Improving agility and response through tennis ball practice

We can train our agility and responses to attacks with the help of many different methods – pair work, pad work outs, heavy bag trainings and so on..

With the help of our partner and a tennis ball we can also practice a useful exercise.

Drill:

We stand next to a wall. Our partner throws at us a tennis ball that is aimed at us, but if missing, bounces off the wall back to him.

The ball thrown simulates an attack, when coming forward, but also when bouncing back off the wall, can "act" like a missing punch thrown, which tries on the way back to strike again.

Tips:

• Use a box of tennis balls, so that if one doesn't bounce back we don't lose time by picking it up.

• When finishing the box it might be a good time to switch roles.

• The person responding can choose whether to slip, move aside or block the ball.

• Throwing the ball from different distances and with changing speed helps train the variety of responses that are dependent on the time factor (how much time we to respond?).

• We can aim and throw the ball to all parts of the body.

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Enjoy the Sweat

The Warriors Project