Muay Thai Bagwork Tips & Tricks

Whether you’re an avid practitioner or a beginner training Muay Thai, getting on the heavy bags can be quite daunting. There are so many things you can do on the heavy bag and we are going to highlight some tips and tricks to help you get started on working the heavy bags (especially if you are new to Muay Thai).

#1: Set the pace

Going long continuous combinations will tire you out faster and you will probably spend most of the time recovering from it. It’s essential that you set the pace when working on the heavy bags. A good guide can be used is to set combination with 3-4 strikes, reset your stance, and follow up with another series of 3-4 strikes.

Breaking up the long rounds on the bag with interval timing will allow you to burn more in that 3-to-4-minute round on the bag rather than going for a burnout of 30 seconds.

You should still be working at maximum capacity, throwing your strikes with power and intent as you do in the fight. In between times, go for short burst of power and combinations to stimulate the fight situation. Remember not to go all out and being unable to recover from it. Set the pace as how you would do in a fight, supplement it with short burst as to how you would like to push the pace in a fight.

#2: Intention beats combinations

Many a times, people go on the bag, work long combinations and heavy strikes. Throwing long series of random punches, kicks, knees, and elbows will give you a great workout, a good sweat and burn calories.

However, if you are looking to develop yourself as a holistic fighter with the intellect to pick shots that have higher chance of landing on your opponent, training with intent is one of the upmost important elements.

This means working on specific combinations that involves set up. For example, throwing a jab before a low kick. You can also think about the next step- such as transiting the low kick to a high kick. Changing levels between specific combinations will make it harder for your opponent to figure out you out.

#3: Visualization

If you have been following, this was mentioned in the Benefits of Shadow Boxing as well. Visualization is one of the important concepts that the fighter must have. Being able to visualize how your opponent moves and reacts will allow you to better plan your strikes and combinations around them.

Visualization comes in many forms and one of the few ways you can do it includes:

- Specific Target Practice: Punching at the chin level, kicking at the ribs level, etc (A good way to imagine that your opponent is of similar build as you can you can work on striking on the specific targets)

#4: Include defense and movement

If you are looking to get in a great workout, burn as much calories as you can in a single round on the bag, then going on long combination with minimal rest might work.

If you are looking to become an intelligent fighter, adding defense and movement will help you develop your skillset to a different level. Practicing defense and movement not only helps you to build the muscle memory but you also start to visualize how your opponent might react to your combinations and/or strikes.

One of my favorite things to do is working on push kicks to passively interrupt my opponent’s rhythm- it can be done after a series of combinations or while I am resetting my stance.

#5: Bag Control

Working on the bag control gives you a deeper understanding of your strikes.

For one, if you are punching the bags and the bags starts to swing too much, you are probably pushing your punch too much. This gives you an idea of whether you are pushing too much weight into your punches.

Another variation of bag control includes using kicks and push kicks to stop the bag from swinging. Being able to control the bag with your kicks and can simulated to how you can control your opponents in the ring. For example, using push kicks to stop the bag from swinging towards you is a like using a push kick to stop your opponent from engaging you in a fight.