How to improve your boxing speed with the speed bag
If you are wondering how to improve your boxing speed for faster hands to eat your opponent then fear no more as the solution is here in the form of the speed bag.
The speed bag is one of the simplest solutions to increase boxing speed. The speed bag can be a friend or a foe but with practice and mastery, it will become your secret weapon to beating your opponents and rapidly increasing your hand speed for boxing.
Does a speed bag make you faster?
Simply put, yes, a speed bag will make you throw quicker faster punches, you’ll be faster at reacting to punches and generally increase your hand-eye coordination, improving your entire boxing game.
Speed bag benefits
Here are some of the more specific speed bag benefits and how it can help you throw faster more powerful punches.
Improved muscular endurance – You’ll quickly build up a sweat while you practice hitting your speed bag. The repetitive nature of speed bag training will massively increase your endurance in your upper body muscles. Who will give up first, you or the bag?
Improved hand-eye coordination and reactions – Mastering the speed bag is tough but once you do it’s so much fun. In the process, your body will be fine-tuning your ability to react to where the ag will be and then being able to strike in in just the right place so that you can keep the speed bag moving.
Better punch accuracy – This newly developed co-ordination and quicker reactions will help you throw more accurate punches. Because speed bag drills are based on high repetitions, you will e perfecting those small detailed punches that will allow you to hit the right spot every time.
Increased punching power – Power is a combination of speed and strength. The speed bag hones in and fine-tunes the speed aspect of power resulting in you throwing faster more powerful punches.
Faster hands – Using a speed bag is exactly how to increase punching speed. Mastering the speed bag and doing speed bag drills will undoubtedly increase your arm and hand speed allowing you to throw faster punches.
Improved Cardio – It won’t be long until you are a little out of breath, the speed bag is a fun way to get some cardio in as you build up a nice sweat as you learn how to speed bag.
speed bag set up
Setting your speed bag up is quite straight forward and your speed bag will come with installation instructions. Most speed bags are either wall-mounted or come on a stand or as part of a multi-frame. But there may be a couple of questions regarding height and which type of bag should you use.
how high should a speed bag be
The midpoint of the bag should be exactly level with your eyes. If it’s too low you will struggle to get under the board and build up momentum if it’s too high you’ll be reaching too much and again this will affect your technique.
what size bag should I use?
Bigger bags are usually slower and easier to control so would be more ideal for a beginner, so you don’t lose hope. As you get better and your punching speed gets faster you can then switch the speed bag for a smaller lighter one as your boxing hand speed increases.
how to hit a speed Bag – Proper speed bag technique
The speed ag is one of the easiest and fun things for a boxer to learn, it’s all about rhythm.
The basic rhythm is a three-count rhythm. What this means is that when you strike the bag, allow it to swing back, hit the board once, then it will swing back, let it hit the front of the board, that’s two, and then finally let it hit the back of the board again for three, now you strike, roughly in the middle.
So, try to master how hard to hit the bag so that it doesn’t swing too fast or too slow. And keep your hands up the whole time so you are always ready to strike.
Hit the bag and count how many times it hits the board, hit, 1, 2, 3, hit, 1, 2, 3, hit, 1, 2, 3.
You can swap hands or just use one for now, you will most likely find that one hand is better than the other. So at first try to master the three count rhythm before adding more speed.
Here’s a great video showing you how to do it.
Boxing Speed bag drills
So you have just set up your new speed bag or you have one at your local gym, now it’s time to do some punching speed drills.
Easy speed bag drill one
Master the three count rhythm. With your strongest hand practice hitting the bag, letting it bounce three times back, forth and back again and striking it.
At first, that bag might be swinging all over the place, it’s fine. Stop it, center it and start again.
Strike the bag and let it bounce three times on the board, back, forth and back again. Once you have mastered keeping it in a straight line it’s time to hit back and build up your rhythm.
Spend as much time as you need mastering the three count rhythm with your strongest hand. Once you are happy it’s time to move on to your left hand.
Do the same thing, hit it, let it bounce, try to keep it moving in a nice back and forth pattern and not side to side. Once you can use both hands and maintain some rhythm its time to try the next speed bag drill.
Beginners Speed bag drill two
Once you have mastered the three-rhythm count, try doing 10 hits with your right arm and then 10 with your left. Do this on a 3-minute timer.
Once you can get 10 with your right and then 10- with your left, do 8 on each, then 6 on each, 4 and finally 2 with your right and 2 with your left. Once you get down to 2 on each hand keep it here until you the timer runs out. If you lose your rhythm at any point, you must start again from the top, 10 with your right, 10 with your left and so on.
Once you have mastered this drill with no restarts you can move onto the next speed bag drill.
Beginners speed bag drill three
After you have mastered alternating punches between your left and right hand you can move onto our third and final speed bag drill for beginners.
In this drill, you have the freedom to switch between your left and right hand as you wish. However, rather than standing in one spot, you are going to move around the bag in a semi-circular motion as if you were fighting a real person.
So set your timer for three minutes and start this boxing hand speed drill.
Once the three minutes are up take a 30-second rest and do it again. Do this for 3 rounds.
So there it is, if you want to know how to increase your boxing speed to throw faster more powerful punches, you need to be using the speed bag.
Follow our beginner’s speed bag drills to throw faster more powerful and accurate punches.