What Are Speed Bags Used For?

The moment you enter the gym, the sound of speed bags rebounding is what gives you the confirmation and feel that you’re home, home sweet home.

It is such a fundamental and core piece of equipment that it has been and is an obligatory part of the routine of a countless number of champs. Have you seen “Creed”, that guy keeps banging the speed bag for about half of the movie.

Using the speed bag is never about accomplishing one or two particular goals like hand to eye co-ordination or speed. It more about rhythm and heightening your sense, instinct and predictability.

You’ve obviously seen boxers bangin’ punching bag with their eyes closed or looking some other way. Yes, they’ve got that good but still how is it they’re doing it? It’s their sense of timing, hand movement, and the sound of the speed bag’s rebound all these give them that precise rhythm.

It’s all about instinct and rhythm.

Note: we talked in detail about the best speed bags and top speed bag platforms, hope that helps.

What Are Speed Bags Used For?

Now let’s dig deeper and evaluate the causes and benefits for you to be using speed bags.

Hand-Eye Co-ordination

Yeah, that’s what you’ll have improved if you’re using it for the first time. Speed bags are speedy, that’s where they get the name from, to begin with.

So, you’ll be forcing your eyes to follow the bag for every fraction of the second. Eventually, you’ll even stop blinking after a while, that’s also an accomplishment. During a match, a blink might just cost you a punch on the face.

And once you get the stimuli from your eyes where the bag is, you’ll have your hands hit the perfect coordinates. Yeah, you’ll keep missing at the beginning but that’ll soon end. Your hands will start moving like that of “Flash” soon enough.

Hands Up

Remember, how physical education teachers would punish students by making them keep their hands up. It would become painful in a minute because your shoulder muscles weren’t strong enough.

Since speed bags are on the same level as your eye, you’ll have to keep your hands up as long as you’re using it. So, your shoulder will get stronger and you’ll not get any abnormal feeling for keeping your hands up for a long time.

Being able to keep your hands up is so very important because when you’re boxing you’ll have to do so to keep your guard up. It’s to make sure that you’re not gonna get punched in the head, face or ears.

As much as it is important for defense its also important for the offense. Having your hands down will make your jabs, crosses, and straights slower. Why?…. How? It’s cause it’ll take some time for your hands get up. And in boxing every moment, every Nano-second can change the game.

Punching Strength and Speed

Once you start using a speed bag you’ll be constantly trying to make your hand move fast and precisely. As much as this reduces the odds of not connecting, it also increases the power, impact, and weight of the punches. This happens mainly because you’re getting faster and faster every moment.

But come on, do you think your opponent is fast too. He’ll also keep punching at a very fast pace. So, the speed and reduced reaction time that you’ve gained will get you a pretty solid defense. You’ll be able to block or avoid those punches.

Improved Physique

You can’t imagine how your physique will improve over time.

You’ll be training with your hand up so long you’re using a speed bag. This’ll beef up your shoulder muscles. And you’ll also be moving your hands around super-fast. So, it’ll affect every muscle on your arms, biceps, triceps you name it.

Cardio

Cardio or cardiovascular exercise is anything that’ll increase your heart rate. These sorts of exercise ain’t anything heavy like weight lifting but something light and fast that’ll you can keep on doing for a pretty long time.

Training with speed bags indeed increases your heart rate and you can keep on doing it for a long period of time. So, it’s cardio.

Beneficial thing about cardio is that it burns fat like crazy. You’ll notice your hands getting leaner pretty fast.

Improved Footwork

A common skill that every warrior need be it, swordsman, spartan or boxer is awesome footwork.

You can train with speed bags with your legs stationary but you can do it with your legs moving too. Doing so will habituate you to keeping balance amidst the constant weight shifting of your body.

This’ll improve your footwork a lot more than you think.

Zero Chances of Injury

Any sort of training or injury you name it has a chance of getting injured. And you’ll hear people getting injured because of it.

But training with speed bag is completely free from any risk and hazard. None got injured for a speed bag.

Home Equipment

Speed bags are one of that rare equipment that you can even use in your home. It’s small, it’s cheap. Little but not much of a hassle to set up.

Moreover, there isn’t much to know about how to use it. So, yeah you can definitely easily use it in your home, be it in your room, basement, garage or attic.

Stress Release

Once you’re under stress, you can’t think straight, you’ll make decisions that’ll lead to further stress. Training is the easiest method to release stress.

You don’t have to punch holes in the wall or break your utensils to relieve yourself from stress. Speed bags can get that job done for ya.

I am not talking crazy. Once you start training a hormone “Dopamine” is released in your brain which calms you down and makes you happy.

Conclusion

If I want to blabber about why and what to use speed bags for, it’ll be a never-ending conversation.

But the main thing is that you’ll have a heightened instinct, more reliance on your guts and faster pace and rhythm. It’s all that counts if you’re a boxer.

But if you’re a fitness enthusiast then this will get the job done for cardio, shoulder exercise and also a bit of biceps and triceps.