Increase hand speed (muscles, gym, arms, press)

[LeaveWI]

I need some input from you all on something that I'm at a loss to fix: My hand speed. When I was in my early 30's, I took a martial art that was very street practical, and made it to high intermediate level. I was not the best student in the school for sure, but I was the quickest, I could get off 5-6 good punches per second when sparring. Now at age 44, i still train hard, in Krav-maga, but while i'm still pretty quick "or my age" I'm not nearly like I was even 10 years ago. i understand Father Time plays a part, but was wondering if anyone out there had any other tips or ideas that I could try to reclaim that quickness. currently I do my bagwork, and push ups, but the speed still isnt' coming back like it was.
any ideas, or should i just keep trying what I've been doing and accept that age has taken it;s toll

Thanks!!!

[Niceguy89]

Well I supose the quickness you are talking about has to do alot with explosiveness... My football coach told me to to do benchpress like 3-5 reps with heavy weight as explosively as I could, and the next time I would be in the gym to just take the bar and do as many fast reps as possible on 60 seconds. and then just aleternate every time I went to the gym.

Might be something for you

[LaoTzuMindFu]

We all slow down a bit with age. Take a look at any boxer who is 38 years old and compare his hand speed to when he was 28 and you'll notice a big difference.

Here are some tips on increasing your hand speed from someone who's been teaching martial arts and bodyguarding for the past 15 years:

1. STOP working out with heavy weights. Especially DO NOT DO BICEP CURLS. Bicep curls work antagonistic muscle groups that prevent you from punching at full speed. Heavy weights and huge muscles will slow you down significantly.

2. Stay as relaxed as possible and only tense up at impact. You're probably already tensing all the muscles in your arm, shoulder and lats in the middle of your punch being too worried about power. Remember speed is independent of power so if you want more speed, you need to stay relaxed and not tense up during the punch.

3. Train your muscles' reflex ability. Do this by standing straight up, then falling face forward and landing in a push up position. Dont land with your arms locked out, and try not to land in the bottom part of the push up. This will train the reaction time in your muscles that will help with speed.

There are other ways to increase speed but they dont come for free.

[cb at sea]

Take up playing the drums---drummers have fast hands!

[ClarkStreetKid]

I'm 50 and still have fast hands but I have noticed that how many strikes I can get in depends on what hand form I'm using (even a loose fist is relatively slow), the range I'm working in, how much follow through I'm using, and if I'm using just my arms or adding using my hips to generate power.

I do bicep curls as part of my regular workouts and they have little effect on my strikes, the simple reason is that the bicep isn't engaged in striking. Like the DaBeez said, stay as relaxed as possible, but also try not tensing at all as even that will slow down the strike.

One very simple striking drill I like to use when teaching is to just reach out and grab a glass. When you reach for a glass you don't telegraph the movement, tense muscles that you aren't using, chamber and it's always direct to the target. It's natural and smooth, and smooth is fast.