If you’ve been looking for a fitness routine that delivers an excellent cardio workout, is good for weight loss, and, most importantly, isn’t boring, you may start thinking about boxing. Is boxing a good workout, and if so, why?
We’ve all seen professional boxers. They look superfit with strong, muscular builds, but that’s because they spend hours training. What can boxing do for the rest of us who don’t want to make a career out of it?
Stepping into the ring as a heavyweight champion is a long way from the average person looking to lose a few pounds or improve their fitness. Fortunately, boxing is a great activity anybody can get into, so here’s why boxing is a great workout for building fitness and winning the battle of the bulge by a knockout.
9 Reasons Why Boxing is an Excellent Workout
Boxing provides far-reaching benefits for health and fitness, but here are our favourite reasons we think you should consider taking up boxing as an exercise.
1. Boxing Reduces the Grind
Many other types of exercises become a daily grind that makes it difficult to stay motivated. It’s hard to get excited about hitting the pavement on a cold Melbourne morning or heading to the gym to lift an endless series of weights.
When you do running, swimming, or weight lifting, there isn’t much variety to keep you excited about your routine. Boxing is different because it incorporates a variety of exercises that keep you from getting bored.
Your boxing coach could have you jumping rope and doing pad work one day and callisthenics (bodyweight exercises), HIIT, and sparring the next. We’re not saying boxing training is easy, but a mix of different routines ensures you are motivated and always looking forward to your sessions.
2. Sleep Better
Any type of exercise can improve sleep quality. Studies show that people who exercise regularly get more and better-quality sleep on average than those who don’t. Intense activity releases endorphins, which are hormones that help regulate mood and make us feel good.
When you feel good, stress and anxiety are less likely to keep you up at night with your mind racing from one thought to the next.
Vigorous exercise improves blood circulation, delivering a full range of benefits to the mind and body. Intense workouts like HIIT are physically tiring, which will help you fall asleep faster. So, a boxing session after work might be the best thing for you if you’ve been feeling stressed and having trouble sleeping.
3. Regulate Your Moods and Reduce Stress
Boxing is a great workout for the mind and body because it can also improve your mental health. Studies have shown that just 15 minutes of moderately intense exercise can improve your mood by triggering the release of endorphins, which are like the brain’s natural antidepressants.
4. Mental Health Benefits
Being a competent boxer requires intense mental focus. A good boxer is task-oriented and lives in the moment.
Focusing on your speed, balance, power, and footwork helps to reduce your stress levels because you are present in the moment and the stresses of the day no longer have a hold on your emotions.
Boxing demands a lot from you mentally and physically, but the benefits are worth it, and there aren’t many sports as accessible as boxing that can compare.
5. Boxing Burns More Calories
Boxing is a good workout for losing weight because you can burn a lot of calories in a short time. The routines performed during boxing training can burn off significantly more calories than other forms of exercise.
An average boxing session of 20 minutes to half an hour will burn off almost 500 calories, but it can depend on what you are doing that day. For example, a vigorous session on the heavy punching bag can shred through almost 1,000 calories in as little as 20 minutes to half an hour.
6. Boxing Works Every Muscle Group
Even when you are just throwing punches, hitting something like a heavy bag with as much force as possible requires more than just your arms; it engages your entire body. Plus, a typical training session at the boxing gym could include pushups, situps, high-intensity training, jump rope, speed bags, and heavy bags.
7. Boxing Boosts Your Endurance
It will only take a few weeks of high-intensity boxing training to start seeing results. One of the first things you will notice when boxing regularly is an improvement in your endurance levels.
Intense workouts increase your oxygen intake, improve your cardiac capacity, and increase your lactate threshold. These are all great physical attributes that will carry over into regular life to keep you mentally alert and energised all day.
8. Increase Muscle Mass and Core Strength
Punching power is a culmination of forces from your entire body, but a lot of the energy will come from your core. Training to punch with more force builds your leg strength, core strength, and upper body strength, which are all essential for balance and endurance.
A lot of the aches and pains associated with getting older are caused by a loss of muscle mass. We all naturally lose muscle mass as we age, which is often to blame for bad backs, sore knees, and aching feet.
Boxing training builds lean muscle, effectively delaying the effects of ageing and keeping you feeling more youthful for longer. Lean muscle also boosts your metabolism, which is your body’s ability to use food, amino acids, or fatty tissues to produce energy. The faster your metabolism, the more calories your body will burn, even when sitting still.
9. Improve Balance and Eye-Hand Coordination
Boxing will improve your overall balance and hand-eye coordination. An average boxing match will see you changing your stance many times, and good balance during these moments is critical.
Balance in regular life has advantages as well because it helps you maintain a good posture. Good hand-eye coordination improves boxing performance but it also translates to other life activities like driving. People with highly developed hand-eye coordination typically have excellent reflexes and reaction times, which can come in handy while driving.
As you can see, the benefits of boxing are many and will carry over to help you in your regular life. It delivers cardiovascular benefits and enhances mental acuity. The conditioning exercises that are often a part of boxing training will improve weight loss and slow down the effects of aging. If you are considering taking up boxing for fitness call today to find out more about how it can improve your life.