so i was downloadin some k-1 kickboxing HLs of kazaa the other day and downloaded a muay thai instructional video by mistake. The guy seemed to know what he was doing, except for this part where he did sit ups then when he went down his partner hit him as hard as he could on the stomach with thai pads. He said something like "it is a good abs workout and it simulates a hit and helps you keep going when you are in pain" Is this a smart thing to do?
My coach will drop a medicine ball on all of the aspiring boxers under his care's gut, but not to strengthen the abs or teach you to fight through the pain so much as to simulate a hit (like you said) so you can pattern your breathing around it, i.e. sharply exhale as it is about to connect to tighten your abdominal muscles and absorb the impact on the abdominal wall. Can't really vie for it's effectiveness, I'm pretty new to the sweet science, myself, but just passing on what I was told
You don't hit as hard as you can even though it looks that way. It is part of normal training. Good to condition the stomach and learn to take pain.
aside from teaching you to take pain, it forces you to keep your stomach tight throughout the whole movement so your core gets a better workout. we used to do it in football
I used to do the same thing in thaiboxing a while back. We'd also do sit ups lined up side by side and have the kids from the session run along the line over our stomachs, those bastards had damn small sharp feet.
Amother good way I found to do this is for you and a partner put the gloves on and each take turns working each other to the body. Not hard enough but enough to make you feel it. This helps with to things. It helps with conditioning the body to take shots while in a fighting stance and it alos helps you to know how to hit a "real" person instead of always hitting the bag.
This exercise is also about breathing patterns whilst training. You will find yourself able to take more punishment to your midsection when you are breathing out.
Heh, yeah My old trainer used to stamp on our stomachs (not too hard, but you better breath right or it sucked big time).
