I Had no Idea what I was Doing

No matter how much you think you know, there will always be someone who humbles you by showing you how much you don't know.  Earlier this week I was working out at one of the YMCA's which I recently discovered has a punching bag.  Being that boxing, whether it be shadow boxing, hitting the heavy bag, or sparring with a partner, is great cardio, I finished up my workout with a few minutes of it.  I've never had any formal training in punching, but I felt that I was working up a good sweat and doing some damage to the bag.

A few minutes later I was stretching out and relaxing in the sauna, and a man who had observed me asked if I do any fighting.  No, I just like using the bag for a workout.  My eye doctor would never let me fight, anyways.  He explained to me how my footwork was off, and he also emphasized how I need to twist my body more to get more power out of my punches.  Instantly a lightbulb went off.

If I knew how important my obliques (side adominals) were in wrestling, why wasn't I taking advantage of them when punching?  In any sport, especially wrestling, your power is generated from your hips and through your core.  And goodness knows how much your hips and core twist in wrestling.  If you want to be faster and more explosive on the mat, you can't neglect your obliques.  Rather than just doing crunches or leg lifts at the end of a workout, include a twisting or oblique exercise, whether it be twists with a medicine ball, side planks, or "Rocky crunches" (watch the movies and you'll see how he touches his elbow to his opposite knee when he crunches).  In order to build a balanced core, you need to work all parts of your abdominal muscles, not just the front of them.

Get twisting,
Jeff