4 Things You Can Do TODAY to Improve Your Boxing Workout

It doesn't matter how long you have been do this for, you can always get better at boxing and always improve your workout. Whether you are just starting or have been doing this for a while and maybe feel plateau'd, these tips are guaranteed to help. But you have to take the steps yourself. Here are 4 ways you can improve your boxing workout and become a better boxer at the same time. And you can do all of these things TODAY!

1.) Change Your Style - There are many different ways you can approach boxing from an aerobic/anaerobic standpoint. Some people are more steady state, non-stop punching with the occasional break. Others go for more power punches, with more rest and more time in between punches in a combo. There are many more permutations but what will be the most effective and efficient, from a workout perspective (as well as more authentic to boxing), are what I like to call explosive bursts. You explode into a combo, with speed, suddenness and power. Power in terms of maximal force in a minimal amount of time. Every punch has a snapping/whipping effect, not a tap or a push. If you execute combos like this, you can take plenty of time in between and you still are going to burn more calories and push your cardio than just going non-stop at a less explosive clip. I know some people think they must constantly keep punching to get the best workout but it is not necessarily true. Explosiveness is what makes a punch something entirely different than just moving your body. And even if you still don't believe me, try it anyway. Mix it up. See what happens.

2.) Add Footwork, Feints and Head Movement - Just because you aren't punching the bag does not mean you are resting or not boxing. Boxing is far more than just throwing punches. Not just the sport, the workout part of it too. What I see a lot is that someone throws the last punch of a combo and then everything stops. Even if you're one of those grinders that never stops punching, I still see this, even for split seconds and split seconds matter. Imagine you are fighting a person, not hitting a heavy bag. As soon as the last punch in a combo lands, that person is firing right back at you so either need to move your heard, your feet, your hands or all three!  This doesn’t have to be anything crazy either. Keep it small at first. If the combo is jab-cross-lead hook-cross, as soon as you throw that last cross, step out or roll out. Can you rest then? No! Again, you are not fighting a bag. You are fighting a person and there is no real resting until the referee says so. Keep moving, throw the combo again so long as you can do it with explosiveness mentioned in Tip #1, do something. Try adding this in to your next class and see how tired you get. Even just staying on your toes and never going into a relaxation mindset makes a huge difference.

3.) Use Your Entire Body to Throw Punches -  I could go on and on about form - better form equals a better workout for sure - but this particular thing is huge. Almost all of us could engage our lower body more to throw punches. Sometimes I will walk around class and see everybody's lower half totally static. Don't get me wrong though, this isn't easy. I can give you a million tips on how to push off of the ground, how to turn hips, shift your weight from one foot to the other, etc. but the number one best way to start engaging your lower body to throw punches is to be mindful of it the entire time. As the goal is to throw a punch with more explosiveness, ask yourself how your lower half can help and conversely, don't look to your upper half to increase the force. Why do this at all? Because your legs are always going to be stronger than your arms. Ever tried walking on your hands before? It's not easy but most us manage to walk around on our legs just fine all day. More explosive power equals more exertion, which means more cardio. Plus, you're using so many more muscles. Not just the ones in your legs either but the core and glutes as well to coordinate the movement. More muscles used equals more more muscles strengthened as well as more cardio again. You are also building more base level skills too. Balance, agility, and coordination. Don't forget about skills when working out. Most folks are looking to get tone, lose weight, feel stronger, not get tired so easily but trainable skills like the ones I just mentioned will not only help facilitate those goals but also come in handy for any other physical activity that you do, exercise or otherwise.

