What exercises are there to help agility and quickness for fighting?

Question

kind of a just wondering question. anyone know?

Answer 1

Defined: the power of moving quickly and easily; nimbleness: exercises demanding agility.

Many types of martial arts incorporate training and drills that focus not only on increasing stamina and strength, but also agility. Once a technique is learned, it is safe to say that it is useless unless the practicioner can perform it easily, quickly, and effectively.

This requires agility.

Imagine you just learned a blocking technique and now you are sparring. Your opponent throws a typical jab at you. Now, unless you can proficiently perform your block, and do so quickly enough to catch the jab, you will be hit. This is just one small example of many that demonstrate the need for agility in the martial arts.

Each time a technique is learned, it is practiced over and over. There are two main reasons for this amount of repitition. One is to have the technique committed to a subconscious level so that it can be performed without thought, and the other is to perfect it. This level of repetition also has another benefit which is increased agility.

In addition to increasing agility through repetition of techniques, many martial arts focus on movement of the body. More specifically, footwork, avoidance drills, and body positioning. Fighting arts require an understanding of balance, angles, and positioning to gain a dominant position in which to fight and getting to your dominant position requires agility.

Repetitve drills build both agility and quickness.

Coordination requires balance, strength, and agility. Some drills I do to improve my training is:

-Speed bag drills for hand eye coordination

-Heavy bag drills for punch consistency and repitition-(use head movement)

-Punch out drills on heavy bag (30-60 seconds non-stop)

-Jump roping is good for coordination

-Also alot of shadow/mirror boxing too

Other things I do is use focus mits with a partner. Bounce a basketball against the wall hard and prevent it from hitting my head (silly, I know).

Also, I found focusing on proper footwork while on the bag carries over into live situations very well. It is imperitive that you incorporate footwork at all times. Start slow...and build up.

Much of this answer was taken from an article I wrote on my website.

Hope this helps.

Socalmark

Answer 2

Speed bag. There's more than one kind.

Answer 3

The Shaolin Kung Fu 108 step Monkey form, the Snake form, or, the Praying Mantis form.  All those forms emphasize speed, while the monkey form of course emphasizes agility and speed.

Answer 4

Agility is very similar to flexibility: Do your arm and leg stretches everyday, for at least 15 minutes and your arms will be very loose and agile. Also for agility, put small stickers on your punching bag where your opponents nose, neck, sternum, etc. would be and practice target training but practice hitting the dots as fast as you can without missing and this will improve your hand-eye coordination. For quickness it is all about repetition and resistance training: Practice every technique that you want to perform quicker 100 times per side (left and right) as fast as you can, if your arms/legs give out before reaching that number that is a good thing and will build your fast-twitch muscle mass. If 100 becomes easy for you don't bother moving up to a higher number you never really need to do more than that. Resistance training is done by either attaching weights or resistance bands to your limbs and then performing your moves. I find weights to  give the best results, but to be the most expensive and difficult, you should buy the ones that velcro strap around your wrists and ankles. With weights you have to start light, like 2 pounds, and when you reach a point in your practice where it no longer feels like you are wearing weights you can move on to 3 or 4 pounds. When you take off the weights your arms will feel like they don't weigh anything and you will move quicker than you expect. These are just a few good exercises that you can do, but they will help a lot.

Happy Training!