I was going to post this in the mma forum, but I figured I would try here. My main back ground is boxing...i have trained some mma, would likely not fight because I am far from great on the ground (if i ever got motivated to really learn it im sure i could..but im getting old anyhow) Anyhow, I help train the striking at the mma gym i work out at (free membership for me) one of the things I have noticed is this. Wrestlers tend to be slowwwww when it comes to punches. Strong as ****ing oxes, but that doesn't always even translate into punching power. My best guess is all the wrestling is like years of intense strength training. I also noticed that about a year ago i went 3 weeks of wrestling for 5 days straight. I literally noticed my biceps getting bigger and stronger by the end (skin actually felt tight) but my punches slowed up. So i am thinking some things to loosen up the bicep muscle will be good. None of the guys I work with are going to stop grappling, the most i might get is for them to cut it down for a few weeks as we focus on strikes...but anyhow, any good exercises that anyone has would be appreciated.
I'm no expert on the topic of wrestlers (or any topic for that matter - ha ha), but just to clarify, are you suggesting that wrestlers are somehow slower at striking than the average person? Just because in my experience 9/10 of all people who try boxing start out slow as hell. More specifically, how do you know wrestlers are slower than say, anyone who steps into a boxing gym for the first time? I'm just wondering, if wrestlers are somehow impeded by their strength or wrestling ability, than someone who has never wrestled before. And why wouldn't a normal boxing training regimen a couple of days a week improve the hands of a wrestler like anyone else? Again, not trying to sound like an ass, i'm just genuinely interested in the notion that wrestlers might struggle more with boxing than the average person. Also, are you noticing this with heavily built wrestlers, or various sizes?
do allot of bicep lifting, and you will find that it tends to slow down your punches. Certain boxers, i think have large biceps regardless.
Been my experience that guys who weight lift allot are the slowest, on average, followed by wrestlers. Basketball players can often throw fast punches, as can baseball players. With those groups it is just learning the right technique. and yeah basically i am just doing the normal stuff with them....having them focus on speed not power. teaching form, drills, all that. basically i was just curious if anyone knew of anything else.
You know basketball and baseball players lift weights regularly right? Also what do you mean by bicep lifting? Pull ups are a regular part of most boxers programs. There is no reason mechanically why large or strong biceps would slow a punch down. If you're doing concentration curls and constantly focusing on isolating the bicep concentrically it might slow your punches down but that's a neural thing to do with muscular activation patterns. Also you shouldn't be focusing on speed at all unless they are already excellent technically, you should slow it right down. It is all about the technique and motor learning, nothing to do with their biceps. It's funny how people look for a complex theory on a very simple problem.
If you are teaching the very basics of boxing, great, all they need is practice because as you know, boxing technique takes time and then more time. Forget that they are wrestlers. They should not be any worse than the average joe who comes into a boxing gym for the first time since they are athletes already, but as you know not every average joe makes it into boxing so don't expect your coaching to succeed fully either. They are the ones who have to make the effort to learn and not all are going to stand out. Stick to the basics, technique, relax them and maybe analyze them individually and make tweaks as they progress. If you're time framed, a prayer might help.
It's called adaptability. If your body is adapted for pulling and isometricst then it's not going to work as well plyometricly pushing without further adaption. Also wrestlers have there weight leaning forward a lot of the time - pretty much the opposite of effective strikers.
