TJa5cE[/ame]

these are world class fighters and i counted al teast 15 thigh kicks in the first minute.

watch the whole fight and see what happens when you dont check kicks and dont have conditioned thighs.

 

Yup. I've been doing this for 3 years, and even though it can feel like an outdated and less than stellar exercise, I think it's good for mental toughness, and practicing breathing out in short spurts while absorbing body shots (something i find important in sparring).

 

They aren't Thai for starters and the forst load of kicks were pretty wank but OK I'll run with it.

However this doesn't change the fact that most muay Thai gyms, MMA gyms, Kickbxing gyms etc DO NOT teach conditioning the thighs through anything other than sparring. It is the SHINS you are meant to condition. The idea being that you block the kick with the SHINS. Taking hits on pretty much any muscle will restrict its use (arms, legs etc). 'conditioning' them won't make an awful lot of difference.

 

Being mentally tough and physicaly tough are two completely different things. Having a medicine ball dropped on you isn't going to help with the mental side as the mentality of lying or standing and having a medicine ball thrown/dropped onto you is not the same as having somebody infront of you attempting you hurt you.

The only way to get mentally tough in the way of taking a body shot is to take a body shot i.e. sparring.

Everybody is so busy thinking about the physical side of things but in combat sports the mental side is a HUGE component.

 

Didn't do him much good against Hopkins.

 

well everything else u say is spot on so ya knowatsch

 

Mental and physical aren't separate dude. My point is that for me, when I take a body shot, I instinctively think I'm hurt. Even if 3 seconds later I realize it was superficial. Getting used to that initial bump to the ribs is the difference between me covering up and going on the defensive or throwing a counter combination, for me anyway. Much the same way as getting hit in the face will make a newbie turn his head away, but once he's sparred some, that initial smack doesn't screw up his groove because he knows he isn't hurt.

I get your point about taking real body shots. But here's my point, which supersedes yours because I am more intelligent: I don't want to wait until I've taken a billion bodyshots. In sparring, I try real hard NOT to get hit there. I might take 1-3 bodyshots on average in sparring. I do what I can outside the ring. Face shots are different. You take a lot more of them and they don't hurt as bad anyway. I don't want to **** myself every time I spar in the hopes of maybe not being hurt as bad next time lol.

And fyi, I said a few inches, and I drop the ball myself. I kinda bounce it. I don't do it much, only every once in a while when I have some extra time to spare.

 

My grandpa said that when he was a kid, they would watch the fighters train in the gym.

Those guys, and we are talking probably late 1920's/early 1930's, had an iron bar smacked across their belly while they laid on the ground!

I think even Rocky Balboa would say Hell NO to that exercise!