01.06.18
The 5:30 a.m. brought my client up to the three-hour mark of his 10-hour course on Western Boxing for Martial Arts Cross Training. We worked a lot on foot work, retaining posture and stance through movement, and jab/cross combinations.
The warm-up focused on forward, backward and lateral movement before working angles and the v-step. This was then layered with jabbing and crossing. I also introduced him to some specific conditioning exercises such as the squat and stance change. This not only building explosiveness and promotes balance but also teaches good posture. We then looked at applications for all the movements covered. I discussed visualisation in training and this informs movement patterns.
We then moved onto the focus mitts and brought everything into play with an emphasis on the jab/cross combination. I also incorporated the low jab taken from the squatting exercise. The final exercise of the lesson was a restrictive training method involving pinning two objects to the ribs with the elbows whilst punching. This helps develop speed in the hands and works against flaring elbows when punching. We used the restrictive training method for two short rounds with some mirror footwork in-between. Then we looked at how it had improved my client’s performance on the focus mitts for a round of freestyle pad-work.