Runner, Boxer, Martial Arts Expert or Crossfitter?

If I worked with you in 6 months you would say this to me Cat:

"bf-im old in years but young at heart. I used to be chubby and I couldn't do much but stretching and doing yoga has changed all of that.

I used to have a bad back, so that i concentrate on stretching it the most."

 

well bf - fly me up to your yoga compound for a 6 month boot camp and i'll be there. i won't tell Mr. Babyfan....lol

 

No worries Cat, Mr. Babyfan is well used to my working with male clients

If you are actually interested in trying this I can send you my program for you to try. I've sent it to others who don't have the time to get to a yoga class and wanted to try it at home. I'm willing to send it if you're interested

 

Babyface, I never had to follow a structured workout regimen. When I was young I was as strong as anyone on my football team because I lived on a farm and life was a natural workout.

Later, I was fortunate to fall into a healthy diet and taking things in moderation. That helped me maintain decent physical condition.

I'm older now, and I had a major health scare last year. Now I find myself needing to step up the effort to stay fit. I just finished a 3 mile brisk walk; I walk 3 to 4 miles/day about 5 times/week.

I want to work in some resistance training. (I stay active and can move anything lighter than a cow.) But as noted, I'm older and can no longer rely solely on "natural workouts". Do you have any recommendations for resistance training?

 

Your farm training reminds me of how Bww trained when he was younger because he lived on a farm too. What's better than a 'training' which is actually just you getting chores done like throwing bales of hay, mucking out stalls all day etc ...

3 miles is an excellent way to push your cardio up. As long as you can still talk through your walk you're not over-exceeding your limits.

Resistance or strength-training is my forte. I have a yoga program that incorporates tons of strength-training as you're working with your own weight. A full yoga practice should challenge all of your muscles groups and help build muscle faster. That means that when you're doing your cardio it's more effective because your muscles are toned and lean. We don't want to exclude your tendons and ligaments either ... stretching benefits everything and you will notice the difference immediately.

In yoga, the repetition of isolated poses puts a demand on your stabilizer muscles as well as all the muscles that connect through the pose. So say, for instance, you're doing Warrior 3




I ask my clients to hold that pose (the stabilizer muscles in your right (standing) leg will go crazy trying to balance and ground you) and then to bring their hands to their hearts in prayer. When ready we do 5 very slow knee bends keeping a straight line from the back of your head to your extended heel. That's just one of the ways that I incorporate yoga into my strength-training. One of the good things about this (like your walking) is it's free and you can do it at home without any additional equipment. Using a mat is a good idea because it helps you from slipping on a floor.

Another way that I bring strength-training into my program is when we're doing a high plank (there is a sequence of poses in the middle of the Sun Salutation which are high plank, low plank, Upward Dog and Downward Dog) I will get my clients to turn onto one hand for side plank on both sides and then Wild Thing. From high plank we'll go into low plank and hold .... for whatever torturous number of minutes that I decide on and then back up to high plank and repeat and repeat ad nauseum ... ad infinitum ...

It's a really hard program (which lots of modifications for people who aren't ready to challenge themselves that much) but the outcome is very evident. I have clients whose bodies have changed radically in 1-2 years.

For me, yoga is about getting stronger and feeling healthier. Some of the 'side effects' of yoga are the ability to deal and cope with stress and anxiety in a more functional way. Yoga leaves you feeling physically exhausted but replete and happy at the same time. Just by focusing on your breath as you move through the poses you create a healthy distance from all of your worries.

I could write forever on this stuff.

Dan, are you interested in doing my yoga program at home too?

 

I just noticed this ...

LOL that's funny and cute! Thanks Dan

 

I'll stick with Babyface, if you do not mind, (I think it may have been auto-spell, though).

I regret that I only have one thank you to give for your message. I'm going to try out what you provided. It is possible that I may be interested in trying out your yoga program. It sounds like something my wife may be interested in too.

Thanks again.

 

I've just spent the last 3 hours tweaking my program. LOL I get so excited about this stuff! I'm adding in some pictures to help illustrate the poses more clearly. If your wife joins you in doing this program you'll find it even more fun, I promise! There's nothing more fun than doing yoga and laughing together ...

If you send me your email address in pm I'll send this off to you as soon as I'm done.

 

I just finished updating my blog and I thought I would post it here and if anyone is interested ...

