I did not start thinking about boxing training equipment by comparing products. I started by trying to get better. At different points that meant training with a heavy bag, pads, sparring and the setup that eventually became CCBall. Each gave me something different to work on, and as my training became more detailed I became less interested in asking which piece of equipment was simply “best” and more interested in another question: what does this piece of equipment actually make me do?
“Before someone held a pad in front of me and explained the right way to strike, there was just a heavy bag and the freedom to move my limbs in whatever way I found fitting. If the ball was in a certain location and I wanted to hit it, I should be able to.”
CCBall in use: a ceiling-mounted wall-rebound target struck towards the wall, returned into the training space and dealt with again.
The heavy bag gave me somewhere to explore striking against a physical surface. CCBall introduced a smaller target whose position mattered and whose return changed what happened next. Pads and sparring brought another person into the problem. Together, those experiences gradually changed how I thought about what training equipment was actually for.
Chapter One: Learning Through Impact
The heavy bag was important to how I first explored striking because it gave me freedom. Before somebody was standing in front of me holding pads and prescribing a movement, I could simply hit something and experiment with punches, kicks, how my body moved and how I organised myself around a physical target.
Later, the way I used the heavy bag became much more specific. In April 2024, my notes show me working on snapping the bag rather than pushing through it, measuring range before throwing, tightening the fist on impact and paying much closer attention to how the punch itself was organised. The bag also exposed problems beyond the strike. When I worked on my rear hand, part of the problem was how I was closing distance. When I worked on hooks, I realised that I was not regularly getting into positions where throwing the hook made sense, which pushed the training towards footwork and transitions. Sometimes the technique itself was not the real problem. The problem was getting into a position where that technique belonged.
This describes the way I used my own heavy bag, not the limits of every heavy bag. Different bags behave differently and fighters can use them in very different ways. What matters here is the role that particular setup played in my training and what I was trying to get from it.
[Internal link: how I approached boxing footwork and positioning]
Target Shift: A Smaller Problem Appears
CCBall gave me something different to solve. It is a small striking target suspended from the ceiling and used in front of a wall. I strike it towards the wall with punches, kicks, elbows or knees, the wall provides the rebound, and the ceiling attachment keeps the target in play.
The target was much smaller than the surface I had been working against on the heavy bag, so its location mattered more. My notes captured the idea simply: if the ball was in a certain location and I wanted to hit it, I should be able to. That meant accounting for where the target was, where I was in relation to it, whether I needed to move first and whether the strike I wanted actually made sense from that position.
Once the ball hit the wall, its return changed the problem again. I could strike again, move, evade, reposition or let it pass, and my notes describe experimenting with the ball across movement, coordination, striking, kicking and defensive responses.
The distinction that mattered to me was not that heavy bags cannot move. It was more specific: in the way I was training, CCBall repeatedly made the target’s changing position part of whatever I had to solve next.
The First Crack: When Hitting Wasn’t Enough
Movement alone did not make the training useful. By April 2024, I had started criticising the way I was using the ball and asking whether what I was doing actually carried over to fighting.
I identified several problems. I could lean back or guard badly, evade without countering, fail to use enough footwork or angles, or try to force a poor strike onto the target when moving would have made more sense. I also recognised that the ball did not move like a human being and did not provide human resistance, so reacting to it did not automatically mean I was developing the timing and rhythm of another fighter.
The rule I wrote down was:
“Keep it for what it is good for, adapt where we can and identify the other aspect not trained, and train those in other ways.”
That gave me a more demanding standard for evaluating the training. Keeping the ball moving was not enough. I needed to think about what it was actually making me practise, whether the movements I was choosing made sense and which parts of fighting remained absent.
Read: whether training skills actually carry over to fighting]
Method Rebuilt: Changing the Way I Trained
The criticism changed how I used CCBall. Instead of simply watching the target directly, I experimented with keeping my visual attention closer to where an opponent would be and using peripheral vision to follow the ball. I also began paying more attention to stability, weight position, getting into the position required for a strike and how one movement affected whatever came afterwards.
