Confessions of a mittologist

[thugpoet]

few years back I was a defender and big user of mits.

I still used one step and two step drills, partnered shadow boxing etc but I used mits a ton as well.

As time moved on ( and my shoulder started to hurt more) I spent less time holding mits.

As I got away from the pads I started to see the punches snap more and less going through the motions.

There are a few more things I've noticed but I don't want to make this extra long.

Can you have a successful program working pads? Yea, Floyd Sr has a pretty elaborate pad system. But it's not needed, defending and countering actual oncoming punches creates the proper motormechanics

 

[Sinister]

"I remember there was a moment where I stopped bein' mad at you about all that mitt shit. I was over at the other gym and I had already sparred this Pro for 4 after I worked out AND ran. They asked me to go a couple with this dude and he smacked me around a lil bit 'cause I was tired. About a month later they asked me to work with him again and I agreed. Dude said 'you sure man? He real sharp right now 'cause he fightin' next week.' I said 'why, you think he gonna whoop my ass or something?' Dude said 'well he did last time didn't he?' I said 'look, you just worry about him, I'll worry about me.' So we get in there, he got 2 coaches and another Pro in his corner, I'm by myself. Long story short I knocked him down...twice. Then it hit me that I wasn't working with ANY trainer at the time, and he had been doing AT LEAST 5 rounds of mitts a day." - Daijon Carter

Daijon vs. Wesley Diana, undefeated Pro who was #1 in the U.S. in his division as an Amateur:



Daijon vs. undefeated Pro Donnie Marshall:



I haven't done mitts with him in months. Both of those guys get lots of mitts from their regular trainers and have MUCH more ring experience than he does.

 

[Frode Falch]

Yeah i guess you dont need padwork. But to get away with it you at least must have done it before.

Or you need to take your shadow box, bagwork, and light sparring to another level.

@Sinister what do you think about drills where you hit your partners gloves like they where mitts? Like you see alot of dutch strikers do.

 

[William Huggins]

Yeah i guess you dont need padwork. But to get away with it you at least must have done it before.

Or you need to take your shadow box, bagwork, and light sparring to another level.

@Sinister what do you think about drills where you hit your partners gloves like they where mitts? Like you see alot of dutch strikers do.

I think I remember Sinister mentioned about partner drills before,

Cardio and Conditioning: Preparing the body for a combat environment and in some instances like skipping, to help with coordinator.

Heavy bag work: To develop power and conditioning and some technical aspects.

Partner Drills: To develop technical aspects, movement, timing, body dynamics, muscle memory...etc

Shadow boxing: Technical aspects of bringing movement and technique together and to help with muscle memory....

Sparing: To help bring all of the above together in a live environment.

You don't really need pad work, it's all covered in the above, it's not realistic.

 

[shincheckin]

why would you want to remove pads? That makes no sense. its a major ingredient of the basic recipe for training. Im sure you could remove it if you wanted to and do just fine without it. But the same could probably be said for many other aspects of training as well. For instance you could remove bagwork rather than mitts, im sure you could have a successful program that way, it doesnt mean there arent benefits from bag work. Pads gets your timing, distance, technique, form, and muscle memory down. If you cant do it fast and good on the pads, such as a frequenty work a slip/counter for example, your going to have a hard time doing it in sparring, and even harder in a fight. There are many apsects to training, if your looking for something to cut, pads wouldnt be my suggestion. But yeah out of all of the main staples of training, roadwork, conditioning, shadowboxing, bagwork, pads, sparring. I wouldnt be looking to cut pads for my guys. Unless the reason for cutting pads is because the class is so large theres no way the coach can work with all the guys 1 on 1. That seems to be where this whole glove partner mitt holding has become so popular. But to me, if your not working with your guy 1 on 1 he shouldnt be fighting.

 

[thugpoet]

why would you want to remove pads? That makes no sense. its a major ingredient of the basic recipe for training. Im sure you could remove it if you wanted to and do just fine without it. But the same could probably be said for many other aspects of training as well. For instance you could remove bagwork rather than mitts, im sure you could have a successful program that way, it doesnt mean there arent benefits from bag work. Pads gets your timing, distance, technique, form, and muscle memory down. If you cant do it fast and good on the pads, such as a frequenty work a slip/counter for example, your going to have a hard time doing it in sparring, and even harder in a fight. There are many apsects to training, if your looking for something to cut, pads wouldnt be my suggestion. But yeah out of all of the main staples of training, roadwork, conditioning, shadowboxing, bagwork, pads, sparring. I wouldnt be looking to cut pads for my guys. Unless the reason for cutting pads is because the class is so large theres no way the coach can work with all the guys 1 on 1. That seems to be where this whole glove partner mitt holding has become so popular. But to me, if your not working with your guy 1 on 1 he shouldnt be fighting.

maybe.