< crickets>

Yoga has always been a part of my life in some form or another. This is actually true for all of us, even if it's not recognized or defined as such. I've watched my children move naturally and instinctively through movements which owe their beginnings to yoga; from the precarious first steps they took as toddlers to the present. My daughter uses yoga poses and movements in her warm up and cool down stretches for CrossFit.

I think some people may harbour an unfamiliarity with and distrust of yoga because they don't know what it can do for them. And also, because it's a 'thing' that people do which separates them from non-yogis, it can be somewhat daunting. Yoga, as a means of drawing attention to oneself, is contrary to the true purpose of yoga. The asanas of yoga are part of the renowned Pantanjali's 8-Limb Path and is a very personal practice. Whether you find yourself in a yoga studio with 30 other people or lying on your mat beside a stream it makes no difference, the yoga comes from within you.

Some of the benefits of yoga are:

Increased core strength:
Helps to prevent injuries, protects your inner organs and central nervous system, decreases the onset of back pain and improves posture.

Increased flexibility:
Improved flexibility is one of the first and most obvious benefits of yoga. During your first class, you probably won't be able to touch your toes, never mind do a back bend. But if you stick with it, you'll notice a gradual loosening, and eventually, seemingly impossible poses will become possible. You'll also probably notice that aches and pains start to disappear. That's no coincidence. Tight hips can strain the knee joint due to improper alignment of the thigh and shinbones. Tight hamstrings can lead to a flattening of the lumbar spine, which can cause back pain. And inflexibility in muscles and connective tissue, such as fascia and ligaments, can cause poor posture.

Increased muscle strength and tone:
Strong muscles do more than look good. They also protect us from conditions like arthritis and back pain and help prevent falls in elderly people. And when you build strength through yoga, you balance it with flexibility. If you just went to the gym and lifted weights, you might build strength at the expense of flexibility.

Improved respiration, energy and vitality:
Consistent attention to your breath during yoga helps to expand your lungs and capacity for deeper breaths. This results in an improvement in your energy and vitality.

Lowers blood pressure:
If you've got high blood pressure, you might benefit from yoga. Two studies of people with hypertension, published in the British medical journal The Lancet, compared the effects of Savasana Corpse Pose with simply lying on a couch. After three months, Savasana was associated with a 26-point drop in systolic blood pressure (the top number) and a 15-point drop in diastolic blood pressure (the bottom number—and the higher the initial blood pressure, the bigger the drop.

Maintaining a balanced metabolism:
This awareness and attention to each and every movement helps yogis create lean muscle and lose excess weight. The idea that yoga is used only as a stress reliever is a prevalent myth, but flowing from pose to pose can also boots metabolism, helping to burn more calories throughout the day.

Improved athletic performance:
Yoga provides you with consistent and constant stretching, and the routines incorporate slow, steady flexibility exercise that is ideal for athletes. Frequent yoga training may increase flexibility, and range of motion while relieving muscle tension. Whether you are a runner or a golfer, improved range of motion can often help improve performance.

Improves cardio and circulatory health:
Yoga poses stretch your muscles and increase your range of motion. Yoga isn't considered aerobic exercise, but the more athletic varieties, like power yoga, will make you sweat. And even though yoga is not aerobic, some research finds it can be just as good as aerobic exercise for improving health. Yoga is one of the most effective ways to increase circulation, and when your blood is effortlessly flowing, and gets your skin glowing.

Protection from injury, prevents cartilage and joint breakdown:
Each time you practice yoga, you take your joints through their full range of motion. This can help prevent degenerative arthritis or mitigate disability by "squeezing and soaking" areas of cartilage that normally aren't used. Joint cartilage is like a sponge; it receives fresh nutrients only when its fluid is squeezed out and a new supply can be soaked up. Without proper sustenance, neglected areas of cartilage can eventually wear out, exposing the underlying bone like worn-out brake pads.

Protects your spine:
Spinal disks—the shock absorbers between the vertebrae that can herniate and compress nerves—crave movement. That's the only way they get their nutrients. If you've got a well-balanced asana practice with plenty of back bends and forward bends and twists you'll help keep your disks supple.

Improves bone health:
It's well documented that weight-bearing exercise strengthens bones and helps ward off osteoporosis. Many postures in yoga require that you lift your own weight. And some, like Downward and Upward-facing Dog, help strengthen the arm bones, which are particularly vulnerable to osteoporatic fractures. In an unpublished study conducted at California State University, Los Angeles, yoga practice increased bone density in the vertebrae. Yoga's ability to lower levels of the stress hormone cortisol may help keep calcium in the bones.

