Double End Bag Vs. Reflex Bag – What are the Differences?

Both double end bags and reflex bags are way less popular than many other boxing equipment. There are even people who did not touch these after a year of boxing training.

However, considering the popularity these are vastly underrated and any boxer, martial artist should train with them regularly if they want to improve various skills.

Below you can read all the similarities and differences between reflex and double end bags and if you want to invest only one of them, you will have a pretty good idea after reading the article.

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• The Similarities
• The Differences

Similarities

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Accuracy

Considering the heavy bags, the areas of reflex bags and double end bags are way smaller and these also move quite fast. So punching these is way more challenging than punching the heavy bags. Punching them consistently improves the accuracy so you can pinpoint the target.

Footwork

Both of them swing quite fast however these also let you do footwork.

You can practice dragging your feet and how to ground yourself during various defense and attack positions.

Shortly, both are great for doing footwork.

Reflex

After you punch them these will come back and if you don’t block or punch these at the right time these hit back. So while training your reflexes are tested over and over again. In that way, you will improve reflexes and on top of that, after a certain point, flinching will not be an issue at all. So boxers flinch less during matches and this alone can make the difference between winning and losing.

In order to have a good rhythm and session, punching them at the right time is necessary for your session to go on smoothly and while you try doing that, your reflex improves.

Defense

As you read above these do hit back and training with both of these bags improve blocking with elbows and foot positioning for defense as well. In that regard, these basically provide the same thing.

With that being said, the only little difference between them is that the double end bag comes at you from a lot of different angles. So it is way harder to block and you can expect to get hit every now and then.

Considering that no other essential training tool provides this, working on your defensive skills is just priceless with these bags.

Timing

Well, you need to punch these bags at the right time so these can swing “right”. Also, you need to be sharp during these sessions so you can do that. These help you be sharp all the time during matches and sparring so you can punch your opponent’s head even when you see a little opening or evade from your opponent’s punches etc.

Actually, these boxing training tools are used widely for improving timing by many athletes including professional basket players who want to improve ball stealing ability.

Timing is crucial for any martial artist out there and it also benefits people who have focusing issues as well.

Physical Improvement

You just can’t build big muscles with either of those. Even though double end bags provide more resistance it is not much. So building big muscles is out of the question with either of these.

With that being said, in order to have a good rhythm, you need to punch these more frequent than heavy bags.

So what does this provide?

Your muscles are under constant tension more during the workout and it stimulates the muscles tissues around shoulder and arm more. Thanks to that, these muscles will be more toned.

Interestingly enough I met a bunch of people, who do this training to achieve this look, in boxing gyms. This provides a separation between your shoulder and arm muscles which many people find it just awesome. So when you see a bodybuilder who constantly punches these bags in boxing gyms, you can be sure that he craves that muscle separation.

How many calories do you burn? According to forums and the punch tracker results in commercial gyms, you can burn 280 calories per classic double end bag or reactor bag session. I honestly would not practice with these bags for cardio but hey it is not bad at all.

Shortly, these are not really different about fitness related goals.

Differences

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Shape

These both have different shapes and sizes. Reflex bags like Century tend to be cylindrical and long whereas double end bags have round, teardrop shapes. While punching or blocking, this makes a difference and even though one may be quite good at blocking double end bags when this person starts training with a reactor bag for the first time he will probably have a hard time to control the bag.

Skill Development

This one is the most important criterion when I decide to buy a boxing equipment. I always ask the question that can I develop my skills effectively with a particular product.

This is where the double end bag shines as you can adjust the speed and the position of it. If you want it to be fast, you can make the cord tighter or you can make it loose so it swings slowly. When it is loose, you can practice blocking from more angles. Obviously, when this is the case, you can also punch it from different angles and practice every punching technique. Also, keep in mind that it is one of a few boxing tools which provides you to practice uppercuts.

Basically, double end bags provide quite good versatility for everything whereas reflex bags don’t provide much.

So the double end bag is just a more complete training tool and it is ideal for people who look for optimal results.

Check out these Double End Bags

Which One Is Easy to Install?

Well, if you buy a reflex bag, you just need to put the body of the bag to the base. That is it. Then you are ready to pound the bag. It also does not need to be taken care of frequently as well. If you wipe the dust once in a while, it will be enough.

With that being said, it takes a while to install a double end bag as you need to deal with swivels, screws… In addition to, that every couple of months changing a bladder is a must for many double end bags so it can have a good bounce rate throughout the session.

Price

I only consider higher end double end bags and reactors bags here as the cheap ones have the same prices.

The used material is more for reflex bags and considering that it has a base and on the top of that, it should be filled with sand, reflex bags are pricier than the double end bags.

Considering all of these, if I had to choose one, I would choose double end bag as it offers more versatility and it is more suitable for improving skills.

Alright, after reading all of these you learned pretty much everything about the topic. However, checking out visual representation is a really good idea to observe everything which you read above.

You can check out a proper double end bag session below. However, don’t be discouraged that when you won’t punch the bag like that after a few months. This guy has some serious skills and you can expect to reach this level after a year of proper training.

Check out a proper reflex bag training below.

As you can see, even though these boxing training tools have lots of similarities these also have some small but important differences which can make one a better choice for your particular goal. Above I covered everything related to reflex bag vs. double end bag topic however if you have anything to add or ask about it, feel free to drop your comments below.

Image Courtesy of MartialArtsNomad.com, HANSCOM AIR FORCE BASE via Creative Commons License, Some Rights Reserved