4.) Get Out of Your Comfort Zone - This will likely need to be your very first step, if you want to make Tips 1-3 happen. You have to be willing to try something new, even if it's just an upped intensity level. It's not easy. And for something like #2, you may even feel silly at first or worry that you are not doing it right, other people think it's weird, etc. I'm here to tell you a couple of things about that: First is that you won't look silly, doing it wrong is okay and how you learn to do it right, no one's really looking at you on the bag and second, who cares anyway? This is about you getting better and taking the next step that I would bet dollars to donuts that you are ready for. Maybe you've been boxing for a while and gotten to a certain level and haven't had to break out of your comfort zone yet so why rock the boat now? Because what got you here won’t necessarily get you there. This is why people tend to plateau in just about any workout. They improve to a certain point and get comfortable. Or maybe they were comfortable to begin with. Doesn't mean they have to do something entirely different. It's often just a tweak in their training style. And it often means hard work! Using Tip #2 as an example again, if you try moving constantly after your last punch, you are going to get far more tired and you're body will want to settle down and recover. That's where the challenge comes in. But if you are up for the challenge, that is also where the positive change will happen too. 

I used to worry about gassing out in group classes. Working so hard and looking strong at first but then getting so tired, I was weak at the end. I knew I shouldn't care about what other people thought of me, if they even did think of me, but I did and couldn't help it. Then I asked myself why. Why did I want to look good in front of them and never look weak or tired? Really because I wanted to just generally be awesome and doing it front of people generally cemented that awesomeness. Silly maybe, but still true. Then I asked myself how I was going to get to that level of awesomeness without pushing myself to that point where I was too tired and couldn't feel as strong and comfortable as I would normally like. You may have different questions and feelings than I do but I think talking to yourself like this is a good exercise if you're looking for motivation. Maybe even ask them out loud and answer them yourself in a public setting, like Gollum/Smeagol kind of thing. Again, out of the comfort zone!

How Many Calories Do You Burn While Boxing???

 

People often ask me this question. A cursory search over the internet will give plenty of different answers. If you were to look up what exercise burns the most calories, you would get many more answers still. Boxing is at the top of many of those lists but it's all very subjective. What kind of boxing are they referring to? Shadow boxing, mitts, heavy bag, sparring? And in what kind of format - rounds, rests, reps, etc.? Oh, and what about the intensity level?  You can go super light, super heavy, in quick explosive bursts with some rest in between, non-stop at more of a steady state clip and everything else in between. There is also such a thing as "afterburn", where types of  exercises (HIIT mainly) will continue to burn calories several hours after that exercise. While it's debated just how significant this afterburn effect really is, it does exist on some level but rarely factored into studies about how many calories different exercises burn per session.

What's even more subjective than that though, is YOU. We all have different body types, different metabolisms, different athletic abilities, different levels of accommodation to the exercise and plenty of other factors that will determine how hard we are able to work and how many calories we will burn in a given period of time. 

Most people who are curious about calorie burn are usually looking for some kind of weight loss. The original, basic metric was that humans need to create a caloric deficit (burn more than we take in) of 3,500 calories to lose 1 pound of weight. We now generally believe that it's far more complex than this. Even ignoring all the scientific research, this has to be true, right? If you were able to consistently burn more calories than you took in for years and years, what would happen? You would drop down to your birth weight? Fade away into nothingness? Of course your body will not allow those things to happen. This is where the metabolism kicks in. If you have a lot of excess weight and suddenly start dieting and exercising intelligently, your body will likely follow the 3500 Rule relatively closely for a while, probably even for a long while depending how you are doing both of those things. But then your body starts to get used to it and metabolisms change. This is one reason why no matter how much weight you are looking to lose, I would never recommend cutting too many calories too soon. This causes the body to go into starvation mode, where it hangs onto every calorie it can. Could also lead to muscle loss, which doesn't help you lose weight healthily. Going way over the top with exercise can be problematic too. Eating a well-balanced diet and getting rid of empty calories to focus on nutrition instead is generally going to be the way to go but it may be more specific than that when it comes to your particular body. There is where getting professional help from a dietician/nutritionist may be the answer.

