Everlast Hyperflex Strike Bag Review

Everlast 2264G Hyperflex Strike Bag Review

Brand

Originally founded in 1910, Everlast have been a big name in the boxing world for many years. They’re now one of the most widely known USA boxing brands, with gear lines for boxing, mixed martial arts, and fitness related sporting goods.

About the Bag

The Everlast Hyperflex Strike Bag is what’s referred to as a reflex bag. Reflex bags are essentially a small punch bag mounted on a pole, with a spring at the bottom. This spring means that when you punch, it will momentarily swing away, before swinging back towards you. As such, using a reflex bag is a good training tool for setting a rhythm and using your reactions to strike at the correct time.

The Hyperflex Strike Bag is Everlast’s attempt to make a more premium, versatile reflex bag. Not only are the materials a fairly high quality, but they’ve given the bag two springs at the top and bottom of the pole. On top of that, both springs are capable of ‘locking’ in place. This set-up means that you can have the pivot point at the top, the bottom, or both.

The bag comes with an adjustable height. You can either increase or decrease the height of the pole, which means that you can customise it to yourself a little. My measurements worked out that the bag can be adjusted 4’8″ and 5’6″. When using a reflex bag you usually want the bag to be around chin level for a realistic training, but a little higher or lower isn’t an issue. That probably means it’s a bit too tall for kids, but anyone teenager or older should have no problem using it.

Visuals

In my opinion the Everlast Hyperflex is one of the best looking Reflex bags on the market. That doesn’t necessarily mean the bag is better, but style is a definite factor for a lot of people. I think a lot of that is down to the subtle colour choices that differentiate it from just ‘black and silver’ . The bag itself is coloured in a cool grey, with the Everlast logo and ‘hyperflex’ written vertically.

The top spring is then covered with a grey foam sleeve. As well as looking way nicer than an exposed spring, it actually helps prevent any injuries or glove wear if you misplace a punch. The pole is then half silver and half black, which again has ‘Hyperflex written down it in white and yellow.

Materials/Craftsmanship

Moving on from visuals, when we start to look at the materials it’s clear again that Everlast have tried to put together a really nice product. The actual bag is a fairly dense foam, which has quite a firm resistance, while not feeling ‘hard’ to hit. This is a huge improvement from many reflex bags which come with empty bags that you pump with air. Having it be a foam bag means there’s even less maintenance that needs doing. Hitting the foam bag also has a little more resistance and weight.

We’ve already mentioned a few details about the springs and adjustability. What I will add however is that both the pole and springs seem very sturdy. This certainly isn’t a ‘flimsy’ product.

use

Set up

The base is a hard plastic dome which needs filling with either water or sand. The hole you use to fill it is actually situated directly underneath the base of the pole. When the base is filled, you screw the pole in place with 4 screws. While this is nice and secure, it does make it hard to empty out the base. Don’t plan on this being easy to empty and store away. If you’re buying this for use at home, it definitely needs a permanent spot in a garage or training area.

I actually found this base fairly awkward to fill. I opted to fill it with water. Everlast tell you it should be filled with 40 litres of water. If you were to measure and transfer it with jugs or similar, you’d be there for a ridiculous amount of time. Instead I’d suggest you use a garden hose or similar, but there’s then no way to measure the amount of water used. Just inside the filling hole is a flat surface, which then flows off in multiple directions to the sides. Water flows into these holes naturally, but I can only imagine that trying to fill the base with sand would take forever. Not to mention it seems like it would be impossible to completely empty sand out again.

Boxing

Once your base is filled, and you have the height adjusted to your preference, there are then three options for how you want to train, depending on whether you lock either of the springs.

Bottom spring

So the first method of training with the Everlast Hyperflex is by locking the top spring so that only the bottom spring moves. Training like this is pretty similar to using any other reflex bag. I quite like training this way. The bag has quite a straight swing, and will fly straight back at you. This allows you to predict it’s movement and practice moving around, or just timing your strikes. The biggest issue is that the bag has a pretty slow swing speed.

What this means is if you hit the bag with a moderate amount of power, the bag will take a moment to swing back up to you. I find this makes it really hard to get into a good rhythm. You really have to focus on light strikes if you want to get any sort of regular boxing speed.

Top spring

The second method of training with the Everlast Hyperflex is by locking the bottom spring so that only the top spring moves. This gives you a static pole with a bag that pivots around it. This is quite an unusual one to me, and almost feels like an upside-down speed bag.

Using the bag like this gives a super quick speed, but you really can’t hit hard at all. If you try to hit with any real power, you’ll end up pushing the whole bag over. As this swings so fast it does work out quite nicely for real fast drills where you’re just lightly hitting the bag.

Both Springs

Finally, you can use the Everlast Hyperflex with both springs unlocked, so the bag has two pivot points. This is by far the most unique way of using the bag. The fact you have two pivot points, both moving at different speeds, makes the bag swing back up at you in a much more unpredictable way. I find using the bag like this really challenges your accuracy, because the bag itself doesn’t always travel at a consistent speed. You really have to focus.

This added randomness does mean that I find this really satisfying for practising footwork and evasion. When you hit the bag and let it swing back on you, it becomes a slight challenge to time your slipping, which feels a little closer to a real opponent.

Other points

The only real issue I’ve had with the Everlast Hyperflex is the base moving when hitting too hard. I think the water in the base just wasn’t heavy enough. I think this would be easily rectified if the base was filled with sand rather than water.

Overall I feel like where this bag has tried to add variety, it instead finds itself torn between two extremes. Depending on your set up, the bag’s springs either feel like they move too fast or two slow, and personally I’d have loved to see a mid-point. If the top spring was slightly lower on the pole, it would have provided a nice swing, acting almost like a ‘cobra’ bag.

That’s obviously just down to personal preference, and if you’re planning on a light training session based on punch timing and accuracy, then this it a great little training tool.

Cost

Reflex bags are something that can be found pretty cheap, and this is definitely a slightly more premium product. In the UK this can usually be found at around the £70 mark. For a reflex bag that’s not cheap, however I really can’t say that you don’t get your money’s worth. If you have a higher budget or were kitting out a gym, then I’d probably suggest you look into a Cobra bag. But if you’re looking for a solid bag for your home gym and can’t hang a proper heavy bag, then this would be a great little training tool to invest in.

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