I dont think mitts are the only way you can work one on one with a fighter. for example, I have them shadow box specific movements which me giving an eagle eye perspective. once they've done that we move on to 1 step partner drills then move on to full speed partner drills.

alot of mit holding I've seen enforces fighters to " short change" their punches because of the pad holder. which is another reason why guys lack punching power.

1 and 2 step partner drills are a fine replacement for pad work imo.

a typical day would look like:

warm up
shadowboxing
1 step drills
2 step drills
full speed 2 step drills ( this is where timing is built)
sparring or heavy bag followed by speed bag if no sparring

 

[thugpoet]

Yeah i guess you dont need padwork. But to get away with it you at least must have done it before.

Or you need to take your shadow box, bagwork, and light sparring to another level.

@Sinister what do you think about drills where you hit your partners gloves like they where mitts? Like you see alot of dutch strikers do.

what do you mean by " have done it before?"

as a fighter in order to not need to do pad work you should have been exposed to it before?

if you are taking something out of a program it needs to be replaced by something else so taking it to another level would be something you'd being doing regardless

 

[shincheckin]

maybe.

I dont think mitts are the only way you can work one on one with a fighter. for example, I have them shadow box specific movements which me giving an eagle eye perspective. once they've done that we move on to 1 step partner drills then move on to full speed partner drills.

alot of mit holding I've seen enforces fighters to " short change" their punches because of the pad holder. which is another reason why guys lack punching power.

1 and 2 step partner drills are a fine replacement for pad work imo.

a typical day would look like:

warm up
shadowboxing
1 step drills
2 step drills
full speed 2 step drills ( this is where timing is built)
sparring or heavy bag followed by speed bag if no sparring

Yeah I agree with you.

Theres probably a 100 more ways to work guys without utilizing mitts as well. I just dont see why you would "want" to remove mitts from a program, unless as I had stated the class is to large for everyone to be worked with individually. Holding mitts for 10 guys is time consuming for sure. I can understand doing things this way for a class, but for a fighter, I wouldnt agree with preparing guys and sending them off to fight without getting that 1 on 1 padwork, in combination of course with sparring and all the other things that come with preparing for a fight.

 

[Sinister]

There are fighters all over the World who go into fights without that 1 on 1 mitt work.

Two Germans I know who visited the Rafael Tejo gym in Havana wanted to get video of the German trainer doing mitts with the Olympic Silver Medalist who trains there. He held up the mitts and the fighter went "Okay...what do I do?"

Just sayin', it happens all the time.

 

[ARIZE]

@shincheckin

Don't forget that in our case, we can't use full blast kicks with partners drills. Even with shinpads etc... We need the mitts/pao to feel the power against an opponent. With footwork, distance management, and not just against a stationary heavy bag.
For boxers ( i may be wrong, but that's my impression), you can go hard with partner drills. Not freestyle obviously, but with good defense from your partner, you can blast your combos while working distance foot work and some defense on counters...

But I also believe the mitts are useful for working on reflexes/reaction time. In TKD for example, you don't know what the mitt holder is going to throw at you. It's always freestyle. So you have to react fast, working on eye/strike coordination, and having good balance for combos. I don't know in boxing what they use to replace that. But maybe after some level/experience you don't really need to drill it anymore, i don't know.

 

[AndyMaBobs]

Slightly different in that my base is more Muay Thai than boxing (and I am nowhere near as an experienced coach as @Sinister) but when I train people 1 on 1, I rarely use pads. I largely do it through a light spar/drill environment where they have to land their techniques via getting used to their distancing and getting their footwork down. When I use pad work, I use it for drilling commitment to strikes. I've taken a page out of Andy Thomson's book of using the pads and stepping away from kicks to make the student kick through more. For me pad work is more for if I'm drilling something that I will likely need protection for, like knee strikes.



But I like to make sure that I've got a foundation of technique acquired through lighter technique work before going for power, I like someone to have full balance on kicks and knees when doing it lightly (particularly on recall) before they start kicking hard - and then I'll get the pads and do a simulated sparring session with them.

In my opinion everything you do on pads, you learn more practically from partner drills and very light technical sparring. I used to think it was just me but lately I've been watching Sylvie von Duuglas-Ittu's long training videos with Karuhat and he has a very similar approach.

The class that I assist doesn't use pads in the routine at all, and it's all partner drills with emphasis on moderate contact and clinching - and they are far more technical than some of the older students who are consistently blasting pads every day.

I don't think that you need pad work at all in boxing, and in Thai Boxing the majority of pad work that you do in classes in the West, may as well not be there. Thai style pad work is good because it simulates a sparring session where you can spar hard without actually running the risk of injuring your trainer - pad work in western muay thai classes is just a fitness burn out and focuses on long combination chains that you'll never actually use in a fight.

