make jabs faster for martial arts?

Question

how can i make my jabs faster and stronger for martial arts? What are some training techniques i can use?

Answer 1

There are some very simple steps to quicken punches and kicks.

First, relax. The looser you are through the shoulders, the quicker your muscles can react to the signal from your brain. Relaxing also conserves energy.

Second, perfect your technique by practicing it properly. If you practice sloppy your punches will be sloppy, but if you practice crisp punching, you will imprint that movement into your muscle memory and be able to rip off lightning-fast punches without even thinking about it.

Third, don't think, just react. The single best way I have discovered to make punches faster is to think only of the result you are trying to achieve, namely CONTACT. Picture in your mind, your fist making contact with the target and nothing else. Don't think about all of the steps in getting there, only about CONTACT, then react and make it happen. What happens when you think about all of the steps involved with throwing a punch (stance, weight distribution, hip turn, shoulder turn, arm extension, clenched fist, snap, etc.) your mind slows you down and you will tend to telegraph your punches, which makes it easy for an opponent to take defensive action. Once you have imprinted proper form into muscle memory, you no longer have to think about anything but CONTACT. You will simply react with perfect timing and form.

I would not recommend holding weights and punching or wearing them and kicking. This often causes lower back strain and/or injury. It's not worth it. Weight lifting by itself is fine and will also help by adding power to your quicker punches and kicks.

Answer 2

The proper footwork along with the development of what they call your fast twitch muscles are important for this. To help develop those muscles do double and triple jabs instead of just one every other time. This will help teach those fast twitch muscles to fire faster. Make sure you keep your trap muscle and shoulder relaxed when doing this or firing your jabs. You can help yourself to relax this if you put your hand down and let it dangle with your arm lose and then lift it back up again to the guard position where it is ready to fire. Also doing explosive type push ups, bag work and some speed drills will help but you always have to keep your shoulder and neck relaxed.

When throwing the jab step with your front foot towards the target or bag and as your back foot slides up and catches up with it your jab should be extending out so that it hits just as your rear foot stops. This way it is like a towel being snapped or a whip uncoiling and all the power is out at the end of the towel or whip. Look on utube and I am sure you can find some examples of it. I just saw one today in the questions here for a striking ball and the guy had excellent foot work and you can see it very well and how he is hitting it at the end of extension as his feet stop and set and then he is moving again on his toes afterwords.

Answer 3

Practice skipping forward with the balls of your feet and push your jab with a twist of your hips. This needs a lot of coordination and practice, but once you master it, your skip would basically give your jab an extra length due to the step forward and your jab would get there faster, plus your jab will be stronger due to the momentum of the added weight of your whole body behind the jab when you skip forward. Just make sure your jab makes contact first before your lead foot hits the ground or the momentum would be redirected downwards to the ground instead of on your opponent's face. Timing is crucial, so practice, practice and practice.

Answer 4

shadowbox with 1 or 2 lbs weights in your hands. Or you can strap some ankle weights (for running) around your wrists and start hitting the heavy bag. Do this for a three minute round, rest for 30 seconds, do another 3 minutes, and then get rid of the weights for the 3rd round...Your hands will fly during the 3rd round...You can obviously do more rounds but thats just a suggestion. Doing this every day to either start or finish your striking workout will help wonders when it comes to fighting.

Answer 5

Relax your arm and tense up your muscles at the last second. Don't try and make your jabs full-power punches.

Answer 6

the answers so far are pretty good... I'd jus add that most ppl with slow jabs have "tense shoulders"... relax, and snap i out there... remember the jab is not a knock out blow... but clinch your fist at the end to give it some "pop"...

Answer 7

shadow boxing works and keep practicing your jabs through sparring others and try using a speed bag.

Answer 8

do what shienara said, us eyour hips and what i do that works well and is from kung fu, when you hit, when your arm is back, use your hips and whip your arm out straight, just let it soar, then bring it unde control, do you get what i mean, whip it forward then push in the middle of the jab, get it?