Having hand speed is an essential component in almost all sports. Hitters in baseball must have it if they are going to connect with a baseball approaching speeds of 100 mph. Football players use their hands to catch passes that may come to them at an awkward angle. Nowhere is hand speed more importance than in the sport of boxing, where a fighter must use his hands to throw punches and deflect those thrown by the opponent.
Speed Bag Training
This tool has been used by boxers for decades to build hand speed, coordination and rhythm. When hitting the speed bag, you must throw your left jab in a rhythmic manner. Most fighters use the 1-2-3 method when hitting the speed bag. After delivering a left jab, the speed bag hits the back support, rebounds to the front support and hits the back support again before the next punch is thrown. As the fighter gets more familiar with the speed bag he picks up the pace and introduces the right cross in addition to the left jab.
Floor-to-Ceiling Bag
This intensifies hand speed training. The floor-to-ceiling bag features a target area about the size of a volleyball that is stretched on an elastic that goes from the floor to the ceiling. When this bag is struck, it moves in an unpredictable manner and it takes superior hand speed to hit it consistently. A 6 to 8 minute workout on the bag on a daily basis while training will help a fighter prepare for action.
Two-Ball Exercise
When a fighter is training, he wants to increase hand speed in order to become more dangerous in the ring. Throwing two different colored balls at the fighter at the same time will help him improve in this area. As the trainer throws his fighter two rubber balls of different colors, usually red and blue, the trainer will call out one color and the fighter has to hit that colored ball first and the other second. Both "hits" must be square. Continue to exercise in this manner for at least 10 minutes.
Function
Building hand speed not only helps a fighter become more competent in the ring in terms of overall skill, it helps a fighter become more confident. A boxer who has better hand speed than his opponent knows he can deliver his punches crisper and quicker. That allows him to mount a rally and hit his opponent with a flurry of punches. "Great fighters deliver punches in bunches," said boxing trainer and analyst Teddy Atlas. "Having hand speed gives you the ability to be very dangerous in the ring."
Expert Insight
Sugar Ray Robinson is considered one of the greatest boxers of all time and he dominated the sport in the 1940s and '50s in a career that lasted from 1939 through 1965. When Muhammad Ali was growing up as a youngster during the 1950s, Robinson was his idol. Robinson used the speed bag every time he went into the gym to train and his rat-tat-tat pounding of the bag became iconic newsreel footage for generations. Robinson used it well after his career ended just to keep in shape. "I love to hit the speed bags," Robinson said in an interview with "Los Angeles Sports Magazine" in 1976. "They don't hit back."
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