Your body will adapt to the exercise you do as well but this does not mean you need to keep changing up that exercise regimen completely to keep the muscular confusion effect going. As I mentioned earlier as it relates to boxing, there are many different ways you can train. If you've been going light for months, it is time to start intensifying. Hit harder, move faster, less rest, incorporate more footwork, head movement, feints, etc. etc. You can also always increase the duration of your boxing workout - like doing it for 2 hours instead of 1 hour - but I truly believe you will get much more bang for your buck with the above mentioned ideas. Your body has to stay challenged. A great thing about boxing and other sport-based workouts is that the better you get at the skill, the better workout benefits you can get from it. I often hear from people who join our club that after about a month or so of coming consistently, they suddenly find themselves very tired. When they ask me why this is, I usually say something to the effect of, "Because you're doing it right!", meaning that by learning how to throw punches and move more properly, they are now recruiting more muscles, generating more explosive force, and able to spend less time thinking and more time doing.

Speaking of muscles, how do they relate to all of this? Has anyone ever told you that muscle weighs more than fat? This is not really true, a pound is a pound, but muscles are denser than fat so if you are building muscle, even lean muscle (toning up), especially in areas you didn't have it before, your weight may not drop significantly as quickly. I have had those same people who box consistently for a month tell me that they have only lost a negligible amount of weight in that month but they are noticing their clothes fit differently. That is one reason I find the number on the scale less meaningful. Body composition, while less of metric, is more important to me. Something I like about boxing is that it is great for toning muscle, especially doing heavy bag work. You're getting significant resistance from hitting that 100-pound bag but it also moves so it's not akin to a heavy lift, where you are going to build bulkier muscle.

And speaking of heavy lifting, I did have someone ask me about this recently too so here is a quick note: If you are looking to bulk up as well as lose significant weight (like, 15-20 pounds at least) and/or body fat, I believe these goals are somewhat simultaneously incompatible, unless you are a serious body builder and have tons of time and resources to devote to training and eating. That is hard science right there and will require a lot of careful, thoughtful work. I would recommend losing the weight and/or body fat first in a reasonable, no-crazy-diets-or-meal-skipping way. Maintain that weight/body fat percentage for a little while, then you can attempt to bulk up. This will require more calories, which is one reason I say the goals are incompatible, so you will start gaining again but if you can maintain a good diet and take things slowly (along with, of course, a proper heavy lifting program that will work for you), you are more likely to maintain the kind of body composition you would like. Don't do it the other way around!

So... how many calories do you burn while boxing? The answer is that it depends on a lot of factors. So you read all this just to get an "I don't know" at the end? Well, sort of, but I have at least tried to explain some of those factors a little bit better. And here are several more salient takeaways:

1. Boxing is HIIT training and thus, one of the highest calorie-burning activities, including some calorie burn after the workout is over.
2. Boxing is a skill that constantly evolves, giving your body less opportunity to adapt to the workout and thus, constantly challenging the body.
3. That being said, this also means that you will need to work harder with that new skill, to continue pushing yourself to get better results.
4. THAT being said, someone who does intense exercise every day and is relatively fit is going to burn far less calories per session than someone who has a lot more to burn and doesn't exercise as frequently.
5. Paris is the capital of France.
6. Future posts will focus on Takeaways 2 and 3, as they are very important.

1 Obvious Reason + 5 Not-So-Obvious Reasons Why I Love Reloading Punches

 

This week at our club, we have been focusing on reloading punches. "Reloading" meaning, throwing the same hand again in a combination for maximum power. It's something we work on consistently but worth paying special attention to from time to time. While it's somewhat easier to throw alternating punches, left-right-left-right, it's not necessarily practical in a boxing scenario. If you just alternate between one hand and another, you become predictable, defense becomes a lot easier for your opponent  and you're not necessarily boxing. It's just punches. This is generally the most obvious reason for why we often throw 2 punches (or more) from the left side or 2 punches (or more) from the right side as part of our combos but there are several other important reasons why we do it for training purposes:

1) Body Mechanics/Technique: If you can learn how to throw, as an example, both a lead uppercut followed by a lead hook for power, that means you will have to learn how to use your entire body to load, unload and reload these punches. Just using your arm will not cut it. And as I have mentioned in this blog before, teaching people how to use their entire body to throw punches is the biggest challenge for someone new to boxing. Doubling-up on one side almost forces the issue. When we just throw alternating, left-rights, each punch will naturally load the next. When it's the same side, like 2 lefts, you have to create the load separately, which helps the body learn.

