Expert: Alan Kahn - 4/22/2006

Question
Mr. Kahn,

   I greatly admire your enthusiasm and dedication to the enjoyable sport of speed bag training.  I enjoy watching you punch the bag in numerous ways and at various angles.  I watch in amazement as your skill is evidently shown in the way you punch the bag.  Your skills on the speed bag motivate me to practice harder and harder.  I have just recently gotten in to the the sport of speed bag training and have been hitting my bag for about 2 months now. I have a good solid platform and Everlast Top Professional Swivel which I feel is a good quality swivel. I have a TKO 10 X 7 speed bag and I feel that it is a little on the cheap side as far as being a good quality speed bag. I feel that it is not balanced as accurately as it should be and it is not fast enough on the rebound as it should be.  I just recently oredered a Title brand 6 X 9 speed bag.   I wanted a little better quality bag.  I thought this may be a little better grade bag to hit.  Would you please tell me which brand and size speed bag you would recommend that is accurately balanced and is worth the money?  Do you have any personal favorite brands?  I would greatly appreciate any guidance and direction that you could provide me with.  

Sincerely,

Garrett Norris  (gdnorris80@yahoo.com)


Answer
HI Garrett,

Thank you for the kind remarks concerning my speed bag efforts and skill. And please remember, I too was a beginner at one time, trying to learn. The man that personally instructed me was very patient and would repeat things as often as necessary for me to learn. But as you see, there is SO MUCH that can be done on the speed bag that I often could not remember it all, and still had to figure a lot out on my own - Alone under the board, trying to remember the fist and elbow motions. That was in the early 1970's. Today, thank god for video tape or DVD, where it can be played over and over, in slow motion. As you watch the video's - Follow the fist and elbow motions I make. Do them without the bag. If you mimic those motions, it will help create muscle memory of the movements. Then add in that cool speed bag beat of the rebounds that those motions make. You can practice all this WITHOUT the bag. Then when you get under the board, all you will really need to do is find the correct timing to make it all work. Believe me, it IS a lot easier than you think. It may look and sound complicated when watching and listening to it, but in fact what I am doing (the individual movements...) are pretty simple

(yeah, easy for me to say....)

Concerning speed bags, My "favorites" are more on an individual basis, meaning certain bags that I have own, and been punched to death. They may be of various brands, but I liked them because of their shape and rebound. Several companies make very nice speed bags. Concerning your choice, I really like the Title speed bags. In fact, I have all their sizes. http://store.titleboxing.com/titlespeedbags1.html

The 9x6 Red bag you mention is a great, high quality bag and well balanced. For Title Bags, You can see their Yellow 8x5 model bag ( one size smaller than the 9x6) in this video clip mixed from my own personal training sessions. http://media.putfile.com/Speedbag-Blugrass-medly The Red/Black bag seen in the opening is an older style 8x5 ringside model. (they change the shape slightly years later, and you can see the difference when hitting a red bag to "Rolling in my sweet babies arms" later in the clip. That is a ringside 8x5. (http://www.ringside.com/DETAIL.ASPX?ID=25256)

you can see a few more clips here    

http://www.putfile.com/speedbag/media

Any quality Bag is worth the money. Your given choice is a fine. I would mention that if you CAN afford it, buy two bags at the same time - of equal size or one size variation. Then you always have a backup if there is a problem.

You may also ask about speed bag issues at a new online forum about speed bag training: http://www.speedbagforum.com/forums/

It is not owned, operated or run by me, but I enjoy reading and answers questions there. One unique feature is you can post you own speed bag video training clips for others to see and review.

Good luck, and train safely. You CAN learn to do this!

sincerely,

Alan Kahn
author, The Speed Bag Bible