How to hang a Heavy Bag

The heavy bag is one of the best training aid a fighter can use. Given that it is filled with both sand and liquid, and weighing in at anywhere between 25-75 kg, it is the perfect training equipment to mimic the human body. You quickly realize practicing on a heavy bag that punching it would give you the best similitude of hitting an actual fighter.  The heavy bag is great not for its resemblance to the human body but also the fact that it is a great tool to develop both your punching technique as well as punching power.

 Finally a heavy bag offers a very cardio intensive workout – imagine having to tense up your body, standing in the proper punching stance and punching away at a heavy bag with all your full intensity for the equivalent of a full boxing round. It is hard work where beginners usually can’t go past the 1 minute mark. The only thing you have to get right about a heavy bag is how to hang it up properly.

The first thing to do in hanging a heavy bag is decide on where you want to hang it. The most optimal way of hanging a heavy bag is on a ceiling mount in the centre a room in which you will use for the heavy bag. Apart from the fact that the bag probably won’t break anything around it if it is in the centre of a room and that it ricochet of a wall to come back at you and thus avoiding the chance of injury, the best reason to do so is from the perspective of a fighter.  It will allow you the freedom to move around the bag attacking it via a 360 degree angle to mimic an environment of a right and a fight. 

There are drawbacks of using ceiling mounts for a heavy bag if they are being used in a residential setting. Most houses don’t have the necessary structural support to withstand the jarring vibrations caused by punching a heavy bag and results in slow deterioration of the support beams you use to hang a heavy bag. 

The wall mount is a possible alternative but it too has specific caveats in utilizing it. A heavy bag cannot be mounted on a wall made from plywood or drywall. The best material would be cement as such material has the strongest resistance to any jarring caused by repetitive punching. 

In a wall mount, instead of the heavy bag hanging from a ceiling, it hangs off a long arm that is an extended off of a bracket on the wall and allows easy swivel of the long arm so that it may not intrude in normal day to day domestic activity when it is not being used in a workout.

Best Fat Burning Cardio Boxing Workouts

Do you want to burn fat or build your stamina? If your answer is yes, then choosing a good cardio workout is perfect for you. There are various activities such as running, cycling etc. but cardio boxing workout is perhaps more helpful than all other options. In fact, it can help you lose weight quickly. Want to know how you can do cardio boxing exercise for losing weight? Read on to know some best cardio boxing workouts.

How to start?

Before starting proper workout, you need to warm up. Jump rope is a perfect tool to warm up your body. Skipping is a good cardio exercise. It is an excellent way to boost your heart rate and is perfect activity to develop your cardiovascular system. Besides skipping, you can also do other stretching exercises such as pushups to warm up your body.

Best cardio boxing workouts

Here are three best boxing exercises that will help you boost your stamina, strengthen your muscles and burn calories.

Heavy bags: Practicing with heavy bags is an amazing way to strengthen your body muscles and burn extra calories. Punching bag or heavy bag is simply a killer workout routine. Using a heavy bag, you can do more efficient cardio exercise at your home. However, you need to know about the punching techniques to throw punches correctly before starting. These include:

·         Jab – first two punches thrown together

·         Uppercut – a punch that travels along the vertical line at the opponent’s chin

·         Cross – a powerful punch thrown with dominant hand

·         Hook – punch thrown with a full swing turning core muscles and back with either dominant hand or rear hand

Speed bags: Speed bag is another effective tool that can help you in cardio exercise. Unlike heavy bag, speed bag is effective for speed training. But before increasing pace, you need to gain rhythm. This workout increases your heart rate and burns calories to promote weight loss. Best way to benefit from speed bag workout is limiting your breaks between the rounds to only 20 seconds or so.

Sparring: This workout may not be as essential as other boxing workouts are but it is a good cardio workout that helps improve your strength and lose weight. The only thing you need to do is work with a trusted partner and get supervision from an experienced trainer.

Shadow boxing: Shadow boxing is often performed as a warm-up exercise before heavy bag punching. However, shadow boxing itself is an efficient cardio exercise. This workout is done by punching in the air using your reflection in the mirror as opponent. Its purpose is preparing muscles before engaging in any training exercise.

Bottom line

Boxing is very helpful as cardio and is a perfect way to lose weight. It helps burn calories fast and tone and strengthen various body muscles. It also helps develop stamina and is a good way to lower stress as well. Start cardio boxing workout and note the difference.

How to strengthen your neck using head harness?

Neck strength is vital to all fighting sports. Whether it’s for taking a punch, resisting a throw or ground fighting, your neck strength is essential to your fight game. You might have seen Anthony Joshua, Mike Tyson, Floyd Mayweather and many more lifting weight using neck or head harness. There are various workouts in which head harness is used and are a great way to strengthen neck muscles. Are you also interested in knowing how you can strengthen your neck using head harness? Keep on reading.

Listed below are some neck strengthening exercises that can be done using head harness.

• Lying face side head harness neck resistance

It is an effective exercise to strengthen all lateral muscles of the neck – scalene, splenius, clavisternomastoid and semispinal muscles. Here are the steps included in this workout:

·         Begin with lying on your side on a flat bench with shoulder on its edge. Head strap should be fixed on head with chain and weight hanging down. Look straight ahead. Your neck should be parallel to the floor.

·         Slowly incline your head to the shoulder as low as possible.

·         Lift your head up to the same angle and exhale.

·         Repeat the steps several times.

• Lying face up head harness neck resistance

This exercise will help you strengthen the muscles in the front of your neck. Have a look on the steps for this exercise.

·         Begin with lying on a flat bench with your face up and harness strap fixed on your head. The starting position of your head for this exercise is parallel to the floor.

·         Lift your head to the highest position.

·         Bring your head back to the starting position.

·         Repeat the aforementioned steps for required amount of time.

• Seated head harness neck resistance

This is perhaps the most intense neck strengthening workout. Have a look on its steps.

·         Sit at the end of the flat bench with your feet opened wider than your shoulder width and toes pointed out.

·         Slowly move your torso forward until it is almost parallel to the floor. Securely position the head harness strap around your head using your hands and place them on your knees. This is the starting position.

·         Slowly move your neck downwards until your chin touches your chest’s upper part while inhaling.

·         Bring your neck to starting position while exhaling.

·         Repeat the steps several times.

There are several neck strengthening exercises and aforementioned were the ideal ones that can be done using head harness.