 

Continued from the above:


Increases blood supply:
Yoga gets your blood flowing. More specifically, the relaxation exercises you learn in yoga can help your circulation, especially in your hands and feet. Yoga also gets more oxygen to your cells, which function better as a result. Twisting poses are thought to wring out venous blood from internal organs and allow oxygenated blood to flow in once the twist is released. Inverted poses, such as Headstand, Handstand, and Shoulderstand, encourage venous blood from the legs and pelvis to flow back to the heart, where it can be pumped to the lungs to be freshly oxygenated. This can help if you have swelling in your legs from heart or kidney problems. Yoga also boosts levels of hemoglobin and red blood cells, which carry oxygen to the tissues. And it thins the blood by making platelets less sticky and by cutting the level of clot-promoting proteins in the blood. This can lead to a decrease in heart attacks and strokes since blood clots are often the cause of these killers.

Drains your lymphatic nodes and boots immunity:
When you contract and stretch muscles, move organs around, and come in and out of yoga postures, you increase the drainage of lymph (a viscous fluid rich in immune cells). This helps the lymphatic system fight infection, destroy cancerous cells, and dispose of the toxic waste products of cellular functioning.

Regularly raises your heart rate to lower risk of heart attack and relieve anxiety and depression:
When you regularly get your heart rate into the aerobic range, you lower your risk of heart attack and can relieve depression.Helps to lower and regulate stress and anxiety: While not all yoga is aerobic, if you do it vigorously or take flow or Ashtanga classes, it can boost your heart rate into the aerobic range. But even yoga exercises that don't get your heart rate up that high can improve cardiovascular conditioning. Studies have found that yoga practice lowers the resting heart rate, increases endurance, and can improve your maximum uptake of oxygen during exercise—all reflections of improved aerobic conditioning. One study found that subjects who were taught only pranayama could do more exercise with less oxygen.

Regulates adrenal glands:
Yoga lowers cortisol levels. If that doesn't sound like much, consider this. Normally, the adrenal glands secrete cortisol in response to an acute crisis, which temporarily boosts immune function. If your cortisol levels stay high even after the crisis, they can compromise the immune system. Temporary boosts of cortisol help with long-term memory, but chronically high levels undermine memory and may lead to permanent changes in the brain. Additionally, excessive cortisol has been linked with major depression, osteoporosis (it extracts calcium and other minerals from bones and interferes with the laying down of new bone), high blood pressure, and insulin resistance. In rats, high cortisol levels lead to what researchers call "food-seeking behaviour" (the kind that drives you to eat when you're upset, angry, or stressed). The body takes those extra calories and distributes them as fat in the abdomen, contributing to weight gain and the risk of diabetes and heart attack.

Foundation for a healthier lifestyle:
Move more, eat less—that's the adage of many a dieter. Yoga can help on both fronts. A regular practice gets you moving and burns calories, and the spiritual and emotional dimensions of your practice may encourage you to address any eating and weight problems on a deeper level. Yoga may also inspire you to become a more conscious eater.

Increases endorphins making you feel happier:
The slow deep movements of yoga helps to promote the production of endorphins in your body leading to that natural high. This helps to maintain mood balance and keeps you feeling happier longer.While it's not as simple as that, one study found that a consistent yoga practice improved depression and led to a significant increase in serotonin levels and a decrease in the levels of monoamine oxidase (an enzyme that breaks down neurotransmitters) and cortisol. At the University of Wisconsin, Richard Davidson, Ph.D., found that the left prefrontal cortex showed heightened activity in meditators, a finding that has been correlated with greater levels of happiness and better immune function. More dramatic left-sided activation was found in dedicated, long-term practitioners.

Lowers blood sugar:
Yoga lowers blood sugar and LDL ("bad") cholesterol and boosts HDL ("good") cholesterol. In people with diabetes, yoga has been found to lower blood sugar in several ways: by lowering cortisol and adrenaline levels, encouraging weight loss, and improving sensitivity to the effects of insulin. Get your blood sugar levels down, and you decrease your risk of diabetic complications such as heart attack, kidney failure, and blindness.

Helps you focus:
An important component of yoga is focusing on the present. Studies have found that regular yoga practice improves coordination, reaction time, memory, and even IQ scores. People who practice Transcendental Meditation demonstrate the ability to solve problems and acquire and recall information better—probably because they're less distracted by their thoughts, which can play over and over like an endless tape loop.

