My next fight is on a Tuesday, which is quite a change from my usual Friday schedule. That means training on Sunday as my final full day and, since that’s usually a rest day for normal folks, the gym is pretty empty. I did an hour in the ring with my husband Kevin and then went to work on the bag and some shadow. Some clips of that here:
Andy told me he wants me to start hitting the heavy bag with bag gloves (small, minimally padded 4 oz gloves), so I went out and got some. The idea is to build more strength through the impact of hitting a heavy bag with less cushion and it definitely calcifies the hands – you can see how bare-knuckle fighters hit a bag and it looks like it will split. I don’t feel a huge difference in hitting the bag with my regular 8 oz gloves versus the bag gloves, but I do like how snappy and fast my punches feel with them. We’ll see if my shoulders get more solid after a few weeks with the bag gloves.
Bagwork with Heaphones
Another round of bagwork:
Bagwork from the back
I don’t really lift weights. At times I’ve integrated dead lifts and side presses, and recently I started doing some squats to protect my knees after a tweak – but I fight so often that I only get about 5 days of weights before having to break for a fight (the gym doesn’t like fighters to lift weights the week of a fight). But pull ups and push ups are an any time, every time kind of deal. I do 10 pushups between rounds in the ring and sometimes also between every round of bagwork and shadow (those are rough days) and then finish up afternoon sessions with 5 sets of towel pull ups and push ups. I use a towel because it builds grip strength, which makes my punches feel more… deliberate.
Pull Up, Push Up
That big mirror is a magnet when there are more people around. I tend not to face it too often, only using it to check angles on knees or height on a kick, whether my hand stayed up high enough on a kick, etc. I must be annoying when other people are around because I’m basically swimming linear while everyone else is going in one direction, but I love taking up all this space when it’s just me. And repeat teeps on the bag are a drill I finish each session with. My balance on the teeps where I don’t land my foot down in between is still spotty, but I’ll get there.
Shadow and Teeps on Bag