The same is true for sudden explosiveness. Nobody can throw 2 power punches in a row on the same side as quickly and explosively as they can throw 2 left-right power punches. But we can get closer than one might think. Trying to compensate for that deficit can also naturally force us into upping the intensity those 2 (or more) same side punches.

Both of these things translate into better technique, even if you're just throwing a single punch on it's own. So using that example of a lead uppercut followed by a lead hook, if you practice that as part of a combo and you're able to get power and explosiveness behind those punches, your lead uppercut and lead hook will be better/stronger/faster in any combo, any scenario, regardless of whether you ever throw them in succession like that again.

2.) Feints: One of the Next Level steps in boxing is to learn how to effectively use feints. Feinting with your feet and feinting with your hands. When it comes to your hands, you will be much better at doing this when you have practiced extensively throwing multiple strikes in a row on the same hand. Even though a reload is more about power and feint is more about speed, that comfort-level and explosiveness will better sell a feint to your opponent.

3.) Coordination & Balance: Besides just your boxing skills, you are building additional coordination and balance throwing the same hand more than once for power, especially when you throw an entirely different punch and double-especially on your non-dominant hand. Just like it naturally loads punches for you, left-right-left-right will help naturally balance you out too. Using the lead uppercut to a lead hook once again as an example, these 2 strikes together will require you to shift your weight from one side of the body to the other and if you don't do this properly on the lead uppercut, you will be off-balance when you try to throw that lead hook. We humans are designed not to feel right when we are off-balance and while it's certainly possible to explain how to remain on-balance, the body has to learn it, as well as the mind. All of those coordination and balance skills - and the are trainable skills that if you don't use, you lose - that we learn from boxing factor into everything else we do in life.

4.) Workout: Another thing I say over and over again is that the better you are at boxing, the better the boxing workout is in terms of cardio, strength, endurance, everything. You can work really hard with left-right-left-right, for sure, but mixing it up works your body differently. Forces it to adapt, to change, and never get to settled. A great thing about boxing vs. every steady-state exercise is that even though we are always punching, defending, moving, etc., it is never the same exact thing over and over. Sometimes the bursts are short, sometimes they are longer. Sometimes they are quicker, sometimes they are more powerful. The punches, the timing, the rhythm, the order of everything is always changing so the body can't get so used to it that it isn't pushed to change.

5.) What's Open? So you don't have to care about why we would reload in a fight to still reap many rewards of the exercise but if you do care about the strategy behind it - or it just helps you to better understand something when you get "The Why" behind it - here is a simple example for you. Let's say I throw my left hook to the body of my opponent and he brings his right arm/elbow down to protect the rib cage area. This is what he must do to avoid a body shot that could very well end the fight and if we're in close enough, there won't be time to move out of the way. At that point, I could throw my right hand but he still has his left hand uncommitted and could block with that one too. What I do know is that he has committed his right arm to blocking my body shot, which means he likely had to lower his elbow, at least slightly, which also means that the right side of his face is at least slightly exposed. If I am quick enough and my opponent is not Archie Moore (master of the cross-guard), I now have a free shot to that right side of his face with my left hook. Now of course he may counter some other way and in boxing there is always a counter to the counter to the counter to the blah blah blah...but setting up open shots is what it's all about. It's also true that we don't always have time for a full reload if we want to land a punch but practicing them will only help us when we need to cut corners.