Improves posture and balance:
Regularly practising yoga increases proprioception (the ability to feel what your body is doing and where it is in space) and improves balance. People with bad posture or dysfunctional movement patterns usually have poor proprioception, which has been linked to knee problems and back pain. Better balance could mean fewer falls. For the elderly, this translates into more independence and delayed admission to a nursing home or never entering one at all. For the rest of us, postures like Tree Pose can make us feel less wobbly on and off the mat.

Yoga maintains your nervous system:
Some advanced yogis can control their bodies in extraordinary ways, many of which are mediated by the nervous system. Scientists have monitored yogis who could induce unusual heart rhythms, generate specific brain-wave patterns, and, using a meditation technique, raise the temperature of their hands by 15 degrees Fahrenheit. If they can use yoga to do that, perhaps you could learn to improve blood flow to your pelvis if you're trying to get pregnant or induce relaxation when you're having trouble falling asleep.

Helps you to sleep better:
Stimulation is good, but too much of it taxes the nervous system. Yoga can provide relief from the hustle and bustle of modern life. Restorative asana, yoga nidra (a form of guided relaxation), Savasana, pranayama, and meditation encourage pratyahara, a turning inward of the senses, which provides downtime for the nervous system. Another by-product of a regular yoga practice, studies suggest, is better sleep—which means you'll be less tired and stressed and less likely to have accidents.

Releases tension in your limbs:
Do you ever notice yourself holding the telephone or a steering wheel with a death grip or scrunching your face when staring at a computer screen? These unconscious habits can lead to chronic tension, muscle fatigue, and soreness in the wrists, arms, shoulders, neck, and face, which can increase stress and worsen your mood. As you practice yoga, you begin to notice where you hold tension: It might be in your tongue, your eyes, or the muscles of your face and neck. If you simply tune in, you may be able to release some tension in the tongue and eyes. With bigger muscles like the quadriceps, trapezius, and buttocks, it may take years of practice to learn how to relax them.

Boosts your immune system functionality:
Asana and pranayama probably improve immune function, but, so far, meditation has the strongest scientific support in this area. It appears to have a beneficial effect on the functioning of the immune system, boosting it when needed (for example, raising antibody levels in response to a vaccine) and lowering it when needed (for instance, mitigating an inappropriately aggressive immune function in an autoimmune disease like psoriasis).

Gives your lungs room to breathe:
Yogis tend to take fewer breaths of greater volume, which is both calming and more efficient. A 1998 study published in The Lancet taught a yogic technique known as "complete breathing" to people with lung problems due to congestive heart failure. After one month, their average respiratory rate decreased from 13.4 breaths per minute to 7.6. Meanwhile, their exercise capacity increased significantly, as did the oxygen saturation of their blood. In addition, yoga has been shown to improve various measures of lung function, including the maximum volume of the breath and the efficiency of the exhalation.
Yoga also promotes breathing through the nose, which filters the air, warms it (cold, dry air is more likely to trigger an asthma attack in people who are sensitive), and humidifies it, removing pollen and dirt and other things you'd rather not take into your lungs.

 

Continued from above:

Prevents IBS and other digestive problems:
Ulcers, irritable bowel syndrome, constipation—all of these can be exacerbated by stress. So if you stress less, you'll suffer less. Yoga, like any physical exercise, can ease constipation—and theoretically lower the risk of colon cancer—because moving the body facilitates more rapid transport of food and waste products through the bowels. And, although it has not been studied scientifically, yogis suspect that twisting poses may be beneficial in getting waste to move through the system.

Gives you peace of mind and increases self esteem:
Yoga quells the fluctuations of the mind, according to Patanjali's Yoga Sutra. In other words, it slows down the mental loops of frustration, regret, anger, fear, and desire that can cause stress. And since stress is implicated in so many health problems—from migraines and insomnia to lupus, MS, eczema, high blood pressure, and heart attacks—if you learn to quiet your mind, you'll be likely to live longer and healthier.
Many of us suffer from chronic low self-esteem. If you handle this negatively—take drugs, overeat, work too hard, sleep around—you may pay the price in poorer health physically, mentally, and spiritually. If you take a positive approach and practice yoga, you'll sense, initially in brief glimpses and later in more sustained views, that you're worthwhile or, as yogic philosophy teaches, that you are a manifestation of the Divine. If you practice regularly with an intention of self-examination and betterment—not just as a substitute for an aerobics class—you can access a different side of yourself. You'll experience feelings of gratitude, empathy, and forgiveness, as well as a sense that you're part of something bigger. While better health is not the goal of spirituality, it's often a by-product, as documented by repeated scientific studies.

