Punch, Kick & Strike Targets

Martial arts styles that employ kicking need specially designed kick pads and the larger kick shields on which to practice. These are a special kind of focus pad only bigger and are designed to withstand kicks. Kick pads or Thai pads usually consist of a thick, curved or straight pad with a row of arm handles attached to it. They can be soft to firm to the touch and very dense and durable and designed to take hard impact with minimal jarring to the holder. This is important especially since kicks tend to pack more force than a punch. Kick pads are a good option for fighting styles like Muay Thai and kickboxing. They come in a wide range of styles, shapes, sizes and colours including red, blue, black and pink.

Focus Mitts & Hand Held Pads
Another way to improve precision and speed is using focus mitts. Focus pads or focus mitts are a good way to practice with a moving target. Focus mitts are special boxing focus pads with a glove attached to the back. They are ergonomically designed so they are an easy way to hold a padded target for mainly boxing punches. Such martial arts targets are specially designed to absorb shock for anything from light gym use to professional use. To maximise the value of focus pads make sure a trained individual who can call out combinations wears them. In turn the puncher will be the counter force that is working on certain skills like punching combinations whilst ducking and weaving.

Training Body Protectors
Belly pads and body guard protectors are used mostly by trainers and coaches for combination target practice drills. They are often used whilst holding focus pads or kick pads so the fighter has more targets to play with. Belly pads and body guard protectors provide the most realistic body shot angles because they are worn around an actual human. Boxers favour the belly pad whilst kickboxers like the full body guard protector as there is more target area for kicking. All trainers love using the belly pads and body guard protectors because the fighter can hit them as hard as they like without the trainer feeling much at all. Also the trainer can imitate real fight situations by moving around and changing positions forcing the fighter to use his footwork, timing and accuracy and improve his angles of attack. Not hard to see why these well designed martial arts training targets available at Universal Self Defence are so popular with both the martial arts trainer and their students.