Speedbag training - anyone ever considered it?

darthpistachio

A short while ago I wanted to find a cardio alternative that wasn't for me at least too boring.. I stumbled upon an old training regime of mine again and that was the speedbag. Most of you will only associate the speedbag or speedball in the UK as a boxers exercise and to be honest so did I to start with and I only knew of one way to use it really - the boxers way.

But after a bit of reserach and stumbling on one website in particular and then onto a specialised forum I discovered that there was a whole lot more to the activity than I realised. In short I've become quite addicted to it!

It's not strictly a cardio exercise in that it will get your heart rate right up like say a cross trainer would but someone my size can still burn off an average of about 300 calories per hour doing this and that hour goes by real quick I can tell you!

I do about 40-50 minutes on the speedbag 4 times a week alongside 2-3 heavy weight training sessions and my weight has gradually been coming off at a very steady 1-1.5 lbs a week even after reaching my main goal which was a healthy body fat percentage (as measured with a bodymetrix scanner) I find it a great total upper body workout to maintain muscle mass.

Give it a try - I'm sure some of you will love it and personally although I'm still a beginner at it my first main goal is to get as good at it as a certain woman in her later years who literally makes me look like a infant school kid learning to walk! LOL

If you are keen to give it a go take a lot at Alan Khans website - a guy who I stumbled across who wrote one of only two instructional books available and did a video of it way back in the 70's and eighties - you can find out everything about starting out in this sport here:

http://www.speedbagcentral.com/

There an excellent forum if you want tons of tips and advice on what equipment is worth getting or not - I found it invaluable: you can find it here:

http://www.speedbagforum.com/forums/

and one of the members there is trying to film a documentary about the sport to increase public awareness to its great calorie burning and physiotherapy benefits:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/zazacast/art-of-the-bag-a-speed-bag-story

Kickstarter is a project run by Amazon i think that supports public funding of film projects you can pledge as little as 70P towards it to help out the film maker.

I'm hoping that this post isn't construed as a form of advertising by the moderators here - I'm honestly just trying to spread the word about a great calorie burning exercise I've recently discovered that as always has existed for an absolute age and I just hadn't heard about it!

All the best

Fabs'