You are probably tired of spending wasted money on gym membership only to be in same shape of your life year after year. I mean who can blame you, I was a personal trainer before to my surprise not everyone know how to even use each machine. Those machines seems complicated to navigate, don’t you agree?
You most likely have turned up for fitness classes you barely have any structure program, as these classes cater to the phrase ‘monkey see monkey do’. The few things I love about boxing is a sport and skills that is transferrable from any level. It cater to complete beginner to professional.
For boxing, you can practice all of the skills and drills and not have to get involved in any professional fights. The most important factor of learning any skills, you want to enjoy it (well for the most part). Boxing is so much fun, it does not required expensive gym membership, it can be done anywhere, outdoor and indoor. Boxing is a full body workout, you build stamina, power, speed and it keep your mind focus. It also another way of releasing tension. Talk about stress hormones that wreck your body, boxing helps you releases endorphin (when body releases those stress hormones).
I’m going to explain to you what you can do to change your fitness routine where you can begin anywhere, yes even in comfort of your home, you just need some space. Below are 6 simple steps for you to start your own boxing workout.
1) Jump Rope
Before you start, it’s necessary to measure the length of the rope. Hold both end of the rope in each hand, step on the middle of the rope with 1 foot. The end of the rope that you are holding, make sure it’s underneath your armpit. If it is higher than that, you need to adjust or shorten the rope by simply tying a knot. Anything longer might cause you getting caught in between your skip which going to make you not have a good flow of skip.
You will get frustrated if this keep happening. So make sure, get the length of your jump rope is ideally as what I mention before. Skip the jump rope with 5 skip first, increase it to 10 the next. I would say skip till you get to 30 skips, this will already get your height.
Start slow and increase the measure results.*If you have never jump rope before, leave the jump rope aside. Here is your other option, keep both feet close, keep both knee soft and slowly bounce on the ball of your feet while rotating your wrist. This will help you mimics the movement of jumping rope. Just by doing the movement keep you in rhythm.
2) Stance
There are 2 kind of stance. Southpaw OR Orthodox. So which one are you going to be using? Typically when you are right hand dominant in other areas of your life for like (writing, opening a drawer, answering call, texting) , your left foot is forward and your right foot is at the back. This is what is name orthodox stance. Southpaw is right hand and right foot is forward. In general we like to say “southpaw” is a person who is left-handed. The image below is a southpaw stance!
Your Feet should be slightly more than shoulder width apart. Imagine there is a line in between your feet. Your front foot should be far enough ahead of your back foot that you can shift your weight when
throwing a punch but close enough to maintain your balance. Keep both knee bent this allow the feet to relax instead of “locked position”. Be sure that you are on the ball of your feet.
Hand, Chin, Fist
Close your hand and make it a fist, place it next to your chin. Your chin should not be up or looking straight (imagine there is a tennis ball in between your chin and neck), your eyes should be able to see your eyebrow. Relax your shoulder, it should be relax. Your neck will be stronger if you keep your chin down. Keep your elbow tuck next to your rib cage.
3)Footwork
This is one of the skill that is often overlooked by every trainer, coaches. Boxing fundamentals goes back to footwork and how smooth.
Let’s start with moving forward. Lead with your front foot follow and your back foot will have to follow through.If you are moving back, your back foot move back and front foot follow through
If you are moving to the right, your right foot step out first and your left foot follow.
If you are moving to the left, your left foot step to the side first and right foot follow.
Your feet needs to move together, if one foot moves the other move. It is that simple. Whether you are moving front, back, right or left, keep your knees bent and always be on the ball of your foot. Go ahead and set a timer for 3 minutes while moving.
4)Punches
Jap – means your lead hand will bring it forward, exhale as you throw a jap, your hip might rotate in a little. Bring your lead hand to your chin, keep your elbow tight to your rib cage. bring your back hand forward, rotate your hip inwards as you pivot on your back foot. Bring your right hand back to your chin.
5) Hook-
Hook can be thrown by either by lead hand or rear hand. As you throw your lead hand, shift your body weight to the lead foot, rotate your torso, pivot on your lead foot. Sometimes it depends on how comfortable you are and your style, you may not have to pivot your lead foot.
6) Uppercut
This technique comes from underneath aiming to your opponent’s jaw. If you going to make right uppercut, move your weight on the rightfoot and twist the shoulders and hip inwards to the left, bring your right fist towards above your “opponent chin” (imagine there is one in front of you)
All the above are basic skills for you to start out to learn how to box. You can challenge yourself by practicing each technique on different days. If you want to get better, I would suggest you have to place a mirror that you watch yourself or you can take a video of your own practice. You can always go further by putting a timer of 3 minute and see how well you can do.
That is it for boxing simple and basic. There are more skills and drills on boxing which I will be explaining in another post. Whichever technique you are working on, always keep your hands up, tuck your chin in and elbow close to your body. You want to make sure you are relax and have a lot of fun with it!