Head Movement, Training While Sick and the Deadlift

Written by

Eric Wong

Ask Eric

Manny Pacquiao working the heavy bag. I shot this video after a great heavy bag session at the gym.

Some days you’ve got it, some days you don’t. Today I had it.

Combos were flowing. POP BOP BOP POP!

Power came easily. THWACK!

I felt like I could hit the bag for days.

Don’t you love it when that happens?

It’d be great to be able to have workouts like these on demand.

Maybe I’ll figure out how to do that then share it with you. 🙂

Today, I cover 3 questions in my Ask EricWongMMA video:

How do I work on head movement?
Should I train while sick?
Is it better to stop in between reps of the Deadlift?

If you’re interested in the answer to any of these, check out the video below:

Back to my awesome heavy bag session (I’m smiling just thinking about it), here are a few of the combos I was working:

1-2-weave-2-3
1-2-3-6
1-R body-L body-6
1-1-6 a few times then 1-1-Overhand R (the 1-1-6 gets ’em used to the uppercut following the double jab then BAP you throw in a big overhand right when they drop their guard expecting the uppercut)

What are your favourite heavy bag combos?

Let me know below and ‘Like’ up the vid if you don’t mind.

Comments

9 responses to “Head Movement, Training While Sick and the Deadlift”

January 6, 2013

madeen

Hi, I’m confused on whether to deadlift or squat? Overall which exercise has more benefits, the deadlift or squat? Thanks

Reply
1. January 6, 2013
  
  Eric
  
  No need to choose, do both. You can Deadlift for 4 weeks, then squat for 4 weeks. THey provide different benefits.
  
  Reply
October 19, 2012

Jesse

*UP* in New Zealand? are you in the south pole lol

Found you through commenting on 4HWW

Reply
1. October 19, 2012
  
  Eric
  
  Welcome Jesse!
  
  Are you from NZ?
  
  If so, then here in Canada, everything is backwards compared to you, for example, summer is winter and winter is summer. Therefore, when I say “UP”, translate it to “DOWN”. 🙂
  
  If you’re not from NZ then you know I’m full of shit.
  
  Hope you enjoy the blog and stick around for a while.
  
  Reply
October 4, 2012

Josemm

Im wondering just like this quetion what advice could you give to new parents? This is new parents like me lol talking about training ofcourse what i mean is that when you have a new born child like me right now you have to feed him at night every 3 hours man so next day you feel depleted in energy and is hard to keep training as normal in this conditions my wife and i switch so we both feed my daughter at night but after 2 months like this is getting to me i was able to keep training regularly first month but is getting more difficult now lol no regrets but how should i go about training in these conditions ? should i drop few sets and keep intensity ? At least im trying to train as hard as i can once a week to not lose my gains for me 2 weeks off training means lots of loses in size and strenght again thanks alot mate

Reply
1. October 15, 2012
  
  Eric
  
  Jose,
  
  Sorry man, missed this when you first posted.
  
  You’re right – drop sets and do your best to keep intensity.
  
  However, if you watched my Active Recovery video, if your nervous system is hurting, you could do well to do the COMPLETE opposite, that is get volume in, slow the Tempo down, and lower the intensity. Also keep shorter workouts overall though, no longer than 45 min in your case including warmup.
  
  Just pick 2-3 big bang exercises and go at ’em as best you can.
  
  With a lack of sleep, it could be your nervous system getting shot so you might not have enough juice to lift at a high intensity, but you might be able to handle the volume stuff. So 8-15 reps, shorter rest periods (45-60 sec) and 3-5 sets each.
  
  It’s impossible to say for sure – try out both strategies and report back!
  
  Reply
  1. October 16, 2012
    
    josemm
    
    hey eric i just watched the active recovery video im always learning from you bro thanks I now understand whats going on yeah im sure you are right its my nervous system i dont feel really soared just a lack of drive so far i was training as usual but less sets same intensity then I moved to body weight training and few sets like 2 or 3 (from 8 to 10 reps) depending or how i felt that day i moved to bw because i didnt think i could bang heavy (i was starting to feel more and more tired) also i thought that maybe my body will adapt to the new conditions so i basically started all over like ok i did bodyweight to tell my body hey we need to start working
    
    then i started again with same weight i was using before my baby was born but i started at the bottom of reps and sets and im doing a 5×5 training to be able to have plenty of rest and work in a strength training type of thing
    so i could do less reps like 3 for 2 or 3 sets at the beginning of the cycle and move slowly to the top and i think is working my strength its still there and my endurance its getting back i even managed to increase few numbers in some exercises
    
    in a way without knowing for sure what i was doing(because i didnt see the video before) i kind of did what you are saying on the video so it was like a combination of dropping sets same intensity and more reps but less intensity
    
    will see what happen next and i will let you know how it goes and thanks lots and lots for your help 🙂
    
    Reply
September 28, 2012

Steve

Cheers Eric, always good to get told something that felt right at the time was good, trained sick at about 75% and felt really good the next day, left my cold on the floor… Nice info about the deadlift, sounds like concentric is the less painfull way to lift, does lowering the weight add lenght and flexibilty on top of the strenght gain from lifting.

Reply
1. October 1, 2012
  
  Steve
  
  did some IF and drank lots and lots of H2O with some greens and blew the flu away!! thanks again for the info
  
  Reply