Heavy Bag..

[Kwah]

I recently put up my heavy punching bag again as Im rather shy on weights around here that don't kick and fight when Im picking them up.

I got a good warmup routine from Flyguy in my previous post, and Since my main concern is building my upper body and reducing my beer muscle I've been picking and prodding all the posts in here.

My question is if I pound on a heavy bag for 20 - 30 minutes a day and do a good warmup and make sure I do all the diet stuff properly is that sufficient?

Or do I need legitimate weights?

 

[FlyGuy]

If you only wanna get rid of the gut you'll do fine with just that. If you really wanna get HUGE muscles you'll need weights. Either way you should cut before you try to bulk. Good choice w/the punching bag BTW, be careful when you first start hitting it - you'd be surprised how easy it is to fvck up your wrists if you hit it the wrong way. Doing pushups on your knuckles will help strengthen your wrists.

Good luck!

 

[ultrashogun]

As far as I know hitting the bag isnt really gonne do anything for your muscles except build muscle endurance. You wont get bigger or anything.

 

[FlyGuy]

BTW, I advised this to burn calories since he can't run/bike/swim/etc. in the country.

Practicing martial arts over the years, I know that even just shadow boxing can build some muscle. The thing is you won't build huge muscles, but you will be very strong for your size. You get very compact but dense muscle. I used to practice ridge-hand strikes more with my left arm than my right, and after a month I noticed the bicep on my left arm was actually bigger than the other side (it used to be the other way around).

Oh and Kwah, don't forget intensity! Push yourself, and your hard work will pay off!

 

[Paul Owen]

And Boy the way that Foreman hit that HEAVY BAG! Oh Boy.......

 

[Kwah]

I have no interest in becoming huge. Im quite happy with the size I'm at now. I have no real desire to get myself into XL size shirts.

Yeah I've noticed that the wrists can take a beating. Should I put some kind of padding under my hands when Im doing push ups with my fists? cause it gets rather hard on my knuckles and I dont know if thats healthy or not for them.

Also, someone know what the average soup bowl holds in ounces? I want to figure out this calorie thing but I dont know **** about weights and whatnot. Saying to me to eat an 8 oz piece of chicken means nothing

 

[FlyGuy]

You can use padding if you need to, just be sure to actually use your knuckles (not your fingers!) to support the weight while you perform the push-up. No, its not easy! Especially if you weigh a lot. But nothing worth doing is easy right? You also should wrap your knuckles when you hit the bag if you aren't already, you'll shred your skin quick otherwise.

No clue on the whole oz. thing, sorry. I haven't gotten too intense with diet yet myself. Recently I've gotten good cutting results by just decreasing my meal size by about 1/4 and eating the same things (making sure to include a larger ratio of lean protein in every meal), cutting out all junk food, fast food, soda, sweets, etc., and drinking a gallon of water everyday. I cut myself down from 18% bodyfat to 8% (and still cutting). You might need to be more strict though, I have a high metabolism still.

 

[Kwah]

Oh I have a fairly high metabolism. And I drink well over a gallon of water a day, probably in the neighbourhood of 3-4.

Cutting the amount of what I eat sounds a lot more realistic to me than doing some funky diet anyway. Good tips.

 

[Soshyopathe]

As you learn to strike the bag correctly, you can lose all the padding. You should never be scraping against the bag, so you won't tear the skin, your knuckles will only get stronger.

 

[Kwah]

Oh I dont tear the skin, it just aint real comfortable pounding my bare knuckles on hard canvas.