Anti-shadowboxing?
“C’mon, Mark, shadowboxing
is a hallowed part of old school training, you can’t be serious?”
I hear ya, but…allow
me to double-down: Shadowboxing and all other non-contact work
that is meant to simulate fighting [kata/hyung/forms etc.] fit into this category-warning
as well.
I know, sounds
blasphemous, so let’s jump in and build the case against and you can do your own
evidentiary evaluation afterwards.
I will say, the deeper
the archology took me, I gave up this protocol that has been a staple of my own
training for literal decades.
First a
Little History
Little mention is made
of shadow work being a large part of a boxer’s stable-work prior the turn of the
last century. Oh, there are mentions of it, and more than a few “made a
flash of the hands” to impress “coves at ringside” but being a cornerstone
of the training, little ado is made.
I’m with you, little mention
in the record does not a convincing case make.
Stick with me…
Why the Possible
Rise of Shadowboxing from the 1900s Forward?
Likely two possible
answers here…
One-The Rise
of the Open Gym
As boxing gained in
popularity and become more than a fringe “scrum” of the “scurvy element of
society” with the occasional dabbling by “gentlemen in exclusive clubs” that
catered to the deep-pocketed, we see the advent of open gyms that could accommodate
a larger cadre of fighters and wannabe fighters.
In the less well-equipped
gyms frequented by the “unwashed masses” with no gentleman patrons to keep all
spick and span and wonderfully geared, gyms became a bit of an assembly line.
With only so many bags
to go around, only so many pad-feeders, only so many sparring partners or available
room for sparring, a “Hey you, kid, go throw hands in the corner for a while
till sumpin’ opens up” starts to become more common.
It is akin to the “You
guys warm up and I’ll be with you in a few” offered by many a personal trainer
who is really slacking clients on their billable hour
Prior to the turn of
the last century, hitting and making contact with something was considered the touchstone
of training—as one would wisely imagine.
Gentlemen Jim Corbett
made more than a few remarks on this difference himself, recognizing that his
own “power” was indeed different from the old-timers that had “something of
the mighty oak” in what they swung.
Two-The Press
Photographer
As photographic technology
improved, and it became increasingly easy to allow for photographs to be printed
in newspapers, publishers and readers became hungrier for visual content.
Early cameras were not
the easily wielded “shoot infinity” images and cull to the best of 3,300 we
have today. Shots had to be lucky, posed, or somewhat staged to get something that
“goes over” with the public eye.
A press-photographer had
no problem asking, “Hey, Duke, step out from behind that bag where I can see
you, now throw some punches. Perfect!”
The photos of the air-fighter
are then seen by many an aspiring pugilist and they assume, “Well, that’s
part of it! I can punch the air, too!” and they go to work self-training
and perpetuating what just may have been a “make-work” task for busy gyms,
harried trainers and/or fake fodder for hungry media.
“OK, Mark, neat
speculation, but I’m still not convinced it’s a practice that needs to be
dropped from the roster. I think you are making a bit much of some historical
scraps.”
Good on you!
What is presented thus
far is insufficient, woefully insufficient, but I purposefully weighted the
least of the arguments to the fore.
Let’s
proceed to Argument
#2: Self-Injury
Recall that prior to
the 1900s most strikers prepared for striking by actually striking something. [Many
an early old-school trainer preserved this spirit through the early 40’s.]
Striking allows for
full 100% skill-development with Positive Transfers for maximum training effect.
Shadowboxing, no matter
how speedy cannot build the power component.
Yes, it can educate
speed, but so does striking a bag, pad, partner and these impacts allow the co-education
of skilling power and speed.
Shadowboxing only
strives for the speed aspect.
Speed is good but
speed and power is better, so, if we only have 45-minutes to train should we
opt for a training mode that drills one aspect or both?
But, you may say, “Mark,
I have unlimited time to train [lucky you] and I shadowbox and
hit pads to maximize my development.”
That argument sure sounds
good. With unlimited time at your disposal, why not throw all the chips in the
pot?
For shadowboxing
to be effective in the parameters we desire [speed] we have to throw with
maximum intent and that maximum intent may have a price to be paid.
Punching full bore
without contact means the deceleration and stabilizing forces of the negative
aspect of the punch [any air-strike at all, we merely address punching here] must
be handled by the rotator cuff.
For many long-term hard-chargers
in boxing shoulder pain often manifests. It often is a low-grade pain that one
does not pinpoint root causes.
Physiologists aware of
the forces on the rotator cuff suspected tears. Upon examination, the suspicions
proved negative but…
The deceleration and stabilizing
put overload stresses on the infraspinatus and teres major, these
stresses wound up being the sources of the pain.
The athletes were
instructed to drop shadowboxing from the regimen and these non-rotator tear injuries
simply go away.
So, thus far we see a
possible historical quirk as to why shadowboxing found a place for itself in the
modern boxing training menu.
We also see that this
no-impact practice can wind up having a negative impact on our progress if we
are playing with the intent necessary for realistic combat training.
Is that all there is to the negative case?
Before I answer that, some
will reason, “Well, I can still use shadowboxing at a lower intensity to groove
proper form and this lower intensity will bypass injury.”
I repeat: Is
that all there is to the negative case?
No, it is not all
there is to the case and the offered solution of lower intensity and “grooving
form” just might be the worst form of shadowing.
The in the-weeds-science
on this was hinted at with two words already mentioned.
In Part Two, we’ll
wade into those weeds and before we’re done, I wager more than a few of you
will choose wiser practices with faster results.
[Part Two, will be available
in two weeks but only to newsletter subscribers.
No worries—It’s
free. Subscribe to hear the closing arguments and
render your own verdict.]
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