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Keeping Your Hands Up High For A Whole Muay Thai Fight Is Crucial To Good Defense...The Speed Ball Or Speed Bag Is Great Training For This

The speed bag is not seen in every muay thai gym like the heavy bag or the thai pads but it can provide some really great benefits to your defensive techniques and your fitness.

Everyone has probably seen one on TV or in the boxing movies. It is a tear drop shaped leather inflated ball which is suspended on a wooden platform by a swivel.

The speed bag has many different names depending on where you train and who owns the gym. Some call it the speed bag. Some the speed ball. Some the top bag.

No matter what you call it it has the same purpose...to teach you to keep your hands up.

Some will tell you that it teaches speed and agility but they are just side benefits. If you want these attributes then train on the floor to ceiling ball. The main benefit of the speed bag is to teach you to keep your hands up for the full length of the fight.

The speed bag has been around for over a hundred years and they knew why they were training with it back then. If you haven't tried it before then train on it for 1 round and see what fails first. Is it your speed or agility or is it the muscles in your shoulders holding your arms up.

Beginners may find it hard to hit at first and this may be their main frustration but you will get the hang of it pretty quickly. You'll then find that the main frustration is keeping your hands from dipping below your shoulders.

This is how you should first start training with it...even if you're not hitting the bag properly don't take that opportunity to have a rest for a second and drop your hands, keep them on your forehead. Wait for the bag to slow down and then begin hitting it again.

The speed bag was designed for western boxing in mind but it works just as well for muay thai.

Start with your hands in a high guard position and approach the speed bag as though it is an opponent.

1. Start hitting it with one hand only with the back of your knuckles. No need to punch it with a proper muay thai punch because that's not what we're training here. Hit it so that it bounces to the back, to the front, then to the back again as it is coming towards your hand for another strike.

When your first arm is getting sore plant that hand back on your forehead and start with the other hand. Keep this up until you have perfected hitting the ball so that it comes straight back at you without deviating all over the place.

2. Now that you have gotten one hand down pat you can try 2 hands in unison. Hit the bag with one hand on the back knuckles twice then immediately hit it with the second hand twice on the back knuckles. Get this into a good rhythm before getting into the third more advanced version.

3. Now that you can hit the bag pretty well with both hands in a pattern try hitting the bag first with your front knuckles then with your back knuckles. The pattern is the same as number 2 but instead of both hits with the back knuckles you hit "front knuckles, back knuckles".

This gets your hands working in a circular motion which greatly increases your hand speed and makes the work harder.

4 The forth pattern is a continuation again of the previous ones. Do the "front knuckle, back knuckle" combo but after 4 hits do a 4 hit pattern of back knuckle left hand and front knuckle right hand.

This sounds complicated but if you experiment with it you will find that it flows easily. The pattern goes like this...right F knuckle, right B knuckle, left F K, left B K, R F K, L B K, R F K, L B K, and then start again.

As you do the last 4 hits of this pattern your hands will naturally travel from the right side of your head. Once you've done this a number of times do an extra R F K, R B K, to get you over the other side and do the same combo on the left side of your head.

5 The pattern you see a lot on TV or movies where the hands just move in a circular pattern as fast as possible so that each hand is hitting the bag as it rebounds back from hitting the back of the board is not usually done by fighters.

This is done by people who want to look good but they are not actually doing anything. It is easier to do this pattern than any of the ones described above which is why you see a lot of movie people doing it. It doesn't really teach you to keep your hands up either.

One final point to remember when training on the speed bag...concentrate on your breathing.

I have seen top professionals who avoid this piece of equipment because they cannot get the hang of it and don't want to look stupid trying. If they just focused on their breathing they would get it very quickly. I have trained many people to do this properly and they have all mastered it pretty easily...even the guys who don't do muay thai or boxing.

Because the speed bag goes so fast you don't have the time to breath out on every punch like you would with your normal muay thai training. So you have to learn how to breath in and out when punching.

I like the pattern of 4 breaths in, 4 breaths out on each punch as your starting the round and your not puffing much yet. Then in 2, out 2 on each punch. Then in/out, in/out on every F K, B K. Your breathing changes naturally as you get more into the work.

If you add this small but effective piece of equipment into your workout you will see your muay thai defense improve greatly as a result. Holding your hands up during sparring or pad work will start to seem easy. Remember, it only takes a second in a muay thai fight for someone to whip an elbow over the top...if your hands aren't there to stop them it's all over.