The problem therefore became broader than whether I could hit the target. I was increasingly trying to get into a useful position, perform the action I wanted, deal with where the target went next and remain capable of continuing. The ball itself had not become more intelligent. What had changed was the problem I was asking myself to solve with it.
After Contact: The Problem Comes Back
This became one of the most interesting parts of CCBall for me. Much of my heavy-bag training was organised around a technical problem I had already chosen. I might work on the jab, rear hand, hook or kick and deliberately repeat that problem. Again, that reflects how I was using that particular setup rather than a universal limitation of heavy-bag training.
With CCBall, I could strike a small target towards the wall and then deal with where it returned. That return might lead into another strike, movement, an evasive action, a change of angle or no immediate response at all. The physical event was there, but the answer was not prescribed.
That gave me room to experiment. My first action could change the situation I was standing in, leaving me to decide what I wanted to do next. This is where the experience I now describe as Solo Sparring began to make more sense to me. Not because the ball had somehow become another fighter, but because the strike no longer had to be the end of the problem.
[Read: training boxing without a partner]
Human Factor: When Equipment Reaches Its Limit
There was still a clear boundary. CCBall could not reproduce another fighter, and my April 2024 notes had already identified the absence of human timing, rhythm and resistance.
In September 2024, I wrote:
“Using sparring and padworks to train rhythm and timing.”
Those forms of training presented different problems. Sparring brought another fighter’s behaviour and decisions into the exchange, while pads gave me another way of working with somebody on specific technical questions. By November 2024, for example, I planned to use pads during biomechanical training to focus more closely on the angle at which my kicks landed.
The point was not to make CCBall imitate every part of fighting. It was to become clearer about the particular problem I wanted it to give me when I was training alone, while recognising the things that required another person.
Where Training Lives
There was also a practical side to all of this. During home fight preparation in 2024, my notes record days training outside with the heavy bag and other sessions inside with the coordination ball and pads. I later became reluctant to train outside because of the circumstances around me and found that training inside worked better during that period.
Equipment has to work in the place where you actually intend to use it. Space, noise, setup and access can all affect whether training is realistic on a particular day. For me, CCBall gave me a physical striking target that I could use inside the spaces where I was already living and training, and that practical fit contributed to the amount of time I spent with it.
That does not mean every compact piece of equipment is useful or every larger setup is impractical. It simply adds another question to the buying decision: even if a tool can train something valuable, does it fit the way and place in which you are actually going to train?
[Read: choosing martial arts equipment for home training]
The Equipment Test: What Does It Make You Do?
Looking back through my notes, I was gradually asking more from training equipment than whether I could simply hit it. The way I used the heavy bag gave me somewhere to investigate strikes, range, mechanics and positioning around a physical surface. CCBall gave me a smaller moving target whose location changed after contact. Pads gave me another person to work with on specific technical problems, while sparring introduced another fighter’s behaviour and decisions.
The principle I wrote in 2024 captures the distinction:
Keep it for what it is good for. Identify what it does not train. Train those things in other ways.
For somebody choosing boxing training equipment, I think that leads to a more useful question than looking for one universal winner: what will this piece of equipment actually make you practise?
Does it make you account for distance? Does your position matter? Does the target change? Does your own action create another problem? Are you choosing the next movement, or has the drill already chosen it for you?
Those became more useful questions in my own training than simply asking which tool was best.
CCBall: The Problem I Chose to Keep
That is where CCBall now fits.
CCBall is a ceiling-mounted wall-rebound striking trainer built around a small physical target. I strike it towards the wall, the wall sends it back, and the changing position of the target becomes part of what I have to deal with next. Depending on that return, I can strike again, move, reposition, evade or choose another response.
For me, that creates a particular kind of solo training problem: my action changes the target, and then I have to deal with the situation I helped create.
It does not reproduce another fighter, and it is not intended to replace sparring, coaching or every other form of boxing training. Its role is more specific than that. It is the part of my own training that I have spent years using, criticising and adapting, and which I now want to turn into a finished piece of striking equipment.
The strike creates the return, and the return gives me another problem to solve. What I do with that problem is still up to me.
CCBall is currently being developed towards its first production launch. If that is the kind of training problem you want to add to your own training, join the CCBall preorder list at ccball.co.uk.
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