Get Yourself Into Range With Alexsandro Pereira
Finding the right distance to land strikes is something that a lot of new strikers tend to deal with. Getting into range to land your punches can be tricky, as stepping in range is usually what gets you popped by your opponent. This is where the phrase coming in behind your punches comes from. Throwing out some punches, even if you don’t intend on landing them, is a good way to get yourself in range for your harder shots.
This is something that newer fighters who are tall tend to deal with more. This is because they tend to assume that they will always be better at keeping the right range where they can land punches on their shorter opponent, but their opponent can’t hit them. This usually leads to two different situations a lot of taller fighters find themselves in. One, they stay just out of range of being able to hit because they’re scared of getting hit when they move in. Two, they keep trying to step in but keep getting caught at the end of the strike.
In this video, Alexsandro Pereira goes over how he likes to close distance behind punches and work his bigger shots from that closer range. Alexsandro Pereira is one of the most talented kickboxers in the world today. He is currently both the Glory kickboxing middleweight and interim light heavyweight champion. He is also one of the only people to hold a victory over current UFC middleweight champion, Israel Adesanya. Pereira is actually the only person to hold two victories over Adesanya, with the second victory coming by way of knockout.
Close Distance With Strikes!
Alex starts off the video talking about how simply stepping forward into range to land shots is a bad idea. This is why you need to be creative and disguise your movements to get into range. To start, Pereira starts bobbing his head and shoulders to right and to the left, kind of like how Mike Tyson used to do it. Pereira will then subtly step his back foot slightly closer to his lead without his opponent noticing. Now, you’ve probably heard that when moving forward your lead leg should move first, this is good when just normally moving forward.
Learn To Control The Fight With Strikes! Click Learn More!
But if you bring your back leg forward first to the proper position, as shown in the video, you can load up your punch. Bringing the back foot forward allows you to push off of it harder to get more power into your strike. In the video, Pereira pushes off of his back leg and throws a hard jab at his opponent.
From there, Pereira throws a rear hook making sure to twist with his hips and shoulders to get as much power as possible into the strike. From there he twists with hips and shoulders again to land a powerful lead hook to the head of his opponent.
If you liked this video and want to learn more from the Glory kickboxing double champ Alexsandro Pereira, then check out his complete video series “Total Striking Control by Alexsandro Pereira” available exclusively on Dynamic Striking!