Hey guys, I have a slight issue that bothers me when I box. I train relatively frequently, 2-3 hours a week and I only do pad work with a coach or sparring in this time. I feel super light, speedy and relaxed when I shadowbox but as soon as I put on my gloves I feel extremely slow... I'm not sure why this is. It really gets on my nerves as I see people who shadowbox and are going their fastest but are slower than me but faster when they put their gloves on. I looked it up a bit online and saw it could be due to my form, however as I stated previously I shadowbox very frequently and I train a lot with my coach so I am constantly working on perfecting it and either me or my coach would've noticed if I had any significant issues. I see online and even at my gym that good boxers look so sharp and smooth when sparring and hitting the heavy bag and no matter how fast I try to pop my jab it just looks far sloppier. If anyone has had a similar experience or may know why I have this issues please let me know.
Shadowbox with your gloves on from now on. Hands can look so fast during shadowboxing because the hand is bare and small so out of the corner of your eye there is nothing remarkable to discern from. With gloves on your hands size is greatly enhanced and the color of the glove differs greatly from your skin tone. So now when you throw punches, even out the corner of your eye without focusing on it, you look much slower because the detail change from skin to glove is so great and blatant and so much easier to track out of the corner of your eye.
Yeah, it sounds like it's just a perception issue. Although, if you want to get quicker there are obviously ways of doing it.
Not specifics, just try and improve your fitness, get a bit more fluidity about you, and keep doing drills on the speed bag. Make sure you shorten your punches too, the less of an arc, the less time it takes to travel, and the less time it takes to come back.
Shadowboxing with weights won't make you faster, it only messes up your timing. And the resistance is mostly vertical, so it wouldn't help anyways.
Most likely, when you spar or hit mitts you are concentrating on what you are doing and thinking about how to do it as you attempt to do it. That will make you slow and it increases tension as well.
Two possible issues. 1 ) Your too tight with gloves on. Relax a bit more. 2 ) You don't carry your gloves well. Not all guys are fast with 12-16 ounce gloves. As a tip to increase hand speed, don't make the highest fist and don't worry about turning over on the jab. Both will help, I can 90% guarantee that.
