Boxing and marital arts offer superb body co-ordination and evasion training as you have to practice moving your body so as not to get hit just as much as you seek to hit your target. Because of this aerobic factor, boxing, for example, has moved beyond the youth boxing clubs and is now a more common feature of some health clubs.
Boxing practice is a great way to burn fat and develop lean muscle mass, especially nowadays when so many of us are inclined to overeat. When someone eats too much the excess calories are stored as fat. In order to convert the fat to energy it is necessary to engage in some form of physical activity. Boxing is an excellent solution. It is so much more enjoyable than jogging or simply working out in a gym, and you also get an opportunity to take out your stress on the punch-bag!
As part of your boxing routine you should also include skipping and medicine ball practice for further aerobic and strength building work.
How many days a week should you train? Twice or three times a week is sufficient for ordinary purposes of improving overall health, weight regulation and aerobic fitness. Taking up boxing as a method of weight control is a pretty straightforward procedure. All you need is time, a desire to improve and the persistence to see it through two or three times a week. Do that and you will obtain some good results.
While it is true that a lot of boxing practice actually involves equipment training more than punching, some form of sparring practice is recommended in order to get the full benefit out of your boxing training. For this reason a gym that features boxing workouts, or a dojo where you can practice mixed martial arts, boxing kung fu or something similar, are ideal for this sort of training.
However, if for some reason you are unable to attend a gym or sign up to a dojo, you can easily practice most aspects of a boxing regime at home. You can easily set up a punch-bag. Hitting a heavy bag will still a very beneficial part of your aerobic workout.
What you would most likely be missing out on by not attending a gym would be the chance to spar with a partner. One of the great benefits of having a sparring partner is that it makes you focus. You also have to deal with a higher level of unpredictability as your partner throws a variety of punches that come at you at different velocities and trajectories and from different angles.
But, even without the benefits of a sparring partner, boxing training, whether undertaken by yourself at home, or in a gym, offers an excellent method of improving your strength, stamina, co-ordination and aerobic condition, while at the same time helping you to shed excess body fat.
Shadow boxing is often looked at as just a warm up before the actual boxing workout. How very untrue this is! Shadow boxing no doubt serves to warm and prep the body for the upcoming workout.More importantly though, shadow boxing helps you to groove the skills you have been taught by your boxing coach in your boxing training workouts. It also serves as a tool to hone your own unique fighting style. If you think it's just throwing punches to break a sweat, you're going about it the wrong way.
When you're shadow boxing, It is best to shadow box in front of a mirror where you can monitor your technique that has been taught to you. I often say... the mirror doesn't lie. Once you know what to look for, it's impossible to have bad technique in front of the mirror! Unless of course you just don't care or aren't really focusing and putting your all into it. Shadow boxing is when you can better groove the new skills your trainer has been teaching you. Skill retention is a lot better when you shadow box in front of the mirror grooving good skill.
If you really focus on what you're doing while shadow boxing, progression is heightened. Your boxing coach won't have to yell at you so much to stop dropping your hands when you're working the bags. He will be very pleased to see your fast progression due to your commitment of solid technique when shadow boxing. Boxers can so all they want that they have been putting in the extra work shadow boxing, good technique will be the telling sign and truth to the coach that the fighter has indeed been putting in the work.
Great fighters will tell you that when they shadow box and move around they envision real situations that may come up in the ring. They think about another fighter being in front of them firing back and moving away. From offensive combos, to defensive tactics, all is covered. Boxers are continually focusing focusing on what an opponent can possibly do while shadow boxing. That is why some boxing coaches call shadow boxing shadow sparring. It looks like the fighter is boxing an invisible opponent.
Look at an experienced fighters body language and eyes when doing this. It shows they are in a different world. Indeed they are, a world where they see themselves dominating. You wonder why these fighters get so good? Because they see themselves doing it first. The mind can't tell the difference from something it is experiencing or imagining. That's why this secret is so important to apply. Your boxing performance will improve very quickly when you practice shadow boxing in this manner.
Now think about that the next time you shadow box or shadow spar.
Both David Hurley & Rob Pilger are contributors for EditorialToday. The above articles have been edited for relevancy and timeliness. All write-ups, reviews, tips and guides published by EditorialToday.com and its partners or affiliates are for informational purposes only. They should not be used for any legal or any other type of advice. We do not endorse any author, contributor, writer or article posted by our team.
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