Speed Bag Training has been a part of traditional boxing training regimes for a long long time. However, “Footwork” is not normally cited as one of the benefits of Speed Bag Training. This is largely because historically, the “recommended” stance for Speed Bag Training has been “straight on”, with shoulders squared up with the bag.
As far a I am concerned a straight on stance for Speed Bags is just plain dumb. Not only does it encourage an unnatural and ineffective boxing stance, it misses a whole lot of footwork training opportunities.
I recognise that “Bible Bag” style speed baggers might like to stand straight on, as for them, the focus is largely on control, timing and smooth transitions between punch combinations. Speed Baggers also punch all around the bag (front, side, back) so it makes sense for them to be squared on.
However, for Boxer Training, where you are trying to enhance boxing skills, I would strongly encourage the traditional “boxer stance”, with one foot ahead of the other and one shoulder leading.
A straight on (square) Stance actually limits your ability to move your feet, you tend to stand flat footed and move very little (if at all)… With a boxers stance you are more agile and have to move not only your feet, but also your body to effectively hit the Speed Bag. With Multibag Training (2 or more Speed bags at once) you will find it almost impossible to use a straight on stance as you will constantly be moving your feet, twisting and rotating your body, and “reaching” in order to punch the Speed Bags.
Outlined below are some of the main movements that you can train when using the boxers Stance whilst speed bagging. Most of these you will probably do naturally once you are Speed bagging in the boxers stance… but in order to you should also focus on specific movements as a part of your training and “exaggerate” these moves by putting yourself out of position
- Bounce – this is an up and down motion caused by flexing your legs and raising your heels slightly off the ground (stand on your toes)
- Rock – a backwards and forwards or side to side rocking motion to get better angle on a bag, or improve your reach
- Shuffle – moving towards or away from a bag teaches you to extend the reach of your punches by extending your arms giving you a larger effective punch zone.
- Switch – switching your lead foot feels really strange at first, but most people can reasonably quickly (with persistence and practice) become effeco0vely ambidextrous on the speed bag (although the power/precision of your natural lead will usually still be better)
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