Boxing Workouts Bring Out The Best In Your Body!
Boxing workouts greatly improve your cardio fitness while effectively burning off the calories.
Because boxing workouts involve short and intense spurts of high-energy activity it reshapes muscles, burns truckloads of calories and elevates your metabolism in a highly effective and efficient way.
Boxing gives you a full body workout that is guaranteed to get your heart pumping and those calories burning.
The biggest drawback with boxing workouts is they are physically demanding. For this reason they are not going to suit everyone, but for those who want to push themselves and enjoy a challenge boxing adds variety to your training program and gives you great results.
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Equipment Needed for Training On Your Own
I am going to focus on your training alone, as most people don’t have training partners.
When training on your own and you want to do some boxing workouts, you will want to get hold of a good punching bag that you can hang up in your garage or wherever you like to train.
A punching bag does not have to cost a lot, so look around on the internet for good deals, or check out your local sports shop. They come with various densities of filling, with their casings being canvas, plastic, leather, or some form of synthetic material.
If you want to protect your hands you can purchase some inexpensive bag gloves, or buy wraps which are designed for you to wrap around your knuckles and wrists to prevent scrapes and blisters, while supporting your wrists. Martial arts supply shops usually carry a style of padded glove, which protect your knuckles and are nice and light.
Set the punching bag up so it is at a height that allows you to punch it at head height through to low waist height punches.
Boxing Technique
It is important that you punch correctly to avoid injuring your wrists and hands.
Your stance is important. If you are right handed, stand in front of the punching bag side on with your left shoulder closest to the punching bag, with your feet a comfortable shoulder width apart.
Hold your hands at chin height with your elbows tucked in and your forearms more or less vertical.
Relax in your stance, with your knees slightly bent so that if someone tried to push you over from any direction you would not be easily pushed over.
Boxing Punches
The four main punches are –
Jab
The jab punch is used more than any other punch, with your fist being held relaxed, palm facing in, with your leading fist coming out from your chin, as quickly as you can, so it hits the bag with a loud snap.
Straight Right (Straight Left if you are left handed)
This is a powerful punch, with the power being generated by your twisting your torso, with your back adding additional power. Once again, this punch starts from your chin, without any wind-up.
Hook
You need to be quite close to the punching bag. From your starting position (guard position) where both hands are up by your chin with your elbows tucked in, transfer your weight onto your left side as you raise your left elbow so your forearm is parallel with the floor which forms your arm into a “hook” position. Then you drive your fist, palm down, into the side of the bag. (Note – The description is necessarily broken down into steps, but the punch is actually a fluid continuous motion from the commencement of your weight transfer). A hook punch can be either with your left or right arm.
Uppercut
From you guard position you dip your left shoulder, so your left elbow is close to your hip, you then drive up using the power from your legs and torso. You are not pulling your arm back for any wind up, but focusing on the power coming up through your left side into your left arm and fist.
Punching Combinations for Boxing Workouts
In boxing workouts you put together different combinations of punches. For ease of explanation, each type of punch is given a number. For example:
- Jab
- Straight Right
- Left hook
- Right Hook
- Left Uppercut
- Right Uppercut
So:
1 – 2 combination is a jab followed by a straight right
1 – 2 – 3 combination is a jab, straight right, then left hook
2 – 3 – 2 combination is a straight right, left hook, straight right
3 – 2 – 3 combination is a left hook, straight right, left hook
Note: By remembering to return to your guard (start) position after every punch you will be not only developing great boxing form, you will also be developing your agility and dexterity. Also, let your feet move naturally with each punch and keep your weight well-balanced over your feet.
Easy-to-follow Boxing Workout
So, we will now look at using those punching combinations to perform a simple and effective boxing workout.
Depending on how much skipping you choose to do, this workout will take about 30 minutes.
Remember that you can reduce this workout down as much as you want, and gradually increase the times as your cardio fitness improves.
- Warm up
- 1 to 5 minutes of skipping as suits your fitness
- Boxing – 1 to 3 minutes
- Move around the bag using the 1 – 2 combo, without too much force.
- Rest 1 minute – drink some water
- Boxing – 1 to 3 minutes
- Repeat the 1 – 2 combo, but this time put as much effort into the punches as you comfortably can
- Rest 1 minute – drink some water
- Boxing – 1 to 3 minutes
This time use the 1-2-3 combo, putting in maximum effort and continually moving around the bag.
- Rest 1 minute – drink some water
- Boxing – 1 to 3 minutes
- This time use the 2-3-2 combo, keeping up your movement around the bag
- Rest 1 minute – drink some water
- Boxing – 1 to 3 minutes
- Finish with the 3-2-3 combo, going hard out
- Cool down
- 1 to 5 minutes of skipping as suits your fitness
- Enjoy a shower!