Going back to #4 one last time, I have found that visualizing the strategy and what my opponent would do actually makes me work harder on the heavy bag. If I'm throwing a left hook to the body followed by a left hook to the head just because the trainer told me so, I won't throw it quite as explosively than if I imagine the scenario I described above, where my opponent blocks the left body shot and I've only got a split second to go to that chin before he does something else. That visualization will actually make me speed up and hence, get a better workout. I can almost guarantee it will for you too!!

Surfing on the Waves of Chaos - in Boxing and in Life!

I have mentioned in the past that I have seen literally thousands of people box for their first time. And this is one of those rare cases where "literally" actually means, literally. People of all ages, fitness-levels and backgrounds. I will also say again that it has been a real honor to do so. I LOVE teaching boxing and
introducing others to something I am so passionate about.

Boxing is very difficult, however, and no one learns it right away. Besides just brand new body movements at high speeds and intensity levels, it is also learning a new language for most. Jab, cross, lead hook, rear body shot, overhand, liver punch, slip, roll, etc. etc. That's a lot to take in all at once!

When I originally started out, I learned only the very basic of the basics. Just threw jabs and crosses for about a month or so. Nothing else, just that. This is certainly a logical way to learn but it was boring. And while I can say that my jab-cross got better, it did not get better at a rate commensurate with that much repetition at that stage, in my opinion. In fact, I think my straight punches got a lot better when I understood the variety of other strikes. But that is just me. Everybody learns differently, that is for sure.

When I first experienced the TITLE Boxing Club class format, it was in many ways the opposite of how I had learned. First-timers can box side-by-side with experienced boxers, with everyone at different levels, everyone going at their own pace but still doing all the different strikes at once. Defense, head movement and occasional footwork too! I often tell people in their initial class that we pretty much throw them into the deep end. The only difference is that they won't drown and in fact, can throw any punch (or not throw any punch) they want, so long as they keep their wrists straight and their fists tight when they hit the bag. At first it will be overwhelming, but things will slow down as they get more used to it.

I originally wasn't sure how this would play out with people who had never done anything like this before, some without any kind of significant sports background but was pleasantly surprised to see how much better folks got so quickly. That first time is overwhelming for sure, but if you are the kind of person who is okay with that, it is amazing how fast you'll pick things up if you train consistently for even just a few weeks.

That is the key though - being okay with not knowing everything and not mastering it right away. Being comfortable being uncomfortable. Telling yourself that you CAN do this! Not learn boxing in a day or two, that is impossible, but that you CAN hang in there, keep working, and know that you WILL learn this eventually. Sometimes when I show someone new the basics of boxing, I can see in their eyes and body language that they have already decided they CAN'T do it. That it is too hard. Too much, too soon. And in some ways, they are right because once again, nobody is going to learn boxing in a couple minutes. But you still have to go into it thinking that while you may get lost, you may forget what a jab is, that is okay and you will keep moving, keep plugging away, and that all of this stuff can eventually come to you as you are strong and capable. Maybe more so than you know! If you tell yourself the opposite, however, it will become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I like to think of this as akin to surfing (which is much harder to learn that first day than boxing, by the way). You're riding this giant wave that you ultimately have no control over. It is big and powerful and not necessarily something to be conquered but if you can keep calm and stay vigilant, you can ride it and harness some of it's awesome power.

And hey, this also holds true in life in general, right? We don't necessarily know what tomorrow will bring. We can't control the rest of the world. We just control our own world and how we deal with everything else. Maintain a positive attitude, believe in yourself, don't expect to figure things out right away and always have all the answers. Focus on what you can do and how you can do it, not how you can't do it. Keep moving, and you can eventually catch that big wave.

So there's my Tony Robbins' speech of the day! I've got more surfing analogies too. Ask me one day about the movie, "North Shore" and how that also relates to boxing, as well as life in general.