Kickboxing Bag Workouts

Martial artists use kickboxing bags, also known as heavy bags, to develop their skills and power. Kickboxing bags are available in a variety of weights, from 40 lb. to 100 lb. It's best to use a 70-lb. bag, or heavier, for kickboxing work to prevent the bag from moving too much and to simulate a more realistic opponent.

Dynamic Warm-Up

After some light stretching and movement to the point where you have broken a sweat, begin working the heavy bag in one-minute rounds. For the first round, stay on your toes and circle the bag, moving in and out. Do not punch or kick. Introduce jabs to the movement for the second round, jab-cross and jab-hook combinations for the third round, light kicks for the fourth round, and hand and kick combinations for the fifth round.

Combinations

Start with eight, 12 or 16 repetitions of a lead-leg round kick. Next, add a lead-hand back fist and do the same number of repetitions of the combination. Continue to add punches and kicks to the combination until you've built a three- to eight-movement combo. Once you've developed your combination, switch sides and work it with the opposite hand and foot.

Endurance

Heavy bags make outstanding training tools to build a kickboxer's endurance. Using a timer or stopwatch, punch and kick the bag as if it were a real opponent, imagining you are in the ring as a professional fighter. Circle the bag, focusing on footwork and developing your combinations and evasive maneuvers. Never stop moving. Start with five three-minute rounds with a one-minute rest period between rounds. Work up to 10 three-minute rounds. You can also increase the intensity by skipping rope during the rest periods.

Power

The last part of your heavy bag session should be the development of power. Working skill-based techniques and combinations requires fresh legs, arms, lungs and mind to ensure you are properly achieving your training objectives. Developing raw power on the bag should leave you feeling completely wiped out at the end of the session.
While there are several approaches to power training, one popular method is to simply go all out and kick and punch the bag as hard as you can for one to five minutes. Sometimes referred to as the "mad minute," these rounds are designed so that every technique thrown is done with the intent of delivering a knockout. Another technique for power is to condense the "mad minute" to the last 30 seconds of each training round.