Boxing Dummies

[Battle*Hound]

anybody have experience with century bob or any other dummy they would recommend?

http://www.centurymartialarts.com/Training_Bags/Body_Opponent_Bag/BOB_Body_Opponents_Bags_XL.aspx

[Wiggity]

I boxed for a a few years in college, I'd completely forego the dummy and get a heavy bag

[p7fl]

15 years ago purchased one of the basic kicking/boxing bags with a water filled base.
Used it in my home gym with other heavy and speed bags.
Found it pretty useless. The center post is hard so any penetration encounters a nasty middle.
The top bag often lifted off the post.
The base bounces and moves around oddly, so follow ups didn’t have any rhythm
Probably OK for kids.
A friend uses one for practicing strikes with his walking stick.
But, they have sold a zillion of these types of bags so I could be missing some positives.

[Battle*Hound]

thanks for the input.

I had used a bag a bit in the past but there is something about this dummy that just makes me want to beat him!! They say it can hold 260lbs of weight in the base.

[Striker]

thanks for the input.

I had used a bag a bit in the past but there is something about this dummy that just makes me want to beat him!! They say it can hold 260lbs of weight in the base.

I've used one and it's ok. I don't really think you gain much over using a bag that looks like a bag. Maybe a couple of angles or practicing upper cuts or straight kicks to the chin. Other than that, really it's just a bag. But if you think it will motivate you, why not. I've hit one hard enough to make it move and for as far as the round base making it move around oddly, I'm ok with that because when you're fighting someone you constantly need to adjust to their movement. If a bag on a base moves in an odd direction, I simply adjust to it just as I would in a ring or a cage. And hitting the center post in the middle doesn't bother me. There's a bag on a stand at my current gym and I've hit the center post hard and bruised my hands even with 4oz gloves on, but when I use to fight I would hit hard surfaces and kick trees in preparation to get my hands,forearms, shins and feet in fighting condition, so it's not a big concern to me. Hope that helps.

[C.Edwards]

I'm a little partial since I am a dealer for Century. I like the BOB and even better the BOB XL, but only if used on a mat or carpet. Mine sits on a hard floor and even with the base cover it moves around to much and is very loud. I like the texture it is made out of and it is extremely durable. Depending on my mood I will either use mma gloves or no gloves YMMV.

[will_1400]

I'm not a fan of the B.O.B. for several reasons, the main ones being I've broken a couple of them in relatively short order and I don't see how they offer any kind of advantage over a traditional heavy bag or a conventionally-shaped free-standing bag. One thing I did find is that filling the base with water didn't add enough weight to the base to keep me from having to stop and pick up the bag every few heavy hits (water base weighed about 200 or so pounds) so I switched to using sand in the base (weight just about doubled to the 400 pound range, but filling the base was messy as hell) to make sure I didn't have to chase the thing all the time when trying to work power and technique.

As others have said, YMMV and this is only my experience with a small sample size of 2 B.O.B.s, 2 conventionally shaped free-standing bags, and several tradtional heavy bags.