Hey guys, I just recently started doing some boxing. I am currently running 3 miles one day in around 21 min, and boxing the next, as my job limits the amount of time I can spend on exercise/boxing. I am doing heavy and speed work, and some squats, shoulder press, pushups, planks and pullups. I do around 20 min of heavy bag work, then the rest in strength exercises and speed bag. I was also thinking of chopping wood a couple of days a week. Can you guys give me some advice and give me your list of the most useful/useless strength exercises? Thanks.
guys, i know maybe a lot of you think martial art is bull**** but not all of it. i learned from martial arts that hardening your hands will let you fight and never hurt your hands. i throw power shots on my bag literally every day, no wraps (usually 16 oz gloves) and i never even have a bruise. my knuckles are huge and round because I practiced what in karate they call makiwara. it's for hardening the digital bones in your hands. boxers tend to not stray far away from western techniques, but i think mixing eastern AND western techniques will benefit any fighter. i know from experience that throwing power shots on the bag after you've developed callouses and size on your fist, you won't get hurt at all. i can punch a concrete wall as hard as i want and maybe i wont break it but i'll feel virtually zero pain after 1 second (impact). you want to be a good boxer? learn hardening and breaking techniques from Shaolin. You have google, use it. and be careful.
*** I also hit a hard sandbag regularly, with no protection and since I've gradually increased intensity, there's no injury except pain. obviously, boxing is one of the most effective forms of fighting there is. i'll never deny. i just feel some eastern knowledge and training can't hurt. karate guys can bust pieces of ice and brick. boxers can knock u out. whats the catch? mix eastern and western training styles and you'll be a throwback from a long time ago, and if you're smart you'll be a knockout artist. learn boxing AND martial art. you'll be like a machine. look at guys like james toney when they have their gloves off. serious fractures, incredible damage. you box like him with super-hard fists? well, trust me guys you fight in the street? its over in seconds and all you have to worry about is that you're justified in destroying someone real bad. thats what happens with guys who are boxers AND martial artists.
one last thing. you want to get good at bench press? practice bench press. squat, etc. you want to have cardio in boxing? practice BOXING. hitting the bag for 1 hour is infinitely better than running for an hour. never saw nobody run in a boxing ring. boxing is actually about the opposite of running. stand and fight. dont run. haha you hit the bag as if you're in a fight. it's almost a mix of shadow boxing, heavybag and cardio all at once. but don't take it from me. i don't know nothing. come on lets hear it. i dont know nothing. you know what? guys that think it's bull****. ok. i'll do my thing u do urs. there's no goddamn running in boxing.
Swole bro! You should protect your hands though. All this macho stuff's gonna land you in trouble in later years if you're not careful.
The most useless exercises usually involve those 'revolutionary state of the art' exercise contraptions people buy off late night TV adverts. They usually have names like the Gutbuster 2000 and the adverts feature people who have spent their entire lives in gyms smiling while they demonstrate these totally useless pieces of apparatus.
Yeah, I do stretching after running, boxing, or lifting. I personally enjoy lifting weights, and definitely feel that anything below 5 reps in the compound lifts will increase athletic performance in nearly anything. My thing is, with my work schedule, some days I have only an hour to workout, some days 30 min, so I have to pick what I want to do. This makes it hard to get a lot of consistent weight lifting done, because I do not wanna sacrifice boxing training and running for weight lifting. I do however try to get in 3 sets of squats and shoulder press in after days I hit the heavy bag. I have also been doing a ton of pushups and pullups.
Really the most useful thing you can do at this point in time is shadowboxing. Spend lots of times just focusing on your fluidity and footwork. Make sure you're relaxed, but still can generate speed and power. Your stance and footwork is the foundation to everything you do in boxing and the best place to practice that is while shadowboxing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eB2_kiwcfWg If you're just trying to get in "good shape" then run sprints I guess