Yoga eases pain:
Yoga can ease your pain. According to several studies, asana, meditation, or a combination of the two, reduced pain in people with arthritis, back pain, fibromyalgia, carpal tunnel syndrome, and other chronic conditions. When you relieve your pain, your mood improves, you're more inclined to be active, and you don't need as much medication.

Gives you inner strength, and connects you with guidance:
Yoga can help you make changes in your life. In fact, that might be its greatest strength. Tapas, the Sanskrit word for "heat," is the fire, the discipline that fuels yoga practice and that regular practice builds. The tapas you develop can be extended to the rest of your life to overcome inertia and change dysfunctional habits. You may find that without making a particular effort to change things, you start to eat better, exercise more, or finally quit smoking after years of failed attempts.
Good yoga teachers can do wonders for your health. Exceptional ones do more than guide you through the postures. They can adjust your posture, gauge when you should go deeper in poses or back off, deliver hard truths with compassion, help you relax, and enhance and personalize your practice. A respectful relationship with a teacher goes a long way toward promoting your health.

Builds awareness for self-transformation:
Yoga and meditation build awareness. And the more aware you are, the easier it is to break free of destructive emotions like anger. Studies suggest that chronic anger and hostility are as strongly linked to heart attacks as are smoking, diabetes, and elevated cholesterol. Yoga appears to reduce anger by increasing feelings of compassion and interconnection and by calming the nervous system and the mind. It also increases your ability to step back from the drama of your own life, to remain steady in the face of bad news or unsettling events. You can still react quickly when you need to—and there's evidence that yoga speeds reaction time—but you can take that split second to choose a more thoughtful approach, reducing suffering for yourself and others.

Help keep you drug free:
If your medicine cabinet looks like a pharmacy, maybe it's time to try yoga. Studies of people with asthma, high blood pressure, Type II diabetes (formerly called adult-onset diabetes), and obsessive-compulsive disorder have shown that yoga helped them lower their dosage of medications and sometimes get off them entirely. The benefits of taking fewer drugs? You'll spend less money, and you're less likely to suffer side effects and risk dangerous drug interactions.

Benefits your relationships:
Love may not conquer all, but it certainly can aid in healing. Cultivating the emotional support of friends, family, and community has been demonstrated repeatedly to improve health and healing. A regular yoga practice helps develop friendliness, compassion, and greater equanimity. Along with yogic philosophy's emphasis on avoiding harm to others, telling the truth, and taking only what you need, this may improve many of your relationships.

Yoga helps to keep viruses and allergies at bay:
Kriyas, or cleansing practices, are another element of yoga. They include everything from rapid breathing exercises to elaborate internal cleansing of the intestines. Jala neti, which entails a gentle lavage of the nasal passages with salt water, removes pollen and viruses from the nose, keeps mucus from building up, and helps drains the sinuses.

Helps you to serve others:
Karma yoga (service to others) is integral to yogic philosophy. And while you may not be inclined to serve others, your health might improve if you do. A study at the University of Michigan found that older people who volunteered a little less than an hour per week were three times as likely to be alive seven years later. Serving others can give meaning to your life, and your problems may not seem so daunting when you see what other people are dealing with.

Yoga encourages self care:
In much of conventional medicine, most patients are passive recipients of care. In yoga, it's what you do for yourself that matters. Yoga gives you the tools to help you change, and you might start to feel better the first time you try practising. You may also notice that the more you commit to practice, the more you benefit. This results in three things: You get involved in your own care, you discover that your involvement gives you the power to effect change, and seeing that you can effect change gives you hope. And hope itself can be healing.

Yoga helps to support your connective tissue:
As you read all the ways yoga improves your health, you probably noticed a lot of overlap. That's because they're intensely interwoven. Change your posture and you change the way you breathe. Change your breathing and you change your nervous system. This is one of the great lessons of yoga: Everything is connected—your hipbone to your anklebone, you to your community, your community to the world. This interconnection is vital to understanding yoga. This holistic system simultaneously taps into many mechanisms that have additive and even multiplicative effects. This synergy may be the most important way of all that yoga heals.

