Afraid Bench Press will slow my punch

[Cardio]

Training boxing and I'm afraid that lifting weights, especially bench press, will slow down my punch. I work on having a fast and hard right cross and looping right and am afraid that I will become too stiff and rigid if I weight train more than once a week.

It happened to me in the past when I was lifting, I felt slower and stiffer as I became able to press more.

Any thoughts or possible lifting routines that will not harm my punch?

 

[bck]

It was all in your head. Lifting heavy trains the fast twitch muscle fibers which are responsible for fast and explosive movements. Lift heavy AND keep boxing...

 

[Ian Coe]

I always felt faster when I was lifing ME on bench. Punches felt more solid and snappier.

edit- I think you just need to get used to the feeling, took me a few months to adjust

 

[Gsoares2***]

Life heavy if you want to fight heavy...

alot of boxers do not lift at all.....

 

[Brand Nizzle]

I have the same question/concern.

 

[TheNerdKing]

While I am no expert in this here are my thoughts:

If you want to be a fighter with fast hands then practice punching. Use weight lifting as a supplement to the fight training.

That is if you are going to lift twice a week try being in front of a heavy bag or focus mitts 6 times a week.

Your body will adapt to whatever stress you put it through. If you demand that it lift heavy shit it will get stronger. If you demand that it punch faster, it will.

However, if you want to punch fast and lift heavy shit and you only train to lift heavy shit your speed will suck ass.

That is, you can do both but you have to work harder than normal to progress at both simultaneously.

I am primarly a lifter. I do the MMA training for recreation. That being said I can still throw fast crisp punches with a 365+ bench press.

Same with kicks and knees. However, I'd be much better if I spent more time infront of the bag/mitts than under a squat bar.

Summary:

You can do both and it won't hurt you at all so long as you keep working your boxing as hard or harder than you were before you added the lifting in.

 

[Sebastian]

Training boxing and I'm afraid that lifting weights, especially bench press, will slow down my punch. I work on having a fast and hard right cross and looping right and am afraid that I will become too stiff and rigid if I weight train more than once a week.

It happened to me in the past when I was lifting, I felt slower and stiffer as I became able to press more.

Any thoughts or possible lifting routines that will not harm my punch?

Thats nothing but a myth, i bench press often and i train in mma and i know as well as others hah hah that i'm not slow, if anything it'll help your speed, the only time you'll slow down is if you stop working on your punches and that'll be just from not training punches not from benching

 

[LCDforMe]

As of now, I lift to get stronger being as I do not train in any form of stand up. In about a year once I begin to slow down on BJJ and start to train in standup, I will slow my lifting down just because I want my muscular endurance to be up a little. At least, that's what my plan is as of now.

 

[Plum]

Look at most fighters today, they are very muscular. You telling me they don't lift?

Benching won't slow down your punch.

 

[Evil Eye Gouger]

The important thing to remember is to stick to compound movements, and use the full ROM. If you use a lot of partials and isolation, you'll lose flexibility and will likely develop useless tissue which will slow you down.

But if you lift heavy and in compound movements, you'll be fine. As long as you make boxing your priority and give it a lot more time and effort than lifting.

 

[MTJJ_PuMpED]

bench should help it speed up. I myself am afraid that curls will slow my punches

 

[True2KungFu]

as long as skill training is priority , heavy lifting will only help. for punches specifically i find heavy dips better than bench, and i do bench for speed work.

 

[Ted-P]

Look at most fighters today, they are very muscular. You telling me they don't lift?

Benching won't slow down your punch.

Well, Being ripped doesnt necessarily mean that you lift. It could be natural.

High intensity workouts and training will release alot of HGH making fighters look shredded.

Not only that their diet must be at least somewhat decent and they also must do alot of cardio.

 

[Ted-P]

The important thing to remember is to stick to compound movements, and use the full ROM. If you use a lot of partials and isolation, you'll lose flexibility and will likely develop useless tissue which will slow you down.

But if you lift heavy and in compound movements, you'll be fine. As long as you make boxing your priority and give it a lot more time and effort than lifting.

I dont think Barbell Bench Presses trains FULL ROM of your chest or tricep muscles. Especially the regular and wide grips.

Whats why I switched to Dumbbells.

 

[Ian Coe]

bench should help it speed up. I myself am afraid that curls will slow my punches

and thats another reason why you shouldn't be gay and curl

 

[Plum]

Well, Being ripped doesnt necessarily mean that you lift. It could be natural.

High intensity workouts and training will release alot of HGH making fighters look shredded.

Not only that their diet must be at least somewhat decent and they also must do alot of cardio.

Being "ripped" (ie. low body fat) and being muscular like I said, are two very different things. Like I said, are you telling me that most of those guys don't lift? Some of them are very muscular.

People have this belief that touching weights will make them slow and muscle bound. This is simply untrue. So long as you train properly you have nothing to worry about. The kind of mass which will slow you down takes time and special training to achieve.

 

[Madmick]

Whats wrong with curling, its in my push day and Carnal says its fine, not to mention all the guys at my gym do some isolation

Any functional strength you need from your biceps you'll get from your upper back lifting. Curling is for aesthetics; overtraining biceps, especially doing isolated movements, will tighten your biceps and add resistance to every movement involving extension of the arm (i.e. punching). What do you need big arms for in athletics? You want to work for the UFC or Calvin Klein? Make a choice. Fighting is sacrifice.

 

[Madmick]

Training boxing and I'm afraid that lifting weights, especially bench press, will slow down my punch. I work on having a fast and hard right cross and looping right and am afraid that I will become too stiff and rigid if I weight train more than once a week.

It happened to me in the past when I was lifting, I felt slower and stiffer as I became able to press more.

Any thoughts or possible lifting routines that will not harm my punch?

Power is a function of speed and strength, and benching gets your stronger. Spelled out clearly enough?

 

[Ian Coe]

Whats wrong with curling, its in my push day and Carnal says its fine, not to mention all the guys at my gym do some isolation

for me, its time wasted that I could be doing other things

If the have the time by all means, but isolation work when you have limited time is pointless (unless you have some freaky imbalances). All the guys that go to a gym tend to do some isolation, getting 'big guns' is one of them


also, why is it in your push day, shouldn't it be at the end of a pull......

 

[Plum]

There is positively nothing wrong with doing isolation excercises. They are awesome for some purposes, but like anything else, it depends what you're trying to do.

And no, doing bi's after back is not a good idea. They're too tired to get a good workout.