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Heavy Boxing Training Question

4K views 11 replies 10 participants last post by  jennyjohnson 
#1 ·
I got a new heavy bag a month or so and I've been having a few troubles when punching with my knuckles getting bruised and beaten up. I switched gloves from a light softer pair of boxing gloves, to a set of strikeforce padded MMA gloves and still after a set of punches I feel like I've broken my knuckles. I would consider myself a beginner boxer but I'm almost positive I'm punching correctly. Could it also be a problem with the heavy bag? I'm not sure.

Weights:

Heavy bag - 80
My weight / height - 150 pounds 5'10
 
#4 ·
I pretty much always wear cloth wraps underneath my gloves. It helps a lot, I find. Nothing fancy, just a maybe like $5 pair of Everlast wraps from a sporting goods store.

As far as actual gloves, I normally wear 16oz boxing gloves, or an old pair of UFC brand MMA gloves that have fairly thick padding over the knuckles (I don't know their weight).

Beyond that, if you're really beginner, you might just have soft knuckles and/or a hard bag. I know when I was first getting into it, I would hit my brother's heavy bag (which while fairly light, was pretty hard) and that seriously bruised up my knuckles. As time went on my knuckles just toughened up to it though.
 
#5 ·
Alright thanks for the advice man, really appriciate it :)!

Maybe I should go wrap my knuckles up and punch some trees like Chuck Norris did when he was first getting into Martial Arts.. ;D
 
#7 ·
I may catch grief for this....but try this:

Work on finding a comfortable way to land the strikes to the bag while using good form.

A boxer who studied a form of karate told me once, about a technique that could be described as opening mental-pathways or building muscle-memory.

His logic says that you throw with as perfect of form as you can at a speed of 1/8 or 1/16 speed/power. Do 25-50 strikes like this without any form of tape or gloves.

Once you are comfortable with throwing at this speed/power then move up gradually until you can strike with full force strikes.

I normally wear no protection when I work on the bag, I find that I am building good memory while I do this.

A few weeks ago, I did some heavy-work. Due to being able to land correctly without the protection helps you a lot when it comes to serious bag-work as opposed to hand-conditioning.

When I did this I took athletic tape and covered my hands in a partial wrap then used some to wrap my wrists, on top of this I wore some hybrid glove/wrap gloves and pulled the elastic tight and taped over that.

After placing these two measures in place I wore my 16-oz boxing gloves. I can tell you it felt great to throw without limits, it takes a long time before you can get to this point though...2-6 months of training.
 
#11 ·
This. (a rare agreement sir!:thumb02:)

Honestly. Hitting the bag will always hurt. Even with 16ozers and wraps. As you develop more and more power, your bones won't be able to keep up with your muscles. Eventually the nerves in the skin over your knuckles will deaden and any pain will be minimal. However there will always be some form of discomfort or pain in the knuckles themselves after years, and even months of hard training (this comes from the deterioration of the cartilage from accumulated trauma).

To this day I cannot crack my first knuckle, and if I ever try, pain will shoot down my finger between the first and second knuckle on my right index finger.

Pain, discomfort, and the fear of crippling arthritis is just something someone who hits a bag for years must endure. Its unavoidable as more and more trauma is endured by the knuckles. But smart training, i.e. 16ozers, hand wraps, proper punching, can minimize this damage.
 
#10 ·
Everyone has given you the information you need wraps and tape and bandages, all are correct solutions, the one thing i did not see was that it is a brand new bag and bags often can use some breaking in. At my gym you can tell the newer bags from the ones that are 5-10 years old pretty easily.
 
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