Yoga uses the placebo effect to affect change:
Just believing you will get better can make you better. Unfortunately, many conventional scientists believe that if something works by eliciting the placebo effect, it doesn't count. But most patients just want to get better, so if chanting a mantra—like you might do at the beginning or end of yoga class or throughout a meditation or in the course of your day—facilitates healing, even if it's just a placebo effect, why not do it?


As you read through these points do you recognize yourself in any of them?


Namaste until the next time ♥

 

I've been back grinding it out for about the last 8 weeks now. Heavy bag, speed bag, weights, treadmill and some other exercises that incorporate movement and power.

Feeling pretty good but have hit a slight wall. I think I'm going to have to start running hills this weekend to get my body to jump up a level.

 

That's probably a great idea Tim to shock your muscles. Repeated training on the same weights and devices can result in your muscles getting complacent. Scare them with a full-out run up and down the hills, but please don't shock yourself into a major coronary in the process ...

What do you do for a warm up before you workout?

 

What do you do for a warm up before you workout?


Rumour is he eats Hot Dogs with Joey Chestnut.........lol

 

So strange. Do I know Joey?

 

My current routine:

Treadmill (warm up) - 2 min walk, 5 min walk on 50% incline, 5 min walk on 100% incline, 5 min walk on 50% incline, 3 min walk 0% incline, 12 minute jog, 3 minute walk

Speed Bag - 20 minutes

Elevated Calf Raises - 3 sets of 30 on each leg

Push Ups - 3 sets of max number (varies daily)

Single Arm Hammer Curls - 4 sets of 12 to 15 at 55 pounds

Overhead Press - 4 sets of 10 to 12 at 115 pounds

Single Arm Tricep Extensions - 4 sets of 10 to 12 at 30 pounds

Jump Rope - Five 3 minute rounds (30 sec break)

Heavy Bag - Five 3 minute rounds (1 minute break) alternating between combinations, power, speed and technique

Bench Press - 3 sets of 20 divided reps at 200 pounds (1 set = ten reps at full extension trying to pop the bar at the top, 10 reps of short extension with no more than 6 inches of separation from my chest)

Rope Walk - I have a rope set at chin level over 15 feet that I work my head under (bob and weave) while moving forward and backward shadow boxing

I work this in 3 days a week. I usually start at 4 or 4:30 and finish up around 6 or 7.

I'll keep this routine for another two weeks then I'll switch out the weight reps for other motions. The bag work stays the same.

 

So strange. Do I know Joey?


World Champion for eating 76 Hot Dogs in 10 minutes........BRUTAL and GROSS.

 

That's a pretty intensive workout Tim, I'm really impressed!!

A couple of questions, do you warm up your arms before you start working on the speed bag? And I was wondering if you ever walk backwards on your treadmill. Your warm up looks a lot like mine but I also walk backwards for a few minutes to work the Gastrocnemius and Soleus?
And (okay, this is question #3, I miscounted) do you have a warm-down that you do after you're finished working out?

 

Having a warm up for the speed bag really isn’t necessary. It’s low impact repetitive motions so moving your arms on the treadmill is enough.

Walking backwards is something I never considered but all of my motions/reps are grounded in the idea of generating power and explosion.

It’s like compressing and twisting then releasing a spring.

Punching power starts in your feet/base. Then moves up through your legs, through your hips, torso, chest, shoulders and the along your arm before all that energy is released at the end of your delivery.

People talk about punching through the bag but that’s not necessary if you can have all of your energy explode at the point of impact.

You can deliver powerful shots from odd angles and from a disorganized base if you know how to manipulate your frame to generate torque.

That’s what all of those motions are based on.

I’ve never really done any kind of cool down routine but that probably has to do with playing hockey. You learn how to expend all of your energy in under two minutes then come to a complete stop for a few minutes before doing it all over again.

 

That really makes sense to me Tim. Hitting a bag is sort of like hitting a golf ball then, right? The power starts well before the head of the club strikes the ball.

My brother in law has a speed bag in his garage and my husband can use it really easily (he boxed a lot when he was younger). I can't. I focus on each hit so my brain gets confused and I lose control over my hands. How do you get to the point where it's just happening without thinking about it?

I mentioned walking backwards on the treadmill because it's amazing how under worked the back of our legs are because we're generally going forward all the time.