 

[thugpoet]

Yeah I agree with you.

Theres probably a 100 more ways to work guys without utilizing mitts as well. I just dont see why you would "want" to remove mitts from a program, unless as I had stated the class is to large for everyone to be worked with individually. Holding mitts for 10 guys is time consuming for sure. I can understand doing things this way for a class, but for a fighter, I wouldnt agree with preparing guys and sending them off to fight without getting that 1 on 1 padwork, in combination of course with sparring and all the other things that come with preparing for a fight.

What does pad work give you that partner drills can't? I'd argue that partner drills are more important

 

[ARIZE]

@AndyMaBobs

Isn't what a said? Are my english so bad they don't make sense or did you put me on ignore? WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE SUCH TREATMENT? Does the rest of you can see me? Are you all blocking me? Am i dead? Hello? Anybody?

 

[Sinister]

@AndyMaBobs

Isn't what a said? Are my english so bad they don't make sense or did you put me on ignore? WHAT HAVE I DONE TO DESERVE SUCH TREATMENT? Does the rest of you can see me? Are you all blocking me? Am i dead? Hello? Anybody?

Did y'all hear something?

 

[DoctorTaco]

Did y'all hear something?

not a word, coach.

 

[DoctorTaco]

Mitt work is my full time job, though 90% of my clients are cardio/fitness people. I Love what I do but mitts are a tool like any other. They can be used for diagnostics, cardio, technical development, and theory application. but so can a heavy bag, double end bag, tape on the floor, drills, sparring, and shadow boxing. Kirian at CSA barely has time to give any of his top pros mitt work but they’re still competing and winning at the highest level

 

[Sinister]

Yeah i guess you dont need padwork. But to get away with it you at least must have done it before.

Or you need to take your shadow box, bagwork, and light sparring to another level.

@Sinister what do you think about drills where you hit your partners gloves like they where mitts? Like you see alot of dutch strikers do.

I prefer drills where they hit the opponent like they're an opponent. It's like very light sparring, but they have sequences:



You'll notice the two guys begin with a sequence, then move to a free-throwing part of the drill. The idea is that you do this so much, make them so comfortable with the maneuvers (programming the body) that when they spar, it's just how they box. This is the Russian Olympic team training, the video is labeled "drilling technique" but this is actually sparring. They don't spar to try to kill each other, thus, it's a more controlled pace and you can see the little techniques they do:



Now, there's some in-between levels of sparring as well before students get to fully free sparring (no limitations). But the idea is to program the move sets into the body, teach the student to understand WHY they need to do this move this way, or what the general concept is so they understand the idea, then get them to translate it into sparring.

Nowhere are mitts NEEDED in that process. So right now in my program, I'm letting my joints recover (I got bad tendinitis in both arms from doing hours and hours of mitts), and figuring out where I want to put them if I start using them again. And honestly, it's a struggle to find a NECESSARY use for them for any other reason aside from making the fighter feel that I think they're special. Even if I taught my system WITH the mitts, it doesn't click in the students' heads as well as it does when they do it to a person.

Also, FWIW, when I got to train with a Thai back when I was doing Muay Thai, he wasn't big on pads. But what he LOVED was non-stop "light" sparring.

 

[shincheckin]

What does pad work give you that partner drills can't? I'd argue that partner drills are more important

were on the same page here, i agree partner drills are very beneficial

Yes it can be done without pads.

Many other aspects of training could be removed such as "running" and guys could still do good. And even the "champ" won all his fights and he would never "run"

My basic recipe for fight prep is pads, clinch, spar. There are many other ingredients to the recipe such as roadwork, bagwork, shadowboxing, partner drills, and many other things, but the main indredients of my training is Pads,clinch,Spar. I personally wouldnt see any benefit of removing the pads other than it providing more time for clinching and sparring. Pads are more beneficial depending on someones skill level as well. A higher level guy is going to get more out of sparring than he is out of pads, where as a beginner may learn more on the pads over sparring but now were adding in way to many "x" factors.

I dont see why you would want to remove pads though. What is there to gain or benefit by removing them?

 

[MaxMMA]

I don't understand everyone saying distance management is only developed on the mitts. When the bag starts moving you have to move with it/move around it in order to correctly throw your next combo, how is that not distance management?

 

[Reyesnuthugr]

I don't understand everyone saying distance management is only developed on the mitts. When the bag starts moving you have to move with it/move around it in order to correctly throw your next combo, how is that not distance management?

Yeah, also distance management during drills and sparring would apply as well.

---

I've said this in another thread but I really feel that MT/kickboxing works a different dynamic and has a lot more use for the pads than boxing.

MT trainers cover themselves in pads and basically spar with them on, so it's not really any different or worse for them (kickboxers) from doing regular sparring